I pulled into the small parking lot behind the restaurant, grateful to find there was an easy spot for us to pull into, and parked. Mom slipped her hand over mine.
"I'm sorry, kid," she said. "But he's trying to shyst you."
Mom had picked up the word shyster from a Jewish director she'd worked with on a vitamin commercial, and she’d formed her own verb "shyst" when anybody tried to rip her off.
Mom was right. Robert was trying to rip me off. Eddie had done a good job getting the details, but I didn't want to have this heavy discussion in a parking lot. I needed to mute my anger and guilt with food.
"I want guacamole," I said, which Mom understood was my way of saying let's postpone this discussion until after I've had guacamole.
Mom ordered a burrito, and I ordered two pork tacos along with chips and the aforementioned mood-muting guacamole, plus a large diet soda. Our order came out fast, and soon we were sitting down at one of the comfortable tables by the window overlooking the parking lot.
I scooped up a healthy dose of guacamole onto a chip and ate it. It was nice to have something to eat other than Chinese.
My thoughts turned back to the restaurant. I wondered if business had picked up for Wenling. From what I could tell, Mom hadn’t gotten a call from Wenling or anyone asking us to cater all morning. But then again, she could've turned off her phone for our meeting with Eddie.
"Mom, did you get any calls today for catering?"
Mom shook her head no. "But we don't get calls most mornings," she said.
I took a bite of carne asada. Mom was right. We would go weeks without getting a call for catering help, and most of the people in Fletcher Canyon know they can see us at Lucky Dragon. But still, I worried that the rumors around town might have already cost us a great deal of business. It puzzled me that Mom wasn't more concerned.
"Mom, don't you think the circumstances surrounding Brent Cryer’s death are a little fishy?"
"The police will figure it out."
"But Mom, you're always eager to solve a mystery."
"Maybe there's something more important going on, like Robert trying to get you to sign those divorce papers before that record deal of his goes through."
"Is that really what this is about?" I asked. "Or do you feel guilty, because you insisted on entering a milkshake, and now Wenling’s business is in the toilet and so is ours?"
Mom was quiet, and she was making her sad face. It hit me hard in the gut.
She and I rarely ever fought, mostly because when I was a kid that wasn't an option, and when I was an adult, I lived elsewhere. The alien experience of having a disagreement threatened to send me into tears. The guilt of being a brat and the idea that she'd paid for the services of a private investigator weighed on my chest. I was the worst daughter in the world. I needed to calm down and be a grownup.
"I didn't mean it," Mom said as she stared down at the table. Her voice was so quiet and small–not like her usual self at all. "I thought nobody would care. I didn't think Al would get mad and sabotage the shake."
"Are you sure it was Al?" I asked. "Some of the questions DC asked us indicated that there may have been some other reason."
"What about what's going on with Robert?" Mom said.
"Mom, that's none of your business," I said. My voice came out harsher than I intended.
Mom looked up at me. Her face was serious and her eyes locked with mine. "Anything that concerns you is my business. When somebody tries to shyst you, I make it my business."
My emotions spiked–a powerful combo of guilt, love, and anger. I exhaled and tried to focus on Mom's intention, not my hurt feelings. Robert was trying to screw me, but that didn't make the way Mom went about helping me right. "Mom, you should've told me."
"If I told you, you would've said that we shouldn't do it. And you needed to know the truth. You don't like dealing with things." Mom took a bite of her burrito, and we ate in silence.
The truth stung. Mom was right. I didn't like dealing with things. My sudden interest in the mystery of what happened to Brent Cryer was my way of avoiding the situation with Robert.
We'd been married for almost ten years, and we'd been together since high school. I dropped out of college to help him and his band, and then just as soon as he started to get successful, he moved out in the middle of the night without a word. We had a couple of fights in the years just before that, stuff with groupies. But I honestly hadn't even realized how unhappy I was. I was just so focused on making a marriage work.
The failure of that, and how much of a fool I'd been. I just didn't want to face it, and then he'd shown up at our house a few weeks ago having "taken care" of the divorce papers and pressuring me to sign.
He'd even offered to pay the back rent, which should've tipped me off that he was up to something. Robert had never been very responsible.
"Don't be mad, kid," Mom said. "I just don't want him to hurt you anymore, and you never listen to me when it comes to him."
"I know." Yes she was right, and yes she was acting in my best interest, but a part of me was still angry. "I guess sometimes it's best to just let me make my mistakes."
"I should have told you about Eddie, but I can't let you make a mistake with this divorce. I let you make the mistake getting married. No, not this time. You got to fight.
"You can't let him get that contract and get nothing. You gave up your college education and ten years of your life for him. It's time you stand up for yourself."
Mom was right. I couldn't let Robert get away with this.
"What should I do?" I asked mom.
Mom smiled. "Don't sign the papers, and we'll figure out the rest."
"I wasn't going to sign the papers anyway, but until we figure out the rest, will you at least look into the death of Brent Cryer? Our business can't take this bad publicity, and neither can The Lucky Dragon."
Mom look down at the table. "It wasn't food poisoning because of my milkshake," she said. "Food poisoning doesn't onset that fast, and he was already acting weird when he walked in."
