The Bright Silver Star bam-3 Page 17

  As Mitch pulled in at their driveway, Will asked him to stop so he could hop out and see if Dodge had retrieved that morning’s Wall Street Journal from their mailbox. Dodge had. Then Will climbed back in the Studey, gazing down the long gravel drive at their rambling, natural-shingled house. Long ago, it had started out as a modest summer bungalow. Then it had been winterized. Then modernized. Then added on to-a music room for Dodge’s piano, an office, a gourmet kitchen with French doors that opened onto a blue-stone terrace overlooking the tidal marshes.

  “My dad used to plow this driveway when it snowed,” Will said, slamming his door shut behind him. “I’d come with him sometimes. It was always early in the morning, freezing cold. God, I loved those mornings. He had an old truck like this one, and the heater never worked.”

  “This one doesn’t work either,” Mitch said to him encouragingly. He enjoyed hearing Will’s Rockwellesque remembrances of his youth.

  “One year, when I was twelve, two feet of pure white powder fell overnight,” Will recalled fondly as they rumbled up the drive toward the house. “It was a bright blue morning, and when we got here there was this snowman, must have been twelve feet high, standing right in front of the house. Dodge had built it for Esme in the night. She was tiny then, three or four. It had a carrot for a nose, coals for eyes, a scarf, hat, the whole nine yards. Most amazing thing I’d ever seen. Even my dad couldn’t get over it. H-He died just a few months after that, cancer of the pancreas. Went real fast. The amazing thing is I’ve been down this driveway a million times since then, but every single time I pull in here I flash right to that morning, that snowman, riding next to my dad in that cold truck.” Will hesitated, glancing shyly over at Mitch. “Do you ever do that-live inside of your memory that way?”

  “God, yes. There are certain street corners in the West Village, every time I see them I think of Maisie and start to mist up. There are restaurants I haven’t gone back to since she died. Fire Island is off-limits. The Mohonk Mountain House up in New Paltz is flat-out haunted, so is Tuscany, where we spent our honeymoon. Hell, I almost had to give up our apartment.”

  “But you didn’t, right?”

  “No, I did something much smarter than that-I came to this place. That’s how I met Des. And you and Dodge.”

  “Dodge is a rock. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d never have made it after my dad died. Martine, too. I owe both of them so much.”

  Will obviously cared deeply about the Crocketts, Mitch reflected. So why had Dodge glowered at him that way on the beach? And if they’d been so good and kind to Will, why had Bitsy Peck called the two of them cannibals?

  The garage door was open, Dodge’s diesel wagon parked inside. Mitch pulled up by the front porch and killed the engine. It was very quiet, so quiet he could hear the flapping of gull wings overhead.

  “Want to ring the bell?” he asked Will as they got out.

  “Let’s check around back. They usually leave the kitchen door unlocked.”

  A wrought-iron dining table and chairs were set up out on the terrace to take maximum advantage of its view of the tranquil tidal marshes. A juice glass and coffee cup, both emptied of their contents, sat there on the table. So did the Wall Street Journal, a set of car keys, a pair of sunglasses, Dodge’s birdwatching binoculars, Dodge’s sun hat… everything but Dodge.

  “This is really weird,” Will said fretfully, trying the French door to the kitchen. It was locked. “I don’t like this at all.”

  They put their noses to the glass, shielding their eyes against the sun’s glare with their hands.

  Will let out a gasp. “Oh no…”

  Dodge was sprawled out on the tile floor behind the kitchen’s center island. Mitch could make out only the lower part of his body-his hiking shoes and shins. But he could definitely hear faint whimpers of pain coming from in there.

  “Better call nine-one-one, Will.”

  Will had other ideas-he threw his big shoulder against the glass door with all of his might and shattered the whole damned frame. As the lock gave way he stormed inside, Mitch on his heels. But what they barged in on was not Dodge writhing in pain on the floor.

  Because Dodge was not alone.

