Brad was one of the owners. He handled the front of the house while his father, John, a former stockbroker, did most of the cooking. When they were busy, John’s wife, who also made some of the baked goods, helped wait tables. The Hornbys had bought the café several years earlier when John had burned out on the business world and went to cooking school. They’d renamed it the Hornblower Café and transformed the place from a casual coffee shop into a great little eatery popular with locals and tourists alike. Greg and I loved having breakfast here on weekends. They weren’t open every night for dinner, but tonight was my lucky night.
“He’s on a business trip,” I told Brad as I looked over the specials tacked to the front of the usual menu. “It’s just Wainwright and me tonight.”
“The seafood salad is super,” Brad told me, pointing it out on the list of specials. “It’s a variety of fresh grilled seafood with a lot of great local veggies and the house vinaigrette.”
“Sold,” I told him, “and give me a glass of your house chardonnay with it.”
After Brad left with my order, I took out my laptop and opened it. I could continue my research while having dinner. I noted in my email that some of the Marigold searches had come in, but not all of them.
My dinner came. The salad was delicious, especially with the chilled wine. Brad also brought Wainwright a bowl of water and a bit of cold roast beef. While I ate, I opened one of the Marigold reports and read. I started with the one on Boaz Shankleman. He was sixty-seven years old, born in Syracuse, New York, to Sarah and Benjamin Shankleman, both deceased. He had two older siblings, a brother who died in 2001 and a sister two years older named Harriet Mayer who was still living in Syracuse. Odd, I thought. Mom and Art had both said Boaz told them he had no family. If Bo didn’t show up, I would look up the address and phone number for his sister and give her a call. He might have gone to visit her. She might even be ill and he went to be with her. There were so many possibilities as to why this man wasn’t in his home at the moment, and most of them didn’t involve foul play.
The report noted that Bo had been married only once, to a woman named Courtney Phelps back in the nineties, but it had lasted less than two years and they had no children. Contacting his ex-wife would be a long shot, so I left it for last, in case I ran out of options.
It was interesting to read about the life of a celebrity from my younger days. I hadn’t been the sort of fan to follow celebrity gossip or news, so all I really knew were the basics: the band’s music and eventual breakup. As Clark had said, it had been big news back then, occurring about two-thirds through a world tour and causing the cancellation of the rest of the bookings. Acid Storm had been sued by concert promoters and venues left and right. I slowly shook my head back and forth, now remembering the brouhaha that had been splashed across tabloids and magazines more than thirty years ago. The tour, the band, and even the corporation set up to handle their business affairs had been torn apart and bankrupted—all over a woman.
What was her name? I stopped reading and stared out across the road to the ocean on the other side, digging through my brain like a seagull diving for scraps. Considering how many people were out walking, biking, and skateboarding, you’d think it was a weekend night instead of a Tuesday. I glanced down at Wainwright, who was asleep next to my chair, his head resting on his crossed paws. He was no help.
What was her name?
I could just look it up, confident that it was a big-enough story to pop up with the right keywords, but I wanted to remember it on my own like I had with the other band member. It was huge news at the time. Just because I didn’t exercise my body that much didn’t mean I was going to let my brain get as soft and flabby as my ass.
“Hey,” the college-age girl seated at the table next to me said to her companion, a boy about the same age, “did you see the trailer for that new show on Fox? It looks pretty cool.”
Her question flickered in my memory like a spark trying to catch on dry tinder. Fox. Cydney Fox!
“That’s it!” I said aloud, then glanced over at the young couple, who were now staring at me. I jabbed at my laptop screen. “Sorry, just some exciting news in an email.” They shrugged and went back to their meals.
Titan’s bitter words replayed in my head: Cydney Fox ruined the band back then, and she’s going to ruin what’s left of it. Mark my words.
