Private investigator Poppy Harmon likes the anonymity of working behind the scenes for the hottest names in Palm Springs. But when solving a case demands dragging her old acting career out of retirement, it's lights . . . camera . . . murder!
Cast in her first role since the 1980s, Poppy has never been more rattled or unprepared on a film set. It's an embarrassing but necessary cover to keep an eye on client Danika Delgado, a rising starlet and social media influencer with a large following—including a dangerous stalker who won't disappear. The leading lady's fame is growing, and so are the threats against her life . . .
Unfortunately for Poppy, there's more to fear than flubbed lines. When she finds Danika smothered to death in her trailer at Joshua Tree National Park, the horrifying crime stirs up memories of a man known as the Pillow Talk Killer during her time as a young actress, bringing unsolved murders from the past back into focus . . .
A trail of clues urges Poppy, hunky sidekick Matt Flowers, and the rest of the Desert Flowers Detective Agency gang on a frantic chase after Danika's crazed number one fan. But as co-stars and production crew members start looking equally suspicious, Poppy must expose a slew of insidious industry secrets before a murderer rolls out the red carpet for someone else . . .
Release date:
March 30, 2021
Publisher:
Kensington Cozies
Print pages:
223
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Poppy Harmon was having a devil of a time operating her electric wheelchair. When she pushed the joystick forward, the wheels seemed to veer right, not straight ahead, and she banged into a wall in the hallway after maneuvering out of the bedroom, trying to steer herself toward the living room.
Poppy sighed.
She was never going to get the hang of this.
She tried cranking the knob to the left, but only managed to drive the wheelchair away from one wall and crash it into the opposite one. The noise alerted someone in the kitchen, and within seconds a young woman in her twenties with long, straight black hair, emerald green eyes, and a bright smile that mostly disguised a somewhat hardened face suddenly appeared in front of her.
“Oh, you’re up. How was your nap?”
“Fine,” Poppy spit out, frowning, continuing to push the knob forward but getting nowhere. “I hate this new wheelchair. My old one was a lot easier to operate.”
“Here, allow me,” the young woman said, slipping behind Poppy and manually pushing the wheelchair by the handles out to the living room and parking it in front of the large flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. “I have some tomato soup heating up on the stove for your lunch. Would you like Ritz crackers or Saltines to go with it? I have both.”
“Saltines, please,” Poppy answered gruffly.
“Coming right up,” the woman said before snatching up the remote and turning on the TV. “Now you just relax and watch your British Bake Off show, and lunch will be ready in just a few minutes.”
She bounded back to the kitchen.
Once she was gone, Poppy adjusted the itchy, stringy gray wig she was wearing; straightened her burgundy house coat; and checked out her face in a wall mirror across from her. The retired Tony Award–winning Broadway make up artist the Desert Flowers Detective Agency had hired to transform Poppy into a ninety-two-year-old woman had done an incredibly convincing job using liquid latex, eyeliner, and face paint. Poppy looked at least thirty years older than her actual age.
And more importantly, Tanya Cook, the self-described “professional home care nurse” who’d answered her ad to help out with shopping, errands, meals, and to administer medications, was totally buying the disguise.
Poppy heard a thump.
It had come from down the hall, the small guest bedroom that she had set up as her office.
Poppy tried to pick up the remote off the coffee table to lower the television volume, but couldn’t quite reach it. She stretched her fingers as far as they would go, but the remote was still about an inch away from her grasp. Frustrated, Poppy swiveled her head around to make sure Tanya had not wandered back into the living room, and then, with lightning speed, she jumped out of the wheelchair, grabbed the remote, and quickly sat back down. She muted the TV and waited.
Sure enough, she heard another thump.
Poppy pulled back on the joystick, the wheelchair rolled in reverse, and then she buzzed back down the hall. The door to the guest room was closed. She leaned forward, turned the handle, and pushed the door open, surprised to find two more young women, both around Tanya’s age, and just as pretty. One was blond and the other auburn haired. The blonde was seated at a desk meticulously go ing through drawers while the other one held a half-filled plastic garbage bag that she appeared to be stuffing with valuables.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Poppy cried.
The two girls froze in place, not quite sure what to do.
Tanya appeared in a flash. She stepped in front of Poppy’s wheelchair and knelt down so they were at eye level, a reassuring smile on her face. “There’s no cause for concern. These are my friends, Bella and Kylie. I invited them over to help tidy up the house. Don’t you want your lovely home to be nice and clean for when your grandkids come to visit?”
