Grave Endings Read Online Free PDF Page B

second on Cherokee. A visit to MapQuest showed that Goldwyn Terrace was in Culver City. The Cherokee address was just north of Hollywood Boulevard.
    I assumed that the Culver City Creeley was Roland senior, and since Hollywood Division was handling Randy’s death, Cherokee Creeley was probably Roland junior. I wrote down both addresses and the phone numbers Google thoughtfully provided, then placed a call to Cherokee Creeley.
    I did it to try to verify that I had the right man. I did it because he might have left an answering machine message and I needed to hear his voice. I drummed my fingers on my desk and sat up straighter when a machine picked up after four rings and what seemed like an interminable wait.
    â€œ. . . Randy Creeley. Leave a message and I’ll call you back. If you need to reach me right away, call me on my cell phone. . . . Peace and love.”
    My heart pounded as I listened to the pleasant timbre of a voice that belonged to a man now dead—a man who had wished his callers peace and love, though that didn’t prove anything, certainly not according to the police, who insisted that Creeley had killed my best friend and who could be right. I pressed REDIAL, listened to the message again, and copied down Creeley’s cell number.
    I had sheets of police reports with
Crime Sheet
data to enter. I had wedding favors to wrap, gifts to
un
wrap and record, a four o’clock appointment with the florist. Zack’s words echoed in my head, and I could hear Connors’s warning:
    Leave it alone, Molly.
    But as Smokey Robinson will tell you, nothing could keep me away from my guy.

five
    LIKE SUNSET BOULEVARD TWO BLOCKS TO ITS SOUTH, Hollywood Boulevard is more a state of mind than a locale and has more personalities than Sybil. East of Vine it’s Anytown, USA, a wide street lined with industrial shops, groceries, and other stores that serve the needs of the area’s polyglot residents. At Gower there’s a car dealership where I get my Acura serviced and from whose lot you can see the famous HOLLYWOOD sign (originally, HOLLYWOODLAND). And between La Brea and Highland is the Hollywood you’ve probably read about or may have visited, a giant marquee that has been flashing hope and promises of fame to thousands of would-be actors—among them, apparently, Randy Creeley—and that invites us all to watch the show, to believe in the magic.
    In recent years the magic had all but disappeared. Like an aging star desperate for roles in B movies she would have shunned in her prime, Hollywood had slipped into disrepair. The street that once was the scene of glamorous, red-carpeted premieres attended by paparazzi and crowds of exquisitely dressed celebrities and their fans was pocked with dozens of peep shows, tattoo parlors, and tawdry souvenir shops selling sleazy, overpriced products. Standing in for the celebrities and fans were prostitutes and their johns, the homeless, runaways, drug dealers, users. When the local citizens would complain, the LAPD would periodically chase the street people away, but without conviction, the way you halfheartedly swat at flies buzzing around your barbecued ribs and corn. You know the flies will be back the minute you stop waving your hand, and they know that you know that after a while you’ll get tired of waving.
    Lately Hollywood has undergone a face-lift. The boulevard will never be synonymous with
subtle
(there’s the new Erotic Museum, and Heidi Fleiss is opening Hollywood Madam), but the sordid souvenir shops are being replaced, slowly, with trendy eateries, boutiques, and nightclubs. And though the prostitutes and drug dealers do trickle back, along with the homeless, and it’s not a neighborhood you want to visit at night, and definitely not alone, the area has improved.
    The glitz is back. Turning right from La Brea onto the wide boulevard, I was greeted by the vertical “Hollywood” spire that topped a silver gazebo