by Laura Levine
Never was I more certain of anything in my life.
“So,” I said, trying to ignore the stares of my fellow patrons. “How’s everything?”
“Pretty good.” He dug into his Cheerios with gusto. “I ordered my new toupee. It’s coming in from Taiwan any day now.”
“Like I told you, Walter, I think you look fine without it.”
“Wrong,” he said with a dismissive wave of his spoon. “Women like a man with a full head of hair.”
Hair, yes. Hamster fur, no.
I watched him shovel Cheerios into his mouth for a few unappetizing seconds, then sneaked a peek at my watch. Yuck. Only seven minutes had slogged by since I first walked through the door. I couldn’t possibly leave yet. Oh, well. As long as I was trapped, I might as well question him about the murder.
“Sure is a tragedy about Patti.”
“I dunno,” he said. “If you ask me, Dickie’s well out of it.”
“Oh?”
“Patti would’ve made him miserable. I tried to warn him but he wouldn’t listen.”
As he shoveled down another spoonful of cereal, a crazy thought flitted through my brain. Had Walter sabotaged the balcony to spare his friend a miserable marriage? But that didn’t make sense. Julio swore it was a woman he saw on the balcony.
“But Dickie stopped paying attention to what I said a long time ago. He’s not the same person he was in high school. I think he only asked me to be his best man because we used to be so close.” His eyes clouded over for a beat, but then he shrugged philosophically. “I guess that’s what happens. People grow apart.”
“Indeed, they do,” I said, thinking of Patti, Cheryl, and Denise.
“Anyhow, I hate to say it, but the world’s probably a better place without Patti. The only thing I’m upset about is that I wasted $29.95 on their wedding present. Plus ten bucks to have it specially gift wrapped.”
“Twenty-nine ninety-five? I didn’t see anything for $29.95 on their gift registry.”
If I had, I would’ve bought it in a heartbeat.
“Oh, I didn’t use their registry. The Sexometer came from a mail order catalogue. In fact, the same place where I got my toupee.”
“The Sexometer?”
“It’s like a kazoo with different buttons on it, so that your partner can read your sexual temperature. There’s On Fire, Warm, Tepid, and Honey I’ve Got a Headache. What a great idea, huh?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded woodenly, aghast at this new low in bad taste.
“I wanted to take it back from the gift table so I could get a refund, but who does a tacky thing like that?”
A quick change of subject was definitely in order. So I asked Walter what I’d been asking everybody else, if he’d seen anyone sneak upstairs during the cocktail party. Like everybody else, he saw nada.
“If you remember,” he said, “that night I only had eyes for you.”
I remembered, all right. Only too well.
At last he’d finished his tub of cereal and slurped up every last drop of half and half. Enough time had elapsed, I thought, for me to make my exit. I was just about to fumpher an excuse and make a break for it when he cleared his throat and said:
“Say, Jaine. Have you heard about the Hermosa High reunion this weekend?”
“No, I guess I’m on their Do Not Call list.”
“Last year’s reunion was such a big success, they decided to have another one. Anyhow, I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”
No way. Never in a zillion years. Not if he were the last insurance actuary on the face of the earth.
“I’m afraid not, Walter.”
His mouth opened in a tiny Cheerio of disappointment.
“Please don’t feel bad,” I said.
“Of course I feel bad. You know I’ve always had a crush on you, Jaine, ever since the day I first saw you eating M&M’s in assembly. I must’ve invited you to my house a hundred times to see my ant farm, but you never came. And then, in senior year, you broke my heart.”
“I broke your heart?”
“Remember how I asked you to the prom and you said you weren’t going and then you showed up with Dylan Janovici?”
“Walter, you asked me to the prom on the first day of school. By June, I’d forgotten all about it.”
“I stayed home that night and watched Lawrence Welk with my parents while you were out dancing with Dylan.”
I thought back to that ghastly evening, being tossed around on the dance floor like a ship in a hurricane, and the utter humiliation of landing in Principal Seawright’s lap.
