Killer Mousse

by Melinda Wells

  “Della? Are you still there?”

  “Yes…sorry, I was just…How much more do you think I’ll have to pay?”

  “You’re going to need at least a couple mil in liability coverage on your home and another two mil on the vehicle. Three million each would be safer. That’ll let you sleep at night. I’ll have the new policies for you by tomorrow. If you’re having a temporary cash flow problem, you can make partial payments, but we’ll want the first check as soon as I work up the revised figures. In your altered circumstances, you can’t afford to be unprotected.”

  I’d read that the Mafia forced people to buy “protection.” If they’d sold insurance, they could have stayed out of jail, and they’d probably have made just as much money.

  While I was trying not to panic, Ed had kept talking. I made myself focus on his words to catch up.

  “—and it’s all too true, Della. The one sure thing in this world is that sooner or later we’re going to be blindsided by the unexpected. That’s when you’ll need the sheltering arms of Western Alliance Insurance. Think of us as being something like Superman’s Sea of Tranquility.”

  At that moment, I felt about Western Alliance the way Superman felt about kryptonite.

  Outside in the daylight, I stared at the dent in the back of the Mustang and was hit with a fresh wave of guilt. Murmuring apologies to Mack’s car, I drove to the Better Living Channel in North Hollywood.

  I was on Lankershim Boulevard, near the turnoff onto Chandler Street, when I got a surprise that caused me to swerve over onto the side of the road and stop the car. I sat there, staring up in disbelief at the huge billboard on the corner. Each time before when I’d seen that outdoor advertising, it had featured caricatures of the Better Living Channel’s three best known show hosts: Car Guy, Lulu Owens, and Gilmer York. But this was a new billboard, and my caricature was on it, too!

  The second surprise was that my depiction wasn’t unflattering. The artist had chosen to slightly exaggerate the size of my eyes and lips, had narrowed my waist, and had lowered my neckline. Lowered it too much, in my opinion, but I had to admit that I looked good in those brushstrokes. It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t too bad in real life. Not yet. I hadn’t thought much about it. I was only forty-seven and naturally healthy, but good genes couldn’t carry a woman forever without what Liddy called “female maintenance.” Right there, under that billboard, I decided to start exercising so I’d have a waistline that was a little closer to my caricature. And, while I’d keep eating everything I always ate, I’d consume maybe 25 percent less. Full of resolve not to let myself go, I put the car in gear again and made the turn onto Chandler. When I reached the studio’s gate, I pressed the buzzer and identified myself.

  The woman who answered from the security desk inside responded with a cheery, “Hello, Ms. Carmichael. We weren’t expecting you ’til later, but come on in.” It was a relief that the staff had stopped referring to me as “the killer chocolate woman.”

  The gate swung open. I steered the Mustang onto the TV station’s property and around the building toward the parking area. At least a dozen cars were lined up near the open double doors to the studio. I saw the big bronze Cadillac belonging to producer George Hopkins and director Quinn Tanner’s shiny little red Mini Cooper, but the other vehicles weren’t familiar. They were all bunched together because a glossy new blacktop surface had been put down on the parking area beyond. I remembered the notice I’d seen tacked up in the production office, alerting all employees that a new surface was going to be laid last Friday. Everyone was instructed to park on public streets until Monday morning. The yellow caution tape was still up, which explained the line of cars outside the big lot.

  As I pulled up to a few feet behind the last car in line, a man emerged from the open studio doors. He was about five eight or nine, in his forties, suntanned, and dressed in blue mechanic’s overalls. He walked with a slight limp. I recognized him from the channel’s big billboard: Car Guy. The jutting chin in his caricature wasn’t much of an exaggeration; his jaw was nearly as square as Dick Tracy’s in the old cartoons.

  I smiled at him. “Good morning. I’m—”

  “I know who you are. I’m Car Guy.” He started to extend his hand to me but retracted it and instead wiped it on a rag tucked into his pocket. “Sorry, I just taped a segment on changing your own oil. You’re Della. Glad to see you came back.”

