John O’Hara had been my late husband’s partner and best friend for most of their law enforcement careers. His daughter, Eileen, lived with me while she was going to UCLA and worked with me at the cooking school. John was my best male friend and the one person I wanted to talk to at this moment. Just knowing he was on the other end of the line made me feel better.
I tried to keep any trace of fear out of my voice. “I’m glad you thought to dial Liddy’s number,” I said. “Where are you?”
“At your house. I watched the show with Eileen,” he said. “What happened to that woman?”
“Mimi Bond. Unfortunately, she’s dead. And don’t ask what I put in the mousse. I’ve already had that question once tonight.”
“A cop asked you that?” His warm baritone had turned cold. “If he wants to take you in for questioning, don’t say anything. Call a lawyer, and have Liddy call me immediately.”
“It was the show’s director who asked, but I’m sure she was just upset.”
“Who’s on the scene?”
“So far, paramedics and a uniformed policewoman.”
“She’ll be from North Hollywood Station. That’s the division where your studio’s located.”
“I imagine the detectives and the scientific investigation people will be here any minute,” I said.
“You’ll probably get two from SID but only one detective. North Hollywood doesn’t have enough personnel for detectives to work in pairs. Do you want me to come out there, handle things for you?”
“Of course not.” I could hear that he’d switched into full knight-protector mode, ready to gallop to the rescue of the innocent. My husband had sounded just like that. It was one of the many things I’d loved about Mack. “Thanks for the offer, but please don’t worry about me. There is something you can do, though.”
“Name it,” John said.
“Walk Tuffy? I’m not sure when I’ll be home tonight.”
“We’ll tour the neighborhood until old Tuff does everything he needs to do. But are you sure you’re okay? This is rough.”
“I’m handling it. Thanks for taking care of Tuffy.”
We said good-bye just as a stocky man with bushy black hair and wearing a jacket that said “Coroner” entered, accompanied by a man and a woman who were both carrying small suitcases. The pair’s matching windbreakers indicated they were from the scientific investigation division. The arrival of that trio set off a wave of excited chatter in the audience.
They came to a cooking show, but now they’re watching real-life forensics.
The coroner spoke to the paramedics and then knelt beside Mimi. As the SID pair began taking photos of the body and the area surrounding where Mimi fell, the paramedics packed their equipment back up on the gurney and left.
The departing paramedics passed a new arrival in the doorway, a man in his early fifties with a gold badge clipped to the pocket of his sports jacket. He had a commanding stride and a large head so perfectly bald that I was sure he shaved it. The air of authority that surrounded him was almost palpable.
“My Lord,” Liddy whispered, “who does he remind you of?”
“The King and I. Yul Brynner,” I said.
“If he looked any more like Yul, he’d have to pin that badge on his bare chest.” She started humming “Shall We Dance,” but I shushed her and she stopped.
I watched the detective survey the scene, and thought of Mack. My husband had been a hero to the innocent and a nightmare to the guilty. As hard as I tried to push fear away, it returned to roil my insides. I shouldn’t be afraid, and yet I was. I hadn’t killed Mimi Bond, but would this man who didn’t know me believe I was innocent, or—like Mimi’s daughter—think I was guilty?
The hero, or the nightmare?
3
The man with the gold badge stood at the entrance until the people in the studio became aware of him and the chattering quieted, then he went to confer briefly with the forensics group. The uniformed officer joined him.
George Hopkins scuttled over to stand beside me. We watched as the North Hollywood “Yul Brynner” asked the officer a few questions. She consulted her notes and then pointed to me. The detective advanced in my direction, but before he got very far, a middle-aged man with too little forehead and a double dose of chin strutted up to him, loudly announcing that he’d only been in the audience and demanding to be allowed to leave. Others joined in with a chorus of shouted complaints.
The detective ordered them, “Settle down.” In a voice that was about as soft as a tire iron, he added, “I’ll get to you all as soon as I can. The more cooperative you are, the quicker you can go home.”
