Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun Read online

  "And I need to know her?" I said with just enough flippancy to set Mother off.

  "Well, maybe you don't!" Mother had her back up faster than a hound. I recognized my error immediately and tried to calm her down, but Dad was grinning at me as if to say I was in for it now.

  "Maybe you already know everyone you need to know, and maybe I don't know anyone who would be of interest to someone from Los Angeles, but then maybe I do!" She slapped her address book into my hand like forceps.

  I escaped to the den to make the call, thoroughly ashamed at how quickly I could turn into a thirteen-year-old girl around my mother. I left my phone number on Callie Rivers's answering machine, saying only that I was Lu Richfield's daughter, and then I fell into line behind Elmo, who was already headed for the guestroom. In one graceful gallump, he hoisted his huge frame onto the bed and burrowed into the soft quilt. I was about to hoist him off when Mother appeared in the doorway. "Leave him alone! He can't hurt that quilt. It needs washing anyway." A graceful lie on her part. In minutes Elmo and I had buried our heads into the quilt's downy folds and were asleep. We'd both reached basset nirvana.

  The phone rang at midnight, awakening me. A voice on the other end sounded so bright and chipper that I had to check the clock to make sure it wasn't morning. "Teague? Did I wake you? Sorry, I always assume everyone keeps my hours. This is Callie Rivers. Your mother's friend," she said, and there was something in her voice that made me feel as if a hand had gently swept the back of my neck, causing my hair to stand on end.

  "Why don't you come over?" she asked.

  "Now?"

  "My days are pretty booked." She recited her address and hung up before I could object.

  I stared at the phone and shook my head like Elmo when he's baffled or disturbed. "I can go back to bed, and toss and turn and analyze her call, or I can do as the lady asks and show up," I said to Elmo. "I've done crazier things. Maybe she'll tell me who tried to kill Barrett and me, or who killed Frank Anthony, or maybe she'll tell me when I'll meet my true love." Elmo yawned, letting me know he was particularly bored with the last topic.

  I crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, still rationalizing my behavior to Elmo, who hated his nights interrupted. "I might as well go tonight, because God knows, I'd rather face killers in the front yard than have Mother ask me one more freaking time if I've called her friend Callie Rivers." I ran a brush through my hair. "How weird is this appointment time? But a lot of older people can't sleep at night. Maybe Callie Rivers is just an insomniac and she's making it pay off for her by scheduling late-night appointments. It's something about her voice. I feel like I know her from somewhere." I checked myself out in the mirror. "If she's wearing bones around her neck, I'll bring you one." I chucked Elmo under the chin and he groaned, indicating I should turn out the light.

  I drove west toward the river, where a pair of high-rise condos punctured the heavens. I parked directly in front of the entrance, entered the ornate marble lobby, and waited for the gold-encrusted elevator doors to open and take me up to the twelfth floor. Once upstairs, the doors opened to face a beautiful gold and black bull's-eye mirror hanging over an antique marble table supporting a vase of fresh mauve tulips. Not a bad place to live, I thought, and rang the bell to apartment 1201.

  The door swung open to reveal a drop-dead gorgeous blonde. Her hair swept back off her fabulous features as if some heavenly wind blew it in that direction as she sailed across the sky on angel wings. Her pale and perfect skin and ethereal blue eyes almost stopped my heart.

  "You're Callie Rivers?" I asked breathlessly.

  "And you're Teague." She hugged me, pressing her soft cheek against mine, and to my delight bumped me ever so lightly with her pelvis, the kind of bump that could have been accidental, or not.

  "Come in, please." I followed her trail of orgasmic perfume, pretending to check out the floor-to-ceiling glass that provided a nice view of the river, and the beamed ceilings and white walls that gave the place the airiness of a chapel, but mostly I was checking out her fabulously small, tight ass and wondering how any one woman could have such a diminutive derriere and such voluptuous breasts both at the same time. What an amazing package! The sexual tension on my part was palpable. For the first time in my life, I understood how it felt to be a teenage boy. I didn't care if she were the biggest psychic airhead on the planet or if she could conjugate a verb, I just wanted to take her to bed right now and make love to her, or fuck her, or both. The room felt full of her, and that fullness danced around me like electricity.

