Immediately I typed the name “Alexis Mullins” into my People Finder database and came up with an address in Echo Park near Dodger Stadium. I copied it down on a Post-it and grabbed my Strawberry Shortcake purse.
“Where are we going?” Instantly, Cal was at my side. For such a big guy, he had that speedy stealth thing down pat.
“To see Jake Mullins’s widow.”
“The guy ‘if’ Pines murdered?” he asked, following me to the elevator.
“Can the sarcasm. Trust me, I know a long shot when I make one up.”
“The nice thing about long shots is when they pay off, they pay off big.”
I turned on him, expecting to see a mocking smirk on his features. Instead, that same unreadable expression.
“Hmm,” I said, making a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat. “Let’s hope you’re right.”
Because there was no way I was letting Barbie win.
Chapter Nine
Echo Park is a quiet suburb off the 5 freeway in the hills near Dodgers Stadium. Quaint little fifties bungalows and seventies apartment buildings clung to the hillsides, dotted with fragrant eucalyptus trees and hearty daisy clusters, flowering despite their proximity to the state’s most traveled highway. Alexis Mullins lived in an eight-unit complex behind a Ralph’s grocery, just a block up from Sunset. The paint was a dull beige, and the thick shrubbery helped hide the years of smoginduced grime coating the stuccoed walls. A Saturn hybrid and two electric cars sat at the curb. Cal did a U-turn and opted to park his Hummer in the Ralph’s parking lot.
“You know, I’d pay good money to see you try to parallel park this thing,” I told him.
He grinned. “I’d take your money, Bender, but I know all you carry around in that lunchbox of yours is quarters.”
I stuck out my tongue. What could I say? He brought out my mature side.
“By the way,” I said as I jumped down from the passenger seat, “thanks for having my back there with Felix.”
He beeped the car locked. “The cat was already out of the bag. What did you want me to do, lie for you?”
“Yes!”
He shook his head. “Sorry, Bender, that’s your gig.”
“Well, then you’d better let me do the talking here.”
Alexis’s unit was the second on the bottom, wedged under a dark stairwell that had “don’t forget your mace” written all over it. I rapped on the door, inhaling the scents of stale curry and cigarette smoke that seem to pervade every pre-1990 apartment complex in California.
I saw a shadow cross the peephole. A few seconds later the door opened a crack, the chain still in place.
“Yeah?” asked a voice, still gravelly with sleep, despite the fact that it was well past noon.
“Hi,” I said, doing what I hoped looked like a friendly wave. “My name’s…Mary Ann. Mary Ann Summers.”
“And?” the voice asked. Through the crack I could just make out frizzy blonde hair and a yellow robe.
“I’m…an author. I’m writing a book about Hollywood stars who have been taken too young in life. I was wondering if I could talk to you about your husband?”
“Jake?” the woman asked, clearly surprised.
“Yep. Jake. I absolutely loved his work in that last Pines film. What a loss to the acting community.”
There was a pause. Then the door shut, and I heard the sound of the chain being slid from the lock before it opened again, this time revealing the occupant behind.
She was taller than me by at least a head, long and lean, and, like 90 percent of Hollywood, her C cups were obviously not natural to her frame. She had green eyes, rimmed in dark circles as if she hadn’t slept much lately. An oversized Van Halen T-shirt hung on her bony shoulders while a yellow robe was draped around her, the sash loosely tied in front. And her blonde frizz rivaled my bed head any day.
I guess it had been a while since she’d flashed her girlish dimples on The Fenton Family.
She gestured toward a futon-slash-sofa thing, and Cal and I sat as she shut the door, sliding the chain back into place behind us.
“Uh, coffee?” she asked. Then shot a furtive glance at her kitchen, as if having second thoughts about whether or not she actually had coffee.
“No thanks,” I quickly said.
“Sorry, I work nights,” she said, gesturing to her pajamas. “At the twenty-four-hour deli near the Sunset Studios? It’s handy when last-minute auditions come up.” She took a seat opposite us on an orange La-Z-Boy chair. It creaked as she tucked her long legs up underneath her.
“You still act?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Here and there. Things have been picking up a bit lately. I’ve got a callback for a cable movie next week, and VH1 has offered to put me in some celebrity reality series. My agent says all the child stars are staging comebacks these days.”
“That’s great,” I said. Though I was having a hard time picturing her doing the red-carpet glamourista thing at the moment.
“So, what do you want to know about Jake?” she asked. “He was a good actor, but it’s not like he’s on the walk of fame, you know? He mostly took bit parts.”
“Except for the Pines movie.”
She nodded. “Yeah. He was stoked about that one.”
“How did he land the job?”
“Bastard got lucky.” She let out a sharp laugh. “Came into the deli to see me one day and sits down next to this guy eating a turkey on rye. Turns out, the guy is casting director for Pines’s latest flick. Jake chats him up, and the next thing I know, he’s got the part.”
“How did he and Pines get along?”
She shrugged. “Great. They palled around on the set.”
I felt my internal radar perk up. Jake was a two-bit actor-guys like Pines were way too high up the Hollywood food chain to waste their time on him. So, what was the common bond that prompted Pines to buddy up with the likes of him? An affinity for kiddie porn, perhaps?
“Did Jake talk about Pines?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Sure. Just the normal stuff. How he was a great director. How the film was going to be phenomenal once they were done.”
Hmmm…If they had bonded over something shady, it was clear Jake hadn’t shared it with his wife. “How long had you and Jake been married?”
“About seven years.”
I did a low whistle. Wow. In Hollywood that constituted a silver anniversary. Any marriage that lasted longer than six months was considered a success in this town.
“Can you tell me what happened on the night he…passed,” I said, trying to sound as compassionate as possible.
She licked her lips, pulling her robe tighter around her middle. “I was at a party. A friend’s birthday. Jake had planned on going with me, but he got an audition for the next morning, so he didn’t want to be out late. Instead, he said he was going to go over his lines, then get to sleep early.” She licked her lips again. “I should have stayed with him.”
“I’m sorry, I know this must be hard.”
She nodded. “I’m still not used to him being gone, you know? Like, any second I just expect him to walk in that door. I have to remind myself every day that he won’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, at a loss for what else to say. I couldn’t imagine loving someone that much, then having him suddenly taken away like that. I could tell by the look in her eyes that what she’d felt for her husband was something much deeper than I’d ever experienced. Sure, I loved Aunt Sue, but this was a whole different kind of being wrapped up in someone. And, even though it was currently breaking Alexis Mullins’s heart, I couldn’t help feeling just a little jealous that she’d known that kind of connection, albeit briefly.