Drop Dead Lola

by Melissa Bourbon

  “Okay,” I said. “You got this.”

  She tittered on the other end of the line. “I do! I’m so excited. I was so nervous, but now I just want it to be Saturday already.”

  We chatted for a few more minutes before she said, “Lola, I need your help with something.”

  I knew there was more to her call than an update on her pole dancing endeavor. “Okay,” I said.

  “My wedding dress.”

  I needed another clue. “What about it?”

  “It’s too fancy. I don’t think I can pull it off.” Nervousness had replaced the excitement in her voice.

  “What? No way, Leti. Of course you can pull it off.” Her dress was a trumpet mermaid style with cap sleeves, lace, and a court train. She looked like a princess in it. It was perfect for her.

  “I don’t know. My mother, she doesn’t like it.”

  Dios mio. The Falcón women. Leave it to tía Roselia to try to get Leti worked up just days before the wedding. “Your mother isn’t the one wearing it,” I said.

  Silence.

  I tried again. “Leti, you love that dress.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “And Mark is going to think you look beautiful, no matter what you’re wearing.”

  She sighed. “He will.”

  “You can’t let what your mom wants interfere with what you want.”

  “That’s what Elli says.”

  If she’d gone to her sister first, I was the reinforcement. “Listen to Elli,” I said. “She’s right.”

  “There’s one more thing,” she said hesitantly.

  What else could tía Roselia have up her sleeve? I wondered. “Okay.”

  “You know me, Lola. I don’t usually wear makeup or do much with my hair.”

  Yep, she was twenty-four and heading straight for middle age.

  “I was going to go to a shop, but I’m afraid they’ll make me look like someone I’m not. So I was wondering if you…if you’d…”

  “If I’ll do your hair and makeup?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Could you…would you…will you do that for me?”

  “Leti, of course I will,” I said with a happy laugh. “I’d love to.”

  She heaved a received sigh. “Oh, gracias a Dios,” she said, and I could picture her making the sign of the cross.

  By the time I hung up with Leti, it was seven thirty. My conversation with Michael and Seth from the night before had been circling in my mind all night. I’d gone back to the office and added the information about the agitated phone call and keeping whatever it was about from Marnie, but that was as far as I’d gotten. What I wanted to do now was talk to Marnie. That was the one thing, however, that I couldn’t do.

  By the time I left the house, it was a few minutes past eight. Marnie was still comatose, but, I reasoned, a little one on one time with Anne, who I was pretty sure was holding a round the clock vigil at the hospital, might give me something to help flesh out Michael’s story.

  My cell phone rang when I was halfway there. I pressed the speaker button and Jack’s voice came through my stereo system. I said, “Hello.”

  He responded with, “I miss you.”

  “I bet I miss you more,” I teased.

  “Impossible. I thought about you all night long. Couldn’t sleep a wink.”

  “You should have come over. I have a lot of ways to cure insomnia.”

  “I can’t wait to experience each and every one of them.”

  “Tonight, then,” I said. “Your place or mine?”

  He sighed and I heard his disappointment. “Tonight’s out. I have to drive to Marin today to interview a guy about his boat, then tomorrow he’s taking me sailing in the bay.”

  “For a story?” I asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I really did miss him since I’d seen him a few days ago.

  “Yeah. A feel-good piece.”

  Jack liked hard-hitting investigative pieces, but a break from that once in a while wasn’t a bad thing. “Important, given all the turmoil in the world,” I said.

  He didn’t respond, so I wasn’t so sure he agreed with me. “How’s the case?”

  We hadn’t talked last night, so he didn’t know about Michael overhearing a heated conversation between Philip and some unknown person. I filled him in.

  “You think Aaron found out who Phil had been on the phone with and tried to blackmail him?”

  “Don’t you?”

  He hesitated for a second. “Yeah. Makes sense,” he said, then muttered, “What the hell was Phil thinking?”

  “He was probably trying to make the most of his business before he and Gemma got married. He was getting all his ducks in a row.”

