Wearing Black to the White Party

by David Stukas

  She then placed a second call.

  “Sergeant Gorski? . . . Oh, good. I was afraid you were out. Did you get my list of questions? ... You did? Good.... They’re cryptic, you say! ... Oh. But you say you already have the answer to the third one? ... Oh, really! ... No! ... That’s just what I thought.... The question about what Martin Stevers saw? . . . Yeah.... Yeah.... Well, that’s what I meant.... Uh-huh. And you’re still trying to locate David McLeish to check out his alibi? Well, did you try setting out a dish of Alpo? . . . Just a private joke; never mind.... Okay, call me here at five five five, six seven six nine—it’s Marc Baldwin’s house, in the Cathedral City Cove. And don’t plan anything for tonight. I’ve got an assignment for you. I’ll explain later.... Okay, bye. What’s that? ... You did! Oh, that’s wonderful.... So that’s the magazine, huh? Your forensic people are pretty good.... But just the first batch—not the second.... Okay, call me when you know about the others.... Okay, we’ll be talking.”

  We were all sitting in Marc’s home office, me watching Monette in action and Marc poring over plans for the Red Party with an assistant, Marcia Brandon.

  “Marc, could we talk to you in private for a minute—in the other room?” Monette asked, jerking her head toward Marcia.

  “Oh, sure,” he replied, wondering what she was up to.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  When we got to the kitchen and pulled the folding doors closed, Monette began. “Marc, give me a rough idea of what each person’s financial stake is in T-Rex Enterprises.”

  “Well . . . Rex has the biggest, fifty-one percent, followed by David McLeish, with about twenty-five percent. Then Leo and I have—had—oh, fuck, have roughly twelve percent.”

  “Okay, good. So if Rex dies, his share looks like it might go to Vince, right?”

  “I don’t know the contents of Rex’s will, but he was awful fond of Vince. Plus, Rex is estranged from his family. They wouldn’t have anything to do with him after he told them he was gay years ago.”

  “Okay, next question. Do you subscribe to a party production magazine? You know, a trade publication dealing with event planners?”

  “Yes, I do. I get Party Production magazine,” he stated. “Wait a minute, you don’t think I sent those threatening letters, do you?”

  “I’m just asking a question, Marc,” she replied.

  “Everyone at T-Rex had a subscription to that magazine!” said Marc, his defenses up. “For a while, Rex had the only copy, but he kept complaining that everyone was always borrowing his, so he bought subscriptions for Leo and me. Do you want to see mine?” he said, getting up, preparing to retrieve them to prove his innocence.

  “Marc, I said that it wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “That’s the magazine that some of the letters came from, wasn’t it.”

  “Yes, it is,” Monette stated.

  “But it’s not just us at T-Rex that get Party Production. Everyone with the White Party probably subscribes to it, too,” Marc answered.

  “Yes, that’s the trouble. Too many people get it, so by itself it isn’t a great clue. But when someone subscribes to that magazine and several issues are missing, then it becomes meaningful.”

  “And you’re looking for someone who’s missing a few issues?”

  “The way you say it, it sounds so funny,” Monette remarked. “Yes, yes, we are.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “Sergeant Gorski and me,” Monette replied. “And Robert, once he unravels the twisted clues in this case. He’s getting close; I can tell. Now, Marc, if you’ll be so good as to excuse Robert and me for a few hours, we’re going in search of a good place to shoot at cars.”

  “Excuse me?” Marc asked, sounding like Monette had flipped her wig.

  Monette clarified her statement. “I’d like to see the spot where someone took a shot at Colorado.”

  A half-hour later, Monette and I were parked on the side of the road, looking at the spot indicated on the police report of Colorado’s “accident.” On the way over, I told Monette my theory and she reached out across the front seat to shake my hand. I was so proud that I had figured this caper out, a small tear escaped the confines of my eyes.

  “Nope,” came the deflating reply. “But keep trying,” she advised me. “You’ll get it. Just don’t give up; keep going. So what am I looking for?”

  “Uh, evidence that the killer left, just before he squeezed off a shot at Colorado’s BMW”

  “That correct. And where do you think that evidence is?”

  I looked at the map in the police report, noting the streets that led off of Highway 111.

  “I think that place over there would be a good place to look,” I said, pointing to a side street on the map. I then turned around to survey the general area where the street lay.

  “Why?”

  “Because, if my directions are correct, that road looks like it goes up in the hills, and it looks like there aren’t any houses around—so no one could hear a shot.”

  “An excellent guess. Let’s go,” she said as she put the car into drive and took us up into the hills. The desolate road was only about half-mile off busy Highway 111, but it was the perfect place to look and the perfect vantage point. We got out of the car and walked along the cracked pavement, studying the ground for our sacred clue. And lo and behold, after just five minutes, we found it. Monette handed me an envelope in which to put our find.

  We headed back to Marc’s house, to watch the second part of the made-for-TV movie about Jackie Kennedy. On the way back, Monette made me promise not to reveal anything to Marc just yet. She said it could jeopardize our investigation. Plus, she said Marc had a part to play in this mystery yet. She wouldn’t elaborate further.

