Star Walk (A Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery Book 3) Read online

The server came with their drinks. “Hi. I’m Stephen. What can I get for you today?” He was tall, thin, with a boatload of teeth. Entirely too perky, Lacey thought. She ordered her burger and fries; Sam ordered a Reuben sandwich. Tall Boy beamed a 100-watt smile at them and headed back to the kitchen.

  Sam took a sip of his iced tea and sat back. Finally he met Lacey’s stare.

  “A tough one, huh?” she asked softly. She knew tapping into the desperate emotions of tortured souls was hard on Sam. No one with a beating heart could shrug off such misery.

  “Yeah.” He sighed the word. “I still can’t figure it. I think there are three people. There’s definitely the woman in the north side apartment. She either fell off the balcony or jumped. It didn’t feel like an accident, though. She was really… I don’t know, really screwed up, but I don’t think she just lost her balance or anything. There was something deliberate about it.”

  Lacey dug in her purse with one hand and pulled out her trusty notebook and a pen. As Sam’s gaze shifted out the window, she jotted some notes.

  “It’s her blood on the tile floor?” she asked.

  He nodded. “That’s the slippery spot. She didn’t die right away, though. It took hours. Hours of pain.”

  Lacey was already thinking ahead. It shouldn’t be hard to verify the sequence of events, or the time involved. That would all be in the medical examiner’s report. “Any names?” she asked. “Age? Description?”

  Sam slid his eyes back to her. “No names. She’s young. Late twenties, maybe thirty. I keep seeing stars in my head. Maybe a movie star? I don’t know.”

  Lacey thought of the tin stars Deidre seemed so fond of. Was that an unconscious tribute to the people who lived—and died—there?

  “You said something about a man. You said he steamrolled her.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He blew out a breath. “He had to be a real piece of work. He out and out lied to her, even when she knew the truth, even when she caught him in it. He just kept on, kept insisting she was wrong, that she was confused, or delusional. And it worked. She couldn’t trust anything, not him and not herself. She couldn’t think her way out of the maze. He literally drove her crazy.”

  “Wow,” Lacey said softly. “Any more about him?”

  “No. Oh, wait. He had a mustache. He was older than her, and she had some idea that a man with a mustache was… an authority. Older, wiser; you know?”

  She nodded as she wrote. Maybe some kind of father fixation. She starred that note, then lifted her eyes to Sam.

  “It’s the other apartment I can’t figure,” he said. “I think there’s a man and a woman there. But one of them—or both of them—are really screwed up. There’s a thing about religion, about being an abomination, being… abnormal. There’s a lot of shame, self-hatred, then… bliss. Sleep is bliss. Sleep is the only escape. I think he died in his sleep.”

  Lacey jotted her last notes just as Mr. Smiley returned with their food.

  “Here we go,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry for the wait. Now, can I get you any ketchup or tobasco?”

  “Ketchup, please,” Lacey said.

  “All righty. Be right back.”

  Lacey centered her plate in front of her and set her notebook beside it. She munched a fry as she scanned the last page.

  “I’m sure property records and obituaries will fill in a lot of the blanks. You’ve got a lot of very specific stuff here, even if it doesn’t all make sense to us right now.” Mr. Smiley returned with the ketchup. She thanked him and squirted some on her fries. “Have you ever run into ghosts who moved things before?”

  He tried one of his own naked fries. “Yeah, I have. It usually means high levels of energy. The spirit is very agitated, still has lots of issues to resolve. In this case, I’m pretty sure it’s all the religious stuff.”

  Lacey had a sudden thought. “Do you think these people all occupied the home at the same time?”

  Sam pondered that as he ate. Finally he shook his head. “I don’t think so. They did seem to favor different areas of the house, but I don’t feel like they were contemporaries. Except the male and female energies in the south apartment. Those were concurrent.”

  “That reminds me…” Lacey turned to a fresh page in her notebook. She drew a very quick sketch of the bottom level of the house, then drew the other stories, each one on a separate page. “You said some rooms had other functions before, which of course makes sense when it was a single home. What was the back room on the first floor? I think you said it was a sanctuary.”

