“You do realize that if the police should find out you took it upon yourself to come here today—”
“It might not look good. Of course, I know that,” Candy snapped. “Anyway, no one will find out the network didn’t send me unless you tell them. Besides, you’re the only one who knows.”
Colgate leaned in closer to her and said something in a low tone. I was afraid my chair would topple over, I was leaning over so far, straining to hear more. Candy’s appearance today hadn’t been network dictated. Why had she come here then? Could it have had something to do with that cosmetics deal that Ulla had wanted so desperately? I tightened my grip on the stem of my glass as another thought occurred to me. Had Candy come to the signing with the intention of getting her rival out of the way permanently? And had Ken Colgate somehow been a party to it?
Ken scraped back his chair abruptly, and Candy did the same. I turned my back and concentrated on my half-finished drink until I saw the two of them disappear out the door. Then, glass still in hand, I slid off my chair and hurried into the vestibule after them. I wasn’t quick enough, though. The two of them were nowhere to be seen, so I returned to the bar area. As I passed the table where Ken and Candy had been sitting, I glanced down and saw a scrap of paper peeping out from beneath the table. I bent down and picked it up. It read:
Terry Finley 213-555-1958
The name and number weren’t familiar. I tucked it into my purse, intending to share with Leila later. I shrugged back into my jacket and sauntered back into the vestibule. I was just about to peek in the dining area to see if perhaps Ken and Candy had stayed for dinner, when I heard someone yell my name. I whirled around and saw Leila coming through the front door. I had to admit, for a split second there I almost didn’t recognize her. Dressed in a short red dress with matching red satin stilettos and chunky gold hoops, her auburn hair cascading like a waterfall down her back, my friend looked like a Victoria’s Secret runway fashion model. I walked right over to her, touched her arm, and said, “Wow! You did all this for me? I’m impressed, but I have to tell you, I feel underdressed.”
She waved her hand impatiently. “Oh, don’t be silly. I just threw this old thing on. I had it in my locker at work.”
“Old thing? Really?” I looked her up and down again. “I’m afraid to ask what you keep this at work for.”
“You never know when you’ll draw an assignment at a classy place like this one. And it never hurts to look your best.” She squeezed my arm. “You look nice too.”
Nice. Yeah. That was what I’d been aiming for. I gave her a little push toward the hostess podium. “Come on—let’s get our table.”
As my friend turned toward the podium, I happened to glance out the large picture window at the front of the restaurant. Douglas Harriman stood at the corner, helping someone out of a sleek, black Lincoln Continental. I recognized the woman instantly.
None other than Petra Littleton, the shelter’s biggest benefactor.
I frowned. Doug had mentioned his dinner was of a business nature. What business could he have with Petra?
Or maybe the better question was, why did I care?
Chapter Thirteen
A few minutes later, the hostess led us to a table tucked in a far corner. She deposited a velvet-covered menu in front of each of us and then withdrew. A busboy appeared a few seconds later and filled our water glasses to the brim. I was dying to tell Leila what I’d just learned, but as I started to speak, my friend held up her hand. “Let’s table all discussions till after the appetizer at least,” she said. “I brainstorm much better on a full stomach.”
I was anxious to get started, but just then my stomach gave a loud rumble. “Agreed,” I said, albeit a trifle reluctantly.
A smiling, black-jacketed waiter appeared and we ordered drinks: another Riesling for me, the house Merlot for Leila. We both ordered eggplant rollatini appetizers, followed by the house salad. For the main course I ordered one of my favorite dishes, vegetable lasagna, while Leila ordered the rigatoni. The waiter deposited a basket of Italian bread along with some rolls and a dish of sweet butter, and for the next several minutes the only sound heard at our table was contented chewing. Our waiter returned a few minutes later with our wines and rollatinis, and once he’d gone, Leila raised her glass high.
“Here’s to crime. The successful solving of it, that is,” she added.
“Hear, hear,” I replied, and we clinked glasses.
