How to Crash a Killer Bash

by Penny Warner

  I headed for the shower, my mind running random non-thoughts, until the warm water really woke me up and brought me back to more realistic concerns. Like getting Delicia out of jail. Or finding the real killer. Or dealing with that kiss . . .

  Somewhere between the shampoo and conditioner I decided that I wanted to learn more about Mary Lee and Jason’s relationship—and I needed Corbin’s help. Like Brad had said—sometime before he kissed me—“Cherchez la femme.”

  And Corbin was the only one with an all-access pass to their pasts.

  I dressed in my usual black jeans and a T-shirt with a cat on it that read, “If you don’t talk to your cats about catnip, who will?” After downing a triple latte and a cinnamon bagel, I pulled out my phone and tapped his number. After five rings, a lethargic-sounding voice answered, “Yeah?”

  “Corbin, hi. It’s Presley.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Caller ID.

  “You don’t sound so good. Are you all right?”

  “I’m great,” he said, sarcasm lacing his tone. “My mother is killed, and now my father turns up dead. What could be wrong?”

  “I’m so sorry, Corbin. That’s why I need your help finding out who did this. Could we meet again?”

  “What about Delicia?”

  “Come on, Corbin, you know she didn’t do it. She was in jail when your dad was killed. Don’t you want to see the real killer caught?”

  Silence on the other end. Then, “Whatever.”

  “You want to meet at the Bittersweet Café again?” The cafe was near Pacific Heights, where his mother lived. I had to convince him to let me see her home.

  “I don’t have a car . . .”

  “Listen, I’ll come pick you up. Where do you live?”

  He gave me directions to his home in the arty district of Noe Valley, an expensive area filled with cute cafés, genre bookstores, trendy clothing boutiques, and eclectic shops. If you wanted to live there, you had to have enough money to pay the inflated rent. I had a feeling Corbin’s mother had been subsidizing him. I doubted he could afford to live there otherwise.

  Twenty minutes later I drove up to his house on a side street not far from the shopping district. The yard was unkempt, full of weeds and large rocks, a broken bicycle, and a rusty porch swing. I knocked on the heavily repainted door—it was currently red—and a few seconds later Corbin opened it. He waved me inside.

  “Sorry about the mess,” he said, running his paint-stained hand through his tangled dark brown hair. He was wearing the same black T-shirt full of holes and kneeless jeans he’d worn the other day at our meeting. I couldn’t tell if he’d affected the impoverished-artist look or he just hadn’t bothered to change in the last few days. His bare feet looked dirty.

  The living area was small, cluttered, and smelled of weed. He stepped over to a stained green velvet chair, swiped copies of underground comics onto the floor, and gestured for me to sit. I recognized several of the ’zines at my feet, by artists like Harvey Pekar, R. Crumb, and Art Spiegelman. Corbin cleared at space on the threadbare brocade couch across from me and plopped down, sinking into the sagging cushions. I spotted a mousetrap peeking out from under the side of the couch and shivered.

  “You live here alone?” I asked, not knowing where to begin.

  “Yeah. Had a roommate, but he joined the Peace Corps. I like my privacy.”

  I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Corbin, I think we should take a look around your mother’s house and see if we can find something that might help. Do you have keys to the place?”

  “Yeah. I guess it would be okay. You’ll have to drive. I don’t have any wheels at the moment.” Again he ran his fingers through his messy hair. Was this his look, or just a lack of interest in a shower and shampoo?

  “No problem,” I said, and stood up. “Shall we go?”

  While he ducked into another room to retrieve his jacket, I noticed several canvases propped together against a wall. I meandered over and flipped through them. The subject matter was the same in every one—unfinished portraits of his mother. They weren’t particularly good, but at least they weren’t nudes. Still, was this evidence of the classic Oedipus complex? Or was he trying to please his mother by capturing her on canvas? That was the trouble with abnormal psychology—there were so many options for diagnosis. Now, if only he’d included her shoes in the paintings . . .

