Stephanie finished a bite, then shrugged. “Janie’s my aunt’s only daughter. She went to the Kansas City Art Institute in graphic design, went to live in San Francisco for a while, then came back here when our uncle asked her to head up the graphics department for Foster’s. My aunt had a fit, her being on the poor side of the family as I explained to you last week, but Janie said it was the best job she would ever be offered. Janie has a little self-image problem.”
“How much do those sacks of beans cost?” Bonnie asked, knowing none of them would know the answer. “Why would anyone burn up their own inventory?”
“Did you ask the fire department if they had a call?” Heaven said, mouth full.
“Now what a good idea,” Bonnie answered with plenty of sarcasm. “Since I just heard about this fire five minutes ago, I haven’t had a chance to do that but now that you suggested it—” She pulled her cell phone out of the big purse she always carried and walked over to the door to talk privately.
Through all of this bagel eating and reporting, Sal had been busy with a ten-year-old’s haircut, the first cut of the day. Sal had kept an eye on the proceedings through the mirrors on the walls of the barber shop. Now he paused and turned to the three women, his unlit cigar wobbling in the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “So Heaven here hears the brothers talk about how the African guy is ripping them off but we don’t know how. Then Stephanie’s cousin, who works for this outfit, drops the news that some cacao beans was burned for no good reason. How do these two things get us any closer to the killer, that’s what I want to know.”
For a moment, the three women were quiet. Bonnie, who’d been following the conversation as she talked to the fire department, finished her call and put her phone back in her purse. Then they all started talking at once.
“Hush,” Bonnie yelled quickly, and the other two reluctantly stopped talking. “Good question, Sal. That’s why we like to have these think tanks over here at your joint, you ask good questions.” The boy in the barber chair had brought his Walkman and was bouncing along to the Backstreet Boys, oblivious to the adult conversation. Bonnie looked at him to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, then continued talking. “If Oliver was blackmailing or somehow conning the Fosters, that certainly goes on the motive page. Maybe the Fosters burned the cocoa beans themselves to prove a point to him.”
“Or Oliver burned them to prove a point to the Fosters,” Heaven said, excitement in her voice. “Then they were so mad, they strangled him and stuck him in …”
“Their brand new conching machine?” Stephanie said incredulously. “I don’t think so. My uncles may be capable of taking financial advantage of their siblings, maybe—what am I saying, they are capable of that. But they wouldn’t physically do harm, especially with a piece of wire. Ugh. Even if they hit him over the head first so he couldn’t fight, it’s hard for me to see them having the strength to strangle someone.”
“Well, there was a knot on his head so you may have something there. Whoever did it might have knocked him unconscious first. But it also could have been caused by that big thingamajig, the conch gadget, banging into him,” Bonnie said. “I do agree with Steph that the Foster boys seem more like the kind that let their lawyers do the dirty work.” She stood up and checked her phone. “I wonder why the fire captain hasn’t called me back. I am curious about that part of the story.”
“Oh, Janie told me something else I didn’t know about my family. My uncle David is already in town for the holidays. He arrived Thursday,” Stephanie said.
“Just in time to kill Oliver but not in time to be the airship sniper,” Heaven observed, then realized how nonchalant she sounded about Stephanie’s relative.
Bonnie got up. “He could always hire it out. I’ll have to meet your other uncle. But not now. I’m going to be late for my daughter’s soccer game if I don’t get out of here. Sal, lovely of you to have us. Ladies, thanks for the info.”
Heaven stood up too, brushing crumbs from her chef’s jacket. “I have to get to work. They ate us out of house and home last night. Bonnie, I don’t remember you sharing much information with us. Don’t think I didn’t notice that.”
“I’m supposed to be the information gatherer, remember?” Bonnie said as she went out the door.
Stephanie went over to the newspaper on one of the chairs and picked up the front page, the one featuring her photo holding the wire. The angle of the shot hid the actual contents of the machine beside her. “I was wrong about the still photographers being slow.”
