I had Neil on the phone as I watched the morning news. He’d called me last night as I sat outside a motel while Dick Gerryson and the swinging dick with him did whatever they were doing. They’d once again met at the Pink Penguin, driven straight to some no-tell motel, and I had captured it all in glorious, high resolution color. I had everything I needed for Carol to stick Dick’s dick in the wringer, but that had to wait.

“You’ve never seen this girl before?” I asked.

“Never.”

I shook my head. Vanesa Pierson was at the center of a media circus. Her story was she’d been at one of his fitness centers, Neil had invited her into a room for some private cardio, then had gotten very grabby and wouldn’t stop even though she’d asked him to several times. She’d decided to come forward because of all the rumors, she invited all women who had suffered the same fate to come forward to condemn such behavior, and she was going to sue him so rich people like him would know they couldn’t do anything they wanted to poor, helpless women.

“Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Find out if she has a membership at any of your fitness centers or on your website. I’ve got some work to do.” I hated to do it, but I had to know. “Neil, I need you to be dead honest with me. Is there anything about this girl I need to know? Have you slept with her, hit on her, anything?”

“No!”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes! Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I don’t want to be surprised if I go digging. If I find something, and I get subpoenaed, I won’t have any choice but to turn over what I find, even if it’s harmful. Better to not go looking if I’m not going to like what I find.”

“I swear to God, Tanya, I don’t know this girl. I promise.”

I smiled. I’d believed him the first time, but I had to ask. “Okay. I’m on it. Now that I have a face and name, I’ve got something to work with.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Don’t ask me that. Trust me, you absolutely do not want to know.”

There was a long pause. “I trust you, but don’t do anything stupid.”

I smiled at his sweetness. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this. Call me as soon as you have that information.”

“I will.”

I hung up. Time to get busy. I showered, dressed, and hurried to my office. My home was a work-free zone.

At my office, I spent the next two hours tracking down information. Her life was an open book on Facebook. I found out she was an aspiring actor like nearly everyone else in Los Angeles, she worked a dead-end job as a desk clerk at a motel, she was unmarried, and she lived alone except for her cat, Snowflake. She might be a lying, money-grabbing bitch, but I had to admit, she did have a cute cat. Using the DMV database, I located Ms. Pierson’s home address and the make and model of her car. I logged into the National Telephone Database to get her phone number, and a quick search of the news sites turned up the law firm representing her. As I copied all the information into my phone, I wondered how someone did this job before computers.

I snapped my laptop shut and hustled to my car. I needed to get ahead of this quickly. I drove to Vanesa’s home, which wasn’t in the best part of down and comprised half of another multi-family unit. Her car wasn’t in the drive. I sat for a moment and considered my options. I dug in my PI bag, the duffle where I kept the tools of my trade, and pulled out a clip-on badge and a matching business card that identified me as Michelle Lawson, a member of the Greater Los Angeles Fair Housing Administration, Ward 6. I had a dozen other badges and business cards in the bag, among other things, whose identities ranged from a delivery person to a member of the various utility companies to a partner in a law office. I also took my lock pick kit and a pair of thin, blue, nitrile gloves.

I walked to the door as if I had every right to be there and rang the bell. I heard nothing, so I knocked. When nobody answered, I knocked again. Still nothing. After a quick glance around, I opened my pick kit, slipped on my gloves, and let myself inside.

What I was doing was completely illegal and could cost me my license if I got caught. I rarely went so far out on a limb, but I was going to bust this bitch’s story and put an end to these rumors by showing them to be the smear campaign they were. The gloves were probably unnecessary, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

The moment I stepped inside, I knew something was off. The place was an absolute dump. It needed paint, the carpet was dirty, worn, and had a couple of burn holes in it, and the furniture was hand-me-down or thrift store quality. But more than that, Vanesa wasn’t much of a housekeeper. There were empty pop cans, glasses, dirty dishes, and magazines lying around, and there was a thin layer of dust covering everything. I was glad I’d worn the gloves, but not because I was concerned about fingerprints.

It didn’t appear Vanesa had two nickels to rub together, so how could she afford a membership to Neil Gibson Fitness Center? I moved slowly through her house, Snowflake purring and meowing after me. The magazines were rumpled and out of date with the address of a motel on the label, and all were of the gossip variety. She was bringing them home from the motel where she worked. I snapped a picture of the mailing label using my phone.

