***
The Secret Garden ’s wooden front door had four hand-painted panels illustrating scenes from the classic children’s novel. At the top was little golden-haired Mary, the lonely child heroine, finding the key; next to that is a robin showing her the door to the garden concealed behind overgrown ivy. The two lower panels depict Mary lovingly tending the dying roses in the garden; then Mary with a little boy who is rising up out of a wheelchair. The Secret Garden was a book that Eileen had insisted I read to her many times, until she was able to read it herself.
The restaurant named after the book occupied the ground floor of a house built to resemble an old English cottage, with a peaked, thatched roof, and a window with six small panes, slightly curved, on the upper floor. The window was set whimsically at an angle. The effect created was of a cocked head with six eyes peeking out at the street.
I spotted Alan Berger as soon as I came through the front door, both because his word sketch of himself made for an easy identification, and because he had a copy of Roland’s newest book propped up on the table in front of him. When he saw me, he stood and waved.
Berger was cute, in an irregular-weave, Santa’s elf sort of way. He wasn’t tall, and he was a little round in the middle, but his bright hazel eyes and easy smile made him pleasant to look at. He wore a red cashmere sweater under a navy blazer. The blazer was so well cut that it had to have been custom-made.
As I came close to his table, I saw that he had a very small hearing aid in his right ear.
“Alan Berger?”
“Della Carmichael.” His extended hand was soft. If he had ever done manual labor it had to have been long in the past. His grip was polite instead of hearty, and just firm enough to signal self-confidence.
A good-looking young blond waiter, who was probably also an actor, appeared and seated me. Berger reclaimed his chair opposite.
“I know that as a professional cook you have high standards, but I think you’ll find the food here quite good. It’s English. English cuisine gets a bad rap-usually from people who’ve never tasted it and think it consists only of boiled vegetables. Roland introduced me to this place and it’s become a favorite of mine.”
The waiter asked, “What can I get you to drink?” His voice was pitched low, his diction perfect, and his manner suave. He had to be an actor.
“I’d like some iced tea with extra lemon,” I said.
Berger said, “A glass of chardonnay.”
The waiter nodded. “I’ll bring them right away. Our special today is Crisp-Fried Herbed Halibut.” He smiled. “And that is not easy to say. Or perhaps you would like a few minutes to look at the menu?”
I didn’t bother to open it. Instead, I asked Berger, “What do you recommend?”
He didn’t look at the menu, either. “Do you like fish?”
“Very much.”
Berger addressed the waiter-actor. “Bring us two of your-whatever it was you said about the halibut.”
“Excellent choice.”
The waiter left to give our orders to the kitchen.
“I’ve had that dish before. It’s very good, and it comes with shoestring potatoes that deserve a prize,” Berger said.
The waiter returned with my iced tea and Berger’s white wine. As soon as he left again, Berger said, “You said you’re concerned about Roland. So am I. Being shot at was pretty traumatic, but happily, he wasn’t seriously injured.”
“His assistant, Will Parker, tells me he’s back at work on his new book.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve learned that no matter what happens in his personal life, nothing deters Roland from writing. He’s the most reliable author I’ve ever represented. Plus, I like him a lot.”
“To judge from his warm words about you in the Terror Master acknowledgments, he’s very fond of you, too. He told me that he needs your reaction to his manuscripts before he sends them to the publisher.”
“Roland is too generous in his praise. I’m very little help, except when it comes to his contracts.” He flashed a proud-little-boy smile. “Those contracts are my contributions to the world of art. Now, let’s get to the point of your call. Someone shot at Roland. Since you were with him, I can appreciate your concern. My understanding is that the police don’t know yet whether this was a random example of urban blight, or if it was personal. Frankly, I vote for urban blight, some subhuman out for kicks who can’t distinguish between killing people in a video game and shooting at a live person. Roland doesn’t go around having feuds or making enemies. He’s very easy to get along with. But, having said that, I must admit I’m glad he’s safe in his bunker of an apartment while the police are investigating. Those are my thoughts. Your turn. What’s on your mind?”