"So that means Al didn't sabotage your milkshake."
Mom pause to think. "I'm not ready to eliminate him as a suspect."
Even though I didn't see Al as a suspect, I didn't mind that he was still on Mom's list. That meant she was on the case.
I pulled into our usual parking spot behind The Lucky Dragon. Tonight was the night Mom and I usually baked the almond cookies and other desserts for the restaurant. It was part of our deal for use of the commercial kitchen.
We'd gotten here early, because Mom wanted to share with Wenling what we found out about Robert. Our talk and the guacamole had made me okay with the idea of getting Wenling's input. The whole thing still made me uneasy, but I distracted myself with the idea that Mom and I would be solving another case.
Is it wrong to hope that Brent was murdered? It's not the same as wishing someone dead, right?
"Looks like Chef's car is already gone," I said, noting his empty parking space.
"Jennifer too," Mom said.
Wenling usually handled the last of the takeout orders at the end of the night, but it was unusual for Jennifer to be gone this early. I tried the handle of the back door, and it was locked. Mom knocked.
"It's us!" Mom yelled, but Wenling didn't answer. "Probably in the bathroom."
We walked around the building to the front of the restaurant.
"The lights are out," I said to Mom as we turned the corner.
"I guess business is really slow," Mom said, her voice quiet again.
"It's always slow on Mondays," I said trying to cheer her up.
Mom nodded. We pushed on the front door. Locked.
"I'm going to call Wenling," Mom said, reaching for her cell phone.
That's when I spotted the small sign. "I think I know why she's not here," I said pointing to the handwritten sign in the window. It said the restaurant closed to "get to the bottom" of the "alleged food born illness."
; "I didn't think they would close the place," Mom said.
"Maybe it's just for the night," I said, trying to be hopeful, but I worried that wouldn't be the case.
Rumors and Reconciliation
I sat across from Mom at the dining room table. Mom had dragged the long telephone cord across the living room to sit at the table with a pen and a pad of paper for notes. Her mission was to work the phone lines and get the dirt on Brent Cryer. She'd called Wenling first, but her best friend hadn’t picked up her home phone. Mom left a message on Wenling’s answering machine. Not voicemail. Answering machine. With a cassette tape. That’s how many folks in Fletcher Canyon roll.
I busied myself researching Brent on my laptop. He'd only lived in town for a little over a year, and many didn't like him. But from what I can tell online, he'd lived in Van Nuys for over a decade, and was liked even less there.
"I don't know," Mom said into the telephone. I didn't know who she was talking to except that it wasn't Wenling, which unsettled me. They'd talked multiple times a day for my entire life.
"No, it wasn't food poisoning," Mom chastised a person on the other end of the phone. "I don't care what Al said. He's jealous because my milkshake would've won if the judge hadn’t died."
Mom listened on the other line, and then argued back, "Food poisoning doesn't onset like that, in a couple of minutes. Didn't you talk to Solomon? He was there. He saw that Brent was stumbling when he walked in. Todd would say so, too."
Mom listened some more. "But do you know anything about him getting into a fight before he came to the restaurant?"
Mom paused again. "I can't tell you where I heard it from," Mom said. "I'm not even sure if it's true."
Classic Mom tactic. Give a little gossip to fish for more. Technically, we’d heard from DC that there may have been a fight, or at least that’s what his question implied.
"You don't say," Mom said after listening for a minute or two. "Maybe he was fighting with her." Mom scribbled down the word "wife"on the pad and listened some more, and scribbled down the phrase "moving van." Then she rolled her eyes.
"He died falling out a window. He didn't even eat!" Mom said. I assumed whomever Mom was talking to was asking about the party we catered that included an unfortunate death. "Ask Barbara, she knows."
That confirmed it. Barbara Turing was our first official client. She hired us to find out who had been selling secrets to her company's competitors. The only problem was the guy who did it fell out of the window and died. But we solved it. Or I should say Mom solved it, and I drove her around. Mom is the real Sherlock of our group. I guess that makes me the Watson, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Watson was entirely more useful.
Mom ended her call and turned to me. "I'm going to try the restaurant one more time," she said.
I could tell from Mom's expression that she was concerned. Mom waited while the phone rang, and then she shook her head no as she returned the phone to the cradle. It was nice having a regular phone, or as mom put it, a "real phone." She made all her important calls on her "real phone."
She always said it's like "those cells" know when someone has something really vital to tell you and they cut out at that moment.
Mom folded her arms. "She's screening me." Mom paused to strategize and then picked up the phone again. "I'll get her to pick up this time," Mom said as she pushed the buttons (real buttons) on the handset. She waited. We were both so quiet, I could hear the ringing from where I sat. Then, the answering machine kicked it. The message had been the same for years. An odd pause followed by Wenling saying "Oh," and then "We’re not home. Leave a message," and an abrupt beep.
"Aye!" Mom screamed into the machine. "I know you’re screening. You need to pick up or you’ll miss everything. We’re solving a murder, and we’re going to question Brent’s wife. Maybe even break into his house."
