Ragged Point: Death on the Rocks

"Yes, last Friday we had lunch at La Scala West, where we talked about the new series we are presenting to the networks. I'm sure you don't really want to hear the details about that. It's boring stuff to outsiders — who should we cast; what will the general storyline be for the first season, and worst of all: what will the budget be. You can check that we were there with the wait staff if you want. They all know Les. I would bet that someone could tell you when we left."

"And afterwards?" Eva seemed hopeful about this question, but this was where Linda's big lie was going to be. But if she was a little angry, it would also explain her intensity — making it harder to tell that she was telling them an out and out lie.

"After lunch Les dropped me off here and said he was going to pick up Barbara and scout out the resort at Ragged Point. I think he'd actually been there in the past, but he hadn't ever paid attention to their meeting facilities and that kind of thing." Just what I coached her to say.

"And you didn't go back to work?"

"Oh for gods sake! It was a Friday afternoon, we had just had an extended meeting about the project. There wasn't any pressing reason for me to go back," Linda stated in a firm voice. I think she was coming to believe her story was true.

"Can you PROVE that you were here?" Joe suddenly interjected.

"Yes I have proof that I was here. Art arrived home in the middle of the afternoon and we stayed here together all night."

'Great,' thought Eva. 'The husband providing the wife an alibi.'

And thank heavens, she provided me with an alibi as well. Because I was the one who needed an alibi. Going off to have a fling with your boss might be despicable, but it wasn't a crime. Frightening a man so much that he fell off a cliff — that very well might be.

Eva let Joe question me.

"So tell me, why were you home in the middle of the afternoon?"

As nervous as I was, I was happy to get this softball question. It actually calmed me down a little.

I think I may have grinned a little, "I usually work at home. I'm a writer for television shows."

When I told Joe and Eva which one, they were actually impressed and told me so.

"You capture a lot of the feel for what it's like to be an officer on the streets in a big city."

"Thanks, I appreciate that. I've talked to a lot of officers about it over the years."

"Of course, the investigations that go on in the shows are mostly shit. We don't normally have sudden big breakthroughs. We just have to work all of the details until we get a good picture of what actually happened.

"So if you usually work at home, where were you last Friday morning? Maybe you could give us a timeline," Joe pushed his question

"I was at a retreat for the series writers in Ventura, where we divvy up the work load for next year's season. I'd been there since the morning before, But a little after lunch, maybe 1:30 to 2:00, I was feeling ill, so I asked my boss if I could go home. He thought we'd finished most of the heavy lifting and told me to get out of there before I made them all sick."

Joe squinted his eyes as he asked the next question.

"So how are you feeling now? You seem pretty chipper. A quick recovery?"

"To be honest, I guess I was never really 'sick.' When I got home I had a huge dump (excuse me ma'am) and my stomach immediately felt better."

Neither Joe nor Eva wanted to follow up on that particular line of questioning.

Eva took over again at that point, looking up from her notepad where she had been writing.

"OK, so let me go over this once more. Linda has lunch with Les Holder, who drops her off here at around 2:00 PM, and you get home about an hour later at 3:00 PM and the two of you stay home the rest of the day. Right?"

Linda and I nodded, "Close enough," I added.

"Is there anyone else, neighbors or anyone who could verify that you were here that afternoon?"

I pretended to think about it, "I doubt it. Everyone in this neighborhood works during the day and, to be honest, we all more or less mind our own business. I don't know what my neighbors are up to during the day and I doubt that any of them keep track of me or Linda. But feel free to knock on doors and ask."

Joe was feeling a little feisty, since his gut told him he was getting the run around.

"Maybe we will."

Shortly afterwards they left and, indeed, they did knock on the neighbor's doors but at mid-day, as I had predicted, there was no one home.

Linda and I retreated out of sight to our bedroom at the back of the house and collapsed from the stress.

I looked at her. She returned my look rather sheepishly.

"You didn't mention that the 'staff meetings' you were going to were just you and Les," I told her in a less than happy tone of voice.

She looked down at the floor. Heck, she'd already confessed the worst of her mistakes, but I wanted it to be clear that lies of ommission were still lies in my book.

