by Cindy Brown
Then I saw him really see me. His eyes gleamed, just for a second. I recognized the look. I’d been getting it all my life. It was the “no one to seriously contend with” look. I was female, cute, and not particularly serious-looking (or serious-acting, I had to admit): thus, the dismissive look. It used to piss me off royally—until I learned to use it.
“I’m Olive Ziegwart with Duda Detectives,” I said, making my voice higher and softer than usual. I held out a delicate hand.
“Colonel Carl Marks at your service, ma’am,” he said, taking my hand. I made sure to keep it limp as he shook it.
I dug in my purse for the black notebook I used for work, then decided to switch to a sparkly one I’d picked up at the dollar store. “Colonel…” I said, pen in hand, eyes wide with a question.
“Carl with a C,” he said. “And Marks is spelled M-A-R-K-S.”
“Interesting name.” I wondered if the bimbo I was role-playing would know the father of communism, but couldn’t help myself.
“Yours too,” he said. “Olive Ziegwart with Doodoo Detectives.” He gave me the same grin he’d given to Bitsy a few hours earlier, his trim mustache spreading like a caterpillar going for a walk.
“Duda,” I said. “My Uncle Bob’s last name. I help him out from time to time.”
“I see.” Carl didn’t even try to hide the patronizing look on his face. “Come on in.” He led me down the tile hallway. “Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or a smoothie?”
I made the more bimbo-y choice. “A smoothie would be fabulous.” I slipped the notebook back into my purse, stuck my pen behind my ear and followed him into the living room, where I stopped dead.
“Wow,” I said in my real voice.
Carl didn’t notice the change. “Yeah, people usually say that when they see this room.”
I bet they did. A black leather sofa and chairs sat upon a black slate floor surrounded by black walls and topped off with, yep, a black ceiling. Giant mirrors took the place of artwork and the biggest flat screen I had ever seen took up almost an entire wall. An ocean scene played on the screen: small silvery fish darted amongst coral while a shark swam lazy circles around them.
“Cheri?” Carl shouted in the direction of the open kitchen where I could see Ms. Yoga Pants opening the fridge. “Would you make an extra smoothie for Ms. Ziegwart here?”
“Sure,” she said. Then to me, “Hemp milk okay?”
“Great,” I replied, even though I wasn’t crazy about the stuff.
“Hey!” she shouted over the whir of the blender. “I have a question for you, since you’re a detective and all.”
“Okay.”
Carl waved me toward a chair that faced the back of the house, where big windows framed a patio and pool.
“Hemp. That’s pot, right?” Cheri said as she poured the brown sludgy liquid into glasses.
“Hon, we’ve been over this,” said Carl.
“But it’s the same plant, right? Right?” She aimed the last “right” at me as she walked toward us, a tall glass in her hand.
“Umm…” I said, trying to figure out if I was being put on.
“So why isn’t hemp milk illegal?” She set the smoothie down on the black glass coffee table in front of us.
“What a kidder!” said Carl, swatting Cheri on the ass. She shook her head at him, and padded back to the kitchen to get her smoothie. Carl reached into a jeans pocket, pulled out a piece of gum, and popped it in his mouth. Ah, the chewing noise over the phone.
I leaned forward to get my drink, dipping my head just enough that my pen flew out from its place behind my ear. “Dang. Did you see where my pen flew to?” I bent over the edge of the couch, and peered at the floor by Carl’s feet, pursuing my own little investigative theory.
“Here you go,” said Carl, handing the pen back to me.
“Thanks,” I said, facing him now and meeting his eyes. “So why all black?”
“It’s Cheri’s favorite color.” He smiled and chewed his gum at the same time.
“Is not,” said Cheri, who now carried her smoothie in one hand and a shivering Chihuahua in the other. She nodded at Carl. “He’s the one who likes black.” She and the dog headed out the sliding glass door to the pool.