  He was going at it with someone there on the kitchen floor, his hiking shorts bunched down at his knees. The naked woman was slender and pale and appeared to be quite young, although frankly Mitch couldn’t tell much about her because she had a canvas gunny sack over her head, the drawstring pulled tight across her throat. The whimpers that they’d heard were hers. She was pinned there beneath Dodge on her hands and knees, her wrists lashed together around a leg of the massive maple chopping block next to the stove.

  As Mitch and Will burst inside Dodge tumbled back against the counter in surprise, reaching for a dish towel to cover himself. He laythere, his chest heaving, sweat pouring from him as Mitch and Will stood there with their mouths open, too flabbergasted to speak.

  “W-We phoned,” Will finally stammered dumbly. “When you didn’t answer we got concerned.”

  “No reason to be,” Dodge assured him with remarkable calm. “Another opportunity presented itself this morning, that’s all. What with me bunking alone and all.”

  From the floor next to the chopping block, the woman bucked and strained against her wrist restraints, moaning incoherently inside of that gunny sack over her head. Mitch stood there, shuddering with revulsion. He felt as if he’d just walked in on a porn film that had been custom-tailored for ranking members of the Gestapo.

  “There’s nothing unusual going on here, men,” Dodge pointed out, in response to Mitch’s look of sheer horror. “Just two adults having consensual sex.”

  What Mitch wanted to do was run right out the door. Go straight home and wash out his brain with soap and water. But he didn’t. Instead, he crossed the kitchen floor and knelt next to the woman, who was so slender her ribs and vertebrae were plainly visible.

  She recoiled in animal fright when he touched her.

  “Sshh, it’s okay,” he whispered, gently removing the bag from over her head.

  Her eyes were wild with panic and she was gagging for air-some kind of black material had been stuffed into her mouth. Her panties, Mitch discovered as he reached in and pulled them out. She immediately began gulping down huge lungfuls of air, her breathing rapid and ragged. Mitch dug his pocketknife out of his shorts and cut through the leather cord that bound her hands together. Her thin cotton summer dress lay in a heap next to her on the floor. Mitch helped her on with it.

  Then he held his hand out to her, and said, “Come on, Becca, I’ll take you home.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “I didn’t hear Tito smack her around,” Chrissie Huberman insisted. “I didn’t hear anything-and you can’t make me say I did.”

  “We’re not trying to, Miss Huberman,” Yolie said back at her, somewhat helplessly. “We’re trying to figure out what happened that night.”

  “Well, don’t look at me, okay? And if I’m the best you can come up with as a suspect then you are just totally brain challenged.”

  “You’re not a suspect,” Soave said, trying to cool the publicist’s jets. As if he or anyone else could. “We’re investigating an unexplained death.”

  “Can you boys and girls even deal with a case this hot?” she wanted to know. “You should consider bringing in an outside consultant. I can pick up the phone and get you a retired NYPD chief of detectives here by three o’clock. He’ll be up to speed by the five o’clock news. You want me to make the call?”

  “What we want,” Des said slowly, “is for you to relax and answer the questions that are put to you.”

  “Fine, whatever,” Chrissie blustered, puffing out her cheeks.

  They were grouped around a conference table in the spare conference room of Dorset’s musty-smelling town hall. The Major Crime Squad computers were up and running in there, and a couple of uniformed troopers were busy working the phones. Outside, there was total insanity-news vans with
satellite transmitters lined up every which way on Dorset Street, reporters and cameramen waiting in a noisy, impatient cluster out on the curb for their twelve o’clock feeding.

  Chrissie sat erect at the end of the table, dressed in a yellow silkblouse, white linen slacks, and suede loafers. Her hands were placed palm down on the table, fingers spread wide. She had big hands and wrists. She was a big woman, tall, rangy and very sure of herself. She was not pretty, but everything about her manner suggested that if you didn’t think she was then you’d been seriously misinformed.

  “At present, we’re still trying to fill in the blanks,” explained Soave.

  “What if I told you I’d like to have my lawyer present?” she demanded, glaring at the three of them.

  “That’s totally your right.”

  “Not necessary,” she said dismissively. “I have a law degree myself.”

  “I thought you were a publicist,” he said, frowning.

