“Yes, yes. I suppose. I don’t believe the new Mrs. Freeman treated him the way that she should have as a wife. At first, they were always together, but after those first few months, she was hardly ever around. I think he felt bad for not being able to keep up. Rather than stay with him, she was always travelling somewhere.”

  “Perhaps Marv wanted her to?”

  He shook his head. “He wanted to be with his wife. But he wanted her to be happy, above all. And she wasn’t happy sitting at home, with him, watching movies, which was the only thing the old man could do.”

  “So, you think she killed him?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “The detective in the case told me she couldn’t have.”

  “Right. She was in Japan.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “She wasn’t?” Daisy stared at him, confused.

  “She got in from Japan that afternoon. But she wasn’t at the house, apparently. She went shopping. And it’s well-documented on her social media.” He rolled his eyes. “The detective has been all over her feeds.”

  “Ah. Ted Duncan?”

  “That’s right.”

  Daisy tapped her chin. “Is it odd to you that Freeman would be so excited to see his wife, but that she would get home from a month-long trip and not go to see him, first thing?”

  “Odd, yes. But that’s the perfect word to describe Mrs. Freeman.” The limo pulled up at a Spanish-style villa with brown stucco walls and lush, flowering landscaping. “Is this the place you’re looking for?”

  She looked at her phone. She’d Googled Betty Freeman, and this was the only Beverly Hills address that she’d found online. “I don’t know. Did you know his ex-wife?”

  “Betty? Of course.” He gazed at the house. “This isn’t her place. Hasn’t been in fifteen years. She’s remarried now. She lives with her new husband in the South of France.”

  “Oh,” Daisy sighed. Why hadn’t she asked him that prior to the trip? “And she hasn’t been back, since?”

  “No. And I don’t even think he and Betty have talked in, oh, a year?” He shrugged and turned back to look at her. “I’m sorry. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  She’d begun compiling a list of suspects, but the biggest one was the staff. Since they were on the premises and could’ve gotten past the security gatehouse, that seemed like the next-best option. “Do you think you can give me a list of the staff—the ones who live in the house behind the main home and the ones who drive in?”

  He nodded. “It won’t take me long at all, since the detective already asked for that. He also spoke with Mel, who gave him a list of who came in and out.”

  “Mel?”

  “Guard at the gatehouse.”

  Daisy stared at her paper, trying to think of other avenues to explore. She hated to go to the police, because Edward Fortune always said it—they’ll usually treat you like something they found on the bottom of their shoe. But right now, it seemed like that was her best option. If they were willing to share any of their information. Which was a big if.

  “Where to, now?” Conrad said, looking at her in the mirror.

  She dug out the business card. “LAPD, Hollywood.”

  “Hang on.” He did a U-turn in the road, and they were on their way. “I guess the Beverly Hills police had to bring in the big guns for this because they don’t see many murders. With traffic, it’ll be a little while.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, using the time to look up this Ted Duncan from the LAPD.

  She found Detective Ted Duncan right away. In his photo, he looked tough and intimidating, exactly how a successful detective probably should’ve looked, with a permanent scowl and eyes narrowed in a distrustful way. He was also broad-shouldered, the type of person you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. His bio detailed a twenty-year career, chock-full of highlights, awards, and recognitions.

  I wonder if my dad worked with him. Probably. My dad’s worked with everyone.

  “If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s the Hollywood sign,” Conrad said, pointing.

  She barely looked up. She’d seen it enough on television. “Hmm.”

  “We’re going to get closer. And if you want, I can take you to the walk of fame.”

  “Hmm. Okay,” she said, not really paying attention. Ted Duncan had been instrumental in solving that campus rape scandal a few years back. He’d also caught that serial killer strangler who’d terrorized unsuspecting breakdown victims on I-5.

  By the time the car pulled up in front of the station, she was in awe of the man. She’d also decided to use her father’s name as her in and to build a rapport with the distinguished detective. Even so, her blood-pressure started to spike as she glanced back at his impressive credentials.