“Just before the bullet came through the window, Roland told me that he was afraid of Keith Ingram. He didn’t have a chance to say why. Of the people who were known to be at the gala the night Ingram was murdered, the only one I’ve been able to connect to both Ingram and Roland is Yvette Dupree. She’s famous as the Global Gourmet. Do you know her?”
Berger looked thoughtful. “Not really…”
“Mr. Berger-”
“Alan, please.”
“Alan.” I gave him a teasing smile. “I’ve lived long enough to know that when a man says ‘Not really’ it actually means ‘Yes.’ ”
“Well, I did meet her once, a few months ago, when Roland gave a small dinner party. She seemed charming, but I wouldn’t say that I know her.”
“Yvette was Roland’s date?”
“I don’t remember if she was paired with anyone. The evening was to celebrate the fact that Terror Master had reached the high sales threshold that meant the publisher had to pay him a bigger royalty. She cooked the meal-Moroccan dishes, in tribute to the parts of the book that were set in Morocco. It was delicious.”
He squinted for a moment, as though trying to recall details of the evening. Then something made him smile.
“She told us that we had to eat the proper way for a Moroccan meal-meaning without cutlery, and scooping food from the communal serving bowls by using pieces of flat bread. Will Parker, who’s a bit of an imp, concealed a fork behind the pocket handkerchief in his jacket. When she was in the kitchen, he used his fork to eat. I wished I’d thought of that.”
I chuckled. “That is funny. Did she catch him?”
“Oh, yes. She called him incorrigible. That word is almost the same in French as it is in English, so we all laughed. Parker wasn’t embarrassed about it. He said something to the effect that if God had meant humans to eat with their hands he wouldn’t have let them invent silverware. As a wit, Parker isn’t exactly Oscar Wilde, but he is enjoyable to be around.”
“Who else was at the dinner?”
“Only my wife, Frances, and Mary Lively. Mary’s one of my agents-my backup. Roland calls her if he needs something and I’m out of town.”
“Is Mary Lively close to Roland?”
“Not-” He stopped and grinned. “I was about to say ‘not really.’ Mary is a spry eighty-seven and tells people she’s ten years younger. An old-school career woman-still wears hats in the office. I hope she never retires, because she’s amazing at spotting new young writers. I run a small, boutique literary agency. Mary’s discovered a third of our client list.”
The waiter brought our Crisp-Fried Herbed Halibut with shoestring potatoes. It was as good as Alan Berger had promised. While we were eating, Berger turned the conversation around to me, and asked if I had any interest in writing a cookbook.
“Because you’re on television, I’m sure I could sell it,” he said.
“I’ve never thought of it, but I don’t think I’m qualified. I’ve never had formal training as a cook.”
“That might be an advantage; you’d be representing the majority of people. The audience must like you because your ratings have doubled since In the Kitchen with Della went on the air.”
“How did you know that?”
His nice
hazel eyes twinkled. “I researched you when Roland told me he was guesting on your show. After I saw you, I made a mental note to call at some point to discuss the possibility of a cookbook.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid that what I make is too simple for a book. Anyone who watches the show could make my dishes, and I already post the recipes on my Web site.”
“Don’t dismiss the idea without thinking about it,” he said. “You might enjoy seeing your face on a book cover. And it could only help your show.”
To be polite, I agreed to think about it, but at the moment the only thing I was interested in was finding out who killed Keith Ingram and tried to kill Roland Gray.
My lunch with Alan Berger was pleasant, but it didn’t yield the “Aha!” moment that pointed me in the right direction to solving the mystery that threatened me, and those dear to me.
I did learn one thing, though. Yvette Dupree was close enough to Roland that she had personally cooked his celebration dinner. That wasn’t the act of a mere acquaintance.
