by Cheryl Crane
Nikki heard the sound of a small engine starting up and she craned her neck to see through the iron fence that bordered the property on the street side. It sounded like a weed-whacker. Bingo! Jorge serviced Edith’s lawn. If it wasn’t Jorge himself, it had to be one of his employees. Nikki grabbed her handbag and, on impulse, the In & Out bag on the car seat—Jessica’s lunch that Nikki had picked up to take back to the office. Victoria had taught Nikki it was always polite to take a gift to the host or hostess.
She approached the iron gate and spotted one of Jorge’s employees, whom she knew. He was trimming a bush. “Harley,” she called.
He continued to whack at the bush.
She hollered his name louder, and when he turned, startled, she flashed that smile Victoria had ingrained in her. He smiled back.
Worked every time.
Harley cut off the weed-whacker and lifted his goggles as he approached the gate. “Mithss Nikki.” He had a bit of a lisp, due to unfortunate tooth arrangement and lack of orthodontia as a child.
She knew she blushed. She’d told Harley before just to call her Nikki, but he hailed from the Deep South and family traditions died hard. He’d once told her his granny would “whip hiths heinie with a swithch” if he didn’t address her with proper respect.
“Hey, Harley. Could you let me in? Mrs. March isn’t home and I need to get some info on curtains in the house.”
“You want to drive up?”
“Nah, I’ll walk.” She gave a little laugh. “It’s a nice day and I need the exercise.”
He hit a button on the keypad on the inside and there was a mechanical click, then a dull buzz as the gate parted in the middle and slid open.
“Thanks.” She crossed the threshold, feeling only slightly guilty for being so devious. “You eat lunch?” She held up the bag, a grease stain already spreading on it.
“I don’t want to take your lunch, Mithss Nikki.”
“You won’t be. Long story, but it’s extra. If you don’t eat it, it’ll lie on the floor of my car until I toss it or the dogs find it.” She held out the bag.
“Thankths, Mithss Nikki.” He took it, nodding his head. His green hat read JORGE & SON. There was no son; Jorge was divorced with no children. He’d just liked the name when he chose it for his landscaping company. That, and he hoped someday to have a son.
“You have a good day, Harley,” she said as she started up the paved driveway. “I can let myself out.”
“You have a good day, too,” he called after her. “Thankths.”
When Nikki reached the house, instead of going up to the front door, she cut across the grass, around to the back service entrance where deliveries were made and the house staff entered and exited. The service wing, with a commercial kitchen, storage, and a maid’s room, had been added to the house by the previous owner.
Nikki debated whether or not to ring the doorbell. Even though it would only ring in the kitchen, she decided against it. It would be better if she acted as if she was supposed to be there. “Hey there,” she called as she came through the door.
Chessy, who cooked and cleaned for the Marches, was sitting in a chair, watching a game show on a small TV on one of the marble counters. Chessy was the blackest woman Nikki thought she’d ever met. Her skin was so black, it almost looked blue.
When Nikki walked in, Chessy was grinding out a cigarette in an ashtray inside a drawer under the counter. “Good God, you scared me!” Chessy exclaimed. She had come half out of her seat in her attempt to hide her cigarette and was now depositing her three-hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds back into the chair. “Whatchu doin’ comin’ in the back? The Missus’s not here.”
“Which is why I’m coming through the back,” Nikki explained, closing the door behind her. “How are you, Chessy?”
Nikki and Chessy had gotten to be friends in the months leading up to the sale of the house. Edith liked to think she ran the household, but it was Chessy who did the actual running. She oversaw the yard work, the housecleaning, and the food preparation. On a night like last Saturday night when Edith had thrown the party, Chessy had overseen the entire catering operation, start to finish. She was a woman of many talents, with a no-nonsense attitude.
“I’m good, ’cept you scared the bejeezus outta me and prob’ly a year of my life.” She opened the drawer to check that the smoking cigarette was out and closed it again. “What can I do you for?”
