A Star is Dead Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Previous Titles by Elaine Viets

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  A selection of previous titles by Elaine Viets

  Angela Richman, Death Investigator

  BRAIN STORM

  FIRE AND ASHES

  A STAR IS DEAD *

  Dead-End Job

  FINAL SAIL

  BOARD STIFF

  CATNAPPED!

  CHECKED OUT

  THE ART OF MURDER

  Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper

  DYING IN STYLE

  HIGH HEELS ARE MURDER

  ACCESSORY TO MURDER

  MURDER WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS

  THE FASHION HOUND MURDERS

  AN UPLIFTING MURDER

  DEATH ON A PLATTER

  MURDER IS A PIECE OF CAKE

  FIXING TO DIE

  A DOG GONE MURDER

  * available from Severn House

  A STAR IS DEAD

  Elaine Viets

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2019

  in Great Britain and 2020 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2019 by Elaine Viets.

  The right of Elaine Viets to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9016-0 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-674-6 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0373-1 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To Nan Seimer – Merry Christmas!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m fascinated by death investigators, a fairly new profession. Death investigators work for the medical examiner’s office. They are trained, but they are not physicians. I’m not a death investigator, but I did take the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training course in St Louis.

  Many people helped with A Star Is Dead. Most important is my husband, Don Crinklaw, my first reader and rock.

  Thanks also to my agent, Joshua Bilmes, president of JABberwocky Literary Agency, and the entire JABberwocky team.

  Thanks to the Severn House staff, especially Carl Smith, commissioning editor (who writes the most delightful notes on my manuscript), assistant Natasha Bell, and copyeditor Loma Halden. Cover artist Jem Butcher perfectly captured my book.

  I’m grateful to Bill Hopkins, Detective R.C. White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired) and licensed private eye, Krysten Addison, death investigator, Harold R. Messler, retired manager-criminalistics, St Louis Police Laboratory, Gregg Brickman, Ruthi Sturdivant, Greg Herren, Will Graham, Alan Portman, Joanna Campbell Slan, Jinny Gender and Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, and many librarians, including those at the Broward County library and St Louis and St Louis County libraries.

  Sarah E.C. Byrne made a generous donation to charity to have her name in this novel. She’s a lawyer from Canberra, Australia, and a crime fiction aficionada.

  Special thanks to Sharon L. Plotkin, certified crime scene investigator and professor at the Miami Dade College School of Justice, who read the crime scenes for accuracy.

  Any mistakes are mine.

  Enjoy Angela Richman’s latest adventure. Let me know what you think. Email me at [email protected]

  ONE

  No one knew Jessica Gray’s real age – not until it was published in her obituary.

  I knew Jessica wasn’t young – she couldn’t be. ‘Ageless’ was the word used most often to describe her. That’s a code word for a bare-knuckle fight with Father Time … and almost winning. Jessica was a sixties beauty who’d starred in two classic films from that era, Flower Power and Eternally Groovy, and had a torrid affair with Johnny Grimes, a rock star who OD’d in 1968.

  I did Jessica’s death investigation, and it was ugly.

  I’m Angela Richman, death investigator for Chouteau County, Missouri. Jessica had her final seizure in Chouteau Forest, the largest town in the county. Now the Forest will be branded as the place where Jessica Gray was murdered.

  I’m one of the people who serve the Forest’s old guard. I work for the county medical examiner. At a homicide, I’m in charge of the body and the police are in charge of the scene.

  Back to the murdered star. Jessica first burst on the scene in 1966 with Flower Power. Pauline Kael, then a powerful reviewer for the New Yorker, called the movie ‘a pure emotional high, and you don’t come down when the picture is over. Jessica Gray is luminous, magical. You want to see more of her.’

  And so we did, in Eternally Groovy, in 1967. That’s when we saw all of Jessica, dancing naked at a decadent party in a scene in that movie. Rumor had it that the drugs in the film were real.

  Jessica and Johnny Grimes had a passionate, drug-fueled romance. His star was ascending with hers. While Johnny was singing his way up the charts, Jessica could be seen with her flowing locks and fringed vest, dancing at Whisky a GoGo in Hollywood and the Peppermint Lounge in New York. She always wore the latest Carnaby Street fashions, and tried all the fashionable drugs.

