While I waited, I watched the girls chattering and giggling to one another. Youth may be necessary, but I thought we had enough of it. How about a fountain of smart?
I moved over to the open doorway at the back, and sure enough, soon a young man appeared and came toward me. He looked about eighteen, tall and thin, wearing jeans, a white short-sleeved shirt and blue bow tie, and his longish, dark brown hair was slicked back with some sort of gel.
He had a healthy-looking smile, however, and good manners. "Good afternoon. What can I do for you?"
Having a sudden, irresistible urge to impress him—he probably watched a lot of crime films—I pulled out one of my Featherstone business cards and gave it to him. "I'm investigating a murder case, and I need some information."
The boy's eyes widened along with his smile. "Of course." Like he helped private detectives every day of the week. "What would you like to know?"
"The sign in your window indicates you rent video cameras and transfer film to tape."
"That's right. We offer a complete video service. If it can be done, we can do it." Proud of his slogan, he threw his shoulders back. "What do you want us to do?"
"I only need information." I pulled out Harry's photo. "I have reason to believe this gentleman came into your store with a videotape and either made his own copy or had you make one for him. Would you be the person who helped him with that?"
The young man looked over the photo and shook his head. "I don't recognize him."
"Were you here last Saturday afternoon?"
"Actually, no, not that day."
"Who took your place?"
"The manager. He usually works Saturdays. I'm just here today because he had to go to a wedding."
Another stalemate. I tried another tack. "Do you keep records of transactions?"
"Oh, sure. The computer records show all the rentals."
"I mean other transactions, not just people borrowing movies."
"Yeah, those too."
"And if someone uses a camera or a video recording machine on the premises?"
"Sure, it would show that."
"May I see the records for last Saturday?"
His face shifted into frown mode. "Gee, I don't know. I think all that stuff is confidential. I've only been working here a year, and nobody asked me for that before, but I don't think I'm supposed to give it out."
"You'd be helping in a murder investigation. I'm sure you realize that time is of the essence. Every day that passes diminishes the odds that the killer will be apprehended."
I heard that somewhere, and it sounded authoritative, but the kid apparently wasn't impressed enough to break the rules.
He frowned some more. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that without approval."
"Can you get approval?"
"I can try." He ambled over to the counter and grabbed the telephone, punching in some numbers and then waiting silently, making faces at the two girls, who giggled some more. Finally, he put the phone down and returned to me. "Nobody answers at the manager's house. Like I told you, he went to a wedding today."
"Do you have any idea when he might return? Did he say he'd come back here afterward?"
"No. I'm on until eight, and then another guy will stay until midnight and lock up the store."
My tolerance for frustration was usually pretty high, but I had a strong urge to kick something. Fortunately, the base of the counter appeared hard enough to break my foot, so I desisted. Instead, I just clenched my teeth and tried to cajole my brain into coming up with a good idea. But it didn't, apparently exhausted after having suggested Harry made the missing videotape.
"Could I please have the name and number of the manager, then? That way I can keep calling him myself and not bother you."
"Oh, I'll give you his name, but I'm not allowed to give out his number." He went back to the counter and found a pencil and the store's business card. "We're open really early in the morning, so if you call here then, you'll probably get him."
I did another double take when he handed me the card, and I saw he'd written "Woo" after the store's telephone number. Then I decided the manager must be Chinese or Korean. I thanked him and asked if he knew of a hotel nearby, which I realized later was probably a dumb question since he undoubtedly lived in town and wouldn't need one, and of course, he didn't.
Outside again, I managed to hail a taxi, and the driver took me to a fancy hotel not far away. I didn't want to stay overnight—and certainly I wouldn't normally have chosen such a glamorous place—but I couldn't see any way to avoid it and felt just annoyed enough to put a big charge on Brad's expense account.