  Corbin returned wearing a denim jacket and paint-stained sneakers, no socks. In his hand he dangled a key ring. Stepping over a pile of mail that had been slipped through the front door slot, I headed outside. Corbin followed, locking his door behind him. When he turned and saw Dee’s Smart Car, he grinned.

  “Cool car. You had it long?”

  I stared at him, surprised at his lack of recognition. “It’s Delicia’s. Haven’t you seen it before?”

  His face clouded over as he opened the passenger door and slipped in.

  I moved around to the driver’s side, sat down, then turned to him.

  “I thought you and Dee were, you know . . .”

  He stared out the side window. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean I know everything about her. We just met up a couple of times at the clubs. She never mentioned the car.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Buckle up.”

  He snapped the belt around him and settled in. “It’s bigger inside than I thought. How much does something like this run?”

  “I think Dee paid around eighteen thousand for it. Give or take. I still can’t believe you didn’t know. Didn’t you ever go anywhere in her car?”

  “No. I borrowed my roommate’s, mostly.”

  I started the engine. “Pacific Heights, right?”

  “Yeah.” He gave directions, weaving me through the varied city neighborhoods and streets. But entering Pacific Heights was like entering another world. The stately, landscaped mansions built within a parklike setting are home to some of the wealthiest city residents, like Dianne Feinstein, Danielle Steel, and Lars Ulrich from Metallica. The Academy of Art has a campus in the area, and there are several consulates and plenty of upscale shopping. Mrs. Doubtfire, The Wedding Planner, and The Princess Diaries are only a few of the many movies filmed here.

  Driving through, I’d never seen so many turrets, towers, parapets, domes, cupolas, stained glass windows, and other architectural whimsies. The small but immaculate yards were festooned with all sorts of lawn ornaments—birdbaths, fountains, even a hooded saint and King Neptune rising out of the grass. I spotted fake ducks, turtles, deer, frogs, and penguins frozen to their spots. The only things missing were pink flamingoes and garden gnomes. Apparently they didn’t belong in this neighborhood of professionally designed and tended yards.

  “Wow,” was all I could say as we pulled up to Mary Lee’s mansion.

  “Yeah,” Corbin said. “Looks more like a museum than a home, doesn’t it? Same guy who designed the de Young did it.”

  I parked the Smart Car in the driveway, and we got out. When I turned to lock it, Corbin shook his head.

  “Don’t bother. The car’s safe here. Unless it gets towed for being ‘a public nuisance.’ ” He added the finger quotes. It looked like a toy sitting there next to the ginormous mansion.

  I followed Corbin to the massive front door and waited for him to pull out a key. Instead, he slid open a small ceramic panel, revealing a series of numbers. He punched in a code, slid the panel back, and pressed his thumb on the door latch.

  “Voilà,” he said, ushering me inside.

  Corbin was right about the house looking like a museum—inside as well as out. Giant paintings covered the walls of the high-ceilinged rooms, mostly modern abstract works of bold colors. I recognized a Wayne Thiebaud cityscape, a dizzying view of one of San Francisco’s steep streets.

  I followed Corbin into the front room, which was filled with small statues on pedestals, mostly nudes. Two white suede couches faced each other, looking as pristine as if they’d never been used. Between them was a glass table ma
rbled with swirling colors. Indirect lighting lit up the artworks, and a stained glass dome filtered in muted light from above.

  “Is anyone living here now?” I whispered to Corbin, feeling I might be tossed out by a security guard if I made any kind of disturbance.

  “Nope. All the help leave at the end of the day. And most of them haven’t been around since she . . . died. She has a bunch of guest bedrooms, but no one lives with her except that dog of hers.”

  I glanced around for signs of the pooch. “Where is she? The dog, I mean.”

  “No clue,” he said simply, flopping onto one of the white couches and spreading his arms on the back.

  Hmmm. The dog had been at the murder mystery play that night, tucked into its little purse-home at Mary Lee’s side. I thought I remembered Corbin holding it, right after he discovered his mother’s death. So where had it gone? To a shelter? Surely someone would have taken in the animal. I’d have to check into that.