  Sam stared out the window and chewed slowly. “Yeah. It was like an indoor patio, or an Arizona room. Lots of windows.”

  “Like a solarium?” Lacey asked.

  “Yeah. That was her favorite room in the house.”

  “Okay.” Lacey noted her drawing. “And on the second floor? You said there was a library.”

  “Northeast side,” he said, tapping the drawing. “Tons of books. She loved them, loved to browse and read. He just liked them because he thought it made him look like an intellectual.”

  “And the third floor? Mainly bedrooms?”

  “Yeah. Those private areas behind closed doors.”

  “I remember. You said that’s where it all happens.”

  He gave a small snort. “Yeah, except for that entry floor below the balconies.”

  Of course, Lacey thought. She went back to her first drawing and drew an X there. X marks the spot.

  “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me,” she mused.

  Sam stared at her silently for a moment, those obsidian eyes giving nothing away. “You going to have the time?” he asked finally.

  She shrugged. “Sure. This is way more interesting than process serving.”

  “Doesn’t pay very well, though,” he said with a cynical smile.

  “Not yet,” she agreed. “But when we get our own TV show…”

  “You wish,” he said. Then more seriously, “So what did you decide about your ex?”

  Lacey frowned. The question was a rude jolt back to a distasteful subject. “Nothing, really. I just haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet.” She thought Sam might comment, but he just continued eating. The silence bothered her. “I, uh, I did put in my application for a visit. I think it’ll take a lot longer than Derrick thinks, but at least this way, if he bugs me about it, I can honestly say it’s out of my hands.”

  Sam glanced up at her. “You could just tell him no.”

  She huffed out a breath, making a rude noise. “I know. And believe me, I thought of doing that more than once. But then I think of what might be happening to Margaret.” She toyed with a French fry. “I would hate to think that she really needed help, and I didn’t…”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sam said. “Lacey to the rescue.”

  She leaned her head on her hand and stared at him. “It’s a curse,” she said. “I just can’t stand to see people mistreated. So if I can do anything to prevent it, I will.”

  Sam met her stare with thoughtful eyes. She expected him to say something, but he didn’t.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said finally. “That Derrick knows how I am, and he’s using that to manipulate me.”

  “You said it; I didn’t. Anyway,” he said, “it’s none of my business.”

  She shook her head. “We’re friends. I appreciate your concern. But really, I’m not going into this blind. I’m painfully aware of how blind I was to his deceptions before. That’s not going to happen again.” She thought more about it. “But if I feel like I need to bounce some ideas off of someone, I’ll call you.”

  He gave her a cockeyed smile. “Fair enough.”

  “So how are the kids?” she asked, eager to move on to another subject.

  “Great. Kenzie’s starting gymnastics.”

  “Oh, cool,” Lacey said. “Tumbling and stuff?”

  “Yeah. Now she does somersaults all around the apartment. Drives Daniel crazy.”

  Lacey chuckled. �
��I’ll bet. That’ll be great for her. Teach her coordination and self-confidence. Eight-year-olds need that.”

  “Which reminds me,” Sam said, “her birthday is coming up. She asked me if I thought you’d come to her party.”

  Lacey sat up. “Really? I’d love to.”

  “That’s what I told her,” he said, nodding. “I’ll let you know the details once her mother gets it all organized.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” Lacey beamed a smile at him.

  Sam pushed his empty plate away. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” She tossed her notebook and pen back into her purse. “Got a lot of work to do now.”

  “Let me know if I can help,” he said.