“Me too,” I said to Carl. “It’s slimming.” I sipped my smoothie, which was cool and chocolaty, but still not exactly delicious. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“Anything I can do to help, ma’am,” he said. “You’re looking into Charlie’s death?”
“That’s right.” I set down my smoothie and took my sparkly notebook out of my bag again. Outside, I saw Cheri slip out of her clothes. She ambled, buck naked, toward the diving board. Two thoughts wrestled for control of my mind:
1: This was one strange household.
2: I would drink hemp milkshakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I could be guaranteed a figure like that.
The colonel followed my gaze. “Oh.” He grinned and snapped his gum appreciatively as he watched Cheri dive into the pool. “We’re ‘clothing optional’ at home. Hope you don’t mind.”
I shook my head. Thanks to shared dressing rooms and quick changes backstage, the sight of unclothed people didn’t bother me. I took another sip of my smoothie. Though it was growing on me, I decided against a diet of hemp milkshakes. I’d miss bacon.
“So, Charlie’s death…” said Carl. Was he chewing his gum a little faster?
“Yes.” I gave him a bimbo-like smile to cover the fact that I was employing Uncle Bob’s waiting game.
He didn’t bite. “What would you like to know?”
“What can you tell me?” I said, trying the answer-a-question-with-a-question game.
“Not much. Sad situation. Killed himself, despondent over the death of his wife, I guess. I saw the police and fire trucks at his house that morning, but nothing else.”
“About what time was that?”
“Maybe oh-six-hundred hours.”
“Did you see or hear anything else that morning, or the evening before?”
“No, nothing unusual.”
I was afraid I was beginning to sound like a real detective so I mixed it up. “This house, it’s not like the rest of Sunnydale.” I made my voice go up at the end of the statement so it sounded like a question.
“No.” Carl sat up straight with misplaced pride. “None of that old-fogey stuff for us. We wouldn’t have moved here if we couldn’t have something new. There are just a few of these beauties around. This was the first of them. We snapped it up as soon as it came on the market.”
“When was that?”
“About a year ago.”
“It’s beautiful.” I gazed around the scary black room with a rapt look on my face. Being an actor was handy when it came to detecting. I made a mental note to tell Uncle Bob. I brought my eyes back to Carl’s face. “How did you know Mr. Small?”
“He was my neighbor, obviously. And I used to be his insurance agent.”
“Used to be?”
“I’m retired.” He looked at me with flat, dark brown eyes.
“So you knew him before you moved here a year ago?”
“…No. Met him right before I retired.” I caught a faint flicker in those guarded eyes.
I looked directly at Carl, intentionally letting the bimbo mask slip. “Did Charlie have any policies with you?”
“You know, I think he did.” He definitely sped up his chewing gum tempo.
I stared at Carl until he fidgeted. “What type of insurance?” I said in my real voice.
“I can’t remember exactly.” He tugged the collar of his t-shirt. This guy really needed acting lessons.
“I see. Well, I’m sure I’ll be able to find the policies.” I rose, enjoying the “what the hell just happened” look on his face. Carl stood.
�
�I’ll let myself out.” I walked down the hall. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Marks.”
“It’s Colonel.”
I knew that.
CHAPTER 16
I did not like Colonel Carl Marks. It had nothing to do with the fact that I distrusted men with mustaches. It wasn’t his too-young wife with the perfect body and belly ring. It wasn’t even the fact that he’d painted an entire room black. It was his eyes.
Carl’s eyes weren’t windows to his soul. They were locked doors and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what occupied the rooms beyond. I’d watched his eyes as he talked, to look for the lies. If Uncle Bob’s theory held water, Carl looked me in the eye when he lied. Cheri had outed the first one, about black being her favorite color. I couldn’t figure out why he lied about it. Habit, maybe? And Carl looked directly at me two more times: once when he said he was retired, and again when he said he didn’t know which policies Charlie had with him. Plus he chewed his gum faster and played with his clothes. Yep, pretty sure he was lying both times.