“I suppose so,” Poppy said. “How much is this going to cost me? I used to do my own housework….”
“Oh no, Edna, this is included in the service. You don’t have to pay anything extra. I am just here to make things easier for you.”
Poppy nodded. She had momentarily forgotten her cover name was Edna Greenblatt, so she was grateful that Tanya had just reminded her. She smiled warmly at the two nervous-looking women in the office. “Thank you, girls. I may have some gingersnap cookies in the kitchen. Would you like one?”
They exchanged quick glances, and then the one with the garbage bag, Bella, shook her head and muttered, “No, we’re fine.”
Tanya firmly gripped the handles of the wheelchair and rolled Poppy out of the room and back down the hall. “Come on, Edna, time to eat your soup.”
“I spotted some dust bunnies underneath the desk. Do you think they can sweep those up, too?” Poppy asked.
“Of course, the whole house will be spotless when they’re done, I promise,” Tanya said, parking Poppy back in front of the TV in the living room. “Now stay put while I finish preparing your lunch tray.”
Poppy detected a slight annoyance in Tanya’s tone. She was obviously getting tired of being nice to this high-maintenance old crow.
Because the fact of the matter was Tanya was no professional home care nurse. Tanya Cook and her two cohorts, Bella and Kylie, were professional criminals, allegedly running a massive financial fraud and theft scheme by infiltrating the homes of susceptible senior citizens and gaining access to their bank passwords, cash, checks, credit cards, valuables, and personal documents. Basically bleeding their victims dry right in their own homes! Tanya would scout out a vulnerable target, someone in need of in-home care; apply for the job with forged credentials; then show up at the door with a friendly smile and a promise to take good care of them. She would play nursemaid for about a week, gaining the trust of her charge before bringing in her two accomplices to rob the unsuspecting senior blind, even insidiously redirecting social security direct deposits to a dummy bank account.
Their last mark, however, a feisty widow by the name of Cecile LaCrosse, an eighty-nine-year-old battle-ax who unfortunately fell victim to the scam, was not about to let them get away with it. And so she brought in Poppy and her crew at the Desert Flowers Detective Agency to set up a sting and bring this evil coven of Gen Z witches down.
Poppy, along with her two partners, Iris Becker and Violet Hogan, took a very personal interest in this particular case because they felt a strong kinship with the victims. Although still in their sixties, they knew it was only a matter of time before they themselves might be confused, defenseless elderly victims preyed upon by opportunistic, heartless swindlers.
And so Poppy had insisted that she pose as an elderly widow, drawing on her years of acting experience from when she was a starlet in the 1980s, in order to bust up this enterprising, depraved crime ring.
And so far she had played it to perfection.
Tanya was confident enough after only three days of playing nursemaid to bring in her two sidekicks to finish the job by pillaging poor Edna Greenblatt’s home until she was left with nothing but her electric wheelchair, which had a mind of its own.
Tanya appeared with a wooden tray and set it down in front of Poppy. “I garnished the soup with a few garlic croutons. My own grandmother used to love the extra kick.”
“It looks lovely,” Poppy said, picking up the spoon with a shaky hand and scooping some up, making sure to dribble a little on her housecoat just to be convincing.
“Can I get you anything else?” Tanya asked.
“Oh, no, dear, you’ve done quite enough,” Poppy said with a thin, knowing smile.
And she meant it.
Tanya and her friends had certainly done enough. And they were about to discover just how “done” they actually were.
Violet’s loud, piercing, high-pitched voice of concern blasted through Poppy’s ear. “Poppy, Poppy, what’s happening in there? Are you okay?”
Poppy dropped her spoon on the tray and raised her hand to adjust the small earbud resting in the crevice of her right ear, and urgently whispered into the tiny microphone that had been pinned on the inside of her housecoat, “Violet, turn down the volume on your mic, you’re going to burst my eardrum!”
“Oh, sorry,” Violet said, lowering her voice. “Iris, how do you adjust the volume on this thing?”
“Here, let me do it,” Iris snapped.
There was a pause.
“Hello? Hello? Is this better?” Violet bellowed, even more deafening than before.
Poppy sighed. “No, she just made you even louder.”
“Hold on,” Violet said.
Poppy could hear her two friends and partners bickering in the background away from the microphone that they were using to communicate with Poppy.
“Is that better?” Violet asked, almost whispering.
“Yes, much,” Poppy said.
“Who are you talking to?”
