by Kylie Logan
“I had a lot of good experiences,” I told Dolly.
“You should write a book!” The thought hit, and excitement made Dolly’s voice rise an octave. She grabbed my arm with both hands. “You could tell stories about Meghan. You know, what it was like working for her, and how she always knew exactly what to wear, and all the guys she dated. You could even include recipes, you know, for the food you served at her elegant parties. Everyone would want to read a book like that.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The gleam in Dolly’s eyes was a little too ghoulish for me; I shrugged out of her grasp. “I have a feeling there are plenty of people who will be telling Meghan’s story in these next months.”
“They’ve already started,” Dolly assured me. “There’s a retrospective of her movies on TCM tonight. I had a friend stop over and set them to record on my DVR. And all the major news networks have picked up on the story. There are reporters out in the restaurant right now.”
“Reporters you’re not talking to, I hope.”
She lifted a shoulder and grabbed the pitcher so she could refill it. “There’s nothing I can tell them. But you . . .”
“No.” I couldn’t be any clearer. “I’m not interested in being interviewed. Or interrogated. Let them get their information somewhere else.”
“I’ll tell them that.”
“Don’t tell them anything,” I called after her when she headed back into the restaurant. “Say you have no comment.”
I could only hope Dolly would listen.
That, and . . . my gaze wandered back to the stack of books in front of me . . . Truth be told, the real thing I wished for was that we knew what we were looking for.
Together, Declan and I began the search, page by page, book by book.
“Here’s a receipt for two pints of whipping cream and three quarts of strawberries.” Declan plucked the receipt out of one of the cookbooks and waved it in my direction. “Maybe that’s what Meghan was looking for.”
I’d just finished with a soup cookbook and I slapped it shut and laid it aside and didn’t bother to comment. “What we haven’t considered is that she found what she was looking for so even if we look, we’re not going to find it because it’s already gone. Did Gus say anything about what was in her pockets?”
Declan pursed his lips. “Not to me.”
“But, of course, even if she found what she was looking for, the person who killed her might have taken it.” I stretched a kink out of my back. “If that’s the case, then we’re wasting our time.”
Which didn’t mean I was going to give up.
I got up, poured coffee for both me and Declan, and took two slices of Italian sausage/banana pepper/mushroom pizza George offered so we could eat while we worked.
“Good pizza.” Declan chewed the last of his piece and set aside the fish cookbook he’d just finished with. “Anything in that one?”
Since I’d just dripped gooey mozzarella all over a German chocolate cake recipe, I made a face. “Cheese.”
“I don’t think Meghan was looking for cheese stains.”
“Maybe she loved my tagliatelle with asparagus and marjoram so much, she had to have the recipe for herself.”
“It was pretty darned good.” Finished with another book, Declan set it aside, and his shoulders heaved. “Maybe we’re going at this all the wrong way. Maybe we shouldn’t care what Meghan was looking for. Maybe we should concentrate on who didn’t like Meghan.”
I made a face. “A whole lot of people.”
“Anybody in particular seem to dislike her more than anybody else?”
I thought about it, but not for long. “Every time she and her current lover broke up . . . well, there’s nothing quite as ugly as Hollywood heartbreak.”
“So let’s start there.” Declan stretched out his long legs. “Was she ever married?”
“A bunch of times.” I thought about it. “I wasn’t around for the first one. That’s when she was married to—”
“Benito Gallo!”
Who knew Dolly had come back into the kitchen?
She stood with her back to the swinging door, her eyes sparkling like her earrings. “Ben was Meghan’s first husband. Spencer’s father.” Dolly nodded. “Everyone’s heard of Ben Gallo. He’s famous. And dreamy. Oooh!” Her eyes went wide and she closed in on me. “I never thought of it. You . . . you’ve probably met him. I’m telling you, Laurel, you are the luckiest woman in the entire world. You knew Meghan, and I’ll bet you knew Benito, too.”
