Too Much Tinsel by AMY WOLF

Author:AMY WOLF [Amy Wolf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lone Wolf Press Ltd.
Published: 2024-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Foxing Around

We were such regulars at the lot now, we should have been given a permanent parking sticker. When the gate guard spotted our auto, he instantly scrawled out a pass.

“Say, do you know where the stars’ dressing rooms are?” I asked out the open window.

“Toward the back,” he said. “Take Main Street just past Stage 4.”

“Thanks.”

We ditched the old Ford in front of the stage. I shrugged. Let the pretend cops cite me: I happened to know a real one.

“This is it?”

Errol stared up at a short staircase, the building it led to squat, yellow, and old. I have to admit even I felt let down.

“Oh well,” I said. “What’d you expect? A red carpet and wreaths of roses?”

“Uh . . .”

We consulted one of those boards you usually see in a lobby, only this time, the stick-on white letters held a different meaning: the names of top movie stars, lined up like tax accountants. I heard Errol’s gasp and prepped myself to catch him—just in case he fell over.

We found the number matching “Ingrid Johansson” and I boldly went over and knocked. Answering the door was not one of Sweden’s best imports, but a mousy maid in uniform.

“Nicky Forenza,” I said, digging around for my license.

She nodded.

“Come about the accident?” she opened the door wider. “It was horrible! Miss Johansson was nearly struck!”

“Or iced,” I mumbled, hoping she hadn’t heard.

“I am still cleaning up. Glass is just everywhere!”

“I take it no cops were called?”

“Oh no!”

She put her hands to her mouth, acting as if I’d asked if she’d seen Lenski naked. I motioned to Errol, leading him to what had been a lighted mirror. Now, shards of lights and glass littered the thick carpet. I stared at the counter below in wonder. This dame had more cosmetics than Estee Lauder at Bullock’s. Might explain the look of that perfect face . . .

Errol and I both crouched to examine splinters which caught the L.A. sun. They didn’t tell us much: A mirror had fallen and broken. But how?

I nodded my thanks to the maid, then jerked my head at my partner. We moved to the next room—the one sharing a wall with Ingrid’s Make-up Emporium. I knocked. No answer. I tried the door—it opened. Strange. When I entered, Errol at my heels, I saw why. Vacant. No star from up above to spread her celestial rays. I went over to the wall adjoining Ingrid’s, moving aside lush draperies and taking down a painting: of a smiling Lenski. Behind the now-empty spot was not faded paint but a hole: a perfect circle, drilled with precision, now revealing Ingrid’s haunt. I waved to the maid who stood more frozen than her boss’ face. So. Another “accident” that was not one. And it had nearly yielded not Chanel, but Body Number 5.

I wanted to print the room, though if I knew my man, he’d surely worn gloves. And footprints? The dummies at Mammoth had thought to vacuum—that day—based on the carpet’s deep ridges.

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