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t be well educated, does it?” Chrissie raised her longish nose in the air, sniffing. “You know, this building smells an awful lot like my grandmother’s house in Great Neck. What am I… Wait, that’s moth balls I’m smelling, right? And something else…”

  “Ben-Gay,” Des informed her quietly.

  “Definitely Ben-Gay,” she exclaimed. “God, I would have been up all night wondering about that. Thank you, Trooper.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Yolie said, “We understand from Esme that you’re planning to stay around Dorset, even though she’s terminated your services.”

  “If by that you mean I was fired, I wasn’t,” Chrissie said smoothly. “Esme can’t fire me. I didn’t work for her-I worked for Tito. And now is when he needs me the most. His whole legacy as a screen star is on the line. The lasting image that audiences around the world will have of Tito Molina is being cast right at this very minute. I will not quit on him. Too much is at stake.”

  “Pretty big story for you, too, I imagine,” Yolie suggested.

  “What are you trying to do, girlfriend, fit me for a hooker hat?” Chrissie snarled at her angrily.

  Yolie drew back, a bit overwhelmed by this savvy, hard-shell New York image broker. Clearly, this would go down as a learning day in Boom Boom’s personal diary. “I’m just wondering why you’re still around.”

  “I’m around because I cared about that kid,” Chrissie said. “Both of them, actually, whether Esme believes it or not. She’s a helpless little lamb. If I don’t stay in town she’ll be slaughtered by those predators out there. Who else does she have watching her back? Her aging preppy bitch of a mother? Besides, I have another client passing through this area today, so it made no sense for me to go back to New York. I’m bunking at the Frederick House Inn for a few days.”

  “How did you manage that?” Des asked her curiously.

  “How did I manage what?”

  “It’s the peak of the summer beach season. Plus every tabloid reporter in America is in town. How did you get a room there on such short notice?”

  “No biggie,” Chrissie said offhandedly. “A writer for the Daily News swapped me her room for an exclusive.”

  “What exclusive would that be?” Des asked.

  Chrissie looked down her nose at her. “You don’t really care about shop talk, do you?”

  “Just answer the question, please,” Des persisted, as Yolie watched them go back and forth, content to be riding the bench for now.

  Chrissie shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, sure. I fed her that rough sex spin to explain Esme’s split lip. Kinky sex between two beautiful stars the public will eat up. Wife beating they will not-bad for Tito’s image.”

  “Not to mention Esme’s lip,” Des said. “So you were the informed source close to the golden couple. Girl, you have you some skills. I’m impressed.”

  “I work hard for my clients,” Chrissie said simply.

  “Most definitely. But now you’ve got to show us the love, too.”

  “What are you talking about?” Chrissie wanted to know.

  “I’m talking about you sitting here telling us that you couldn’t hear what went on that night between Tito and Esme. That’s just not going to get it done, is it, Lieutenant?”

  Soave shook his head gravely. “Not even maybe.”

  “But it’s the truth!” Chrissie protested.

  “Tell us what you heard, Chrissie,” Des said, raising her voice at her. “Give us some news we can use.”

  “Look, it’s a big, big piece of property. There are acres of lawn in between the guesthouse and the main house. They’re nowhere even near each other.”

  “Where were you earlier that evening?” Soave asked.

  “I went out to dinner with a couple of reporter friends. Got home at about ten-thirty, climbed into bed, and worked the phone.”

  “Who were you talking to at that time of night?”

  “My other clients, for starters. They’re my babies. I have to tuck them into bed. And I called Gunnar, my husband. We talk every night when I’m away. Then I, let’s see, I talked to Tito’s agent on the coast, then a guy I know at Daily Variety. What can I tell you? I live on the phone. I was too wired to sleep, so I took a Valium.”

  “How often do you need to do that?” Yolie asked her.

  “Are we here to talk about my personal shortcomings?” Chrissie shot back.

  “Please answer the question, Miss Huberman,” Soave said.

  “Fairly regularly, okay? I get kind of wound up. Maybe you noticed.”