“I’ve met him,” I admitted. “He and Meghan were married—”
“Seventeen years ago.” Like it was a fact everyone in Hubbard would have at their fingertips, she nodded knowingly. “Of course, that was long before you worked for Meghan.”
“It was. I started working for her—”
“When Rocky Stegano walked out on her.” It was another one of those tabloid-fueled stories so I wasn’t surprised Dolly knew it. Rocky—a mediocre actor who happened to have a better-than-average body and be a better-than-average cook—and Meghan had an affair of epic proportions. Once he moved in with her, he handled all the cooking, and once they had a breakup that was as whopping ugly as any Hollywood had ever produced, Meghan hired me to take over the kitchen duties.
Dolly left the kitchen and I turned back to Declan.
“Benito Gallo. Handsome Italian race-car driver.” I repeated the words automatically; anytime Ben’s name was mentioned—on the news, on sports programs, in the tabloids—they always were part and parcel of the story. “He’s rich, he’s charming, he’s a daredevil, and he’s—”
“Ben and cars! That’s what made me think of it.”
Since I hadn’t been expecting Dolly to be back so quickly, when she shoved open the door and hopped inside the kitchen like her shoes were on fire, I squealed.
She hurried over to where her jacket was hung on a peg next to mine and Sophie’s. “I meant to tell you. I mean, because you’ve been asking questions. Which is perfectly understandable.” Dolly added this last little bit almost like an apology. “After all, you and Meghan were good friends.”
I would hardly say that, but there was no use mentioning it to Dolly, not when she had the glow of excitement in her eyes. She came over to where Declan and I were standing, her phone in her hand, and whispered like a conspirator. “The cops found the car.”
“What car?” No way we could have planned it, but Declan and I asked the question at the same time.
Dolly barked out a laugh. “The one Meghan rented, of course. There had to be a way she got here.”
Yes, there had to be, and I gave myself a mental slap for not considering it sooner.
Dolly swiped through the pictures on her phone. “There. See.” She turned the phone so I could see the picture that showed a police tow truck just about to hoist a late-model cream-colored Lexus. “I think they think there might be evidence.”
I wasn’t so sure since the murder had taken place there in the Terminal, not in the car, but I didn’t have the heart to squash Dolly’s investigative excitement. “Where was it parked?”
She tipped her head. “Just down the street. In back of the Book Nook. They figured it was Meghan’s because it was a rental so they took it away, you know, to dust for prints and stuff.”
Big points for Declan; he didn’t make it sound at all like he wondered how a woman who was so . . . well, so ordinary as Dolly might know all this. “How did you find out?”
She gave him a wink. “Hey, it’s a gift! There’s plenty you can find out if you just listen, and we’ve had enough cops and reporters in here all day. I just pay attention, that’s all. That’s how I knew to get over there and snap a couple pictures before they took the car away.”
It was mildly interesting, though how it would lead us to find answers to the question of Meghan’s death was beyon
d me.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
“Let me take another look at that.” When I pointed, Dolly handed me her phone. I squinted at the picture that showed the sedan from the driver’s side door, then came to my senses and hit the screen to make the picture bigger.
“What?” Declan saw what I was doing and came to stand at my side. “What do you see?”
“I’m not sure.” I enlarged the photograph just a little more. “It looks like a hotel key. You know, one of those swipe cards.”
He took the phone out of my hands and gave the picture a closer look. “It sure does. A Holiday Inn, I think.”
“Meghan at a Holiday Inn?” It didn’t jibe with everything I knew about the diva of all divas, but hey, I could understand. If Meghan wanted to fly under the radar, it was the perfect choice, somewhere she could slip in and out of where no one would pay too much attention to her.
“What does it tell us?” Declan wanted to know.
I didn’t answer. Not right away, anyway. Not until I handed the phone back to Dolly, thanked her, and asked if she’d do me a favor and make sure there was enough rolled silverware on the table outside the kitchen door where we stacked extra supplies.
