Shop Til You Drop Dead (A Hollis Brannigan Mystery)

by Dorothy Howell

  “It’s a Chihuahua and dachshund mix,” I said. “White with brown spots, and big brown ears. Tiny, maybe five pounds. Her name is Gizmo.”

  “Sounds cute,” Meredith said, as she typed.

  Gizmo had been a real cutie. She’d belonged to our neighbor back in KCK.

  “Poor little thing,” Meredith said, shaking her head. “She’s probably lost and afraid, hungry and thirsty. I hope somebody nice finds her soon. Does she have a tag?”

  “Yes,” I said, and because if you’re going to lie, why not go all the way, I added, “But no microchip.”

  “I’ll stay on top of this,” Meredith said, as she rose from her chair and opened her office door.

  “If you want to talk about this thing with Neil’s parents let me know,” I said, as we stepped into the corridor.

  Meredith groaned. “I don’t know what—”

  She gasped, grabbed my arm and tugged me back into her office.

  “That’s him. That’s him,” she whispered.

  “Who?” I asked, trying to see past her.

  “No, don’t look,” she insisted. “Dan Kincaid. The guy I told you about the other day. The one who does God-knows-what for the A-list clients.”

  I shook her off. “The fixer?”

  “Don’t let him see you watching him,” she told me. “Don’t ever look directly into his eyes.”

  Now, of course, I absolutely had to see him. I’d heard the talk about Dan Kincaid around the office, the man who “fixed” problems that nobody else could—or would—handle.

  I watched as he moved along the corridor several yards away, past the row of supervisors’ offices. He was tall, maybe six-three, long arms and legs, with a solid build that was more Jaguar than Hummer. His brown hair was cut short, and a two-day stubble covered his jaws. I figured him for late twenties, maybe early thirties. He wore an Armani suit with no tie. His shirt collar stood open.

  My mouth sagged.

  “He’s killed people,” Meredith whispered. “That’s what everybody says. They say he’ll do anything to protect a client. And you never—ever—want to get on his bad side.”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should say something, but all I could do was watch as he strode down the aisle, turned the corner, and disappeared.

  “Yeah, I know,” Meredith said. “He’s hot.”

  “Way hot,” I agreed.

  The two of us stood there a bit longer, watching the spot where he’d walked out of the room.

  “My day is totally going to suck after seeing him,” Meredith said.

  “Mine, too,” I said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” she said, and tapped the portfolio in my hand.

  I groaned. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Carlotta Cain,” she said. “She’s a real sweetheart.”

  Something told me she didn’t mean that.

  “I wouldn’t put too much effort into shopping for whatever it is she wants,” Meredith said. “She’ll probably drop dead before you get through the check-out line.”

  Great. Just what I needed.

  I left the investigations department and went wardrobe. This morning when I’d turned in yesterday’s Michael Kors black business suit, I knew I wanted to talk to Barbara Walker-Pierce again and had to dress appropriately, so I’d told Moss I’d need a similar look for today. She had it ready for me when I got there.

  “Smokin’,” Moss said when I stepped out of the changing room in the gray YSL pencil skirt and jacket she’d accessorized with classic black and white.

  “You totally rock,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said, and grinned.

  I took the elevator to the parking garage. As I approached the valet a Porsche pulled away. It was a 911 Carrera, the model with a top speed of 185 that went for over a hundred grand. Behind the wheel was Dan Kincaid.

  I watched, mesmerized, as he drove past me, took the corner a little too fast, and shot up the ramp to the street.

  Wow.

  I forced myself back to reality. Dan hadn’t gotten to be a fixer who wore Armani and drove a Porsche by getting lost in his own thoughts. If I was going to work my way into the investigations department I was going to have to focus on resolving the Bagley case.

  While I waited for the valet to bring a car around for me, I phoned Barbara Walker-Pierce. She answered right away.

  “Have you concluded your investigation?” she asked me.

  It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.