  She nodded. “You’ve got it.”

  ~~~

  FOUR

  Lacey was itching to start her research. As soon as she got home and threw in a load of laundry, she parked in front of her laptop and pulled up her favorite property records website. She typed in the address on Laurel Canyon and hit enter. The results popped up on the screen.

  Built in 1938; 6215 square feet.

  Down below was the sales history, along with prices paid and tax data. She sent the page to her printer as she read on.

  1938Lance Tynan

  1949Geoffrey Johns

  1958David Horowitz

  1965Sonia Ralston

  1979Lisa Treymayne

  1990California Pacific Bank

  1995Edward French

  2001Western Mutual Bank

  2009Bank of America

  2016Deidre Mallory

  Yes, the property had had a checkered past, days of glory and days of gloom. She recognized a couple of names from the golden age of Hollywood: Lance Tynan and Geoffrey Johns. Other names she’d have to research. The financial history of the country was reflected as well: the bubble bursts of 1990 and 2009, the foreclosure and bank ownerships. Typical of a huge white elephant that could not support its own weight once the market crashed around it.

  Where to start? On their earlier case in San Clemente, she had worked her way back from the present, focused on finding the time when the ghostly manifestations began. With this one, however, most of the current holdings were by banks, which probably meant the house sat empty quite a bit. She decided to start back at the beginning instead.

  She googled Lance Tynan. Between Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database, she began to form a picture of the man.

  Lance Tynan, handsome leading man of Hollywood. Born Everett Maples, Jr. in 1906 in Pershing, Ohio, the son of a Methodist preacher. Made his way to Hollywood in 1930 and appeared in bit parts of a handful of movies in his late twenties. Renamed Lance Tynan by MGM studios, he had his breakout role in 1935 as a troubled cowboy in Trails West. His good looks and soulful acting catapulted him to stardom. Married actress Nora Messenger in 1943, one daughter, Doreen, born in 1945. Died in 1948 of cardiac arrest. Buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.

  She browsed the many images of him. The earlier ones were the typical black and white studio promotional shots, and the soft contrast highlighted a Rock Hudsonish quality: square chin, high forehead, wide eyes and wavy hair. Definitely eye candy for the female fans.

  Lacey checked her timeline. The house was sold to Geoffrey Johns in 1949, so apparently Nora did not linger. Lance’s dying of a simple heart attack, however, didn’t seem extraordinary enough to warrant ghostly activity. She’d have to dig deeper.

  Next came Geoffrey Johns. Born Geoffrey John Eggleston in Birmingham, England in 1904. Started his acting career on stage with bit parts in Shakespearean festivals. Dropped his last name in 1928 and clawed his way up to leading roles and became a respected patriarch of the stage. Made the leap to Hollywood after WWII, playing British officers and statesmen in several successful war movies. Married Estelle DeVoe in 1947; no children. After Estelle’s death in 1955 (suicide), married Yolanda Moreau in 1958; one son, Frederick. Died in 1976 of lung cancer.

  An image search brought up a range of photos, both black and white and color. From Hamlet to Don Quixote, he had the perennial English look about him—tall and gaunt, with a hooked nose and deep-set eyes. He sported a mustache more often than not.

  Lacey sat up abruptly. Mustache. What had Sam said about that? She paged through her notebook. Ah—the woman who may have jumped or fallen to her death, the man who drove her insane with his lies.

  Suicide.

  Estelle DeVoe.

  ~~~

  FIVE

  Lacey was in her element now, digging beneath the bare facts, digging into the meat of the mystery.

  Okay, Estelle, she thought, talk to me. Tell me what happened to you.

  Her searches pulled together the facts.

  Estelle DeVoe, born Estelle Baumgartner in Brooksville, Idaho in 1922. The winner of several small beauty contests in her home state, she fell short of qualifying for the Miss America contest and set her sights on Hollywood instead. At the tender age of twenty-three, she was cast as Desdemona opposite Geoffrey Johns’ Othello, and the two fell into a passionate but tortuous relationship. Married in 1947, their time together was a gossip columnist’s dream, an explosive mix of public spats, tearful separations and heartfelt reconciliations. Johns’ frequent affairs were a constant source of irritation, but the love/hate relationship continued for years. Finally in 1955, she reached a breaking point when Johns asked for a divorce, and she threw herself off the third floor balcony of their Laurel Canyon mansion.