  “What he did was unethical. He should have known better than that.”

  Jack held people to high standards. I didn’t know that about him when we were younger, but now it was one of the things I loved most about him. He wouldn’t compromise his ethics for anyone or anything. In this case, especially, I agreed with him. “He may have died for it.”

  “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  “Heading to the hospital to talk to Anne, then to Quaffman Electric to talk to the receptionist. I was heading there yesterday when I got the call about Aaron.”

  “How did he die?” Jack asked.

  “This is the interesting part. He was a mechanic. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning. A car was running in the shop, the doors were closed, and Aaron was found under a car.”

  Jack gave a low whistle. “Guess the murderer wanted to give that method another try.”

  Just what I’d thought when I’d heard. “And this time, he succeeded.”

  We talked for a few more minutes. Before long, I was back at the hospital. Anne was exactly where I’d hoped she’d be. She lay in an awkward position on one of the couches in the family waiting area. She was going to have a serious neck ache.

  I didn’t want to startle her, so I approached quietly, lay my hand on her arm, and spoke quietly. “Anne?”

  She twitched and readjusted. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake up.

  “Anne,” I said, sitting next to her. I felt a little bit bad for disturbing her, but not bad enough to not do it. Finally, after the third time I called her name, she stirred and her eyes opened. She blinked, finally focusing on me. “Dolores?”

  I turned my body to face her. “Are you doing okay?”

  “I don’t want to lose her, you know. I can’t lose her.”

  It was beyond her control, but I understood. I was about to ask her if there’d been any change, but a nurse appeared. She clasped her hands together in front of her and smiled. “Ms. Haskell,” she said. Anne looked up. At that angle, the dark circles around her eyes were pronounced. “The doctor is with your mother. She’s awake.”

  Anne’s eyes narrowed with disbelief. She looked like she was sure she was being punk’d. “What?”

  “Your mother woke up from her coma. The doctor is with her now. You’ll be able to see her soon.”

  Awake and recovered were two different things. “Is she going to be okay?” I asked.

  “You’ll have to speak with the doctor. He’ll be able to answer your questions.” The nurse gave Anne’s hand a squeeze. She turned to leave at the same time the doctor, a middle-aged man with thinning hair, glasses, and full cheeks, appeared.

  “Ms. Haskell.” He looked at me and nodded. “Ma’am.”

  I flinched. In no way, shape, or form was I a ma’am. Ms. Yes. Miss. Okay. But ma’am? Uh uh.

  “Is it true?” Anne’s eyes were wide with hope now. “Is she awake?”

  The doctor smiled. “She is. I’d say it’s a bit of a miracle, actually. She’s awake, albeit disoriented. As you know, she’s been receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy to flood her blood with pure oxyge
n. Her EEGs have not shown reduced brain activity, so I’ve been cautiously optimistic that we’d see some improvement. Her response this morning is better than I’d hoped for.”

  “So she’s going to be okay?” I asked.

  “It’s too early to say she’s out of the woods, I’m afraid. There are myriad long-lasting affects from prolonged exposure to carbon monoxide.”

  “Like what?” Anne asked.

  “Yeah, like what?” I echoed.

  The doctor rattled off a litany of concerns Marnie might face. “Loss of balance, vision and memory problems, confusion, heart damage. There’s no way of knowing what your mother might encounter. It’ll be a day at a time.”

  “Can we talk to her now?” I asked.

  The doctor looked at me. “Are you family?”

  I waited for a beat, hoping Anne might fudge a little and say that we were. She went with the truth instead. “No, she’s a private investigator looking into the attempted murder of my mother.”

  The doctor removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses on his white coat, staring at me the whole time. “A PI, huh?”

  “That’s right. As you probably know, Marnie Haskell believed her son’s death was not suicide, and then she was found unconscious with carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  “And you think it’s possible her CO poisoning was an attempt on her life?”