"Darling, I knew that you would be upset if you knew it was just Les and me. And he didn't do anything or even try anything. At least not then. Not until last Friday. So I thought they were just little white lies."

"Ok, Ok," I replied, "But let's not do any 'white lies' again. You've got some ass kissing to do before I'll forgive you."

"Ass kissing... hmmmm. Might be fun to try — you kiss mine, I'll kiss yours?"

"Stop that right now! Maybe giving you a spanking is what comes to mind," I growled.

"Oh NO! Daddy want to punish his little girl? That could be a turn on," she said, trying to give me a sultry look.

"You are incorrigible!"

She just smiled back at me, before turning serious.

"Art, thank you. You are the man I lean on and today you protected me from a really bad situation.

— Monday 2:15 P.M. — The Home of Lester & Barbara Holder

As the detectives drove their car towards Les and Barbara Holders house — now Barbara Holder's house, to be precise, they talked about their interview with the Jensens.

"What do you think?" Eva asked her partner.

"I'm not sure. They were hiding something, but I'm not sure what it could be. What did you think of her? Was she having an affair with this Holder guy?"

"No, I don't think so, I didn't get that vibe. But I think that maybe her boss tried something with her last Friday that made her upset. It might not even be anything sexual, it could just be about work. Maybe he told her that she wasn't performing up to par. I don't know."

Joe looked at his partner with a smile, "No one can accuse you of not being 'up to par' — not on the job and not in the sack!"

Eva fisted him in the shoulder. Not really hard, but hard enough.

"Ouch! Why did you do that? I was complementing you!"

"Just remember not to say anything like that where anyone else can hear you. I don't want all those horney guys on the squad thinking I'm up for a roll in the hay."

"Baby, you know I wouldn't do that," Joe protested.

"Just letting you know — you better not!" Eva replied, seriously. Then again, she thought, being paired up with Joe might not be that bad a thing. He was a hell of a lot better man than her ex.

Come to think of it, she hadn't even thought of doing a hit on her ex since she and Joe had gotten it on. That was a step in the right direction.

At Barbara Holder's house they were admitted by a middle-aged Latina housekeeper who walked them into the living room where Barbara sat.

Barbara was wearing black and no makeup (Eva noted.) She also had swollen eyes that told the detectives that she had been crying until recently.

"Ma'am, we're sorry to disturb you, but we have to ask some questions to clear a few things up," a much more subdued Joe said after they had introduced themselves to each other.

Before either Joe or Eva could get in a question, Barbara interupted their flow.

"Do you have any idea of when the Coroner will release Les' body? I need to know so I can tell the people who will be handling the funeral and burial." Les was going to be buried in one of the Hollywood cemetaries filled with other stars and members of the Hollywood elites. They expected a huge funeral, with hundreds invited and thousands standing there watching, hoping to see their favorites actors and actresses. Ghouls, Barbara thought. Paparazzi by the scores.

Joe decided to field that one, "I'm not sure, but I think he figured that he would finish the autopsy by the middle to end of this week. Unless something very strange showed up, he will release it then. I don't expect that though: we are virtually certain that he died from head wounds suffered from the fall over the cliff."

Barbara looked at him with a shrewd look on her face, "Then, if you know what killed him, why are you down here asking questions?"

Joe and Eva looked at each other as another one of those unspoke communications went between them: this lady was sharp and wasn't anyone to triffle with.

"There are still a few questions around the circumstances of his death. He drove up to the resort in his car, maybe with a woman in the car with him. But when they found his body, the car was gone. Do you know anything about that?"

Barbara almost laughed, "Of course. I know ALL about it."

Now came the narrative that I'd crafted with Barbara.

"Les picked me up here after he'd had lunch with Linda. Then he and I drove up to the Ragged Point resort."

"So where were you when he fell over the cliff?" asked Eva, wondering if she was going to get a confession from the wife, a la 'I killed him in a fit of jealousy.'

"I decided to drive back home. You see, this was supposed to be a mini-vacation for the two of us. A time to reconnect and have a lot of sex, go out to romantic dinners, the whole thing. But after talking to Linda about the series at lunch, Les had a lot of ideas that he wanted to think out. So he was obsessing. That's just the way he is — or was, I guess," Barbara fought back the tears and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

"So I asked him straight out if he wanted to be alone to think things through or if he wanted to put it aside and spend his time and attention on me. We were always honest about those kinds of things.

