How to Host a Killer Party

by Penny Warner

  Luckily for me nothing would be decided until the Environmental Protection Agency cleared the way, which could take years. When the navy vacated the place, it left behind earth and groundwater contaminated with asbestos, plutonium, radium, and other toxic chemicals. I suppose I risked developing cancer, but at least I could keep my home and office for the time being.

  When the chilling fog finally reached my toes, I returned to my warm home and sat down at the small oak table that divided the kitchen from the living area. I’d filled the place with garage sale furniture and decorated the walls with posters publicizing The Maltese Falcon, Birdman of Alcatraz , Vertigo, and other movies set in San Francisco. Although my place was small, it was cozy, and the clutter of party supplies, discarded clothing, half-eaten snacks, latte mugs, and even cat hair just made it even homier.

  I took a life-sustaining sip of coffee, then courageously scanned the San Francisco Chronicle for an obituary featuring last night’s fiasco. With only an hour before my scheduled meeting with Detective Melvin at the San Francisco Hall of Justice, I wanted to get in a skate around the island and a hot shower before I faced his interrogation.

  I checked the headlines to make sure the city hadn’t been attacked by terrorists, sunk into the ocean, or destroyed by another earthquake. The city was still safe. That was the good news. Oddly, there was no mention of Andrea Sax.

  The bad news was the lead story on the society page. I reluctantly began reading the review of my first—and no doubt last—big event.

  MAYOR’S SURPRISE WEDDING BACKFIRES—

  BRIDE BOLTS! By Roberta Alexander

  Last evening, at the surprise wedding Mayor Davin Green had secretly planned for his fiancée, chick-lit writer Ikea Takeda, the bride-to-be apparently bolted when she realized the “Ball and Chain” themed fund-raiser for the Alzheimer’s Association was a shocking ruse. The unsuspecting socialite immediately threw her glass of bubbly at the would-be groom and stormed off into the . . .

  Oh my God, I’m doomed, I thought, as I threw the paper down without finishing the overwritten tabloidesque story. Changing out of my baggy cat-decorated pajamas and into my baggy, multipocketed safari shorts and “Killers” T-shirt, I grabbed my Rollerblades and headed for the bike path that skirted the island.

  No matter how upset or depressed I was, skating around Treasure Island and taking in the breathtaking vista on a clear day calmed me better than any drug. I loved skating by the exposition halls, the clipper ship hangars, and the old navy buildings, trying to imagine what life was like during those colorful times.

  Seagulls and sandpipers hovered and dove overhead as I skated from Mariner Drive along Perimeter Road, past decrepit military barracks, abandoned fair pavilions, colorful Windsurfers, and bobbing yachts, toward the rusted, dangling RESTRICTED ENTRY sign. A glimpse of Alcatraz brought me back to last night’s fiasco, and I thought about the special interest groups at the party, fighting over the island’s future. They all seemed to be trying to sway the mayor to their sides.

  Admiral Stadelhofer’s agenda to turn the island into a military monument, Dakota Hunter’s plan to make it an Indian gambling site, and Xtreme Siouxie’s plan to preserve it as a natural habitat were just the tip of the iceberg. I’d heard talk of turning the place into an amusement park, a high-rise housing development, and an exclusive resort—all of which threatened to alter the beauty and serenity of this unique piece of primo real estate.

  So far only the radical environmentalists had managed to keep redevelopment at bay by insisting there were toxic contaminants from the former naval shipyard. Until that mess was cleaned up, nothing else could proceed. And in my opinion, the longer it took, the better—or I’d soon find myself homeless again.

  This morning the fog had been swept away early by the bay breeze, which whipped my short hair and tickled my fair skin. I spotted house sparrows and hummingbirds among the windswept cypress and palm trees, as well as harbor seals and pelicans that made their homes in the salt marshes and mudflats. Rounding the point opposite Alcatraz Island, I recognized Duncan Grant, a self-described geocaching gamer. Duncan set up treasure hunts for hidden caches on the island using the Global Positioning System. His GPS hunts had become so popular, he planned to expand to the entire Bay Area.