  A tearful Johns confessed his feelings of guilt, even quoted as saying, “It’s all my fault. I killed her. I told her I wanted a divorce and she went crazy. She threatened to kill herself, but I didn’t believe her. I packed a bag and left. They found her two days later.”

  The coroner determined that her injuries were consistent with the fall, but also noted that she didn’t die immediately. Most likely it took several hours for her to die an excruciating death. She was buried in her home town.

  Johns spent a year in seclusion, drinking heavily, then roared back onto the screen with new intensity. He later remarried and had one son, finally fading from public view in his later years.

  Lacey sat back in her chair. This was the woman on the third floor. It all fit. What else had Sam said? Lies, deception. Lying about the affairs, no doubt. Sam had also mentioned the mustache and a sense of authority that went along with that. Johns was eighteen years older than Estelle; old enough to be her father. As a young starlet, she might have imagined Johns as a mentor, as a guide and protector. Later, if what Sam picked up was accurate, that helpful authority turned into bullying and tyrannical control. Denying reality, putting forth lies as truth. Crazy-making, indeed.

  One ghost down. One—or two—to go.

  ~~~

  Sunday afternoon, Lacey called Sam. She knew he’d have his kids for most of the day, but needed to share with him what she’d found. Only he would know how to proceed to get Estelle to move on.

  His phone went immediately to voicemail. She left a message, then began dinner preparations—for two.

  “Hey,” she said when he called her back. “You with the kids?”

  “Yeah. We went to a movie, so I turned my phone off. What’s up?”

  “Got a proposition for you,” she said. She could imagine his eyebrows inching upward. “I’ve found a ton of information on what I think is our first ghost—the woman in the north side apartment. I’m wondering if you would care to come over after you drop the kids home. I’ve got steaks marinating and baked potatoes in the oven.”

  There was silence for a moment, then Sam said, “I think it’s against the law for cops to bribe witnesses.”

  Lacey grinned. “I’m not a cop anymore, and this is not a bribe. It’s… an inducement.”

  “Oh, well, in that case.” Sam chuckled. “I can be there about five-thirty.”

  “That’s perfect. How do you like your steak?”

  “Rare,” he said. “So you found good stuff, huh?”

  “It’s
an open and shut case,” she said. “Fits like a glove. I’ll show you when you get here.”

  “Sounds good. See you then.”

  Lacey smiled as she saw to her dinner preparations. Compared to some of their other cases, this one was easy, she thought. She still had more work to do on the south apartment residents, but she felt heartened by her success so far. She was sure Sam would, too.

  It felt funny having him come over for dinner. She’d been such a hermit in the last two years, she’d almost forgotten how to entertain. But, she reminded herself, this was not a date. This was work.

  Sam was only five minutes late, not bad considering the process involved kids. She let him in and indicated the way to the living/dining room of her small apartment.

  “Smells good,” he said, taking a seat in the living room.

  “That’s probably the marinade,” she said. “Don’t get too comfortable. I didn’t want to start the steaks until you got here, so guess what? You get grilling duty. Just let me pull the steaks out of the marinade.”

  Forking the steaks out carefully—they were already very tender—she let them drain, then put them on a plate and handed them off to Sam.

  “Barbecue’s out back,” she said, pointing an elbow at the sliding glass door. “I like mine medium.”

  Sam eyed the steaks uneasily. “I, uh, I’m not great at this sort of thing, you know. I’m not a football-and-beer-on-Sundays kind of guy.”

  “I have faith in you,” she said. She grinned evilly as she turned back to the kitchen. “You and your brother did fine grilling hot dogs out on the res last December.”

  Sam frowned down at the steaks. Lacey peeked at him from the kitchen and saw him shrug finally and go outside. She smothered a laugh at his trepidation.

  By the time she had gotten the baked potatoes out of the oven and put the final touches on the salad, Sam was back with the steaks. They looked properly grilled and were swimming in red juice. “Yum,” she said. “Let’s eat.”

  “This looks good,” Sam said as he settled in a chair at the table.