“I brought you those free movie tickets, for you and your boyfriend.” Nikki grabbed the envelope from her bag and slid it across the wide expanse of the counter. The kitchen was massive, entirely too big for the size of the Spanish-style home built in the 1920s on three-quarters of an acre. The pricey kitchen with its miles of marble, Viking stoves, and walk-in refrigerator had been one of the reasons why the house had been hard to sell, tacky decor aside.
Nikki gave the envelope a little push. “And to ask you some questions. About . . . about what was going on, on Monday . . . the day Mr. March was found dead.”
“Ah.” Chessy picked up the envelope and peeked inside. “I still get to keep the movie tickets, even if I don’t answer your questions?”
“Of course.” Now Nikki really did feel guilty. If Harley had refused to open the gate for her, would she have thrust Jessica’s lunch through the fence to him, anyway?
“I really liked them cupcakes you brought last week.” Chessy slid the envelope into the open neckline of her uniform and it disappeared into the mountainous region of her breasts. “Papers said your partner, Miss High-and-Mighty, killed Mr. March.”
Nikki came around the end of the marble counter. “She didn’t, Chessy. I swear she didn’t.”
Chessy reached out with a remote control and the TV went off. “Wouldn’t matter to me if she did. I didn’t like him, not one bit,” she said matter-of-factly. She heaved her full weight out of the chair. “You know how to devein shrimp, girl?”
Nikki stared at her, having a hard time seeing the segue. “Um . . . sure.”
“I always know’d Victoria Bordeaux had beauty and brains.” Chessy tossed her an apron from the counter. “Got shrimp cocktail to make. You devein, I’ll talk. I hate deveinin’ shrimp, almost as much as havin’ to get the missus outta bed a second time to tell her her no-good husband’s dead again.”
Chapter 9
“So, what you wanna know?” Chessy popped the top on a can of Coke she’d taken from the walk-in refrigerator, along with three pounds of jumbo shrimp. According to Chessy, Edith had friends coming to pay their respects and get tipsy over cocktails that afternoon. There was chicken liver pâté to make, too.
Nikki slid the deveiner through the back of a shrimp. She didn’t have the heart to tell Chessy that her mother hadn’t taught her how to devein shrimp. Nikki was pretty certain Victoria Bordeaux had never deveined a shrimp. Discovered around the age of seventeen (Victoria’s dates were always a little fuzzy), then launched into stardom, she’d never kept her own house. Never had to. But she had been smart enough to hire a woman like Ina. Not only had Ina deveined shrimp for Victoria for the last thirty years, she’d taught Nikki how to devein a shrimp, how to make a true dirty martini, and how to sew up a Christmas turkey. All skills fortysomething L.A. women were sorely lacking these days.
“I’m trying to piece together what happened Monday.” Letting her hands fall, she glanced up at Chessy, who was leaning on the counter across from her, sipping the Coke. “With Jessica. And . . . here.”
“Keep cleanin’.” Chessy waved her hand. “Can’t you talk and devein at the same time, girl?”
Nikki neatly ripped out another vein. “I was wondering if you knew.” She gave a little laugh. “Of course you know. You know everything that goes on here. I guess what I’m asking is if you could tell me what happened here Monday. Who went where, when,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve or her grip on a slippery shrimp.
“Your floozy girl got herself an alibi?”
“She does.” Nikki nodded.
“She was at a real estate conference downtown . . . and she did some shopping. Plenty of people saw her.”
The door that led into the main part of the house opened and Chessy’s daughter, Shondra, entered the kitchen carrying a plastic caddy with cleaning supplies. She threw the caddy up on the counter. “I swear, if that man doesn’t stop cutting his toenails in that bathroom and flippin’ ’em all over the floor, I’m going to kill him.” She glanced up at Nikki as she headed for the refrigerator and lifted an eyebrow. “Real estate business gone sour for you?”
Nikki held up both hands, a shrimp in one, the deveiner in the other. “It’s always good to have a backup plan, right?”