There was an empty pizza box on the counter in the kitchen, the remains of its contents in the refrigerator, along with more soda, beer, a half-empty bottle of cheap wine, and a leftover box of Chinese food. Her pantry and freezer were full of quick to prepare microwave meals.

I moved to her bedroom and opened her closet. Her clothes consisted mostly of inexpensive blouses and jeans, but they were clean and in good repair. She favored boots for footwear, and there were several pair thrown in the floor. Snowflake hopped on the bed, and I gave him a good scratch on the ears before I prowled through her drawers.

I found a small selection of sex toys, along with a DVD with the title Desert Heat. A quick look at the back cover confirmed this was no mainstream video. There a dozen thumbnails of various naked men and women doing what naked men and women do in videos like these. I wasn’t sure, but one of the women in the thumbnails looked suspiciously like Vanesa. The movie was unrated, but the irony of a woman shooting a softcore porn video and then complaining of sexual harassment wasn’t lost on me. I also uncovered a small plastic baggy half-full of a leafy green material but didn’t touch it. What she did to relax was of no concern of mine, but between the video and the weed, I had something on her if I needed it.

A card of the law office representing her sat by her phone. Jonathan C. Ryder was her council’s name, and part of the firm’s name. I took a picture of it as that piece of information might be useful.

Her bathroom turned up nothing of interest. Ten minutes after I entered, I made sure the door was locked, the cat was safe, and closed the door behind me as I left. As I walked to my car, I had a strong suspicion this was all part of the scam. Vanesa’s place didn’t strike me as the home of a person big into physical fitness. The pop, beer, pizza, and prepared meals didn’t fit the stereotype.

This pretty much cleared April, too. Unless she had this in motion already, there was no way she could have set this up so quickly out of spite for yesterday.

I was sitting in my car, thinking, when my phone rang. “What’ve you got?”

“Not good. She did have a membership, but it’s expired,” Neil replied.

“When did she join?”

“May of this year, and it ended in July.”

“She wasn’t a member very long.”

“No. We offer a ninety-day trial membership. That’s what she had.”

“How’d she pay?”

“Credit card.”

“Do you have it?”

“Hang on.” I heard some typing. “Here is it. 4407,” he began, reading off the number as I typed it into my phone.

“Got it.”

“Any luck?” he asked.

“Some. Still working on it. Hang in there. I have some ideas.”

“Ideas I don’t want to know about?”

“I can tell you. With this new information, I’m going to do a little more digging, then I’m going to pay her a visit and call her a damned liar, just to see what she says.”

“You think that’ll work?”

I smirked. “Depends on what I tell her when I call her the damned liar.”

“I wish I could be there to see it.”

“No you don’t. You want to stay as far away from this as possible.”

“Let me know.”

“Count on it. You go do your thing and let me worry about this.”

“I’m free today. Harker called and canceled. Well, more than cancelled. Like Amity, she’s taking a break because of this shit storm. At least she was honest with me and said she had to keep her distance until this was settled.”

“Nice. Guilty until proven innocent.”

“Yeah.” I could tell from the tone of his voice this was starting to get to him.

“Hang in there, Neil. I’m going to take this chick down and clear your name. I promise.”

“But will it be soon enough?”

“I just need a day, maybe two. Don’t give up on me.”

“I won’t.”

“Good,” I said before I hung up.

I set up my phone for a local hotspot, then used my computer to log into the internet. As a duly licensed private investigator in the state of California, I had access to most of the same databases the cops did, and one of those allowed me to find out who a credit card belonged to.

“Harnette LLC?” I muttered.

I did some digging on Harnette LLC, but didn’t come up with much other than they owned the website mycastingcall.com. I closed my computer. I’d come back to that later. I didn’t have a smoking gun that Vanesa was lying, but she didn’t have to know that.

I looked up her number in my notes and dialed. It rang so many times I expected it to go to voice mail, but then a female answered.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Pierce. This is Cindy McMahon with Sydney, Carroll, Johnson and Ryder,” I said, name-dropping the law firm representing her. “Mr. Ryder asked that I speak to you. There seems to be some discrepancies with your story. Have you got a few minutes?”

“Discrepancies?” she asked, and I could hear the anxiety in her voice.

