A Body on Fitzgerald's Bluff

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “What would that get him—especially after her music career ended?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to say, although a cut of what Edgar was coughing up wasn’t chump change.” With that, Neely opened the door and ushered me into the Blue Moon Boutique.

  This shop was much larger than Two had been. A wider range of resort wear was on display, including items for men and women, as well as a section for children. The décor was lovely, skillfully blending shades of blue with other beach colors. A soothing blend of ambient music and pounding waves invited shoppers to linger. What a tour de force of the California laid back motif!

  Laid back didn’t apply to the saleswomen on duty in the nearly empty shop. The moment we walked in, both clerks eyed us. When they spotted the bags we carried, they headed toward us. Like two outfielders aiming to catch the same flyball, they were on what appeared to be a collision course.

  “I’ve got this,” the older of the two women said—like an outfielder calling for the ball. The younger woman got the message and backed off.

  “May I help you?” The nametag pinned to her shirt told us her name was Penney.

  “I hope you can. My daughter, Tara, is looking for something to lounge around in while she’s on a pretend vacation. All she’s done so far is work—reading one script after another, trying to get inspired to write her own.” I took my cue from Neely’s mention of script-writing.

  “A working vacation is still a vacation, Mom.”

  “We bought a gorgeous caftan for her at Two, but I want to buy her yoga pants or something that might remind her that she’s supposed to be working out, too, not just holed up in our suite writing about murder.”

  “Murder?” Penney asked.

  “Yes. Tara’s putting a script together for a TV movie about the death of that young woman—Lady Di—that’s what I used to call her, anyway. She was gorgeous and so kind when I was in here before. Diana had the best taste, too. I can’t believe she’s been murdered. Why would anyone do such a thing?” Penney raised her eyebrows as if skeptical or surprised by what Neely was saying about Diana.

  “The police asked me that question and I told them I don’t know. Diana Durand wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, but if every spoiled brat at the resort got killed, the beaches around here would be littered with bodies.”

  I must have done the very thing I feared I would do when we’d cooked up this charade—reacted in an un-laid-back way to the saleswoman’s uncharitable remark. Penney picked up on it and frowned. Then she turned us over to her coworker, perhaps concluding that we were more interested in gossip than shopping. Even though that happened to be the truth, the sudden dismissiveness in her manner bothered me. In any case, Penney was done with us.

  “Andi knew her better than I did. If you want the scoop on Lady Di, she’ll give it to you.” My heart thumped a little harder realizing we may have just run into one of the women we hoped might indeed have plenty to share with us about Diana Durand. Andi had closed in on us as soon as she heard the word murder. Now she stepped forward and spoke to us.

  “I’d be happy to chat with you if you don’t mind waiting for me until I get back from my break. I need a cup of coffee.”

  “That’s great, Andi. I’m Carmel Schneider, by the way,” Neely said going back into undercover liar mode. “Why don’t we go with you? We could use a break too. I’m getting too old for this shop ‘til you drop’ routine.”

  “It has nothing to do with age, Mom. I’m ready for caffeine. These scones are calling to me too.” I pulled out one of the little boxes I had stashed in a large, colorful canvas tote Neely had loaned me. All my tote bags have grocery store names and logos on them and Neely hadn’t considered them Blue Haven Resort worthy.

  “Do you enjoy scones, Penney?” I asked. “I baked these myself—vanilla bean.” The saleslady smirked in a “yeah right” kind of way.

  “In your hotel suite?” She asked in a sarcastic tone. Quick on her feet, Neely had a snappy reply. She giggled in a high-pitched voice and slapped her side. At that moment, Neely was spectacular in her performance as the daffy old dame from LA. I could see how the deputy could fall for it as Midge had said.

  “You are too funny! She baked those yesterday before we drove up here for our getaway. Here, try one!” Neely grabbed the box from my hand, ripped the ribbon off, opened the top, and offered its contents to the salesclerk. The rich, sweet aroma that escaped from the box was like a magic elixir. A faint smile that had appeared on Penney’s face turned to bliss once she took a bite of the glaze-covered scone.