Heaven took the paper out of her hand and waved at Sal as she pushed Stephanie out the door. They stood on the sidewalk for a minute. Heaven patted her friend’s arm. “Are you okay?”
Stephanie nodded. “This working for a living is a bitch. We are so busy and I know I have to make money now so I can pay my rent in January and February, but I’m whipped and the busiest day of the week is on top of me and I’m a murder suspect of someone I never saw alive.”
“Stop whining and have a profitable day,” Heaven ordered.
Stephanie nodded. “When I found out Uncle David was in town, at my grandmother’s, I called him and begged him to help. He’s going to work the cash register.”
Heaven was already exiting the bonbon shop. She gave Stephanie a thumbs-up and headed across 39th Street to the café as Stephanie gave her a pitiful wave and then got in her car. Heaven went right in the front door and out the back, stopping just long enough to check the prep list and make sure everyone had come to work that morning. The café wasn’t open for lunch on Saturdays so the kitchen crew was working at a slightly easier pace than on the weekdays. “I have an errand to run,” she said to no one in particular. Everyone looked up and nodded, busy at their stations. She went out the back to her van, jumped in and headed for the Plaza.
While Bonnie, Stephanie and Heaven had been talking over the latest Foster’s Chocolate murder, Heaven had had a brilliant idea about the first one. All of a sudden she remembered an old friend of hers from Kansas had recently moved to one of the big apartment buildings just north of the Plaza’s main drag. He’d moved to the penthouse. Heaven pulled in the circle drive and left the keys in the car.
The doorman, a rare bird in Kansas City, came to the door. “I’d love to see Dale Traver, if he’s home,” Heaven said before he could ask her business.
He opened the foyer up and went to a house phone and dialed. “Who shall I say is calling?”
“Heaven, ah, Katy O’Malley,” Heaven said, using her maiden name for a change. Dale was an antique dealer whom she had met years ago with her parents. He still thought of her as Katy.
The doorman got an answer and in a minute put the phone down. “You can go right up. Top floor,” he said as he opened the inner door and gestured toward the elevators. There was an arrangement of silk flowers in the lobby on a credenza.
“I bet Dale hates these,” Heaven muttered as she touched them lightly as she passed.
When she got to the penthouse level, Dale was standing at the elevator door, waiting to greet her. “What in the world brings you here on a Saturday morning?” he said as he held out his arms and gave her a big hug.
“I guess I can’t just say I was in the neighborhood, can I?”
“Not with any success.” Dale took Heaven’s arm and they went in to the apartment.
“Wow,” Heaven said, truly impressed for a change. The place was gorgeous, full of lovely French nineteenth century furniture mixed with art deco pieces, oriental rugs, and a great collection of old portraits from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The rooms reflected the kind of eclectic taste that Heaven also had, only Dale’s was worked out on a more expensive scale. Dale himself was an elegant silver-haired man, dressed in a Harris tweed sports jacket and dark green corduroy pants.
“Would you like some coffee?” Dale asked, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Yes, but what are you looking at me like that for? You look like the cat that swallowed the canary
,” Heaven said as she went toward a beautiful silver service that just happened to be on the sideboard of the dining room with coffee and a plate of scones sitting nearby.
If he didn’t know I was coming, maybe he was expecting someone else, Heaven thought. Maybe someone else was here. Maybe that’s why he’s smiling so funny. “Dale, were you expecting someone else? Have I interrupted something?”
Dale poured her a cup. “You take cream, no sugar, right?” He handed her the cup and slipped a tiny scone and a chocolate truffle on the saucer. “You’re sure full of questions. Let’s take them in order. I was smiling at you because I have a feeling you’re investigating one of your famous cases. I can just feel it. I look like the cat that swallowed the canary because I have a feeling you’re going to ask for my help. No, I wasn’t expecting anyone and you didn’t interrupt a thing except me reading the Star, which didn’t take long. I use my silver and my good china all the time. I’m not getting any younger and I’m not saving them for a special occasion. I enjoy using my beautiful things.” He sat down on a big, down-filled couch and patted a place next to him. “Now, what is it? An antiques scam of some kind?”