  Closing out of the website, she stepped out of the car as Conrad opened the door. “Thanks. I won’t be long.”

  The moment she went through the doors, she felt like it was two a.m. in East Plainfield. The place was jam-packed with all sorts of undesirables—prostitutes, drug dealers, and random shifty people who glared at her menacingly. Ignoring them, she went up to the counter and smiled at the woman with the short, red hair in the police uniform. “Excuse me. I’m a private detective looking for information about a homicide. I’d like to talk to Detective Duncan?”

  The woman gave her a look like, Get in line.

  “I understand if he’s busy,” she said, pulling out her business card, “but if he could just give me a call back at—”

  “Busy?” The lady officer snorted. “This is practically vacation for us. It doesn’t get any less busy than this for us.” She looked over her shoulder and shouted, “Dunk! You got a visitor.”

  The door to a back office swung open, and the man they called Dunk appeared. Immediately, the other officers on the floor seemed to turn to him, quietly lowering their heads in a kind of reverence.

  Daisy’s throat went dry as he approached. His eyes landed on her, filled with indifference. “I said no comment.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He’d already turned around to leave but seemed to catch sight of something on the desk and pause. He lifted it up. A slice of pizza. He stared at it, folding it to fit into his mouth, and mumbled, “Aren’t you a reporter?”

  “No. I’m a private detective.”

  That caught his attention. He eyed her. “You are?”

  Was there irony in that statement? She handed him her card. “Yes. Daisy Fortune. You might have heard of my father, Ed Fortune, from Fortune—”

  “No.” He shoved half the slice into his mouth and tore off, chewing and looking at the card. “You from New Jersey? What brings you all the way out here?”

  “I work mostly with an exclusive, affluent clientele,” she said, which hadn’t been true until just recently, but she decided it made her sound more important. “And I was hired by Olivia Freeman to get to the bottom of the case of her husband’s murder.”

  He stopped chewing. “You? Oh, that’s cute. Real cute. Freeman hires you to check up on us, make sure we’re doing our job?”

  Definite irony. She stuck out her chin. “Yes, I might not have been in operation as long as you have, but I’ve had a good track record so far. So, I was hoping to—”

  “I know what you were doing,” he said, swallowing, a smirk appearing on his face. “You were hoping to glom on to our investigations, right? To let us do the dirty work so you can stand on our shoulders and pick the fruit? Is that right?”

  “No . . . I thought we could put our heads together and collaborate. Because—”

  “Look, girl,” he said, though her name was right on the card in front of him. “I don’t need to put my head anywhere near yours. The fact is that we’ve already almost wrapped up the case. We have an APB out on our number one suspect, and there’s a good chance we’ll find her tonight.”

  “Samara?”

  Again, he’d been turning around, licking tomato sauce off his fingers, but he stopped and nodded. “That’s right.”

  “You know Olivia Freeman doesn’t believe she did it.”

  He laughed. “Olivia Freeman is as big a California nutbag as they come. The thing is, we’ve got her footprints in the hallway. We’ve got witnesses who saw her go that way. We have a motive—the old man caught her stealing. We don’t need anything else. And we don’t need any ‘help’ from a third-rate private eye, who’ll probably do nothing but gum up the works.”

  She crossed her arms, her awe at his impressive resume quickly giving way to annoyance. “So, you’re not willing to help me? You’re just going to go ahead and bring Samara in. What if you find out she didn’t do it?”

  “Listen to me,” he said, leaning over the counter. “She did do it. When you’ve been at it as long as I have, you develop a nose for these things.”

  He tapped the side of his nose theatrically.

  “But fine.” He looked around and motioned to the red-headed woman, who seemed to be enjoying her colleague’s berating of Daisy immensely. So much for female solidarity. “Rose, give this lady a photocopy of the file. See if she can scrape out another possible suspect.”

