Not Famous in Hollywood (Not in Hollywood Book 1) (6 page)

Something in
my demeanor obviously convinced Detective Griffin that I was
serious and he straightened up to leave.

As we got to the door he turned. “Thank you
for talking to me Trudie, I do appreciate it. I have one more
question though. Do you think Eleanor Channing could have killed
Ryan Hendricks?”

“
I personally
don’
t think so” I replied, “but I really
don't know.”

With that I closed the door. How did I end up
helping the cops anyway? I really needed to learn how to say
no.

There was a knock on the door.

“For goodness sake, I am done helping you” I
yelled as I ripped open the door only to find two of my neighbors
standing there.

“Sorry” said Crystal. “We waited for the hot
guy to leave and we have pizza.”

Edwin waved the box under my nose to
underscore them inviting themselves.

“Sorry about that, I thought you were the
cops again.”

Crystal and Edwin made their way into my home
and settled themselves in as if they spent all their free time
there, which to be perfectly honest they did.

“What has happened?” asked Crystal. “I saw
you on the news feed being put in a cop car.”

So much for hoping I wouldn’t be
recognized.

“
Heard Ryan
Hendricks shuffled off the mortal coil
”
Edwin added. “Let me guess. You finally had sex with him and it was
too much for him and he died.”

I rolled my
eyes in exasperation. Crystal and Edwin are my neighbors and pretty
much the only friends I have made since coming to LA. Crystal
Bronstein works for her father who is one of the biggest casting
agents in LA. Her mum was a Las Vegas showgirl who was married to
her dad just long enough to give Crystal her name and receive a
large alimony payment. Crystal stands barely above five feet but
has a personality that enters a room before she does. Crystal loves
old Hollywood glamour. Her clothing echoes the silhouette fashions
of the thirties and forties and she has the curvy figure which
matches those classic looks perfectly. She and I bonded over a love
of cookies and nights at home watching old movies.

Unfortunately her dad’s job means that
Crystal has to get out a lot. Being one of the big casting agents
in town she is also always being squired to these social events by
young, hopeful, gorgeous actors who are looking for that big break.
Anyone who says becoming a star is about luck has no idea of the
lengths some people go to. People do their research. Crystal has
become the queen of accidental hookups. The number of times one of
these actors has accidentally bumped into her and started a
conversation is ridiculous. I once asked her if it bothered her the
number of men she went out with that were just using her to meet
her father. She just shrugged at me and said she was using them
just as much.

Edwin
Litchfield was the other friend I had made while in LA. Edwin was
tall, blond, muscular and with that upper class English accent that
makes women melt. He used to work as a model and then decided to be
an actor. While waiting for his big break, he took any other job
that he could. At the moment he was working as a personal
trainer/lifestyle coach. He has the ability to makeover a woman
from zero to fabulous in no time flat. Considering his two closest
friends were women he also set off every gaydar in a five block
radius. This worked well for him as his clientele consisted of the
bored housewives of the very rich in LA. Husbands were comfortable
leaving their wives with a gay personal trainer. Unfortunately for
those husbands, Edwin was one hundred percent straight and was very
good at keeping a woman happy. He didn’t advertise that fact but
there were many women around LA who had enjoyed his company.
Somehow none of them were bitter when he moved on. To this day I
have no idea how he does it. Even after a one night stand he
manages to meet up with a woman years later and they still think he
is wonderful. Neither I nor Crystal have partaken of the
irresistible nature that is Edwin. I think that may be why he is so
comfortable with us.

“
So” Edwin
said jamming a slice of pizza in his mouth. “What happened? So far
we’ve seen you and Eleanor Channing through blurry telephoto lens
pictures. Eleanor being carted away in an ambulance and you in a
police car, after Ryan Hendricks was found dead. Crystal called me
and we rushed home to find out what was going on, only to find some
hottie waiting at your front door.” He grinned.