Heaven sat down and hoped she wouldn’t disappoint Dale, since she had no antique scam to consult about. “Do you remember last Sunday, when the blimp crashed and the pilot was shot?”
Dale shook his head sadly. “Kids with guns. I tell you, how that Charlton Heston can hold up his head when these kids go around shooting off these high-powered rifles in the heart of town, killing their classmates and now, some poor airship pilot.”
Heaven perked up. “What makes you think it was a kid? Did you see anyone?”
“No, that’s just a grumpy old man talking, Katy. I was going to an afternoon performance of the Nutcracker Ballet last Sunday with some friends and I got caught up in the traffic jam that happened after the shooting and was twenty minutes late.”
“Oh,” Heaven said with disappointment in her voice, “so you weren’t here. I thought… Let me tell you what I thought. This is a pretty high building and I thought maybe you saw someone going up on the roof. They’d have to have come up this way, wouldn’t they?”
“You think a sniper used this building to pick off the Foster’s Blimp?” Dale said with barely concealed excitement.
“But I guess you didn’t see anything, before you left for the ballet?” Heaven asked again.
“No, dear, no one came up here with a deer rifle and camo gear. The only person I remember was a Santa Claus photographer, waiting for the elevator when I came down.”
Alarms went off in Heaven’s head. “Wait a minute. Someone in a Santa suit was waiting for the elevator to go up? How do you know he was a photographer?”
“He had two cameras around his neck and one of those big silver Halliburton suitcases that photographers use,” Dale said with a slight amount of pique in his tone. He knew a photographer when he saw one.
“You didn’t happen to talk to him, did you?”
“I said something like, ‘Oh, I suppose someone’s having a child’s Christmas party,’ and he smiled and nodded and got on the elevator. Nice idea, having a Santa that also takes photos of the little ones,” Dale said.
“So you never actually heard the Santa talk? And you don’t have any idea what floor he was headed for, do you?”
“No, but I know almost everyone in the building. Do you want me to ask around?”
Heaven got up and popped the last bite of the truffle in her mouth. “Would you, please, Dale?”
He stood up and gave that cute smile again. “Are you working with the police on this, or is it your own investigation?”
“My friend Bonnie Weber in the police department is heading this case, and also the death that happened at the Foster’s factory yesterday. I just happened to be around when both of the, uh, incidents occurred,” Heaven said as she walked toward the door with her arm intertwined with Dale’s. “I think she sent uniforms around to all these buildings after the blimp was shot down. But you weren’t home to tell them about the mysterious camera-toting Santa.”
“Well, I don’t know how mysterious he was but I’m glad to be part of Heaven’s G-men.” Dale chuckled and gave Heaven a peck on both cheeks, European style.
“I’m sure this will be a waste of your time. I’d go with you up and down the halls but I’ve got to get back to work. We have lots of reservations tonight.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I have plenty of time to waste. But Katy, or Heaven as you call yourself now, from what I’ve read and what you’ve said, someone is either out to make trouble for Foster’s, or it could be to make trouble for you.”
“Don’t be silly. It was just a coincidence that I was around both times.” She hoped she sounded convincing. The thought that it was directed at her had crossed her mind. She’d dismissed it, of course, as paranoid thinking. Not everything bad that happened in Kansas City was about her.
Wow,” Joe Long said as he walked into Heaven’s kitchen/living room. “Good tree.”
“I know. Hank got it last Sunday, not at the last minute like I usually do because I’m feeling conflicted about using up our natural resources for my own pleasure. He told me that particular tree was grown to be consumed, just like a carrot. He was very persuasive.” Heaven was looking around for her bag and coat.
“How Zen, I think,” Joe said. “What are you looking for?”