“She was tryin’ to bribe me, get me to give up who was where that day,” Chessy explained.
“I wasn’t trying to bribe you,” Nikki protested, the guilt creeping in again.
Chessy broke into a grin. “ ’Course you wasn’t. I know good people when I see ’em. But I got you to devein them shrimp, didn’t I?” She cackled.
Nikki laughed along with her. Too few people in L.A. could laugh at themselves. “I’m trying to help out my friend Jessica,” Nikki explained to Shondra. “You know, my partner Jessica.”
“Oh, I know her, all right.” The younger woman pulled a Coke from the fridge. “It sure doesn’t look good for her, from what the papers are saying.”
Nikki dropped a clean shrimp into the bowl. “The case is more complicated than the papers are saying. Rex wasn’t killed in Jessica’s apartment.”
“I don’t know why we’re wastin’ good taxpayer money investigating him bein’ dead. I don’t know nobody who liked him. You know he tried to feel me up once!” Chessy covered her monstrous breasts with her hands and readjusted the alignment. “I understand him wantin’ a little taste of Shondra, her bein’ pretty as she is, but me?” Chessy made a clicking sound between her teeth and took another swig of Coke. “That man was garbage. I’m glad he’s dead. I’d have killed him myself, if I’d gotten the chance. What was wrong with that man, claimin’ he was dead, then comin’ back? But I was here all day, still cleanin’ up after that party. Caterers and such come back for their stuff saw me. And Shondra had a job bein’ a perfume girl downtown. And you can tell anyone you want that.” She pointed at Nikki to emphasize her position on the matter.
“Actually . . .” Nikki grimaced. “I was wondering if you could tell me what Edith did Monday . . . and Thompson?”
“You think the missus killed him?” Chessy chewed on that thought for a moment. “I don’t think she’s got it in her, otherwise she’d’a’done it years ago.”
That seemed to be the general consensus.
“So do you know where she was?” Nikki reached for another shrimp. She was getting the hang of it now and moving faster.
“She was here. In bed most of the day. Plain worn out. That, and she rubbed the skin right off her bunions in them too tight shoes she wore to her party Saturday night. But you know rich white folk. Not a lotta sense. Except you, Nikki. You got sense.”
Nikki grinned. Compliments from a woman like Chessy were few and far between and greatly appreciated. “So she was here and you saw her . . . all day.”
“Yup. Now, that man of hers.” Chessy did her pointing thing again. “I can’t vouch for him. He left early that morning. The missus said he had casting calls.”
“And when did he get home?” Nikki tossed another clean shrimp in the bowl. She was on a roll.
“Late. Dancin’ with the Stars was already on.”
“And that comes on, when? Eight?”
“Eight o’clock,” Chessy agreed. “That’s right. I remember ’cause I was annoyed. I like to be home to see the beginning and it was already on by the time I went out that door.” She indicated the service entrance.
“Ma, I TiVo it for you every week. You can watch it whenever you like.”
Chessy frowned. “I like to see it live.”
“It’s not live, Ma.”
Chessy glanced at her gorgeous daughter. “You got more toenails to sweep up?”
Nikki smiled into her bowl of shrimp. “So Thompson was on casting calls.” She nodded. “Tricky, but not impossible to track down.”
“You might be wastin’ your time there,” Shondra said. “I’m thinking that hunky monkey’s not going to matter around here much longer.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I think Mrs. March is about to kick him out on his pretty tail.”
“Thompson? Really?” Nikki stared at Shondra. “But I thought things were good with them. They seemed happy together Saturday night and when I came by Wednesday,” she thought about how’d they’d been together, “everything seemed good.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that how rich people act in front of people like you and how they act in front of people like me, it isn’t always the same.” Shondra sipped her Coke. “It’s like they don’t acknowledge our existence, if they don’t have to.”
Nikki had to stop deveining for a second to take in what Shondra was saying. “So you think Edith and Thompson are having problems?”
“Sure sounded like it Saturday. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but there was a lot of hollering going on in her suite, then door slamming, and next thing I know, he’s taking off on his motorcycle.”