“
You know
Edwin” I said. “There are reasons people think you are gay. Calling
other men ‘hottie’ is one of those reasons.”

At that point
cheese and tomato sauce slid off Edwin’s slice of pizza and landed
on his chest. He licked the stain, sucking the excess sauce out of
his shirt, shrugged and got back to what he was eating.

“And that is why we know you are straight”
murmured Crystal.

The two of them looked at me expectantly.

“
Eleanor
called me this morning so she didn’t have to do the walk of shame.
I got there and found Ryan Hendricks dead.”

“Oh my God” exclaimed Crystal. “You actually
saw the body. That is the coolest thing ever.”

Edwin and I stopped eating and looked at
her.

Realizing how
she must sound she quickly amended. “No, I don’t mean that. Ryan
Hendricks being dead is not cool, but you finding him, that is so
cool. Trust me you are going to be able to use that story forever”
she said brightly.

“Great” I muttered, “that makes up for the
trauma of it all.”

“
Oh, are you
traumatized?” Crystal reached over and laid her hand on mine in
sympathy. “I know this great therapist who will be able to
help.”

Just what I
needed, therapy. I really didn’t feel like I needed to go down that
road at all.

“
I’m fine”, I
said.

Actually
thinking about it, I was fine. I’d got so caught up in everything
that happened that I hadn’t even registered that I had seen an
actual dead body. I better put that thought away or I was going to
need Crystal’s therapist. Denial, everyone’s best friend. Now Edwin
and Crystal were looking at me carefully. The last thing I needed
was for them to start worrying about me.

“
Really, I’m
fine.” I said. “I was more worried about Eleanor, she was the one
who was there.”

“Did she kill him?” Edwin asked his eyes
gleaming.

“Really” I said, “that would please you that
Eleanor Channing killed Ryan Hendricks.”

“
Not pleased
exactly” said Edwin only looking slightly shamefaced. “I’m just
saying that as far as possible stories go, that would be the best
one. Ryan Hendricks dumps Eleanor Channing, gets engaged to Emily
Saunders and then during a passionate tryst with Eleanor she kills
him with a ... gun?” His voice raised at the end in
question.

“I have no idea. I couldn’t make out any
wounds on the body” I said.

“
See the
information you have. Do you realize how much money you could make
going to the media with this, like right now?” Edwin said. “First
on the scene after Eleanor Channing kills Ryan Hendricks after sex.
It’s got the whole black widow thing going for it.”

“
I am not
going to the media” I said. “The police are dealing with it. My
doing an interview is just going to make it harder to find if
anyone killed Ryan. Anyway I don’t believe Eleanor did
it.”

“
Really” said
Crystal. “I seem to recall you telling us the other day that the
woman was evil and you wouldn’t be surprised if she actually killed
somebody one day.”

“
Okay yes,
she is pure mean when she wants to be, and yes her track record
with men and the way she has tried to get back at them does
indicate some sociopath tendencies.”

I winced
thinking of the words she had scratched on one ex-boyfriend’s car
after he dumped her. That may have been one of those rumors that
Detective Hottie, I mean Griffin, would have wanted to hear about.
Eleanor just sometimes came a bit unhinged when it came to
boyfriends, and due to her complete lack of musical talent, she was
unable to decimate their reputations in song in classic malicious
ex-girlfriend tradition. So Eleanor fell back on tried and true
methods, stalking, destroying careers and vandalism of property.
Maybe I was wrong in believing she hadn’t gone one step further and
actually killed one of them. The more I thought about it the more
likely that it could happen. I realized I had been thinking too
hard when I noted the silence around me.

“Oh no” said Edwin, “you think she might have
done it.”

I shook my
head slowly. “I don’t know, I was so sure she hadn’t. She looked so
shocked and upset when I found them.”

Thinking back to this morning I froze.

“What is it?” asked Crystal.

“I forgot” I said. “When I got there Eleanor
said she thought she’d killed him. I didn’t think about it because
she was pretty out of it but what if it was a confession?”