Once she was gone, I turned to Declan. “I’m not sure she’s keeping as quiet about all this as she should with our customers,” I told him.
“And you don’t want Dolly or anyone else to know our next move.”
“Smart as well as handsome.” I gave him a peck on the cheek then told George we were going out and we’d be back in a couple of hours. Honestly, I don’t think I had to. Just because George is the quiet type doesn’t mean he doesn’t pay any attention, and the little salute he gave us as we headed out of the kitchen told me he knew exactly where we were going.
It was time to do some serious investigating.
Chapter 6
It was a twenty-minute ride from Hubbard to Austintown where the Holiday Inn was located. Declan and I didn’t talk much in the car, but once we arrived at the hotel with its neatly trimmed bushes and flags snapping in the spring breeze from the poles out front, we looked at each other and Declan said what we’d both been thinking.
“Now what?”
“I wish I knew. Even if we had the hotel card key we saw in that picture Dolly took, it wouldn’t do us any good since there wouldn’t be a room number on it. So we go inside . . .” I looked toward the sliding glass doors at the front of the hotel. “And we ask if Meghan is registered here.”
“Only she wouldn’t have used her own name. And no one’s figured out yet that she was staying here. If they had, this place would be crawling with reporters and TV cameras just like the Terminal is.”
“Then we’ll . . .” Because I had no idea what we’d do, I got out of the car before I could talk myself out of it, and I strode through those front doors and walked up to the registration desk. Since I’d been told (and not just by Declan) that I am an attractive woman, and since the clerk behind the desk was a kid of maybe nineteen with a shock of badly dyed black hair, sallow skin, and crooked teeth, I was hoping to work a little feminine magic.
“It’s Granny,” I said, clutching the front of the counter with both hands and adding a little hiccup to the last word along with what I hoped was a convincing sniffle. “She said she was coming in from Buffalo Thursday and checking in here and that she’d be over this morning to babysit, but she never showed up. Something’s wrong. I just know it. You’ve got to help me!”
From behind me, I felt Declan poke me in the back.
I ignored him and kept my a-little-sad-a-little-worried expression firmly in place. The kid might be young, but sooner or later, he was bound to ask for my granny’s name and since I didn’t know what name Meghan had used to check in, I couldn’t let things get that far.
“I’ve got to find her! She’s here, right? Please tell me she is. She’s about this high.” I demonstrated, one hand out, my palm flat to the floor. “She’s got a black coat and she always wears that red hat I knitted for her and—” Since I had to give him a chance to say something, I stopped there, the better to shed a few crocodile tears.
“I . . . I don’t see everyone. I’m . . . I’m not always here,” the kid stammered, and by way of demonstrating that, in spite of that, he was obviously ready, willing, and able to help, he touched a hand to the computer keyboard in front of him. “If you let me know your grandmother’s name, I can check our records and—”
“Oh, I just know something’s happened to her!” Stalling for time—and hopefully, information—I spun around and buried my face against Declan’s chest. (Just for the record, this is a dandy place to be.)
Good thing I did because when the clerk stuttered, “L-let me g-get the manager,” and I moved away from Declan, I got a look over his shoulder down the hallway to our right and the long line of closed hotel-room doors. I was just in time to see one of them swing open.
“I . . . I should have known!” It was my turn to stammer. Right before I took off running down the hallway.
The woman who stepped out of Room 112 had her back to me, and she was busy fumbling with the four suitcases she dragged out of the room. Lucky for me. That gave me the element of surprise when I stopped behind her and said, “Hello, Corrine!”
She froze and I heard her gulp.
“Going somewhere?” I asked her.
