The Annie Graceland Cupcakes Cozy Mystery Box Set #2: Books 5 - 7

by Pamela DuMond

  Annie asked me to meet her here today specifically to help investigate Tiffany Tominski, because Mack thought she might be a suspect in his murder. Tiffany nurtured a tremendous grudge toward Mack ‘The Man’ McManus for ‘supposedly’ selling her a lemon back in Wisconsin. She’d stalked and harassed him on and off for years.

  She was now a realtor based in Beverly Hills, but more importantly, according to Mack, a slumlord who owned several apartment buildings in the West Los Angeles area. Annie and I decided the best way to gain access to Tiffany was to pretend to be potential renters. And, lucky for us, after some basic Internet snooping, we discovered her ad on Daveslist for an apartment rental. I’m including the actual listing:

  “OCEAN VIEW! Bright, perky, spacious, completely renovated, one bedroom apartment. Non-smoking building. No puppies allowed but Feline Friendly (for an additional $40.00 monthly fee.) No parking included, but plenty of street parking available. Crown moldings. Good-as-new appliances. Freshly painted. Ceiling fans. Minutes to the Marina, the 10 and 405 Freeways, and the beautiful beaches that line the Pacific Ocean. Great neighborhood! Live in paradise—only $1,875.00 a month!

  YOU—have a good to excellent credit score.

  There is a forty-dollar, non-refundable application fee. A one-month security deposit is required. An additional security deposit of one thousand dollars is required if you have a cat. We do check references—so make sure they are truthful and accurate. We can’t wait to be your Landlord!”

  Lucky for us, Tiffany was too cheap to hire a property manager and had arranged to meet with us, in person, at four p.m. to show us the place.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned expecting to see Annie—but instead came face to face with a short, middle-aged woman with hot pink hair spiraling in wild, frizzy corkscrews out from her round head. She peered at me through black cat-eye glasses and crinkled up her nose.

  “You enjoying that bagel?” she asked.

  “It’s delicious,” I said.

  “It’s been delicious for over an hour, now. First you were writing on a laptop, now you’re writing in a journal. So, I’m going to assume you’re a writer.”

  I smiled—it was so refreshing to be recognized for my craft. “Why, yes, I am.”

  “Write anything I might have heard of?”

  I ruefully eyed the dollop of cream cheese that lay squished on the side of my plate; a sad metaphor for my writing aspirations. “Probably not. Yet.”

  “There’s always hope,” she said. “Hope springs eternal in L.A. for all of us artistic types. We think, ‘Someday I can write a script that attracts the attention of the producers, and managers, and directors. Someday I can make the semifinals in a contest.”

  I sighed in relief. This wild, pink-haired lady got my pain. She got me. Perhaps she was Tinker Bell all grown up, and/or maybe she was meant to be my muse. A complete stranger was giving me hope. Thank you, Universe—but more importantly I needed to… “Thank you.” I held out my hand to shake hers. “My name’s Grady Swenson. What’s yours?”

  But instead of taking my hand, she held hers up in the air, far from me, well out of touching distance.

  “Pinky Stein. Sorry to appear finicky, but I just had my nails done, and I don’t want to damage the acrylics.”

  “Yes. I absolutely get it. I feel the same after I spend an hour or so at Groom—”

  She kept her nails extended but still managed to gather the wisps and tendrils of her errant hair with her two fists. She combined them into one hand and yanked a hairclip from the neckline of her form-fitting pink and black horizontally striped sweater. “Ten years ago I wrote a rom-com script, entered it in the Nicholl competition and made the semifinals.” She piled her hair on top of her skull into a bun, and stabbed it with the clip. “My name started popping up everywhere. I had junior agents calling from CAA, UTA, Gersh. I took meetings.”

  “Yowsa,” I said. “That’s huge!”

  She nodded. “Then my script hit the top ten on the Blacklist. It was a whirlwind of adrenaline. Like I’d downed a Venti Doppio Macchiato from the Buck. I dreamt about becoming the next Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig.”

  “Tell me more,” I said, enthralled.