The stern voice came from directly behind her. Poppy used her joystick to turn her electric wheelchair around.
Tanya stood staring at her, a plate of gingersnap cookies in her hand.
“What?” Poppy asked innocently.
“I heard you whispering to somebody,” Tanya said suspiciously, eyes darting around to see if anyone else was in the room before returning her mistrustful gaze back to her charge. “Who was it?”
Her tone was unsettlingly sinister.
“Abe,” Poppy said softly.
“Who’s Abe?”
“My late husband. He comes to talk to me every now and then,” Poppy said with a sad, drawn face. “I miss him so much. He would have loved this tomato soup.” Poppy picked up her spoon to take another sip, making sure to get a garlic crouton. As she slurped and crunched, Tanya seemed to size her up, ultimately opting to believe her story, then held out the plate of gingersnaps toward her.
“Cookie?”
Poppy slowly reached out with her trembling hand and took a cookie, then shoved it into her mouth and talked with her mouth full. “Yummy.”
“I’m going to see if Bella and Kylie would like one,” Tanya said, turning around to head down the hall, but stopping at the window. “Have you noticed that van parked across the street?”
“What van?” Poppy asked innocently.
“Desert Florists,” Tanya said, staring out the window.
Poppy swallowed hard.
The van had been rented by the Desert Flowers Detective Agency. They had slapped on a fake florist shop decal on the side so as not to arouse suspicion. Inside were Violet and Iris, keeping a careful watch over the house. However, they had underestimated how smart and observant Tanya Cook could be.
“If they’re just here to deliver flowers to a house in the neighborhood, it’s taking them a really long time,” Tanya said warily, checking her wristwatch. “It’s been there since I arrived this morning.”
“Oh, that van is parked there all the time,” Poppy quickly explained. “It belongs to one of the neighbors. That’s his business. He’s always leaving it there and getting a ticket because he forgets to move it on street-cleaning day.”
Tanya peered at the van a few more seconds before deciding to buy Poppy’s on-the-spot made-up explanation. She then continued on down the hall with her tray of cookies.
“Is everyone in place?” Poppy whispered.
There was silence.
“Violet?” Poppy asked.
Still nothing.
She had lost communication.
Either her earpiece battery had suddenly died, or there was a problem with the transmitter in the van.
“I’m here, Poppy, I accidentally hit the mute button! Sorry! Yes, we’re ready, it’s go time!”
“I knew I should have been in charge of the communication equipment!” Iris snorted.
Poppy braced herself just as Tanya returned from the guest bedroom/office with her empty plate. Something outside caught her eye and she raced back to the front window in time to see a uniformed police officer ducking down and circling around the house. Tanya gasped, her mouth dropping open in surprise. She quickly found her voice and started yelling, “Cops!”
Bella and Kylie came crashing out of the guest room, Kylie holding a stuffed garbage bag in her arms.
“Are you serious?” Bella asked nervously.
“Yes!” Tanya cried. “I just saw one sneaking around the side of the house! Run!”
Bella sprinted toward the kitchen, Kylie following close behind but weighed down with the bag. She finally let go of it and it dropped to the floor with a thud as she raced to catch up with Bella.
Poppy heard a man yell, “Police! Put your hands up!”
Tanya’s eyes popped open in surprise and she made a mad dash for the front door. Poppy, anticipating the move, jammed the joystick of her wheelchair all the way forward, full speed, and whizzed over in front of the door, blocking her escape.
“What are you doing? Out of my way, old woman!” Tanya screeched, furious, struggling to get around her.
Poppy sprang up to her feet and forcefully pushed Tanya back.
The miraculous sudden strength and agility of the ninety-two-year-old stymied Tanya briefly, but she was still not to be deterred. She charged forward, trying to physically shove Poppy out of the way. Poppy held her ground, knowing she was no match for the young, physically fit girl, but determined to keep her from getting away. Poppy and Tanya grappled, Tanya trying to scratch Poppy’s face with her nails in the hope she might release her grip, but as Tanya withdrew her nails, she was stunned to find latex hanging off them, not blood.
“What the—?”
Two uniformed cops suddenly bolted into the living room from the back door off the kitchen, their guns drawn.
“It’s over, Tanya!” One of the cops yelled.
She shuddered at the mention of her name because she knew at this moment this had all been a sting.
A con job.
And she had willfully, stupidly, walked right into it. Tanya slowly raised her hands in the air while glaring defiantly at Poppy, who busily wiped the old-age makeup off her face with the napkin from her lunch tray.
