My Father Always Finds Corpses
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Synopsis
With a wryly witty and assured voice and a vastly entertaining cast of characters, Lee Hollis puts a modern slant on the classic murder mystery as a father-daughter sleuthing duo are drawn into a case close to home . . .
You never forget your first corpse. For former child star Jarrod Jarvis, that discovery was twenty-plus years ago, and a lot has happened since he solved a string of real-life Hollywood murders. Now Jarrod lives in Palm Springs where he writes and directs local theatre, while quietly grieving the loss of his partner, police detective Charlie.
Jarrod hasn’t disclosed much about his sleuthing past to his daughter, Liv, who just earned a degree in criminal justice. There’s been distance between them since Charlie’s death, and Jarrod’s unsure how to bridge the gap. Liv, meanwhile, has put her career on hold in order to help her filmmaker boyfriend, Zel. His new documentary idea is to track down the surrogate who gave birth to Liv. Skeptical and annoyed by Zel’s pressure tactics, Liv goes to confront him at his apartment. But there’s no need to break things off—because someone has bludgeoned Zel to death.
Jarrod rushes to Liv’s aid, surprising his daughter with his ease around a crime scene, firing off questions like a modern-day Columbo with better hair and wardrobe. Another shock is quite how many people had motive to finish Zel off—including a Russian film professor, a former First Lady, and a sexy Secret Service agent. Together, Liv and Jarrod comb for clues across the sun-drenched Coachella valley, growing close again. But while there’s nothing like murder to bring a family together, this father-daughter reunion may be short-lived as long as a killer is on the loose . . .
Release date: May 27, 2025
Publisher: Kensington Books
Print pages: 320
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My Father Always Finds Corpses
Lee Hollis
The heavily painted woman in her late sixties with teased-out blond hair and wearing a rainbow-colored caftan stood stoically in front of a defeated, hunched over man in a butler uniform in his late forties, his eyes downcast as she pointed an accusing finger at him.
“It was you all along, Reginald! How could I not see it before?”
“Because you don’t see me at all! You’re only concerned with your snooty, rich, well-connected social circle!” the man moaned. “But me? A lowly servant? I was nothing to you, so why would I ever come across your radar? But you’re just playing guessing games. How could you possibly know that I was the one who killed Anthony Towers?”
“Frankly, I don’t need to guess. It’s the irrefutable proof I have uncovered that has done you in. That fingerprint we found on the night table lamp. We compared it to the one you left on the silver serving tray at my cocktail party yesterday. It was a perfect match.”
“I’m a butler. It’s literally my job to turn off the lights in Mr. Towers’s bedroom!”
“The small cut on your left arm you explained away as a scratch from Mrs. Towers’s Afghan cat, Millie. We found traces of your skin underneath the victim’s fingernails from when he desperately tried fighting for his life as you strangled him in his own bed!”
“But what motive would I possibly have to do away with my employer, the man who signs my paychecks, who ensures my livelihood?”
The woman in the loud caftan locked eyes with the seemingly harmless butler. “You’re right. Reginald Blackdown has no motive to kill Anthony Towers. But Scottie Campbell does.”
The butler shivered.
“That’s your real name, isn’t it?” the woman continued. “From Modesto. Whose nine-year-old daughter was killed seven years ago in a hit-and-run accident when Anthony Towers was there to meet one of his mistresses and was driving drunk.”
“H-How did you find out?” Reginald sputtered.
The woman confidently folded her arms. “Because Reginald claims to hail from Rhode Island and only recently relocated to the Coachella Valley, never having been west before, where he found a job working for Mr. Towers. But when I questioned Cecelia Marks, Mr. Towers’s personal chef, she said she was serving a Cabernet with dinner from E&J Gallo Winery in San Francisco. You absentmindedly corrected her, saying the E&J Gallo Winery was from Modesto. How could you possibly know that?”
“I could have read it somewhere online as an amateur wine connoisseur!” Reginald protested.
“Perhaps. But you appeared to know a lot about a town you’ve apparently never visited. So, I sent my trusty sidekick, Hank, up north to do a little digging. Tell him what you found, Hank.”
Hovering behind the woman was a tall, handsome young man in his early twenties with an impressive swimmer’s build and who looked as if he had just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. He appeared nervous.
After a moment of silence, the woman swiveled around toward him. “Hank? Tell him what you found.”
Like a deer caught in someone’s headlights, the young man just stood there, frozen. “I . . . uh . . . Well . . .” Then he glanced behind him. “Line, please.”
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” a man’s voice bellowed. “Turn the lights up!”
Someone flicked a switch that bathed the expansive place with light, once an IMAX auditorium that had been converted into a theatrical playhouse.