“Thompson left here Saturday afternoon, before the party?”
“Sure did. Didn’t come back until a few minutes before the guests started arriving.” Shondra leaned on the countertop beside her mother. “I heard her tell him just before she went downstairs that he better hurry up and get dressed if he was going to her party.”
“Interesting,” Nikki commented, as much to herself as to the two women. Plopping the last clean shrimp in the bowl, she went to the sink to rinse off her hands, checking her vintage Patek Philippe watch. Technically, it was a man’s watch, but one of her favorites. “I better get back to work, but I appreciate you talking to me. Not that you’ve done anything wrong.” She grabbed a hand towel. “But you know what I mean.”
“The help’s not supposed to tattle on the employer?”
“You’re not tattling,” Nikki insisted, heading for the door. She was going to be late to a meeting at the office and she was going to have to either show up without Jessica’s lunch or be beyond fashionably late. “Edith and Thompson didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Not that you know of,” Chessy called after her, her tone as sassy as ever.
Nikki skipped making a second stop at In & Out and was only fashionably late to the meeting at the Windsor offices on North Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. The agents spent more time fussing over Jessica and discussing what they’d heard on talk radio about Rex March’s murder than they did discussing the new properties coming on the market. Nikki tried to not let it bother her that Jessica seemed to like all the attention. It shouldn’t have surprised her; Jessica was a firm believer that there was no good publicity versus bad publicity. Just publicity.
After the meeting, Nikki went into the small office she and Jessica shared; actually, it was more like a cubicle with high walls and a door. While Jessica chatted in the break room, Nikki pulled the March file. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she was hoping she’d know it when she found it. She studied the original listing sheet she and Jessica had created when the March home had gone up for sale in the pocket neighborhood of Outpost Estates in the eastern Hollywood Hills. The area had a great history dating back to the 1920s when the luxury neighborhood had been in the heart of old Hollywood.
Nikki knew the listing from memory; it had taken hours to write. The estate was such a white elephant, it had been difficult to play up: an old commercial kitchen that desperately needed renovating, an out-of-date tiled pool, mediocre landscaping, not to mention the coup de grace, the mural of Rex on the wall in the salon. After glancing at the listing, she set it aside and studied the notes in the file; most of them were in her own handwriting, but there were
a couple of slips of paper in Jessica’s handwriting.
Jessica walked into the office. She was dressed as if ready to make a public appearance, which, in a way, she was. The press couldn’t get enough of her right now. This morning, Nikki had had to drop her off on the street behind their office in order to avoid the paparazzi. She was wearing a cute little orange Badgley Mischka number and her signature sky-high heels. Nikki tried not to feel frumpy in her merino wool skirt and sensible knee-high black boots.
Jessica glanced at the open file on Nikki’s semi-messy desk. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Going over the March file. Rex had really been eager to sell the place. You know why?”
“Tiny master bath with shoddy tile?”
Nikki glanced over the desk at her friend, giving her an I’m trying to help you here look. “I mean, did he ever say anything about why they decided to sell? He knew the state of the market. Everyone knew Scarlett Johansson lost millions on the sale of her Spanish villa just down the street from them.”
“Are you asking me if Rex and I discussed the sale of his house while we were making love?”
“No, oh gosh, no.” Nikki put up both hands. “I do not want any of those details. I’m just . . . I’m trying to piece things together, Jess. Why would Rex fake his death?”
Jessica pressed her lips together, her eyes growing moist. “I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t.”
“Sorry,” Nikki murmured.
“It’s okay.” Jessica dropped into her chair behind her desk. “You really think you’re going to find the answer in there?” She exhaled and moved a stack of paperwork from one side of her desk to another. “I can go home whenever you want. Downy doesn’t want me showing houses until the police are done with their nonsense questioning me. He thinks it’s bad for business.” She threw up her hands. “I’m thinking I might get the opportunity to show some houses, just because people want to meet me, you know, me being a murder suspect.”