Grave Endings by Rochelle Krich Page A

room.
    I pitied Alice Creeley. Sue Ann had walked out, but Alice was the other woman, scrabbling to maintain her position in this family, holding tight to the reins of her marriage, forever competing with the beautiful wife her husband couldn’t bring himself to hate and their beautiful son. I wondered if she lay awake nights, worrying that Sue Ann would walk back into their lives.
    â€œIf he killed that woman,” Roland said when we were alone, “and I’m not saying he did . . . If he killed her, he tried to make up for it with good deeds.”
    My heart hammered in my chest. “Do you think Randy killed her, Mr. Creeley?”
    He examined his hands, as if they held the answer. Then he rubbed them on his knees. “Randy was troubled the last few months,” he said in a low voice that made me lean closer so that I could hear him. “He said it was something from his past he couldn’t fix. It filled him with despair—
his
word. I told him to talk to someone. I was afraid if he didn’t, he’d start doing drugs again. See, I think part of the reason he used drugs and liquor was so he wouldn’t have to think about what happened.”
    â€œSo you think he killed her.” It wasn’t the answer I’d come for, but it was an answer.
    â€œThe police think so. They came here to talk to Trina.
    Randy told them he’d been with her the night that woman was killed. Trina said that was so, but she would’ve said anything to help him, she loved him that much.”
    I was confused. From what Connors had told me, the police had linked Randy to Aggie’s murder through the locket they’d found in his possession
after
he’d overdosed. “Was this recently?”
    Creeley looked at me as though I’d asked him if the Earth was flat. “Not unless you consider six years ago recent.”
    â€œThe police questioned Randy six years ago about Aggie Lasher’s murder?” I stared at him. “But why would they think Randy killed this woman? He didn’t even know her.”
    â€œI don’t know where you got your information. Of course Randy knew her. He was working at the same place she was. I forget the name.”
    My chest felt as though someone had stomped on it. “Rachel’s Tent?”
    Creeley nodded. “Randy was a handyman and driver. He did other stuff there, too. He liked her a lot, you know. He told Trina all about her. But I guess something went wrong.”

thirteen
    MUSSO & FRANK GRILL IS THE OLDEST RESTAURANT IN Hollywood, a legendary Rat Pack hangout that, unlike the Brown Derby and Romanoff’s, has survived shifting economies and continues to be a favorite with screen-writers, actors, and other celebrities.
    The restaurant is a block from Frederick’s and just west of Cherokee. I parked my Acura up the street—I should probably claim a permanent spot, I thought— and passed through the back into the dimly lit front room (there is no front entrance) five minutes before noon. The few times I’ve been here I’ve come for inspiration and literary osmosis—F. Scott Fitzgerald ate (and drank) here, as did Raymond Chandler (he wrote
The
Big Sleep
here), Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, and others, including Charlie Chaplin, who liked the martinis. That was the draw, along with the Postum, and the coffee that comes in small, individual pots, and the possibility of spotting a famous screenwriter creating magic on a laptop—David Mamet, maybe, or Anthony Minghella or Callie Khouri, none of whom I ever actually saw.
    Today my mood was dark and I wasn’t interested in stargazing. In any case, I didn’t recognize any of the occupants of the high-sided red leather booths along the black wood-paneled wall to my right, or anyone seated along the bar facing the opposite wall and a brick fireplace large enough to grill a steer.
    â€œI’m meeting a friend,” I told the red-jacketed