Jarrod Jarvis rose to his feet from a seat in the third row and made his way to the aisle, marching downstage where his actors stood, all of whom looked at him apprehensively.
“Kent, we go on in front of an audience in two weeks. Please, you have to learn your dialogue. You can’t just stand up there in a theatre packed with people and ask Ava backstage to tell you what to say.”
“Sorry, Jarrod, but I’m wiped, dude. It was my girlfriend’s birthday last night, and we may have stayed out partying a little too late at the Retro Room!”
His eyes were at half-mast.
Jarrod did not even want to guess what he might be on. “What part of ‘we open in two weeks’ are you not understanding, Kent?”
“Jarrod, does this caftan make me look fat?”
“No, Talia, you look beautiful,” Jarrod insisted. He was used to stroking his leading lady’s fragile ego. He had known a lot of insecure actresses over the years.
“I don’t know. This thing is just so big and flowing and completely buries my figure,” she pouted, raising her arms and whipping them around so the fabric almost looked like a round multicolored spinning top. “I mean, it’s the end of the last scene in the play. I certainly don’t want the audience expecting me to belt out a tune.”
Jarrod stared at the actress, dumbfounded. “You lost me, Talia.”
The man playing the butler chimed in. “She feels like it’s time for the fat lady to sing.”
“Ahhh,” Jarrod sighed, dropping his head.
Kent snorted. “Oh, I get it. That’s funny.”
Talia sashayed to the edge of the stage and peered down at Jarrod. “I just don’t see the harm in calling in the wardrobe people to review a few alternative choices.”
“There are no wardrobe people, Talia. There is no wardrobe person. We have a rack of donated clothes in the wings. That’s about it. This is local theatre. Not the set of a Scorsese movie.”
Talia’s eyes narrowed, her tone tense. “I don’t mean to be difficult, Jarrod . . .”
Which meant she was about to become very difficult.
“But I am obviously the heroine of this piece. This is my big moment. The audience is watching me with rapt attention. I just think it would behoove the character to wear something a little more formfitting, something that flatters her figure and doesn’t try to hide it.”
“Talia told me she has a new personal trainer and has lost five pounds so far,” the actor playing the butler said.
“Seven!” Talia corrected him.
Jarrod bowed his head, defeated. “Fine. Why don’t you head backstage and see if you can find something you like better? Take five, everybody!”
The man playing the butler clapped his hands. “Goody! I have a lovely bottle of Glenfiddich 21 Year Gran Reserva and several shot glasses in my car. Anyone care to partake?”
Kent eagerly raised his hand.
“Ira, it’s not even noon!” Jarrod protested.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere in the world, as they say!” Ira said with a conspiratorial grin as he shuffled off stage behind Talia with Kent lumbering after him.
Jarrod rubbed his eyes with his right index finger and thumb and mumbled to himself, “It’s like herding cats.”
“Darling, don’t despair! This production has hit written all over it!” a woman’s voice projected from the back of the theatre.
“Yeah, well, obviously you haven’t been watching any of today’s rehearsal.”
Jarrod did not even have to look to see who was speaking. He could recognize that singsong voice anywhere. “Good morning, Kitty.”
Kitty Reynolds was in her early seventies, glamorous, a boozy delight, and most notably a former first lady of the United States. She swept down the aisle toward Jarrod with all the fanfare of a grand marshal at a gay pride parade. “Don’t worry, sweetie, as one of my closest, dearest friends Broadway legend Bernadette Peters once told me, a bad dress rehearsal always portends to a great opening night!”
“We’re still two weeks out from our actual dress rehearsal. I would welcome a lousy dress rehearsal. But right now, we are on track for a major catastrophe. I never should have let my ego get the best of me and agree to write and direct my own play!”
“Stop spiraling. This isn’t the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It’s the CV Rep in Cathedral City, California. You’re putting too much pressure on yourself.”
“Do you like the title?”
“Evil Under the Palm Trees?”
“Yes. Does it seem a little too on the nose? I mean I named the lead character Agatha after Agatha Christie, and the title is a spoof of one of her most popular books. It could come off as a little bit derivative.”
“It’s perfect,” Kitty assured him.
“You really think so?”
“I know so. Because I have already spent money printing the programs, and every single one of them, in big, bold black letters, says Evil Under the Palm Trees. So, suffice it to say we’re not changing it.”
Just Kitty’s soothing presence was beginning to calm Jarrod down. He was going to get through this. At least that was what he kept telling himself. Ever since moving to Palm Springs from Hollywood after his husband, Charlie’s, unexpected death, he had been trying to find himself, discover a purpose, some path forward in a life that he had not expected to have to take on.
