“Shouldn’t you be writing this down?”
“What?”
Alexis pointed a finger at me. “For your book. Shouldn’t you be writing this down somewhere?”
“Oh. Uh…” I looked to Cal for help.
Unfortunately, he just raised one eyebrow at me, as if daring me to come up with a good lie to get out of this one. What women saw in the strong, silent type, I’ll never know.
“Uh…I’m recording it,” I said, quickly pulling my pocket recorder out and holding it up. I hoped she didn’t notice it was switched off.
Luckily, she didn’t. “Oh. Right.”
“You don’t mind, do you?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Whatever.”
“The papers said that Jake died from an overdose of sleeping pills. Did he take them regularly?”
“Sometimes. Usually when he had to get up early, like for a shoot or audition. He didn’t want to shortchange himself on sleep, so he’d take the pills, go to bed early, wake up fresh for the camera the next morning.”
“How many pills did Jake usually take?”
“One or two.”
“How many did he take that night?”
“I don’t know for sure. The police said it looked like he’d taken a handful, at least.”
I leaned forward, realizing just how important the answer to this next question was. “Alexis, do you think Jake would have done that? Accidentally taken so many more pills?”
She shrugged. “Look, Jake was no rocket scientist. It’s possible he panicked about the audition and took too many.”
“Who else knew your husband took sleeping pills?”
She toyed with a piece of lint on the armchair. “I don’t know. He didn’t exactly keep it a secret.”
“Would, say, his coworkers have known? People he was filming with?”
“Probably.”
Like Pines. It wasn’t exactly conclusive evidence, but it didn’t disprove my theory either. Which was a start.
“Who else is in the book?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“The book you’re writing? Which other deceased stars are in it?”
“Oh…uh…” I drew a total blank. Where was Max when I needed him? “I wish I could tell you, but my publisher wants me to keep a lid on it until they’re ready to put out a press release. You understand.”
“Oh.” Alexis nodded, even though it was clear she didn’t.
“Just one more question,” I said, feeling like I was losing my audience here. “Did Jake ever mention anything about the boy who played his son?”
“I guess so. I mean, he said the kid was cute.”
“Really? Did Pines think so, too?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Look, I know he’s been in some trouble with the law lately, but Pines is still the most powerful director in town. It would be career suicide to say anything negative about him.”
I hated to say it, but from the looks of her, it was clear her career had jumped off a tall bridge years ago.
Unfortunately, it was equally clear that if Jake had told his wife about Pines’s little fetish, she wasn’t sharing.
“Thank you, Mrs. Mullins. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us,” I said, rising.
Cal followed suit, Alexis unwinding herself from her perch to walk us to the door.
“Hey, let me know when the book’s out, ‘kay? I’d like to have a copy.”
“I’ll send you one,” I lied as she shut the door behind us.
“So,” Cal said as we crossed the Ralph’s parking lot, “Jake died just like the papers said. Accidental overdose.”
“Hello? Did you hear the wife? Pines knew he took sleeping pills. He could have easily poisoned Jake.”
“Bender, people make mistakes with this kind of medication all the time. They take a few pills, get drowsy, forget how many they’ve had, and take a few more.”
“A handful? They take a handful more?”
He shrugged, conceding the point. “Okay, so what now?”
I leaned against the Hummer’s door, looking out at the busy shoppers pushing carts full of screaming kids and ground chuck.
“Think there’s any way we could get in to see Pines?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have a prison connection?” Cal teased.
“Very funny. But I’m not exactly sure I’d be on the list of approved visitors.”
“Lucky for you, I happen to have a few friends in law enforcement.” Cal pulled out his phone. “Let me see what I can do.”
Five minutes later he hung up, a look of triumph on his face.
“So?” I asked.
“So, we can see Pines at five.”
I looked down at my watch. Two twenty.
“Let’s go back to the office.” As much as I was dying for that Mullins lead to land me on the front page, I still had a daily column to write. And since Pines wasn’t going anywhere, this seemed like an excellent time to do it.
I climbed into the Hummer as Cal beeped the doors open.
“So…Mary Ann Summers?” Cal asked, roaring the beast to life.
I grinned. “From Gilligan’s Island.”
Cal laughed as he slid his shades on. “I guess that makes me the Professor, huh?” He winked at me.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was more the Skipper type.
As soon as the elevator doors opened at the second floor, I ducked behind a partition, purposefully taking the long way around the office. The way that didn’t lead past Felix’s glass-walled office. While I was sure I was making headway tying Mullins’s death to Pines, I was far from having copy ready yet. And copy was the only language Felix understood.
I plopped back down at my desk (Unseen. Yes!) and listened to my voice messages for any hot tips I could spin into a quick column. Luckily I had four. The first one from my morgue guy telling me that, as Max had said, there was no official ME ruling on Mullins’s death yet. Bummer. But no ruling meant no one had ruled our murder yet, right?
As I listened through the next three messages, I realized they were all about the same story-Blain Hall allegedly fathering Cherry Chase’s baby. Mental forehead smack.
So, I tried to spin what I’d gleaned from my celebrity interrogations for column fodder.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
BAD: JENNIFER WOOD GETS A NEW TITLE THIS WEEK TO ADD TO REIGNING QUEEN OF TWEEN-LITTERBUG. TURNS OUT SHE NOT ONLY PUTS TRASH ON TV, BUT ON THE GROUND, TOO, LEAVING A TRAIL OF LATTE CUPS IN HER WAKE.
GOOD: KATIE BRIGGS WAS SEEN AT A CHARITY EVENT IN THE VALLEY LAST WEEK. HER DATE? HERSELF! TRUST ME, IT’S TRUE LOVE.
I bit my lip, tapping a pencil on the desk, trying to come up with an “Ugly” to round the column out.
UGLY: RUMORS ARE SWIRLING THAT HOLLYWOOD WILL SOON BE SEEING THE LOVE CHILD OF REHAB ROCKER BLAIN HALL AND HIS DIRTY DOGS BASSIST, CHERRY CHASE. ALL I CAN SAY ARE MY CONDOL-ENCES, MISS CHASE-IF BABY LOOKS ANYTHING LIKE DADDY, LET’S HOPE HIS TRUST FUND INCLUDES A PLASTIC SURGERY STIPEND.
“Don’t tell me you’re seriously printing this?” I looked up to find Cal reading over my shoulder.
“What? It’s true. The rumors are swirling.”
“But you started them.”
I waved him off. “Semantics.”
“Aren’t these three on our suspect list?”
“So?”
“So, assuming one of them is your stalker, you really think it’s a good idea to piss them off like this?”
I swiveled in my chair to face him. “Look, this is what I do, Cal. I poke fun at celebrities. And these are the only celebrities I have at the moment.”
“So, maybe you should take a break from printing the column until this whole thing dies down.”
I lifted my chin. “I’m a writer, Cal.”
“I know.”
“A good one.”
“And humble.”
“Look, laugh all you want. I know what I am and what I’m not. I’m not pretty like Cam, I’m not stacked like Allie, I’m not a born leader like Felix. But I am a damned good writer. I can make an entire story out of nothing and word it in such a way that you’re dying to know more when I’m done. That is a skill. And I’m not letting some buttmunch with a voice disguiser take that away from me. I’m stronger than that.”