Mile High Murder

by Marcia Talley

  Kai produced a butane lighter. ‘He who rolls it, sparks it,’ he said, setting the joint on fire. He waited quietly as she inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs for several seconds, then slowly exhaled.

  Claire took a sip of wine, then rolled it around on her tongue. ‘Ah.’ She sighed. ‘Kai, you are my new best friend.’

  Having been summarily demoted to second best friend, I bid Claire a good-natured see-you-later, leaving her to discuss with Kai what best to pair with Mirassou pinot noir – White Widow, a hybrid weed, as it turns out – and wandered off in search of an hors d’oeuvres.

  I found Desiree first, dressed like a gypsy in a full, patchwork skirt and a white, off-the-shoulder peasant blouse. She’d coaxed her abundant hair into a twist and secured it with a comb carved from an abalone shell. She was sipping an Arnold Palmer – green straw! – holding forth as Hostess with the Mostest with Cindy King, whose generous curves were encased in a puff-sleeved sheath as orange as a highway traffic cone. Mark stood nearby, head thrown back, oblivious to the two women and apparently fascinated by the antics of a pair of finches setting up housekeeping in a birdhouse. In Finch World, homes designed like Swiss chalets must be all the rage.

  ‘Hi, Mark,’ I said.

  He gestured at the birdhouse with his drink, a virgin Arnold Palmer with a clear straw, just like mine. ‘That’s the male,’ he said. ‘Note the red head and chest.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were a birdwatcher.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m not, not really. But don’t you think it’s interesting that the male of the species usually gets the fancy plumage? With humans, just the opposite.’

  I smiled, assuming he was referring to Desiree and Cindy. Before I could further explore Mark’s philosophy of avian evolution, the second server materialized at my elbow, proffering a tray of cheesy mushroom caps. ‘Two miligrams,’ the server – whose nametag read Miguel – informed us. Three-quarters of the broiled mushrooms were skewered with green toothpicks, the others with plain white. My hand hovered over one of the plain toothpicks. ‘Do I detect a theme here?’

  Miguel nodded. ‘The green ones indicate infused.’

  ‘Two milligrams, you said?’ Mark asked. When the server nodded, Mark selected a green toothpick, pinched the mushroom off and slid it between his lips.

  I chose a plain mushroom cap and popped it into my mouth whole, then bit down gently until it exploded with juice, richly flavored. I heard a moan of pleasure. I think it was coming from me.

  ‘Damn, that’s good!’ Mark said, echoing my thoughts exactly. Still chewing, I simply nodded.

  ‘Hannah?’

  I turned.

  Lean and long-limbed, Austin approached from the solarium, carrying a glass of red wine in one hand and a large bowl of popcorn in the other. Tonight he was dressed formally, at least for Austin, in black slacks and a black T-shirt. Over the shirt he wore an elegant vest made of silk, the design an intricate jungle of marijuana fronds rendered in green, violet and silver. Enameled buttons completed the look.

  As he passed the bar, he dropped off the popcorn, then closed the distance between us. Austin acknowledged Mark with a nod, then turned to me. ‘Can we talk for a minute?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, knowing almost for certain what the topic of conversation would be. ‘Mark, will you excuse us, please?’

  Guiding me gently by the elbow, Austin led me to the far side of the garden, near the ornamental gate that led to the driveway, where we sat down on a bench tucked into an alcove in the manicured boxwood hedge.

  Austin set his wine glass to one side on the flagstones. ‘You must think I’m pretty dumb.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Not exactly.’ I paused. ‘I gather you found my note in the safe.’

  ‘Marilyn told me.’ He pressed his hands together between his knees and leaned forward, addressing his purple Reeboks. ‘Was all that interest in my safe yesterday morning simply a sham? Are you some sort of professional safecracker?’

  ‘I had a college roommate who kept accidently locking me out of our room, so I’m pretty good at picking your regular, garden variety door lock, but I don’t have a clue about how to crack a safe.’

  He glanced up at me sideways through pale, almost invisible eyelashes. ‘Then how …?’

