His car was parked a block away. The top was down on his black SL 550. He placed her carefully on the back seat. He didn’t bother buckling her in, though; after all, his victim had been dead for almost forty years.
He slipped behind the wheel of the convertible. Once he got the ransom he’d pay off the leasing company. He was getting sick of their repo threats. Everybody’s repo threats.
The car purred to life. The kidnapper smiled as he put the car into gear and drove away from the cemetery. Unbelievable. He’d actually pulled it off. He’d kidnapped one of Hollywood’s greatest icons.
And now everyone would have to pay.
The Beginning
I was in my office when the call came. Sitting at my desk admiring the front cover of a paperback novel. My paperback novel. Rear Entry, by Gideon Kincaid. That’s me. Ex L.A. cop turned private detective turned novelist. The Joe Wambaugh of the PI set.
I should be so lucky. The book had only been out for two weeks. Too soon to tell if anyone would buy it. Dreams of fancy cars and private planes were on hold as I continued to earn a living poking through other peoples’ lives.
Hillary came in from the outer office. “I’m sorry, Gideon,” she said, her features twisted in compassion.
My own features were twisted in confusion. “Sorry about what?”
“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.”
Hillary’s my secretary, a smart twenty-five-year-old with all the good stuff—blond hair, blue eyes, great body. But there’s a sweetness to Hillary, an endearing naivety that makes me look upon her as a little sister. All my thoughts about Hillary are pure. Well, almost all of them.
“I’ll be happy to talk about it,” I said. “If I had any idea what we were talking about.”
“Death.”
“If you’re asking me to take a stand, I’m definitely against it.”
I’ve known Hillary since she was ten years old. Her father, Jerry, was my partner for a couple of years when I was driving a black and white out of the West Valley Division. A couple of years ago she showed up looking for a job. I’d just lost my secretary, and Hillary needed the job, so I said sure. She didn’t just want to be a secretary, she told me, she wanted to be a PI like me. I told her I’d show her the ropes but never really got around to it. Truth is, she’s so good in the office I’d hate to lose her.
“Okay,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it. But it won’t do you any good to, like, keep all that grief inside. It’ll fester and feed on itself. Eat away at your insides until your soul dies and you become one of the walking dead. A spiritless zombie going through life like a blind man in a garden.” She did that from time to time—rattled on in New Age nonsense. Something to do with her being a native Californian. “Anyway,” she said. “Alex Snyder’s on line two.”
“Alex Snyder?”
“From the mortuary…” She said it like only an idiot wouldn’t know what she was talking about.
“Of course, the mortuary…” I said, as if I knew what the hell she was talking about. It’s never a good idea to let your secretary think you’re an idiot. I picked up the phone. “Gideon Kincaid.”
“This is Alex Snyder, from Westside Cemetery. I wonder if we could meet.”
“Look, if this is some kind of sales call, I—”
“No, Mr. Kincaid. This is business. Important business. Please, I need to see you right away.”
Somebody must’ve stolen a headstone, I thought. Or maybe his teenage daughter had run away. It didn’t really matter. He needed help, and that’s what I did for a living. “All right, Mr. Snyder. I’m on my way.”
My office is in Sherman Oaks, in a strip mall on Ventura Boulevard. Above a pet store called The Bunny Hop. My romantic soul felt I should have an office in one of the funky old buildings on Hollywood Boulevard—much more Chandleresque. But I get the creeps in Hollywood. Frankly it scares the shit out of me. Not the weirdos, the gangs, or the homeless. But the decay. If society can let the Boulevard of Dreams turn into an urban nightmare, what chance does the rest of the city have?
Westside Cemetery is in Brentwood, about twenty minutes from Sherman Oaks, so I used the time in my car to catch up on my literary career.
“Bad news.”
“Sales are slow?”
“Slow would be good. They’re nonexistent. The publisher’s decided the title’s the problem. Rear Entry sounds like a sex manual for gay men.”
I was talking to my agent, Elliot. He’s got a boutique agency for writers on their way up. Or down. I wasn’t sure which category I belonged in. “Elliot, the title was their idea.”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Let them make mistakes with Grisham’s next book.”
“Almost nobody writes a bestseller their first time up. Not even Grisham.”
“It took me three years to write Rear Entry, and now you’re saying I have to write another book?”
“You told me you wrote for the pure joy of it.”
“I was lying.”
“I warned you writing was a tough way to get rich.”
“I thought you were lying.”
“Never fear, Bubele. It’s not over until the buyer for Barnes and Noble sings. If they give us a doorway display, hell, who knows…”
“Anything I can do to help? Interviews? Book signings?”
“Reality check, Gidman. You’re nobody. James Patterson does interviews because he’s famous. People will watch a show to see him. Ratings go up, he sells more books. It’s a help you/help me kind of simpatico. Stephen King does a book signing because he’s famous. People come to a bookstore just to see him. More people in the store mean sales go up. We’ve got that help you/help me thing going again.”
“But they got famous writing books.”
“Correctamundo, but they wrote bestsellers. Writing bestsellers made them famous. And fame is the ultimate passkey. Before you can hit the interview/book signing trail, Rear Entry needs to become a bestseller.”
“But how will it become a bestseller if I can’t do any interviews or book signings?”
“Welcome to Catch 22 Land—chicken and the egg and all that.”
“So that’s it? There’s nothing I can do?”
“You could get famous first. Break a big murder case. Solve a million dollar diamond heist. Marry Lindsey Lohan. You need something to single you out, something to make people sit up and take notice.”
Yeah, right, I thought. Who’s going to notice a two bit PI? “All right, Elliot,” I said. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Wait, I’ve got one more piece of bread to throw upon the waters.”
“What?”
“Don’t give up your day job.”
Dead and Not So Buried
There’s something very soothing about cemeteries—all that grass, the flowers, the fountains, the birds. It’s a shame they’re wasted on the dead.
The Westside Cemetery is in the heart of Brentwood. It’s small—only about two acres—but some of Hollywood’s biggest stars are buried there.
I was shown into Alex Snyder’s office by his secretary—a middle-aged woman who oozed warmth and compassion. Alex Snyder also oozed warmth and compassion. He was the kindly grandfather type—late sixties, thick gray hair, natty moustache, reassuringly plump. He smiled as I entered, shook my hand. “Mr. Kincaid, a pleasure to meet you.”