  “I got a smattering of publicity in Variety, Deadline Hollywood, The Hollywood Reporter, and some screenwriting blogs. I met with a few managers and signed with one. He was smart, savvy. No B.S. He was going to send my script out to a few producers who had already requested it. We hoped for a hit. If nothing happened, he planned to take my script out wide. We had some polite passes. A few mean ones. Someone called my work ‘derivative.’ Asshat. I never even saw the movie they were talking about. After a few months everything quieted down and my manager asked me what else I had.”

  “What else did you have?” Oh, gosh, Diary—who the heck would have thought I’d run into a possible well-established connection while waiting at the counter of Mort Feinberg’s Deli? I gave my head a shake and reminded myself…

  Dreams can come true, it can happen to you, Grady Swenson—just like Lana Turner was discovered drinking a soda at the Top Hat Café (NOT Schwab’s—that was simply Hollywood legend.)

  “I had a bunch of semi-finished drafts,” Pinky said. “Nothing polished, presentable—just decent pitches. So I threw them at him. I hoped that this was it. I was going to be somebody and almost everyone would know my name. I wondered if it was time to divorce my squirrely, verbally abusive husband, and venture out into life as a single lady. And I was sooo close. I actually sat down with an attorney and looked at the logistics. I decided to wait until good fortune hit—but guess what happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. Everybody passed. And I waited two more years before I filed for divorce from the schmuck. Now here I am looking at another hopeful writer and I’ve gotta be honest with you, kid. As much as Mort’s loves to support those in the arts, our turn-around here is swift. We simply can’t shelter the homeless for all that long.”

  “Homeless?” I asked and looked down at my Versace casualwear shirt.

  “There’s a Coffee Bean just down the street,” she said. “Buy a brew, and they’ll let you sit all day. And the library. They love the homeless people. And bonus—you can read last month’s magazines.”

  “I’m not homeless!”

  “Then why are you taking over an hour to eat a bagel, typing on your computer, writing in your journal, and perusing ads for an apartment?”

  “He’s waiting for me.” Annie blew past us wearing her white chef’s ensemble. “I’m the one looking for a new apartment. He’s helping me. Leave him alone.”

  “Oh, so you’re homeless,” Pinky said.

  “I am not homeless!” Annie swiveled and screeched.

  “Well you’ll be homeless soon if you don’t get that order finished in time for She-Who-Must-be-Sucked-up-To’s production company!”

  “Gah! Let me go back to being a baker, Pinky Mussolini,” Annie said. “I beg you!”

  “Gah! Be my guest, Annie Lateland,” Pinky said.

  Twenty minutes later I drove the shortcut back from Beverly Hills because Annie’s ancient car was on the fritz and in the shop.

  “Pinky Stein’s a pain in my behind,” Annie said.

  “You just need to calm down. Besides, I think she’s fascinating.”

  “So are colonoscopies but I don’t want to be exposed to one every day.”

  We travelled past the sleek high-rises in Century City, turned onto Pico, and made a left on Motor in front of Fox Studios. We passed the long, green-grass, tree-lined Rancho Park with too many baseball diamonds and clubhouses to count.

  “Thanks for backing me up on this,” Annie said. “I hope to hell my car repairs are going to be cheap. I took L.A.’s super fine public transportation to work this morning. My regular twenty-minute drive ended up being a two and 1/2 hour bus commute. I sat next to a guy who snored the entire time and twitched. He had blood on his T-shirt and his jeans. When h
e mumbled, ‘Who’s talking now? I’ve got the knife, Mo-Fo!’ I got a little scared and feared he was a gang-banger, or a serial killer.”

  “Why didn’t you change seats?”

  “Do I look like a pole dancer? Nothing else was available, dude.”

  “Understandable.” I nodded. “Who wants to hang onto one of those poles for an hour. Lucky for you, he was an exhausted serial killer. By the way, I’m happy to help, you know. That’s what friends do. You know I hate to be the bearer of obvious tidings—”

  “Have at it.” Annie waved a hand at me. “Everyone else does.”

  “Have you thought that maybe it’s time you got a newer car?”

