Hiss H for Homicide

by Toni LoTempio

  “Does this mean Marlene’s murder is wrapped up? That Samms will be making a statement declaring Anabel Leedson her killer?” There was an almost hopeful note in his voice. I knew the feeling and could sympathize. He wanted to be the one to get an exclusive.

  “At this point, I’m not sure. From what you just said it seems the logical assumption.”

  “I sure would like to scoop that story, if it’s true. It would definitely make it up to me with my editor for having to sit on the story about Marlene’s death, which by the way, Samms was pretty skimpy on details with.”

  “I think he was trying to avoid as much sensationalism as possible. And I promise, if I have anything to say about it, you’ll be the first to know the whole story.”

  “Fair enough. Let me know if you still need my help.”

  “Will do, and thanks.”

  I disconnected the call and glanced up at the balcony again. The crowd seemed to have thinned out. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to nine. I squared my shoulders.

  Showtime.

  • • •

  “Who shall I make this out to?”

  There were no copies of Seventy Degrees of Heat, but I managed to snag one of the bestseller before it, Sixty Points of Lust, on my way over to the book signing corner. I made certain I was the last one in line, and waited behind an overweight woman with hair the color of an overripe tomato and listened to her gush at the author for a good ten minutes before he politely nudged her on. I thought I saw a glimmer of relief in his eyes as he took the book from me, opened to the first page and held his pen aloft.

  “I guess this is a pretty long night for you?” I asked.

  “Ah, no night is too long for my faithful fans,” he said. His smile stretched from ear to ear. I took a good look at his hair. Up close, it looked pretty fake to me. Almost as fake as his bronzed California tan.

  “Miss?” Sable’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Who would you like it made out to?”

  “Oh, sorry. Nora. Nora Charles. Actually”—I leaned in a bit closer to him—“I have a confession to make. I’m really not a fan.”

  He’d just finished writing ‘Nora’ and he paused, pen in air. He had a slightly insulted look on his face. “You’re not?”

  “No.” I pulled my press pass out of my bag and flashed it at him. “I’m a reporter, and I was hoping for a few minutes of your time?”

  “A reporter?” The injured look vanished, replaced by an almost gleeful expression. He set the book and pen aside and pushed back his chair. “Why didn’t you say so, my dear? Nancy!” He motioned to a tall girl wearing dark jeans and a dark green polo shirt with the bookstore name emblazoned over her left breast. “Be a dear and get us two coffees, won’t you?” He turned to me. “How do you take yours?”

  “Cream, no sugar.”

  “Two light and sweet.” Nancy hurried over to the escalator, hopefully to catch Alan before he called it quits for the night, and Sable St. John took my arm and led me over to a love seat wedged in between two bookcases chock-full of mystery novels. “The store is closing soon, and the signing’s officially over, so no one will bother us here.” We both sat down and he put his arm over the back of the love seat, leaning in slightly toward me. “Well, I’m all yours, my dear. What would you like to know? What my favorite food is? Drink? How I get these salacious ideas?” He bounced both eyebrows suggestively.

  I opened my tote and removed a pad and pen. “Actually, I’m more interested in your relationship with the late Marlene McCambridge.”

  For an instant his face clouded; his eyes darkened, and I thought I saw a vein bulge in his jaw. A second later, though, he was all smiles and ebullience. “Marlene.” He said the name on a long sigh. “What a tragic end for such a paragon of literature.” He put his hand up to his eye as if brushing away a tear. “She will be missed, indeed she will.”

  “But not by you?”

  “Why, whatever do you mean? Marlene and I were close, quite close.”

  “Yes, I understand you met her at your first romance convention. She introduced you to your agent.”

  “My first agent,” he amended, his lips settling into a slash. “I’ve since traded up.”

  “I heard he was a scumbag.”