Corrine Kellogg was a little shorter than me and a couple of years older. The way I remembered it (and I have a pretty good memory), her hair had always been that shade of blonde that’s more dishwater than it is pretty, but somewhere along the line in the year since I’d last seen her, she’d become a redhead. The color did not go especially well with her always too-rosy cheeks, her always too-squint-eyed stare, or the fact that her untamed eyebrows were a mixture of blonde and silver and made her look like there was one fuzzy caterpillar resting over each of her eyes.
“Uh . . . uh . . . hello, Laurel. What are you . . . ?” Corrine squinted past me to Declan and stepped slightly to her left. Yeah, like her skinny little body might actually hide all those suitcases she’d just dragged out of the room. “What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t that funny? I was just going to ask you the same thing.” I stepped to the side, the better to give Corrine a look at Declan and Declan a look at her. “This is Corrine Kellogg,” I told him. “Meghan’s personal assistant.”
The expression on Declan’s face went from confused to I’ve got it in a flash. “It’s good to meet you,” he told her, shaking her limp hand. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Do we? I wish I had time. My flight out of Pittsburgh is at seven this evening, and I’ve still got the long drive ahead of me and—”
“The cops in Hubbard are going to be so glad to know you’re still here!” I whipped out my phone and paused, a finger poised over the keyboard. “They’ve got a lot of questions and I bet you’re the one who can provide the answers.”
Corrine ran her tongue over her thin lips. “Not really.”
I glanced at the closed hotel-room door. “Maybe you’d like us to wait here with you until they get here.”
Though she worked side by side with one of the most sophisticated and savvy women in Hollywood, Corrine herself had never been very good at playing the part. She shifted from foot to foot, maybe committing the steps to memory, or maybe just tracing the pattern in the green and blue hallway carpeting. “Like I said, I’ve got a flight to catch and—”
“Detective Oberlin!” Declan, smart guy that he is, had pulled out his own phone and made the call. He turned his back on us and strode down the hallway, his voice just loud enough so that Corrine couldn’t fail to hear—and know exactly what he was talking about. “Declan Fury here. I’m in Austintown. Yes, at the Holiday Inn. I figured you’d send someone over here sooner or later, but it’s a good thing Laurel and I got here when we did. There’s someone her
e who may be able to provide some information regarding Meghan Cohan’s murder and . . .”
While Declan kept talking, I put a hand on Corrine’s shoulder. “Maybe we should wait in your room.”
She dug her key card out of her purse and when she opened the door, I grabbed two of the suitcases, she lifted the other two, and we went inside. While she peeled off her beige rain jacket, I stationed myself between her and the door. Not that I expected her to make a run for it. In all the years I’d known her, Corrine had never had an original, a daring, or a surprising thought.
“So, what do you think?”
Her tongue flicked out from between her teeth. “You mean about . . .” She cleared her throat. “About Meghan being . . .”
“Dead. You can say it, Corrine. Meghan is dead.”
“Yeah. I know.” She didn’t so much sit down in the gray and black upholstered chair as melt into it. “It’s terrible. But I don’t see how you think I can tell you anything about it. I didn’t even know . . . I didn’t even know Meghan was here.”
“Oh, come on, Corrine! Number one, you went everywhere with Meghan. Number two, you can’t expect me to believe the two of you just happened to end up in Austintown, Ohio, at the same time, independent of each other. And number three, well, how do you think I knew to come here? I saw her key card.”
She swallowed hard. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Should we look through these suitcases?” I closed in on them. “Because I know Meghan never traveled light. One of them might be yours, but the other three are bound to be full of her stuff. As soon as I see a packet of the Keemun Hoa Ya A tea Meghan always had with breakfast, I’ll know the suitcase is hers, and the cops, they’re going to wonder why you’re so anxious to leave town with a dead woman’s possessions.”
“No, no. Don’t do that!” One hand out to stop me, Corrine popped out of her chair. “You don’t need to look. You’re right, the suitcases are Meghan’s. She was here . . . that is, I was here and . . . and we were here together. We have been since Thursday.”