Why? As I pondered this on my walk back to Bernice’s house, I got a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Something wasn’t right. I slowed my pace and concentrated on my surroundings: wide streets, cactus gardens, and…a flash of red in Arnie’s spy sunglass mirrors. A red convertible about a block behind me, going way too slow. Following me.
The prickly feeling invaded the rest of my body, while my mind flipped through options. I could call someone. I could knock on someone’s door. I could run back to Bernice’s house. Or…
I turned and waved at the car. “Hi!” I shouted. “What’s the matter? Doesn’t your car go any faster?”
The Ferrari convertible revved its engine and zoomed past me, Carl at the wheel. I fumbled around in my purse for a pen to write down the license plate number. Dang. Must have left it at the colonel’s house. Bernice’s pen-filled house was still a few blocks away
“D…OD…one five six eight.” I sang to the tune of “Do Re Mi.” Why was Carl following me? It must be something to do with Charlie. His insurance policy?
“D…OD…one five six eight,” I sang the license plate number again. I learned this musical memorization trick in high school, when I had to learn the table of periodic elements while I was also in a production of Oklahoma! My science teacher was so impressed with my method that he used it himself. I’m very proud of the fact that students all over Arizona now sing the elements to the tune of “The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top.”
“D…OD…one five six eight.”
“Or ‘Dough, the bucks, the rent I owe,’” sang a voice behind me. I turned to see Roger in a t-shirt and shorts that showed off his muscled legs. “Your turn,” he said.
“Ray, the landlord that I hate,” I joined in, keeping one eye out for that red Ferrari.
“Me, the one who foots the bills,” Roger chimed back in. In The Sound of Cabaret, this song was all about us Vaughn Katt Dancers being down on our luck.
“Fa, a—”
“I think you have the words wrong,” said a gray-haired lady who was walking her schnauzer.
“No, it’s The Sound of Cabaret, a brand new musical.” Roger took the opportunity to put his arm around me. “Captain Vaughn Katt and Teasel the dancer at your service. Come see the show at Desert Dinner Theatre. It opens on Friday.”
The lady waved over her shoulder as her determined dog pulled her away. “Sounds nice.”
“Maybe she’ll bring her bridge club,” Roger said to me, his arm still draped around my shoulder.
“If her dog lets her.” The lady’s schnauzer charged ahead of her, like a mustachioed general on a mission. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” I spoke metaphorically, since there was not a tree to be seen unless you counted palm trees. Which I did not.
“Just out for a run.” Roger released me, thank heavens, then stood on one leg, bent his other behind him and grabbed it, as if to punctuate his point. “The theater puts me up in a nice little townhouse over on Lee Trevino Court. It’s about a mile away.” He stretched the other leg. “What were you singing?”
“A license plate.” Should I tell Roger I was being followed? No. He might hug me or something. “I better go write it down.”
“What time should I come over for pool duty and dinner?”
“We’d better do dinner tomorrow. Keith called an extra music rehearsal later this afternoon.”
“Just for you?’
“What? No.” At least I hoped not. “He said it was for all of us non-union types.” Equity rules put a cap on union actors’ hours. The theater could ask the rest of us to rehearse 24/7.
“Are you worried?”
“Nah,” I lied.
“The theater will start serving meals on Thursday,” Roger said.
“Yay. I’d forgotten about that.” Free food was one of the perks of dinner theater and was especially exciting to those of us who ate beans three times a week.
“So as far as our dinner for pool arrangements…” Oh please, God, he had to take care of the pool. “Why don’t you just feed me on our nights off?” Arghh. After the show opened on Friday, we’d have just Monday and Tuesday nights off. Only two nights a week, and I wanted to keep them open for Jeremy. My discomfort must have showed, because Roger said, “I’m sure we can work something out. See you in a few hours.” He jogged away.