  The food arrived from nearby Desert Moon, and we were very impressed by their culinary output. Marc made some exotic martinis, and we had a wonderful evening eating, drinking, and making fun of the movie, substituting our own dialogue for the actors’ words, making a bad movie much better. We were disturbed briefly by a phone call from Colorado. Marc spoke briefly with him, then hung up.

  “I’m sure that you’re all going to be relieved. That was Colorado. He’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow.”

  “Oh, joy,” was Monette’s response.

  We stayed up until after midnight, talking and laughing. Considering that there was so much negative energy around us, I felt good. Here I was with my two soul mates, Monette and Marc. The only regrettable thing was that in a matter of a week, I would be on the other side of the country with one of my best friends, but Marc would still be here. I tried not to think about it. Just stay in the moment, I told myself, repeating what my therapist told me: most people stood with one foot in the past and one in the future, while pissing on the present. I resolved to just be Robert, right here, right now. But to ensure that there was a future for Marc, I resolved that I would do anything to catch the homicidal maniac—or maniacs—that were threatening him.

  Eventually, we were too tired to go on any further, so we retired for the evening. Marc and I were settling down to just snuggling and talking; then our conversation was interrupted when the window at the foot of the bed shattered and a large rock tumbled across the carpet. I threw Marc under the covers and covered his head with a pillow, waiting for a hail of bullets to come flying into the bedroom, but there was only silence.

  The rock might have been the end of the attack, but I didn’t plan on taking any chances. Marc reached under his bed and pulled out his slippers (he said he kept them there in case of earthquakes—and broken glass). I liked how this guy’s mind worked. He was prepared for anything, just like me. He gave one slipper to me and put the other on his foot, telling me to hop until we got out of the room. We were both hopping on one foot into the hallway when we were met by a hulking presence looming in the dark. We both froze. We knew how to get out of the room with our feet intact, but meeting a stranger in the hallway was something we hadn’t expected. A light flicked on, causin
g us both to yell and hold on to each other.

  The stranger was Monette.

  “I know I don’t wear a lot of makeup, but I’m not that ugly.”

  “Oh, fuck,” I said, relieved that the end was not near. “You scared the shit out of us.”

  “Let me guess. You were both playing one-slipper leapfrog and Robert knocked over a vase.”

  “The window, Monette! Someone threw a rock through the window!” I managed to get out between breaths.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Monette said.

  “Thank goodness?” was my reply.

  “I’d say a rock is better than a bullet.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I replied, picking up on the clue right away. “But it’s puzzling.”

  “Puzzling?” Monette asked.

  “Yes, because it’s inconsistent. The first threats were far more deadly, and—forgive me for being so blunt—ended in death. So why a rock now? Did our killer run out of bullets?”

  “I don’t know,” Monette replied. “Obviously, someone is still trying to keep the Red Party from opening. Robert, go out front and tell the nice policeman outside what happened, and tell him to keep a sharper lookout.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked as Monette turned and walked sleepily down the hall.

  “Back to the guest room. I’ll move my stuff into your den and you two take the guest room.”

  Marc protested, but Monette wanted us to be together—comfortably. We moved a few things across the hall and got in bed together. I knew we were relatively safe, but just to make sure, I pulled Marc tightly up against me before I closed my eyes.

  I woke the next morning and was overjoyed for the simple reason that I had woken up. No one had killed Marc or me in the night. Except for the broken window, the house seemed intact. Life was good. Of course, unbeknownst to me, this was the day we would come face-to-face with murder.

  After breakfast, Monette asked me to help her swing her plan into action, but it was Grayson who started things off with a phone call.

  Monette found out that Rex had taken three trips to Buenos Aires in the past year, unbeknownst to Vince. Monette instructed me on what to do next.

  I then called Sergeant Big Arms and relayed the information to him. He checked the dates against credit card records that Vince had provided to the police. Neatly corresponding to Rex’s trips were three charges to a ferry company. I only had the amount of each charge (all for the same amount), so I figured that if I called them, I could tell from the amount of the charge where Rex had taken the ferry. I spoke very little Spanish, so this effort took a great deal more time than I had imagined. From what I could tell, Rex got off at one of the many fishing villages before Montenegro. But why? Was he transporting drugs? Or making deals to bring cocaine into the United States? For the first time during this whole sordid affair, I had the inkling that maybe Rex’s business was just a cover for something else. But what?

  About noon, a fax came through on Marc’s machine. It was from Sergeant Gorski, and it contained the answers to Monette’s questions. Her mysterious questions were answered in the same mysterious language, as though coded against prying eyes. The answers were scribbled next to Monette’s questions, then faxed back. In response to Monette’s first question, What exactly did Martin Stevers see at The Zone bar the night of Rex’s death? Big Arms simply replied that Martin didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The second question: What alibi did David McLeish give the night of Rex’s death? The answer: He was in a puppy pile, playing with eight other puppies and their trainers. Mr. McLeish asked that we keep this information confidential, because of his career in Hollywood. Last question: What was the result of Rex’s last physical? Answer: Can’t get any information on this. Rex apparently switched doctors a few months ago and I was unable to find out who he was seeing. He complained to his regular doctor of abdominal pains, but when he was referred to a specialist, he never showed up.