One of the cops, a boyish, inexperienced one, struggled to unhook a pair of handcuffs from his belt loop. Finally, he glanced apprehensively over at his more seasoned partner. “Sarge?”
The older cop sighed, and assisted him in releasing the handcuffs from the officer’s belt so he could snap them on Tanya’s wrists.
Once her face was free of powder and latex and added wrinkles, Poppy removed her gray wig.
Tanya gaped at her, undoubtedly kicking herself for so easily buying into her now obvious disguise.
The older cop studied Poppy, then stepped forward with a big smile. “Hey, I know you …”
The younger cop snapped to attention and stared at Poppy, still clueless. “You do?”
The younger cop still appeared totally confused. “Who?”
“The TV show, it was on in the nineteen eighties!” Sarge exclaimed.
“I wasn’t born until nineteen ninety-seven,” the younger cop said.
Both Poppy and Sarge chose to ignore him.
Sarge was almost giddy. “Detective Jordan said he had recruited an actress to help with this operation. I just never imagined it would be you! This is so cool!”
Of course, Poppy knew that it was she who had contacted Detective Jordan, bringing him into the case, not the other way around, but why clarify such things and potentially bruise Jordan’s fragile ego?
“I am a private investigator these days,” Poppy felt the need to explain.
“Wait, a real one? Are you joking?” Sarge asked, still beaming from ear to ear.
Poppy nodded shyly.
Sarge fumbled for his phone. “Hey, do you mind if I get a selfie with you? My poker buddies are never going to believe this!”
Poppy did not feel this moment was appropriate for that kind of thing, but she also did not want to disappoint a fan.
Sarge basically bodychecked a handcuffed Tanya out of the way to get to Poppy.
“Maybe I should read this woman her rights first, Sarge,” the younger cop quietly suggested.
“That can wait, kid, hold on a sec,” Sarge barked before holding his phone up and beaming while snapping a photo. He checked it and frowned. “It’s a little blurry. Do you mind if I take another one?”
“No, not at all,” Poppy said, keeping one eye on Tanya, who glowered at her menacingly.
Sarge tried again, this time satisfied. “Thank you, Daphne, you made my day!”
“Of course,” Poppy said, grabbing the handles of the wheelchair and pushing it out of the way so the officers could escort Tanya Cook outside to their waiting squad car.
The young officer gripped Tanya by the arm to lead her out, but she refused to budge, her eyes angrily fixed on Poppy. “So you’re telling me, the cops recruited some washed-up, old has-been Hollywood star to take us down?”
Sarge nodded. “Yeah, and unfortunately for you, it worked like a charm, didn’t it?”
Tanya sneered and looked dismissively at Poppy. “Why bother with the old lady makeup? You’re already old enough to be my grandmother.”
Poppy bristled on the inside, but was not about to show any emotion on the surface to give this she-devil the satisfaction. Instead, she calmly replied, “Yes, Tanya, you may have many more years ahead of you in life than I do, but a lot of them will no doubt be spent behind bars … so there’s that.”
Poppy opened the front door, allowing the two officers to leave with Tanya, who looked as if she wanted to smack Poppy right across the face but couldn’t because her hands were handcuffed behind her back, so instead, she just raised her head high contemptuously and began to softly whistle the children’s nursery rhyme “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Poppy scoffed at Tanya’s labored attempts to ridicule her Hollywood past. But given what was about to come, that unfortunately would turn out to be a very grave and dangerous mistake.
It had been over thirty years since Poppy Harmon had stepped foot on an actual Hollywood film set. Granted, this shoot was set up at a high-end resort hotel in the heart of Palm Springs and not some cavernous soundstage on the Paramount lot where her mid-1980s television series Jack Colt, PI had been filmed, but there was a feeling of warm familiarity, an infusion of happy memories, because back in her heyday when Poppy was an actress with a regular TV role, she had never once taken it for granted. She had always been hyperaware of just how lucky she was to have scored such a cushy, well-paying gig at the time, especially after so many years in her late teens and early twenties struggling, waiting tables, modeling skimpy swimwear at car shows, and answering phones at a call center for a household appliance company.
Poppy watched as the crew busily set up lights by the shimmering pool where the next scene was to be shot as a bright-eyed, eager, enthusiastic PA who had introduced himself as Timothy led her and Matt through the resort.