  “Things are moving forward,” I said, then rushed ahead before she could ask for details. “I need some information about your aunt. Did she have an appointment book I could see?”

  Mrs. Walker-Pierce didn’t answer for a few seconds, then she exploded.

  “Certainly not. How dare you ask for something so personal? I absolutely will not have you contacting her friends and business acquaintances, interfering with their day, and casting aspersions on her with your questions.”

  She hung up.

  Great. Now what?

  Chapter 6

  Okay, so there was another reason I didn’t want to go home to KCK with Brittany and Toby—besides my infatuation with a singer I’d never met and my yearning to keep looking down at the lights of L.A.

  I didn’t have a home to go back to.

  True, the house was there that I’d grown up in. It was a nice place in an okay neighborhood where I’d lived with my mom and my sister Quinn, who was a year younger than me. Our father left when I was ten. He wasn’t a deadbeat dad or anything like that. He was a pharmacist who made a good living, sent child support like clockwork, remembered our birthdays and sent gifts on holidays and special occasions. He visited every few years and managed to stay for a couple of days, which was about all he could take of our mother.

  She was an artist. She painted, sculpted, and created beautiful pieces she sometimes sold. She was gifted in many ways.

  Unfortunately, none of her gifts included staying in touch with reality. Not that she had an actual medical condition that could be corrected with drugs. It was nothing like that. Mom was scattered, flighty, unfocused, and wandered willy-nilly through life unable, at various times, to remember to give Quinn and me lunch money, pick us up from school, run the vacuum, buy groceries, or pay the bills.

  Most of those things I handled as I got older and I was okay with it. Quinn wasn’t. She talked endlessly about what she considered the good old days—the family vacations we’d taken to Grandma Pearl’s cabin, the beach, and Disneyland. She longed for a stable parent who would provide a steady life, and thought our dad was just the guy to do that. She blamed Mom for what she considered his abandonment. She blamed Mom for his unwillingness to stay with us on those rare times when he came to visit. She blamed Mom for keeping us away from him by refusing to allow us to visit him in San Francisco.

  She blamed Mom for everything—and, really, I thought she was right.

  After high school, Quinn ran off with her boyfriend, an unemployed house painter. I haven’t heard from her in a long time. Mom left KCK and moved to an artists’ retreat in Wyoming. I haven’t heard from her in a long time, either.

  So things being what they were, I was glad to leave with Brittany. Unlike her, I had nothing to go back to. Thanks to “Hollywood Nights” I had a new home.

  And, thanks to Carlotta Cain, I had a black, beaded, size four evening gown that I’d just plucked from Macy’s clearance rack and paid for.

  I didn’t, however, have any idea how I was supposed to investigate—let alone solve—Edith Bagley’s possible murder without any of her personal information.

  I heaved the garment bag over my shoulder and headed toward the Macy’s exit thinking I absolutely had to convince Barbara Walker-Pierce that I was a completely trustworthy, discreet investigator, and that her aunt’s reputation was safe in my hands. Even though I wasn’t actually an investigator of the caliber she needed, I had to pull it off.

  I paused at the shoe depar
tment, distracted by a pair of leopard pumps—who wouldn’t be?—then pulled out my cell phone and called Mrs. Walker-Pierce. She answered right away, which surprised me.

  “I want to assure you that any and all information I receive about your aunt will be held in strictest confidence,” I told her, hoping I was projecting a strictest confidence tone in my voice.

  She didn’t respond.

  I waited a few seconds hoping she’d say something. She didn’t.

  “I need information to continue my investigation,” I said.

  Mrs. Walker-Pierce still said nothing.

  I pictured her standing in her expensive home, surrounded by expensive things, dressed in expensive clothing, holding the phone to her ear, frowning, and trying to decide what she should do. My best guess was that this was her first possible-murder investigation. She didn’t really know how to handle it—which was why she’d called Fisher Joyce instead of the police in the first place.