As we were having coffee and dessert-marmalade steamed pudding-I planned my next move.
36
It was close to three o’clock when Alan Berger and I were saying good-bye outside the restaurant.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” Berger said. “Perhaps you’ll have dinner sometime soon with me and my wife. I’d like to talk to you more about the possibility of doing a cookbook.”
The valet brought my Jeep. Berger insisted on paying him.
“Thank you,” I said. “And, thank you for lunch.”
“I’ll call you,” he said.
***
The idea that had occurred to me during lunch involved going to the Santa Monica Library. When I had time to read for pleasure, it was one of my regular stops, so I knew that it was open until four o’clock on Sundays. That was perfect. What I wanted to do wouldn’t take more than an hour.
The Santa Monica Library, on the corner of Montana Avenue and Seventeenth Street, is a one-story building with a simple exterior, but to anyone who loves libraries as I do, the inside is a magical kingdom for grown-ups, filled with the delights of entertainment and knowledge.
Just as I pulled into a parking space, my cell phone rang. It was Hugh Weaver.
“Our Gang Unit picked up a piece of scum named Victor Raynoso-street name Shoes, ’cause he’s got two hundred pairs of shoes.” Weaver was speaking hurriedly, his voice low. I heard the hum of voices in the background and guessed that he was at his West Bureau squad room. “They caught Raynoso shooting at cars on the 405 freeway near Santa Monica last night. Hatch decided he’s the one shot at your writer.”
“He was using the same sniper rifle?”
“No. Like that ex-Special Forces SID tech guessed, Ballistics established that weapon was a Walther WA 2000. The creep last night was using a H & K G3 assault.”
“Then what tied him to the Caffeine an’ Stuff shooting? Did the police find that other weapon, the Walther?”
“Not so far,” Weaver said. I heard anger in his voice. “Hatch doesn’t care. His position is that Raynoso shot at the coffeehouse and was caught shooting at cars in the same general area. Raynoso doesn’t have an alibi for the Gray attempt. He claims he was dead drunk asleep Thursday night.”
I felt my stomach muscles clench with worry. If Hatch believed that Raynoso was person who shot Roland, then in his mind he’d severed that case from the Ingram murder. Which put John O’Hara back in Hatch’s crosshairs.
“Does John know about this?”
Weaver gave a snort. “Oh, yeah. After Raynoso’s collar, Hatch convinced the captain that John’s a viable suspect in the Ingram murder. John’s been suspended. Look, Della, he doesn’t want his wife and kid to know about this.”
I understood. John would be afraid this bad news might send Shannon into a relapse. “But how is he going to keep it from them?”
“By making things look normal,” Weaver said. “He’s going to keep leaving the house to go on duty, but he’ll tell them he’s been assigned to work on a big white-collar fraud case for the state, so if they need to reach him, they’re to call on his cell.”
I sensed Weaver was about to ring off, but I had one more question for him. “Has Hatch identified any of the women in Ingram’s sex tapes?”
“Yeah, we know who all of them are. Every guy in the station volunteered to look at the tapes to see if they recognized anybody. The putzes. It was SID using their computer system that matched faces on the tapes to newspaper an’ magazine society photos.” Weaver chuckled, but it was a dry sound, without a trace of mirth. “We had a bit of drama around here this morning. One of those thousand-buck-an-hour lawyers shows up with legal papers. There was a closed-door conference with Hatch, the captain, and the chief of detectives. A lot of yelling. The chief of Ds was so mad when he left he almost broke the captain’s door slamming it. The only one smiling was the shyster, because he had something in his briefcase that wasn’t there when he arrived.”
“What?”
“Being an experienced detective, later I put two and two together with a thousand-an-hour and checked the evidence log. We used to have eleven Ingram hot-to-trot DVDs. Now we got ten.”
“Eugene Long’s lawyer,” I said. “Tina must have been on one of those tapes.”
