If Hooks Could Kill - By Betty Hechtman Page 0,116
have flown off the gun and gone out through the open sliding glass door and lodged in the row of poplar trees.
“If I hadn’t seen a photo from a murder book,” I said, “I wouldn’t have know what it was.”
Detective Heather stepped in again. “Since he probably was drinking from it, we’ll be able to get DNA evidence to back it up. Through ballistic fingerprinting we were able to ascertain that the gun used to kill Kelly Donahue was also used to kill the liquor store employee. If we can tie Stone Thomasville to Kelly’s murder, we can tie him to the other as well.” Then Heather did something that completely surprised me. She gave me a high five. “With this piece of evidence, I am sure the charges will stick.”
“Is this scene ever going to get finished?” Nanci said. Detective Heather bagged the evidence and stepped out of the way. The whole process of settling the crowd started again and the director yelled for action. This time it went through without a hitch. At the end of the scene, Jeffrey rode his bike across the driveway as North took off down the street.
“That’s a wrap,” the director called with relief in his voice.
Mrs. Shedd was so excited about all the business the production had brought to the bookstore, she was more than happy to have them throw the wrap party there. It was late, well after our regular closing time. Bob had made treats and they even brought in my son Samuel to work as a second barista.
When the party began to break up, my cell phone went off in my pocket and for once I heard it. It was my son Peter. “You have to take North home with you,” he ordered.
I went over into a corner. “I’m not doing it unless you tell me what’s going on.”
Peter groaned and then finally spilled the story. It seemed North had a bunch of phobias connected with cars. He didn’t drive and he only could ride on certain streets. Anything with too much traffic sent him into a panic. Good luck on that one in L.A., even in the Valley. He was always driven to and from the set in a limo, but he would only ride with a certain driver who knew his problems. Every now and then, there was a screwup and that driver didn’t show up.
“Then he calls me,” Peter said. “So, now you know. Please take him home with you and I’ll pick him up.”
The drive home with North gave me a chance to ask him why he had lied about knowing Kelly. His answer floored me. He hadn’t lied. It was almost worse. He had no memory of their relationship. All he said was something to the effect that there were so many women, it was hard to keep track.
CHAPTER 37
Since I’d been the one to find the piece of evidence that positively tied Stone to his sister’s death and the liquor delivery guy’s, Detective Heather let me watch when they confronted Stone with the news. He didn’t even ask for his lawyer, but had begun to talk and talk. It seemed like he thought if he explained what happened, the cops would understand and make some kind of deal.
As if that was going to happen.
I was in an outer office viewing it all on a screen. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he complained. “One minute you’re a professional athlete with sponsors dumping money in your lap, winning tournaments that dump more money in your lap and then you get a little older and it all disappears. You end up signing surfboards, being the surfer pro at some beachfront hotel and struggling to keep afloat.
“But then you discover there are people who like to hang out with movie people and athletes, like the guy in Northridge. He thought it made him look like a big shot. He had so much stuff and so much money. The whole place was done in expensive antiques. He had tons of jewelry, a huge coin collection, and all kinds of expensive doodads. He never paid much attention to any of it as far as I could tell. I was sure he wouldn’t miss a piece of jewelry here and there and some coins from his collection so I began supplementing my income by taking something now and then. Eventually he did notice some things were missing, but he blamed it on the maid and fired her. I was