  “Newer?” she asked. “Newer? Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know? I can’t afford a used car—okay, okay—fine, Mack!” in air quotes, she said. “A previously owned vehicle!”

  I tried to quench my excitement as I adjusted the rearview mirror, peered into the back of my car and saw nothing but my workout duffle. “Mack’s in the back seat, isn’t he?”

  “I’m sorry!” Annie said. “ Yes. But, you don’t need to worry. It’s not like he leaves a dead residue or anything. Okay—maybe just a hint of that ‘new car smell’ air freshener the dealerships spray into the carpet of previously owned vehicles.”

  “It’s fine.” I lifted my hand casually and waved casually into the rearview. “Hey, Mack. Glad we could help you out today.”

  “He says he appreciates it, Fraidy,” Annie frowned, swiveled her head and stared behind her. “Don’t call him that—his name is Grady. No, he’s not scared of ghosts—he’s actually kind of intrigued by the whole thing. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mack.”

  A few minutes later I slowed down and eyeballed the apartments on Venice Boulevard, looking for the right address. “I think that green and white one is it,” I said.

  “Doesn’t look awful,” Annie said. “Park, please.”

  “I haven’t found a space yet.” I slowed down when someone slammed on his or her horn behind me, and Annie almost hit the roof.

  She stuck her head out of the passenger window and shook her fist. “Chill out, buddy!”

  “For God’s sakes, pull your head inside,” I said. “What if someone shoots you?”

  “Turn right, here!” She pointed to the next intersection. “Turn! The ad said there was plenty of street parking.”

  “I need to signal, first, okay? Calm down!”

  I don’t know, Finley. It seems like everyone, except for me, is on high alert these days. You know what? I might just check out the library. I can only imagine whom I might meet there.

  Thanks for your time,

  Grady

  Chapter 23

  The Devil Wears Flada

  MACK

  Dear Diary,

  Why do I have to pretend to write “Dear Diary” every time I get a chance to tell my side of the story? What other sicko game is Annie Graceland playing with me? But she’s insisted several times now, and throws her hands up in the air and yells at Mack when I don’t do things her way. Because she’s “done this whole investigating thing before with other ghosts.” And I need to “just trust her” and her bonehead friends. God, please let me pass. In the meantime, fine! “Dear Diary,” it is!

  We circled the block for ten, long, stressful minutes before Grady finally found parking.

  “Come on! I know you can make this.” Annie stood in front and waved him toward her as he nervously pulled as close to the car in front of him to avoid blocking someone’s driveway, which was an automatic tow in this neighborhood. We trotted three blocks to the apartment building, and peered up at the address to make sure we were in the right spot.

  This place looked so familiar… probably because it was your typical, sixty-year-old, Venice apartment complex. The building was a two-story long rectangle slapped with off-white stucco and ugly as sin on the outside. Dead fronds hung from the single tall, anorexic palm tree plopped in front on the yellowed, sickly-looking lawn. The numbers on the building appeared like they were manufactured in the early sixties and the last digit tilted sideways—like it was ready to just call it a day, jump, and commit suicide on the ground below.

  “We’re late,” Annie looked at her phone. “Maybe Tiffany was already here and left. I told you to just park in the lot at the 7-11.”

  “And risk getting towed?” Grady shook his head. “Sorry, I love you, but that option wasn’t worth the extra four hundred bucks.”

  When Tiffany Tominski rounded the corner dressed in low clacky heels and a form fitting pants suit. My former breath caught in my former throat. “It’s her,” I said. “I haven’t seen Tiffany in years, but, I’d recognize the Devil wears Flada any day.”

  “Prada,” Annie said.

  “No,” I said. “Flada: a ginormous and profitable Chinese clothing manufacturer that rips off all the designer labels. Tiffany’s definitely a Flada kind-of-gal.”

  Tiffany walked straight up to Annie and Grady and stuck out her hand. “You must be Annie Graceland and Grady Swenson.”

  “Yes.” Annie shook her hand. Grady extended his but Tiffany had already turned and was marching down the corridor between the apartment buildings.

  “You married?” She asked.

