Killer Mousse

by Melinda Wells

  At that moment, John and Car Guy returned.

  “Where the cars were parked, it’s pretty much an empty block,” John said. “Anybody who knew how to hot-wire could have stolen one.”

  “Where were the car keys kept?” I asked.

  Detective Hall scowled at me, but before he could say anything, Car Guy answered, “The keys to my cars stay with me. I don’t leave them at the studio.”

  “Who drives that car?” John asked.

  “Just me.”

  “I’ll need to get your fingerprints for comparison,” Hall said, breaking in.

  “You already got ’em. I’m in the system,” he said quietly.

  “For what? Don’t lie because I’ll pull your sheet.”

  Car Guy looked embarrassed. “Grand theft auto—but it was seventeen years ago and I did twenty-two months. I’m clean since then.”

  “What were you doing Friday night?” John asked.

  “Watching a ball game in a sports bar near my apartment. A lot of people saw me. I’m a regular.”

  Hall wrote down the name of the bar, and the names of the two friends Car Guy said could vouch for him being there from six PM until midnight Friday.

  “Thank you,” Hall said. “If I need to ask you anything else, I’ll be in touch.”

  “No doubt.” Car Guy’s tone was wry.

  John slipped on a pair of latex gloves. “I’m going to drive the Simba back outside so SID can go over it.”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “I can get one,” Hall said. “But it looks better if you cooperate.”

  Car Guy thought for a moment, then shrugged and moved toward the Simba. “Do what you want with it. I haven’t got anything to hide anymore.”

  John climbed behind the wheel, turned on the ignition, and backed the car through the studio doors. Returning, he handed the key to Hall and stripped off the gloves.

  Car Guy said, “Now will you all clear off of my set? I’ve got two shows to tape this afternoon and I have to find another car to take apart.”

  I led John and Detective Hall over to my set and turned on the work lights above the preparation counter just as Quinn Tanner came down from the control booth. Wearing tight gray slacks and a black leotard top, she might have been a ballet dancer between rehearsals instead of the television director that she was. As usual, her long black hair was parted in the middle, but today it was held away from her narrow face by mother-of-pearl combs. She was as pale as a vampire’s entrée, and it looked as though in the several days since I’d seen her last, she’d lost weight from her already slender frame.

  “I hadn’t expected you for another two hours,” she said. It sounded like an accusation, but then Quinn was one of the iciest people I’d ever met. Her British accent differed from Gilmer York’s in that she sounded like the wealthy residents of “upstairs” and York more like the servant class of “downstairs.”

  “I thought I’d practice for a while before you took me through the camera moves,” I said.

  Her response was an emotionless, “Ah.” She turned her attention to Hall. “Hello, Detective. Have you apprehended the murderer?”

  “Not yet.”

  Indicating John, I said, “This is Lieutenant O’Hara from the LAPD.”

  Quinn bestowed on John a quick appreciative glance and then a regal tilt of her head. “Hello.” Addressing Hall, she said, “I’ve told you everything I know, Detective. Is there something else you need from me?”

  “Ms. Tanner, where were you Friday night?”

  “Why in the world do you want to know that? The murder occurred the night before.”

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  “I attended the theater,” she said. “The revival of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, at the Dorothy Chandler. That’s in downtown Los Angeles.”

  “I know where it is,” Hall replied. “We’re not entirely uncivilized here in the colonies. By the way, I hope you saved your ticket stub.”

  Quinn lost a little of her imperiousness as she admitted, “I’m afraid I threw it away.”

  “I’ll want a timeline of your movements on Friday, from six P.M. until midnight, and I want the names and numbers of anyone who can substantiate your whereabouts.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but Hall didn’t give her a chance. “I want that timeline and the list in my office at North Hollywood Station by tomorrow morning.” He handed her one of his cards. “Here’s the address.”

  The tension was broken by the arrival of Stan Evans, the studio’s daytime guard, who hurried in from the door to the security desk. He flashed a pleasant smile at me but addressed Detective Hall.

  “Two of your people are here to look at a car,” Stan said.

  “Yeah, thanks.” Hall turned to John and asked, “You coming with me?”

  John glanced at me. “What are you going to do?”