  “Why wouldn’t I come back?”

  He shot me a quizzical look, shrugged, and turned his attention to my Mustang. “Nice wheels,” he said. “I had a sweet ride like that, but my ex-wife took it in the divorce, ’cause I loved it. Now she leaves it out in the street to rust. You want to sell?”

  “No!” I hadn’t meant to sound so sharp. Softening my tone, I amended, “This car means a great deal to me. I was wondering if you could take a look at the dent in the back and suggest a trustworthy place I should go for repairs.”

  Car Guy moved around to view the damage. I saw that his left leg was a little shorter than his right, and his left shoe had been built up to compensate. He ran his index finger gently over the dent and raised the trunk lid. “The lock’s been sprung, and the trunk and rear spoiler got a good bash, but it’s all fixable. Who’s your insurance carrier?”

  “Western Alliance.”

  He grimaced. “Spineless weasels. But I’m one of their approved shops. You want me to do the repairs?”

  “Absolutely! That would be great.” I’d come early to see him, hoping to talk him into working on my car so I’d have an innocent-seeming excuse to spend time with him. Car Guy’s set was positioned directly next to mine, which had once been Mimi’s set. He might know something useful to the investigation. It was even possible that he’d been her mystery man. I would question Lulu Owens about him when I met her for dinner tonight.

  “I’ll talk to your adjuster,” he said. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure.” A limited truth.

  “Are you going to be here awhile?” he asked.

  “Several hours. I’m preparing for Thursday’s show.”

  A tiny smile twitched the corner of his lips. “You can’t rehearse for everything. But I guess you found that out the hard way, didn’t you?”

  Car Guy left the Mustang and moved to the brown sedan I’d parked behind. I told his back, “See you later,” and went into the studio.

  My kitchen area was dark, but the studio’s TV monitor on Car Guy’s set was playing the show being taped at the front of the building: Gilmer York’s That’s Not Junk!

  I decided to watch it. York was in his early thirties and as supple as a rubber band. The black shirt and black jeans he wore emphasized his lean frame. Holding up the jeans were red, white, and blue suspenders. One strap featured a vertical column of American flags. The other sported a similar line of Union Jacks, the British flag. Beneath a tangle of sandy curls, his face was slightly round and dimpled. If little Shirley Temple had grown up to be a man, she would have looked like Gilmer York.

  “Hello, treasure hunters,” he said to the camera. “Are we ready to turn some other bloke’s throwaways into just what you’ve been looking for? You’re in the right place, mates. People ask how I got into this business of rooting around in other people’s trash. Well, I owe it all to me mum. I grew up in North London. We weren’t posh, but Mum used to take me to museums from the time I was a tyke. One day we saw a Picasso exhibit. Not of his paintings, but what he called ‘found art.’ That meant he painted on and made things out of the bits and bobs he’d found: slats from a rotting wood fence, the leg of a table, the bottom of a packing case. Things people threw away. Picasso gathered up bags full and turned them into beautiful works of art.”

  He gestured to some scarred and scuffed old pieces of furniture littering the set. “You can do it with a splash of paint or a rag full of polish, a few knocks with a hammer, or twists with a screwdriver. I had a date the other night with a charming Irish lass—ah, yes, ladies, I am available a
gain. The woman I thought might be the one dumped me. The problem was, she wanted me to take her out to clubs, but I’d planned to put a new duct in her attic.”

  From his slightly naughty smile, I wondered if that phrase might be a British euphemism.

  He pulled a wooden chest toward the camera and displayed its peeling paint and missing hinge. “Today we’re taking on this old chest somebody put out on the street for the garbage man. We’ll strip off the paint, give it two licks and a polish, top it with a plate of glass I picked up at Goodwill, and we’ll end up with a handsome coffee table. And, while the varnish is drying, I’m going to show you some tricks to do with wire mesh.”