  “And you heard no yelling going on between Tito and Esme?” Yolie pressed her doggedly.

  “For the thousandth time-no.”

  “What about cars?” Des asked. “Did you hear any cars come and go?”

  Chrissie thought about this for a second. “I did, now that you mention it. The driveway there is gravel, and it makes a definite crunching noise. Somebody pulled in about eleven-thirty, maybe twelve. Then went out again a few minutes later. Another car took off not long after that.”

  So Chrissie was corroborating Esme’s story, Des reflected, that Tito had come and gone in a huff and that she, Esme, had then gone running to Jeff Wachtell. “We’re placing the time of Tito’s death atbetween one-thirty and two,” Des said, shoving her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “You were in bed?”

  “Asleep,” Chrissie replied, nodding. “I dropped off at around one.”

  “Alone, yes?”

  “Alone, yes,” she answered frostily. “Next thing I knew Esme was in my bedroom screaming about how the police had just found Tito, and I had to hit the ground running in six different directions at once. It’s been like that ever since.”

  “She doesn’t seem all that crazy about you,” Des said. “Esme, I mean.”

  “She doesn’t have to be.”

  Des stepped into the batter’s box now and swung from her heels. “Would that have anything to do with the fact that you were sleeping with Tito?”

  Chrissie wouldn’t take the bait. “Why, what did she tell you about us?” she asked, not the least bit flustered.

  “Not one single thing.”

  “Then how do you… Oh, I get it. Tito must have told someone. He wasn’t real discreet, to put it mildly.” Chrissie fell silent for a moment, staring down at her hands on the table. “Esme probably did know, yeah. And my personal rule of thumb is whatever she knows, Mommy knows.”

  “How long had you two been involved?” Des asked.

  “ ‘Involved’ isn’t the word for it. Tito didn’t get involved. The boy was strictly a midnight rambler. Showed up bombed on my doorstep late one night.”

  “And you let him in?”

  “Are you kidding me? He was the sexiest man in America. Who was I not to? And in answer to your next question-Gunnar and me, we’re not about being possessive. So this was not a major deal, okay?” She paused, lowering her voice confidentially. “Neither was Tito, for that matter. In the sack, I mean. Besides, we only slept togethe
r a grand total of four times. Three, technically. The last time he couldn’t even rise to the occasion.”

  “Too bombed?”

  “Too something. Don’t ask me what. The boy didn’t exactly confide.”

  “Was he upset about it?”

  “Well, he wasn’t thrilled, if that’s what you mean.”

  “This is a very interesting angle, Des,” Soave spoke up. “I am liking this large.”

  “I heard that,” Yolie agreed, nodding her braided head.

  Chrissie’s eyes immediately widened. “Whoa, do not even go there,” she said, her voice rising with urgency. “Tito did not toss himself off of that waterfall because of me. This is ancient history I’m talking about. Five, six months ago. It happened when I was staying with them out in L.A. And he never, ever knocked on my door again after that. We’ve been strictly business ever since. And in case you’re thinking I’m some kind of a Sally Home Wrecker, forget that, too. Their marriage was already a joke.”

  “You saying he got around?” Yolie asked her.

  Chrissie let out a sharp bray of a laugh. “Don’t put it all on him. Esme more than kept up her end. And that girl’s taste in men isn’t the greatest, believe me. She’s a slut for big dumb clods. That’s the real reason why Tito wouldn’t have bodyguards around. She was always giving ’em some in the pool house.”

  “This made Tito jealous?” Des asked, leaning forward.

  “Totally,” Chrissie affirmed. “Understand this about Tito Molina. He was a genuine rebel-angry, soulful, gifted, all of that. But when it came to women he was strictly old school. He wanted to chase puss whenever he felt like it, and he wanted Esme waiting patiently at home for him. And if she talked back to him, wham, right in the kisser. Trust me, she wasn’t going to take that from him much longer. A few more months at most. The marriage was toast. That’s why Tito’s agent was so anxious for them to make Puppy Love. It was going to be their last big payday together. I am talking north of thirty million between the two of them. But it was absolutely vital that they start filming it right away.”