The protests subsided and the detective resumed his march in my direction.
He wasn’t a big man, no taller than my own five feet seven inches, and he wasn’t heavily muscled, but he had an aura of “don’t mess with me” that was as intimidating as the mechanized battering ram a former Los Angeles police chief had used to smash down the doors of drug dealers.
“I’m Detective Hall.” His voice was pitched low, with no discernible accent. Nor did his name, Hall, give any clue to his origins. He sounded like an everyman but looked a touch exotic. I wondered if Hall had always been the family name, or if had it been shortened for ease in spelling and pronunciation when his ancestors came to America.
Interrupting my speculations, Detective Hall aimed his dark—almost black—eyes at me. “And you are…?”
George answered before I could. “I’m George Hopkins, the show’s producer. This is Della Carmichael, the show’s on-camera host.” Indicating Liddy, who stood on the other side of me, he added, “I don’t know who she is.”
“This is my friend, Lydia Marshall. She’s my guest.”
Detective Hall made no comment. “Who’s the deceased?”
“Mimi Bond,” I said.
George added, “She used to do the TV cooking show here.”
“How well did you know her?” Detective Hall asked me.
“Not at all,” I said.
George said, “I knew her pretty well. I produced her show, until it was canceled.”
The SID woman held up the half-filled dish of mousse that Mimi had dropped and asked, “She was eating this when she died?”
“Yes,” I said, “but that couldn’t have killed her. I ate some of it myself before I brought it to the studio this evening.”
Detective Hall scrutinized the substance with suspicion. “Exactly what is that?”
“Chocolate mousse.” I thought it wise not to mention the dessert’s nickname: Killer Mousse.
The SID man used one latex-gloved index finger to take just the tiniest dab of mousse and put it onto the tip of his tongue. He grimaced in revulsion and wiped the minuscule bit away with a piece of paper towel without swallowing any. “It tastes like that bitter chocolate laxative, Intesteral,” he said. “And peanuts.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. “I didn’t put either a laxative or peanuts in that dish.”
“Oh my God.” George looked as though he’d been punched in the stomach. “Peanuts…”
“What about peanuts?” Hall demanded.
“Mimi had an allergy. Really powerful. If she even touched a peanut she broke out in a rash. She wouldn’t allow anything with peanuts in the studio. She said if she ate even one it would kill her….”
The SID woman used a gloved index finger to scoop a drop of mousse out of the dish, then examined it under the magnifying glass she had taken from her equipment case. “We’ll have to test it at the lab to be sure, but it looks like we’ve got traces of ground peanuts here.”
“Anaphylactic shock,” I said. “Is that how she died?”
Hall’s gaze pierced me with a look that was sharp as a boning knife. “So you knew Ms. Bond was allergic to peanuts.”
“No, I didn’t. I never saw her before tonight, except on some tapes of her show.”
The detective then turned on George. “Who knew she was allergic to
peanuts?”
George was sweating so hard he looked like an ice sculpture that was melting. He wiped his face, shrugged, and made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “Everybody who worked at the studio knew it. Camera people, technicians, staff, other hosts. She even talked about it on the air, warning people. She told them what they could substitute if a recipe called for peanuts.”
Hall fixed his gaze on me. “You admitted you watched her shows, so you did know about her allergy.”
“No, I didn’t. At least, I don’t think I heard her talking about it. I only watched a couple of the programs—to see how they were done technically. I didn’t pay much attention to what she was saying. Besides, I don’t have any reason to want her dead.”
The scowl on his face made it clear he didn’t believe me. Either that, or he was playing Good Cop–Bad Cop all by himself, except I hadn’t yet seen Good Cop. Even though I know that interrogation can be a game of psychological intimidation, and that I hadn’t done anything wrong, Detective Hall was scaring me a little. I told myself to be very careful about what I said, or I could be in trouble. Or in worse trouble.