Memories of what had happened decades ago bubbled to the surface of my gray matter like gas in the goo at the La Brea Tar Pits. A young woman named Cydney Fox, who’d been seriously involved with David Oxman, was also having an affair with the notorious womanizer Kurt Spencer-Hall. When Oxman found out, he left the tour, the band, and Miss Fox. But it went beyond that. Soon after, several young groupies came forward claiming Spencer-Hall had drugged them to get into their panties. It was all very sordid and splashed about for months in the tabloids before dying a natural death—and that was before the Internet. If it happened now, it would be spread across the world in 140-character sound bites underscored with snarky comments directly from the public. Before finishing my meal, I requested a Marigold search for Cydney Fox.
Wainwright and I walked a long double loop back home. We both needed the exercise, especially me since I had also opted for a slice of Hornblower’s spectacular double fudge chocolate cake after dinner with a cup of decaf coffee. Usually Greg and I split the piece of cake, but tonight I gorged myself on the gooey richness. My reward, I guess, for making sure the banana bread made it untouched into the freezer.
The animals and I had a quiet night. I retired to bed early and read until I was too tired to see the words—at least until the phones, both our land line and my cell, which was on the nightstand, started playing a pesky game of tag.
six
First one rang, then the other, then the ringing went back to the first phone and the round robin started again. I thrashed about on the bed like an unruly drunk trying to clear sleep from my brain. The other side of the bed was empty. It took me a groggy minute to remember that Greg was out of town. I finally grabbed my cell, worried that something had happened to him, but the call had been missed again.
I glanced at the display. I didn’t recognize the number that had called, but it was local. I sighed with relief. Greg was in Arizona on a business trip. I’d talked to him earlier in the evening. The phone display also told me that it was about one thirty in the morning. Maybe it was a wrong number. I hit callback, but the number that had called me was busy.
Before I could put the phone back down, the ringer on the land line in the kitchen started up. We have an extension in the bedroom with the ringer set to off, but it’s on Greg’s side of the bed. Most people call our individual cell phones when they’re trying to reach us. Still entangled in the sheets, I now tried to wade my way across our wide California King bed. It was like trying to swim while an octopus gave you a hug. Both Muffin and Wainwright were on the floor, side by side, alert and worried that I was losing my mind. By the time I reached the landline phone on Greg’s nightstand, the ringing from the kitchen had stopped. Then my cell phone started up again. Whoever was trying to reach me was insistent, even if I didn’t recognize the number. Fortunately, I still had my cell phone clutched in my hand. I flopped onto my back on Greg’s side of the bed and answered it with all the sleepy and frustrated charm I could muster. “This had better be good.”
“Odelia, it’s Mom.”
My eyes shot open, and my head instantly cleared. I glanced again at the phone’s display. This was not Mom’s landline or cell number. I went on instant alert. “Mom? What’s going on? Are you calling from the hospital or something?”
“Um, more like something.” Her voice was low and a bit shaky.
Now I wasn’t just on alert but cautious and worried. “What’s going on?” I repeated. “Where are you?”
“Um,” Mom began again, then paused.
“Mom,” I said, my voice full o
f warning, “cut to the chase.”
“Do you think you could call either Seth or Steele for me? I’d call them myself but the cops took my phone.”
Seth or Steele? Cops? Seth Washington and Mike Steele are both lawyers. Why would Mom need a lawyer at this time of night? As my brain connected the dots, I let loose with a very naughty swear word I seldom used.
“Odelia,” my mother snapped. “Getting vulgar isn’t helping.”
I took a deep breath and looked again at the time. It was now exactly 1:30 a.m. “Seth and Zee left tonight to see their daughter. I’ll see if I can reach Steele. Where exactly are you?” Considering who she was asking for and the comment about the phone, I had a sinking feeling about Mom’s whereabouts, but I had to ask.
“At the Long Beach Police Department,” Mom answered.
I let out another expletive when I heard the answer I knew might come, then started untangling myself from the sheets. My feet hit the hardwood floor in the bedroom at the precise time I asked, “What did they arrest you for?”