  ‘You have a “tell,” Austin. When we were talking about setting the combination, your eyes kept darting sideways, then down, then behind me. At first, I thought someone had walked by in the hallway outside your office, but then you did it again. After you left, I started looking. And found the fire extinguisher.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘We know that whoever stole the money had the combination to the safe. They must also have had access to your office, and a bit of leisure time to look around. As I said in my note, if I could find that inspection tag so easily, anyone could.’

  Austin retrieved his wine, sipped thoughtfully, then set the glass back down. ‘A somewhat limited pool of suspects, then. I’d hate to think …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘How well do you know Nick and Borys Pawlowski?’ I asked, picking up where Austin left off.

  ‘They’ve been providing our security for over a year,’ he said. ‘The company they work for comes with a sterling reputation, and they’re bonded.’

  ‘Marilyn certainly thinks highly of them,’ I said with a smile.

  Austin snorted. ‘And vice versa. They’re crazy about her cooking, for one thing. A substitute for the mother they send money to back in Slovenia.’

  Using the straw, I swirled the ice cubes around in my Arnold Palmer. ‘The Pawlowskis are in and out of your office all the time, Austin. They had all the time in the world to stumble over the combination to the safe.’

  ‘They’re big, sure, but I don’t think they’re that smart,’ Austin said.

  ‘Somebody was,’ I said.

  ‘I just can’t believe …’ he began.

  I suspected he was underestimating the brothers, and told him so. ‘Did Desiree tell you what happened to Marilyn on Saturday night?’

  ‘That scumbag, Daniel, you mean? Desiree didn’t tell me – Detective Jacobs did. I’m surprised you know about it.’

  Holding my drink in both hands, I turned to face him. ‘The important question is what was Borys doing in the hallway outside your office so long after hours?’

  Austin’s face flushed. ‘The police asked me about that, too, after they finished scolding me for being so careless with the combination.’ After a few seconds, he added, ‘I gotta write the number down somewhere, Hannah. The security company forces me to change the damn combination every month. I ran out of birthday and anniversary dates a long time ago.’

  ‘I don’t have a safe at home, but I have the same problem with my passwords. Drives me crazy when I’m forced to change one.’ I sucked tea up through my straw, enjoying the perfect blend of sweet versus tart. ‘For passwords, I usually think up a simple sentence, like ‘Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492.’ The password is the first letter of each word, plus the number, in this case Ccdai1492.’

  Austin nodded. ‘Clever, but that won’t work on the safe. Three numbers, remember.’

  ‘True. After you change the numbers, though, couldn’t you store the combination in a protected file in the Cloud?’ I added. ‘A file you can access from your iPhone?’

  ‘I figured that could be hacked.’

  ‘Anything can be hacked,’ I said. ‘But storing the combination in a protected file would be a lot more secure than on a tag hanging in plain sight on a wall. You could give the file an innocuous filename like Goodwill_Donations or Meditation_On_Psalm23.’

  That made him laugh, and I joined in. ‘But, nothing is foolproof.’

  ‘A fool. That’s me.’

  ‘I know you’re madly in love with that old safe, Austin. I’m crazy about my grandmother’s 1934 Magic Chef, too, but I don’t cook on it. I use it as a plant stand. I have a suggestion for you,’ I continued. ‘Keep your cash out at the wee
dery. You can always lock your pot up in the safe.’

  He smiled. ‘I usually do.’

  ‘Marilyn gave me a crash course in the history of the house and told me about Fannie Bell. Fannie’d be having fits of the vapors at the very idea.’

  ‘She might have been totally cool with it.’ Austin chuckled. ‘There’s a picture of Miss Fannie somewhere, dressed in full flapper regalia, a Martini glass in one hand and a jewel-encrusted cigarette holder in the other.’

  As guests went to and fro around us, nodding in greeting from time to time but keeping a respectful distance, we sat quietly sipping our drinks. I was trying to think of a tactful way to bring the conversation around to Austin’s letter from the Great Western Bank when Austin opened his mouth and unlocked that door himself. ‘Detective Jacobs thinks I did it,’ he blurted.

  I feigned surprise. ‘No way!’ After a moment, I pinned him to the bench with my eyes and asked, ‘Well, did you?’