  “Can I take a look around?” I asked Corbin.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Wow. Uncaring? Uncooperative? Or just upset by being in his mother’s home?

  “I’ll be quick.”

  He laid his head back and closed his eyes. I moved into the next room, a formal dining area with a long dark wood table and enough seats to serve at least two dozen guests. Crystal chandeliers hung at either end of the table, and again the walls were covered with abstract and modern art. I moved past a dumbwaiter, through a spacious butler’s pantry, and into a spotless kitchen, then on to a sitting room, library, several guest bathrooms, and an entertainment center with a massive plasma TV. Everything was immaculate—not a thing out of place, not even a dog hair. I headed up the curving staircase and checked out half a dozen guest bedrooms, each decorated in a different style—French country, Spanish hacienda, English cottage, and so on.

  The master bedroom—Mary Lee’s room—took my breath away. Everything was pink, from the canopied bed to the antique chaise longue next to the large stone fireplace. At the end of the massive bed sat a pink fur-lined dog bed, with the name Chou-Chou embroidered on one side.

  There was no sign of the dog.

  I checked the master bath, with the huge soaking tub and Jacuzzi, the spacious, glass-enclosed shower with its myriad jets and marble trim, and snooped in all the drawers and cabinets. No telltale signs that might indicate Mary Lee was a drug addict, pill popper, or had a medical condition. Not even a Valium lurked in her small cache of bottles. I did find lots and lots of Christian Dior, Lancôme, Elizabeth Arden, and Dior cosmetics on the shelves of her mirrored vanity, along with the usual antiaging concoctions. But nothing screamed, “I have secrets!”

  Returning to her bedroom, I checked the walk-in (practically live-in) closet. It was filled with glittery gowns and designer duds. Her multitude of shoes occupied their own separate wall. I closed the doors, then noticed another door next to the fireplace.

  I turned the knob and pushed the door open. Inside was a small office, outfitted with the latest electronic equipment—a computer, a laptop, two color printers, a scanner, a shredder, and two filing cabinets. I sat in the cushy desk chair and tried to log on to the computer, but it required a password. After a few failed attempts—“Corbin,” “de Young,” “Chou-Chou”—I gave up. I checked the shredder, filled with crisscross-cut confetti, and the filing cabinets, containing a couple hundred alphabetized files. I rifled through a few—“Adams Ceramics,” “Anderson Arts & Antiquities,” “A-Z Restoration”—then closed the drawer. It would take days to sift through all of the files in search of hidden clues.

  I had a thought and returned to the A-G file drawer. Flipping through, I found the one I was looking for—“Employees”—wondering if she kept a record of disgruntled staff members who might have harbored a grudge against her. While I was in the A-G vicinity, I checked for a “de Young” file and found it between “Daniels and Daniels Designs” and “Dietz Cabinetry.”

  Inside I found a single sheet of paper with a number: 4-1-1-2-3.

  Chapter 15

  PARTY PLANNING TIP # 15

  Hide clues related to the Murder Mystery Party around the room for the amateur sleuths to discover. Make sure the clues are visible so your more intoxicated guests have a chance to solve the crime, too.

  Once we were back in the car, I asked Corbin, “How about your dad’s place?”

  “Whatever,” Corbin said. I was getting worried about him. He was showing signs of depression—lack of interest, lethargy, lack of concern for himself. And why wouldn’t he, with both his parents murdered? The only emotion missing was grief.

  I pulled into light traffic and tried to chat him up on the drive to the marina docks. I asked about his relationship with Delicia, his art, his plans, but he was tight-lipped, giving one-word answers and shrugs. I gave up and concentrated on not wrecking Dee’s car as I drove through the city streets.

  Fifteen minutes later we pulled up in front of the East Dock, where dozens of luxury yachts and colorful sailboats were berthed. I found a parking spot and guided the Smart Car effortlessly into the small space. We got out, and I followed Corbin to the gate, then waited for him to unlock it. Once inside, we headed for the boat at the end of the pier where it was moored.