  “Scumbag doesn’t even begin to describe him. I’m sorry, but I can’t use the proper adjectives in mixed company.” He gave me a hard stare. “Is that what you’re after? Some sort of sensational story on how I secretly hated Marlene? If that’s your aim, I’m afraid you’re going to be sadly disappointed. As I said, she and I were quite close.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you were. You were so close that you told her your most confidential, deadly secret.”

  His eyes widened and his skin, beneath all that tanning spray, paled. His tongue darted out to slick across his bottom lip. “Who told you that?” he rasped as he jumped up from the love seat, almost colliding with Nancy, who’d approached silently, two large coffees in hand. “Oh, my dear,” he cried, reaching out a hand to steady her. “I am so sorry.”

  “No problem.” She set the coffees down on the small table in front of the love seat, regarding us with an anxious expression. “Is everything all right here?”

  “Of course it is,” he said, his smile getting wider. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Her gaze flicked in between us. “You look upset,” she said. “And Milton will have my head if things don’t go smoothly tonight.” She glanced at her watch. “Your agent will be here soon.”

  “There are no more fans waiting for books to be signed, correct?” As Nancy nodded, he motioned to me. “Then I would like to go into that lovely back room where I was before the signing started, with this young lady, for just a very brief interview. Will you see we are not disturbed?”

  “Sure.”

  Sable St. John led me back to a very different room than the one I’d sat in with Scarlett earlier. This one was large and airy, with a window that faced the street. A deep-cushioned love seat sat in one corner, and in the other was a large vanity with a high-backed chair covered with a floral velvet cushion.

  Hm, you could certainly tell which author rated higher. Whoever said sex sells sure wasn’t kidding.

  Sable closed the door and waved me toward the love seat. I sat down and he stood over me. His face no longer wore a pleasant expression; rather, his features had contorted themselves into a fierce scowl. He fisted both hands on his hips.

  “What do you know about my secret?”

  Well, of course I had no idea what his secret might be. I’d run a bluff, and from the looks of things it was a pretty good one. I decided a frontal attack was my best defense. “Anabel Leedson is dead,” I said.

  His fists uncurled, then curled again. “What did you say?”

  “I said Anabel Leedson is dead. She was found in the garage of a house she’d rented in Cruz earlier tonight. She died from carbon monoxide poisoning.” I paused. “An apparent suicide.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and then he slowly shook his head. “No, that’s not right. Anabel would never take her own life.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “Quite well, better than anyone imagined. Remember, I told you I had gotten a different agent.”

  Now my eyes widened. “Anabel was your agent?”

  He nodded. “And a damn fine one she was, too.”

  “Is that why Marlene accused you and Anabel of plotting against her? Because Anabel took you on as a client?”

  He laughed. “Marlene thought the whole world was plotting in some form or another against her, so probably the answer is yes. I know Anabel told me she wasn’t happy about it, although it’s beyond me why she would even care.” He leaned in a bit closer to me. “Marlene accused us of having an affair. Can you imagine? I mean, I was fond of Anabel, just not in a sexual way. Her feelings for me, well, that’s another story. But I did nothing to encourage her, I assure you.”

  I bit down on my lower
lip, studying him. I looked at his hair again. Abruptly I jumped up and pulled at a strand of his hair.

  “Ow!” he yelled and jumped back. “What did you do that for?”

  I sat back down. Definitely not a wig. That hair was all his.

  “I’m sorry. You dye your hair?”

  He fluffed the ends back, glaring at me. “You could have just asked me that,” he growled. “Actually, this is my natural color. I’d dyed it brown, but I got so tired of keeping it up. Anabel was a bit tentative about it, but the women eat it up. She was tentative about me admitting Sable St. John was a man, too, and that turned out better than we dreamed.” He let out a long sigh. “She was such a worrywart, but she was always making plans. We planned this European tour together.” He dropped onto the love seat beside me, scrubbing at his face with both hands. “It can’t be true. She can’t be dead!”

  I laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I hate to ask you this, but . . .”