  Suddenly, to my left, I heard a noise that sent a lightning bolt of fear ripping through my body. I turned toward the studio’s open double doors and gasped. A dark brown sedan was driving into the building. With sunlight behind the vehicle, all I could see was the driver’s silhouette at the wheel, but I would never forget that particular growling sound. It was the car that had chased me through Brentwood Friday night—and now it was coming directly at me!

  18

  Caught between the heavy worktable and the wall, I wouldn’t be able to escape to safety before the car reached me. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Even if I could have produced a cry for help, there was no one at this end of the studio to hear. The soundproof wall separated the two halves of the building; staff members were busy taping Gilmer York’s show on the other side of it. Instinctively, I grabbed the nearest tool—a grease gun—and raised my arm to heave it at the oncoming car’s windshield.

  I was about to let go when the growling car stopped in the middle of the set. Car Guy opened the driver’s side door, leaned out, and yelled at me. “Put that down!”

  He scrambled out of the car. In spite of his limp, he moved fast, leaned over the table, and snatched the grease gun out of my hand. “These things are expensive. What the hell were you trying to do?”

  Keeping the worktable between us and staying out of the reach of his hands, I said, “I thought you were going to kill me.”

  He stared at me with an expression of disbelief. “Are you cooking babes all nuts? Why would I kill you? I don’t know you well enough! In a couple more days, I might want to.”

  Either he was a great actor, or he really hadn’t been intending harm.

  “You were driving right at me,” I said. But I heard uncertainty in my voice.

  “Jeez! I didn’t expect you to be standing there. Why aren’t you in your kitchen, where you belong?” His glare could have peeled the paint off a fender. “You’re on my set—in my way. I have to put this car onto the hydraulic lift and get ready for my next segment.”

  “I’m sorry.” I felt myself blushing with embarrassment, certain now that I’d been wrong and needed to explain. “I was watching the monitor, then the car was coming into the building. It startled me.” To say the very least!

  He shook his head and snapped, “I teach people how to fix their cars. How am I supposed to do that? By drawing pictures in spaghetti sauce?”

  Hoping to defuse his anger, I smiled and played innocent. “Making television shows is all new to me. And I suppose I’m still on edge after Mimi Bond’s murder.”

  “Yeah, okay, I guess I can understand that.” Car Guy shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, as though trying to find a comfortable position. “Did you know Mimi?” he asked. His tone was milder now.

  “I never met her before Thursday night.”

  He scowled again. “She was a grade A, number one, high octane bitc—I mean, a pain in the ass. I thought she’d finally be out of my hair when she was fired, but she’s causing even more trouble now that she’s dead. That bald cop is sticking his big nose everywhere, asking questions up the wazoo.”

  That meant John was right; Detective Hall was looking at other people, but if he didn’t find the killer soon, I was sure he’d be coming right back to me. I wondered why Car Guy disliked Mimi so much, but decided not to risk asking him about it. I made a mental note to find out what Lulu knew when I joined her for dinner tonight.

  “Detective Hall is making all of us uncomfortable. He’s acting as though I’m his number one suspect, and I didn’t even know Mimi Bond.”

  All he did was grunt. Clearly, he wasn’t going to say anything useful. I changed the subject. “Your show must help a lot of people who don’t know how to take care of their cars.”

  “That’s the truth.” Flattery seemed to work; he smiled at me. “Ignorance of how a car operates is why unscrupulous repair shops can rip people off. Especially women. When some mechanics see a female coming, they get dollar signs in their eyes and try to sell them big-ticket repairs they don’t need.”

  I gestured toward the car he’d driven into the studio. “That car was making a strange sound. What’s wrong with it?”

  He shrugged dismissively. “Just a dry bearing. It’s no big deal, but if a crooked mechanic thinks he’s dealing with an inexperienced owner—especially a woman—he could tell her that she needs an engine overhaul.”

  With an exaggerated comic shudder, I said, “Please don’t say those words: ‘engine overhaul.’”