  “This is it,” Corbin said, leaping onto the boat deck. I waited for him to offer me a hand, but he seemed oblivious to me. Squatting down, I held on to a metal bar and eased myself onto the deck.

  I don’t know much about boats, but this one was beautifully maintained. The wood was polished to a mirror shine, and the deck sparkled in the noon sun. It had to be expensive.

  Corbin stepped over to the cabin door and opened it.

  “It’s not locked?” I asked, surprised.

  “No need. Sailor’s honor. If you have a key to your dock, that’s all you need.”

  He ducked inside, and I followed him into the small, dimly lit interior. I gave the place a quick glance and spotted several built-ins—cabinets, seats, and a table. In contrast to the exterior, the inside was cluttered with a variety of artifacts—sculptures, objets d’art, totems, pottery, masks, ceremonial tools, and several dozen weapons. Jason Cosetti could have supplied an army with the number of scythes, swords, scabbards, spears, and stilettos he’d amassed. The treasures would have been impressive if they’d been mounted or framed, but most of them were jumbled together in a heap or stacked, one on top of another. The rest appeared to be in the half dozen cardboard boxes that were strewn on every surface and most of the floor.

  “Wow. Did you know your father had all these things?” I asked Corbin, who had cleared off a built-in shelf and sat perched on it.

  “Yeah, he never stopped trying to make a name for himself as an art dealer.”

  I picked up a random sword and felt the blade. Sharp enough to make a major dent in a human being. “Was he successful at all?”

  “Not really. He kept trying to sell stuff to the de Young and other museums, but I don’t think he had much luck. He couldn’t even get Mom interested.”

  “How did he come by the boat?”

  “Friend of his let him watch it while he’s gone.”

  “I heard you’re not allowed to live on the boats here.”

  “Yeah, well, Dad did a lot of things you’re not supposed to do.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder if Jason hated his ex-wife enough to kill her. She’d made a success of her life, while his seemed to go nowhere. Maybe it was revenge. Or maybe he had something to gain by her death. Was he mentioned in her will? Of course the point was moot, due to the fact that the suspect had also been murdered. So if he did kill Mary Lee, why did he end up dead?

  I glanced at Corbin, who was dangling his feet like a bored schoolchild and staring down at his shoes as if they were fascinating. While he was in his trance, I looked around, in cupboards and boxes, hoping to find a telltale note, a cryptic phone number, a clue that would tell me something about his death. The place was such a mess, it would have be
en difficult to tell if someone had broken in and taken something of value. Hopefully the locked gate would keep intruders out. Except me.

  “Are any of these things worth money?”

  He looked up from his swinging shoes. “I dunno. Probably not. A few years ago Dad tried to sell something that turned out to be a fake. Kinda ruined his reputation in the business. He asked Mother to take a look at his stuff, but she blew him off.”

  I ducked into what looked like the bedroom. It housed two small built-in bunk beds, one covered with stacks of artifacts, the other with a rumpled sleeping bag. I peered inside a mini-closet that was built into the wall. A raincoat and several flannel shirts hung on wire hangers. Glancing down, I found a pair of well-worn work boots—Sears DieHards. I guessed they were secondhand. Next to the boots I spotted some wadded-up clothes and bent down to examine them. I lifted what looked like a gray houndstooth cape. Hidden underneath were a deerstalker cap and a meerschaum pipe.

  Sherlock Holmes.

  I picked up the costume parts and looked them over. In the pocket of the cape was a tiny magnifying glass—the kind I’d used to decorate for the Murder Mystery Party.

  Jason Cosetti had been at that party. In disguise.

  I returned to the main room, costume in hand. “Corbin, did you see your dad at the party?”

  “Nah. He wouldn’t come to a thing like that.”

  I held up the cape in one hand, the hat and pipe in the other. “I found this Sherlock Holmes costume in his closet. Any idea why he might have had it?”

  Corbin’s eyes narrowed. “Not a clue. Maybe it’s not his.”

  “I found a party favor in the pocket. I’m pretty sure he was at the event. Do you remember seeing a Sherlock Holmes there?

  “Yeah”—he snorted—“a bunch of them.”