  Rumor was
she’d killed her lover. Like many rock gods, Johnny Grimes died of a heroin overdose at age twenty-seven, joining the ‘27 Club,’ including Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse and other dazzling talents who died too young. Jessica was said to have given him the fatal dose – she’d scored some unusually pure H. She stayed out of sight for a few months, then re-emerged with a stunning performance in Powerline!, a movie that set the standard for the seventies.

  By the time Jessica came to Chouteau Forest, she was famous for being famous – and for relentlessly peddling her beauty treatment, a dried kale concoction called Captivate. She also sold a Captivating Finishing Spray for women to spritz on their face after they put on their make-up. Jessica claimed it gave them ‘the dewy look of youth.’

  I thought Jessica looked more embalmed than eternally young, but she was fashionably emaciated. Her fans saw her as a sweet, beautiful actress still mourning her lost lover. The woman I saw was bitter and caustic.

  She surrounded herself with an entourage of has-beens and wounded people. Somehow, she managed to convince America that she was a sweetheart.

  That’s why I thought Jessica was a great actress. I didn’t like anything about the woman – her politics or her cruel jokes. She attacked other women, and said if Joan Rivers ‘had another facelift she’d be bikini waxing her upper lip.’

  Jessica was a queen bee who decided pretty women got their success because they slept with an important man. Some called her a feminist because she was a show business pioneer, but I felt that feminists didn’t tear down other women. Because of her AIDS charities, Jessica had a big following with gays.

  That winter, Jessica was touring the country in a one-woman show called ‘Just Jessica.’ St Louis was the last stop on the twelve-city tour, and Chouteau Forest was thirty miles west of the city. Jessica was booked to play three nights at the Lux Theater in February. My hairstylist, Mario Garcia, was chosen to be Jessica’s local stylist. Mario was over the moon at this invitation. He had an extra ticket to Jessica’s last St Louis show, and invited me. We were also invited to the after-party at Old Reggie Du Pres’s mansion.

  Mario was honored and excited by the double invitation. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. But I feared I had no choice.

  TWO

  One bone-cold February evening, I was at home, trying to think of excuses that would get me out of going to Jessica Gray’s show at the Lux, when I got a surprise visit from Clare Rappaport.

  Clare dropped in on me two or three times a year and always said the same thing, ‘Forgive me for not calling, my dear. I’d been lunching with Old Reggie and thought I’d stop by to see you.’

  I lived in a former guest house on the Du Pres estate. Shortly before my mom went to work as the Du Pres family housekeeper, she’d worked briefly for Mrs Rappaport. Clare and my mother became friends – at least as friendly as a servant and a wealthy employer can be – and Clare stayed in touch with me after Mom died.

  I always pretended I’d expected her visit and said the same thing, ‘I’m making some coffee, Clare. Would you like some?’

  We fell easily into the old pattern this visit. ‘That would be nice,’ she said, and followed me into the kitchen. She tossed her mink coat on the couch.

  ‘Still take it black?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t changed,’ she said, but she seemed pleased that I’d remembered.

  I poured two cups of coffee and started to take them into the living room.

  ‘No, let’s sit in your kitchen,’ she said. ‘It’s homier.’

  She propped her cane against the wall and sat down at my round maple table. I knew then that she wanted to ask me for advice. Clare had the touching belief that my mother gave good advice and that I’d inherited Mom’s practical view of the world.

  I set down a plate of cookies, and she took one. I set the table with Mom’s rose-patterned dessert plates and silver, and two linen napkins. I’d have to iron them, but if anyone would appreciate that touch, it was Clare.

  It took a half hour of small talk, three chocolate chip cookies and a cup of coffee for Clare to announce, ‘I’m going to disinherit my children.’

  Now her shocking words hung in the air.

  Clare was eighty-three. She was prickly and independent, and still buzzed around the Forest in her beat-up green Land Rover, and walked with a silver-headed cane. She never seemed to change. Her snowy hair was in an elegant French twist. She wore a black St John knit pantsuit, the favorite designer for well-bred Forest dowagers. Small pearl earrings and a gold wedding band were her only jewelry. Her face was as wrinkled as fine tissue paper, and she wore light pink lipstick.

  I was stunned by her announcement. The Forest ran on two powerful forces: blood and money. It was almost impossible to separate the two.

