Marcia Clark - Killer Ambition

“This is it.” If I hadn’t been parked in front of it and looking hard, I’d never have seen it.

I pointed out a discreet black metal box mounted on an arm in the brick wall, and Bailey pushed the button. A voice that sounded like a British butler’s said, “Yes?” Bailey identified us, and he told us to hold out our badges. I couldn’t see any cameras, but I didn’t imagine he’d have asked us to do that just for giggles, so I held them outside the window, not sure where to aim them. After a couple of seconds the gates swung open, and Bailey steered up the brick lined road.

Los Angeles has some of the most outrageously opulent manses in the country and Bailey and I had seen our share over the years, but nothing compared to this. The road opened to a bricked-in area that was the size of half a football field, in the middle of which was a massive Italian Renaissance-style fountain, complete with cherubs’ and lions’ heads that spewed water. Towering over the grounds was a palatial two-story Tudor-style house all in that same matching brick. It was tastefully covered in ivy that obediently climbed where it best accented the archways and latticed windows and formed a large L around the perimeter of the front area. Judging just by what I could see from the outside, that “house” was at least thirty-five thousand square feet if it was an inch.

Bailey parked and we both stepped out of the car and took in the view.

“Damn,” said Bailey under her breath.

“A quaint little ‘starter.’”

By the time we’d made it up to the arched brick entry, the door was open and a slender man in his fifties, with thinning hair combed neatly back and dressed in a cardigan and dark slacks, beckoned us in.

“Right this way, please.”

We were eventually ushered into a room that was sectioned off by furniture groupings of leather couches, ottomans, and cherrywood tables. Large wall-mounted flat screens hung on opposite walls. The room was big enough that both could be watched at the same time without anyone suffering noise interference. I supposed it was what the Realtors called a “great” room. Cozy.

Several people had gathered and the room buzzed with tension, though no one was moving. It was an odd sensation, as if everyone were vibrating in place. A tall wire whip of a man approached me with a smooth, athletic stride. Something about him looked familiar. I studied the brows that arched expressively over green eyes, the full lips, the faint spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and the dampish, freshly showered-looking dark red hair that curled down the sides of his neck. When recognition hit, shock made the name spring from my mouth. “Mattie!”

A brief look of annoyance was quickly replaced by a self-deprecating smile; it got me at first, but there was a too-polished feeling about the expression that said he’d probably been working it from his earliest child-star days. “Right.” He held out his hand. “Though I actually go by Ian Powers.”

We shook, and I collected myself. “Sorry,” I said. “I just wasn’t expecting-”

Ian Powers held up a hand. “Hey, don’t apologize. At my age, I’m only glad that people can still recognize me.”

It was somewhat remarkable. Though he definitely didn’t look it, Ian Powers had to be in his forties. I knew it’d been more than thirty years since he’d starred as the eight-year-old boy in the sitcom Just the Two of Us, about Mattie, a charming, wise-beyond-his-years boy and his single father. I remembered watching the show when I was a kid, though by then, the show had long since been in reruns. It was weird to see the vestiges of that sweet little-boy face in this fully grown, casually elegant man.

“I take it you two are the detectives?”

“Actually no. I’m Rachel Knight, deputy district attorney.”

“Detective Keller.” Bailey put out her hand. “And your connection…?”

“I’m Russell’s manager.”

Ian led us to the left side of the room, where a short man, no more than an inch taller than me, dressed in a baseball cap, faded jeans, and a forest green Henley, sat on the arm of a plush burgundy couch. “Russell, this is Detective Bailey Keller and, ah-”

“Deputy District Attorney Rachel Knight,” I filled in. Clearly, I was already making quite the impression.

Russell stood and rocked on his toes-I’d bet so he could look down on me. But he’d have needed a step stool to look down on Bailey, all five feet nine inches of her. He took her in with a sidelong glance that avoided his having to look up at her, and didn’t offer his hand to either one of us. He took a deep breath, expelled it through his nose, then started to dive in. “Got the first message about-”

Bailey held up a hand and looked around the room. “Mr. Antonovich, before you get into it, can you tell me who all these people are and why they need to be here?”

With a pained expression he said, “Russell, okay? Call me Russell.” His tone was peremptory, almost impatient, and his voice was high enough that if I hadn’t been looking at him I’d have thought he was a woman. “They all pretty much live here.” He pointed to a willowy blonde who looked to be in her mid-twenties and easily twenty years his junior. “My wife, Dani. That’s her assistant, Angela,” he said, nodding at a trim young girl with a mop of curly brown hair who was pouring bottled water into a glass for the missus. He pointed to a sturdy-looking girl in overalls and a matching baseball cap. “My assistant, Uma.” I noticed she was the only one in the room who was shorter than Russell. I was sure that was no accident. An older woman came in carrying a trayful of plates bearing finger food. Russell followed my gaze. “That’s Vera, the cook.” No last name-unless you counted “the cook.” In fact, none of these people had a last name. Not as far as Russell was concerned anyway.

“And that…?” I asked, pointing to a young man wearing jeans that sagged below sea level who was sitting on an ottoman at the other end of the room.

“Jeff, my runner. Assistant too, sometimes.”

And then there was the butler who’d answered the door, and all the others it would take to keep this place going. If we kept taking attendance, we wouldn’t get to the case until sometime next week. Bailey had apparently reached the same conclusion.

“I’ll need a list of everyone who’s been in the house today and who’s in the house now,” Bailey said.

“Right, got it, got it.”

“When did you first realize your daughter had been kidnapped?” Bailey asked.

Russell pulled off his baseball cap, which now showed me it was his substitute for hair. The hem of tight straw-colored curls just above his ears was all that remained. He rubbed his head and then his face. With the cap off, I could see the worry and fear etched in his features. Suddenly the celebrity director was just the frantic, distraught father of a child in danger. And in that moment, the picture of my father’s face filled my memory: the panic and confusion in his eyes, turning to frozen shock when, sobbing and hysterical, I told him of the stranger who’d taken Romy while we were playing in the woods near the house. I brought myself back to the present with a stiff jerk. That was Romy and my father. Not Hayley or Russell. This daughter still had a chance of a safe return.

“I got a text message with the photograph of Hayley. It came in before noon from Hayley’s phone. She was at my place in the hills-”

“Hollywood Hills?”

Russell nodded. “Sent it to my private cell phone. Only my family has it. But I didn’t see it till after I got home. Said that photo was proof of life and that the demand would come later. Warned me not to call the cops.”