“If it’s any consolation,” I said, “I had a horrible time, too.”
“It couldn’t have been worse than mine. That night was the unhappiest night of my life.”
“I’m so sorry, Walter. I never meant to hurt you.”
Ironic, isn’t it? While Patti and Denise and Cheryl were torturing the rest of the student body, I’d been unwittingly torturing poor Walter. High school was undoubtedly a daisy chain of torture, a teenage caste system fueled by raging hormones and gross insecurities.
“That’s okay,” he sighed. “I got over it. And I’ll get over this, too.”
He sat there with a piece of Cheerio on his chin, and I was suddenly awash in a wave of pity. Walter wasn’t such a bad fellow. Would it kill me to spend one more night with him?
And so, my heart overflowing with the milk of human kindness, I heard myself saying:
“I’ll go to the reunion with you, Walter.”
“You will?” His eyes lit up with gratitude.
“But not as a date. As friends.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he said, ignoring my caveat. “I promise you won’t regret it!”
Of course I would.
In fact, I regretted it not thirty seconds later when he scooped up a plateful of free brownie samples from the counter and said to the barista, “Wrap these to go.”
Yep, right then and there, my milk of human kindness began curdling.
Chapter 17
I waited in the Corolla until I saw Walter drive off, then scooted back to Starbucks to get what I’d been lusting after since I first saw it in the display case—that big, fat chocolate chip muffin.
“Sorry,” the stunning barista smirked when I put in my order, “we’re all out. But we’ve got a fresh plate of biscotti samples. Shall I wrap them to go?”
Harty bleeping har.
“I’ll have a bran muffin, please,” I said with all the dignity I could muster.
“Don’t forget to help yourself to a cup of half and half. We just stocked up.”
Quite the comedian, wasn’t he?
I grabbed my muffin and polished it off in my car, safe from the barbs of the wise guy barista. Then, feeling somewhat revived, I set off to pay a little visit to Veronica. As much as I liked her, I had to consider her a suspect. Not only was she seen near the staircase the night of the cocktail party, but given the fact that Patti had threatened to ruin her business, she had a strong motive for wanting her out of the way.
Hubbard’s Cupboard was a tiny storefront tucked away on Melrose Avenue among a string of trendy boutiques and hair salons.
Several customers were looking over menu books in the reception area when I came in, oohing and aahing over appetizers.
I made my way past them to a counter where I was greeted by a spiky-haired sprite with more earrings in her earlobes than I had in my entire jewelry box.
“Hi, there!” she chirped. “Welcome to Hubbard’s Cupboard. Can we help you cater the party of your dreams?”
“No,” I demurred, not mentioning that my usual caterer of choice was Colonel Sanders. “Actually, I’m here to see Veronica.”
“Is she expecting you?”
Indeed she was. I’d called her on the way over and told her I needed to speak with her on a matter of utmost importance.
The sprite led me to an industrial kitchen in the rear of the store where I found Veronica in her chef’s jacket, hard at work
stuffing squabs.
“We’re getting ready for a big party tonight,” she said, her face flushed from the heat of the kitchen. “Hope you don’t mind if I do some prep work while we talk.”
“No, not at all.”
I sat across from her at a huge kitchen island and watched as she proceeded to stuff the squabs, sticking her fingers up their privates like an assembly line gynecologist.
“So what’s up?” she asked as she made her way down the row of birds.
I told her I was investigating Patti’s murder.
She looked up in amazement.
“You’re a private eye?”
I couldn’t blame her for being surprised. Back in high school, I had a hard time finding my own locker.
“It’s more of a hobby than a job.”
“Sounds like a dangerous hobby.”
“It can be,” I said, trying to sound a lot tougher than the marshmallow I was. “Anyhow,” I proceeded, getting down to business, “I saw Dickie yesterday.”
“Surely you don’t suspect him? Dickie was devastated when Patti died.”
