Pie Hard
Page 17
Someone squeezed my elbow and I jumped.
“Val, good of you to come.” Frank looked dapper in a navy, double-breasted blazer and slacks. He brushed a kiss across my cheek, and I stiffened. “I’m glad you called.”
I toyed with the leather purse strap on my shoulder. “Well, now that the show’s over, who knows when we’ll see each other again?” The thought squeezed the air from my lungs. I guess I wasn’t as indifferent to Frank as I liked to think.
“Why not tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“The show’s over, but your chief of police hasn’t given us permission to leave. I thought I’d stop by Pie Town for lunch.”
“Tomorrow Pie Town is closed,” I said.
“We’ll make something work.” He nodded to the bar. “Can I buy you a drink?”
I smoothed my shirt. “Um, sure.”
We walked to the bar, and he pulled a high chair out for me.
“How did you enjoy doing the show?” he asked.
“Aside from the murder?”
“Aside from that.”
The bartender, young, handsome, and dark-eyed, approached us at the bar. He scanned us appraisingly, then handed us wine menus in thick, leather binders. Unspeaking, he returned to the two women at the other end of the bar.
“Nigel had some interesting suggestions.” I’d already started writing new web copy for his ideas. “And Ilsa showed us a few new tricks with the piecrusts. In fact, the day went smoothly.” Suspiciously smoothly for a reality TV show that thrived on drama and disaster. Frank promised he wouldn’t do any fancy editing to make us look bad. But could I trust a man with decades of untrustworthiness under his belt?
“Pie Hard has a track record of taking bakeries to the next level.” He flipped open the binder and perused the menu. “This is on me, by the way.”
I checked my menu and swallowed hard at the prices. “I take it your coaching business is doing well?”
“Well enough that I’ll be returning to it once the police tell us we can go. But I hope we can keep in better touch. In the past, I haven’t been much of a father to you, but we’re both different people now.”
“Both? You talk as if I was responsible for you leaving,” I said. My voice was high and thin.
He looked away. “No, of course not. I didn’t mean it that way.”
My nails bit into my palms. Sensitive much?
The waiter drifted to our side of the bar. “Can I get you anything?”
Ashamed by my outburst, I stared hard at the menu.
Frank ordered and turned to me. “Val?”
“I’ll take the Paso Robles Zinfandel.” It was one of the cheaper wines on the menu, but old habits die hard.
The waiter nodded, collected the menus, and left.
Change the subject to something that won’t make me freak out. “Has the crew said anything to you about Regina’s death?”
He frowned, his expression perplexed. “No. Why would they?”
“The police think it was murder. There must be some talk.”
“I’m a newcomer,” he said. “No one’s confiding in me. And maybe it’s best if we both stay out of this. I know you’ve had some successes solving crimes in the past, but you had some near misses too. There’s a point where everyone’s luck runs out.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” I asked sharply.
He shifted on the tall chair. “You could say that.”
I blew out my breath. “Sorry. I don’t know how to act around you. I guess I’m still angry, which I know is stupid and unfair, but I can’t help it.”
“You have every right to be angry.”
“And you being reasonable isn’t helping.” I toyed with a scarlet paper napkin. “Why did you really leave?”
“I told you why. I was dragging your mother and you down with my gambling, and I’d gotten involved with some unsavory characters. Your mother and I both agreed it was best if I left.”
“And now you help other gamblers, like Nigel.”
His expression turned bland. “Nigel?”
“It’s not exactly a secret he has a gambling problem.”
“Oh?”
“And he definitely reacted when you walked into Pie Town on the first day of shooting.”
“When it comes to addiction,” he said, “client confidentiality is critical. If addicts don’t trust the people trying to help them, the entire program falls apart. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
My cheeks warmed. “No, of course not.”
“I didn’t think so. One thing I’ve learned with this ridiculous show is that you’re a good person, Val. I’ve talked to your staff and customers. They like you. More importantly, they respect you.”