Jarrod had always believed that he and Charlie would grow old together once their daughter, Olivia, was off to college and they were finally empty-nesters. In his mind, he pictured a seaside villa in Provincetown or a quiet little abode in a charming town in Mexico, or even some sprawling fabulous estate here in Palm Springs, a town teeming with aging gay men. But once you have a plan in mind, well, life has a habit of throwing you a curveball.
Jarrod’s husband was a police detective, so there had always been a gnawing fear that one day the phone might ring and someone would bear the worst news possible.
An arrest gone awry.
Cut down in the line of duty.
There were so many times that Jarrod rested his head down on the pillow at night, fearing he might wake up to discover Charlie gone.
But it didn’t happen that way.
Not even close.
It had all been so maddeningly ordinary. A weird spot on his back. A biopsy. The excruciating wait for the results. The gut-wrenching diagnosis. The months of treatment. And then, less than a year later, he was gone. Just like that. Jarrod was left alone with a thirteen-year-old daughter he and Charlie had been raising together.
But despite the devastating loss, Olivia, or Liv, as friends and family liked to call her, was now a thriving young woman, a graduate from the College of the Desert, after studying criminal justice in honor of her father.
That would be Charlie.
Not Jarrod.
Liv had shown zero interest in Jarrod’s former profession, acting.
It was only recently that Liv had sat down to watch a few episodes of the 1980s television series Go To Your Room! Jarrod had been eleven years old when he was cast as the precocious youngest kid in the saccharine sweet Friday night sitcom that made him a household name.
That is, until the show was canceled.
Unlike many other former child stars, Jarrod never had to contend with greedy stage parents frittering away his fortune, or a well-publicized drug problem, or multiple arrests for assault or carrying an unregistered firearm. In fact, he lived a pretty normal serene life post-TV fame. Especially after he met his future husband when Charlie was still a beat cop.
Charlie had grounded him.
Made him feel safe.
Loved.
Whole.
So the shock of losing him had been a monumental struggle.
For both Jarrod and Liv.
Jarrod knew in his heart that by trying to shield Liv from all the pain he was going through, he had somehow managed to create a distance between them. He loved her deeply. She was his whole world. But he knew there was work to be done on their relationship.
It had been Kitty who encouraged him to stretch his creative muscles again. The two had met at a mutual friend’s party several years ago and quickly became inseparable. Jarrod had always admired how Kitty had managed to effortlessly manage life in the spotlight when her dear late husband was serving as the nation’s president. And Kitty always got a chuckle watching Jarrod come of age on Go To Your Room! She watched the reruns on TV Land with her own children for years. It was a match made in heaven. They bonded over the loss of their husbands and a love of the arts. And now Kitty was donating almost the entire budget of Jarrod’s first directorial effort, an Agatha Christie–inspired comedy thriller that Kitty, much more than Jarrod, believed in and was determined to make a resounding success.
Kitty grabbed Jarrod’s hands. “My dear, I’m so proud of you for taking the chance on this creative endeavor.” She took a breath. “I know I pressured you to move forward, and I’m so glad we did. But listen to me, sweetie. I know best. You desperately need to take a break.”
“I can’t, Kitty. We’re so far behind. And Kent isn’t even off book yet. I’m not even sure he can read!”
“The best directors know when to stop to rest and recharge so they can return to a troubled project with vigor and a new sense of clarity.”
“Where do you get this stuff?”
“Sondheim and I hung out in Newport one summer amidst a sea of bottomless mimosas. He had a lot of interesting things to say about his time in the theatre.”
Jarrod glanced down. “Wow, you drop so many names, I’m going to need a Dustbuster to get them all off the floor.”
Kitty crinkled her nose. “Don’t avoid the subject. You need a night out where you’re not consumed by this play. And I don’t mean one of those drunken three-martini loud dinners with those lovely but incorrigible BFFs of yours.”
“George and Leo.”
“They can be bad influences.”
“They saved my life after Charlie died. They’re family.”
“And I adore them. I just have something else in mind.”
Jarrod eyed her suspiciously. “Like what?”
She furtively glanced behind her at a figure hovering in the shadows at the back of the theatre. Jarrod followed her gaze and could see the man but was unable to tell what he looked like.
“Well, you know Arthur . . .”
“Your primary Secret Service detail.”
“Yes. Wonderful man. Very loyal. Well, he finally retired. We had a little party for him last week. I knew you wouldn’t come because you were rehearsing, so I didn’t bother inviting you. Anyway, his replacement started a few days ago. His name is Jim Stratton, and he is, well, how should I put this? As my granddaughter likes to say, he is a snack!”
“So he’s good-looking.”
