by Cheryl Crane
“Mother.”
“Daughter,” Victoria echoed. “Autism Foundation Gala next month. Tickets. Include Jeremy, or no?”
Nikki groaned. She and Jeremy didn’t go out in public often, but this was one cause he felt strongly about. “Give me the date and I’ll check with him. Listen, I want your opinion on something. Does this sound odd to you? I just found out that Thompson Christopher put his condo up for sale the week before Rex died.”
“This time?” Victoria asked.
Nikki was beginning to feel like she was caught in some kind of sick comedy routine. “When he died this time, yes.”
“Just clarifying. Go on.”
“Okay, so he put his condo up for sale two weeks ago, then reduces it this week.”
“You’re listing it?”
“No, Mother. He didn’t ask me.”
“Well, I can see why. Edith never would have stood for it. Not with her knowing about Jessica and Rex.”
“Mother, that’s not the point of this conversation.” She unlocked her car door and got inside. “My point is that I think it’s odd that Thompson put his condo up for sale so suddenly.”
“Well, how would you know it was suddenly? He’s been Edith’s bunky for months. Maybe they decided that since she’d sold the house, he might as well sell his place.”
Nikki pulled on her seatbelt. Her mother had a point. “He also just applied for a passport.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Mother, did you hear what I said? Two weeks ago Thompson puts his place up for sale, then Rex comes up dead again, then Thompson applies for a passport and drops the price of his condo. What does that sound like to you?”
Victoria sniffed. “Sounds to me as if Edith is going to be single again.”
Chapter 14
Nikki took a quick tour of the condo, which was, indeed, Thompson’s. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find there, but she came up with a big fat nothing. At least nothing that would help Jessica’s case, like maybe a bloodstained carpet with the killer’s name scrawled in the gore. It was a nice place, though, decently priced, so who knew, maybe she would sell it.
After saying good-bye to Chuck, the listing Realtor, inside the parking garage, Nikki got into her car, but she didn’t pull out of the parking space right away. It was relatively quiet in the garage. A good place to pause and think for a second. Her life was always so hectic; it never seemed like she got enough time to just think.
She mulled over the sale of the condo, the skipped auditions, and the application for a passport . . . could this mean Thompson was preparing to skip town? Possibly. But why would he? His career was going well. He had the première of his latest movie in a few months. What would make him flee the country?
A murder charge?
Then she considered the fact that Edith had been purposely vague about where she was going once the house in Outpost Estates sold. Over the months, she’d talked about New York, but she’d also joked about sandy beaches and umbrella drinks. What if there had been a plan to kill Rex and flee? There were countries in the world where she and Thompson could go, where there would be no extradition. Look at Polanski; he’d lived his whole life in plain sight without ever being extradited to the U.S.
Had Edith discovered that Rex had faked his death and convinced Thompson to kill him? If the body had been moved as the police suggested, it was ridiculous to think that Jessica or Edith could have done it. But maybe Thompson killed Rex for Edith. With Thompson’s reputation for romancing older women for their money, Edith’s husband returning from the dead might put a serious kink in his plans. Maybe he decided it was time he found a permanent meal ticket. If he killed the widow’s husband, she would forever be indebted to him. . . . And Edith clearly had motive for trying to frame Jessica. What better payback for screwing her husband than life in prison? It was all possible, but deep down, Nikki just couldn’t see Thompson killing someone. He was such a good guy. Such a gentleman, and he really seemed to care about Edith.
But what about the affair with the waitress? If he cared about Edith the way he said he did, the way he acted, there was no way he was cheating on her.
Nikki’s eyes widened. But what if he had cheated on her? What if Edith found out about Thompson’s affair with the waitress and threatened to kick him out of the house if he didn’t rid her of her pesky husband?
Was that even plausible?
More plausible than Jessica killing Rex and then transporting his bloated body to her own apartment . . .
Nikki started her car and purred down the ramp. This whole Thompson-having-an-affair-with-a-waitress thing was bugging her. She couldn’t decide if she wanted it to be true or not. Of course, there was only one way to find out. Go to the source.