I laughed shortly. “I wouldn’t go that . . .”
Doran, dressed all in black, slouched into the wine bar and took a chair near the two women. He brushed back his shock of dark hair. It immediately returned to its original position, over one eye.
“. . . far,” I finished, my breath quickening.
“What’s wrong?” Frank asked.
I leaned toward him. “That guy who just walked in,” I said in a low voice. “The one dressed in black. Have you noticed him hanging around?”
Frank glanced toward him. “I think we’re staying at the same hotel.”
In his black jeans and t-shirt, ninja-guy didn’t look like the sort who could afford a luxury hotel. These days it was hard to tell a tech millionaire from a skater dude. “He’s been hanging around Pie Town too.”
“Has he been bothering you?” Frank made to rise from his chair. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No,” I hissed, grabbing the sleeve of his tweed blazer. “He hasn’t done anything creepy. There’s just something about him.” Something familiar and disturbing at the same time.
“You should trust your instincts,” Frank said. “If you think something’s off, it’s off. Let’s find out what.”
“Wait—”
Rising, he approached Doran.
I crumpled the napkin. What was he doing?
The waiter appeared and slid two glasses filled with ruby liquid onto the bar. Thanking him, I took a hasty swig. Dammit.
Frank said something to Doran and the two ladies, and they all stood and shifted left, taking chairs beside ours.
“That’s more like it.” Frank beamed. “What’s the point of going to a bar if you don’t meet interesting people? Tiffany, Brittany, Doran, this is my daughter, Val. She owns the local pie shop.”
The women giggled.
“What do you do?” Doran asked him. He seemed more vampirically pale than usual, so he wasn’t spending much time at the beach.
“Up until five p.m.,” Frank said, “I was a TV producer. Who knows what will come next? And you?”
“Graphic artist.” Doran’s voice trembled slightly, and his jaw clamped shut.
“We work in pharmaceuticals,” Tiffany—or maybe it was Brittany—said. She shifted, the sequins on her skin-tight sapphire dress twinkling in the bar’s soft lighting. “Pricing.”
“What were you doing before this?” Doran asked, never taking his gaze from my father.
“Before?” Frank blinked. “Ah, I see. You’re curious about my path to becoming a producer.”
“Something like that,” Doran said.
“My career path was random and unexpected. I was a speck of whirling dust in a mighty wind. But for all that, I’ve done fairly well for myself. Graphic designer, eh? You freelance?”
Doran nodded.
“That must keep you on your toes,” Frank said and motioned to the waiter.
He glided toward us.
“Another round for my friends,” Frank said. “On my room bill.”
The waiter nodded and walked to the rear of the bar. He drew a bottle from the racks that lined the wall.
“So what brought you all to San Nicholas?” I asked brightly. Why did Doran look like he wanted to take Frank’s head off? Ma
ybe he wasn’t interested in me at all. Maybe it was Frank he was after.
“We’re attending a conference in South San Francisco,” Brittany said, “but we thought it would be more fun to stay by the beach.”
“And you?” I asked Doran.
“Vacation.”
“How long are you—”
Doran rose. “I have to go.” He strode from the bar.
“Not a very friendly fellow, is he?” Frank asked.
“No.” I stood. “Thanks for the drink, but I should go too. Baker’s hours.”
“But, Val—”
“Lunch tomorrow, right?” I hurried after Doran.
He turned a corner in the long, elegant corridor.
I broke into a jog, my footsteps muffled by the thick gray carpet veined with gold. I wasn’t sure what I was doing—Doran was probably returning to his hotel room, and I didn’t want to tackle him there. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow connected to more than Frank. He was connected to me.
Maybe I should have asked Ray to track Doran online, but I still didn’t know his last name. I reached the junction in time to see Doran’s lean, black-clad form whip around another corner.
Hurrying forward, I trotted toward the next corner. Ahead, a door shut with a solid thud, and a salt-scented breeze ruffled my hair.