“Oh, darling, Justin Trudeau is good-looking, and I told him so, but Jim, he’s not just good-looking. He is in a league all by himself.”
“Are you trying to play matchmaker with me and your new bodyguard?”
“Not bodyguard. Secret Service man. There is much more rigorous training involved. And yes. It’s time you finally got back out there and started dating again.”
“No, I’m not ready.”
“It’s been almost ten years!”
“And I’m not ready!”
Kitty took a step back, sizing him up. “You’re what, fifty-five years old?”
“Fifty-eight.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were that old.”
“Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
“It’s just that Jim’s a little younger. Early to midforties is my guess.”
“I’m not into younger guys.”
“Well, you should be. Pretty soon, there are going to be slim pickings ahead of you because they will have all died!”
“Kitty, I appreciate you looking out for me, but—”
She put a finger to his lips and called to the back of the theatre. “Jim, how are we on time?”
Jim took a step forward, checking his watch. “It’s ten thirty-seven. You have that luncheon at Spencer’s at noon.”
“Right. The meeting to discuss the McCallum Theatre renovations. We should leave soon.”
Jim nodded.
As Jim stood in the light now, Jarrod could see him more clearly.
He had to admit to himself that Jim was indeed a stunning man.
Sculpted jawline.
Handsome face.
Beautiful brown eyes that matched his hair.
A killer body.
Definitely way too good to be true.
Kitty pivoted back to Jarrod. “Gorgeous, isn’t he?”
“How do you even know he’s gay?”
“Well, I make it a rule not to pry into the personal lives of anyone who works for me, or anyone who is assigned to protect me, but there have been a few little clues along the way and they seem to check all the boxes.”
“For example?”
“One, he’s never been married. Two, he works out at the gym a lot, and I mean a lot. Three, and this is the big one, he’s a huge Taylor Swift fan!”
“That doesn’t mean a thing!”
“Of course it does!” Kitty protested.
“Kitty, read my lips.”
“No new taxes?”
Jarrod looked confused. “What?”
“That’s what George H. W. Bush told the country. ‘Read my lips. No new taxes.’ And then what did he do? He raised taxes. I begged him not to make that promise. I told Barbara he was writing his own political obituary. But did either of them bother listening to me? No, they didn’t. And then Clinton beat him in ninety-two.”
Jarrod sighed and then tried to take another stab at it. “Read my lips. No matchmaking. Do you understand? I’m quite happy living my very simple, very quiet life with very little drama.”
Kitty pursed her lips. “Fine. You do you.”
“Thank you.”
But Jarrod suspected from the knowing smile on her face that she was hardly ready to let this little mission of hers die a quiet death just yet.
As Liv lay prone on her stomach in bed, hugging her queen-size goose down pillow, she could feel his finger trace the outline of the small butterfly tattoo on her spine. She had gotten it in high school during some rebellious, free-spirited moment, then instantly regretted it, knowing her father would no doubt hit the roof when he saw it. But she had been clever, never wearing open-backed clothing or always donning a light wrap over her swimsuit whenever Dad was around. In her father’s outdated opinion, a tattoo was like graffiti on the body. As an old-school actor, he had taught her how important it was to treat the body as a temple by staying fit, especially not marring it with any kind of permanent ink. Sure, he had boasted a large neck tattoo in his twenties for a TV role as a gangbanger on one of the Law & Order shows—it’s hard to know which one because there were so many back then—but once he had completed his part, it was easily scrubbed off with simple soap and water.
Liv still loved her tattoo, and not just because Ariana Grande had a small one just like it or because she was a huge Harry Styles fan and he had a giant one spread across his chest. She just thanked God she didn’t get the name of her boyfriend at the time, Vlad, an exchange student from Russia, which she had seriously considered as an alternative. The romance busted up a few weeks later when she caught him kissing her frenemy Ava behind the bleachers in the gym in her junior year. At least she wouldn’t have to endure the painful process of having it removed, like Pete Davidson and Demi Lovato.
A tiny butterfly she could handle.
“You hungry? I can make us some breakfast,” he purred, rolling her over onto her back and gently kissing her belly button. “What do you got in your fridge?”
Liv suddenly sat up in bed, smiling, suspicious. “Why are you being so sweet? What are you up to?”
“Nothing!” he protested, raising himself up on his forearms and reaching over to steal another kiss, this time on her lips. “Can’t a guy spoil his girlfriend every once in a while?”
Girlfriend.
Such a loaded word.
Liv was enjoying her time with Zel, but she would not exactly categorize them as a couple just yet.
They had only been dating a few months, hardly long enough to qualify as a full-blown relationship.
At least in her opinion.
All her friends believed otherwise.
He was cute.
That was not in dispute.