"He told me he wanted to go through things in his mind, so if it didn't bother me, I could just take off. I knew he'd make it up to me some other time. I wasn't distubed by it. It was just how his creative process worked.

"So we arrived, he checked in and got the keys and retrieved his luggage from the trunk. I went into the room just long enough to use the bathroom, then I drove back home."

Eva looked puzzled, "If you took his car, how was he supposed to get home?"

Barbara looked at her as if she was an idiot.

"He would call when he was ready and I'd tell the limo service to send up a car to bring him back, of course." She said it as if it were something ANYONE would do in the circumstances.

Joe and Eva glanced at each other again. Joe raised his eyebrows an shrugged. The rich are different he seemed to imply.

Eva still didn't want to let a few things go.

"Mrs. Holder," she began.

"Call me Barbara."

"OK. Barbara, I'm still curious abut your husband's lunch with Linda Jensen before he picked you up."

Barbara just nodded her head.

"Did you know about this?"

"Yes, absolutely. Les told Linda it was to go over the new show that they are preparing, but he and I had discussed it before. It was, in truth, something of a final interview for Les to see if Linda was ready to be promoted and to head up a new project on her own. One of our producers is ready to retire — well, he would like to keep his fingers tightly wrapped on his job, but he's too old to understand the sensibilities of the younger generation. In other words, we are pushing him out to make room for Linda in the organization."

"And what was the verdict?" injected Joe, with a sly play on words.

"He was going to make the announcement of her promotion sometime this week."

"And now?"

"I will be making the announcement," she stated.

"You're taking control of the company?" Eva asked, a little shocked.

"On Les' death, I'm the majority shareholder, and we had already set up the succession years ago, if anything were to happen to him."

Barbara then stood up and made it clear that the interview was over. Her housekeeper immediately arrived in the room (she must have been listening, waiting for her que) and showed the pair out of the house.

— Monday 4:00 P.M. — Ventura '101' Freeway

"Well that's quite a motive," Eva proclaimed. Joe nodded.

As they drove up through the Valley back towards San Luis Obispo, they talked about the interviews.

"You know, I think I've figured out what's been bothering me about this whole case. It's like it was all scripted out with everyone just playing their role," Joe said, reflecting on the day they had spent investigating.

Eva chuckled at her partner's observation, "And we even have a script writer as a potential suspect!"

They both agreed that was an absurd thought.

As they reached Ventura, Joe was about to stop at the resort where Art's retreat had been, but before they reached the Seaside off-ramp his phone rang. It was the Sheriff.

"Yeah boss?"

"Joe, got a couple of pieces of new information for you. First, the owner of the Ragged Point Resort called to tell us that it was Holder's wife in the car. He talked to the woman who had been on the desk and found out she'd told us she thought there was a woman but couldn't see who it was. According to him, he knew that Mr. and Mrs. Holder were coming up for the weekend. Second, the Coroner didn't find any evidence of foul play. Holder was boozed up enough that the most likely scenario is that he tripped over the wall and fell down and when he tried to get back up, he lost his balance and fell backwards over the cliff. His injuries are consistant with his head hitting the rocks and killing him. So his verdict is 'death by misadventure' unless you have some hard evidence to tell me otherwise."

Joe started to say that he wanted to investigate some more, but Eva grabbed his phone.

"Sheriff, we didn't find anything that would make us believe that he was murdered and we answered most of our questions. Unless some dramatic new piece of evidence surfaces, we'll go along with the accidental death too." Eva said good bye and hung up.

Joe was clearly unhappy.

"Joe, sweetheart, I know you've still got some concerns about how this went down. But anything more we would do would just be wasting time on a fishing expedition. Let's just close this one, OK?"

A morose Joe just nodded his head, before looking out the window.

"Joe? We don't have to get all the way back tonight. Let's stop in Santa Barbara and get ourselves a hotel room. There are a few things I want to try out with you. Please, big boy?"

