by Laura Durham
“What do you mean?” I went to check that the door had closed all the way.
“You don’t give him any encouragement at all. How is he supposed to know that you like him?”
“I don’t like him.” I tried not to raise my voice. I didn’t want Reese to overhear.
“Sure you don’t, Annie.” Richard came over and put an arm around me. “You always blush when you speak to a man.”
“Why not tease him a little?” Kate walked across the room twisting her hips from side to side. “Like I do.”
“I don’t think tease is an accurate description for what you do,” Richard muttered.
Kate made a face at him. “Then it’ll work perfectly for Annabelle.”
“I’m not going to tease the poor guy, so you two can forget about it.”
“Fine, have it your way.” Kate walked back to us minus the twist. “People will start talking about the wedding planner who can’t find a husband for herself.”
“I’m not searching for a husband.” My face got warm again. “I don’t want to settle for someone just for the sake of getting married.”
“I didn’t say you had to settle,” Kate said. “But don’t you want to plan your own wedding one day?”
“Why would Annie need to get married when she has us?” Richard winked at me. If he meant this to be comforting, it didn’t work. I thought about what Kate had said and wondered if I should stop focusing on work. Everyone else in the world was getting married. At least it seemed that way to me. My phone began singing and I pulled it out of my purse, glancing at the number on the caller ID. Kimberly Kinkaid. I hoped she wasn’t calling about pinning flower petals to the grass again.
“Hi, Kimberly. What can I do for you?”
“What do I do with my purse during the reception?”
I could feel my eye begin to twitch. “What do you mean?”
“Should I put it on the table or under my chair?” Hysteria began to creep into her voice. “What is proper wedding etiquette?”
I was sure Emily Post didn’t have a section in her book on purse placement. I tried not to sound irritated. “It’s fine to put it next to your chair.”
I could hear her let out a deep breath on the other end of the phone. “Okay. I can check that off my list now.”
Detective Reese stuck his head back in the door. “Mr. Gerard, I just remembered something.”
“I’ve got to run, Kimberly,” I whispered into the phone and then dropped it back in my purse.
Richard raised a hand to his mock turtleneck. “Yes, Detective?”
“I left a message on your voice mail earlier, but I’ll go ahead and save you the trouble. We finished analyzing all your equipment and testing the food from the wedding. It’s clear that the poison came from a source unrelated to your food, so we gave the go ahead for you to reopen your business.”
“Thank you, Detec . . .”
“In light of Mr. Boyd’s murder, though, you can disregard that message.”
My mouth fell open. “You’re sure he was murdered?”
“We’re sure. We’ll focus our investigation on the obvious . . . the soup.”
“Mr. Boyd was poisoned, too?” Kate gulped.
Reese closed the door without another word. So much for our inside source. Richard turned slowly to face me.
“This is all your fault.” He jabbed a finger at my nose. “I’m not listening to any more of your brilliant ideas.”
“Calm down, Richard.”
“I will not calm down. I’m going to end up in prison. I’ll spend the rest of my days cooking in the prison cafeteria for people called Tommy One Thumb and Sammy the Weasel.”
“You’re not going to be arrested.” I dodged his finger, which came closer and closer to my face. “Your soup had nothing to do with Mr. Boyd’s murder. If he was poisoned, it must have happened before he arrived home. Maybe someone slipped something into his drink at work.”
“Stop trying to figure it out.” The vein on the side of Richard’s head pulsed. “That’s how we got into this mess in the first place.”
“If I recall correctly, you were just as into solving Mrs. Pierce’s murder as I was.”
Kate tried to get between us. “She’s right, Richard. We both made the decision to try to find Clara’s killer.”
Richard marched to the door. “If I hear one more word about anyone trying to solve anything, there will be more than two bodies for the police to worry about.”
He slammed the door behind him, and Kate turned to me. “He really got his toes out of joint, didn’t he?”