“Yes. It’s very important that I speak to you right away. Can we meet?”

“I’m at work—”

“The Tip-Top Inn at 1022 Malcom C. Thomas Drive?” I asked, cutting her off.

“Yes, but—”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. This won’t take long. We just need to get a few items cleared up. Thank you for your time, Ms. Pierce.”

I hung up and punched the address into the GPS on my phone, started my car, and pulled away from the curb. The drive to the Tip-Top Inn took less time than I’d expected. I quickly fastened my button camera to my jacket and turned it on, checked my look in the mirror, then stepped out of the car. I walked into the lobby with purpose.

Vanesa Pierce was a pretty woman of about twenty-five with raven black hair, large, dark eyes, and a lush body. She was seated behind a counter, and she smiled as I entered. I smiled back. She had no idea who I was or what I was about to do to her.

“Welcome to Tip-Top. May I help you?”

“I certain hope so, Ms. Pierce. Cindy McMahon. We spoke on the phone.”

Her smiled disappeared in an instant. “Oh. You said there was a problem?”

I smiled like I was there to help her. “No problem. It’s probably just a transcription error. I’m Mr. Ryder’s paralegal. Mr. Ryder is in court today, so he asked me to follow up.”

“He told me not to talk to anyone except him.”

I nodded in agreement. “Exactly. That’s why he sent me instead of one of our researchers.”

“I don’t know…”

I smiled again. Time to go with the big lie. If she called my bluff I was dead in the water, but sometimes you had to roll the hard six. “Give Mr. Ryder a call if you like. He won’t answer, so you’ll have to leave a message, and I can come back later after he confirms.” I shook my head sadly. “The thing is, that’s going to put us behind. Mr. Gibson is lawyering up and threatening to sue you for slander. We’re trying to get ahead of that.” She hesitated. “Please, Ms. Pierce, I need an answer. If you’re not going to talk to me I need to get back to the office and report to the partners.”

“Mr. Ryder sent you?”

“Yes.” I smiled with good humor. “My job is to do the leg-work so he doesn’t have to.”

“What do you want to know?”

I waved my phone in the air for a little misdirection. “I’m going to record this so I don’t forget anything, okay?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Once she agreed, I could burn her with anything she said. “When was the date of the incident? In one place we have it in May, another March,” I said, fishing for information.

“May 18^th.”

“Of this year, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Hang on while I check…” I muttered as I quickly flipped though my calendar. “That was on a Thursday?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

I smiled again, but not for the reason Vanesa probably thought. I’d have to check to make sure, but Thursday was the day Neil shot the shorts for his website. If he always shot them on the same day, he couldn’t have been at the gym.

“And it was in the early evening?”

“Afternoon. Around three, when the place wasn’t very busy.”

I nodded. “That’s what I have. Afternoon then. This is where there’s a problem. Mr. Gibson claims he was somewhere else at the time the incident occurred, and he claims to have a half-dozen witnesses.”

Vanesa paled slightly. “I don’t know what to say. It might have been a little later than three, but—”

“The other problem is, your membership was paid for by someone other than yourself. Have you heard of Harnette LLC? They own the website mycastingcall.com.” She paled further. She was hiding something. “Ms. Pierce?” I prompted.

“I don’t know what to say, Ms…? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Call me Cindy. This is very troubling. I was hoping you could clear these questions up. We can’t help you if you don’t tell us the truth.”

“The membership, it was, uh, it was paid for by a friend of mine. It was a gift.”

“Oh!” I said as I brightened in false understanding. “That’s fine. What’s his or her name?”

She hesitated again. “Steve. Steve McCrossen.”

She was lying out her ass. “His phone number and address?”

“I, uh… I’ll have to get my phone and look it up. Can I send it to you?”

“I’ll wait.”

She slowly pulled her purse from a cabinet and retrieved her phone. She flipped through it a moment. “I don’t seem to have it in here.”

“Ms. Pierce,” I said forcefully, “what aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing? If you’re lying to us, and Mr. Ryder finds out, he’s going to charge you for his time instead of taking a percentage. That’s five-hundred dollars an hour, Ms. Pierce. I’d have to look to see how many hours he’s already put in, but it’s considerable.”

“Look, all I know is Neil Gibson groped me in his gym on May 18^th at around three in the afternoon because the place wasn’t very busy. He took me into a back room and started touching me. I told him to stop and he didn’t. Why are you treating me like some kind of criminal?”