At that, Joe turned his head back toward Eva, finally smiling, "Sure baby, let's do it. We can grab some dinner there too."

— Hooray for Hollywood! — After the Death of Lester Holder

I was still on edge for a couple more days, until the notice was published in the papers and picked up on the internet that the San Luis Obispo Conorner's office had determined that Les Holder's death was the result of an accidental fall from the top of a cliff onto the rocks 200 feet below. 'Death by Misadventure' they called it.

Even then, I warned Linda and Barbara — no loose lips. They sink ships, after all.

Linda was still showing me her gratitude in the sack every night for backing up her lie. I was smiling and tentatively positive that the police wouldn't bother reopening a case that seemed to be 99%+ in favor of being an accident.

No one had said anything that contradicted the story that I'd put together. There weren't any cops coming up and putting their hand on my shoulder say, "Arthur Jensen, you are under arrest for the murder of Lester Holder." Not so far anyway.

The following week, Barbara Holder did in fact announce that Linda was being promoted to a senior producer. Merv or Marv, whatever his name was, did retire under threat from his wife who wanted to spend her golden years traveling abroad and visiting her children and grandchildren. Marv was wise enough to go along.

The last word on the whole incident was when I got a call about six-months later from Barbara, who wanted to meet for lunch (and the answer is, YES, I did tell Linda about the lunch. No more lies by ommission!)

Barbara hadn't kept her figure by eating out at Italian joints all the time, so La Scala was out. Instead we met at a place that mainly catered to the rabbit food and tofu crowd. They did serve good coffee though.

After getting our order in, she started the discussion.

"Art, I don't know what REALLY happened up there when Lester went over the side of the cliff, but I have my doubts that it went down exactly the way you told it. But, never mind that, because it doesn't matter. I want to thank you however you did it.

"You have to understand that I was very worried that I was about to join the 'Hollywood First Wives' club, with Michael Landon's wife and Michael Douglas' wife, and all the others.

"Lester was getting kind of spooky on me. Really restless; disappearing at times where no one (I mean not even his P.A. Victoria!) knew where he was or what he was doing. I think that I was on my way out. Don't get me wrong, I would have ended up quite comfortable as long as HE divorced me (so the prenup wouldn't kick in.) But, damn it! I really loved the man and just the thought of a divorce was killing me.

"But his death, from an unavoidable accident, allowed me to take over the business and be a respectable widow, free from scandal, without having been 'rejected.' So it worked out for the best in the long run. At least for me. I might even start dating again one of these days. Not yet, though."

I just nodded my head in the affirmative. Call me paranoid, but I wasn't going to confirm anything and I didn't think that Barbara would let me search her to see if she was wearing a wire. Not that anyone actually uses a wire anymore when their stupid-ass phone will do the same thing.

Barbara continued, "I understand from Linda that the series that you've been working on is coming to an end?"

"Yes ma'am. After 6 years and 80 episodes. We've had a good run. They'll package it with the other two shows in the series and syndicate the whole kit and caboodle. " Syndication is where the real money rolls in!

"Are you worried about your next gig?" she politely inquired.

"I think that I have a good rep in town and I'm sure someone will pick me up," I replied with far more confidence than I actually felt.

"You know what, Art? I have a concept for a murder mystery — made for TV movie — that I would like you to consider writing the script for."

"Oh really?" I said, not having to feign interest, because a job is a job, and if I got in with Barbara, it could last a long time. I guess it didn't disqualify me that Linda was one of her successful producers these days.

"What's the 'hook'" I asked, meaning 'what is the plot element that is at the center of the story?'

"I was thinking of a situation where the husband kills his wife's lover accidentally, but his wife gives him an alibi, all the while thinking that HE is providing HER with an alibi. The cops can't find enough evidence to charge them and they get off and live happily ever after. What do you think?"

"I could write that script..."

THE END

{?}

I have to thank a couple of friends who read my stories through and give me feedback. They are utility fielders, willing to tell me about my errors in spelling, punctuation, plot, continuity — in other words anything they find. My friend Marty suggested the introduction with the older British couple discovering the body and at my request, even wrote a first draft of the paragraph! Thank you gentlemen.