“If that was a question on Jeopardy!, you’da just won a pot of money. I did an info search on the shyster and found out one of his firm’s clients is the Long Corp. No big surprise.”
“The rest of the women in Ingram’s collection-did you cross-check their names against the list of people at the gala?”
“Investigation 101. Except for Long’s daughter, there’s only one name on both lists.”
“I think I can guess.”
“Ooo la la and wee wee, Mamzelle,” Weaver said, in a terrible imitation of a French accent.
He was telling me that the woman was Yvette Dupree.
Before I could respond, I heard a man’s voice in the background call Weaver’s name, and he ended our conversation.
That Yvette was one of Ingram’s sex partners was a surprise, and it might or might not be a factor in the stabbing death of Keith Ingram, but at this moment the most important thing to me was the trouble John O’Hara was in. Hatch was now proceeding on the belief that a gang criminal named Raynoso had shot at Roland Gray, which gave Hatch the opportunity to concentrate all of his energy on finding evidence to arrest John for the murder of Keith Ingram. It was bad enough that he had managed to get John suspended, but Hatch had much worse in mind. An arrest would destroy John’s career, and maybe John himself, and it would damage his family, possibly beyond repair.
Solving the murder of that detestable, blackmailing food critic had suddenly become a matter of great urgency. The only way to prevent John from losing everything was to find the real killer, and to do it fast.
I dialed John’s cell phone number. My name must have come up on the faceplate because he answered by saying, “Della?”
“Weaver just told me what happened to you. Are you all right?”
“I’ve had better days, but I’ve had even worse ones, too. I survived.”
His voice was strong, but I knew that losing his job, even if it would only be for a while, had been a cruel blow. He was putting up a front. In deference to that, I stopped expressing my sympathy.
“I don’t want Shan and Eileen to worry, so don’t tell them,” he said.
“If you don’t want me to, of course I won’t. What are you going to do while you’re pretending to be working?”
“Working. Investigating on my own. After I found out that Yvette Dupree was one of the women on Ingram’s tapes, I asked a friend at Interpol to check her out. He got back to me a few minutes ago. I was about to phone you when you called me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Her real name is Fabienne Talib. I know you said you like the woman, but I want you to stay away from her.”
“John, you’re making m
e crazy. Lots of writers and other celebrities change their names, so what’s this about?”
“Ten years ago, in London, the woman now known as Yvette Dupree killed a man.”
37
“Killed a man?” Stunned, I repeated John’s words, trying to process the information. “But if that’s true, then why isn’t she in prison?”
“She claimed she was defending herself. The man was her husband, Fouad Talib, a Turk. Yvette-Fabienne-brought in three women who signed statements that Talib was violent, had beaten Fabienne in the past, and threatened to kill her if she tried to leave him. Self-defense isn’t recognized as a plea in England, so she was put on trial for manslaughter. The jury heard her story and acquitted her. According to my friend, the police thought it was premeditated murder, but they couldn’t prove it. There was talk at the time that she’d fallen in love with another man, a Brit. She had just begun proceedings to divorce Talib.”
“Her story must have been credible for the jury to acquit her.”
“Juries are made up of human beings. They liked her, and sympathized because her barrister painted the victim as a vicious bully. Talib was an importer of antiquities. His business partner and his brother both testified that Talib had never laid a hand on her in anger, but that he was opposed to the divorce and wanted to take Fabienne back to Turkey with him.”
“How did she do it? Did she stab him?”
“No. It was blunt force trauma. She smashed him in the head with a bronze bust of Julius Caesar. It was almost an Olympic feat, because Yvette was a foot shorter than the late Mr. Talib, and almost a hundred pounds lighter.”
“Are you saying that she might have had help?”
“According to her, she acted alone, claiming she hit him out of fear for her life. She called the police herself. Without delay, according to the medical examiner in London. Her fingerprints were the only ones on the bust. Still, my friend said it was as though a cat had killed a Rottweiler.”
The Proof is in the Pudding Page 20