“Because, Ms. Pierce,” I said slowly, “I think you’re lying to me. I don’t think Mr. Gibson touched you. I don’t think Mr. Gibson even knows you. I think you’re lying about this Steve McCrossen. He’s a good enough friend to buy you a membership to a Neil Gibson Fitness Center, but you don’t know his phone number or address, and it’s not in your phone?”

“I don’t know what to say,” she said softly, unable to meet my eyes.

“How about the truth? You’re being paid to lie, aren’t you? Who’s paying you?”

“I’m not!”

“Very well. I’ll tell Mr. Ryder you are unable to clear up the discrepancies in your story and about this phantom friend of yours. A piece of advice. If he sends you a bill, pay it. If you keep jerking us around, you’re going to end up paying a lot more than just his bill.” I turned to go.

“Wait!” she called. I paused and turned back. “I lied about Steve,” Vanesa said softly.

“I know. You’re lying about the whole thing, aren’t you?”

“No!”

I rolled my eyes and turned to go again. “Have it your way. If you come clean with me now, I can probably get the bill reduced, maybe even eliminated. I think it’s clear there’s going to be no payday on this, but if the firm keeps spending money on your behalf, and Gibson’s team has proof you’re lying…” I shook my head in sympathy. “We don’t like to lose, Ms. Pierce, and if you insist on this course of action, it’s going to be costly.” I let the threat dangle. “Fine.” I turned my back to her and started for the door.

“Wait!” I turned to face her one more time. “You can get the fees reduced?” she asked, her face a mix of panic and hope.

“I can’t promise, but I’ll try. Our firm’s reputation is worth more than a few thousand dollars. If you come clean, since we haven’t filed suit yet, we can just drop it and you can crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of.”

She swallowed hard. “I lied, okay? Some guy paid me five grand to say Neil Gibson groped me. That’s all I know!”

“What man?”

“I don’t know his name. I answered an open call on mycastingcall. I thought I was applying for a part in a television show. This guy contacted me and said he had a part, if I wanted it. He met with me and told me what he really wanted.”

“So you decided to ruin a good man’s life?”

“I don’t even know this Gibson guy! The guy who hired me said he was rich and would probably settle. I just had to tell the story. He said there were a lot of rumors going around about how he was sexually harassing all these women, so I figured maybe he was getting what he deserved.”

“And he gave you five grand to say Neil Gibson groped you?” I asked, driving the point home for the camera.

“Yes, and he said I could keep whatever I won.”

“Did he say why?”

“No. I didn’t want to do it, but I was desperate for the money. I was behind on my rent. I figured the worst that could happen was I made the five grand, and if I was lucky, maybe a little more. This Gibson guy, he sounds like a sleaze anyway with all the rumors flying around.”

“So you thought, ‘What would it hurt?’ right? After all, he has plenty of money, and he must be guilty of something or there wouldn’t be any rumors, right?”

“Yeah, that’s it exactly. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I was desperate. Am I in trouble?”

I smiled. “Not with me, but I’m sure Mr. Ryder will be in touch. Anything else you can tell me about this mystery man?”

She shook her head. “No. I only met him that one time.”

“Did you even go to the Neil Gibson Fitness Center?”

“Sure. He told me to, so they’d remember my face. Plus, I can’t afford a gym membership myself, so I figured why not use it?”

“But you never met Neil Gibson?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t even know what he looked like until I saw his picture on the news.”

I nodded. I wanted to put a spinning back fist on this bitch, but if I did, I would ruin everything, so I settled for a nod and a smile. “Thank you for helping me.”

“I’m really sorry. I was desperate.”

“So you said.”

“Is the interview still going to run?”

“What interview?”

“The one on Lunch with Diane today?”

“Yeah. Too late to pull it now. Here’s what I want you to do. I don’t want you talking to anyone about this until you hear from Mr. Ryder, got it? This is a real mess you’ve created, so don’t make it worse.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t. But you’ll talk to Mr. Ryder about billing me?”

I nodded. “Let me worry about that.”

I turned and stomped out like I was annoyed, but it was hard to not run, screaming my elation to the world. I switched off my camera, sat down in the car, and dialed. I need to talk to Neil, pronto!