“No, I don’t suspect him. But he mentioned that he ran into you in the hallway the night of the cocktail party. He said you asked him for help unloading champagne from your van.”
I looked for a reaction, a flicker of guilt. But she just went on stuffing her squabs, totally unfazed.
“I hated to bother him, but my waiters were all busy serving the guests. I was short-staffed that night. If you remember, darling Patti made me send one of my guys home because his hair clashed with her dress.”
“Oh, right.”
I’d forgotten all about that. It certainly explained why Veronica would’ve asked Dickie for help.
“Wait a minute,” she said, the gist of my conversation beginning to sink in. “Why are you asking me about where I was that night? You don’t think I had anything to do with the murder, do you?”
Standing there with a dish towel slung over her shoulder and a small dot of flour on the tip of her nose, she looked about as capable of murder as Betty Crocker. I was beginning to feel a tad foolish.
“Well,” I fumphered, “Patti did threaten to ruin your business.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed. “If I took every threat I’ve ever received in this business seriously, I would’ve committed murder—or suicide—long ago. I’ve been chewed out by people far more important than Patti. And you know what? Six months later, they’re calling me to cater another party.”
Our tête-à-tête was interrupted just then by the ding of an oven timer.
“My empanadas!”
Veronica dashed over to one of the stainless steel ovens and took out a sheet of golden brown pastry pockets.
“It’s a new recipe,” she said, transferring them to a plate. “Chicken cheese. What do you think?”
She held them out for my inspection.
“They look fantastic.”
“C’mon.” She grinned, “let’s do some taste testing.”
Needless to say, I didn’t have to be asked twice.
I bit into a divine mixture of flaky pastry dough, chicken, and melted cheese. My taste buds were doing the cha-cha.
And just like that, Veronica sank to the bottom of my suspect list. Anyone who cooked something this heavenly couldn’t possibly be a killer, could she?
I assured her the empanadas were divine and thanked her for putting up with my prying questions.
“By the way,” I said as I got up to leave, “I don’t suppose you saw anyone heading up the stairs the night of the cocktail party?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Eleanor Potter.”
Eleanor Potter, huh? Now there was a suspect who just kept popping up over and over again.
Looked like it was time for another drive down to Hermosa.
“What now?” Eleanor snapped when she saw me on her doorstep.
Arms folded tightly across her ample chest, she glared at me in a most unfriendly manner. So palpable was her irritation, I was surprised she hadn’t yanked the welcome mat out from under my feet.
“Well?” She tapped her foot impatiently. “What is it?”
There was no gentle way of approaching this; I was going to have to dive right in.
“Look, Eleanor. I’ve just been talking to Veronica the caterer.”
“Oh? Are you and your ‘fiancé’ planning a wedding? Better take out plenty of fire insurance.”
Boy, everybody was a comedian today.
“Veronica says she saw you sneaking upstairs the night of the cocktail party.”
True, Veronica hadn’t used the word sneaking. I just threw that in for dramatic effect.
“In case you weren’t aware of it,” I added, “that’s when the police say the murderer tampered with the railing on the—”
But I never did get to “balcony,” because by then she’d slammed the door in my face.
Okay, she was playing hardball. So would I.
“Either you talk to me,” I shouted, “or I talk to the police.”
A long beat, and then the door slowly opened.
My threat had worked. Eleanor stood there, her shoulders slumped in resignation, the starch knocked out of her.
“C’mon in,” she sighed.
I followed her into what I can only describe as a shrine to Dickie Potter. Sure, there were the requisite sofa and chairs and coffee table. But what instantly caught my eye were the gazillion photos of Dickie scattered around the Potters’ living room, from diaper days to graduation and beyond.
Framed over the fireplace was a wedding portrait of Dickie and Normalynne.
Patti must’ve loved that.
Eleanor waved me to an armchair and sunk down into a nubby plaid recliner, propping her Easy Spirits onto the footrest.
“I went upstairs,” she said, “to look for sex tapes.”