  The twentysomething young man with a headful of red curls and a face covered in freckles appeared to be rummaging through a pile of jagged rocks near the water’s edge along Avenue of the Palms. He had on his favorite thread-bare T-shirt that sported the words “Cache In/Trash Out,” along with mandatory skater shorts and green, high-top Nike Dunks, sans laces.

  Duncan had taken up squatting residence in one of the empty offices in my building where he kept much of his equipment. He talked of nothing but geocaching, and we’d been discussing collaborating on a fund-raising party featuring some of the historic sites on the island. He’d explained that players would rent inexpensive GPS devices and receive a sheet of quadrants that would lead them on the hunt. At each location they’d search for a hidden “cache” filled with little treasures, everything from baseball caps and small stuffed animals to rubber snakes and cartoon underwear. Players were allowed to take one of the treasures, but had to leave a treasure in its place for future geocachers. The idea was to find all the quadrants, retrieve treasures, and return to home base to share their finds.

  I sat down on a large rock to adjust one of my blades. As I got up, Duncan spotted me and urgently waved me over. No doubt he’d found something interesting in one of his hidden caches he wanted to share with me. Curious about his latest treasure discovery, I headed over.

  “Hey, Dunk. Thanks again for playing the part of the vampire at that kids’ party. You were a hit—”

  I stopped short when I realized Duncan wasn’t listening to me. Grimacing, he had knelt down at the water’s edge and was pointing in the water. His prized Nikes were soaked. But instead of the expected cache, he seemed to be staring at what looked like a large black-and-white fish bobbing on the water’s surface.

  “What’s up, Dunk?” I asked, following his gaze to the water.

  Whoa. A dolphin? In the bay? “Oh, the poor thing . . .”

  Duncan stood up, suddenly looking pale instead of his usual red-headed complexion. He shook his head robotically.

  “What . . . ?” I stepped closer and leaned in.

  Oh. My. God. This was no fish. Not wearing a sequined black gown.

  It was a floundering Ikea Takeda.

  Chapter 6

  PARTY PLANNING TIP #6:

  Never say anything bad about anyone at a party.

  You can bet it will come back to bite you in the ass.

  Looking down at the bobbing body, the swirling water, and the rocking waves, I felt the blood leave my head. To keep from falling down, I sat down hard on some rocks, no doubt bruising my butt. The world spun around me like a whirlpool. I tucked my head between my legs.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered to my skates. Then I gagged and drooled a little on them.

  When I could lift my head, I glanced over at Duncan and wiped the spittle off my lips and chin. He remained rooted to his spot, gawking at the floating woman, his mouth hanging open like a dead fish. Before I could suggest he look away, he bent over and hurled into the cache he’d been setting up.

  To keep myself from joining him, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and punched in 911 with trembling fingers. When the dispatcher came on the line, I rambled incoherently, “I want to report . . . a body . . . a drowning. . . .”

  “May I have your name please?”

  “Ikea Takeda . . . I mean, Presley Parker,” I stammered.

  “Where are you now?”

  I glanced around. “Avenue of the Palms, at Ninth . . . on Treasure Island.”

  I answered the rest of the dispatcher’s questions as best I could. She told me to stay put, officers were on their way, to remain on the line, and some other things I didn’t really hear.

  I said, “Okay . . . okay . .
. okay . . .” Then, without thinking, I hung up.

  Duncan’s normally ruddy complexion was now the color of the bay waters. “You all right?” I asked.

  He spat and straightened up, jostling a string of saliva that hung from his scraggly goatee. Glancing back at the body, he said the F word, then added, “Think she was a jumper?”

  “Huh?” I said.

  Duncan nodded toward the looming Bay Bridge. Although not as popular as the Golden Gate Bridge for suicides, the Bay Bridge also served the purpose. Caltrans had put up barriers to try to stop the jumpers, but it hadn’t done much good. I’d read once that about twenty-five people jumped from the Golden Gate every year.