They made an imprint of my credit card, and then I went into their sundries shop and bought a new toothbrush and the smallest size of toothpaste I'd ever seen to supplement the shampoo and other toiletries inside the room. I phoned Brad, and we discussed my determination to follow that lead to its end, wherever that might take me.
"Let me get this straight." He repeated my information. "You think Hammond and Epstein went to this restaurant together, and then Hammond left in the middle of lunch."
"The waiter said he left twice, taking something the size of a book the first time and returning without it. Then he went out a second time and returned with something in a bag."
"So you think he went across the street to this video store and made a videotape?"
"A copy of one, yes. I think he made a copy of a tape that Epstein gave him, and that's the tape we saw in his briefcase. After all, the tape we saw had no markings on it, not a pre-recorded tape like a movie. Then it disappeared, and Amanda wants you to find it."
"Hold on," Brad said. "That's no longer true. Amanda says it's turned up."
I felt as if I were a water balloon that just dropped ten stories and smashed on a sidewalk. My intuition batting zero, I wondered if the glitzy hotel would refund my money. After all, I hadn't slept in the bed yet, although I did have one of their pillows behind my back at the moment. "Are you sure? I thought you thought that's why somebody ransacked Novotny's house."
"I couldn't reach him for questioning, but you went out to dinner with him last night. Did you ask him?"
"Yes, but he said he thinks they're unconnected. He told me he heard rumors of a drug dealer in his neighborhood and thought the break-in might have been done by someone looking for crack in the wrong house."
"And he expects us to buy that?"
"Even if we did, it doesn't answer the other question. Why did Harry stay in L.A. last weekend?"
"That one we do know, to see Epstein."
"He could have seen him in San Francisco. Why stay over when he knows he has to make a speech at the Merchants' meeting Saturday night?"
"We'll find out when we talk to Epstein Monday morning." He paused. "Why don't you come on home?"
The idea tempted me. After all, I had just reawakened my sexuality, and it clamored for attention. Yet, I also felt a little stubborn. I couldn't admit defeat yet.
"I want to pursue this," I said. "I'll just talk to the manager and find out if Harry copied a videotape. If not, I'll come home. If he did—"
"So what made Epstein's tape so special that he needed to make a copy during lunch? And what became of the one Hammond made? If he did."
"I don't know, but I intend to try to find out."
"Okay, you can stay if you like, but I think it's a waste of time." He paused. "By the way, I read your report about James Powell again. Then I went back and listened to the tape you made of your conversation. The guy's voice makes me think he's hiding something. That and the fact McDonald has a beef with him need more checking. I just wish I could find a connection to Hammond in there."
I had to admit that sounded like a promising lead, but I accepted Brad's willingness to let me stay. "I've got the manager's name. I'll try first thing in the morning. One way or another, I'll be home tomorrow." Before hanging up, he made me promise to call him as soon as I got back.
I detected a smile in his vo
ice when he said, "By the way, I've got a new secretary coming Monday morning. I made sure this one lives on the peninsula."
"I hope she's not like the one who thought everything could be filed under Miscellaneous."
"The agency said she's mid-fifties and a widow."
"Great. Try to keep her long enough for me to get reacquainted with my friends."
Then I called Carl, but nobody answered in bungalow four at the Residence Inn. I left a message with the front desk, another on his voicemail at home, and still another at his office.
Thinking he might be out to dinner reminded me I should do something about my own, so I went to the coffee shop downstairs. When I returned, I hoped to see a flashing light on my phone, but I didn't. Nor did I worry. I felt confident I'd hear from Carl soon. I turned on the television set and watched an ancient movie. (Well, it was that or the British Prime Minister addressing Parliament.) But at every commercial break, my mind went back to Carl.
The movie ended, and still Carl hadn't called. Then I did begin to worry. Going home would be pointless, even if there were a flight at that time of night. Probably, I reasoned, Carl had gone to a movie after dinner. He'd call me in the morning.