  Where had this guy been? Surely the police had been here and talked to Marnie’s medical team about the possibility. “I think it’s probable,” I said. “If she’s able, I’d like to ask her a few questions.”

  “You can have five minutes,” he said. “She needs rest and her family.”

  I jumped up. “I understand, doctor. Thank you.”

  Anne and I followed him down the hallway and into Marnie’s room. She was reclining slightly on her bed, the oxygen mask she’d been wearing still firmly in place. The doctor gently removed it. “Mrs. Haskell. Your daughter is here.”

  Marnie managed a faint smile at her daughter. Anne’s face instantly collapsed and she sobbed. She sat on the edge of her mother’s bed and folded herself over Marnie, burying her head against Marnie’s pillow. IV lines draped from the back of Marnie’s hand. She moved her arms gingerly, wrapping them around Anne as if she were the one needing comforting rather than the other way around. “Shhh,” she whispered, patting Anne’s back.

  The doctor returned to my side. The movement caught Marnie’s attention. She raised her eyes and her gaze landed on me. She jerked, releasing Anne, and beckoned me forward.

  Anne stayed perched on the bed. I moved around her and reached for Marnie’s hand, letting it rest in mine. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said.

  She managed a faint by wry laugh. She spoke slowly. Carefully. Taking in air between the words. “I am…too. Is there…any…news?”

  “I have a few ideas, but—”

  “Why were you in the car, Mom?” Anne asked, interrupting me.

  “The…car.” It was a statement, not a question, and she didn’t say anything more.

  Anne and I exchanged a concerned glance. “Mrs. Haskell, we found you in your car in your garage.”

  Her brow furrowed and she frowned. “Someone…at…the…door,” she said.

  “Someone came to the door that morning?” I asked.

  Marnie gave a barely perceptible nod. “But…”

  “Who was it, Mom?” Anne asked. “Who came to the door?”

  “A…man. Did I…know…him? I don’t…know.”

  “Think, Mom?” Anne pleaded, but Marnie’s eyes fluttered closed.

  The doctor moved to the opposite side of the bed, took the oxygen mask, and fitted it over her nose and mouth. “I’m afraid she needs rest.”

  Anne and I stepped back. The nurse took our spot, fiddling around with the machines and checking Marnie’s blood pressure, pulse, and heart rate.

  Back in the hallway, I turned to Anne. “If she says anything else—who came to the house that morning—will you call me?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Anne said. She pulled her phone from her back pocket. “I have to call my dad and brother. I’ll let you know if she remembers anything.”

  She disappeared down the hallway and I left the hospital, relieved at least that Marnie Haskell was alive.

  I texted Jack the good news about Marnie Haskell while I waited for the elevator.

  The three gray dots flashed as he responded. Are you at the hospital still?

  I turned my phone sideways and typed. Leaving now. Going to the office.

  The screen was blank for a few seconds. Was he going to reply? The elevator pinged its arrival. I started to put my phone in my back pocket, thinking something had come up and Jack would reply later, but it vibrated, alerting me to an incoming text. I’m on my way to see her. Thx for letting me know.

  I typed a final reply. A simple XOXO. I liked being the one to bring Jack good news.

  Chapter 20

  An hour later Manny came out of his office and stood in front of me, arms folded over his chest, stretching the cotton of his black t-shirt. “The guy has an airtight alibi,” he said again. “Joe Quaffman is not the murderer.”

  I stared at him, blinked, then dropped my head, pressing my forehead to the table. “Hijo de tu madre,” I muttered. “Son of a—what the hell?”

  With the lawsuit, Joe Quaffman’s rage and sketchy attitude toward Philip, and his receptionist’s cagey replies to my questions, I’d been sure I was on the right track. Now it felt like I was back at square one.

  “Someone killed the guy,” Manny said. “Cross off the Quaffman hypothesis and form another. Someone has to have a motive.”

