Monica’s gait stuttered slightly when her wide eyes met mine.
“You were the one who found her?” she asked brightly.
Yes, very strange for someone who just found herself talking to the woman who discovered the dead and bloody body of her boss. Normal social conduct called for a little more… despair.
I nodded, ignoring her strange reaction for the time being. “Yes. And it was shocking, to say the least. All of us at Current were deeply saddened by the loss of such a pivotal part of the industry, and we wanted to a big spread on her. You know, her life.”
Monica made a sound that was remarkably similar to a snort as she lifted her cup. “Yeah, her life. She was a special lady indeed.”
I reached into the pocket of my Saint Laurent slacks and pressed the recording button on my phone. “You don’t sound like you got on well with Lucinda,” I said, not structuring my statement as a question and sounding as casual as I could. “Heck, I know about trying bosses. I could write a book and a sexual harassment claim on mine. I could write a book of sexual harassment claims alone,” I added with a wink.
She gave me a slightly wary look, but I was good at acting—we were in Hollywood, after all—so her face relaxed slightly. She looked very pretty without that forced pinched look on her face. She showed her youth, despite the slathering of makeup on her tanned face.
“Yes. I could write a book too. A book of fucking crazy,” she muttered.
“Lucinda was known to be eccentric. Artists and all that.”
She waved her hand. “Oh, eccentric is the best euphemism you could use. I’d say certifiable.” She paused. “This is off the record, right?”
I gave her a smile. “Of course,” I reassured her.
Technically it was. I wasn’t actually going to use any of this in a story. Even if Lucinda was a stark-raving-mad bitch, I wasn’t there to expose her character. Merely her murderer and why they did it.
It was looking promising. Crazy people did seem to make a lot of enemies.
Because of the lack of fear.
Fear made the world go round. And kept us breathing in it. My healthy dose of fear was what sent me into that closet. And what had me running from Keltan and everything he represented.
“I mean, she was brilliant, talented, whatever. Put that in the story. I’m sure you will. You can’t exactly say bad things about the dead, can you?” she asked, gearing up for what I knew was a long rant. I had friends named Gwen, Amy, Mia, and Rosie who did the exact same thing. I knew the signs.
I ignored the pang that came with thoughts of Rosie and my worries about her absence.
“Or you can’t print bad things about the dead,” Monica continued. “Well, you can if it’s Hitler or something—and I will agree there are some similarities.” Her tanned face paled underneath the makeup and she stopped walking so abruptly it took me a few paces to realize to do the same. I looked back to her. “Okay, really, really don’t print that I compared her to Hitler,” she pleaded, starting to walk again.
“I didn’t hear a thing about Hitler,” I reassured her.
She nodded in relief. “Anyway, yeah, she was a handful, to say the least. But I’ve had some shitty bosses in the past, and I know what this position will get me. Where it will get me. I’ve got goals, you know? Dreams. I’m going to be famous.”
I did an internal eye roll. Because she was the first person to stand on the streets in Hollywood and say that.
“Of course,” I said instead of anything I was thinking. The girl had her dreams, and as cliché as that may be, I would never cut a fellow woman down for having goals. There were too many other women in this town who would do that.
“But it wasn’t that that made the job hard.” She did a sideways glance as if she was expecting the NSA to jump out from behind a trendy boutique and arrest her for maybe being a little too honest with a stranger in a town where lying was practically a necessity for living, like rent or power.
Once she was satisfied, she turned back to me. “I really shouldn’t say anything,” she said quietly.
I chose that moment to sip my coffee and give her the opportunity I knew she’d take.
“But,” she continued without so much as another breath, “she had these guys who turned up at the studio once. It was weird.” She screwed up her nose. “She said they were potential models for a men’s line she was thinking of doing, but we haven’t even done sketches for any men’s designs and none of the rest of the team knew anything about it.” Her words were coming as fast as the clicks of her heels on the sidewalk as we neared the Venice studio that I knew would have news trucks, or at least a few straggling paparazzi, loitering outside. The story had blown up over the weekend; celebrity death was almost like the Oscars in Hollywood. Much like the funeral would be, which was the next day. Considering you usually needed a lot of time with a body after a murder—I had experience in that—the coroner must’ve been working overtime. No way was even I callous enough to go to the funeral asking questions. Which was why I needed this now. But I also knew not to rush or spook her.