Chapter 45
Poppy had noticed the black Mercedes parked across the street from her house when she pulled into her driveway, but didn’t think much of it until she was at her front door, slipping the key into the lock, and heard a rustling sound behind her. She spun around, hand raised in self-defense. There was no one there. She had to laugh at herself. What was with the hand? She had no karate training whatsoever. What was she going to do, crack a neck with it? That usually worked on Charlie’s Angels, which she watched religiously when she was a young actress just starting out in LA and stayed home most nights because she hardly knew anyone in town.
Poppy had started turning back toward the door when she heard the sound again, this time coming from her right. She whipped her head around to see a bulky man partially hidden in the shadows of her curve-leaf yucca plants, his feet trampling her carefully arranged colorful succulents.
He held out a chubby hand. “Don’t panic, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that this week,” Poppy growled, recognizing the man’s voice. “You should not be here, Hal.” Her stomach flip-flopped. First Byron Savage. Now Hal Greenwood. Two people she did not trust or feel safe around. Especially Hal, given what had come to light about him only an hour earlier.
Hal stepped tentatively out of the shadows of the tall yucca plants. His appearance did nothing to calm Poppy’s heart, which was trying to pound its way out of her chest.
Hal looked wild-eyed, nervous, slightly unhinged.
“I just want to talk to you,” Hal tried to assure her.
“Then you should call the office and make an appointment, like you expect everyone else to do for you,” Poppy sniffed.
“I heard what you did, you and your associates, crashing the Cobra offices pretending to be some kind of cosmetics queen. That takes a lot of balls,” Hal said.
“You sound impressed.”
“Maybe a little,” Hal sneered.
“Now please, get back in your Mercedes and go home. I have no interest in talking to you here like this.”
Hal didn’t budge. “What kind of game are you playing? You know I had nothing to do with Danika Delgado’s murder, I have an airtight alibi.”
“What about Fabian Granger?” Poppy asked.
“If I had been at the Parker someone would have seen me. I’m famous, or I would have turned up on the security camera at some point, but I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t because I was never there. I’m innocent. So would you please stop obsessing over tying me to these horrific murders? Can you do me that one favor, please?”
“Maybe you’re not responsible for those murders, but what about the others?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Hal bellowed.
“There is no statute of limitations for murder so any cold case can still be solved and the killer brought to justice. You’ve produced enough crime movies to know that, Harold.”
He almost missed it.
He was about to argue some more when something in his brain suddenly clicked and his mouth dropped open.
“What did you just call me?”
“Harold, that’s your name, isn’t it? Harold Lawson?”
“How did you—?”
She could see the wave of panic rising up from inside him.
He took a minute to collect himself.
Then, Hal took a deep breath, and smiled. “Nobody’s called me by that name in years. I may have underestimated your detective skills. I really didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“I didn’t. Not at first. But it came back. Who would have guessed the great Hollywood producer Hal Greenwood started out as our ambitious, socially awkward production assistant who was so keenly interested in all the gory aspects of the Pillow Talk Killer murders?”
Hal flinched slightly. “Wow, good memory.”
“It’s been hard to forget that particular day, no matter how hard I’ve tried. Why did you change your name?”
“I was focused on becoming a power player. I never thought Harold would ever command much respect, especially since Harold the PA was treated like dirt most of the time. Although I have to admit, you were always very nice to me.”
Poppy ignored the compliment. “So it wasn’t because you had to change it?”
“I know what you’re implying and you’re dead wrong,” Hal sighed. “I don’t know why you are so hung up on me being the Pillow Talk Killer. I wasn’t him then, I’m not him now. So get over it. We all know the real guy was Donald Carter. He was at the Roosevelt that night with you and Linda Appleton. He bought you a drink after Rod stood you up, you were pegged as his next victim until you ran off at the last minute, and so the killer had no choice but to redirect his attention toward poor unsuspecting Linda. . . .”
Poppy’s already racing heart nearly jumped into her throat. “How did you know Rod Harper stood me up that night?”
“Oh, come on, everyone knows that. It was all over the news the day after it happened,” Hal argued.
“Yes, except the part about Rod standing me up. That was never mentioned in the press.”
“Of course it was,” Hal said warily.
“I’m quite sure the police did not share that detail with reporters at my request, and I know I never told anyone because the last thing I wanted was to fan the flames in the media with endless, breathless stories about me and Rod.”
“Well, what can I say, it’s out there!” Hal yelled.