  "That's a very unusual ring." She took my right hand, and I hoped she'd never let go.

  "It was a gift I bought myself after selling my first script," I said to impress her. It was a wide band of gold with diamonds of varying sizes set alongside ruby and aquamarine teardrops. She studied it for a moment, her mind somewhere in the past.

  "Lu said you wanted to know about the Anthony murder. Should you pursue the story, right? What time is it?"

  I told her it was 12:47 a.m. She moved to a bank of computers, punched in some data, along with the time, 12:47, and hit a button. A moment later a strange circular wheel covered in astrological symbols rolled off the printer.

  "This is a horary chart. You like documentation. Read this page," she commanded, handing me a thick book on horary astrology.

  I tried to read what was on the page. Something about ancient civilizations employing crude forms of horary astrology to answer questions of import, like who will win the battle at dawn, but I was too distracted by her to care about battles at dawn unless they involved Callie Rivers and took place on clean sheets.

  "The king would call in his priests and ask the question. They would draw up a chart at the moment the question was asked, because that was the moment of greatest emotional intensity. The priests would interpret the chart and give the king his answer," Callie explained.

  "So if they were right, they lived and prospered. If they were wrong, they were dead wrong. Hollywood should employ that practice during pilot season." I wanted her to think I was funny, but it didn't seem to be working.

  She studied the astrology chart carefully, picked up a pen and drew a few foreign-looking symbols on it, then sank back onto a white leather couch. "This is huge! Frank Anthony had something on someone. Oh, look at this, Mars Combust the Sun."

  I feigned interest in the chart so I could join her on the couch. "So, what does that mean exactly?"

  "Murder by fire, maybe? Well, that's really not the question, is it? I would say you should drop the story if you're easily frightened." She leaned in to study it more closely. Only a moment before, she had appeared to be a golden flea, flitting across the room; now she took on an aura of light and strength.

  "No, you can't avoid it. Mercury is retrograding toward Mars Combust the Sun. There will be something explosive about this story. The Fourth House Cusp represents the end of the matter. In this case, the Fourth House Cusp is ruled by Mars. The Moon, co-ruler of the Ascendant, representing you, the querent, is conjunct Mars. Moon, Mars, and Sun are all quincunx Pluto in Sagittarius in the Twelfth House. Sagittarius being a fire sign, Twelfth House being in secret. To me it signifies death by fire behind the scenes. Here's something interesting, Jupiter at zero degrees Gemini in the Fifth House of creativity means the story will be big." She paused and glanced heavenward. "You have something they want. I feel that psychically. Expertise maybe, although it feels like something tangible."

  My head had started to hum and my body was tingling. I felt as if I'd been pleasantly drugged. I stared at her, not hearing a word she said, just wondering how anyone this gorgeous could be here with me. "Are you married?" I interrupted her.

  She smiled at me. "Right now you need to know about the Anthony murder. Mercury is conjunct Venus. Conjunct, within a five-degree orb, let's say, for argument's sake. And in this instance, that conjunction would seem to indicate a beneficial relationship between you and a woman. Maybe you'll be pro
tected by a woman, because that conjunction falls in your Seventh House of partnerships and/or open enemies. Nonetheless, it's all quincunx Pluto in your Twelfth House, which again could indicate hidden danger." She looked up and caught me staring hopelessly into her eyes.

  "We'd work well together. Good energy." She smiled at me. "You're shy. People don't know that about you. And you live in your head a lot." She gave me a sly grin.

  I felt the heat of embarrassment rising up around my collar, as if she could see every sexual fantasy that had ever gone through my head.

  "You need to know that in relation to this Anthony murder, I see someone who has been very, very frightened.. .unable to sleep nights. This person phoned the dead man just before he died."

  It was evident to her that I wasn't paying attention, and that no amount of schooling in the art of astrology was going to take place tonight. I was hopeless.

  Callie sat back on the couch and took a deep breath, silent for a while, as if deciding whether or not to confide in me. "What am I going to do about you?" she said softly, looking at me with eyes that were on fire.