At the bend, the hallway widened. Comfy-looking, gray-blue chairs sat before tall picture windows. They faced the ocean, an ebony pool in the darkness. Outside, spotlights lit a winding path.
Doran was nowhere in sight.
Had the graphic designer gone outside? And did I really want to follow? I rocked in place, wavering.
Yes, I did.
I trotted to the exit door, pushed it open, and walked outside. The night was cool, and I shivered. Waves crashed in a dull, rhythmic thud beneath the nearby cliff. Ground lights along the trail lit the cliff’s edge and the low, wood and rope barrier fence.
I strode down the looping path through the golf course and toward the vague, charcoal line where sky and ocean met.
Rubbing my arms, I looked around. Where had Doran gone? There were no trees or bushes to lurk behind—just divots of sand traps and soft swells of lawn, yellowish in the glow from the footpath’s solar lamps. The new moon was a shadow in the sky. Stars burned hard and glittery as diamonds, making me feel small, vulnerable.
I turned toward the hotel, turned back to the golf course. Had I been mistaken? Maybe he hadn’t come outside after all. I definitely heard a heavy door close and felt an outside breeze.
I walked to the top of a grassy rise.
An irregular shadow wavered across the edge of a sand trap.
I halted, my heart jack rabbiting. It wasn’t Doran lying in wait. The shadow was too long, like someone stretched out, asleep.
Legs leaden, I walked toward the dark irregularity. It was nothing. Just an odd shadow, or a discarded golf bag, or . . .
I hissed a quick intake of breath.
“Ilsa?”
The chef lay, still and silent, just beneath the lip of the sand trap. Lips parted, expression empty, her eyes stared lifelessly at the rolling lawn.
CHAPTER 18
“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh, no.” I fell to my knees beside Ilsa’s still form and pressed my fingers beneath her jaw. Her skin was warm, but I knew she was dead. Her head canted at an odd angle, her eyes open and unmoving and vacant.
Darting looks around the darkened golf course; I scrabbled in my purse for my phone and dialed. Ilsa hadn’t just dropped dead. Someone had killed her. Someone who might be nearby.
“911, what is your emergency?” a female dispatcher asked.
I tried to make myself smaller, less conspicuous. “This is Val Harris. I’m at the Belinda Hotel.” My voice shook. “On the golf course. I’ve found a body.”
“Is the person injured?”
“No, she’s dead.” Kneeling, I couldn’t see the hotel or cliff trail. Both were obscured by the rolling lawn.
“I’m dispatching units now. Are you certain she’s deceased?”
“Yes.” God, yes.
“Are you in a safe place?”
“I think so.” Was I? Elbows pressed to my body, I stood and walked to the top of the slope where I could see anyone coming.
The night sky stretched cold and vast overhead. The golf course rippled away from me. On the ridge, I stood out like a pie at a cakewalk. The killer was gone. He had to be, right? Because the killer couldn’t be a she. Ilsa, my last female suspect, was dead.
A siren wailed in the distance.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?” the dispatcher prompted.
My thoughts jumbled. “Sorry, what?”
“Can you tell me which hole you’re near?”
“Um . . . I’m by a sand trap behind the hotel, between the hotel and the cliffs. I mean, on the west side of the hotel,” I babbled. I was no golfer! How was I to know which hole this was?
“All right,” she said. “I’ll stay on the line until the police units reach you.”
I paced beside the body. This wasn’t happening. But it was.
After what seemed like hours, but could have been only ten minutes, the dispatcher said, “The first unit is pulling into the hotel parking lot now.”
“Thanks,” I said, embarrassingly grateful. I’d seen bodies before. In my short life span, I’d stumbled across a startling amount of corpses. Something about Ilsa’s death was different. Death never failed to shake me, but Ilsa’s form looked diminished somehow, void.