We sipped the wine and the next few minutes were spent devouring the simply delicious eggplant dish. I sopped up the last of the excellent sauce with a slice of crusty Italian bread and pushed my plate to one side. “Okay,” I said. “I can’t wait any longer. Who wants to go first? Me? Great!”
Without mincing words, I related what I’d overheard in the bar between Ken and Candy. “So if her appearance here wasn’t ordered by the network,” I finished, “then why was she here? I can think of two possibilities. It’s connected to the Glow deal, somehow, or … she came with a sinister purpose in mind.”
“You mean doing away with her rival?” Leila wiggled her eyebrows and reached for her wine. “It’s an interesting possibility, but I’m not sure Candy Carmichael would have the smarts to plot a murder. And I do believe this was premeditated, not a spur-of-the-moment crime of passion.”
“I’m not sure I totally agree,” I said. “I think Candy is dumb like a fox. But I also think that if she did it, she didn’t do it alone. She had help.”
Leila paused, wineglass halfway to her lips. “Colgate? Hmm. Interesting. Why would he want Ulla out of the way, though? He made big bucks as her manager.”
“I heard her tell him earlier that their contract was up in two weeks. Maybe he wasn’t going to be her manager any longer.”
“And he would have lost all that income. But if he killed her, he would have lost it too, so …” She spread her hands. “It seems like a lose–lose to me.”
“True,” I sighed. “Unless he had a specific reason for wanting her out of the way.”
“Like what?”
I dropped my chin into my palm. “I don’t know. Yet.”
“Well, let me tell you what I found out.” Leila reached for her tote, dipped her hand inside, and pulled out a small notebook. She flipped a few pages until she came to the one she wanted. “According to one of my very reliable sources, Cathy Colgate consulted with Michael Fox a few days ago.”
“Mike Fox!” I knew the name. He was a highly respected lawyer whose specialty was high-profile divorce cases. “Sounds like Mrs. Colgate might be interested in shedding her cheating hubby.”
“Well, inheriting two million-plus dollars certainly does wonders for a woman’s independence,” Leila said, and chuckled. She picked up her wineglass and swirled the contents around. “She probably has had enough of hubby’s endless string of affairs, if she knows, and I believe every wife knows at some point.”
I remembered the dagger looks Cathy Colgate had thrown in Ulla’s direction. “Do you think Cathy Colgate might have killed Ulla? For revenge?”
“I doubt she cared that much,” Leila said bluntly. “Although … there’s always the ‘kill two birds with one stone’ approach.”
“Which is?”
“Get rid of Ulla and make sure Ken gets blamed for it. My source hinted there was some sort of connection between Cathy Colgate and Ulla, but he wasn’t sure just what, only that the two of them seemed very familiar with each other whenever they’d cross paths.” She put both elbows on the table and leaned forward. “The most interesting tidbit, though, concerns Ulla’s assistant.”
“Savannah Blade?”
Leila nodded. “That new novel Ulla was working on? She’s not the author. Savannah is.”
My fork clattered to the floor. “No! Are you sure?”
“Yes. My source is ninety-nine percent sure. Ulla somehow caught wind that Savannah was writing a book and that the main character was based on her. She managed to get a peek at it and hit the roof. T
hreatened to sue Savannah unless she signed all rights to the manuscript over to her. If you ask me, that’s an excellent motive for murder. Now that Ulla’s dead, Savannah can reclaim ownership and make a mint, with no one to stand in her way.”
I thought about my conversation with Savannah and couldn’t stifle a chuckle. “I think Savannah missed her calling. She should have been an actress.” I related the gist of my conversation with her to Leila.
“There are a few good possibilities here,” Leila said when I’d finished. “But we can’t lose sight of one very important thing—if Ulla’s death was indeed caused by an allergic reaction, then the killer has to be someone who would have been privy to that particular bit of information.” She tapped the spoon on the table. “I was there at the hospital when the doctor told Colgate and company. They all appeared shocked—then again, they could have been acting, but are they really that good?”