Yet, the worry refused to go away. My intuition flashed warnings at me, but it hadn't been right so far that day, so I didn't expect it to get clairvoyant all of a sudden. Nevertheless, once again I didn't sleep very well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The assistant manager's "really early," it turned out, meant ten, which I learned when I telephoned the video store the next morning and got a recorded message. I arrived just before the hour and found a young woman unlocking the door. This one appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties, with hair of a red color that Mother Nature never imagined, a golden tan and firm body, dressed in a short, tight skirt and skimpy tank top. I remembered the time I, too, had a body like hers. Unfortunately, in those days I didn't consider it "cool" to flaunt it, so who knew?
She entered first and held the door open for me, not from any respect for my age—although young people always know when someone is old enough to be their mother—but because the box into which customers had dropped movies after store hours blocked the door and kept it from opening all the way. As soon as I squeezed through, she pushed the box farther away, and I told her I had come to see Mr. Woo.
"Oh, he'll be in any minute," she assured me.
She disappeared into the back of the store, then returned to the box of tapes and DVDs and systematically unloaded it. She stacked as many of the small plastic containers in her arms as she could handle and then carried them to the counter. When all of them had been transferred, she took the videotapes out of the boxes, apparently to be sure they were rewound. The DVDs didn't need to be checked.
I watched her for a few minutes, wondering how she returned them to their rightful places. Who determined, for instance, when a new release became an old release and could be put with comedy, satire, or whatever, and who decided what was a thriller, mystery, or drama? If just any employee could replace them, it seemed to me that films could get lost even easier than books in a library. At least libraries had the Dewey Decimal System. However, before I could ask the young lady, the phone rang, and she picked it up.
I moved a few feet away from the counter and waited. When she hung up, I opened my mouth to ask my question, but she beat me to it.
"Mr. Woo has been delayed and won't be in until three this afternoon."
I'm not a cursing woman, but I seriously considered expanding my vocabulary for the occasion. Instead, I thanked her, told her I'd be back at three, and walked out of the store. I wondered if detecting was always this difficult, if the people you needed to see were always somewhere else. Brad had warned me that mainly boring stuff, like finding people and asking them questions, made up the bulk of his days, but I thought a murder case would be different. Instead, except for dinners with Carl, I seemed to do nothing but try to interview other individuals.
I called Brad at his apartment, waking him up. "The video store owner is delayed until three, so I won't be back until late this afternoon."
"Huh? Oh, okay, whatever you say."
"Anything happening up there I should know about?"
"Uh, no, I don't think so." Then, in a brighter voice, "Oh yeah, I went into the office yesterday and found a message for you on voicemail. From Novotny."
I tried not to sound too eager. "What did he say?"
"Let me think. It seemed a little strange, so I'll try to repeat it verbatim." He cleared his throat. "'I need to see you. I've done a stupid thing. I'll come to your office Monday morning.'"
"A stupid thing," I repeated. "What do you suppose he meant by that?"
"I haven't the foggiest. I thought you'd know."
I hoped Carl didn't mean our exchanging a few kisses Friday night. If anyone should feel stupid about it, it was yours truly, but I didn't. So there.
"Well, thanks. See you later."
Putting my cell phone away, I walked up the street wondering what Carl meant, finally deciding not to speculate and just put it out of my mind for a while. However, how could I kill almost five hours? I'd had breakfast, it was too early for lunch, and I'd already checked out of the hotel. As I'd discovered before, except for the video store, that area of town boasted nothing but jewelry and antique shops, with an occasional expensive restaurant thrown in, not my idea of a way to muddle through five hours. I'd have given a tidy sum for a bookstore but didn't find any. Still, it was Tinsel Town, wasn't it? The home of Hollywood and the movies? Surely, an open movie theater lurked somewhere nearby.
