Chapter 1
Adelina Beach, California
Here comes Cinderella,” Toby Flint said. “She’s out after midnight again. I don’t see any glass slippers, and those trousers sure don’t look like a fancy ball gown.”
“Still looking for Prince Charming?” Larry Burns said with a sly grin.
Vivian Brazier hurried up the front steps of the mansion and flashed a breezy smile at the small group of men in fedoras and frumpy jackets loitering around the closed door of the Carstairs mansion.
“Gosh, I was told I’d find Prince Charming here,” she said. “Looks like I was given wrong information. Again.”
Toby clapped a hand over his heart. “Now you’ve gone and hurt our feelings.”
“What feelings?” Vivian asked. “You gentlemen are all spot news photographers, remember? You don’t have feelings.”
“Cinderella’s got a point,” Larry said.
There were several snorts of laughter. The uniformed officer guarding the front door chuckled.
She had been labeled Cinderella several months earlier when she had arrived at her first late-night crime scene wearing house slippers. She had rushed out the door so fast she had forgotten to put on her shoes. After that she had purchased slip-ons she could step into in a hurry but the Cinderella name had stuck.
Toby and the other local freelancers had found her to be a novelty at first. News photography was largely a man’s world. But they had come to accept her because they knew she paid her bills the same way they did—by sleeping with the radio tuned to the police band all night long.
Freelancers were usually the first to arrive at crime-and-fire scenes because the salaried photographers—the guys who held genuine press passes from the newspapers and the syndicates—didn’t show up until their night editors roused them from their beds with phone calls. Time was everything in the photojournalism business, especially at night.
Vivian looked at Toby. “How did you get the word?”
“I was sitting on a bench at the station, drinking coffee with some of the officers, when the call came in,” Toby said.
Toby often spent his nights on a bench at the station waiting for the crime-and-fire reports. He was somewhere in his forties, single, rumpled, and perennially broke. Whenever Vivian opened her senses and looked at him the way she did when she studied a subject before she took a portrait, she was invariably aware of the jittery, nervous energy in the atmosphere around him.
She was pretty sure she knew why he always seemed to be poised on the edge of an invisible cliff. Toby could—and probably did—make a living selling photos of crime scenes, fires, and automobile accidents, but he was an inveterate gambler.
His addiction to dice and cards was no secret among his colleagues because he was always trying to borrow film or flashbulbs or gas money for his beat-up Ford sedan. Everyone knew that loans to Toby were never repaid. Vivian sometimes, but not always, gave him a couple of bucks or some supplies. She was on a tight budget but she felt she owed him. Several months ago, back at the start of her career as a freelancer, he had been a mentor of sorts. He had taught her many of the tricks of the trade and introduced her to the photo editor of the Adelina Beach Courier.
Like every other news photographer in the country, Toby dreamed of getting an assignment from Life, one that would make him famous and pay off his debts, but that had never happened. Vivian understood dreams. She had a few of her own.
“Any details on this one?” she asked.
“Fancy antique dagger found at the scene,” Larry offered. “Same as the Washfield and Attenbury murders.”
Vivian felt a ghostly whisper of cold energy on the back of her neck. “That’s the third one in the past six months. The last Dagger Killer murder was only a month ago.”
“This one is gonna be a real moneymaker for all of us,” Larry said.
The other photographers muttered in agreement and checked their Speed Graphics to make sure they were loaded with film and fresh flashbulbs.
“Only thing that sells better than a movie star murder is a movie star who was stabbed by the Dagger Killer,” Toby said, grimly cheerful. “Nice of the guy to do it here on our home turf this time. Gives us locals first crack at the front-page shots. We don’t get a lot of this kind of action here in Adelina Beach.”
Adelina Beach had a carefully manicured reputation for exclusivity, at least the classy neighborhood on the bluffs where the Carstairs mansion was located did. Several Hollywood stars and socialites had grand homes on the winding lanes overlooking the vast expanse of the bay and the Pacific Ocean. Murders were not supposed to happen in this part of town. Crime, what there was of it, usually took place down below on the streets near the beach where regular people lived.
Vivian’s insides were already twisted tight with tension. Toby’s words made her queasy. She liked to think she had become somewhat accustomed to crime scenes. She had learned how to brace herself for the shock long enough to do her job. But she knew she was never going to develop the invisible emotional armor that seemed to protect most news photographers from the horror and the deep sense of sadness generated by terrible crimes.
The front door opened. Light spilled out of the hallway. A plainclothes detective appeared. Vivian recognized him. Joe Archer was the head of Adelina Beach’s tiny homicide squad. He surveyed the cluster of photographers and grunted.
“Let ’em in,” he said to the uniformed officer. “One shot each. I don’t want them messing up the scene.”
Vivian surged through the doorway with the other photographers. Her Speed Graphic was as good as a genuine press pass. The big camera was the badge of the news photographer. Cops rarely questioned a freelancer who carried one. The trick for getting past the police line, Toby had explained early on, was attitude.
Vivian had quickly discovered that the sturdy Speed Graphic also made a handy defense weapon that could be used to keep the competition from jostling her aside. The male photographers might joke or flirt or talk about their craft with her when they were all standing around waiting for a picture, but when it came time to grab the shot a photo editor would buy, she was on her own. News photography was a competitive business.
The body lay on a high-backed, red-velvet-and-gilt sofa. Clara Carstairs looked much smaller in death than she did when she dazzled audiences on the silver screen. Her slender figure, clad in a formfitting gold satin evening gown, was gracefully posed on the crimson cushions. Her dark hair flowed in deep waves around her bare shoulders. Her makeup, from the delicately drawn eyebrows to the fashionable shade of red lipstick, was flawless.
One gold high-heeled sandal had fallen to the carpet, revealing a dainty foot clad in a silk stocking. The hem of the gown was hiked high up on one thigh. Crystals sparkled in her ears and around her wrists. An empty glass tipped on its side and a bottle of cognac sat on a black lacquer coffee table.