The Last Cheerleader

Today, though, was different. Today I wanted to just sit in a funk and think about the state of my life.

As Rucker had said, I’d been living here at Malibu for about two years—the same amount of time I’d been at my office in Century City. My house was tiny and a fixer-upper, but it still took more money to get into it than my father had made in his lifetime. My pop had been a streetcar conductor in San Francisco, and a good man. He supported my mom and me the best he could, and even though times were often tough, we never really went without. When I graduated from high school I left home, like most kids, for freedom from parental control—but also because I wanted to get a good job and give the poor guy a break. He died a year later, almost as if it was a relief to leave, once I was out of the house and settled on my own. Sometimes I feel guilty about taking away his motivation to go on. Other times, I must admit I’m proud to have done so much for myself, as young as I was.

Not that I’ve always been thrilled with my career choice. The life of an agent, a manager, or any kind of broker, is unlike any other life I’ve known or even heard of. We spend our days walking a tightrope between editors and authors, trying to keep both of them happy with each other. Not always an easy task. A good agent, some believe, is the kind that’s feared by New York editors. Most editors, on the other hand, will tell you that they prefer agents who are “easy to work with.” Which sometimes means that those agents don’t get the best deals, because they haven’t got it in them to act like a shark with a friend.

Those of us who are “sometime sharks” believe that the only way to win is to make a difficult editor so intimidated that she or he will give the author a good deal, with either money or extra perks. We do whatever it takes to come to an agreeable conclusion. And though bullying is not a good habit to get into, it becomes one sometimes, before we even know it. As natural as breathing.

So yes, I’ve learned to negotiate, and I’ve been successful at it. When threatened, I always look at whatever skills I have to defend myself, and that’s what I did this afternoon. Detective Rucker had accepted my invitation even more quickly than I’d expected him to. He would come here for dinner thinking he could get something out of me, because surely I was the main suspect in all three deaths so far. He’d play his game. But more importantly, I’d play mine.

If I didn’t want to end up arrested, I needed something to go on—information of some kind that would help me find out who the real killer was.

“Nice place,” Dan Rucker said, whistling softly. The sun had gone below the horizon, but the sky was still streaked with bright red, and my white sofa, carpet and walls were all tinted pink. The gulls were now wheeling over the beach in droves, probably scoping out dead fish.

“Look at that sunset,” Rucker said.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

He nodded, standing at the window with his back to me. “Mind if I go out on the deck?”

“Be my guest, Detective. I’ll bring the wine out there.”

I watched as he went onto the deck and sat at a patio table with four chairs. Putting his feet up on one chair, he seemed comfortable about making himself at home.

Well, good. A couple of glasses of wine and he’d be even more ready to tell me what he knew.

I took a cold bottle of Chardonnay out, along with appetizers I’d defrosted and nuked.

“Any trouble getting here, with the traffic?” I asked.

It seems like that’s the first question people ask when a guest walks in and they don’t know what else to say.

“A little,” my guest answered, “but it’s thinned out pretty well by now.” He took a bite of a small cheese-and-ham tart and sighed. “Delicious. You’re a good cook.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve always been pretty handy with piecrust.”

He looked at me intently and I had to look away.

“Okay,” I said, flushing. “I got them at the store. You think I really had time to cook?”

He smiled. “But you heated them up so well.”

“I did, didn’t I? It’s a talent I have…heating things up.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” he said, grinning.

“Why, Detective, are you flirting with me?”

“You’re the one who made the comment,” he countered. “What else did you have in mind?”

“I, uh…nothing, really. And by the way, you’re moving awfully fast.”

“I don’t mean to. I’d just like to get the sex stuff out of the way so we can get down to business.”

I felt my face grow hot. “Sex stuff? Detective Rucker, wherever is your mind? And what do you mean by business?”

“I mean the real reason you invited me here,” he said.

“You suspect me of having a secret agenda?”

“I suspect you of just about everything right now, Mary Beth Conahan.”

He said it easily, as if he were merely commenting on the weather.

“The key word is suspect,” I replied. “You have absolutely no evidence that I had anything to do with any of those murders. You can’t possibly have, because I didn’t commit them.”

He shrugged and took a long swallow of the wine. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I just figured if I came here tonight you might feel more comfortable about telling the truth.”

“Then you’ve wasted your time,” I said, “because I already have.” I took a sip of the Chardonnay. “I honestly don’t know who killed Tony and Arnold. Or Craig.”

“But you know something you aren’t saying. I’d bet my badge on it.”

“Then I hope your badge doesn’t mean too much to you.”

“It means everything. I wouldn’t bet it if I weren’t sure.”

“I think dinner’s just about ready,” I said, looking at my watch and changing the subject. “I don’t cook much, so I hope you like Poor Man’s Lasagna.”

He smiled. “Poor Man’s Lasagna? What’s that?”

“You cook some pasta, then layer it in a casserole dish with tomato sauce, garlic, sour cream, cream cheese and Monterey Jack. Takes about twenty minutes to pull it all together.”

“Sounds absolutely wonderful. A sure way to harden the arteries.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Not at all. It’s my favorite kind of food.”

A man after my own heart—if only he weren’t here to tear it out and roast it on a spit. I’d have to tread carefully with Detective Dan Rucker.

We were having after-dinner coffee, on the deck with Bailey’s Irish Cream, my excuse for an easy dessert. It had grown dark, and I’d plugged in the little fairy lights around the railing. The night air was warm, even balmy, and the ocean waves were soft and muted. Thanks to the Santa Ana winds, the sky was clear now, and the moon illuminated the shoreline all the way down to Palos Verdes.

“There was a small piece on the evening news about Craig Dinsmore,” Dan said, leaning back lazily in his chair, his feet on the middle railing. “They said he’d once been on the track to stardom, but he’d fallen off track along the way. A ‘friend’ they interviewed said it was alcoholism, but that Dinsmore had recently cleaned up and was fighting his way back. The anchor ended up by saying in somber tones, ‘…only to end up dead in a seedy motel room.”’

“They’d make the most of that, of course. It’s a great story for the media.”

“Is any of it true?” he asked.

“Most of it, more or less. He did clean up and I’ve been negotiating a good contract for his current book. I’m not so sure about the next one. I saw a manuscript at Craig’s motel room, just before the El Segundo police came crashing in. It wasn’t the kind of book he told me he was writing.”