  “Mm,” she murmured. Andi shook her head and motioned for us to follow her.

  “I’ll bring you back something to drink—coffee or tea?”

  “Milk, please,” Penney replied in a voice muffled by a mouthful of that scone and the mellow mood that had settled over her.

  “Sure,” Andi replied as we stepped out of the shop and the door shut behind us. “Heck, if I’d known the taming of the shrew could be that easy, I’d have learned to bake long ago. I mean, how hard can it be?”

  Neely sent me a sideways glance with one eyebrow arched as if she was about to lose her laid-back mojo. I shook my head slightly, and then took the lead hoping to keep us on an amiable track.

  “She does seem to be a little cranky,” I said.

  That’s when a familiar fragrance hit me. My heart pounded as my body went on alert. I searched around me wondering where it had come from. Several people milled about, but no one appeared to be paying attention to us. I took a couple of deep breaths of air. The scent had gone as quickly as it had come. Neely noticed, but Andi didn’t.

  “Ha!” Andi said. “That’s an understatement.”

  “I bet it’s not easy working with her, is it?” Neely, back in her motherly mode, asked.

  “No, it is not! Penney Wilfort has an ax to grind. My guess is that she didn’t always have to work for a living—not as a salesclerk anyway. It’s not as easy as it looks to act as if the ‘customer’s always right,’ you know?” Neely nodded sympathetically.

  Andi stopped and opened a door that led outside of the enclosed mall area to a boardwalk. On our right was a small kiosk selling coffee, espresso, and other beverages. We placed our orders and grabbed seats around a small bistro table as Andi asked us to do while she waited for the beverages.

  “What was that about?” Neely asked me when we were seated.

  “I caught a whiff of that scent.”

  “The one the strangler wore?” I nodded.

  “That’s not good,” Neely replied doing a quick scan of the area around us.

  “I didn’t see anyone stalking us. Did you?” I asked.

  12 A Man Named Boo

  Neely shook her head no in response to my question about a stalker. Andi slid into a chair opposite me ending the discussion. The coffee and scones soon had Andi spilling the beans at breakneck speed. That’s after I agreed to call her later with the scone recipe. I don’t find scones the easiest treats to bake, but far be it from me to disabuse the young woman of her view that baking is always “a piece of cake.”

  “Diana went through men as if they were library books she borrowed and then returned. A little dogeared and worse for wear, too. I figured it was only a matter of time before one of the men decided to resist being dumped in a book return. She didn’t always return one book before checking out another one, if you get my drift.”

  “I believe I do. Lady Di was no lady, was she?” I asked. “She sure had you snookered, Mom.” Neely shrugged.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time. I never saw her with a man or I might have formed a different opinion of her. She must have put on quite a show around here for you to know so much about her problems with men.”

  “Are you kidding? It was like a soap opera. Men coming and going—sometimes only minutes apart. You’ll love this! She even bought them the same gifts. Can you imagine two of them showing up at the same time in identical aloha shirts?” Then Andi glanced
around to make sure we were alone. “I didn’t tell this to the reporter, but Diana had a fling with an exec here at Blue Haven. Technically, he wasn’t her supervisor, so I’m not sure they broke any rules. They must not have been worried since they didn’t hide it. I saw him pick her up in the parking lot when her shift was over—more than once. Diana went on and on about Dave this and Dave that for weeks. Then it ended. Given her interest in monied men, he should have been a keeper.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “She found a better prospect in this poor old guy at Seaview. He called her ‘Dee’ and she called him ‘E’ most of the time. I figured his days were numbered once she sank her claws into him. I was floored when she showed us a picture with her ‘sweet little ol’ sugar daddy,’ as she called Edgar Humphrey with his white hair and all duded up like Mark Twain.”