  Car Guy grinned. “Yeah, if you’ve got a car, those are about the two dirtiest words in the English language. I’m surprised the FCC lets me say them on the air.”

  If it hadn’t been for what happened to me Friday night, I would have enjoyed our conversation. Car Guy’s personality had progressed by degrees from grim to jocular. But until the killer was caught, I didn’t know which of my new acquaintances to trust. I couldn’t risk letting my guard down with him.

  Car Guy began to tell me a horror story about a bogus engine repair.

  While pretending to be interested in what he was saying, I had worked my way over to the front of the car and leaned down. As soon as I got a good look at it, I felt my pulse start beating faster. In the front of the car was a telltale dent. Not only that, but I could see flecks of blue embedded in the sedan’s dark brown paint. It looked like the same shade of blue as my Mustang, but it would take an expert to say for sure.

  I stood up, thrust my right hand into my bag, and gripped my cell phone. Keeping the sedan between Car Guy and myself, I moved closer to the outside door. If I had to, I knew I could outrun him in open space.

  Trying not to sound nervous, I asked, “Is this your car?”

  He nodded. “It’s one of my props.”

  “Props?”

  “Most of the machines I fix on the show belong to my shop customers, or people at the channel, but I have this Simba and an old Toyota to take apart when I need to illustrate a repair that’s not currently in the shop. Like today, with the dry bearing.”

  “Are you going to fix the dent?”

  “The dent in your Mustang?”

  I indicated the front of the Simba sedan. “I mean the damage to this car.”

  “What damage?” Car Guy stepped around to look at the front end of the Simba. When he saw what I was talking about, he muttered one of the more colorful curses.

  I said carefully, “Maybe somebody backed into you when you were using the car this weekend. Perhaps when you were parked outside a restaurant or a movie theater?”

  “I don’t drive this piece of Korean crap except for work. It’s been parked on the street with the other cars since early Friday morning—or it should have been. I didn’t look at it when I brought it into the studio today.” He scowled again at the damage. “Jeez! Some miserable kids must have taken it for a joy ride. A few blocks north and it’s gang territory. I’m surprised the bastards brought it back.”

  He was so convincing in his anger that I risked telling him part of the truth. “I believe you, but it looks like your car was involved in a crime Friday night. I’m going to have to call the police and tell them where it is.”

  So much for good intentions, I thought, as I pulled out my cell and dialed John O’Hara’s number.

  When John got to the
studio half an hour later, he had Detective Hall with him. Hall was not in a good mood. I was almost relieved; the more difficult Hall was going to be, the less opportunity I’d have to worry about being with John.

  After looking at Car Guy’s Simba sedan and then at my Mustang, he called the North Hollywood Division and asked for SID to process the Simba inside and out, and see if the dent on the front of the Simba matched the damage to the back of the Mustang. I was certain the answer to that would be a yes.

  After Detective Hall told Car Guy that he’d have to use another vehicle on his show today, John asked the mechanic to show him where the Simba had been parked on the street on Friday morning.

  As they headed outside, Hall turned on me and demanded, “Why in the name of all that’s holy am I only hearing about this now?”

  I planted my feet on the floor of the studio and replied firmly, “Exactly what was I supposed to do, Detective? If I’d called you Friday night and told you a car chased me around Brentwood, you’d have blown me off—and you would have been right to do it.” I added that last part to sound less confrontational.

  His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “You were followed from the home of the murder victim. Didn’t that strike you as significant?”

  “I’d never seen that car before, and I couldn’t make out who was driving it. It might have been some bully trying to scare a woman driving by herself, or even some thug trying to rob me. Honestly, isn’t that what you would have thought if I’d called you then?”

  He didn’t answer my question, choosing instead to ask one of his own. “What were you doing at Mimi Bond’s house?”

  “I went to see her daughter, to pay a condolence call.”

  Detective Hall didn’t reply, and he was hiding whatever he was thinking behind a poker face. I used to tease Mack sometimes by asking if the police academy had a class in being inscrutable.