I backed away and stared hard at the ground, searching for evidence. Dry sand doesn’t hold footprints. If there was a clue on Ilsa’s body, I knew better than to touch it. No discarded bits of jewelry or weapons glinted in the even grass. There was, however, bruising on her neck. Had she been strangled?
A tall, lean figure jogged across the golf course. His flashlight beam swept the grass.
I waved. “Over here!”
“Val?”
“Gordon?” Pocketing my phone, I raced to him.
He grasped my shoulders. “Are you all right?” He wore my favorite fisherman’s sweater and jeans, so he’d been off duty when the call had come in.
I nodded, wanting to fling myself at him. Then I did.
His arms, strong and comforting, wrapped around me. “Oh, Val,” he rumbled. “Why did it have to be you?”
There was a slight pressure on the top of my head, as if he’d kissed it.
I stepped away. “It’s Ilsa. Ilsa Fueder from the show. Gordon, she didn’t die naturally.”
“Show me.”
We hurried to the sand trap.
He knelt and touched his fingers to Ilsa’s neck, shook his head, rose. “Why were you here?”
“I was meeting Frank for a drink.”
An odd expression crossed his face, and my brain stumbled. What did he know about my father? This wasn’t the time to ask.
“Go on,” he said.
“The show finished filming today, so I thought this would be our last chance to talk.”
“Did you suggest this meeting, or did he?”
My gaze clouded. “I did.”
“Are you sure he didn’t suggest it somehow?”
I heated. “I called him, and he invited me over. Why?”
“And what happened next?”
Sirens roared closer. Blue and red lights zipped toward us.
“I met him in the wine bar,” I said. “A guy who keeps hanging around Pie Town, Doran, showed up, and Frank invited him over for a drink. Doran seemed uncomfortable, and he left in a hurry. So I followed him—”
“Why?” He ripped out the word.
“There’s just something strange about the guy. He keeps turning up. He was at the crime scene after Regina was found. He keeps coming to Pie Town. Seeing him at the hotel bar seemed like too much of a coincidence.”
“What does he look like?”
I described him.
He took notes and sighed. “And then what?”
“About what time was this?”
Figures raced from the parking lot and across the lawn.
In two strides, Gordon was at the top of the low hill. He motioned to the newcomers.
I checked my phone and realized I’d never ended my call with the dispatcher. Her voice squawked faintly over the line.
Wincing, I put the phone to my ear. “Sorry. The police are here.”
Gordon returned. “You were saying?”
I hung up and checked my calls. “Okay, I called 911 at 8:43 p.m. I found her no more than a minute or two before that.”
“GC!” Chief Shaw, flanked by two paramedics, hurried toward us. “Is that you? And not Ms. Harris again?”
“I’m afraid so,” Gordon said.
“What have we got?” the chief asked.
“Possible murder victim,” Gordon said. “Ilsa Fueder.” He pointed toward the sand trap.
The paramedics jogged to the body.
The chief started. “Not the pastry chef!” He grimaced. “Sorry, GC. It looks like this is my case too. And you, young lady, are going to have to come to the station to answer some questions.”
* * *
Arms crossed over his fisherman’s sweater, Gordon straightened off my van as I emerged from the police station. Tendrils of fog wreathed the iron lamp posts and drifted down the brick steps.
In spite of my exhaustion, I smiled with relief. “Hi.”
He opened his arms, and I walked straight into his warm embrace.
We stood there for a long moment. My heart was pounding. “I’m so glad you’re back from Wyoming,” I said.
“Me too. I’ve missed you.”
I looked up. “Have you? I mean—”
He stopped me with a kiss that seared my veins. When we broke apart, breathing hard, I could still feel its fiery trail on my lips.
I gasped, emotions whirling, legs trembling. “Aren’t you worried Shaw will find out?”
“That I was kissing one of his witnesses? I’m off the case, remember? I might as well enjoy it.”
“Is that why you were waiting for me?”
“That and I was worried.”
Gordon was more than a badass detective. He cared about people. That was why he joined the force, and that was why I found him so irresistible.