  “I take it that means she wasn’t shy about telling you his name. Wasn’t she worried you or someone else might cut in on her? Or afraid that he might resent being called her sugar daddy if word got back to him?” Andi let out a little puff of air and looked at Neely as if she were crazy.

  “Lady Di? Worried about competition for a man or his feelings? Please! Now that you mention it, though, she didn’t actually give me his name.” Andi sipped her coffee and finished the scone she’d been eating. She was obviously ticked. I feared we were going to lose her before we heard anything much that wasn’t “old news” since Dave and Edgar were names we already had.

  “Have another, won’t you? Your break can’t be over yet.” I pushed that open box toward her. “I really would like to hear more of what you have to say since most of the information I’ve gotten so far is thin. Sanitized, too, apparently. They didn’t name you in that news story, but my guess is you’re the one who gave them the scoop that Diana was a siren, leading men to their ruin on the rocks.”

  “Yep! That was me—not that I want my name to get around. I kept Diana’s secrets while she was alive. I’m going to lay it all on the line when the police interview me tomorrow. What else do you want to know? Off the record, of course.”

  “Well, how did you get Edgar Humphrey’s real name?”

  “He had ‘surprises’ sent to her at the store and I saw his name on the deliveries. Diana told us he set up an account for her here at the resort, so in addition to all the gifts, she could shop on her lunch breaks. I’m not sure how she blew it, but he’s the one guy who used that book return on her! Was she ever furious. He has no idea how lucky he is to be alive.”

  “What goes around comes around,” Neely muttered. “When you said she had more than one library book out at a time, are you saying she was two-timing Edgar or someone else?”

  “Edgar, for sure. That’s my best guess about how she lost her sugar daddy.”

  “Was she still seeing the resort exec?” I asked.

  “Possibly. He came in here to get her out of trouble more than once, even after she’d moved on.”

  “It must mean there were no hard feelings once they split up if he was willing to help her, right?” Neely asked.

  “I guess so,” Andi replied.

  “What kind of trouble was she in?” I asked even though I already had some idea about what it might be.

  “Penney Wilfort was Diana’s immediate supervisor. She reported Diana to the shop manager for being a screw up on the job.”

  “As in turning up late or calling off work?” Neely asked.

  “Yes. She was always late getting to work or coming back from breaks, leaving early, or ditching work—you name it. When the shop manager wrote up Diana and gave her a formal reprimand, Dave Winick stepped in. That’s one reason Penney’s so cranky about young women she regards as ‘brats.’ Penney was told in no uncertain terms that she should lay off Diana.”

  “Wow! That would make me more than a little cranky. Paranoid, too.” I commented.

  “Penney did as she was told until stuff started to disappear from the store. She suspected Diana was up to no good, although she wasn’t going to go out on a limb again after Winick warned her.”

  “No way!” Neely exclaimed.

  “Oh, yes, and it gets worse. Penney called us all together for a meeting and advised us that she was going to have security do spot checks of the drawers where we keep our personal items stashed during the day. You’d think that would have scared Diana to death, but goods kept disappearing. A couple of weeks ago, when Penney had security do one of those checks, they found merchandise in the drawer used by another employee. She was fired on the spot even though she claimed she didn’t know anything about the items or how they got in there. I swear I saw Diana smirk.”

  “Do you know the name of the person who got fired? Revenge could be a motive for murder.”

  “Yes. I don’t suppose there’s any way to spare her more trouble, is there? Promise me you won’t smear her name—if anything, it would be nice to clear it, wouldn’t it?”

  A different side of Andi Stoeckel had suddenly appeared. I let go of my initial concern that she was a jealous coworker trying to besmirch Diana’s name out of spite. She appeared to be deeply distressed by the injustice her friend had suffered.

  “I’d love for the truth to come out. Diana was a troubled woman; it would be great if her death brought about a little good for someone she wronged along the way.” Andi nodded in agreement with me and then sighed sadly.

  “Her name is Judi Stephenson. I have a phone number for her. I’ll call her first and tell her it’s okay to talk to you. I’m not sure what she can add, but she can at least make sure I got the facts right about her story.”