“It’s not for me,” Mom explained. “And no one has been arrested. At least not yet. But we still need Steele.”
“Is it Art?” I asked. I put the phone on speaker and propped it on the dresser while I started pulling on the clothes I’d taken off and discarded on a chair just hours before. If it was Art, why weren’t they calling Shelita Thomas? Or maybe Art was on another phone doing just that. I groaned as I imagined what Shelita was going to say to me and Mom. Now she’d probably insist Art move out of the retirement community to get away from my mother.
“No, it’s not Art,” Mom answered, her voice getting tight with frustration and worry. “It’s Lorraine. They brought Lorraine and me here, and it doesn’t look good. She’s the one who really needs a lawyer.”
Lorraine? I combed my memory for someone named Lorraine at the Seaside Retirement Community and came up empty. I slipped my bare feet into my cheery striped espadrilles and grabbed the phone. “Have I met Lorraine?”
“Lorraine!” Mom insisted. “Your niece Lorraine.”
I dropped the phone. It hit the hardwood with a loud clunk. Wainwright scooted over to see if it was an edible item that had slipped from my fingers. I pushed him away from the phone and picked it up, saying a quick silent prayer of thanks that I’d bought the heavy-duty case for it that Greg had suggested instead of the cutesy flimsy one I’d originally wanted.
“What’s Lorraine doing in California?” I asked Mom. “More to the point, what is she doing at the police station?”
On the other end of the line Mom hemmed and hawed, then finally said, “Seems you’re not the only corpse magnet in the family.”
My butt hit the edge of the bed as my legs gave out. I came to a stop sitting on the floor, my back against the mattress. My fingers dug into the hard case of my phone until they went white.
“What happened, Mom?”
“Just get here with Steele. I can tell you both at the same time.” The line went dead.
I remained sitting on the floor in a stupor. Mom had just suggested that being a corpse magnet was a family trait, like eye color or a long nose.
I closed my eyes, thinking—no, hoping—it was all a bad dream and I was still entangled in bedsheets. Wainwright gave me a big slobbery kiss up the side of my face. That was real and caused me to open my eyes. I was still sitting on the floor, dressed and clutching my cell phone.
It wasn’t a dream.
It felt like the beginning of a nightmare.
I called Mike Steele. He wasn’t pleased to be woken up but immediately kicked into action when I told him my niece Lorraine was being held in Long Beach in connection with a murder. He said he’d meet me there.
Some days I wish I’d never found my long-lost mother. Fortunately, I didn’t feel that way often, but today had started with that thought and it wasn’t changing as I finished dressing so I could head to the Long Beach Police Department in the middle of the night.
Mom had disappeared when I was in high school. One day she was there, an aloof yet functioning drunk. A different day I came home from school and she wasn’t there—neither was a note nor explanation of any kind. She and her clothing were gone. She’d left behind our meager furniture, a few scattered dust bunnies, and me. For decades I didn’t know if she was alive or dead until a few years ago when I located her in Massachusetts, along with my two half brothers. After a rocky start, Mom and I had reconciled, and she now lives in Southern California near me. One of my half brothers died, and the other, Clark Littlejohn, and I have become quite close. I also inherited two nieces, Lorraine and Marie, along with Marie’s husband and daughter. I’d gone from virtually no family to a bucketful overnight. Trust me, it’s a mixed blessing.
For the entire drive to the police station, I ran over the events of the previous day, playing them back from the moment I met Shelita for coffee until dinner. Not once did I recall Mom or Clark mentioning that Lorraine was coming for a visit. Nor do I remember ever receiving a text or an email about it.
As I pulled into the parking lot at the police station, I wondered if I should call Clark and let him know what was going on. The thing is, I didn’t know what was going on, at least not yet. Better to find out the entire story before I cause my brother to have a stroke. And who knows, Mom could have called him already. Better she be the one to make his head explode.
seven
Even at two in the morning, the Long Beach Police Department was buzzing with activity. When I didn’t see Mom anywhere, I stepped up to the front desk and waited until the balding, middle-aged uniformed cop behind it got off the phone. When he did, he looked up at me, his small brown eyes scanning and measuring me, absorbing information I didn’t know I was giving off. “How can I help you, ma’am?”