Not with his shaggy dirty-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, sweet smile, and lanky build.
Her heart skipped a bit when she first met him around a keg at an off-campus mixer after her graduation. They had both been students at the College of the Desert, although he was a year younger and now in his senior year and she was taking graduate classes, still trying to figure out her next move. Their paths had not crossed up to that point. He was in the film department. She was studying criminal justice. The chemistry was combustible. But she was not looking to date anyone. She had just broken up with the heir to a local air-conditioning and heating company who was studying economics with the hopes of one day taking over the family business. Although his parents owned a small company, their greedy show-off of a son acted as if they were the royal family of the Coachella Valley, and so his charms wore thin after some time and his true colors were revealed.
He was an obnoxious, narcissistic prick.
Boy, could she pick them.
Although Zel seemed different.
Artistic.
Sensitive.
Maybe she had not made such a colossal mistake this time.
Zel hopped out of bed and slipped into some boxer shorts before padding out of the. . .
“It was you all along, Reginald! How could I not see it before?”
“Because you don’t see me at all! You’re only concerned with your snooty, rich, well-connected social circle!” the man moaned. “But me? A lowly servant? I was nothing to you, so why would I ever come across your radar? But you’re just playing guessing games. How could you possibly know that I was the one who killed Anthony Towers?”
“Frankly, I don’t need to guess. It’s the irrefutable proof I have uncovered that has done you in. That fingerprint we found on the night table lamp. We compared it to the one you left on the silver serving tray at my cocktail party yesterday. It was a perfect match.”
“I’m a butler. It’s literally my job to turn off the lights in Mr. Towers’s bedroom!”
“The small cut on your left arm you explained away as a scratch from Mrs. Towers’s Afghan cat, Millie. We found traces of your skin underneath the victim’s fingernails from when he desperately tried fighting for his life as you strangled him in his own bed!”
“But what motive would I possibly have to do away with my employer, the man who signs my paychecks, who ensures my livelihood?”
The woman in the loud caftan locked eyes with the seemingly harmless butler. “You’re right. Reginald Blackdown has no motive to kill Anthony Towers. But Scottie Campbell does.”
The butler shivered.
“That’s your real name, isn’t it?” the woman continued. “From Modesto. Whose nine-year-old daughter was killed seven years ago in a hit-and-run accident when Anthony Towers was there to meet one of his mistresses and was driving drunk.”
“H-How did you find out?” Reginald sputtered.
The woman confidently folded her arms. “Because Reginald claims to hail from Rhode Island and only recently relocated to the Coachella Valley, never having been west before, where he found a job working for Mr. Towers. But when I questioned Cecelia Marks, Mr. Towers’s personal chef, she said she was serving a Cabernet with dinner from E&J Gallo Winery in San Francisco. You absentmindedly corrected her, saying the E&J Gallo Winery was from Modesto. How could you possibly know that?”
“I could have read it somewhere online as an amateur wine connoisseur!” Reginald protested.
“Perhaps. But you appeared to know a lot about a town you’ve apparently never visited. So, I sent my trusty sidekick, Hank, up north to do a little digging. Tell him what you found, Hank.”
Hovering behind the woman was a tall, handsome young man in his early twenties with an impressive swimmer’s build and who looked as if he had just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. He appeared nervous.
After a moment of silence, the woman swiveled around toward him. “Hank? Tell him what you found.”
Like a deer caught in someone’s headlights, the young man just stood there, frozen. “I . . . uh . . . Well . . .” Then he glanced behind him. “Line, please.”
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” a man’s voice bellowed. “Turn the lights up!”
Someone flicked a switch that bathed the expansive place with light, once an IMAX auditorium that had been converted into a theatrical playhouse.
Jarrod Jarvis rose to his feet from a seat in the third row and made his way to the aisle, marching downstage where his actors stood, all of whom looked at him apprehensively.
“Kent, we go on in front of an audience in two weeks. Please, you have to learn your dialogue. You can’t just stand up there in a theatre packed with people and ask Ava backstage to tell you what to say.”
“Sorry, Jarrod, but I’m wiped, dude. It was my girlfriend’s birthday last night, and we may have stayed out partying a little too late at the Retro Room!”
His eyes were at half-mast.
Jarrod did not even want to guess what he might be on. “What part of ‘we open in two weeks’ are you not understanding, Kent?”
“Jarrod, does this caftan make me look fat?”
“No, Talia, you look beautiful,” Jarrod insisted. He was used to stroking his leading lady’s fragile ego. He had known a lot of insecure actresses over the years.
“I don’t know. This thing is just so big and flowing and completely buries my figure,” she pouted, raising her arms and whipping them around so the fabric almost looked like a round multicolored spinning top. “I mean, it’s the end of the last scene in the play. I certainly don’t want the audience expecting me to belt out a tune.”