Two blocks away, I spotted one, but every film they were showing carried the label "action adventure" with no doubt more bombs and explosions than a genuine war. My main quarrel with such films was the sound, which I felt sure could be heard in Brazil. Teenagers sold you the tickets in the theater, then collected them from you, sold you the popcorn in the lobby, and swept it up afterward, right? And they were all deaf from playing their iPods at decibels that could crack the sound barrier, so they turned up the movie volume to compensate. That, I didn't need. When I planned to see a movie, I took along a wad of cotton to put in my ears, and I didn't have any in my purse that day.
Instead, I went back to the hotel and browsed in their lobby shops without buying anything. I perused the latest fashions in resort wear, but the only outfits I really admired would have required a hefty bank loan. Eventually, I had lunch in their dining room, where I chose a small salad, then went into the lobby to sit on one of their deep plush chairs. At least I didn't look out of place. I'd chosen my best suit for that trip, a plum-colored wool that I'd bought for my wedding to Lamar. I remembered reasoning that my first wedding dress had been white satin and cost my father at least a month's salary, so I ought to spend a similar amount on an outfit for my second trip to the altar, lest anyone think I didn't care enough. If I'd known what was going to happen to that marriage, I'd have chosen sackcloth.
I glanced through Architectural Digest and looked at my watch for the tenth time. Then a well-dressed, middle-aged woman sat down next to me. I looked over at her briefly, and she took that as an opening for conversation.
"Are you staying here?"
It seemed a strange question, but I answered, "Yes." Well, I had stayed the night, hadn't I? And for all I knew, circumstances might require me to spend another night there.
"Alone?"
This seemed altogether too inquisitive. If she'd been a man instead of a plump dowager type with a gorgeous mauve suede coat over a matching dress, I'd have been up and away at the speed of a Derby winner. Instead, I just said, "Yes," and waited to hear what she'd ask next.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
"No. I need to go out later, but I'm too early." Full of curiosity now, I asked, "Are you waiting for someone?"
"Yes, my bridge partner. Four of us meet here for our usual Sunday bridge game, and she's late. I can't imagine what's keeping her." A p
ause while she frowned and fiddled with a diamond-studded watch that adorned her wrist along with equally jewel-bedecked bracelets. "Do you play bridge?" she asked next.
Do I play bridge? Do I love the game and even teach part-time? I merely smiled and answered, "Yes, I do."
Another pause. "Would you mind waiting here a moment, while I make a call?"
"No, I don't mind."
She went away and came back two minutes later with an even deeper frown on her face than before. "I don't mean to intrude, and please feel free to say, 'No,' but I wondered if you'd do me a huge favor?" She resumed her seat.
"If I can."
She leaned toward me and spoke quickly. "I've just learned that my partner isn't able to come today after all."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Having been in that position myself, I recognized the disappointment she felt, and by then, I also knew her next question, but I just smiled and let her ask it anyway.
"I wondered if you might be willing to take her place. Just for a few hours."
I looked at my own watch. "I'll be happy to." I could have added that her invitation not only saved me from three hours of boredom but couldn't have pleased me more.
She grinned and looked delighted. "Oh, thank you. You'll make three old widows very happy." She paused. "Oh by the way, my name is Beatrice Franklin."
"Olivia Grant."
She popped up from the seat then. "Not to rush you, but the others are already seated in the card room."
I stood, and together we walked down the lushly carpeted hall and into a small private room that faced a garden full of flowers that had no business blooming that time of year. Mrs. Franklin—I assumed she was a Mrs.—introduced me to two other silver-haired ladies wearing Barbara Bush pearls and ages somewhere between eighty and death.
One deck of cards already lay fanned out across the table, and after greeting me, they urged me to sit and passed me a dish of candy, which, since it wasn't chocolate, I managed to decline.
I won't bore you with the hands. If you don't play bridge, you won't understand or care anyway. Suffice it to say that I held my own. In spite of their advanced age, eyesight that had declined to the level of squash, and arthritic hands, the ladies played very well, reinforcing my belief that games, especially bridge, which requires considerable skill, keeps one's mind from atrophy.
Dead Men's Tales (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 2) Page 15