Poppy studied Hal, whose fleshy face was red and sweaty. “You only know because you followed me to the Roosevelt that night. You were watching me the whole time. Donald Carter wasn’t the Pillow Talk Killer. You were!”
Hal knew he had been caught. His eyes darted back and forth nervously. Finally, he sighed heavily. There was no point in continuing to lie. Poppy knew everything. “I was never going to hurt you. I overheard Rod on the phone getting that last-minute audition. I knew he was going to be a no-show so I went to the Roosevelt and hung out in a booth in the back, hoping to swoop in at the last minute once you realized Rod wasn’t coming, maybe offer a comforting shoulder, or . . .”
“It never would have happened!” Poppy snapped.
“You fled the bar so fast, I didn’t even get my chance. And then I saw Linda. Sweet, beautiful Linda. But before I could work up the nerve to go talk to her, Don Carter was all over her, and the next thing I knew they were heading up to his hotel room. I hung out at the bar a while longer, and when I finally got up to leave, I saw Linda coming down in the elevator on her way home. . . .”
Poppy knew what had happened next. “You felt so rejected, so angry, that all those violent urges rose up inside you again, and so you followed her home and . . .” Poppy couldn’t finish the rest of her thought, the image so disturbing. She cleared her head and continued. “After the police became convinced that Donald Carter was guilty of the three murders, you changed your name, tried to bury that side of yourself, start fresh, focus on becoming a famous producer. And you succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. You got exactly what you came to Hollywood for, respect, money, and a feeling of indestructibility that led to you becoming an unapologetic sexual predator!”
Hal took a menacing step closer to Poppy. “What do you think is going to happen now?”
Poppy shot a hand forward, trying to keep him at arm’s length away from her. “With what I know now, if I do a little more digging, well, like I said, there is no statute of limitations on murder.”
She was trying to keep him focused on what she was saying and not what she was doing because she had managed to surreptitiously extract her phone from her coat pocket with her other hand, hide it behind her back, and was now struggling to dial 911, praying she was hitting the correct numbers blindly. She traced her finger back up the screen, hoping she would hit the number one twice and the call would mercifully go through when Hal suddenly noticed what she was doing and slapped the phone out of her hand. It clattered to the ground, the screen cracking.
Poppy pushed Hal away from her and then reeled around, twisting the key in the lock, attempting to get inside and shut the door behind her before Hal could get to her, but she was a fraction of a second too late. She almost had it closed when Hal hurled his huge body at the door, smashing his way into her house. Poppy kicked him in the shin and his tongue flapped out of his mouth, but he was operating on pure adrenaline now, and it failed to slow him down. He grabbed Poppy in a bear hug and they stumbled across the living room and fell down on the couch, Hal on top of her, his heavy weight immobilizing her, his beefy hands wrapped around her throat. Poppy opened her mouth to scream, but her windpipe was cut off and no sound came out.
Hal reached over for one of the throw pillows and jammed it over Poppy’s face, violently trying to smother her to death and silence her for good. “This was always my favorite part,” he hissed. “Up close and personal.”
Poppy fought like mad but Hal was twice her size and almost three times her weight. She couldn’t breathe and was becoming light-headed and desperate as the chilling thought that she was not going to somehow miraculously break free crept into her mind along with a feeling of utter hopelessness.
But then, she heard a thwack and Hal suddenly loosened his grip on the pillow. His body was pulled off her and there was a loud thud as it hit the floor. The pillow was then gently removed from her face and she was looking up at Sam’s concerned face.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, clasping her hand and helping her to sit up on the couch.
Poppy nodded, still trying to catch her breath.
“I was in the guest room, tossing and turning, unable to get to sleep when all of a sudden I heard this commotion in the living room, and I came out to see this rhinoceros on top of you, trying to kill you, so I grabbed the first thing I could find and whacked him the back of the head.”
Poppy was on the verge of tears she was so relieved and grateful.
“By the way, sorry about your People’s Choice Award.”
Poppy was finally able to speak. “What?”
“I think there is a crack in it,” Sam said pointing to her award on the floor next to Hal’s prone body. She had won it back in the 1980s for her role on Jack Colt. It was in the first box she had unpacked and had finally come in handy.
Poppy tried to stand up, but she was still woozy. Sam put an arm around her to keep her steady.
“I thought for sure you’d be sound asleep and wouldn’t hear anything,” she said.
“I forgot to take my sleeping pill.”
Poppy rested her head on Sam’s shoulder, happy that his annoying habit of not obeying her instructions had just saved her life.