Two-fifteen; the diner would be quiet. She pulled onto Wilshire and headed for the diner on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Nikki sat in a booth in Kitty’s Diner and studied the laminated menu. Only a few of the booths were taken. She’d been by the place many, many times, but never inside. Decorated in the style of diners of the fifties and sixties, it was nice enough. The bench seats at the booths were covered in red vinyl, but they were clean. The Formica tables sported individual jukeboxes.
A waitress in a pink uniform dress and a white cap that looked something like an old-style nurse’s cap walked past Nikki. “Be right there to take your order,” she said, carrying a plate with a monstrous burger and a heap of fries in each hand.
It was no wonder Americans were overweight. There was enough beef on those plates to feed a small village. “Thanks.”
A bell rang when the door opened and Nikki looked up to see Elvis walk in. Her first impulse was to hold the menu up in front of her face. Childish.
She casually lifted the menu higher.
“Darlin’?” he crooned as he approached.
Nikki groaned and dropped the menu on the table. Several patrons were looking their way. A teenager in an Ohio high school band t-shirt held up her cell phone to take a picture and Elvis posed for her.
He slid into Nikki’s booth, across the table from her. He looked good. The way he had in his early days before the booze, women and drugs caught up with him. He was sporting a perfect pompadour that was his own inky hair, not a wig.
“E.” She smiled for old times’ sake.
“Nikki.” He met her gaze, the right side of his upper lip slightly upturned, then he looked away. “Hey, little lady,” he called to the waitress who was two tables over. “Can you get us some coffees?”
“Water for me,” Nikki corrected. She didn’t need the caffeine; she was hyper enough as it was. She looked back at her half-brother seated across the table. “You look good.” She nodded, indicating the gold suit. “King Creole, right?”
He snapped his fingers, giving her that familiar Elvis smile that was so spot-on, it was eerie. “Oh, you’re good. It takes most people a few tries to get this one right. They all like the white jumpsuits. I hate the jumpsuits.”
She shrugged. “We know our movies, don’t we?” She pushed the menu toward him. “Hungry? How have you been? I see you on Sunset sometimes. Business seems to be good.” He lived mostly on the street, though once in a while he would hit a shelter for a shower and a cot. He made his living posing on street corners with tourists for tips.
“Better than you, apparently.” He picked up the menu and glanced at it, then put it down. “You made the tabloids. She must be horrified.”
He always referred to their mother as she. Elvis, a.k.a. James Mattroni, Jr., had had a falling out with Victoria years ago and they didn’t speak. Their mother maintained it was because her son refused to seek help for his mental illness, help she was willing to pay for. Jimmy, who refused to answer to any name but Elvis, insisted it was because she was jealous of his talent. Nikki tried to remain neutral; it was hard for her to see him ill. She just wished he would take his meds regularly.
His father, James, had also been schizop
hrenic and had committed suicide when Jimmy was a freshman in college. Jimmy had never forgiven Victoria for not fighting harder to get custody of him when she and his father had split up, when he was a toddler. If it was any consolation, even though Victoria rarely spoke of the matter, she’d never forgiven herself, either.
“So, you’ve taken to befriending murderesses, have you?” He smirked.
“I’m not having this conversation with you.” Nikki sat back as the waitress set down a glass of ice water and a mug of coffee on the table.
“What would you like?” she asked Nikki, pen poised over a notepad.
“The Caesar salad.”
She scribbled. “Chicken with that?”
“No.” Nikki glanced at her name tag. She was Mary, with an i. Mari! her name tag read. Or was it pronounced Maury? Either way, she wasn’t Tiffany. “Dressing on the side, please.”
“Mr. Presley?”
The getup didn’t faze her. It probably didn’t faze anyone who lived in Hollywood. Elvises were a dime a dozen, although she had to give him credit where credit was due—he did an excellent impression. At least until he tried to sing. Jimmy couldn’t carry a tune. Never could, which was why his stint in Las Vegas years ago had been so short.
“You buying?” he asked, looking at Nikki.