  But Ikea—a suicide? I supposed anything was possible, but she really hadn’t seemed suicidal last night. Shocked. Angry. Humiliated, maybe. I might have diagnosed her as paranoid. But not despondent. Could she have fallen overboard from the ferry on her way back to the city last night?

  I shivered. “We’ll know soon enough. The police are on their way.” Unable to help myself, I glanced at the body in the water. “Poor Ikea.”

  “The mayor’s chick?”

  I nodded. “She was the guest of honor at the event I hosted last night.”

  “Whoa. Sucks for you. But I heard she’s a real b—”

  Sirens cut off the rest of his words. I spotted a black-and-white coming from the two-man satellite police department located in a corner of the former Exposition Building One, and another black-and-white headed down the winding exit from the Bay Bridge. A third siren seemed to be coming from my pocket. My cell phone.

  I could just make out the “Happy Birthday to You” tune. My mother’s personalized ring. I hesitated, then answered it in case it was a real emergency.

  “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Presley?”

  I stuck a finger in my uncovered ear and strained to hear her over the incoming sirens. “Yes, Mom, it’s me,” I shouted. “Now’s not a good time to talk. Can I call you later?”

  “Sweetie, you know I’d only call if it was important.”

  “Okay, what do you need?”

  “I need help. . . .”

  “With what? Are you sick? Are you hurt?”

  “No, I was watching one of those infomercials on Channel 58 and they showed this new miracle stuff, it’s like medicine, and it makes all your wrinkles just disappear without surgery, and you only have to make three easy payments, but you can only get it by dialing a special phone number, and I could only remember a couple of the numbers, three and seven, I think, so could you call for me and order some? I think Blue Cross will cover it. You know I’m going to need it for the mayor’s wedding—Sweetie, what’s that horrible noise? It sounds like—”

  “Mom, I’m going to have to call you back, okay?”

  “Okay, sweetie. I think there’s someone at the door. The bell’s ringing, or maybe it’s the phone—” The line went dead.

  Poor Mom. When I told her I was taking on the mayor’s wedding, she assumed she’d be invited. In her day, she had not only held the best parties; she’d also been invited to them. In between, she’d also managed to raise a substantial amount of money for the arts, lead roundtable discussion groups, help build a stray animal shelter, and even host her own local TV show. Not to mention marry five husbands.

  Now Alzheimer’s was stealing away the person she is, the person she would have been, but not who she was. Veronica Parker Valdez Uawithya Jefferson Heller still thought of herself as the Princess of Pacific Heights. I’d make it a point to stop by sometime today—if no more bodies turned up.

  I slipped my phone back into my pocket as the two police cars pulled up on the street near the water’s edge. Duncan vigorously waved the officers over as if signaling a distressed ship at sea. The two local officers—Tony Cerletti and Amberly Finarelli—were well-known and well liked around the island. Amberly, tan, no makeup, her hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, carried so much bulky equipment around her uniformed waist, she tended to walk like a penguin with her arms sticking out. On her feet she wore regulation black SWAT combat boots, more for the look than the necessity, I imagined.

  Tony also wore the regulation uniform and shoes, but carried his gun, flashlight, radio, pepper spray, baton, and cuffs as if they were part of his physical makeup. He looked as comfortable in his duty gear as Amberly looked uncomfortable. Amazingly, they made a good team.

  An officer from the other black-and-white stepped out wearing a suit, which fit his muscular form perfectly. Men in Black-style sunglasses, black high-gloss oxfords, and slicked-back black hair finished the look. This guy cared about his appearance. When he pulled off the dark glasses, his eyes were surprisingly blue.

  The flash of his badge distracted me from his eyes.

  “I’m Detective Luke Melvin, and this is Officer Carole Price,” he said, gesturing toward the uniformed officer who had exited the shotgun side.

  Melvin. I knew that name.

  Uh-oh. The detective I was scheduled to meet at the station.

  Detective Melvin replaced his badge with a small notebook. “Who found the body?” he said, glancing back and forth between Duncan and me.