  It seemed the more I learned, the more confused I got. I got so frustrated that I took a walk down the hall to Marc, who was talking to two assistants from the Red Party. I watched him taking command and making tough decisions on the spot. He looked so heroic, so in control. It was a characteristic that I admired in others since it was something that I lacked. But things were changing. I was making strides with my therapist, my past and all its baggage were unraveling like a cheap sweater, and I was learning to stand up for myself—I was learning my worth.

  I padded back down the hall to Marc’s office. Monette was searching the Internet for information about Uruguay, flipping from page to page in a frantic search for something I couldn’t yet deduce.

  “Ah, there it is,” she said in triumph.

  “There’s what?” I asked.

  “It’s right there. Don’t you see it?”

  “No. What am I looking for?”

  “I can’t tell you that any more than I can tell you the telltale clues I found in the letters sent to Rex.”

  “You know, Monette, I’ve stared at the letters for hours, and I still don’t see what’s so special about them. Despite the fact that Big Arms informed us that they’re from different magazines.”

  “That’s not what tipped me off. You don’t need to be a forensics expert to see the clue.”

  “I am still in the dark,” I admitted. “Although I did deduce from the fax from Big Arms that David McLeish has an alibi. Don’t ask me what a puppy pile is, unless it’s something that you pick up with a plastic bag and put in the trash.”

  “Please, Robert, I beg you—don’t go there.”

  “Believe me, I won’t.”

  “There’s just one question that I need answered. The whole case hinges on this, more or less.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “Where is the fuckin’ money that Rex paid to his extortionists?”

  They say that time flies when you’re having fun. They also say that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. I don’t know what either of these two sayings have to do with what was about to take place, but my general state of confusion about the point of them perfectly mirrored the state of my mind at that moment: lots of things made sense on their own, but I just couldn’t put them in the context of the larger picture.

  Monette told me not to worry, because I would soon figure things out. But in case I didn’t, she promised that “the end was near”—words that I felt could have been better chosen.

  We had a very late lunch outside by Marc’s pool. Monette and I threw some things together and came up with a very respectable Italian alfresco lunch, with the requisite bottle of Italian wine.

  Monette was starting in on the pasta when she looked up and dropped the bombshell I suspected she had been harboring for some time.

  “Marc, I need you to do something for me tonight. It’s sorta dangerous.”

  Marc looked stunned. I, however, wasn’t going to let my chance at happiness be blown away by a maniac with a gun. “What you do mean, ‘sorta’?” I asked.

  “You’ll have protection,” she said, smiling between bites of penne, arugula, and radicchio.

  “A condom or a gun?” I inquired.

  “Several of us, plus Sergeant Big Arms.”

  Marc turned to me with the look of a trapped animal. The pleading in his eyes told me that he desperately wanted my opinion. I shook my head no, which he repeated to Monette, shaking his head vigorously.

  “Okay,” Monette ventured further, “before you say no,” she started.

  “Before?” I blurted out. “We said no.”

  “But you haven’t heard what it is that I want Marc to do.”

  “Monette, please don’t put Marc in danger,” I said. “If anyone, it should be me,” I added, putting myself in harm’s way for my boyfriend. It was not only a chivalrous gesture but a genuine one.

  Monette shook her head. “It won’t work with you. You’re not a threat to the killer. Now, just listen up. The killer—or killers—aren�
�t going to stop just because they might have their hands on the money. Sooner or later, they know that Marc or anyone else associated with T-Rex is going to figure things out. And with only circumstantial evidence so far, the killer—or killers—are going to make sure that the person who figures things out never gets to that point. And next time, they won’t miss. The rock is a desperate warning by desperate people. They didn’t kill you, but they showed that they can get past the police.”

  “I noticed that you said ‘killer’ and ‘killers,’ Monette,” I pointed out.

  “You think I’m going to tell you when you’re probably close to solving the case, Robert? But Marc will soon. Please, Marc. You’ll be safe, because the police will be hidden about the place, but there is a small element of risk. It’s the only way to get this thing put to bed forever.”

  Marc turned to me and put his hand on mine. Looking me right in the eyes, I felt him reach way down inside my soul and tell me that everything would be all right.

  “Okay, Monette, you win,” Marc said.

  “No, not me. Just every innocent person involved,” she answered. “Especially Rex and Leo.”

  16

  Dial M for Moy-der

  Fortunately, few of us on this earth have ever had to get ready to be murdered. It is no easy thing, let me tell you. I myself was a nervous wreck, so I could imagine what Marc was going through. Sergeant Big Arms arrived at six o’clock with several burly policemen in tow. They spread out over the house and grounds, taking note of every point of entry, placing concealed recording equipment about the kitchen, and conferring with Gorski about their plans.

  When they had set up, Gorski talked with Monette in the kitchen. I tried to eavesdrop, but the only thing I could hear was “we’ve got the warrant and we’re standing ready” and “terminal cancer.”