  Austin snorted wine out his nose, apologized and then dabbed it away with the back of his hand. ‘Stealing from myself, Hannah? I’d have to be nuts. Desiree got all spun up about the robbery,’ he confided. ‘Blabbed to Jacobs that we needed the money in a lump sum to pay off a mortgage.’

  I decided to come clean. ‘When I sat down at your desk … I couldn’t help noticing the letter from your bank.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘I know a little about balloon loans,’ I said. ‘Don’t they usually come with a reset option? Can’t you refinance the loan at current market rates?’

  Austin sighed. ‘If I convince Great Western that the business is sound, that those two slightly late payments are a thing of the past.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘How’s the Denver housing market? Robust?’

  Austin rocked his hand back and forth. ‘Basically flat, but nothing to worry about. We’ve got plenty of equity in Bell House, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

  As if on cue, Desiree hove into view, carrying a glass of wine and waving a vape pen, bangle bracelets jangling. ‘There you are, Austin!’ Her eyes narrowed, shooting daggers. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  Austin scooped up his wine glass and sprang to his feet. ‘I’m being summoned.’

  I shooed him away with my hand. ‘We’ll catch up later.’

  He raised his glass. ‘Innocent until proven guilty,’ he whispered.

  Somehow, I didn’t find that reassuring.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effect. But, marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality. The record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience … Yet, despite the long history of use and the extraordinarily high number of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death. By contrast, aspirin, a commonly used over the counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.

  Francis L. Young. ‘Opinion and Recommended Ruling, Findings of Fact, Conclusion of Law and Decision of Administrative Law Judge in the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition,’ Docket No. 86–22, US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration (1988), pp.56–7.

  After the Nortons left, I sat by myself for a few minutes, sipping my tea and thinking that there was no way I could host a dinner party if I started the evening with an infused Arnold Palmer followed by a glass of wine and a toke. But then, I was in training and Desiree was a pro.

  I caught up with Austin again a few minutes later over a platter of crab rangoons. ‘The duck sauce is spiked,’ he told me, proffering the platter. ‘The plum sauce not.’

  I dredged my cheesy wonton through the plum sauce and took a bite just as Josh breezed into the garden with Lisa. Both were dressed for the evening like country and western singers, she in a short denim jacket over a pink, spaghetti-strap maxi dress, he in a red plaid shirt belted into a pair of slim jeans. Both wore boots.

  ‘I like the look,’ Austin said, taking it in. ‘All you need is a black hat, Josh.’

  Josh laughed. ‘Left my guitar at home, too.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I said.

  ‘Josh plays really well.’ Lisa nibbled on a wing of her wonton. ‘I always hoped he’d get an assistant professorship at Vanderbilt so he could take advantage of the music scene in Nashville.’

  ‘Do you play, Lisa?’

  ‘Does tambourine count?’ She grinned hugely to show she was kidding.

  ‘Lisa’s being modest. She’s got a lovely voice.’

  ‘And Josh is just being sweet because he doesn’t want to sleep on the sofa tonight.’ Her lips brushed his cheek. ‘I’m afraid the Dixie Chicks aren’t going to be calling me in to sub any time soon.’ She cocked her head, then listened for a moment. ‘What’s that playing?’

  In contrast to the soft, moody blues that usually wafted out of the speakers in the solarium, keeping everyone mellow, tonight’s background music evoked a twenties speakeasy. If Miss Fannie Bell had flounced in dripping with beads and waving a glass of champagne, I wouldn’t have been the least surprised. A sassy clarinet and vibraphone number ended, giving way to dueling brass, a bouncy piano and a frisky feline vocalist covering Ella Fitzgerald’s classic, ‘When I Get Lo, I Get High.’

  ‘It’s my hot jazz mix tape,’ Austin said. ‘The Hot Sardines. Heard them at the Lawn Party on Governor’s Island a couple of years ago and they blew me away. The Swamp Donkeys and the Grand Street Stompers and a couple of other groups are on there, too.’ He stared at Lisa for so long that she probably thought she had lipstick on her teeth. ‘Your tambourine?’ he said at last. ‘Don’t knock it. Miz Elizabeth plays a washboard sometimes. A Dubl Handi. She bought it at Ace Hardware.’