  "Anything you want," I breathed.

  "You were promised to me, Teague," she said quietly.

  I felt my groin tighten with exquisite pain. "Promised to you?"

  "Through my dreams. A partner is coming into my life. You're five foot seven, aren't you? And you wear only Italian shoes, you brush your hair up off your face, and you never take off that unusual ring." She was so spectacularly beautiful that I wondered if she was crazy, the wrong ratio of sexiness to synapses.

  She must have read my mind. "You're really not ready for me. It will take time."

  "I am absolutely ready for you." I pulled her in too quickly and put my mouth on hers too abruptly. She pushed me away as if to end it. Then suddenly, she gave in, sliding her tongue inside my mouth, where it belonged, wet and hot and wanting, sliding and coupling with my own, our pulse and our breathing intensifying with Bolero-like speed until our bodies were writhing in rhythm to the sub-lingual-cum-labial dance of our tongues, creating a heat flash that exploded across my body like an atomic blast.

  My knees buckled. Callie Rivers could by-God kiss! In an instant she had set me on fire. I was personally and undeniably Combust the Sun. I was also wet in every orifice of the human anatomy that had any capacity to create moisture, as if my body were trying to save itself from the flames. Callie slowly slid out of my grasp and pushed me gently out the door. "Play that in your head," she said, and the door clicked shut in my face. I stood in the hallway, swaying like a drunk, my mind as unsteady as my body.

  What in hell just happened? How did it happen so fast? I don't even know this woman, and I'm hooked on her. She said we were destined for each other. Richfield and Rivers. Perfect. The Psycho and the Psychic. But no amount of mental sarcasm could destroy the feeling I was experiencing. I knew I'd been struck by an uncommon meteor, something one sees only once in a lifetime, someone who was destined to change my life.

  The night sky suddenly seemed clearer, the stars more radiant, the moon much shinier, and life itself seemed to hold infinite possibilities.

  As I approached my car, I was jolted back into my body by the sight of a dark blob on my windshield. I looked around to see if there was anyone else in the parking lot, but I was alone. I told myself to snap out of it and pay attention. I was in danger. I moved cautiously toward the car and then decided to open the rear door and grab a flashlight before approaching the blob. I flashed the light on the windshield and panned across it. The hair on my arms stood up in fear. Globs of barely coagulated blood spelled out, "Retern it."

  I wanted to stand in the parking lot and shout for the little coward to come out, but suddenly the idea of being tracked by someone who couldn't spell two-syllable words was more frightening than dodging Hannibal Lecter. I jumped in my car and turned on the windshield wipers, heading down Riverside at seventy miles an hour, my head swiveling around like Linda Blair's in the Exorcist as the red liquid ran off my windshield in rivulets. I knew whoever was tailing me wasn't going to give up. How did they know I was here tonight? No one knew that. No one except Callie Rivers. My heart sank as I contemplated the fact that Callie Rivers could be involved in all this.

  Chapter Five

  I lay in bed awake—wide awake—rewinding the entire evening. Callie Rivers was the most phenomenal person I'd ever met. How could she have had anything to do with the message on my car window? She couldn't have. She was my mother's friend, for God's sake! Nonetheless, I assured myself that I would be sensible about the whole thing and do some more checking on her.

  If need be, I'll ask her point-blank if she's involved. I want to see her again anyway.

  The mere thought of seeing her again triggered all my fantasies. Callie had embedded her taste, her touch, her smell, into my senses, until I felt her presence all around me. I thought about her, holding my breath, closing my eyes and focusing on what kissing her had felt like. Nearly cramping with the erotic pain, I could almost visually recreate it, that orgasmic moment when mind and body separate on a viscous white wave of ecstasy. Callie was right. I played it in my head. I placed a pillow between my legs to stop the throbbing. I wished I were the self-gratification type, able in a few strokes to end my own longing, but if ever there were a service improved by outsourcing, lovemaking was it.

  The light seeped in through the shutters and I was aware it was dawn. No sleep, and yet I leapt out of bed, happy and looking like I'd slept twelve hours. Standing on the scales, I realized I'd lost three pounds. "If we could bottle sexual ecstasy, Elmo, we would all look like supermodels."

