Suicide Run Read Free

into it. When she didn’t show up… I just knew something was wrong.”
    “Did she take notes during your sessions?”
    “All the time. She was a wonderful student.”
    “What sort of notes?”
    “Mostly on accent and delivery. How to best use dialogue to convey the inner emotions.”
    Bosch nodded. He realized that Lizbeth Grayson’s suicide note was anything but a farewell. It was the opposite. It was part of a young woman’s efforts to thrive and succeed.
    He looked around the acting studio. He felt uneasy, like he had missed something in the conversation. Then he remembered. The headshots he had seen in the bureau drawer in Lizbeth Grayson’s apartment were not new. He had studied the dead woman on the bed and none of the photos in the drawer showed her with the same hairstyle. They were old.
    Bosch looked at the acting coach.
    “You said she got new photos. Are you sure?”
    Palovich nodded emphatically and pointed over Bosch’s head.
    “Absolutely. She felt so good about this job that she held nothing back. She was going after it on every level.”
    Bosch turned and looked at the bulletin board that ran the length of the wall behind him. It was covered with a blizzard of headshots. All of Palovich’s students, he assumed. He found the shot of Lizbeth Grayson and it was indeed a recent shot. Her blond hair curved under her chin and the easy smile.
    Bosch felt himself getting angry. Someone had picked this flower just as it had been about to bloom.
    He stepped over and pulled the tack holding the photo to the board. He studied the shot in his hand. There had been no copies of this photo in the apartment. He was sure of it.
    “When did she get this taken, do you know?” he asked.
    “Last week, I think,” Palovich replied. “She brought in the stack and gave me the first one off the top for the board.”
    “There was a stack?”
    “Yes, usually they come in hundred-copy stacks. You can never have too many photos. You have to have your headshots out there or you don’t get the calls.”
    Bosch nodded. He had worked in Hollywood long enough to know how it worked. He turned the photo over. There was a listing of Lizbeth Grayson’s acting credits on the back. Also listed were her contact numbers through an agent named Mason Rich.
    He turned it back over to look at the photo again.
    “Why are the headshots you see always in black and white but everything they make these days is in color?” he asked.
    “I think it’s because the black and white better shows the contrast the movie camera will pick up,” Palovich responded.
    Bosch nodded, even though he didn’t understand her answer and knew nothing about contrast and photography.
    The picture cut off across Grayson’s sternum. She was wearing an open-collar blouse and Bosch could see the chain around her neck. The photo cut off before showing the teardrop pendant he remembered from the night before.
    He turned back to check the screen. The picture remained paused and his eyes were immediately drawn to the chain around Lizbeth Grayson’s neck. She was wearing an open shirt over a simple white tank top that said CRUNCH across it. But the pendant, which was clearly visible at the bottom of the chain, was not a diamond. It was a single pearl.
    Bosch pointed to the screen.
    “You see the pearl?”
    “Yes, she always wore that.”
    “Always?”
    “Yes, it had been her grandmother’s. She believed it brought her good luck. Once in class we did some biographical sketches. She told us all about it then. In our classes we all have alter egos with alternate names. Her name was Pearl. When I called on her, if I used the name Pearl, she would respond as that alter ego. Do you understand?”
    “I think so. Do you have any tapes of her as Pearl?”
    “I think so. I could look.”
    “I don’t know if it is significant or not. I’ll let you know. Did you ever see Lizbeth wearing a pendant with a diamond in it?”
    Palovich thought for a moment and then shook