  If I could materialize a motive out of thin air, I would have done it already. But I couldn’t, so I just nodded, frustrated, and stared at the white board, processing the information there and trying to reconcile it all with the thoughts zooming in and out of my mind. The fact that Joe Quaffman had a solid alibi for the time of Philip Haskell’s murder meant I’d been barking up the wrong tree. The thing is, no other suspect rose to the top of the pile.

  I ran through the most likely possibilities again. Tim, George, and Anne Haskell all had solid alibis, not to mention no motive that I’d been able to unearth. In fact, Joe Quaffman was the only person who seemed to have any motive whatsoever.

  Then Aaron Radley popped into my mind. He had obviously stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. I’d been trying to draw a line between Aaron and what he might know about Joe Quaffman, but what if I’d been searching too hard to form a connection where there was none?

  My cell phone rang. I drew it from my pocket and saw Jack’s name appear on the screen. “Hey, Callaghan,” I said.

  “Hey.” His voice sounded off. No playful flirting. My body went on high alert. Had Marnie Haskell slipped back into her coma? Or worse? Then he cut to the chase and I understood. “That electrician is here. He wants to see Marnie.”

  I heave a sigh of relief. “He has an alibi,” I said. Whoever Marnie had started to say had come to her door, I was pretty sure it wasn’t Joe Quaffman. If he hadn’t killed Philip, he had no reason to try to keep Marnie quiet. “Airtight.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Jack said. “He’s talking to the family now. I thought I was going to have to tackle him if he tried to see her.”

  “What, like maybe he’d come to finish the job?” The idea was crazy. Straight out of a movie. I loved that Jack would have taken the guy down to stop him, though.

  “Exactly. Good to know I don’t have to assault him.”

  “Yeah, or I’d be bailing you out of jail. Not a turn on.”

  He laughed. “Probably not. Orange isn’t my color.”

  “How is she doing?” I asked. “She was pretty confused when I was there. She started to say something about who came to the door the morning it happened, but s
he couldn’t remember.”

  “She hasn’t said anything else about it. She’s going in and out. Resting with the oxygen mask still.”

  Damn. Anne said she’d call me if there was a change, so I didn’t really think Marnie had given anyone any information, but still, I was disappointed. “I’m going to come see her again this afternoon.”

  “I want to, too. Meet you here at five?”

  “Deal,” I said. We hung up and I went back to my musings. So often, victims of murder knew their killer. In this case, the alibis exonerated Philip’s family members. Joe Quaffman was in the clear. I’d been able to confirm that Gemma had been at the bridal shop when Philip died, so she was in the clear. Someone had tried to kill Marnie Haskell, presumably to keep her quiet or to stop her from looking into her son’s death. Aaron Radley had been killed. What were the common denominators between Aaron and Philip? The answer was obvious. The baseball team. I sat up straighter and threw back my shoulders. “The baseball team.”

  Before I set my plan into motion, I called the hospital and spoke to the nurse overseeing Marnie Haskell’s care. Above all, I needed to make sure Marnie was safe.

  There were eleven guys on the team, excluding Philip. I pulled the roster from my purse and scanned through the names. I’d started doing preliminary background searches on them, one by one. So far, nothing strange popped up, but I still had several left. I grabbed a laptop from the table where Manny kept them stored, logged into Camacho and Associates’ secure network. Camacho and Associates had access to search engines the general public did not. I hadn’t had many opportunities to use it. Using it now sent a little charge of electricity through me. I typed in the next name on the list. Gustavo Romero. A white page listing popped up with a list of people with the same name from all over the country. I put in the state filter, but that didn’t help narrow down the choices.

  I thought back to Jack’s and my trip to the ball park. Gustavo had been driving a truck with a logo emblazoned on the side. I closed my eyes and tried to envision it. It had been a straight-forward serif font. No frills. But there had been an image. A hammer? Yes, a hammer. So construction. But, no. That wasn’t right. Home remodeling? No again. Then it came to me. Mickey J’s Custom Cabinets. I googled the name of the company and Gustavo’s name and found him that way. The guy was apparently one of the company’s top builders.