“Where was the body?” asked Edwin.

“In the shower. It looked like Eleanor had
just come out of the shower too. Her hair was all wet” I said
biting my lower lip as I tried to remember anything else.

“Maybe they were having a shower together and
he died then. It just might be one of those things people say”
Crystal said.

“Or she may have done away with him while
seducing him in the shower.” Seemed like Edwin was keen to pin the
crime on Eleanor.

“I thought for sure something else had to
have happened” I said twisting my napkin nervously. “But who am I
kidding. There were only two of them there.”

“Are you sure?” asked Crystal. “Could there
have been anyone else in the house?”

“
Well it is a
decent sized house. I didn’t see any cars driving away. I guess
there could have been someone else hiding there. I called 911
pretty much straight away and they were there in just a few
minutes.”

“Did you talk to Eleanor at all before the
cops got there?” Crystal asked.

“
No, she was
almost catatonic, couldn’t seem to answer any questions. The only
time she said anything was when the cops arrived and they started
ordering her around. She came out of it but then they stunned her
and we were separated. What?” I asked as I saw the dropped jaws and
looks on both Crystal and Edwin’s faces.

“
Eleanor
Channing was stunned?” Edwin whispered in awe. “And you’re not
taking that information to the media?”

“
No I’m not
and everything I told you has to stay between us.”

There were
complaints to that statement because on a city run on gossip, the
three of us were now sitting on gold.

“I mean it” I said trying very hard to keep
my stern face on.

My two
friends
looked so crestfallen that I knew
how hard it was for them. I also knew they wouldn’t tell anyone.
That was the way we worked. The three of us all worked in areas
where information was key. We were all privy to information that
the tabloids would kill for. Being able to share that with each
other and most importantly knowing that it would go no further was
a major part of our friendship. That being said, I could tell that
not being able to share this was almost going to kill
them.

Heading to
Eleanor’s the next morning, I wasn’t feeling quite as refreshed as
I had hoped to be after my supposed day off
. After Crystal and Edwin had left I had written up a
detailed report on everything that had happened that day and
emailed it to Monique. I decided not to include the follow up
friendly visit from Griffin, just that the LAPD had delivered my
car to me at home. I also notified her that I would be returning to
my assignment with Eleanor Channing today. The email back had been
short and sweet but the thrust of it was to be careful.

Eleanor’s
house was noisy when I
got there. Yesterday had been an anomaly for Eleanor to be alone.
Today things were back to normal. To be perfectly honest I have no
idea what half the people who are around Eleanor do. I know her
manager, the cook, the housekeeper, the maids and the bodyguards.
Basically I know the people in her life who have easily definable
jobs. Then there are the people who just seem to be there to tell
her how wonderful she is. Usually I ignore these people. The only
reason they speak to me is because as her PA they believe I can
give them more access to Eleanor than they already have.

In the
lo
wer foyer Jorge, one of Eleanor’s
regular roster of bodyguards that Monique provides, lounged against
the wall. Great. That meant we were going out today. Silly me, I
thought the fact that your ex-boyfriend had died meant that you’d
stay at home and maybe mourn for a minute or two. Obviously
not.

“
Hope
that’
s strong” Jorge said looking at the
coffee in my hand.

“It always is” I replied.

Jorge was one of the few bodyguards that I
could tolerate. He knew his business and managed to do it
discreetly.

“Heard you were there yesterday” Jorge
remarked, only looking slightly interested as he drank his own
coffee.

“Yeah, I was” I replied carefully.

“
Any fallout
I should be aware of?” Jorge asked and this was why he was one of
the better bodyguards. Despite the fact the man was huge, like a
mountain with tattoos all over him and biceps which I have on
occasion imagined swinging from, he actually had a brain that
worked out the possible threats to his charge before they happened.
He was also careful in what he did and tried not to trample over
too many enthusiastic fans while he did his job.