  I knew that if I was going to get the info I needed, I’d have to give her a nudge—one that would convince her to cooperate with me, not call the head of the investigations department ranting about how shabbily she’d been treated and causing all hell to break loose.

  “Without further information, there’s very little I—or anyone—can do,” I said.

  She still didn’t respond.

  So much for my little nudge.

  I tried again.

  “What happened to your aunt wasn’t right,” I said, and it came out sounding sincere because I honestly meant it.

  “No. No, it wasn’t right.” she said softly.

  “I want to do something about it, and I need you to help me,” I said.

  Another moment passed, and her voice got stronger.

  “Go by the house,” she said. “Genevieve is there. I’ll phone her. She’s been Aunt Edith’s housekeeper for many years. She can give you what you need.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s extremely important that this is resolved quickly,” she told me.

  “I’ve put all my other cases aside and made yours my priority,” I said which, technically, was true.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said. “Call me this afternoon with a progress report.”

  “I will,” I promised, and hung up.

  Just as I dropped my cell phone into my tote, it chimed. I touched the screen and saw an email from Louise Thornton. I figured it was a shopping list that had just come in from one of my off-listers. I was tempted to ignore it, until I saw the subject line that read “not happy.”

  I didn’t need a “not happy” right now. I had to get to the Bagley house and pick up what I needed before Barbara Walker-Pierce changed her mind.

  I scrolled down to the message from Louise. The first sentence stated, “Mason not happy about pants.”

  Zella Mason wasn’t happy with the elastic-waist khaki pants I’d bought for her? Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have come as a surprise—nobody with enough fashion sense to glance at the cover of Glamour while waiting in the grocery store check-out line would want elastic-waist khaki pants—but they were exactly what Zella had instructed me to buy for her. How could she possibly not like them?

  The next sentence read, “Doesn’t have anything to wear them with. Needs white blouse.”

  My irritation bubbled up. This was Louise’s idea of not happy?

  I dashed back across the store. A white blouse wasn’t exactly the season’s hottest trend, so I wasn’t sure I could even find one. I rifled through the racks and finally spotted one—in fact, there were a dozen of them, something likely to be noted in the store’s buyers’ permanent records—paid for it and left.

  In the parking garage, I draped Carlotta Cain’s discounted black beaded gown in the back of the company car—the car pool had given me the same model BMW I’d gotten yesterday—and tossed Zella’s blouse on top of it.

  I hung a right on Figueroa, then took Wilshire and reached June Street in about twenty minutes.

  I pulled into the driveway of Edith Bagley’s house and got out. The neighborhood was quiet. The homes sparkled under the mild November sun. A gentle breeze blew. Two doors down and across the street, a man was polishing a classic 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle in the driveway of his English Tutor mansion. Farther up the block, a young woman in pastel scrubs retrieved letters from a vine-covered mailbox, a nanny in a white uniform pushed a baby in a pink stroller, and a dog walker with four poodles on leashes crossed the street.

  Just your average day in Los Angeles.

  I climbed the steps and rang the bell. After a minute or so the door was opened by a woman in a pale blue uniform dress.

  “Genevieve?” I asked. “I’m Hollis Brannigan. Mrs. Walker-Pierce said you’d be expecting me.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, and stepped back from the door. “Please, come in.”

  I put Genevieve in her fifties with dark hair that was graying, and wrinkles that bracketed her eyes and mouth. She was short, stout, with heavy ankles, and had a tiredness about her that made me think she’d worked hard most of her life.

  Genevieve closed the door and stood there for a few seconds as if she wasn’t sure what to do with me. Guests who arrived were always there to see Edith Bagley, not her.

  “I’m so sorry about Mrs. Bagley,” I said. “This must be very difficult for you.”

  I didn’t know if it was or wasn’t, but giving Genevieve the benefit of the doubt seemed like a good way to get things rolling.

  “So sad,” Genevieve said, and her eyes misted. “I worked for Miss Edith for years. My mother worked here, too, until her health got bad. Mama was with the family since Miss Edith was in school—both of them just girls, both of them the same age. When Miss Edith married Mr. Conrad, Mama moved into this house, too. Miss Edith insisted.”