  “Um, no,” Grady said. “Just best friends.”

  “Not a problem.” She swiveled her head and winked at them. “I rent to all sorts of folks, with all sorts of arrangements, if you know what I mean. Just keep it legal, clean, and out of the newspapers. And no dungeons on my properties.”

  “Dungeons?” Annie asked.

  “Shut up. You don’t want to know,” Grady hissed.

  Tiffany pointed to a staircase and started climbing it. “You’re here to see #5, yes? The spacious, newly renovated one bedroom?”

  “Um,” Annie said.

  “Yes!” Grady took her arm and they followed Tiffany up the stairs.

  I sprang forward, ahead of them. Something about this place called to me. Something was so familiar, and at the same time, felt changed. Like when you wake from one of those very lucid dreams and can’t tell the difference between your dream and real life for a few moments. Until you have to pee and then you’re really awake—well, usually.

  Tiffany wriggled her key in the lock when my hand fell on top of hers on the doorknob. She shuddered for a second and then recovered nicely. “Phew! Did you feel that autumn breeze?” she asked.

  “No,” Annie said, just steps behind her.

  Grady squinted, nodded in Mack’s general direction and gave me a subtle wave. “Absolutely, Ms. Tominski. Weather is finally arriving in So-Cal just in time for Thanksgiving.”

  “Don’t get me started on Thanksgiving.” Tiffany flung the door open and walked inside. Annie and Grady followed on her footsteps.

  I squeezed around them. There was a faint smell of ‘new car’ scent in the air. At first it made me curious, and then a little nauseous as I realized this wasn’t emanating from me. I stood on the new, cheap, taupe shag carpeting in the freshly painted white living room, gagged and clamped a hand over my mouth.

  Annie noticed. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I feel kind of weird here. Like there’s something I should remember, but I don’t.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, thank you for asking,” Tiffany said. “Typical holiday. There’s just so much to do. When were you looking to move in?”

  “December 1st,” Grady said. “Just a week or so from now. We’re already packing.”

  “This unit is going to rent quickly. I’m showing it to three other people after you, today. It has a newish fridge, new carpeting, and a new dishwasher.” Tiffany gestured. “Walk around the place. Get a feel for it. The prior tenant was here for nearly thirty years. She loved it.”

  Annie looked around the place suspiciously. “Why did she leave? Did she die? Because by law, you need to disclose that kind of stuff, you know.”

  “Good God, no. She’s living the high life at Helping
Hands Assisted Living facility—which I prefer to call a spa. She’s served three warm meals a day in the dining room, her apartment is cleaned once a week, and she has more activities on her itinerary than a cruise ship.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Grady said.

  “I’ll be there in forty years. I hope the men are still living, because it seems like all the men die before the women do. My former tenant even confirmed that. She said there are four women to every man at her new digs. She’s such a dear.”

  Annie moved around the apartment, her eyes flitting everywhere, looking for some kind of clue. She peered inside the bedroom. “Bars on the windows?”

  “Been up there for forty years,” Tiffany said. “Neighborhood’s gotten a lot better in four decades, but one can never be too safe. Besides if you look in that direction…” She pointed through the slats, “…you can see the ocean view.”

  Annie squinted. “You mean the view of a tire shop.”

  “No, no. Look right there,” Tiffany pointed. “Whitecaps cresting on top of the gorgeous Pacific Ocean waters.”

  Grady squinted. “I think I see it.”

  “Those are whitewall tires,” Annie said, “at the tire shop.”

  “On a Lincoln Towncar. A beaut. What a shame that feature was discontinued in 2001,” I said. “I swear I’ve been here before, Annie. But I can’t remember where or when. Maybe it’s just a mental fog because I’m recently departed. But perhaps there’s something here, in this very apartment that’s drawing Mack. An essence. A feeling. A hint. Quite possibly a clue about my murder.”

  I glared at Tiffany. The material making up her Flada suit was thinly woven and I could practically see her undergarments. Like I was the one to sell her a lemon. Hah! I do believe the laugh was on her. “Look,” I said. “I don’t trust Tiffany as far as I can throw her.”