Mom stopped talking. Wenling had picked up the phone. I was glad Mom had gotten her best friend to pick up the phone, but I wasn't happy about the breaking and entering thing.
I hadn’t realized until we were driving up Marple Drive that I had no idea where Wenling lived. "Do you we turn here?"
"No, the next one," Mom said sounding puzzled. "We were here all the time for Christmas when you were little."
"But I didn’t drive then." These small, winding mountain roads jarred my nerves, and the wide catering van made the road feel all the more narrow.
I needed to talk to Mom about this "breaking into a house" business.
"Mom, what did you mean when you said to Wenling that we might have to break–"
"You have to turn right here," Mom interrupted.
I braked hard to not miss the turn. The only thing more frightening than having to drive up this steep, narrow road, would be to have to maneuver a U-turn. The van stalled.
I jiggled the temperamental gear shift into first, engaged the emergency brake to keep us from falling down the mountain, and turned the key again.
As a lifelong driver of automatic cars, starting from a dead stop in first gear was always difficult for me. When you add in the steep incline of being on a mountain, the maneuver took on a life-threatening urgency. Then there was the small matter of getting the van to veer right onto the rocky private road.
People love living high up on the mountain for the view, but my preference leaned more in the direction of the easy ambulance access and wide roads of the flat land. I considered it a boon that my parents had not been able to afford the luxury of a view.
The van lurched forward and hit a large rock, which made a sickening sound under our tire as we turned. I let out a yelp of fear thinking how close we came to the edge.
Mom laughed. "Kid, there's two meters of room over there."
My panicked mind couldn't bother translating meters to feet, but two of anything other than light years didn't seem like enough space between me and death by plummeting off the side of a mountain.
I drove down the small private road and came to two houses. "Are you sure this is Wenling's place?" Both homes were enormous, two-story structures on opposite ends of a large pool.
"The smaller house is Jennifer's. They built it eight years ago," Mom answered.
"Mom, is Wenling rich?" Property this large was at a premium in Los Angeles.
Mom laughed. "Land around here was cheap when we all bought. Not like now. Plus Keith worked in construction. They built for cheap. But if they ever sell, they'll be rich."
I pulled into their large circular driveway, and Wenling popped out of the front door. "So he was murdered?" Wenling yelled, running up to the van.
"Maybe," Mom said, opening her door.
"He better be murdered, or I'm still mad at you," Wenling said. "And since you got my restaurant closed, you have to sit on the hump." Wenling motioned for Mom to scoot over.
Mom scooted. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, but Wenling said nothing back.
I wanted to ask how long the restaurant would be closed, but it was obviously a sore spot for both Mom and Wenling.
The three of us remained silent as I pulled around the driveway. "Where to?" I asked.
"To Keene Street to see Brent's wife if she's still there," Mom said.
"I hear they were having problems, but what makes you say if she still there?" Wenling asked.
"Carol said she saw a moving van at her house," Mom answered.
"Do you think she killed him?" Wenling asked, her voice taking on a brighter tone.
Mom smiled. "It's usually the spouse, but we don't know."
I know it's wrong to be gleeful about murder, but as a person avoiding complicated feelings about my current divorce crisis, the idea of murdering a bad husband, did, in a wrong way, brighten my outlook.
"What do we do if she's not there, and she moved?" Wenling asked.
"That's why I said we might have to break in and see what we can find," Mom said.
"I brought these." Wenling reached inside her rather large purse and pulled out an industrial sized, pla
stic baggie filled with paperclips, spare keys, two screwdrivers, and an assortment of other pointy tools. "They might help us pick the lock."
"Ooh," Mom said grabbing the baggie. "Good job."
"I bookmarked websites that talk about how," Wenling said, whipping out her tablet.
The two of them studied how to commit breaking and entering as I drove the van downhill. Boy, I hope our heading downhill wasn't a giant metaphor.
Keene Street was on the edge of town, close to the city of Sylmar. It wasn't as scenic as the rest of Fletcher Canyon. The lots and the houses were smaller. The moment I turned onto the street, I could see a giant yellow moving van.
"Looks like she's still here," I said.
Mom and Wenling looked disappointed. They had their heart set on breaking into a house.
"You'll get better information if you question the suspect directly," I said to cheer them up.
Wenling nodded and put away her makeshift burglary tools.
I parked on the street, and even before I could engage the emergency break, Wenling hopped out of the passenger door. She was eager to get started with the investigation. Mom slid out after her, and the two of them headed up to the front door before I could even get out of the driver side.
I rushed to catch up with them, just as Mrs. Cryer answered the door.
"Are you the folks here to install the overhead fans?" she asked.
"Nancy, it's me Jo," Mom said.
"You met us at my restaurant," Wenling said.
Mrs. Cryer beamed. "You guys are the ones that killed my husband! Come on in and have something to drink."
I thought that was an odd way to greet someone you thought responsible for the death of your spouse, but Mom and Wenling had already headed inside. I followed.
"This is my daughter, Christy," Mom said.
Mrs. Cryer waved her hand around the cardboard box cluttered living room. "Excuse the mess, but my sister is moving in. Let's go into the dining room, where there’s still a place to sit."
Milkshakes and Murder Page 4