“Savannah definitely could be,” I said bluntly. “And as Ulla’s personal assistant, Savannah would have had access to her medical appointments and even her medical history. If what you told me about that book is true, she jumps to the top of my list for sure.”
The waiter set two good-sized plates in front of us, and for a few minutes we busied ourselves eating the delicious mixture of Romaine lettuce, cucumber, and tomato in a light honey mustard dressing. When we finished, Leila leaned forward. “There’s something else to consider. She was venomous toward the staff and hosts in that book of hers, but the small section on hometown feuds is what got to me. You know, it might not have been one of those CNC people at all. There were a gazillion people at Crowden’s, and that back door was wide open. Who’s to say that someone she wronged in the past didn’t sneak in there and somehow do her in?”
“I could see the wheels spinning around in both Will’s and Charlie Callahan’s minds when Wendy Sweeting mentioned something similar,” I admitted. “That’s why I want to get this resolved.”
Leila’s eyes narrowed. “Does this have something to do with your concern about Maggie?”
“Yep.” I related the story of Maggie’s high school connection to Ulla and then pulled out my iPhone and called up the video Sissy had played for me earlier. Leila let out a low whistle when it finished.
“The image is grainy as hell, but it sure looked like Maggie to me,” she admitted. “This thing’s right out in the open on YouTube. Once the police start digging …”
“It’s only a matter of time before they hone in on Maggie. Couple the video and her history with the fact that she’s flown the coop—”
Now Leila’s fork clattered to the floor. “What!”
I showed Leila the text I’d gotten earlier from Maggie. Leila’s brows drew together in a deep frown. “I agree, it doesn’t look good,” she said at last. “But it’s all circumstantial right now.”
“Plenty of people sitting on death row are there because they couldn’t beat circumstantial evidence,” I said tartly.
“Well, what does Kat think? She’s known Maggie quite a while.”
“She thinks I should give her the benefit of the doubt.” I thought about the person I’d seen arguing with Ulla in the hallway. I’d only caught a flash of red, and Maggie had been wearing her red coat in the video, but it didn’t mean that it had been Maggie. Lots of people had red coats. But how many had a history with the victim?
“What about this Miggs person Savannah mentioned?” Leila asked. “Any chance it could have been her?”
“It’s possible,” I said, the corners of my lips drooping down. “I’m just hoping Miggs wasn’t Ulla’s nickname for Maggie.”
“Me too. Then again … maybe it’s not this Miggs at all, whoever she is. Maybe it’s someone else entirely.” She flipped a few more pages in her notebook. “My source had something interesting to say about Ulla’s producer, Wendy Sweeting. Last year she was going to file a lawsuit against Ulla, but the network brass talked her out of it. But I heard that she was thinking of starting it up again. And if she’d gone through with it, there’s a good chance the station might have had to let Ulla go.”
“That’s juicy, but a motive for murder?” I shook my head. “More like one for Ulla murdering Wendy than the other way around.”
“Not if Ulla had some dirt on Wendy that she was using to keep her in line,” suggested Leila. “Wendy might have just gotten sick of it and seen a chance to get rid of the albatross around her neck.”
Conversation came to a halt as the waiter brought our entrees and, thankfully, two more forks. My food smelled delicious, but my appetite had waned considerably from when I’d first sat down. Leila speared a rigatoni with her fork. “How certain are we that Ulla didn’t eat anything at the signing?”
“Not one hundred percent certain. Why?”
“I did some research. Scombrotoxin poisoning has symptoms that mimic an anaphylactic reaction. Only problem with that is, you get it from eating poorly processed oily fish, and it usually takes a short time to develop. So, unless Ulla ate a tuna or a mackerel sandwich shortly before she collapsed … COD is a real puzzle.” Leila popped the rigatoni in her mouth.
“I do remember Ulla taking some aspirin,” I said, pushing my lasagna around on my plate. “I guess someone could have switched out the aspirin or maybe put something in her water. She did freshen her lip gloss right before her attack, so maybe she did eat or drink something. Bottom line—we need to ascertain the exact cause of death. Once we know that, maybe then all the puzzle pieces will fall into place.”