  Lisa snickered, Josh snorted, Austin hooted. Long after my ladylike tee-hee-hees had been exhausted, their mirth rolled on until Lisa, limp with laughter, held up a hand. ‘Stop! You’re killing me!’

  Miguel saved me by appearing with a tray of crusty bruschetta. Already tuned in to my preferences, he advised me to avoid the ones topped with fresh basil leaves. I left those for The Three Amigos to enjoy and excused myself, claiming I needed to catch up with Claire.

  I found her at the bar, getting a refill on her rosé. I exchanged the dregs of my Arnold Palmer for a glass of Sauvignon blanc and drew her aside into a clump of rhododendron forming a semicircle around a birdbath. With all the excitement over the robbery and Daniel’s murder, I’d clean forgotten the primary reason Claire had invited me along on this boondoggle. I patted the woven handbag that dangled from my shoulder by a crocheted strap. It contained essentials such as lipstick, a hairbrush, my iPhone and – ever since I’d hooked up with Claire – a notebook and pen. ‘Am I supposed to be taking notes?’

  Claire laughed out loud. ‘The state of Maryland hasn’t the slightest interest in what we eat for dinner.’

  ‘Maybe, or maybe not,’ I said, ‘but they are paying for it.’

  ‘Forget about the notebook, Hannah,’ she drawled. ‘And for heaven’s sake, lighten up a little!’

  ‘I’m doing it the traditional way.’ I raised my wine glass.

  She poked my shoulder with an extended forefinger. ‘Don’t be such a party pooper.’

  I wasn’t raining on anyone’s parade by abstaining from weed, it seemed to me, and I told her so.

  Her face clouded. ‘I don’t need a babysitter, Hannah.’

  ‘I’m not …’ I began, but I was talking to her back. Claire had executed a neat about-face and sashayed away.

  Swell.

  I remained in the rhodos for a while, sipping wine, observing from a distance as the party unfolded on the patio before me, hosts, guests and staff moving about and interacting like characters in a Noël Coward play. Was I really such a fuddy-duddy, a stick-in-the-mud? I was tempted, sorely tempted, to charge in from the wings shouting ‘Oh, what the hell!’ an
d snarf down a handful of Marilyn’s high-octane canapés.

  And then Hugh and Phyllis joined the cast, strolling in from stage right. They were holding hands.

  I pounced upon the new arrivals. ‘So glad you could make it,’ I said. ‘I was feeling a bit like an undertaker at an Irish wake.’

  Phyllis was dressed in a navy-blue pants suit, Hugh in a forest-green, logo-less polo shirt and chinos. ‘It was lovely of Desiree to include us,’ Phyllis said. ‘Hugh and I were planning on pizza at that taverna down the street, but I’m just as happy to stay in. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘We’re just the B-list,’ Hugh harrumphed. ‘A couple of warm bodies to fill up the chairs left vacant by others.’

  Phyllis extracted her hand and confronted her husband. ‘Hugh!’

  He took her rebuke like a soldier, then muttered under his breath, ‘Well, it’s the truth. Can’t have opinions about it.’

  ‘Behave, for heaven’s sake,’ she said. ‘Go find yourself a drink. And get one for me, too.’

  ‘Arnold Palmers are the special,’ I offered helpfully. ‘Both regular and high-test.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ Hugh said, saluting as he about-faced and stepped away.

  ‘Don’t you dare go off the deep end, Hugh!’ Phyllis called out to his departing back.

  He turned, then cocked his head. ‘Whatever do you mean, my love? I’m the poster child for moderation.’

  After Hugh left on his mission, Phyllis rolled her eyes and said, ‘I love the man to bits, but what’cha gonna do?’

  I smiled back, wondering when would be a good time to bring up Marjorie Ann’s supposed wedding. With Hugh at the bar, it was just one-on-one, so I decided to dive right in. ‘Your daughter-in-law called. I took the message.’

  ‘I got it, thanks,’ she said. ‘Why is it everything decides to break the minute you leave home?’

  ‘Sod’s law,’ I said. ‘One winter my husband and I took a cruise. While we were away, mice got into the pantry and ate their way through a bag of rice and two pounds of demerara sugar. Must have been on a sugar high when they partied down and chucked flour all over my kitchen.’