  “Rehearse for Thursday’s show, and then go home.” I neglected to mention that after feeding and walking Tuffy I’d be going to Lulu Owens’s house for dinner.

  19

  Quinn Tanner decided that since I was there early, we should run through what I was going to do on the next show, before Car Guy’s taping. She came out of the production cubicle holding a clipboard and a pen, and with a stopwatch hanging from a cord around her neck.

  “We’ll camera block on Wednesday,” she said. “Right now, let me see what you’ll be preparing so I can do an initial timing.”

  “Thursday’s theme is ‘Hearty and Light.’ The main dish is chicken cacciatore; the side is spinach fettuccine with fresh spinach, garlic, and oil. For dessert it’s just going to be raspberries and blueberries marinated in fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

  “Talk. Go through the motions. Use the equipment, but pantomime the food.”

  Positioning myself behind the prep counter, I greeted the imaginary audience and told the empty seats approximately what I was going to say to the real audience, about what I was going to make and something about how the dishes were created.

  I related the story I heard from my grandmother, about when, as a teenager newly arrived in America from Scotland, she worked as a maid for a businessman who taught her how to make what he called “authentic Jewish-Sicilian chicken cacciatore.” He had Grandma Nell memorize the ingredients and his special cooking technique, which was to bake the cacciatore, rest it for a couple of hours, and then bake it again before serving. He insisted she memorize because he didn’t like to have anything written down. After the second baking, the chicken pieces came out so tender they could be cut with a fork. Grandma Nell made it for him and his guests several times. Then one night the front of her employer’s house was sprayed with bullets by some rival “businessmen.” That’s when my terrified grandmother learned she’d been working for the famous gangster, Mickey Cohen. She quit her job but never forgot how to make his delicious cacciatore. She finally wrote the recipe down and gave it to me as a wedding present.

  “I call it Gangster Chicken,” I said.

  It was encouraging that Quinn, who so far had never displayed much of a sense of humor, smiled when she heard that story.

  From the drawer beneath the counter, I took my Berghof utility knife and began to pretend to slice the vegetables and split the chicken breasts, then I went through the motions of sautéing, incorporating, and putting the big casserole dish into the oven while Quinn timed my actions. She even timed me pretending to wash my hands after I cut up the chicken while I advised the audience to be careful not to “cross contaminate.”

  Indicating the on-set refrigerator, I asked Quinn, “Has someone fixed this?”

  “Yes. It’s working now. Just keep going.”

  I continued moving around the set and pantomiming preparation until we’d gone through the entire show.

  “You’re almost two minutes long,” she said. “Have the majority of the vegetables cut up and ready to be used before we go on the air.”

  “Will do.” I put my knife back in th
e drawer, and replaced the casserole dish, the pot for boiling the pasta water, and the pot I would use for the oil, garlic, and fresh spinach in the cabinet beneath the counter.

  Now I could go home, take care of Tuffy, and then soak in a hot, foamy bath before I left for Lulu Owens’ house.

  As I drove out through the studio gate, I remembered that I’d promised to bring dessert to Lulu’s. Looking up at the channel’s new billboard, I got a fresh thrill, but the sight of my caricature’s small waist convinced me to take fresh raspberries and blueberries for dessert, with a couple of juicy oranges I’d squeeze over the berries to marinate them.

  Lulu Owens lived in a cottage that looked like a witch’s house from a Disney fairy-tale movie. Nothing Grimm; all charm. The roof was peaked, but tipped slightly to the right; the windows were set at whimsical angles. The walls were facsimiles of gingerbread, created from wood and tile. An asymmetrical stone path led from the driveway to the front door, and it was bracketed on both sides by a chorus line of tulips. It was evening, and they were closed for the night, but it was easy to imagine how beautiful they must be during the day, with their little petal faces upturned to the sun.

  Lulu met me at the door in a long, loose gray cotton dress that Mother Goose might have worn. It was perfect for the setting into which I stepped, and more imaginative than my dark blue running suit that had never been worn for running.

  Inside Lulu’s cottage, the wooden furniture looked handmade by an artist. The bright upholstery fabrics and throw rugs might have come from the antique loom I saw in the corner. Styles and colors were mixed with cheerful abandon.

