Part 9 (1/2)

”She told me she didn't care about the movie or her obligation to it. She was more interested in going clubbing. She confessed she didn't want to be an actress, that you'd forced her into it, that she was doing it for you.” As I watched his face flush and the tendons on his neck protrude, I continued. ”She said you were a dreamer, but she was the one who was the realist. She told me she didn't believe in pretending. Even when she was a child.”

”Stop talking,” Parson commanded, in a low threatening voice.

I did. Heath's muscles tensed but he stayed where he was.

Except for the seagulls, it was quiet as Parson mulled over what I had just told him.

Finally he spoke in a calm voice. ”When I was child I used to sneak into the one movie theater in our neighborhood. Not because I cared about the movies being shown, at least at first, but because in the dark with no one watching me I could eat the popcorn and candy stuck on the filthy floor. And if I didn't get kicked out, I'd sleep there overnight. I was starving on the streets, and that's one way I survived. But that also began my love affair with the movies. They saved my life.” His voice deepened with pain and anger. ”They should've saved Jenny.”

I suddenly realized that Jenny had grown up in a world of fantasy, her father's, right down to the decor on his boat. But the guns were real.

”Did she appear to be afraid of someone?” he asked.

”Quite the opposite. She struck me as being a tough, singular young woman who delighted in not letting Zaitlin tell her what to do. Or anyone else. Except ...”

”Yes?” He leaned forward licking his lips, greedy for more information.

”When I told her I thought she was a good actress, she let down her defenses for a moment and became a vulnerable young woman who needed to hear just how good she was.”

”I knew she wanted to act.” He sat back and pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand. ”I knew it! She was her father's daughter.” Then he asked, matter-of-factly, ”Describe how you found her body.”

I told him about conning the doorman to get into her condo. Looking out her window, seeing the garbage truck, and then the sun reflecting off the silver heel of her shoe. How I ran into the alley screaming for the sanitation workers to stop dumping the bin. As I talked he listened with an eerily distant expression, as if I were recounting a nightmare I'd had that didn't relate to him.

When I finished he closed his eyes. ”I bought her those shoes.” Tears ran down his sunken cheeks, and I felt both loathing and sympathy for him. Taking a white handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped at his face. ”Why were you so intent on getting inside her condominium?”

”I was worried about her. She had left my name with the doorman. That meant she wanted to see me and go over her lines.”

”Once you got into her condo, why did you look out the window?” It was Heath.

”What?”

”Something must've prompted you to.”

”What else do you do with a window but look out of it? And I was vamping for time. The doorman couldn't understand why I wasn't leaving the urn, which was why he'd let me into her condo in the first place. I was trying to come up with a plausible answer. Then I saw the glint of her high heel.”

”So you didn't see the actual murder scene?” Parson asked.

”No. I mean there was no blood or upset furniture in her condo, so I doubt she was killed there.”

”She wasn't.” Heath removed a battered leather notepad from inside his jacket. It was stamped with a military insignia of some kind. ”One of my contacts in LAPD told me that they think Jenny was murdered in her car, an Audi, while it was parked in the condo's underground lot. They've impounded it.”

”What else did you learn?” Parson was now fixed on Heath.

”Do you want to discuss this in front of her?”

”Ms. Poole seems to know my daughter quite well. No reason she shouldn't know more. It may help her memory.”

Heath shrugged and flipped his notebook open and read from his notes. ”I was told she died of blunt-force trauma to the back of her skull.”

”How many times was she struck?” Parson asked sharply.

”Don't know. They haven't been able to start the forensics yet. Too much backlog of waiting cases. She may have been slammed against the pa.s.senger side of the car window. Or someone could have been hiding in the back seat, rose up, and struck her from behind.”

”You said pa.s.senger side?”

”Jenny wasn't driving. The police have her car on the garage security tape coming in at 12:33 A.M. But a man is behind the wheel.”

”Can they identify him?” He sat forward.

”The images are shadowy,” Heath continued. ”So far they can't make an identification on the male. But it's early yet. There is equipment that should be able to resolve the image well enough-and if the cops don't have it, then you can afford to pay some company to do it for them.”

”There has to be a security tape of them stopping, of the man getting out of her car,” Parson said.

”Her parking s.p.a.ce is out of range from the cameras.”

”Christ. What happened to the driver?” Parson snapped. ”He had to leave the garage somehow.”

”About fifteen minutes after they drove in, there's an image of a male wearing a hooded sweat s.h.i.+rt walking into camera range from where her car was parked. He ducked his head as if he realized he was being taped. There's an exit door to the alley. You can leave through it without using a key, but it locks behind you automatically, so once you're outside you can't get back in unless you have a key. The door isn't in camera range either.”

”Is he the same man who was driving?”

”At this point the police can't say.”

”What about the plastic bags she was wrapped in? And how was she transferred from the garage to the ...” he paused, then said, ”Refuse area.”

”Nothing on that so far.”

Parson s.h.i.+fted his body toward me. ”Do you know who my daughter was with the night of her murder?”

I remembered Ben Zaitlin had told me he was at the same club that night, but I wasn't about to give Parson his name.

”No.”

He inhaled sharply, nostrils twitching. Leaping to his feet, he picked up the vase of red roses. And threw it over my head against the wall behind me. I ducked. He s.h.i.+fted his body and kicked the coffee table. It crashed into the empty chair next to me. I jumped up.

With one long stride, Heath stood between Parson and me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Heart pounding, I stood with gla.s.s shards around my feet. Facing Parson, Heath remained standing between us. He balanced lightly on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, shoulders tensed as if he were about to swing a punch. Doors slammed as Luis and the tattooed man bolted in from the back of the yacht and from the deck.

”Get outta here!” Parson barked at his guys.