  Daisy perked up as the woman scurried to fulfill his request. “Really?”

  He smiled magnanimously at her. “Yeah, I’m all about seeing justice done, after all, and you’re right. Doesn’t hurt to have more eyes on the case.” He picked up her card and tapped it on the counter. “After all . . . Fortune. I like the competition. Let’s see who can nab our killer first, huh?”

  Daisy liked competition as much as the next person, but she felt at a slight disadvantage. The LAPD was the LAPD after all, with all the resources at their disposal. And she was several days behind. But they were investigating this housekeeper, so their attention was elsewhere. Maybe the best she could do was dot their Is, cross their Ts, and make sure that they’d covered all their bases.

  Or maybe, Olivia Freeman was right, and Samara Brousseau was not the killer. If that was the case, then she might have a chance, however slight, of winning this healthy competition.

  The female officer pushed a thick folder over to her, and Duncan grinned at her. “Here you go. Have at it. Good luck, Fortune.” He laughed as he held out a big paw of a hand for her to shake. “I guess that’s what your name is all about. And you know what they say. Fortune favors the brave.”

  She reached over, gripped his hand tightly, and shook it once. Let’s just hope that fortune favors Fortune this time.

  Then, stuffing the folder under her arm, she headed outside into the hot California sun, where Conrad and his limo were waiting for her. She had a killer to find.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Daisy sunk into the mattress in her opulent guest room at Castle Paradiso. Since it was mid-day, she’d only expected to rest here a moment, but now, she found herself slipping deeper and deeper into a seemingly endless rabbit hole . . . while slipping deeper and deeper into the center of the giant bed. It had no support, whatsoever.

  What have I gotten myself into? she wondered, not for the first time, as she looked up from yet another file on the case.

  She realized she’d sunken so much that she was in danger of folding in half.

  Daisy hadn’t been able to believe this room when Conrad led her to it. Apparently, he’d been taking over many of the duties of Samara, the missing housekeeper. He’d left her here to marvel at the sheer size of the room, telling her that he’d be available to take her wherever she needed if she pressed a button on her nightstand to connect with his phone.

  And marvel, she did. It wasn’t just the size. Everything looked antique, like it was a priceless museum piece. The windows in the room stretched from the floor to the fifteen-foot- high ceiling. Though everything was patterned, gilded, and expensive looking, nothing seemed to match. But it was all extraordinary. Even the flowered wallpaper looked like it was a work of art.

  Her eyes focused on a fireplace that she could practically stand in, covered in tile and gold accents. There was a chance someone might have found it attractive, but it wasn’t Daisy’s style. The painting above it, of two nymphs cavorting in a glade? She had trouble believing that could be anyone’s style. Daisy wasn’t much of an artist, but she knew good art when she saw it—and this wasn’t. She probably could’ve done better. Not to mention that the eyes of the nymphs seemed to follow her wherever she was in the room, Dorian-Gray-like.

  It took several minutes of wiggling and maneuvering before she was able to pry herself out of the bed. She went through a hope chest at the foot of her bed and found a blanket that smelled like mothballs. She tried to nudge an ornate, Baroque-style chair over to the fireplace so she could cover it, but she realized all the furniture was bolted to the floor.

  Odd, she thought, wondering if people had tried to steal that too.

  She resorted to standing on the hope chest, trying to throw the blanket onto the painting to cover it. After her fifth or sixth time, though, she went back to the bed. As giant as it was, the mattress was soft and lumpy, as if many bodies had slept here before. She tried to tell herself that maybe someone famous had slept there, but that didn’t help take her mind off the fact that it was so damn uncomfortable.

  Giving up trying to sit on the mattress without sinking in, she decided to sit in one of the Baroque chairs. But the second she did, dust billowed up, making her choke.

  She went to a window to try to pry it open but couldn’t find a crank or a latch. Then she realized that all the windows were nailed shut.