“Anything you want.” She opened her arms. She’d learned the hard way to never give him money outright, but she was always happy to buy him a meal. Take him to the doctor if he got sick. She’d have put a roof over his head if he’d let her, but he said he liked living the way he did. It made him feel closer to his dead mother, Gladys.
“Well, little lady . . .” he said in his best Presley voice, “I’ll have the big beef burger with bacon, a double order of fries, and a chocolate malt. And maybe a slice of that pie on the counter.” He winked at her. “You make that pie, Sugar?”
“Yup,” she said. “Came in early just to make you that pie.” She grabbed the menus.
“I thought you were a vegetarian,” Nikki said as the waitress walked away.
“You’re avoiding the subject.” He drew his hand down the lapel of his gold suit jacket.
Some of his costumes were pretty cheap, but this one was nice. She wondered where he’d gotten it.
“So where was Rex March all this time when his fans thought he was dead?” He folded his hands and leaned over the table.
He smelled better from a distance. Nikki leaned back. “I have no idea. That’s up to the police to find out.”
He laughed. “It’s all a conspiracy, you know. Rex’s disappearance, D.B. Cooper’s. Obama’s trying to hide the truth from the taxpayers.”
She nodded. It was always this way with Jimmy. At first glance, he seemed perfectly sane, but it never took long for the fruit to spill out of the bowl. “Seriously. How are you doing? You need anything? You keeping your appointments at the clinic?”
“You want to hear my theory?” he asked in complete earnestness.
So, apparently, they were not going to talk about him. “Sure.”
“I think Ginger did it. The redhead. She killed Rex March.”
Nikki had no idea who he was talking about. “Ginger?” she asked.
“The movie star,” he sang. “She’ll try to make it look like the Professor or Mary Ann did it, but the truth will come out.”
“Ah,” Nikki said, her synapses finally firing. “From Gilligan’s Island.” She sipped her water and then reached for the straw, taking her time ripping the paper off. “Rex was on Shipwrecked Vacation . Different show.”
Elvis frowned. “This is why we can’t talk, Nikki. You blatantly disregard my opinions just because you don’t like my lifestyle choices.”
“I disagree with your choice to be homeless when you don’t have to.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you. If your friend Jessica didn’t kill Rex March, who did? Clearly, the logical answer is Ginger.”
“Clearly.” She nodded. “I didn’t know you were a Rex March fan.”
“I wasn’t, but he didn’t deserve to die in a fiery plane crash.”
“Which, apparently, he didn’t,” she pointed out.
The waitress brought the burger and fries and salad to the table. “Be right back with your pie and shake.” She looked at Jimmy. “You want ketchup, Mr. Presley?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, darlin’,” he crooned. He popped a fry into his mouth. “So if Rex didn’t die in the crash, where was he all this time?”
Nikki was afraid she might jump onto the same merry-go-round again, so she tried a different tack. “I don’t know. Where do you think he could have been?”
“Somewhere nice. Nicer than here. When I filmed Blue Hawaii, I seriously considered moving to Hawaii. Not the Big Island, but maybe Molokai or Kauai. But I could never leave Graceland permanently. Thank you, darlin’,” he said to the waitress as she walked by their booth, dropping off a bottle of Heinz, the milkshake and pie.
“So you think Rex was on Kauai all these months, while his widow was settling his affairs, selling the house, and getting cozy with her boyfriend?” Nikki said, just throwing out random conversation at this point.
“It’s very possible. The important question is,” he waved a French fry, his eyes narrowing with concentration, “who knew Rex wasn’t dead? You can’t kill a man you don’t know is alive.” He bit the fry in half. “Was it his wife? His girlfriend? His mother?” He gasped. “Maybe she killed him. No one ever looks at the mother. We always assume it’s the jaded wife or girlfriend, the cheated business partner. But she could have done it. She had motive and opportunity.”
The way he said it made Nikki think he meant she, as in Victoria, which was an interesting turn. Of all the people popping up on the radar as suspects, she doubted the police had considered Victoria Bordeaux.
The crazy thing was, part of what Jimmy was saying wasn’t entirely crazy. He was absolutely right. Whoever killed Rex had to know he was alive. Or found out and decided to remedy the problem.
