? ? ?
THE TWO OF THEM sat at a kitchen table, drinking coffee.
“Name?” Carlos asked.
“Anita Escobar.”
“Nationality?”
“Born in Mexico, a U.S. citizen for the last seven years.”
“Tell me what happened this morning.”
“I came to work. I thought Mr. Baxter was at work, so I went into the bedroom to get the sheets and towels. I found him like that, and I called nine-one-one.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, nothing else.”
“What time was that?”
“Eight forty-five, maybe. I thought you’d get here faster.”
“It’s a very busy morning for the LAPD.” He wrote down her address and phone number. “We’ll want you to come downtown and dictate a statement to a stenographer, then sign it.”
“That’s all I have to do?”
“It’s possible somebody from the coroner’s office will want to ask you some questions, but everything seems pretty straightforward.”
“He offed himself?”
Carlos nodded. “He offed himself. Any idea why he might have done that?”
She shrugged. “He was an unhappy man. I worked here three years, and he was unhappy all that time.”
Carlos made a note of that. He went into the living room, sat down, and called Chita.
“Hello, there. Everything okay?”
“As much as a suicide can be okay.”
“How did he do it?”
“Gunshot to the temple. A bedside drawer was open, so that’s probably where he kept the gun. What’s happening there?”
“Everybody’s shocked, but not exactly surprised. When I spoke to him yesterday he said he was depressed, that he was always depressed when he finished a script. He worked with a writer yesterday. You might want to speak to him.” She gave him the name and number. “Will you be there all day?”
“I’m about done, but I’ll have to go back to the office and write my report. I should be home in time for dinner.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “I found a key under a flower pot.”
“Just keep it,” he said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
He hung up and found the tech standing there. “I’m done,” he said. “A wagon is on the way. They’ll pronounce him and get him to the morgue. I didn’t find anything to change my opinion of the circumstances.”
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Carlos said. Suddenly, he was tired, but he still had to go downtown, and he had another stop to make.
61
TEDDY WOKE UP feeling terrible.
Sally was sitting in a chair beside the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Dead of a rattlesnake bite.”
“I’ll get the doctor. Don’t die while I’m gone.” She came back with a surprisingly mature physician.
“My name is Springer,” the man said. “I guess I’ve treated a dozen or so snakebites, but you’re the first victim who brought the snake with him. A very impressive animal. How do you feel?”
“Like shit,” Teddy said.
“I’m not surprised. When they wheeled you in, you looked like a man who’d gone untreated for more than an hour after an attack.”
“I’m a little fuzzy on the timeline,” Teddy said. “Will I live?”
“Yes. The anti-venom did its work. You’re going to continue to feel like shit for a while. I don’t know if you know this, but the chances of dying from a snakebite in this country are just about zero.”
“That’s very comforting.”
“Still, you came about as close as anybody ever does, I think. A snake that size could pump a lot of venom in a very short time. How did you kill the thing?”
“With my hands,” Teddy said. “It was all I had. Listen, I need to be back at work on Monday.”
“Good luck with that,” the doctor said, “but if you want to get released from this joint, you’d better start getting better, and fast. It’s bad publicity for a patient to walk out of here and then die. Our board wouldn’t like it.”
“Doctor,” Teddy said, “you put whatever you need to in my chart, but early Monday morning, maybe sooner, I’m taking a hike.”
The doctor threw up his hands. “I’ll alert the media.” He walked out.
Someone else passed the doctor on the way in. “Good morning, Mr. Barnett,” Carlos Rivera said. “The gate guard at the Arrington told me I might find you here.”
“Welcome to my torture chamber,” Teddy said.
“I thought you might like to know that last night, Dax Baxter died.”
Teddy tried to look surprised. “Really? Did an actor or a director do it?”
“Mr. Baxter saved them the trouble,” Carlos replied. “It was suggested that I speak to you, but you seem to have a very good alibi. I saw the snake downstairs. They have it in a jar in the ER.”
“I hope they’re charging for viewings,” Teddy said.
“I just wanted to see that you’re recovering, and I can see you are.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
“I’ve got to run. I have a report to file, ‘Death by self-inflicted gunshot.’ If I don’t see you again, good luck to you.”
“Thank you,” Teddy replied, and the detective left.
Sally came and put her head on his chest. “Never a dull moment with you,” she said.
“You’re not the first to tell me that,” Teddy replied.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is probably because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.
When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open them. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.
Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions, or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.
Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Publicity Department, Penguin Random House LLC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Those ambitious folk who wish to buy film, dramatic, or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 98212-1825.
Those who wish to make offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit, 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)
If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.