“Good idea, but just how do you propose to do that? You know how Will feels about you investigating in general, plus he’d never share information on an ongoing investigation. And it’s a sure bet Charlie Callahan’s not going to let you anywhere near the coroner’s report.”
“That’s for sure.” I shrugged. “There are other ways to find out that information.”
She paused, rigatoni midway to her lips, and raised a brow. “Yeah? Like what?”
I speared a hunk of lasagna. “Well … how about your friend Krystle? She was very helpful last time.” Leila’s friend worked in the County Lab, and had access to all the medical and coroner reports. She’d come through with flying colors the last time I’d needed info.
Leila made a guttural sound in her throat. “Oh, no. She almost got in big trouble the last time she did me a favor. I would only ask her as a last resort, and even then, I’d have to get on bended knee.”
“No Krystle, huh? Bummer. Well, there’s always Diane.”
“True—if she gets a look at it. Will and Charlie are probably under orders to keep that report under lock and key. Ulla Townsend’s death is big news, you know. Every reporter in a twenty-mile radius would like to get the scoop on what really happened. Myself included.” She forked more rigatoni, chewed, and swallowed before adding, “We’re forgetting another prime motive—money. Who stood to gain monetarily from her death? Savannah with her reinstated book deal, for one. But Ulla was, from all accounts, worth a small fortune. Who inherits that, I wonder?”
I frowned. “That’s a good question. She wasn’t married, had no children … wait!” I snapped my fingers. “I remember Grace mentioned something about a brother. Bart. Bart Beckman.”
Leila whipped out her iPhone and her fingers went flying. A few minutes later she announced, “Yep. The obits listed already. ‘Ulla Townsend is survived by a brother, Bart Beckman of Charleston, South Carolina.’ No other relatives are mentioned. So, unless she left the whole shebang to a charity, maybe brother Bart gets it all.”
“We need to consider his financial state,” I said. “If he’s deeply in debt, and he knew he was her sole beneficiary …” My fingers beat a swift tattoo against the white damask tablecloth. “It’s a pretty safe bet that he’d have known what, if anything, his sister had an allergy to, wouldn’t you think? And at the very least, if he didn’t have something to do with her sudden demise, maybe he’s got some insights on who might have wanted her dead.”
�
�Really? And just who might this insightful person be?”
My head snapped around, and my heart sank as I recognized the man standing beside our table.
Charlie Callahan—and he wasn’t smiling.
Chapter Fourteen
When I’d met Callahan earlier, he’d been pleasant, even affable. There was no semblance of that now as he stared down at me. His brows were drawn together, and the corners of his lips dragged down. I forced a smile to my own lips and said brightly, “Detective Callahan. What a surprise, running into you here.” I glanced around. “Is Will with you?”
“Will’s still at the station,” he said briefly.
I couldn’t resist a dig. “Stuck him with the paperwork, huh?”
“Actually, he volunteered.” His gaze bored into mine. “So, I’m curious. Who’s this insightful person you mentioned?”
I waved my hand in a careless gesture. “Oh, no one you’d be interested in.”
“Oh, I doubt that. I’m sure I’d be greatly interested, particularly if it had anything to do with my case. Does it?”
I caught the proprietary way he said my case, and I frowned. “I’m sorry, did you say your case? I thought you and Will were working this together?”
His face reddened slightly, and he took a step back. “Of course we are. That was just a figure of speech.”
Hah, more like a Freudian slip. I gave him a tight nod and picked up my fork. He said nothing, just stood with his feet planted slightly apart and his hands on his hips. I felt his stare boring into the side of my neck as I pushed some lasagna around on my plate, and it was pretty apparent he didn’t intend to leave anytime soon. After a few moments elapsed, I glanced up and said, “The circumstances of Ulla’s death are odd; you’ve got to admit that. Plenty of people are speculating on it, and that’s exactly what we were doing. Sitting here, having a nice meal, speculating on who might have wanted to see Ulla dead and why. There’s no law against that, now, is there?”
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