“We’ve given you more than enough testimony and evidence to begin investigating these sick parties,” Charlie said.

“Did Charlotte ever tell you she’d had any confrontations with anyone?” Meehan asked.

“Like, half the city,” Margaret said. “But you must know that, Detective.”

“I do,” Meehan said. “But Stanley Kubrick didn’t kill her for being rude on a red carpet.”

“No, probably not,” Margaret allowed. “Her coworker, what’s his name—”

“Tarantula?” Charlie asked casually, mispronouncing his name on purpose. “The guy Lawford introduced us to that time?”

“‘Tah-ran-too-lah,’” Meehan corrected him.

“Yeah, him,” Margaret said. “That Tarantula guy was furious at her for that. I was in the bathroom and overheard everything.”

Meehan wrote that down in his little leather-bound notebook. He took a sip from the glass of water Margaret had given him and perused his notes from earlier in their conversation.

“So you had help in this little caper of yours,” he said. “Janet Leigh did spy work for you and John Frankenheimer’s sound guy hooked you up with recording devices.”

“And because of him, as Charlie noted,” Margaret said, “Santa Monica Police have the tape of Les Wolff confessing to having Chris Powell and Lola Bridgewater murdered to hide this pedophile ring.”

Meehan scratched his head. “Where did”—he checked his notes—“where did Charlotte Goode get these documents from anyway?”

“Hollywood Nightlife,” Margaret said, exasperated. Was he really this dumb or was he just pretending?

But Meehan didn’t ask the natural follow-ups: Why didn’t they publish any of it? A huge scandal involving studios, predators, and the wealthy and well-connected—what journalist wouldn’t run with such a story? He turned to another page in his notes.

“And, Congressman Marder, you say Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. can corroborate this trip to Disneyland? What you say you witnessed there?”

Charlie nodded. “Yes, but please be—”

“Discreet, yes, I know,” Meehan said, writing down the names. “Okay, well, that’s a lot to work on. Thanks for your time.” He nodded, stood, hitched up his pants, and exited the room, joining two uniformed officers waiting for him in the hall.

Charlie and Margaret passed out on the bed, fully clothed, utterly spent. It would be dawn in a few hours.

Charlie woke shortly after ten that morning; Margaret was showered and dressed, and a delicious room-service breakfast was waiting for him. The sight of his beaten-up mug in the mirror was something of a shock, but closer inspection suggested there’d be no permanent scars. The stab wounds in his back were still gruesome, but they were healing acceptably, as was his bruised rib. He began brushing his teeth and grooming himself. As he did, from the combination living room/dining room of their spacious suite, he could hear music from the hi-fi system, the soothing sound of Nat King Cole singing “Let There Be Love”:

Let there be you, let there be me