The Private Concierge. Suzanne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ couldn’t say she approved of his taste in women. The one he’d had with him lately was a little on the flashy side, with her brightly painted nails and her ankle bracelet. She even wore a ring with a tiny precious gem on her second toe. Ginger Sue called that tacky—and she’d pegged the woman right away as the gold-digger type.

      She gave her countertop another swipe with the disinfectant rag as the bell over the door jingled. In Bayless came, paper tucked under his arm. It wasn’t even nine, so he’d probably come down the mountain for some coffee, as he often did when he was in residence. Her store was in the village about twenty minutes’ walk from his place.

      As he came closer, she saw that he was unshaven and bleary-eyed, as if he’d been on an all-night toot. It struck her that he might be grieving some loss, although that was probably a silly romantic notion. Keep it simple, sweetie. It’s just a hangover.

      “Morning, Mr. Bayless. Anything I can help you with?” she asked.

      “Just getting some coffee from the bar, thanks.”

      Ginger Sue watched to see if his hand was unsteady as he held his plastic cup under the spigot. “You want a cinnamon bun?” she asked. “That’d go good with your coffee.” She’d heard cinnamon was some kind of sexual turn-on for men. Who knew? It might make him feel better.

      When he came over to pay he set down the coffee and dug a money clip from the pocket of his jeans. He let the paper slip from under his arm and it fell open on the counter. As he laid down a five, Ginger Sue turned the paper around and skimmed the headline: Star Outfielder Dies in Murder-Suicide. The color picture of a crime investigation and the insert of a familiar male face caught her eye next.

      Ned Talbert? Was that his friend, the baseball star? “Mr. Bayless, did you see this?”

      She turned the paper around so he could view it. He’d just taken a sip of his coffee, and he let out a strange, strangled sound. Clearly he hadn’t seen the headline until that moment. Black coffee exploded from his cup as it hit the counter.

      “Oh!” Ginger Sue ducked behind the counter, shielding her face with her arms. By the time she came back up, he was gone, flying out the door like a crazy man. The bell rang madly as the door crashed shut behind him.

      She grabbed her rag and mopped quickly, but there was no way to stem the steaming morass. He’d scared her half to death, and look at the mess he’d made of her countertop. The coffee had already soaked a stack of TV Guide magazines and some credit-card receipts she hadn’t yet filed. That kind of behavior was enough to get a customer banned from her store, but right now, she just wanted to know what was going on.

      2

      Rick felt dread bloom in the pit of his stomach, cold and wet, like clammy flesh. He was only a few minutes from Ned’s place in Pacific Palisades, and Rick knew what he would find there, a crime scene in progress. He’d seen a million of them, but this wouldn’t look like anything he recognized. The corpse would not be a lifeless shell to be pitied, lamented and then analyzed down to the last gruesome detail. This was his friend, someone Rick knew only as warm, vital and human. Ned was a living, breathing part of him. And, worse, instead of wearing a badge that would give Rick jurisdiction over the nightmare, instead of taking charge and righting wrongs, he would be helpless to do anything.

      His knuckles were blood-white against the steering wheel. He’d made the drive from the mountains to the beach in record time, despite having to ditch a cop in the foothills. The dread had been living inside him since he read the newspaper, but it hadn’t had a chance against his abject disbelief. Not Ned. No way. He couldn’t be dead. He was all that was left of their goofy boyhood dreams. He was supposed to carry the torch, be the man.

      Rick had spaced out, driving without a thought to the consequences. But at some point, he’d noticed the vibration in his hands that had nothing to do with his grip on the steering wheel—and the explicable had dawned on him. His friend was dead, and Rick was probably to blame. If he’d listened last night instead of swimming in his own private pool of despair, he might have prevented this. He was guilty and friendless. He had nothing left and nowhere to go, yet his hands were vibrating, and he felt more alive than he had in weeks.

      That wasn’t right. It was totally twisted. But there was no time to analyze it now. He’d been mired in self-analysis for days, weeks, and that wasn’t his style at all. Maybe anything that could drag him out of that muck would have sparked some life. But, God, why did it have to be this?

      Ned Talbert’s turreted Moorish-style home was on a street that sloped toward the sea. It sat like a crown jewel in a neighborhood where selling prices ran into the millions, and the terraced bluffs below the house featured one palatial property after another.

      Rick pulled in down the street from the house, giving himself time to scope things out. Yellow crime scene tape roped off the area, but other than that there was no sign of a CSI team or an active investigation. The deaths had occurred last night, according to the newspaper, some time before 11:00 p.m. Apparently Ned’s housekeeper had stopped by to drop off something she’d forgotten, found the bodies and called the police.

      The way it looked now, the forensic guys must have done their work last night, packed up and gone. And so had the media, it seemed. Even a sports star’s lurid death couldn’t command attention for more than a few hours in celebrity-soaked L.A. There was money to be made on the living.

      A lone police officer, young enough to be a rookie, sat in his car, clicking away on his cell, probably texting or playing games when he should have been standing guard at the door. Sloppy security, but not unusual with murder-suicides, where in theory the case was already solved before the cops got there. The victim and killer were all wrapped up in one neat bundle, a real timesaver. It was more than some overworked and underappreciated homicide investigators could resist, especially if all the evidence was there, including a suicide note.

      But Ned would not have left a suicide note. Writing wasn’t his thing. He couldn’t even sign a birthday card without it sounding lame.

      Rick could tell when a crime scene had been body-bagged and zipped up right along with the dead, and this one had, even before the lab results came in. Were the investigators already that certain about what had gone down, or were they more interested in getting rid of this case?

      A cover-up? That was jumping the gun, but Rick’s mind was going there anyway. On the way down from the mountain, he had realized what the police could have found in Ned’s house. He was fairly certain the brass would want to keep it under wraps because of the scandal potential, even though the information was old news—very old—which was also why they wouldn’t connect it with the murder-suicide. But Rick could not get his mind around the idea that this was a murder-suicide, which only left one other possibility. Someone wanted Ned and his girlfriend dead.

      Rick’s original plan had been to talk his way in. He’d worked with most of the guys at the West Side station at one point or another during his time at LAPD, and knew them well. Some of them had even gone to Ned’s games with him. Cops were a fraternity, as tightly bonded as the military, and they bent the rules for each other. All he wanted was to be escorted inside long enough to have a look around. Shouldn’t be a problem, except that he didn’t recognize the officer in the car, and his gut was telling him this wasn’t like every other crime scene.

      Sweat dampened the close-cropped hair on Rick’s scalp. He needed to make his move now, while junior was still otherwise engaged. He slipped on his mirrored aviators, let himself out of the car and started for the house at a lope. With Ned’s front-door key clutched in his hand, he ducked down and swept past the black and white from behind and СКАЧАТЬ