  “You want to know where I was? I’ve been doing PR all day. Interviews for book websites, blogs, stuff like that. Then I did an impromptu personal appearance at a small bookstore the next town over. You can check that. Then I came back here and I was with Milton till he left, and Nancy all evening. Oh, I’ve got an alibi, trust me. I didn’t kill Anabel. I would never have harmed her. Now Marlene, well, there’s a different story.” He held out his hand. “Before you get any ideas, I didn’t kill her. Trust me, no one warranted killing as much as her, and I’m not sorry she’s dead. But me kill her?” He shook his head. “Not only do I not have the nerve, could you imagine me in prison? On death row? I’d never survive.”

  Now that I could believe.

  I leaned toward him. “I’m going to be honest with you, Mr. St. John. I used to be a reporter, but I’m retired from that line of work. I do, however, assist the police from time to time.”

  He nodded slowly. “And you’re assisting them with Marlene’s murder?”

  “Your name was in her appointment book. The day of her death, you had a meeting with her.”

  “Yes.” He ran a hand through his hair, making some of the ends stick out, nutty professor style. If I’d doubted it was a wig, that gesture sealed the deal. “Marlene was writing a tell-all book about her life, and about several people she knew who had secrets. I had a little problem with alcohol when I met Marlene. My tongue would get a bit loose at times. Long story short, I shared something with Marlene I shouldn’t have, and she was going to reveal that in this book.”

  “Might I ask what this secret is?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve learned my lesson. What I will tell you, though, is that Marlene had secrets on people that some would consider shady, maybe even dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” I narrowed my gaze at him. “You mean like the mob?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, then shrugged. “I really can’t say,” he said at last.

  “Okay, so you told Marlene this secret in a weak moment, and she was going to reveal it in this book. Was it someone you worked for when you were Dooley Franks? Someone with the initials NE?”

  He shrugged again, but a flicker of some emotion crossed his face for a brief instant and then was gone. “I’m sorry. I can’t say one way or the other.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know if Marlene herself had dealings with that person, would you? Most likely of a personal nature?”

  “Trust me, I’m the last person Marlene McCambridge would apprise of her personal affairs,” he spat. “If you want information, why not talk to her lawyer, Carruthers? Now there’s a likely suspect if I ever saw one. They argued like cats and dogs, especially these last few weeks. I saw him once, leaving her office. His face was beet red. He looked mad enough to kill.” Unexpectedly he reached over and gave my arm a pat. “You’re a bright girl. Maybe this will help you. When I saw Anabel the other day, she was speaking to someone on her cell and she sounded quite agitated. She was trying to track down someplace called Stein’s Estates and wasn’t having much luck. Seems the number she’d been given had been disconnected.”

  “Track it down, you say? She wasn’t familiar with the place?”

  He shook his head. “It didn’t seem that way.”

  Hm. Then that half card and claim check couldn’t have belonged to her. “Thank you, Mr. St. John. You’ve been a very great help indeed.”

  I hurried out of the room and down the escalator to the main floor. I was unsure how to categorize St. John. I’d have to reserve judgment on him for now. I glanced at my watch. It was almost ten o’clock. I exited the store and paused, fishing in my bag for my cell to call Peter to tell him to see if he could try and find anything on a Stein’s, when suddenly a heavy hand came down on my shoulder. I turned around slowly, and stared into Leroy Samms’s face.

  “Well, well, Nora Charles. Just the person we wanted to see.”

  “We?”

  I glanced over my shoulders. Daniel had emerged from the shadows and was standing close behind me. “We had a feeling we’d find you here,” he said.

  So here I was, sandwiched in between both of the men in my life . . . and neither one of them was smiling.

  Twenty

  In spite of the fact both Samms and Daniel looked as if they’d lost their last friend in the world, I put on my brightest, widest smile.

  “Well, fancy running into you two. I was just about to call you, both of you, actually. I was here having a little talk with Sable St. John. He told me some pretty interesting stuff about Anabel, and about the secret Marlene had on him.”

  Daniel and Samms exchanged a look, and then Daniel reached out and grabbed my elbow. “We have to talk.”

