Killer Ambition - [30]

“Get back to work.”

Bailey gave me a little smile. “That’s my girl.”

I returned her smile as best I could and turned my thoughts back to the case. I’d been planning to do something. After a few moments, I remembered what it was. “Can you get me to a quiet place where I can call the aunt?”

“How about we hit a place for breakfast and you can call from the car?”

Just minutes ago I would’ve gagged at the thought of food. But suddenly the idea of breakfast felt comforting, and I heard my stomach grumble. “Is there an IHOP around?”

Bailey raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t my usual fare. “If not that, then at least its equivalent.”

A few minutes later she pulled into a Coco’s and went inside to score us a table. Trying not to get distracted by the enticing smell of grease and bacon, I punched in Janice Maher’s number. By the third ring I was preparing to leave another message when I heard a click. A distracted-sounding voice said, “Yes?”

I introduced myself and explained that I was calling because Hayley hadn’t been seen in the past few days and her parents were concerned. “We have evidence that Brian bought two plane tickets to New York, and told his boss that he was going to visit his aunt in New York for a week. So we thought he was probably intending to visit you. We wouldn’t ordinarily bother you with this, but Hayley is only sixteen and, naturally, her parents are very concerned.”

I deliberately didn’t tell her Hayley’s last name, because I thought she might recognize it. I hoped that if I kept it low-key, the aunt wouldn’t feel she had to lie to protect Brian.

“Well, now I’m concerned too,” she said, without hesitation. “I haven’t heard from Brian for about a month. In fact I was about to call him and check in. No one’s heard from either of them?”

“Not for the past four days.” Could that be right? Only four days? It felt like weeks.

“Do you suppose they ran away together? I can’t believe Brian would do something like that. It’s completely unlike him.” I’d expected that reaction, but she seemed genuinely concerned, and sincere. “Have you spoken to his friends?” she asked, her tone worried.

Based on what we’d learned so far, he didn’t have any. I wondered how well she knew her nephew. No time like the present to find out. “If you have the names of his friends, I’d be glad to take them down.”

“I…I don’t. He never told me about any friends. Only people he worked with.”

I thought we probably already had those, but I took down the co-workers’ names she could remember anyway.

“Did Brian stay with you after his mother died?”

“Yes. He was only sixteen at the time, so I brought him out here to finish school.”

“But he wound up in L.A.-”

She sighed. “Yes. He said he wanted to be a television writer, like his father. His plan was to save up the money to go to college out there and see if he could break in by getting a job as a production assistant. I told him that it’s a very hard road, with lots of competition, but Brian was determined.”

“Even though…?”

“You know about that,” she said flatly. “I never knew for sure whether that man really did steal Tommy’s script. But Tommy became a complete basket case over it…”

“I’m so sorry, Janice. I can only imagine how awful that must’ve been.”

“It was. It was a terrible thing.” Her voice shook a little. “What killed me was that he was a really terrific writer. In fact, I always thought he was better than me. I kept telling him to get out of Hollywood and write novels. But he wouldn’t listen.” Janice gave a heavy sigh.

“I hope you don’t mind. I’d like your opinion regarding things we’ve heard about Tommy.”

“All right.” But her voice was wary. I’d probably feel the same in her position.

“People who’d worked with him on the show said he complained a lot about other writers lifting his stories and his lines-”

“He wasn’t the paranoid type, if that’s what you mean. If he said it, then I’d bet it was true. Now, I’m not saying he couldn’t have been mistaken at times. But there was probably some truth to it.”

“Did he talk to you about the show, or the other writers?”

“Not much.” Janice paused. “As you can tell, I wasn’t a big fan of Hollywood. He didn’t want to hear me tell him yet again that he should get out, so he didn’t talk about it much. But of course, he did tell me when that man stole his screenplay.”

“So he didn’t complain to you about the other writers stealing his lines or anything?”

“No. He called them untalented hacks, but he didn’t say anything about stealing from him.”

I hadn’t considered the possibility before, but now I wondered whether those stories of Tommy’s constant accusations were just hype generated after the fact to explain his suicide.

“Had you ever known him to be suicidal before?”

“Never. Oh, he could be morose. He certainly had his moods. But suicidal? Not even a hint of it. That’s why I had an investigator look into his death. I thought it might be a homicide that’d been covered up to look like a suicide.”

I thought people read too much crime fiction. Then it occurred to me that Janice might be a thriller writer, so I kept that thought to myself.