Jarrod stared at the actress, dumbfounded. “You lost me, Talia.”
The man playing the butler chimed in. “She feels like it’s time for the fat lady to sing.”
“Ahhh,” Jarrod sighed, dropping his head.
Kent snorted. “Oh, I get it. That’s funny.”
Talia sashayed to the edge of the stage and peered down at Jarrod. “I just don’t see the harm in calling in the wardrobe people to review a few alternative choices.”
“There are no wardrobe people, Talia. There is no wardrobe person. We have a rack of donated clothes in the wings. That’s about it. This is local theatre. Not the set of a Scorsese movie.”
Talia’s eyes narrowed, her tone tense. “I don’t mean to be difficult, Jarrod . . .”
Which meant she was about to become very difficult.
“But I am obviously the heroine of this piece. This is my big moment. The audience is watching me with rapt attention. I just think it would behoove the character to wear something a little more formfitting, something that flatters her figure and doesn’t try to hide it.”
“Talia told me she has a new personal trainer and has lost five pounds so far,” the actor playing the butler said.
“Seven!” Talia corrected him.
Jarrod bowed his head, defeated. “Fine. Why don’t you head backstage and see if you can find something you like better? Take five, everybody!”
The man playing the butler clapped his hands. “Goody! I have a lovely bottle of Glenfiddich 21 Year Gran Reserva and several shot glasses in my car. Anyone care to partake?”
Kent eagerly raised his hand.
“Ira, it’s not even noon!” Jarrod protested.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere in the world, as they say!” Ira said with a conspiratorial grin as he shuffled off stage behind Talia with Kent lumbering after him.
Jarrod rubbed his eyes with his right index finger and thumb and mumbled to himself, “It’s like herding cats.”
“Darling, don’t despair! This production has hit written all over it!” a woman’s voice projected from the back of the theatre.
“Yeah, well, obviously you haven’t been watching any of today’s rehearsal.”
Jarrod did not even have to look to see who was speaking. He could recognize that singsong voice anywhere. “Good morning, Kitty.”
Kitty Reynolds was in her early seventies, glamorous, a boozy delight, and most notably a former first lady of the United States. She swept down the aisle toward Jarrod with all the fanfare of a grand marshal at a gay pride parade. “Don’t worry, sweetie, as one of my closest, dearest friends Broadway legend Bernadette Peters once told me, a bad dress rehearsal always portends to a great opening night!”
“We’re still two weeks out from our actual dress rehearsal. I would welcome a lousy dress rehearsal. But right now, we are on track for a major catastrophe. I never should have let my ego get the best of me and agree to write and direct my own play!”
“Stop spiraling. This isn’t the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It’s the CV Rep in Cathedral City, California. You’re putting too much pressure on yourself.”
“Do you like the title?”
“Evil Under the Palm Trees?”
“Yes. Does it seem a little too on the nose? I mean I named the lead character Agatha after Agatha Christie, and the title is a spoof of one of her most popular books. It could come off as a little bit derivative.”
“It’s perfect,” Kitty assured him.
“You really think so?”
“I know so. Because I have already spent money printing the programs, and every single one of them, in big, bold black letters, says Evil Under the Palm Trees. So, suffice it to say we’re not changing it.”
Just Kitty’s soothing presence was beginning to calm Jarrod down. He was going to get through this. At least that was what he kept telling himself. Ever since moving to Palm Springs from Hollywood after his husband, Charlie’s, unexpected death, he had been trying to find himself, discover a purpose, some path forward in a life that he had not expected to have to take on.
Jarrod had always believed that he and Charlie would grow old together once their daughter, Olivia, was off to college and they were finally empty-nesters. In his mind, he pictured a seaside villa in Provincetown or a quiet little abode in a charming town in Mexico, or even some sprawling fabulous estate here in Palm Springs, a town teeming with aging gay men. But once you have a plan in mind, well, life has a habit of throwing you a curveball.
Jarrod’s husband was a police detective, so there had always been a gnawing fear that one day the phone might ring and someone would bear the worst news possible.
An arrest gone awry.
Cut down in the line of duty.
There were so many times that Jarrod rested his head down on the pillow at night, fearing he might wake up to discover Charlie gone.
But it didn’t happen that way.
Not even close.
It had all been so maddeningly ordinary. A weird spot on his back. A biopsy. The excruciating wait for the results. The gut-wrenching diagnosis. The months of treatment. And then, less than a year later, he was gone. Just like that. Jarrod was left alone with a thirteen-year-old daughter he and Charlie had been raising together.