“I believe my mother and niece are here,” I told him, keeping my voice low and away from the others waiting. “Grace Littlejohn and Lorraine Littlejohn. My mother called me.”
After consulting something on his desk, he said, “Take a seat. Someone will be out to get you.”
“Their attorney is meeting me here in a few minutes,” I added. Their attorney! My insides quivered at the thought. “His name is Michael Steele. Can you send him back when he comes?”
“Take a seat,” he said again, his voice a monotone. “We’re really busy tonight. When he gets here, let me know. You can go back together.”
This was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to talk to Mom now, but before I could protest, the officer had called the person behind me to the window.
Michael Steele isn’t a criminal attorney, but he could make the appropriate calls to such people in the event one was needed. I took a seat next to a fidgeting bleached blond and prayed that call would never need to be made. Steele isn’t just an attorney; he’s also my boss. He can be annoying as hell, but he’s also as loyal and helpful to Greg and me as our dog, Wainwright. He also seems to adore my mother, or maybe it’s more that he finds her to be cheap entertainment. Either way, as soon as I told him that Grace and Lorraine were being detained by the Long Beach Police and that a corpse might be involved, he’d jumped into action. Steele lives in Laguna Beach, about thirty-five miles south of Long Beach. Without traffic, it takes about forty-five minutes to get from there to Long Beach. With traffic, you’d better pack a lunch to make the trip. It comforted me to know that at this time of night—or, rather, morning—there would be little to no traffic, and that Steele drives a Porsche and has a lead foot.
Earlier this year Mike Steele had married a woman named Michelle Jeselnik, who is a pediatrician with a thriving medical practice in partnership with her father in Perris, California. She also owns a home there. Since the wedding, they divided their time between Steele’s ultra-modern condo on the beach and her home in Perris, taking turns with the killer commute. Recently Steele told me that Michelle and her father were looking to expand b
y buying a pediatric practice in Orange County, with the idea that Michelle would work from there. They’d been given a lead on a retiring pediatrician looking to sell his practice located near CHOC, the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. It seemed a perfect solution, and negotiations were about to begin. I counted myself lucky that tonight was a night that Steele was in residence at Laguna Beach.
I glanced at a big industrial clock on the wall. It had been close to a half hour since I’d called Steele. I fidgeted in my seat, anxious to talk to Mom. While I waited, people came and went, and the place finally started emptying out. The background noise consisted of ringing phones and low conversations, but it was nothing like the noise that filled the place when I’d been there during the day.
My mind buzzed like a disturbed hornets’ nest. All I knew was that Lorraine Littlejohn was in town, and that being a corpse magnet might be genetic—in our case, definitely passed down through Mom’s genes. What in the hell was Lorraine doing in town without anyone saying anything about it? Did she decide to surprise her grandmother with a visit? Or was she in trouble and showed up on Mom’s door knowing that Mom would do anything to help one of her grandchildren? Again I thought about calling Clark and Greg, but there really was no need to call before I knew what was going on. I tried to tame my anxiety by playing a few games of Words With Friends on my phone. I always had a few games going, but because of the hour, I took my turn and no one on the other side took theirs. Well, that burned up a whole two minutes. I tried reading, but I was too antsy and my eyes were gritty from exhaustion.
Finally, I simply hugged my tote bag to me, closed my eyes, and tried to think of more pleasant things, like Greg and the warmth of our bed, Muffin’s purring, and Wainwright’s slobbery kisses.
“Grey,” I heard a voice in a tunnel say. I ignored it. “Grey,” it said again, accompanied by a shake of my shoulder.
Rhythm & Clues Page 4