  I bounced into the kitchen and wished Mom and Dad a happy forty-second anniversary, telling Mom I'd seen her friend Callie Rivers last night.

  "Did you like her?"

  "I did." I tried to sound nonchalant. "So what do you know about her?"

  "She likes women," Dad interjected without looking up from the paper.

  "What does that mean?" I asked absently.

  "It's not even a compound sentence, Teague. Figure it out." Dad looked at me over the top of his glasses.

  "She likes everyone." Mother covered for anyone Dad attacked. "Just when you think you know her, though, she surprises you."

  I buried my face in a section of the morning paper, not wanting to seem overly interested in Callie Rivers. My eyes came to rest on the newspaper accounts of Frank Anthony's death. The first article speculated that he was killed because his company was involved in a greenmail takeover of a publishing house back East. A second report said it was a case of mistaken identity, since Frank had put his shoes in locker 34, a locker that didn't belong to him. The third report said they had not ruled out suicide. The police never ruled out suicide in Oklahoma. Even when a guy had to shoot himself in the stomach, then in the head, and then set himself on fire afterward.

  I thought about giving Detective Curtis a call to report the road race with Raider and last night's message on my windshield, but so far Curtis had been useless as tits on a boar and he had no jurisdiction in Oklahoma, so I called Wade Garner instead. Wade was a big, handsome, square-jawed police sergeant of infinite good sense who'd befriended me when I did my short stint as a member of the local police department. I got him on the phone, and after a few quick pleasantries, told him about the guy who'd attacked Barrett at Orca's, then me in the parking garage, and then I told him about the incident on the highway in Texas.

  "Same guy?" he asked.

  "No, guy in L.A. was Latin with a spider tattoo at his left eye. The guy on the highway was some blond kid."

  "What the hell ya doin' makin' guys mad at ya coast to coast?"

  "It's a knack," I said, and I could hear him grinning. He took down the license plate number and ran a check while I waited.

  "Vehicle's been junked. Somebody probably stole the plates and put 'em on your road-rager's car. I'll turn the report over to auto theft and see what they find."

  "Last night after o
ne a.m., I go out to my car and there's blood on the windshield..."

  "Does this story ever end? Where were you?"

  "Riverside Drive," I said and gave him the exact address.

  "Doin' what?"

  I hesitated, not wanting to say it. "Seeing a psychic, a friend of my mother's." Wade held his mouth away from the phone and belly-laughed. "So how come you didn't know there was blood bein' put on your car while you were talking to the psychic?"

  "And..." I interrupted him loudly, "the blood spelled out 'Retern It.'"

  "Return what? Hey, ask the psychic!" He burst out laughing again. "Man, you need a keeper. Let me see if the security cameras caught anything. Am I gonna see ya this trip?"

  "Yeah, if you get your glasses fixed," I said, and he snorted.

  From the newspaper accounts, it appeared that Frank Anthony's demise would make a good movie. It had wealth, power, Hollywood ties, and murder, for starters. I decided just to show up at the Anthony mansion and see what I could learn. As I selected an appropriately somber blazer for the occasion, I stepped over Elmo twice. The danger of my tripping and falling on him was not enough for him to give up his comfortable spot on the floor. "I know, Elmo, since I'm your only meal ticket, that you're worried about how I'm going to get into the Anthony mansion without being arrested." Elmo kept his eyes fixed on me. "I simply create a fabulous lie and then convince myself it's the truth, since there's truth in all things. And because I believe it's the truth, others will believe it as well. Just as I believe that you are truly not a dog, but a person in a dog suit." Elmo rolled his eyes and began to lick a decidedly private part of his anatomy. "Stop that, or your lips will never touch mine!" Elmo ceased licking. "Thank you," I said, and patted him goodbye on his big soft head.

  There were a half dozen Jags and Ferraris parked out in front of the Anthony mansion. When I rang the bell, a uniformed servant answered, looking appropriately solemn. I said I was a friend of the family's. He indicated a room to the left of the massive entry hall and said, in a tone reminiscent of Max's in Sunset Boulevard, "Madam is receiving in the parlor."