The memory of something the SID man had said came back to me. I turned to him and asked, “You mentioned a laxative? Inter-something?”
“Intesteral. It’s an over-the-counter bowel relaxant. Pretty foul. You don’t forget the taste.”
“How in the world did those things get into my mousse? I made it at home and brought it here.” I gestured toward Liddy. “My friend was with me.” She nodded vigorously.
Detective Hall ignored her and stayed on me. “So, you’re claiming you didn’t put the ground peanuts in—”
“I’m not just claiming it, Detective. I will swear that I did not put either of those substances into my mousse.” He’d made me angry. I was more comfortable being angry than being afraid.
“Why couldn’t you tell that somebody had messed with it? Didn’t it look different?”
He softened his tone, clearly trying to make his question sound casual, but I wasn’t fooled into thinking that he had turned friendly. I was sure he was trying to throw me off balance and trap me into some damaging admission.
“Whoever put those things in my mousse only had to smooth the top with a spatula or the back of a large spoon, and it would have appeared undisturbed.”
I couldn’t tell if Detective Hall believed my explanation; his expression was impossible to read.
Instead of commenting, he studied the kitchen set. “Before the show, did you keep the mousse in this refrigerator?”
“No. It’s broken,” I said.
George looked startled. “What do you mean, ‘broken’? It was fine this morning.”
“Well, it wasn’t working when we got here,” Liddy said.
“I’ll have somebody fix it,” George said.
“No. You don’t do anything until I say you can.” Detective Hall’s adamant tone discouraged argument. He took a pair of thin latex gloves from his jacket pocket and slipped them on. As we watched, he gripped the refrigerator near the top and rocked it gently away from the wall. When there was room to look behind it, he peered down and grunted.
I hurried over to see what he was staring at, and my breath caught in surprise. The refrigerator’s electrical cord, which should have been connected to the outlet in the wall, was lying on the floor, with no plug on the end. I could see the ends of tiny copper wires inside the black rubber casing.
“The refrigerator was disconnected from the wall and the plug was sliced off,” Detective Hall said. He gestured to the SID man. “Process this for prints—everything: back of the refrigerator, the cord, the wall, the outlet. Look around and see if you can find the missing plug.” Hall asked me, “If you couldn’t use this refrigerator, what did you do?”
“The mousse and the raw chicken pieces I was going to prepare on air had to be kept cold, so I put them into the backstage fridge.”
“Show me.” He ordered Liddy and George: “Stay here.”
I led Detective Hall and the SID pair around behind the set, through the poorly lighted jumble of props and equipment, to the appliance used by the crew.
I reached for the refrigerator’s door handle.
“Don’t touch that,” Hall said.
“I already did—when I put things in and took them out.”
The detective told the SID man to open it carefully. He did, using a pen beneath the handle to release the catch. When the door was open, Hall scanned the contents. “What’s this bowl of chocolate stuff?” he asked.
“It’s the mousse I made on camera.”
“You mean you had two mousses?”
I resisted the temptation to tell him that the plural of mousse is “mousse.” Instead I explained how a cooking show works. “Food that has to bake or, like a mousse, has to be refrigerated until it’s firm enough to eat, is made in advance. That way the audience can see all the steps in how the dishes are prepared, and then they can also see the result, which they couldn’t in just the time the show is on the air.”
Nodding at the mousse in the refrigerator, he said sarcastically, “I doubt anyone’s gonna want to eat that.”
I bristled, but the SID man saved me from making a retort I might have regretted. He said, “Any prints here are probably smudged, but I might be able to get some partials.”
“I’ll give you my prints for comparison,” I said.
Detective Hall’s face was a portrait of skepticism. “You’re being very cooperative.”
“I know how hard your job is,” I said. “My husband was a detective in the LAPD.”
“Was? You’re divorced?”