“My coat and stuff. I was so tired last night when I got home I just threw them down.” She was doubled over the back of a couch, butt up, pulling on the sleeve of a bright yellow down-filled long coat that had slid on the floor. “And after that I threw myself down on this couch and watched the Christmas tree until I fell asleep, which didn’t take very long. My coat must have slipped over the edge.” She pulled a faux python bag big enough to live out of for a weekend from the same spot as the coat, then stood up and got bundled up. “I was worn out. We were busy.”
Joe nodded. “Thank God. I made two hundred dollars last night and not a moment too soon. I haven’t bought one gift yet. After this contest, and of course, after we eat something, I think I’ll go shop for an hour or so. I’m sure it won’t take that long to spend two hundred bucks. Where’s Hank and how come you slept on the couch?”
“Hank, being the mensch that he is, is working all weekend in the emergency room so some doctor friend of his can get married. I didn’t sleep there all night, just until three or so when I woke up and went up to bed.”
Joe smiled. “It’s funny hearing you use that Jewish word for a Vietnamese American Catholic. But it’s certainly appropriate. Hank is the nicest guy.”
“I know. I don’t deserve him,” Heaven said as she locked the door and followed Joe to his rusted out pickup truck. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”
“No, it’s my friend and her body building contest and it’s already cost you one evening and a hefty bar tab on the house. At least let me drive and pay for breakfast, or brunch or whatever.”
“What time is the contest?” Heaven asked.
“Noon in the first floor of the building with the movie theaters upstairs that used to be called Seville Square. A tacky mall atmosphere if you ask me, but I guess they were able to get the Plaza to pay for some advertising for the body builders. The Santa contest that was postponed from last week is going on in the same space after the body builders so it should be a real visual circus. I hope none of the Santa contestants are also in the body building contest.”
“Well, that would be a stretch, since the body building is for women and the Santas are men.”
Joe wagged his finger. “It’s the twenty-first century and I’m sure there’ll be some women in the Santa contest. And you saw those muscley women. Except for the Santa belly, some of them could pass.”
“Yeah, what am I thinking? Your friend’s gender was challenged. How did that turn out anyway? I felt sorry for her. It was kind of humiliating.”
Joe pulled into an empty space in the
parking garage near the building they were headed for. “I felt sorry for Kathy too,” he said. “She took her lover’s death real hard last year and she put her energy into this body building. It was something they did together so it means a lot to her. All I know about that gender test is she called and said she was cleared to be in the competition and would love it if you and I could be there to cheer her on. I think she might have a little crush on you. You were so nice to her the other night.”
“Well, if she mentions a little crush to you, I’m depending on you to nip it in the bud. Just tell her what a die-hard hetero I am.”
Joe laughed. “I’ll just tell her about all of your husbands.”
“By the way, how did you and Kathy meet?”
“At my gay and lesbian consciousness raising group,” Joe said sheepishly. He knew Heaven thought too much introspection was dumb.
“Oh, brother. I’m sorry I asked,” Heaven chuckled.
They hurried across the street to a three-story building. Housing a movie theater, the building also had a large enclosed space bordered with shops. This indoor plaza was the site for various concerts and personal appearances of soap stars and the like. Today it was crowded with the participants and fans of the body builders and Santas.
When they joined the crowd, the contest was already underway. A group of nine women, Kathy included, lined up on a temporary stage with a small catwalk. They were wearing bikinis and lots of oil and one by one, they stepped front and center and flexed their arms to the applause of the crowd.
Heaven was more interested in the Santas, who were slowly showing up around the stage to watch the first contest of the day. She studied each bewhiskered face, still working on the theory of a Santa being the shooter last Sunday.
She knew if a Santa had done in the airship, the chances of him coming back in costume this Sunday were slim. But she also knew lots of these nuts got off on flaunting themselves in the face of authority, putting themselves in dangerous situations, so maybe the shooter had come back dressed as Santa this Sunday, just to make it more fun.
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