“Sex tapes?”
“I’d heard on the grapevine that Patti liked to tape her sexual encounters, that she’d been doing it ever since high school. I figured if I could find those tapes and show them to Dickie, he’d see what a slut she was and call off the wedding.”
Not necessarily, I thought. Some men would have the tapes copied and transferred to DVD.
“I searched her bedroom, but all I found was some body chocolate and edible under wear.”
She leaned back in the recliner and closed her eyes, as if weary from the effort of reliving it all.
“Go to the police if you want,” she sighed, “but that’s what really happened.”
I was inclined to believe her. There was something about her story that rang true. A tad disappointing, I must admit. Just when I’d been certain I’d been zeroing in on the killer.
“Well, if that’s all,” she said, sitting up in the recliner, “I really should be fixing lunch.”
But it wasn’t all. Not by a long shot. Because just then Kyle Potter came wandering into the room, in jeans and a work shirt, a tool belt hanging from his waist.
“There you are, Eleanor. Have you seen my monkey wrench?”
Then he glanced over and saw me.
“Oh, hi, Jaine. What are you doing here?”
“Jaine thinks I’m the one who sabotaged Patti’s balcony.”
“She what?” His normally mild blue eyes clouded over with anger.
“Now, Eleanor,” I protested, “that’s not exactly what I said—”
“Someone saw me going upstairs the night of the cocktail party, and now Jaine’s convinced I’m the one who killed Patti.”
“Why did you even let her in the house?” he shouted at his wife. This was the first time I’d ever heard Kyle Potter raise his voice. Eleanor shrank back, afraid. And she wasn’t the only one. I was feeling a bit skittish myself.
“She threatened to go to the police.”
Kyle turned to me, his eyes blazing, a small vein throbbing in his temple.
“You do,” he hissed, “and you’ll live to regret it.”
Trust me, I w
as regretting it already.
“Oh, heavens, no!” I started babbling. “I’m not going to the police. What a crazy idea that was, huh? Anyone can see you two are model citizens. Probably don’t even have an outstanding parking ticket. And speaking of tickets, I’d better get going if I don’t want to get one. Well, it’s been swell chatting. Let’s keep in touch!”
And with that impressive display of cowardice, I beat a hasty retreat to the safety of my Corolla.
I took off for the freeway, mulling over what I’d just witnessed. What an eye-opener that had been. There was a whole other Kyle Potter most people didn’t see. An angry guy with an explosive temper. And how about that tool belt? Clearly he knew his way around a power drill.
I remembered standing next to the Potters at the rehearsal cocktail party and overhearing Eleanor bitch to Kyle about Patti. He’d told her not to worry, assuring her everything would be okay. At the time I thought he was just pacifying her. But now I wondered: Maybe he wasn’t worried about Patti, because he already knew she’d be dead.
But Julio insisted the person he saw out on the balcony that night was a woman.
Was it possible Julio had been wrong? Was there any way he could have mistaken 6’3” Kyle Potter for a woman in the dusky sunset?
Not bloody likely.
I groaned in frustration. Another juicy suspect bites the dust.
Traffic was a nightmare. It doesn’t take much for traffic to go crazy on the 405 Freeway. Somebody has a flat tire in Cleveland and traffic backs up on the 405. On this particular day, I believe it was backed up to Acapulco.
I was sitting in my car, watching the weeds grow on the shoulder of the freeway, when I realized that I was a quarter of a mile away from El Segundo, where Normalynne lived. I’d been meaning to check in on her and now was as good a time as any. At least it would get me out of this automotive hellhole.
A few eons later, I made it to the El Segundo exit and hit the off-ramp with all the exhilaration of an ex-con on his first day of freedom.
What a thrill to zoom along in street traffic at thirty miles an hour.
At last I arrived at Casa Segundo, just in time to see Normalynne coming out the front door of the building, dressed in a conservative skirt and blazer, sensible pumps on her feet. For a minute I thought she got her teaching job back.