His breathing hitched again, he moaned. “If I’d had the slightest idea Paulie was capable of such a thing, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near you, or the studio. He so loved the show, loved being near the actors. He’s never been violent, Mary Lisa, I swear it to you.”

“Like I said, Tom, it was Margie he loved, or maybe obsessed is the right word, Tom, not me.”

Silence, then, “I’ll offer my resignation to the studio in the morning.”

So now he’d decided to take the blame for all this. She wasn’t about to let him. He was a good director, the show needed him. “Tom, I don’t blame you for what happened, no one does. I want you to forget about the studio for a while, okay? Now isn’t the time for a big decision like that.”

“But I-” She heard someone speaking and he hung up. Slowly, Mary Lisa disconnected, and stood staring at the portrait of a colorful sailboat on the far wall of her living room.

She was still staring at the oil when Irene called from the studio. She supposed she’d been expecting this. The brass must be scared out of their minds and Irene was, currently, the biggest brass.

“No injuries, Mary Lisa?”

“No, Irene, I’m fine. Paulie is in the O.R. Tom told me they don’t know anything yet.”

Irene made a rude noise. “Well, at least it’s over. Now, you’ve been through the wringer, Mary Lisa. I asked Bernie to spread out the scenes you’ve already shot. You’re now officially off duty. Rest, Mary Lisa, get your bearings back. Take it easy. You need anything at all, you call me, all right?”

Mary Lisa smiled at her cell phone. She had nearly been run down on studio property by an employee. They must be terrified it would get out and she would sue them, and whatever-She said, “Irene, thank you for giving me some time off. I rather need it, you know?”

“I know. Is there anything I can do, Mary Lisa?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you for calling, Irene.” She disconnected, and looked up to see Lou Lou standing close, a slice of veggie pizza in her hand. “They’re as concerned for their own skins as they are for mine,” she said, and laughed. She actually laughed.

“I don’t blame them. That was Irene, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll bet she’s chewed her nails down to her knuckles. Hey, Lou Lou, can I have a bit of that cold pizza?”

Snyder, who’d worshipped Lou Lou from afar for as long as Mary Lisa could remember, ran up with a slice of hot pizza on a napkin and reverently placed it in her hand.

Mary Lisa chewed on the cold pizza-no fresh hot slice for her-and made her way back out onto her deck. She heard the doorbell ring, but didn’t turn. She was listening to everyone’s advice, like, “You should fly over to Honolulu, catch some waves at Diamond Head”-that from Carlo. “You need a nice spa experience. They give the cutest pedicures at the Golden Door, like a golden door painted on your big toe”-this from MacKenzie, Honey Boy barking his agreement.

Mary Lisa turned slowly to see Lou Lou leading Detective Vasquez through the mess of people, a slice of artichoke pizza in his hand.

FIFTY-ONE

“Daniel,” Breaker Barney shouted out, “any good news for us? You find any bodies in Paulie Thomas’s closet? You’ve been to where he lives, right?”

Here he was, Daniel thought, fraternizing with a smalltime hood. At least this one was smart enough to stay away from petty crimes. “Sorry, guys, I didn’t find a single finger,” Daniel said easily, and took another big bite of pizza.

“No dinner, Daniel?” Lou Lou asked him.

He shook his head and smiled at Lou Lou as he chewed. Someone stuck a beer in his hand, which he regretfully handed back. When he finished his pizza slice, he raised his hand. “Here’s the deal, people. I’m still working right now, and I need to speak to Mary Lisa alone.”

There was no empty spot in the house except in Mary Lisa’s bedroom. Still, they had to wait for a teenage girl to leave the bathroom, pausing to hug Mary Lisa on her way out. When Mary Lisa pulled the door shut, she saw that Daniel was looking very serious. She flipped the lock on the door. Her heart speeded up. She grabbed his arm, shook it. “What’s wrong, Daniel?”

“Paulie Thomas just died. I wanted to tell you privately.”

She stumbled back, fell onto her bed. He sat down beside her. “He never woke up, Mary Lisa, barely got through surgery. They said his heart stopped, simply stopped. They managed to revive him once, but when his heart stopped again, they couldn’t bring him back.”

She stared at him, still unable to take it in. Paulie Thomas, dead. He’d been alive this afternoon, and now he was dead. She felt numb. “How old was he?”

“Thirty-two.”

“That’s around Jack Wolf ’s age. How old are you, Daniel?”

He smiled. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my first name. I’m thirty-one.”

“He was thirty-two and everyone still called him Paulie, not Paul. That isn’t right, Daniel. That means everyone knew he wasn’t right.”

“Yes, I know. Can I get you something, Mary Lisa?”

She shook her head. “No, just give me a moment to take this all in. How is Paulie’s mother? His uncle?”

“They’re both very upset.”

She nodded. “Did his mother have any explanation for why he tried to kill me?”

“She was too upset for me to get much out of her. She said only that Paulie seemed pretty hyper yesterday. He kept going on about seeing Margie McCormick crying on the set-something about her character, Susan Cavendish, having less of a role to play on Born to Be Wild. Paulie’s uncle Tom finally said Paulie told him that Margie blamed you because of the new plotline you’d worked out with Bernie.”

“There is some truth to that, you know.”

“Don’t be a fool. It doesn’t matter. From what I could glean, Paulie had never managed a relationship, he was a loner, but he was very attached to Ms. McCormick. His mother hadn’t made much of it until this happened.

“The thing is, Mary Lisa, when we got to his apartment with a search warrant, we didn’t know what we’d find.” He sighed. “Fact is, we found a huge motive-his bedroom was filled with press clippings about Margie McCormick, and photos of her plastered on all the walls. On the wall facing his bed was a huge poster-sized photo of her in a bikini.”

“So you think Paulie was trying to kill me because of Margie? He thought I was hurting her?”

Daniel drew a deep breath, took both her hands in his. “Mary Lisa, whatever drove him to do this, he snapped and acted. I think this was a onetime thing for Paulie. Your stalker is someone else.”

She stared at him, suddenly so cold she felt frozen. “Not the stalker?”

He shook his head.

“But Paulie tried to run me down on his motorcycle. A gazillion people saw him try.”

Daniel nodded. “Yes, I know. But stay with me a moment, okay? The decision about the plotline-and Ms. McCormick being unhappy about it and complaining aloud-I realized that didn’t happen until after that car hit you here in Malibu. More importantly, you had already mentioned Paulie to us, and we checked out where he was both on the day of the auto accident and at the time of the shooting on the beach. He had strong alibis on both days-he was with family and friends, and this afternoon we checked them again, got independent verification. It couldn’t have been Paulie, either time.

“And finally, Mary Lisa, we found Puker Hodges a couple of hours ago, claimed he’d been on assignment in Santa Barbara and just gotten back. We took him over to the hospital.” Daniel sighed. “Puker said Paulie Thomas wasn’t Jamie Ramos, the man we’ve been looking for. He said he’d seen Paulie Thomas only once before and that was when he broke onto the set of Born to Be Wild and took that photo of you and Bernie.”

Mary Lisa couldn’t believe this. She didn’t want to believe it, much less hear it. She turned on him, angry now because he’d told her the truth and she couldn’t bear it.