  “Uh . . . I guess I found her . . . but I thought it was some kind of fish or something. . . .” Duncan shot a look at me and jerked his thumb in my direction. “Presley thought it was a dolphin. Then she recognized the body.”

  “Presley?” The detective frowned. His black eyebrows accentuated his pale blue eyes. This guy was way too good-looking to be a cop. He should have been a male model. He probably knew it.

  “Presley Parker?”

  Pulling myself from the eye candy, I nodded.

  He cocked his jaw and stared at me as if he’d just identified the Zodiac Killer. Flipping a page in his notebook, he scanned it, then looked up at me again with those nearly transparent blue eyes. “We have an appointment this morning. Regarding the death of Andrea Sax.” He pronounced it An-DRA-ya, instead of AN-dree-ya.

  I pulled out my cell and glanced at the time. “Yeah. Guess we’re both going to be a little late.”

  Not even cracking a grin, he said, “What are you doing out here?”

  “I thought I’d get in a little exercise before our meeting, so I skated around the path, and then I saw Duncan—”

  Before I could ramble on like my mother, another police car pulled up, and two crime scene techs jumped out. I could tell because they wore dark blue jumpsuits with the letters SFCSI stitched on the fronts and backs, and carried metal suitcases like on TV.

  “Officer Price will take your statement,” Detective Melvin said, indicating his partner before stepping over to greet the new arrivals. I nodded, unable to escape the nagging notion that I might be in real trouble now that I was connected—albeit randomly—to two dead bodies in less than two days.

  Detective Melvin nodded to his partner, and the younger officer took my statement. As soon as we were finished, she reported back to the detective. He nodded a couple of times, whispered something to her I couldn’t make out, then turned to me.

  “My office, one hour,” he called out. Then he climbed into his car and drove off, Officer Price riding shotgun. My legs wobbly, I managed to skate back to my condo, my brain racing faster than my rubbery legs. I couldn’t get that image of a floating Ikea out of my head. Nor the idea that I was connected to both victims.

  I showered robotically, grabbed the cleanest clothes I had—black jeans and an “Irritable Bowel Syndrome—The DaVinci Colon” T-shirt I had made up for a murder mystery party/fund-raiser. I slipped on a pair of fuzzy black socks and my favorite black Mary Janes, and topped my outfit with a black leather jacket. Grabbing my knockoff purse, I was headed for the door before I remembered to feed my three cats, Cairo, Fatman, and Thursby.

  Ingrates. They didn’t even bother to look up from their various spots on my garage sale furnishings as I filled the bowls with dry cat food. No doubt they were holding out for seagull tapas and rodent al
dente. All three had been strays I’d found on the island when I moved in. Fatman was fat and white, Cairo was an orange scaredy-cat, and Thursby was my black killer attack cat that mostly attacked my feet. At the moment he was asleep in my half-closed underwear drawer, his nose tucked into a Victoria’s Secret bra cup.

  I knew if I didn’t watch out, I’d turn into one of those cat ladies who falls and can’t get up, undiscovered for days, ears chewed off by hungry felines—

  The theme song from The Twilight Zone rang out from my cell phone, ending my death-by-cats vision. I checked the number. Blocked.

  “Hello?” I said, multitasking as I glanced at the kitschy cat clock with the big rolling eyes and wagging tail on the wall. Time to go. Didn’t want to be late for my interrogation. I wondered whether I should pack a bag or call an attorney.

  “Hello?” I said again when there was no response.

  I heard a click, then froze as I listened to the voice repeat the same phrase in the earpiece: “I’m going to kill the bride. . . . I’m going to kill the bride. . . . I’m going to kill the bride. . . .”

  The phone clicked off, leaving a dial tone buzzing in my ear.

  I stared at my cell phone in disbelief.

  The voice on the other end of the line had been my own.

  Chapter 7

  PARTY PLANNING TIP #7:

  To get your party started, prepare some guaranteed conversation prompts, such as “Susan is expecting!” or “Bruce has come out of the closet!”