  “That must have been, what, fifty, sixty years ago?” I said.

  “My mama, she worked hard for the family. Miss Edith appreciated everything she did. Miss Edith was like that. Kind. They were a good people, she and Mr. Conrad. She was always good to me, too.”

  Genevieve gazed down the hallway, as if the memories had taken her attention. I waited with just the ticking of a clock somewhere in the big house filling the silence, thinking about Edith as a young girl, then at UCLA and her year studying abroad before marrying and moving here, settling in, living in this house for the rest of her life.

  I wondered how differently things might have turned out for Edith if she’d pursued her art, if she’d stayed abroad, if she hadn’t married Conrad, or if she’d had children. The only thing I knew for certain was that if any of those things had happened, I wouldn’t be here now investigating her death, wondering if she’d been murdered.

  “Is anyone else working here now?” I asked.

  Genevieve shook her head. “Everyone is gone. Miss Edith, she hadn’t felt up to doing much for a long time. The gardening service shows up once a week and tends to the outside. Ike—Ike Meador, her chauffeur—he left and went to work for one of those car services, but he told them that only he should be allowed to drive Miss Edith when she called.”

  I smiled. “She must have been a nice lady to work for.”

  “The cook, she left, too. I made all the meals and carried them up to Miss Edith in her room when she didn’t feel like coming down. She didn’t manage the stairs too well.”

  “You stayed the nights with her, too?” I asked.

  “I gave Miss Edith her meds, made sure she was tucked into bed before I left,” she said. “The night nurse came, but she didn’t do anything. Miss Edith was a good sleeper.”

  “So you … found her?” I asked.

  “No, it was that night nurse, Allison.” Tears welled in her eyes. “When I got here that morning there were police cars, an ambulance, all sorts of strangers in the house. Miss Barbara was here, crying. Neighbors were outside, staring. Miss Edith, she wouldn’t have liked all that commotion.”

  “It must have been really tough
on you,” I said, because it did sound terrible.

  Genevieve was quiet for a few seconds then said, “I should have been with her. Everybody said she passed in her sleep, but what if she didn’t? What if she woke up and was alone and scared? What if she knew, somehow? I should have been with her.”

  My heart ached a little seeing how Genevieve cared for Mrs. Bagley. I wondered how much more upset she’d be if it turned out that Edith had, in fact, been murdered.

  “Mrs. Bagley was lucky to have you,” I said.

  “I took good care of her,” she said. Her expression darkened. “Not like that Allison. She took Miss Edith’s money but she didn’t care anything about her. She didn’t even stay until they took her away, just sneaked out of the house when nobody was looking. And she didn’t pay her respects. Not even a card or a flower.”

  The night nurse who’d found Edith dead had sneaked away, and hadn’t been heard from since? Under other circumstances I’d think it was odd, callous, or thoughtless. Under these circumstances, it seemed suspicious.

  Genevieve shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t expect better. She’d only worked here a couple of weeks.”

  “Mrs. Walker-Pierce told me I could pick up Mrs. Bagley’s appointment book from you,” I said.

  Genevieve paused for a moment. Despite Barbara Walker-Pierce’s instructions, I could tell she was reluctant to turn over Edith’s personal possessions.

  I didn’t say anything and, finally, she started up the staircase. I followed.

  At the top, Genevieve stopped.

  “I haven’t been up here since … it happened,” she said.

  “If you’d rather wait downstairs, it’s fine,” I said.

  She drew herself up and shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

  Genevieve led the way down the long, dim corridor, past the wall sconces, the sculptures, the paintings, and the heavy furniture.

  The glass-paned, double doors that led to the balcony at the end of the hallway jumped out at me. I’d seen them yesterday but after Barbara Walker-Pierce’s stunning announcement that her aunt might have been murdered, I’d been too rattled to give them any thought.