  Disinheriting both children was the most drastic action any Forest dweller could take. Clare’s decision would reverberate through Chouteau County for years.

  Clare was incredibly rich, even by Forest standards, and believed people like me – who didn’t need her – would give her honest advice.

  During the long silence, Clare gently patted her mouth with a linen napkin and then said, ‘I know my husband Roger only married me for my money, though we were quite fond of one another.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘That can’t be true.’

  ‘The young are so romantic,’ she said, and looked at me sadly.

  ‘I’m not young. I’m forty-one.’

  ‘Not young! Wait till you get to be my age.’ She laughed.

  It wasn’t funny. Like many of the rich, elegant Clare was haunted by the thought – however hard for the rest of us to understand – that people only loved her for her money.

  ‘Now I have the same concern about my children.’

  ‘Trey? I went to school with him.’

  ‘Yes, he’s your age. Jemima is two years younger. This last year they’ve both been very neglectful. Jemima hardly ever comes to visit, and she used to see me at least once a month.

  ‘I know she has a career and two children, but she was too busy to come for Christmas, and I wanted to see her and my precious grandchildren. And Trey’ – that’s Roger the third – ‘forgot my birthday. Those were the straws that broke this camel’s back. They know both those occasions are important to me.’

  I’d lost track of Jemima and Trey after I’d left school. ‘Where do they live now?’

  ‘In St Louis. Both of them. That’s only thirty miles away. It’s not like they’re on the East Coast.’

  ‘I can understand how they can get caught up in their careers,’ I said.

  ‘Trey works for a big law firm. He has a secretary. She could have kept track of my birthday!’ Clare picked up another cookie and quickly dispatched it, then looked at me. Her faded blue eyes were bright with determination, and maybe unshed tears.

  ‘I’m going to give them a test,’ Clare said. ‘I’m telling them they must come home this Saturday – it’s imperative.’

  She crunched on the last cookie and it sounded as if small bones were breaking.

  ‘Then I’ll tell them that my attorney says I’ll be broke within a year and ask them what I should do. I’ll see which child loves me when I’m penniless.’

  ‘And if they fail the test?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll leave my money to the Forest Humane Society! I’d rather it went to the dogs than to my ungrateful children.’

  She stuck out her jaw, but one hand trembled when she set down her flowered cup.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit drastic?’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s a good test.’

  ‘I’m sure both children love you,’ I said.

  I knew my words sounded hollow and useless. Clare brushed them aside. ‘It’s always better to know the truth.’

  Clare was determined to test her children and for some reason, she wanted to tell me all about it. Maybe I had underestimated Clare. There was a tough woman under that genteel exterior.

  I wanted to change the s
ubject. ‘How’s Old Reggie?’ I asked.

  ‘In a tizzy,’ she said. ‘He’s giving a party for Jessica Gray – the actress – after her third performance on Saturday. He didn’t know whether it should be catered! I told him of course he’d have to cater it, and have a bartender, too. Otherwise, I know what he’ll serve – those awful deviled eggs, pigs in blankets, and rat cheese on crackers.’

  ‘That’s the standard menu for Forest parties,’ I said. I’d swallowed my share of cheap, dry yellow cheese on semi-stale crackers. You had to drink at a Forest party, just to get the food down.

  ‘Well, I told him it was time to hire a caterer. Otherwise, we’ll all look like hicks.’

  ‘Did he agree?’ I asked.

  ‘Finally. It took some talking. Reggie will squeeze a nickel till it begs for mercy, but he did say yes. The party’s only four days away. He’s lucky he could get someone. I gave him three names and made sure he called the caterer while I was in the room. And a good florist, while he was at it. Otherwise, he’ll put out a couple of supermarket bouquets in Waterford vases.

  ‘Really, the reputation of the Forest is at stake here.’

  I saw Clare’s determined chin quiver, and could just imagine her giving tight-fisted Old Reggie a lecture. The old man thought his presence at a party more than made up for any lack of amenities. His children did as they were told. Only an equal like Clare could confront him.

  She demurely sipped her coffee, and took a small bite of a cookie. I asked her the one question that everyone in the Forest had to answer. ‘Are you going to Jessica’s show at the Lux Theater?’