Matt was like a kid in a candy store, excitedly soaking up everything he saw: a makeup woman powdering the face of a vaguely recognizable actor; a forty-something man in a gray T-shirt and red baseball cap, slumped over in his director’s chair, perusing a script; some kind of set decorator or production designer painstakingly arranging red bougainvillea in the background of the set as the cinematographer stared through the lens of his camera, working on getting his shot just right.
Poppy knew Matt was in his element. This had been his dream for most of his young life. He had wanted so desperately to become a successful actor, the next Ryan Gosling or Chris Hemsworth, or whoever was the hot superstar of the moment. But life never works out exactly as you expect, and now the talented young man found himself playing the role of Matt Flowers, the public face, the de facto head, of the Desert Flowers Detective Agency. He wasn’t on billboards and buses, or in the front row of the Academy Awards, but he was successful and surprisingly good at the part he was playing.
When Poppy, along with her two best pals, Iris and Violet, had first started the Palm Springs–based investigative firm, no one would hire them. Mostly due to people’s ageist preconceptions that three mature women in their sixties were utterly incapable of solving cases or handling potentially dangerous situations. Enter Matt. Young, virile, disarmingly charming. He had risen to the challenge of playing a master detective wholeheartedly, and his performance had put their fledgling business on the map. Now they had more clients than they knew what to do with.
Including Danika Delgado, a rising young actress and social media influencer who had heard about Matt’s daring exploits online and had called the Desert Flowers office, which was located in Iris’s garage, to inquire about hiring them.
Actually, Danika did not call personally. One of her three personal assistants had left the message on voicemail. Poppy, Iris, and Violet were clueless as to who Danika Delgado even was, but Matt had certainly heard of her, which became quite clear when he whooped and hollered about being a big fan at the first mention of her name in their morning staff meeting. His outburst had startled Violet so much, she spilled coffee all over her new blouse she had just bought on sale at TJ Maxx.
The assistant had not explained why Danika wanted to hire local private detectives, just that she would like to meet with them ASAP. Once Poppy read Danika Delgado’s net worth online, she immediately called the assistant back and happily informed her that they luckily had an opening to meet this very afternoon.
Danika was at the Sundial Luxury Resort just outside of downtown Palm Springs shooting a reboot of the early 1960s camp classic Palm Springs Weekend. The original had featured the sizzling hot stars of the time including Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Robert Conrad and Stefanie Powers. In fact, Poppy had been friends with Stefanie Powers, who was co-starring with Robert Wagner on Hart to Hart, about a globe-trotting wealthy married couple who solve murders, at the same time Poppy was appearing in Jack Colt. Now, after all these years, Netflix, or Hulu, it was one of those giant streaming services, was currently producing a remake, or reboot, Poppy could never keep the lingo straight, of Palm Springs Weekend, with an all-new Gen Z cast.
The production assistant, Timothy, cranked his head around to Poppy and Matt, who was so distracted by a bevy of bikini-clad extras, he tripped over a lounge chair, and asked, “Would you like to stop by craft services for some coffee, or a Danish before I take you to Danika’s room?”
Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Poppy cut him off with a curt, “No, thank you, Timothy.” She was too anxious to hear what kind of case Danika wanted to hire them for and didn’t want to waste time while Matt dithered over whether he should have a cruller or go for a healthier option like a granola bar.
Timothy nodded and they kept moving until they reached a glass door leading inside toward the large corner suites. Timothy opened it and stepped aside to allow them both in ahead of him when the man in the T-shirt and red baseball cap, his script rolled up in his fist, bounded toward them.
“Wait!” he yelled, catching up to them, breathless. He took a moment, his eyes fixed on Poppy before continuing. “I’m sorry, I’m Trent, Trent Dodsworth-Jones,” he said in a clipped decidedly British accent.
“Trent’s our director,” Timothy said, slightly concerned he had done something wrong, bracing himself to be dressed down in some unexpected way.
Trent ignored him and remained focused on Poppy. “Are you who I think you are?”
“That depends on who you think I am,” Poppy said dryly.
Matt smirked. He loved it whenever Poppy got recognized for her signature role on Jack Colt.
Poppy graciously extended her hand. “Poppy Harmon.”
Trent excitedly pumped her hand. “I grew up watching you back in the eighties. I was a huge fan of Jack Colt when it finally made its way across the pond! My family comes from a dreary little town called Preston in Northern England. There is absolutely nothing to do there. Our only claim to fame is that we are about an hour’s drive from Liverpool where the Beatles got their start. That’s it. There is no other reason to ever. . .
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