Chapter 20
So, did the same person kill Mrs. Pierce and Mr. Boyd?” Kate slowed as we reached the front of my building and looked over her shoulder. The small market across the street had closed, and the streets were dark and quiet.
“It seems too coincidental for both of them to die within days of each other.” I found my keys and opened the heavy front door. The tiny foyer held a silver grid of mailboxes and the staircase. No room in Georgetown for a fancy lobby. I checked my mailbox quickly and put a finger to my lips. “Don’t make any noise. I saw the lights on in Leatrice’s apartment.”
We started tiptoeing up the stairs, and Leatrice appeared in the hall.
“Don’t worry about disturbing me, Annabelle.” Leatrice wore a brightly colored peasant dress and what appeared to be a red tissue paper flower in her hair. “Just watching an old episode of Murder, She Wrote.”
“Sorry to be in such a hurry.” I didn’t stop climbing. “We’ve had a long night. We’re too tired and hungry to stop.”
“Not a problem, dear. I’ll tell you what. I’ll order us a pizza, and you can tell me all about your night.” Before I could protest, she’d run back into her apartment, and I could hear her on the phone.
“This is the perfect end to an already horrible night.” I bent forward and dangled my arms over the railing.
“If she’s buying, I can put up with a little chatter for a while.” Kate shrugged. “It’ll be like being on a bad date.”
I managed a smile. “You always know how to put a positive spin on things. At least we won’t have to worry about her trying for a good-night kiss.”
“I’m not so sure. She seems to like you an awful lot, Annabelle.”
Leatrice bounced out of her apartment and pulled the door shut. “The pizza will be here in twenty minutes.” She held up a kitchen timer. “If they’re late, it’s free.”
I led the way upstairs with Kate behind me, and with Leatrice and her ticking timer bringing up the rear. If only I could tag Leatrice with one of these, I thought, then I’d always hear her coming. I pushed open the door to my apartment and let Kate and Leatrice walk in first.
“Good heavens!” Leatrice dropped her timer and the buzzer went off prematurely. Richard stood in the middle of the living room in a pair of purple silk drawstring pajama bottoms and nothing else. He had a trim waist any woman would covet, and I couldn’t help wondering if he waxed his chest or if his skin was really that smooth.
Richard flung his arms over his bare torso. “It’s considered polite to knock before barging into a room.”
“It’s my living room,” I protested. “I wasn’t aware I had to knock.”
Richard picked his pale-green angora blanket off the floor and wrapped it around his chest. “I thought it would be easier to stay here tonight and move my things in the morning.”
“You don’t have to leave.” I tried not to sound exasperated.
Richard pulled the blanket up to his neck. “When I’m around you, bad things happen to me.”
“I’m sorry I got you in trouble, Richard. But listen, Kate and I have figured out how someone could’ve murdered Mr. Boyd before he came home.”
“Murder?” Leatrice sounded excited.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Richard let the blanket slide back down to his waist. “Let me guess. You’ve concocted a brilliant plan to catch the real killer by throwi
ng a brunch that, of course, I’ll cater. We’ll assemble all the suspects and then they’ll all start dropping dead. Poisoned, naturally.”
I rolled my eyes. “I see that you’re still upset.”
“Why would I be upset?” Richard shrieked. “I’m only under suspicion for murder for the second time in one week. Both your clients, I might add.”
“Things seem bad now,” I said, “but you’ll be cleared in this death just like you were for the last one.”
“Not another word!” Richard pursed his lips and held his palm up to me. He turned to Kate and Leatrice and gave a dignified bow. As dignified as you could be with an angora throw wrapped around you. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies. I’m going to bed.”
“Come on, Richard. We’ve ordered a pizza.” Kate picked up Leatrice’s timer and handed it to her. Leatrice just stared at Richard with her mouth agape.
“No, thank you. I’ll be on the bedroom floor trying to get some sleep before the police come and drag me away.” Richard flounced off down the hall.
Leatrice took my hand and squeezed it. “I don’t think things are going to work out with this one, dear.”