But despite the devastating loss, Olivia, or Liv, as friends and family liked to call her, was now a thriving young woman, a graduate from the College of the Desert, after studying criminal justice in honor of her father.
That would be Charlie.
Not Jarrod.
Liv had shown zero interest in Jarrod’s former profession, acting.
It was only recently that Liv had sat down to watch a few episodes of the 1980s television series Go To Your Room! Jarrod had been eleven years old when he was cast as the precocious youngest kid in the saccharine sweet Friday night sitcom that made him a household name.
That is, until the show was canceled.
Unlike many other former child stars, Jarrod never had to contend with greedy stage parents frittering away his fortune, or a well-publicized drug problem, or multiple arrests for assault or carrying an unregistered firearm. In fact, he lived a pretty normal serene life post-TV fame. Especially after he met his future husband when Charlie was still a beat cop.
Charlie had grounded him.
Made him feel safe.
Loved.
Whole.
So the shock of losing him had been a monumental struggle.
For both Jarrod and Liv.
Jarrod knew in his heart that by trying to shield Liv from all the pain he was going through, he had somehow managed to create a distance between them. He loved her deeply. She was his whole world. But he knew there was work to be done on their relationship.
It had been Kitty who encouraged him to stretch his creative muscles again. The two had met at a mutual friend’s party several years ago and quickly became inseparable. Jarrod had always admired how Kitty had managed to effortlessly manage life in the spotlight when her dear late husband was serving as the nation’s president. And Kitty always got a chuckle watching Jarrod come of age on Go To Your Room! She watched the reruns on TV Land with her own children for years. It was a match made in heaven. They bonded over the loss of their husbands and a love of the arts. And now Kitty was donating almost the entire budget of Jarrod’s first directorial effort, an Agatha Christie–inspired comedy thriller that Kitty, much more than Jarrod, believed in and was determined to make a resounding success.
Kitty grabbed Jarrod’s hands. “My dear, I’m so proud of you for taking the chance on this creative endeavor.” She took a breath. “I know I pressured you to move forward, and I’m so glad we did. But listen to me, sweetie. I know best. You desperately need to take a break.”
“I can’t, Kitty. We’re so far behind. And Kent isn’t even off book yet. I’m not even sure he can read!”
“The best directors know when to stop to rest and recharge so they can return to a troubled project with vigor and a new sense of clarity.”
“Where do you get this stuff?”
“Sondheim and I hung out in Newport one summer amidst a sea of bottomless mimosas. He had a lot of interesting things to say about his time in the theatre.”
Jarrod glanced down. “Wow, you drop so many names, I’m going to need a Dustbuster to get them all off the floor.”
Kitty crinkled her nose. “Don’t avoid the subject. You need a night out where you’re not consumed by this play. And I don’t mean one of those drunken three-martini loud dinners with those lovely but incorrigible BFFs of yours.”
“George and Leo.”
“They can be bad influences.”
“They saved my life after Charlie died. They’re family.”
“And I adore them. I just have something else in mind.”
Jarrod eyed her suspiciously. “Like what?”
She furtively glanced behind her at a figure hovering in the shadows at the back of the theatre. Jarrod followed her gaze and could see the man but was unable to tell what he looked like.
“Well, you know Arthur . . .”
“Your primary Secret Service detail.”
“Yes. Wonderful man. Very loyal. Well, he finally retired. We had a little party for him last week. I knew you wouldn’t come because you were rehearsing, so I didn’t bother inviting you. Anyway, his replacement started a few days ago. His name is Jim Stratton, and he is, well, how should I put this? As my granddaughter likes to say, he is a snack!”
“So he’s good-looking.”
“Oh, darling, Justin Trudeau is good-looking, and I told him so, but Jim, he’s not just good-looking. He is in a league all by himself.”
“Are you trying to play matchmaker with me and your new bodyguard?”
“Not bodyguard. Secret Service man. There is much more rigorous training involved. And yes. It’s time you finally got back out there and started dating again.”
“No, I’m not ready.”
“It’s been almost ten years!”
“And I’m not ready!”
Kitty took a step back, sizing him up. “You’re what, fifty-five years old?”
“Fifty-eight.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were that old.”
“Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
“It’s just that Jim’s a little younger. Early to midforties is my guess.”
“I’m not into younger guys.”
“Well, you should be. Pretty soon, there are going to be slim pickings ahead of you because they will have all died!”
“Kitty, I appreciate you looking out for me, but—”
She put a finger to his lips and called to the back of the theatre. “Jim, how are we on time?”
Jim took a step forward, checking his watch. “It’s ten thirty-seven. You have that luncheon at Spencer’s at noon.”