“He passed away two years ago. Mackenzie Carmichael.”
“Didn’t know him,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I’m sorry for your loss…. The one-size-fits-all, standard phrase uttered to a person whose loved one had died. He didn’t sound sorry, but since he seemed so suspicious of me, perhaps he was wondering if I’d killed Mack. I fought down the impulse to defend myself, to explain that my husband had a fatal heart attack while jogging.
Keeping a grip on my temper, I left Detective Hall and the SID team and returned to the set, just in time to see George grab a fistful of Ernie Ramirez’s Los Angeles Lakers jersey. George’s face was so red I thought he was about to have a stroke. I hurried to insert myself between the producer and the camera operator and pried George’s fingers from Ernie’s shirt.
“What’s going on?”
“I just found out that Ernie, Jada, and Quinn knew that Mimi, the bitch, was going to play a rotten trick on you. While you were getting made up back in the dressing room, Mimi stirred that bad-tasting laxative into your chocolate thing.”
“She wanted to make me look like a bad cook? To ruin my show?”
“Mickey Jordan told me Mimi wanted him to fire you and bring Cooking Diva back on the air, but he refused,” George said, “even though they used to have a thing.”
“A thing?”
George shrugged. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Old news. Forget it.”
I certainly wasn’t going to forget it, but I dropped the subject and turned to look at Ernie. The camera operator was staring at the floor.
“Ernie, look at me, please.” Reluctantly, he raised his head. “If you all knew what Mimi was going to do, why didn’t somebody tell me?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Carmichael,” he said. “I thought it was sort of funny—you know, good TV.”
Good TV. Lord, what kind of a business have I gotten myself into?
I asked, “Did anybody else know what she was going to do?”
“Yeah, a few….”
I surveyed the faces in the studio. Liddy had gone over to Mimi’s daughter to sit with her, even though the girl seemed near catatonic, still staring into space.
Iva Jordan, who’d taken cooking classes at my school and persuaded her husband to put me on television, was in a whispered conversation with the grandmotherly wo
man who hosted the network’s crafts show; I couldn’t recall her name. I wondered if Iva knew that there had been some history between Mimi Bond and Mickey Jordan, or if it would matter to her if she did. Questions for another time.
I saw director Quinn Tanner talking to the camera operators, and producer George Hopkins circulating among members of the technical crew. Several of the people knew Mimi was going to sabotage my dessert. I didn’t know how far in advance Mimi’s plot had been hatched, but it was long enough for someone to grind up peanuts and bring them to the studio.
There were two things I did know:
Nobody had warned me.
And one of them took that opportunity to kill her.
4
The coroner directed the removal of Mimi’s body, but the SID kept doing their forensic things.
In spite of the trauma of the previous hour, an automatic switch clicked on in my brain and I remembered the ovens. I had a pan full of Easy Cranberry Chicken in one and Sunburst Vegetable Pie in the other. In a few more minutes, they would have burned. I took them out, placed them on the preparation counter to cool, and turned off the ovens.
Emerging from backstage, the SID woman sniffed the air and said, “Hmmm, smells good.”
“If you’re hungry, I’d be glad to fix plates for you and your partner.”
“No, thanks,” she said. “We have to take everything you made back to the lab, for testing.”
Silently, I wondered if anyone was ever again going to eat something I prepared. Or would I be known in tabloids as “The Killer Cook”? I shook my head in silent frustration and turned my attention back to Detective Hall.
In a methodical, thoroughly professional way, he was questioning the members of the audience as to how they happened to be here tonight.
Twenty-seven of the thirty said that they’d been approached last weekend, at various shopping malls in the San Fernando Valley, and offered free tickets to the premiere of a new live national TV show. The people who accepted the invitation had never heard of me, but the recruiter told them that the studio audience would be shown on camera, so they should tell their friends and families to watch from seven to eight o’clock Thursday night, which was tonight.
Killer Mousse Page 3