“He’ll get over it.” Kate dropped onto the couch. “You know what they say . . .”
“Don’t, Kate. I can’t handle anything else being murdered tonight, even words.”
“What kind of fight did you have?” Leatrice asked.
“Not a fight, exactly.” I sat down next to Kate. “He blames me for getting him in trouble with the police.”
“The police? Did you see that cute detective again?” Leatrice seemed torn between her love of mysteries and her need to find me a husband.
“Yes, Detective Reese happened to be at the scene of the crime.” Did everybody I know have a one-track mind?
“The scene of the murder, you mean?” Leatrice’s whole face lit up, then she squeezed my hand. “That detective is just the type of man you need, Annabelle.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks so,” Kate said to Leatrice. The doorbell came to my rescue.
Leatrice frowned at her broken timer. “I think they took more than twenty minutes, but I can’t prove it.”
I got the idea Leatrice ate a lot of free pizza.
“I’ll get drinks for all of us.” I walked to the kitchen while Leatrice paid.
“Don’t bother.” Kate took a six-pack of Coke from the delivery man.
“I ordered drinks, too,” Leatrice said. “I’ve seen the inside of your refrigerator, remember?”
Kate cleared a space on the coffee table for the pizza and drink cans while I brought a stack of Liz and James cocktail napkins from the kitchen and passed them around. Leatrice handed me a steaming slice of pizza, its trails of cheese hanging underneath like loose string. I inhaled the intoxicating scent of the pizza and my stomach growled. I thought back to the last pizza I’d tasted at a client’s wedding. Thin, the size of a silver dollar, topped with goat cheese and frisee. I took a bite of the gooey sausage-and-green-pepper pie and sighed. Now, that was more like it.
“You were telling me about your run-in with the police,” Leatrice reminded me, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.
“One of our clients died tonight at a tasting Richard did for us.” I tried to talk through a mouthful of cheese.
“Another client?”
“You make it sound like they’ve been dropping left and right.”
“Well, they have been,” Leatrice said a little too cheerily. “How did this one die?”
“It appears to be poison, again.” I popped open a can of Coke and took a sip, the fizzy drink tickling my nose. “Unfortunately, that means that they’re looking at Richard’s soup as the cause of death.”
“He blames Annabelle because she came up with the idea to do the tasting in the first place.” Kate picked at a blob of cheese stuck on the inside of the pizza box. “That’s why he’s madder than a wet pen.”
Leatrice nodded at Kate with a puzzled expression on her face.
I barreled on. “I don’t think the death had anything to do with our tasting. I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“It doesn’t look too good to be involved in back-to-back murders.” Leatrice pressed her eyebrows together. “That’s an awfully big coincidence.”
“We’re aware of that, Leatrice,” I said.
Kate turned to me. “I think you’re right though. Mr. Boyd had such a violent reaction to the poison it must have been something strong. Something that toxic would have smelled so bad he wouldn’t have eaten it.”
Leatrice’s face lit up. “If he was poisoned sometime before the tasting, it could have happened to take effect after he ate the soup. Do you know where he was before he came home?”
“When we looked in his day planner, I didn’t look at today’s schedule.” Kate shook her head. “I focused on what he did the week of the wedding.”
Leatrice dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “Were you girls snooping around?”
“Just a bit,” Kate admitted. “We thought this guy who died might have been the person who killed our first client, so we were looking for clues.”
“Don’t you remember, Kate?” I snapped my fingers. “Mr. Boyd had a doctor’s appointment right before he came home. My money says he reacted to something he was given then.”
Kate threw her pizza crust back in the box. “Why would his doctor poison him?”
Leatrice picked up Kate’s crust. “Is he with an HMO?”
Kate and I both gave Leatrice a look.
She shrugged. “Well, that would explain it, dears.”
“Maybe his doctor didn’t poison him,” Kate said. “Lots of people have reactions to medicines.”