While Nikki ate her salad with a sparing amount of Caesar dressing and Jimmy consumed a couple of hundred grams of fat, they chatted about several subjects: the new baby orca born at Sea World, the pothole on Hollywood near Vine, and the president’s plan to send illegal immigrants into space to cultivate rice fields.
By the time Nikki hugged Jimmy good-bye and asked for the check, she was feeling oddly humbled. He always did that to her. He made her feel so thankful for the life she had—her mother, Jeremy, Stanley and Oliver, her friends, a good job. And that gratitude made her all the more determined to make sure that nothing bad happened to Jessica over this whole Rex thing. Maybe the investigation wasn’t her business, but she wasn’t going to sit by and allow mistakes to be made that could ruin her friend’s life.
Nikki waited for Jimmy to go before waving the waitress over. “Do I pay for this at the counter?” she asked. “Or do I give you my card?”
“Either way.”
“Is it Mary or Maury?” Nikki indicated her name tag and then dug into her wallet.
“Actually, it’s Marie. They left the ‘e’ off when they printed the name tag.” She was cute, with a brunette bob and green eyes. “Whatever.”
Nikki smiled. “Listen, Marie, I was looking for an old friend who works here. Tiffany?” she said hopefully.
The waitress screwed up her little bow mouth. “No Tiffany here.”
“No?” Nikki couldn’t help but feel disappointed. How had Carly gotten all the details of her gossip wrong? Wrong diner, no waitress named Tiffany. That made the whole “Thompson cheating on Edith” thing doubtful. “You’re sure?”
“Pretty positive. I work all the shifts. My roommate, Deliah, moved out, leaving me with the whole rent until I can find someone else. She went home to Poughkeepsie. Her stepdad sent her the plane fare. She’s going to community college now. Thinks she wants to be a kindergarten teacher.”
Nikki nodd
ed as if she were interested in the turn of events for Deliah. “So you don’t know Tiffany? Maybe she used to work here?”
She thought for a second. “No, but Thompson Christopher used to work here,” she said, her face lighting up.
“I heard that. In fact, I think they were friends, Thompson and Tiffany.”
Marie shrugged. “Kelly might know. She’s the cashier. Or Joe.” She pointed with her Bic. “He’s the cook. But he might not remember her. He’s high a lot,” she whispered, then sniffed with one nostril and then another.
“But Kelly might know if Tiffany used to work here?” Nikki slid out of the booth, grabbing a ten from her wallet along with her credit card. She handed the waitress the money. “Thanks, you’ve been helpful.”
Marie looked at the money. “This is way too much,” she said, looking thrilled.
“Keep it. You did a nice job waiting our table.” Nikki headed for the cashier behind the counter.
“Well, thanks.” Marie tucked the ten into the pocket of her apron. “I better get back to work.”
At the counter, Nikki handed the girl behind the cash register the ticket Marie had written up, but not her credit card.
“How was everything?” She punched in the price of each item, not leaving Marie’s addition skills up to chance.
“Everything was good. Marie was great. Listen . . . Kelly . . .”
The cashier looked up.
“I was wondering. Did a Tiffany work here?”
“Tiffany Mathews? Used to.” She went back to her adding machine. “She just got a new job. That’ll be thirty-one sixty-eight.”
“But she did work here?” Nikki tried not to get too excited. “Recently?”
“Oh, yeah, for years. She started a new job a couple of months ago, though.” Kelly peered over the cash register. She was wearing the same pink dress as Marie, only she’d added a big pink button with the cancer research slogan, SAVE THE TA-TAS. “Hey, do I know you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yes, I do.” She thought for a moment and then pointed. “I knew it! Victoria Bordeaux’s daughter. You’re a lot prettier in person. Wait!” She jumped off her stool. “I’ve got the paper here.” She slid a tabloid newspaper across the counter, flipping through the pages. “You’re in the paper! Nikki Harper. You sell real estate, too. I’ve seen your picture in the ads. Me and my boyfriend, we like to see what’s for sale in the Hills, you know, for when we make it big someday.”