Page 6 of Love, Lines, and Alibis
“Get Shorty,” I answered. I had recently reread a paperback copy of Elmore Leonard’s Hollywood-set dark comedy, although I hadn’t done any reading the previous night. But there would be no digital trace of my doing it—or not—like there would have been if I said I had been watching Netflix or writing on my computer. Two years as a screenwriter in a procedural show, and I thought I had become an expert at duping the cops.
“That book any good?” he asked as if testing me.
“I’m doing some research on gangster tales.”
“Is that for something you’re writing? We know you’re a screenwriter,” he added.
I hadn’t told the other police officer anything about my profession, so I assumed they had checked all the residents of the building. Or at least, they’d done it withmeand Detective Clooney had clearly been playing the fool when he pretended he didn’t know that my mother was the mayor of Los Angeles.
“I’m working on a spec script,” I told him, preferring to leave it as vague as possible. I wasn’t going to volunteer any information unless it was demanded. Also, as any other decent writer in town, I got awkward and cagey the moment people asked the dreadful question,What’s your script about?
“Is it going to be anything likeLA Misconducts? Never been much of a fan of the show,” he continued, and I wasn’t surprised. The LAPD wasn’t exactly thrilled with the image of endless police corruption represented in the show.
“Nothing to do with that,” I said.
“You worked onLA Misconductsfor two years?”
“Seasons twelve and thirteen.”
“Why did you leave?”
That was even more impertinent than when he’d asked about my nightly activities.
“Screenwriting is a transient profession, and my dream while pursuing it wasn’t to make a whole career writing about LA cops,” I said. I hoped I sounded as sharp as I had intended. I wasn’t liking Detective Clooney one bit.
“So you voluntarily left a well-paying job for the possibility of writing a spec script?”
“Correct,” I said with my perfected California smile. I wasn’t going to give him the victory. “That and I got an overall deal, of course.”
Don’t call me cocky or obnoxious, but I do love bringing up my overall deal in conversation often. In my defense, it’s a rare thing for a minor screenwriter to have a studio willing to pay them just so they get first dibs in whatever they write, even if they don’t like any of it.
“What was your relationship with Dashing Henry?” the cop asked then, and I almost choked at the sound of that name and the wordrelationshipin the same sentence.
“So George was right and you found his body then?”
“George?”
“The tenant in apartment 10B. He has a way of finding stuff out. Lucky us, because George has been the only one keeping the residents informed. We’ve been freezing on the street for more than an hour and still haven’t heard an official word from the police or the city about what is going on.”
“I guess you can air your complaints about the city with your mother,” Clooney said, chuckling. But he soon realized his comment hadn’t exactly landed. “I can’t divulge anything except that when the firefighters came to the building this morning, they found the body of actor Dashing Henry.”
“Was he killed?”
“What makes you say so?”
“I can’t imagine all this secrecy and need to investigate if he died of a heart attack,” I said, and I started to wonder if my lawyer should have been present. He wouldnotbe happy when I told him I had been having that conversation without him in the room.
“So what was your relationship with the deceased?” the detective asked. Somehow, the lack of the deceased’s name made it possible for me to answer this time.
“None, as such. Of course, I’d known him during my tenure atLA Misconducts, but I haven’t talked to him or seen him since I left the show.”
“Why so?”
“I’ve kept in touch with several of the screenwriters at the show and the showrunner, but I don’t necessarily connect with actors that much unless we have something in common.”
“Like Amelia Sanchez?” he said, referring to one of the former stars of the show. Amelia had leftLA Misconductsaround the same time as I had and had found enough success both in indie films and prestige TV after that for her to be repeatedly photographed on the red carpet. Her good looks may have played a part besides her undeniable talent as a performer. I’d been her plus one on more than one occasion, and it was no secret that we’d become fast friends after meeting onLA Misconducts.She’d even talked about it in interviews sometimes.
“Amelia is a woman, an immigrant, a fellow Spanish speaker, and roughly a year older than me. So yes, we found ourselves connecting over a few subjects and have kept in touch since I left.”