  “What a lovely home,” I said sincerely. “Did you make all these unusual pieces?”

  She beamed with pride. “Most. That lamp Ah picked up at a craft faire in Georgia, seems like a hundred years ago. The sideboard was mah mother’s, but Ah painted the scene on the doors at the bottom.”

  Lulu showed me through what she called her “three-room enchanted cottage.” In addition to the living room, there was a large kitchen and Lulu’s bedroom, all decorated with storybook artistry. Opening the bathroom door was like looking into an arbor; the walls were covered with murals of wisteria vines, heavy with their lavender flowers.

  “Ah got the claw-foot tub, the pedestal sink, and the wood-lid toilet just before they demolished an old hotel in Pasadena. Tear-downs are a crafter’s paradise.”

  After the tour, we sat down at her large oak kitchen table.

  “Ah didn’t know what you like to eat, so Ah made lasagna. If a body doesn’t like lasagna, Ah’d suspect they’re from Mars.”

  “Lasagna’s one of my many favorite foods.”

  “You’re mah kinda gal. Let’s eat. Ah’m up by five, so Ah go to bed real early.”

  Lulu’s lasagna was delicious. “Frankly, this is better than mine,” I admitted.

  She grinned with delight. “Ah’ll send you mah special recipe.”

  Much as I enjoyed Lulu’s dinner, I wasn’t here for the food. I needed to learn as much as possible about the woman who had been murdered right in front of me. We were having the raspberries and blueberries when I brought up the subject. “You said you’d known Mimi a long time.”

  Lulu made a face. “Oh, yeah. Since before she turned prematurely blonde.”

  “What was she like to work with?”

  “Let me ask you a question first. What’s the worst job you ever had?”

  That was easy. “When I was teaching high school English in a gang area and a student shot at me. That’s when I opened a cooking school in Santa Monica.”

  Lulu thought for a moment. “Okay, maybe you had it worse—but not by much. ’Less one o’ them delinquents also run off with your husband.”

  I felt my eyes widen. “Mimi ran off with…?”

  “Actually, Ah caught ’em doin’ the nasty, an’ Ah run him off. Ah honestly think at that moment, if Ah’d’ve had a gun, Ah’d a killed ’em both. They broke my heart….”

  “That’s terrible,” I said. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  She shrugged. “Most chairs last longer than a lot of marriages. Ah stopped workin’ with Mimi, an’ took the bastard for everything Ah could get. At least the kids were already grown an’ out on their own. The divorce was still hard on them, but not as bad as it would have been when they were little. Thank heaven for small favors.”

  “Mickey Jordan told me that you were the one who really did the cooking for Mimi, so you were valuable to her. Why did she go after your husband?”

  Lulu smiled ruefully. “It’s like that ol’ mountain climber’s joke: because he was there. Mimi was an alcoholic, but she was also addicted to men.”

  “When we were at Faye’s, you said you had an idea about who her last man was.”

  She frowned and looked away from me. It seemed as though she was having an internal struggle. “Ah’ve been thinkin’, but Ah’m not sure enough to say. If Ah’m wrong, it could hurt somebody who doesn’t deserve a smack in the face.”

  I came at the question another way. “Did Mimi have a particular type?”

  “Yeah—he had to be alive. After her husband died—the lucky bastard—an’ she didn’t need money anymore, she favored men who were young, but sometimes she wanted rough. Don’ mention her to Car Guy, or he might throw a truck tire at your head.”

  “Her name came up this morning, and he seemed bitter,” I said.

  Lulu snorted. “No wonder! Ol’ Mimi chased him like a hound dog after a bitch in season, ’cept the genders were reversed. Ah heard about the Christmas party she invited him to last year, while Faye was away at school. Car Guy got to the house an’ discovered he was the only guest. Way he told it later, she practically pulled his pants right off an’ said that if he didn’t do what she wanted, she’d call the cops an’ charge him with rape. She knew he had a record, somethin’ criminal in his past.”

  “This is fascinating,” I said. “What did he do?”

