Eleventh Hour

“That’s right,” Dane said. He sat back, leaned his head against the seat, and closed his eyes. “No one called at all to tell us. You know, of course, that I left my card with every sentient employee at the nursing home.”

Savich didn’t say anything else. He pulled out of the studio and onto Pico Boulevard, crammed with traffic and blaring horns. “First things first,” he said.

Because of heavy traffic, it was forty-five minutes before they exited 405 and wound up Mulholland Drive to Frank Pauley’s glass house. The surrounding hills were dry, too dry.

FiFi Ann, in her French maid’s outfit, the little white cap on her hair, answered the door and stared at Dane’s arm in its blue sling.

“Somebody bring you down, Agent?”

“Yeah, a Harley.”

“Dangerous fuckers,” FiFi Ann said, leaned down, and smoothed her black-latticed pantyhose.

“We’d like to see Mrs. Pauley,” Sherlock said.

“Come with me,” FiFi Ann said, straightening, and turned on her stiletto heels.

Belinda was drinking a cup of coffee by the blue swimming pool, wearing a very brief bikini, pale pink.

Both men froze in place for a good six seconds, eyes fixed on her.

Sherlock went right up to her and said, “Nice-colored Band-Aids you’re wearing, Belinda.”

“Yes, aren’t they?” Belinda set down her coffee cup and rose, stretched a bit, knowing very well the impact she was having on the men. She grinned at Sherlock. “I like pink. It does wonderful things for my skin.”

“All shades of pink look great with my red hair. Aren’t we lucky?”

Belinda laughed, grabbed a cover-up, and slipped it on.

“That’s better,” Nick said. “Now the guys can breathe and get their pulses back down below two hundred.”

“Okay, Belinda,” Sherlock said, pulling her chair close, “tell me why you didn’t call me last night the minute you realized episode three was on?”

She didn’t say anything for almost a full minute. Then she got up and walked to the edge of the kidney-shaped swimming pool and stuck her foot in the water. She turned slowly, looked at each of them in turn, and said simply, with no attempt to excuse herself, “I wanted to see what would happen.”

Nick nearly fell into a wildly blooming purple bougainvillea. “You what?”

Belinda shrugged. “You see, I never really believed that the first two episodes were blueprints for those murders. I thought it was at best a stretch, that the police and FBI had just latched onto them because they were close to actual crimes that they couldn’t solve. Listen, my role in this show is a good one. It’s a solid stepping-stone for me. With the show canceled nobody’s going to see me, which means I’m going to have trouble getting another good part. Of course, you, Sherlock, knew I lied to Detective Flynn and Inspector Delion this morning when I told them that I’d taken sleeping pills before the show started and simply fell asleep even before the show was over.”

“Yeah,” Sherlock said. “They were very angry at you. I think Detective Flynn came this close”—she pinched her fingers nearly together—“to arresting you for malicious mischief. So what you’re saying now is that you—just like that fool Norman Lido at channel eight—wanted to see what would happen.”

“I wanted people to see me, to see what a good actress I am, to realize that they want to see more of me, not that meathead Joe Kleypas, who’s always rubbing his fingers over his stomach so women will notice his abs. You know, the more I think of it, the more I think it was Joe who sent episode three to channel eight. He’s hungry. He knew, just like I did, that The Consultant is a winner. He even laid off the booze he was so hyped about the role. Then all this happened. It isn’t fair.”

She toed the water, shrugged, but didn’t look at them. “I’m really sorry if more people die, but who knows, maybe they would anyway.”

“Don’t even try to excuse what you did,” Sherlock said. “It was a really low thing to do.” She got up from her lounge chair, walked to Belinda at the side of the pool, looked her in the eye, and said, “I am personally very disappointed in you, Belinda.” Sherlock shoved her into the water, and walked to the others, not looking back.

She heard a sputtering cough behind her, then, oddly, laughter. “Good shot, Sherlock,” Belinda yelled out.

Sherlock still didn’t turn around to look at her. She said, “I think it’s time we went to Bear Lake. Weldon told them he wouldn’t be at the nursing home until late afternoon.”