  Lovely, what kind of looney California bin is this?

  In the end, she wound up sitting on the oriental tufted carpet, spreading the items of the case out there.

  It made sense why Detective Duncan believed the case against Samara was airtight. She had a lengthy previous criminal record stemming from when she was a teenager—shoplifting, possession of drug paraphernalia, and assault, which didn’t help her case. Not only had her footprints been seen in the hallway, but they’d gotten a trace fingerprint inside the room that belonged to Samara as well. That wouldn’t have been concerning, ordinarily, considering Samara was a housekeeper, but that wing hadn’t been used in a long time. Additionally, there was substantial evidence that she’d been attempting to steal a priceless silverware set, as a couple of staff members, including a cook named Rachel, had seen her going through that drawer on numerous occasions. Not only that, but the cook had also had the pieces counted and had noticed the numbers dwindling recently.

  But, of course, the most damning evidence was that Marv Freeman had been stabbed by a knife from the set.

  There were only two things pointing away from Samara. One, that she’d called Daisy, issuing a cry for help first, instead of running for the hills. A guilty person would’ve fled with the goods immediately.

  The second was that Olivia Freeman didn’t believe she’d done it, either. The wife might have been completely off, but Daisy believed there was something to be said for a woman’s intuition. It was worth looking into.

  Besides, if she was going to prove something to Duncan and the rest of the LAPD, that was the only assumption to make.

  Next, she turned to the information that had been gathered about Marv Freeman. As she knew, he never did leave the house, and the last person to have seen him was the cook, Rachel, who’d brought him his dinner that evening. In her interrogation, she said that he was in fine spirits, happy, because he knew his wife would be coming home soon. She’d left him in his bedroom—apparently, he always took dinner and most of his meals in his bed—and assumed he'd ring her again for breakfast. But he never did, which was when she got suspicious and went to check on him, finding the door to his chambers open, and his bed empty.

  According to many of the servants who worked there, the old man led a very routine life. He had breakfast at nine, lunch at noon, dinner at six. All were taken in his bedroom. If he wasn’t there, he was often in his movie theater, watching movies.

  From what Daisy could make out, he almost never left his wing. Not only that, but he also never went downstairs. According to his cardiologist, he’d gotten several stents and a pacemaker put in, and so even short trips easily winded him. He was also quite unsteady on his feet and had to grip railings and walls in order to move.

  So, what had driven him not only to leave his wing, but to walk so far, down a long flight of stairs and to the other side of the house? To a room that no one had used in ages?

  It had to have been something urgent. Something important. But what?

  Again, she went back to the stealing. It was possible Rachel had told him of the theft, and wanting to catch her in the act, he’d gone down to that room to surprise Samara when she tried to retrieve her stash.

  But would he have done that? Wouldn’t he have just asked one of his servants to look into it for him to avoid that nasty confrontation?

  Possibly. But everything she’d read about Marv said that despite his failing health, he’d been very tenacious. A real go-getter. He was creative, took risks, and they paid off.

  So again, Samara seemed like the best suspect.

  If she was going to come up with alternative theories, she needed to take the housekeeper off the table. So, who else?

  There were plenty of possibilities. As Conrad had said, the detective had done his homework. There was a list of various servants—gardeners, security staff, waitstaff, cleaners, the pool man—with alibis and brief statements. There was also a list of people who had paid the victim a visit in the last three months. One name struck her.

  Brandon Freeman.

  She looked down to try to find out the relation and discovered he was the movie mogul’s oldest son, who lived in Beverly Hills. Of the Freemans’ three children, Brandon was the only one who still lived in the area. According to the file, he was single, childless, and the owner of a fashion label. He’d visited his father two months ago, according to servants.

  She paged through the massive file, trying to find an interview with the son, but it wasn’t there. Here, possibly, was one little stone that Ted Duncan hadn’t yet attempted to turn.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18