  “According to what Mimi told ever’ body at the studio, they got down, so to speak, but he couldn’t get it up—pardon my language. Ah heard he told Mickey Jordan it was Mimi or him. He’d quit if he had to be on the same channel as her. So Mickey fired Mimi. He used her drinking on the air as his excuse, but he was lookin’ for a reason to get rid of her anyway. The viewers were complainin’ that her recipes turned out like hog slop.” Lulu chuckled. “You know why there’s a lock on the studio’s sound wall?”

  “Yes. To keep someone from going into the studio and interrupting a taping.”

  “Nope. That cute limey, Gil York, installed it himself, so she couldn’t come botherin’ him. There used to be just the red light over the door. When it was on, ever’body knew not to open it. Mimi got so mad ’bout that lock—’cause we all knew it was meant for her—she went around sayin’ he was gay. Whether he is or isn’t, nobody cares these days, so she didn’t get any satisfaction out of it. Next she told people he was a druggie, but when he heard that, he threatened to sue her for slander. He got himself one of them celebrity attorneys. It shut her up, but only the good Lord knows what she would have tried next, if she hadn’t died.” Lulu hunched her shoulders and shuddered at the dire possibilities. “Mimi was a baaaad loser.”

  The picture that emerged in talking to Lulu was of a truly dreadful woman, but it was hard to believe it was the whole story. “Wasn’t there anything good about her?” I asked.

  Lulu considered the question for a good minute before she finally replied, “Well, after her last dog passed away of old age, she didn’t get another, but she set up an anonymous fund for people who couldn’t afford to get medical treatment for their pets. She had a good heart—for animals.”

  “There must have been some people who liked Mimi,” I said.

  “Yeah. Faye, of course; she loved her momma. An’ Mickey Jordan liked Mimi. That surprised me, ’cause she usta brag that back when the world was young he’d dipped his wick in her hot wax—that’s the way she put it. Mimi t
hought she was gonna be the queen of the channel when he bought it, but he didn’t want his wife to find out about their past. Ah heard him tell her to shut the ‘F’ up. Other than that time, he was always nice to her. Mickey’s foulmouthed, but he’s a gentleman.”

  “He did fire Mimi, though.”

  “Had to. Couldn’t afford to lose Car Guy. Car’s ad spots bring in tons of money, lots more’n Mimi’s did. Maybe with all this excitement, sponsors will start lining up for your show.” Impishly, she added, “’Course, you can’t promise ’em murder every week.”

  God forbid!

  Lulu was about to eat another mouthful of raspberries when she paused, her spoon in midair. “There’s somebody else who liked Mimi, or at least is grateful to her: that redheaded security guard, Stan.”

  “Stan Evans. He’s on the day shift.”

  “That’s him. He worked for Mimi a few months last year as her driver. Then she got him the job at the studio. Security guard hasta be a helluva lot easier way to make a livin’ than cartin’ Mimi around.”

  “Who drove Mimi after Stan changed jobs?”

  “She said she got disgusted with chauffeurs—they were always askin’ for time off. Faye came home ’bout then, an’ Mimi had her doin’ the drivin’.”

  “Sounds like the poor girl didn’t have much life of her own,” I said.

  “Faye tol’ me she didn’t mind ’cause Mimi paid her well. Faye was savin’ up for her own apartment. That’s one good thing I can say ’bout Mimi: She was never stingy with the salaries. By the time I quit doin’ her cookin’ an’ took my cheatin’ hubby to the cleaners, I could buy this house. It was just an ordinary cracker box then. Ah made most of the changes myself. Ah got a lot of pleasure sling-in’ a hammer while picturin’ the faces of Mimi and mah husband.”

  She smiled, but I saw sadness in her eyes. Blinking it back, she continued, “Ah kept the foundation and the dimensions, an’ just replaced the walls an’ windows an’ roof. Ah hired a couple big ol’ boys to help sometimes, but Ah was mah own contractor, an’ mostly mah own workman. By the time Ah finished, Ah felt better ’bout life. An’ as time passed, Mimi an’ me sort of made up. Ah figured she hadn’t made the vows to me, he had. Ah always felt sorry for Faye, losing her poppa when she was so young. For her sake, Ah more or less forgave Mimi.”