  “Great. I like good conversation.” I glanced back toward the store. “They’re closing soon, but I think there’s an all-night coffee shop two blocks down.”

  “This conversation is best had where we won’t be overheard,” Samms said, his lips tightening into a thin line.

  “Oh. Well, I suppose we could go back to Hot Bread. Chantal and Desiree are there, though.”

  “We can deal with that,” Daniel said. He motioned toward a sleek black sedan parked in a No Parking zone. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” I hung back. “My car’s over in Municipal.”

  Samms’s fingers dug into my elbow, a sure sign there was no point in arguing. “That’s okay. I’ll send someone to pick it up. You can ride with us.”

  • • •

  Chantal was bent over my laptop when I entered Hot Bread about a half hour later. She looked up when she heard the door open and tossed me a brilliant smile.

  “Ah, chérie! I think I found what we were looking for. In Gilroy—”

  She stopped speaking as I shook my head and put a warning finger to my lips. A second later Samms and Daniel came in. Chantal shot them both a bright smile. “Good evening, gentlemen. Here for a late-night snack?”

  Daniel shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it carelessly across my back counter. “I could go for something,” he admitted.

  “I could go for a blueberry banana smoothie,” said Samms. “That’s a delicious healthy snack. Too bad someone I know doesn’t have a smoothie machine in her shop.”

  I pulled a face at him. “I’ve got some Greek yogurt in the fridge. I can mix it with berries. That’s a nice healthy snack. Or, if you can wait a few minutes, I can whip up some bruschetta on ciabatta.”

  “Or”—Chantal had been rummaging in the refrigerator while we were talking, and now approached the table, platter in hand—“we can just keep it simple with some grapes and cheddar cheese.”

  Samms rubbed his hands together. “That’ll do.”

  Chantal set the tray down in the middle of the table and resumed her seat in front of my laptop. Daniel sat on Chantal’s left, Samms on her right. I took the remaining chair directly across from Chantal. I waited until Samms and Daniel helped themselves to cheese and grapes and then said, “You two wanted to talk. The floor’s yours.”

  I looked at Chant
al. “Where’s Desiree?”

  Chantal’s gaze flicked from me, over to Samms, then Daniel, then back to me. “They did not tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “The DA dropped all charges. Peter came and took her back to the Cruz Inn about an hour ago.”

  My mouth dropped open and I started to rise out of my chair. Samms took a bite of cheese, swallowed, and leaned partway across the table, his intimidating cop stance. His finger shot out, jabbed at my nose. “Sit down.”

  I remained standing. I put my hands on my hips and glared at the two of them. “The two of you knew Desiree was cleared. When were you going to tell me?”

  He ignored my question and countered with one of his own. “You went back out to that house today, didn’t you?”

  I folded my arms across my chest and stared sulkily ahead. “You know darn well I was there.”

  Samms flopped back in his chair, drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “You went out there even though we both told you it was dangerous territory you were treading on, and that you should stay away.” He popped a grape into his mouth. “Didn’t you learn anything from the last time you pulled a stunt like this?”

  I spread my hands. “What can I say? Old investigative reporter habits die hard.”

  Samms snorted. “Just as long as the investigative reporter doesn’t,” he said. He folded his hands in front of him. “We found a suicide note, and what appears to be a confession.”

  My head snapped up. “You did? What did the note say?”

  “The usual: that she could no longer live with what she did, even though she’d gladly do it all again to protect innocent people. It was signed Anabel.”

  I looked at Daniel and directed my question to him. “Sounds a little ambiguous to me. Are you certain she wrote it?”

  “Handwriting matches.” It was Samms who answered. “We also found a pair of high-powered binoculars under the living room sofa.”

  I nodded. That pretty much substantiated my belief that Anabel had been spying on Marlene. The murder angle, though, I found a bit tougher to swallow. “While I’m happy to see Desiree exonerated, neither of you really believe that Anabel killed her and then committed suicide, do you?”