I dropped my half-eaten slice onto the table. “What if the doctor thought that Mrs. Pierce told Boyd something she shouldn’t have? There are two doctors I can think of who might have benefited from Mrs. Pierce’s death.”
“What are the chances that Boyd goes to one of them?” Kate leaned back on the couch.
Leatrice didn’t blink. “Who?”
“It’s worth checking out,” Kate said as if she’d read my mind.
“Dr. Pierce and Dr. Harriman.” I tossed my balled-up cocktail napkin in the pizza box. “The husbands.”
Chapter 21
I’m leaving you, Annabelle.” Richard stood in the doorway of my bedroom. “I’ve packed up my things in the kitchen, so your apartment is back to normal.”
I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes. “You’re not still mad about last night?” Everything that happened at the Boyd’s house rushed back to me. If only it had been a bad dream.
“About the murder you managed to make me the chief suspect for?”
I managed a weak laugh. “I’m sure Reese wasn’t serious about that.”
“Right, Annabelle. Policemen always joke around at crime scenes. It’s part of their charm.” Richard turned on his heel and stomped down the hall. I jumped out of bed to follow him.
“Come on, Richard,” I begged. “Don’t leave like this.”
“You’re clearly insane if you think I’m going to stick around and get sucked into another harebrained idea that might get me killed—or worse—sent to prison.”
“How could I predict that Boyd would drop dead? This isn’t my fault.”
Richard flung open the door. “Your idea to do the tasting. Your fault.”
“Not my idea to serve soup,” I said under my breath.
“I heard that, Annabelle.” Richard rolled up the sleeves of his yellow linen shirt in precise folds. “The soup tasted divine. I sampled it myself.”
“See? The soup couldn’t have been poisoned.” I hid behind the door in my tattered red flannel pajamas. Not something I wanted anyone to see.
“Try telling it to the police. On second thought, don’t tell anything to the police.”
“Maybe I could convince them that you had nothing to do with Mr. Boyd’s death if we proved that he’d already been p
oisoned when he ate the . . .”
“Stop right there.” Richard put his arms out like someone bracing for impact. “Don’t talk to the police. As a matter of fact, don’t talk to anyone. Especially me. Don’t call me. Don’t write me.”
I sighed. “Richard, you’re being ridiculous.”
He bent to pick up a box. “If it’s ridiculous to want to go one day without being accused of murder, then I’m guilty as charged. You’re a trouble magnet. Stay away from me.” Richard marched to the top of the stairs and tossed his head back. “Good-bye forever, Annabelle.”
I felt as if I were stuck in a gothic novel.
“Come on.” I ran after him as he disappeared down the stairs. “Don’t go away mad.”
Richard sniffed. “I’m going to go where no one can hurt me anymore.”
“And where would that be?”
“The Red Door Salon. The one at Fairfax Station next to the Louis Vuitton store.” He choked back a sob. “But don’t even think of following me.”
Oh, for crying out loud. Most of my break-ups with boyfriends hadn’t been this dramatic. Halfway down the stairs I remembered the torn seat of my pajama pants and ran back up to my apartment. I listened to Richard’s footsteps getting farther away. Fine, if that’s the way he wanted it. I started to slam the door when I saw Leatrice’s head popping up behind the railing of the staircase.
“I couldn’t help overhearing.” She walked up to my landing, breathing heavily. For an old lady, she had incredible hearing.
“Come on in, Leatrice.” She would anyway. I slammed the door shut and hoped Richard could hear.
“Don’t be upset, dearie. To tell the truth, I’ve seen this coming for a while.”
So much for Leatrice’s keen perception. “Richard and I just work together. No romance between us, I promise.”
“I thought he’d been staying over.” Leatrice moved the plastic tuxedo bags to sit on the couch. I’d forgotten to return them for the fourth day in a row. I hated paying late fees.
“Just as a friend. So I wouldn’t be afraid to stay here after the break-in.”
“He brought so many things with him, I thought maybe he’d moved in with you.”