I watched him for a moment, legs pumping, white running shoes flashing. Something tugged at the corners of my mind. Jogging? Legs? Shoes! That was another thing that bugged me about Colonel Carl. His shoes.
Uncle Bob has his eye theory—I have a shoe theory. I believe a person’s footwear provides a plethora of clues. Take me, for example. You could pretty much get an idea of my age (twenties) and income (not much) by looking at my usual footwear: Dollar Store flip-flops. You could also tell that I lived in a hot sunny place (the bottoms were slightly melted from walking on hot asphalt) and that I walked with the weight on the outside of my feet (the edges of my flip flops were smooshed more than the rest of the shoe). I had pretended to drop my pen so I could get a good look at Carl’s shoes. They were white athletic shoes, pretty new, not a scuff on them. They were also made by Gucci and cost more than the theater paid me for a week. Those shoes, the enormous flat screen TV, and the Ferrari added up to more than a mid-life crisis. How much money did insurance agents make, anyway?
CHAPTER 17
“Wanna take a trip?” my brother asked over the phone.
I sat at my dressing room counter putting on makeup before rehearsal. Or trying to put on makeup. Those of us who had to attend the extra afternoon rehearsal had a really short dinner break before tonight’s full-fledged rehearsal, so Arnie had brought in pizza. I was finding it difficult to apply lipstick over pizza-greased lips.
“Sure,” I said. “As long as I—”
“Don’t have rehearsal.” Cody finished my sentence. He knew me all too well. “Matt says Candy doesn’t. It’s tomorrow.”
“Where are we going?” I scrubbed off my oily lipstick and tried again.
“It’s a secret. Meet us at the house at…” He stopped. “When are we going tomorrow?” Cody shouted into the phone. I pulled my cell away from my ear. I could still hear him, even holding the phone a good two feet away. “Matt says to meet us at noon.”
“Okay. Later, gator.”
“In a while, crocodile,” said Cody.
I hung up, finished getting into costume and makeup, and crossed my fingers about tonight’s rehearsal.
I should have crossed all my toes too. My singing was passable, but someone had tattled on Hailey, who was now forbidden to feed Marge lines. In her first scene, Marge walked onstage and smiled at the huddle of nuns. And smiled. And smiled. Opened her mouth, and…nada. Shut it again and smiled, tighter than before. When it became obvious Marge was not going to say her first line, Keith star
ted up the music, the nuns skipped the beginning of the scene and Bitsy launched right into, “How do you solve a problem like a nightclub?”
Marge’s performance did not get any better. The cast and crew were on pins and needles the entire night.
After rehearsal, as I passed Marge’s dressing room, I heard Arnie’s voice from within: “C’mon, doll, this is…”
“This is CRAP!” Marge could probably be heard in the front of the theater.
I felt sorry for everyone involved. We only had one more rehearsal without an audience. Then preview on Thursday and opening on Friday. The show wouldn’t work unless Marge’s memory improved overnight—or Arnie replaced her.
“I’ll get them, OKAY? I’ll get my EFFIN’ LINES!”
I scurried out the stage door. A red convertible drove slowly past the parking lot.
“Ready?” I jumped at the voice at my elbow.
“Sorry,” Roger said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
The convertible was nowhere in sight. Was it Carl? Too dark to tell.
I turned to Roger. “No worries. I’m just jumpy because it’s…late.” I never was good at improv.
“Let’s get at that pool then.”
“I thought since I couldn’t cook you dinner—”
“I’ll take a rain check. You can’t let pools go, you know.”
The health department shut down the pool at my apartment building last summer after it had turned lime Jell-O green. “Right,” I said. “Follow me.”
I was actually glad Roger was coming over. I kinda wanted someone with me.
When we got to Bernice’s, Roger pulled his white Audi into the drive next to my VW.
“Nice car,” I said as he got out.
“It’s Arnie’s. It’s something, huh?” The car alarm tweeted as he locked it remotely.
“Arnie loaned you his car?”