  “I’d love to speak to her if she’s willing. I think you mentioned in that news story that Diana had a singing career in the Bay Area. Did she talk about that?”

  “Oh yes. Endlessly at first. She ended up here on the Central Coast because she was the victim of a horrible betrayal that put a halt to her singing career. Poor innocent Diana found out another singer had set her up by telling her agent’s wife that they were having a fling. The wife was livid, threatened to ruin her if she didn’t leave town. Blah, blah, blah.”

  “No threats to kill her, though?” Neely asked.

  “Whoa! That’s a good question. None that she shared with me. I never bothered to check to see how much of a career there was to ruin. She claimed she had lots of gigs at local clubs in the Bay Area, but with Diana, you just never knew what was true. I figured she’d finally run out of steam about her San Francisco troubles until some guy showed up a few weeks ago and it started up again.”

  “Her agent?” Neely asked.

  “No. This was a big, ugly guy with a face that had seen more than a few bar fights. My first thought was that she’d borrowed what they call ‘hard money’—like from a loan shark, you know?”

  “Yeah, I understand what you mean.” My stomach did a little flip-flop as I spoke. Unfortunately, I do know what hard money is. The back-alley negotiations portrayed in movies are overly melodramatic since hard money’s a term for private loans, often made at higher interest rates than bank loans, and backed by assets like our house. Hard money’s not always legit.

  If Alf and Alyssa got it wrong, maybe he was demanding money from Diana when they witnessed that altercation in the parking lot. Slapping him wasn’t the best way to win an argument with a bill collector like him. Still, if he’d been provoked enough to strangle her, he wouldn’t have needed to use a scarf.

  “So, who was he?” Neely asked.

  “A business partner from San Francisco, according to Diana. I wish I could tell you what kind of business that involved. And, before you can ask, the only name I got was ‘Boo,’ believe it or not.”

  “Are you sure?” Neely gasped.

  “Yes. ‘Boo as in big and scary, but he’s a marshmallow,’ was Diana’s explanation. Odd, huh?”

  “Now you’re the one understating things,” I said.

  “Oh shoot!” Andi said, looking at her watch. “I’d better get back with that m
ilk Penney wanted before she decides to write me up.”

  “Okay, can I call you later if I have questions?”

  “Sure.” Andi gave me her number and I typed it into my cell phone. I pulled out another box of scones and slid it across the table.

  “To tame the shrew until you start baking your own.”

  “Thanks, Tara. Don’t forget to call me with the recipe, okay? We’ve only covered the tip of the iceberg when it comes to men. I’ll think about it and I’ll write the names down.” Her use of my fake name jarred me for an instant. I’d have to be sure to remember to use it when I called her.

  “I’m sure the police will be interested in every name you can give them,” I said. “I will, too.”

  “I can give you three more names off the top of my head—Mark Hudson, Howard Humphrey, and Mike Evans.”

  “Humphrey? That’s the same last name as her sugar daddy,” Neely observed.

  “It is—his nephew. I told you Diana was a two-timer. As I recall, she was friendly with Howard before he introduced her to Edgar. Howard’s one of the books she dumped in the book return as far as I can tell, but he still came in here a few times after Uncle Edgar became her sugar daddy. ‘He’s going to be family,’ she told me once.” Andi laughed. “I was even more surprised when Howard showed up again after she broke up with Edgar. What a piece of work she was, huh?”

  All I could do was nod in affirmation. My imagination failed me when I tried to understand what on earth a woman like Diana was doing. The list of people angry enough to kill her was a long one. It could grow even longer depending on how much truth there was to Andi’s “tip of the iceberg” comment about men.

  After another report of the big man turning up in Diana’s life, Boo held the top spot on that growing list. He and Diana were up to something—but what? I had the same question about Howard Humphrey, who was next in line on the list of suspects that now also included a woman’s name—Judi Stephenson. Why not seek revenge against the woman who set her up?