“Right. The meeting to discuss the McCallum Theatre renovations. We should leave soon.”
Jim nodded.
As Jim stood in the light now, Jarrod could see him more clearly.
He had to admit to himself that Jim was indeed a stunning man.
Sculpted jawline.
Handsome face.
Beautiful brown eyes that matched his hair.
A killer body.
Definitely way too good to be true.
Kitty pivoted back to Jarrod. “Gorgeous, isn’t he?”
“How do you even know he’s gay?”
“Well, I make it a rule not to pry into the personal lives of anyone who works for me, or anyone who is assigned to protect me, but there have been a few little clues along the way and they seem to check all the boxes.”
“For example?”
“One, he’s never been married. Two, he works out at the gym a lot, and I mean a lot. Three, and this is the big one, he’s a huge Taylor Swift fan!”
“That doesn’t mean a thing!”
“Of course it does!” Kitty protested.
“Kitty, read my lips.”
“No new taxes?”
Jarrod looked confused. “What?”
“That’s what George H. W. Bush told the country. ‘Read my lips. No new taxes.’ And then what did he do? He raised taxes. I begged him not to make that promise. I told Barbara he was writing his own political obituary. But did either of them bother listening to me? No, they didn’t. And then Clinton beat him in ninety-two.”
Jarrod sighed and then tried to take another stab at it. “Read my lips. No matchmaking. Do you understand? I’m quite happy living my very simple, very quiet life with very little drama.”
Kitty pursed her lips. “Fine. You do you.”
“Thank you.”
But Jarrod suspected from the knowing smile on her face that she was hardly ready to let this little mission of hers die a quiet death just yet.
As Liv lay prone on her stomach in bed, hugging her queen-size goose down pillow, she could feel his finger trace the outline of the small butterfly tattoo on her spine. She had gotten it in high school during some rebellious, free-spirited moment, then instantly regretted it, knowing her father would no doubt hit the roof when he saw it. But she had been clever, never wearing open-backed clothing or always donning a light wrap over her swimsuit whenever Dad was around. In her father’s outdated opinion, a tattoo was like graffiti on the body. As an old-school actor, he had taught her how important it was to treat the body as a temple by staying fit, especially not marring it with any kind of permanent ink. Sure, he had boasted a large neck tattoo in his twenties for a TV role as a gangbanger on one of the Law & Order shows—it’s hard to know which one because there were so many back then—but once he had completed his part, it was easily scrubbed off with simple soap and water.
Liv still loved her tattoo, and not just because Ariana Grande had a small one just like it or because she was a huge Harry Styles fan and he had a giant one spread across his chest. She just thanked God she didn’t get the name of her boyfriend at the time, Vlad, an exchange student from Russia, which she had seriously considered as an alternative. The romance busted up a few weeks later when she caught him kissing her frenemy Ava behind the bleachers in the gym in her junior year. At least she wouldn’t have to endure the painful process of having it removed, like Pete Davidson and Demi Lovato.
A tiny butterfly she could handle.
“You hungry? I can make us some breakfast,” he purred, rolling her over onto her back and gently kissing her belly button. “What do you got in your fridge?”
Liv suddenly sat up in bed, smiling, suspicious. “Why are you being so sweet? What are you up to?”
“Nothing!” he protested, raising himself up on his forearms and reaching over to steal another kiss, this time on her lips. “Can’t a guy spoil his girlfriend every once in a while?”
Girlfriend.
Such a loaded word.
Liv was enjoying her time with Zel, but she would not exactly categorize them as a couple just yet.
They had only been dating a few months, hardly long enough to qualify as a full-blown relationship.
At least in her opinion.
All her friends believed otherwise.
He was cute.
That was not in dispute.
Not with his shaggy dirty-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, sweet smile, and lanky build.
Her heart skipped a bit when she first met him around a keg at an off-campus mixer after her graduation. They had both been students at the College of the Desert, although he was a year younger and now in his senior year and she was taking graduate classes, still trying to figure out her next move. Their paths had not crossed up to that point. He was in the film department. She was studying criminal justice. The chemistry was combustible. But she was not looking to date anyone. She had just broken up with the heir to a local air-conditioning and heating company who was studying economics with the hopes of one day taking over the family business. Although his parents owned a small company, their greedy show-off of a son acted as if they were the royal family of the Coachella Valley, and so his charms wore thin after some time and his true colors were revealed.
He was an obnoxious, narcissistic prick.
Boy, could she pick them.
Although Zel seemed different.
Artistic.
Sensitive.
Maybe she had not made such a colossal mistake this time.
Zel hopped out of bed and slipped into some boxer shorts before padding out of the. . .
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My Father Always Finds Corpses
Lee Hollis
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