Death Takes the Cake Read online

  After I’d folded the beaten whites into the cheese, milk, butter, flour, and yolk mixture, I tilted the soufflé dish so that the camera could watch my fingers as I buttered the inside, and then dusted the sides with two tablespoons of the grated Parmesan cheese.

  “The dry cheese on the buttered insides gives the soufflé something to clutch as it rises. Picture tiny hand- and footholds on the side of a cliff, or on the exercise wall at the gym.”

  As soon as I’d transferred the mixture into the prepared baking dish, I topped the rim with a stand-up collar of aluminum foil two inches high and tied it in place with string. “This foil collar will keep the soufflé from spilling over when it rises.”

  Carefully, I transported the dish to the oven and slid it inside. I said to the camera, “After the soufflé’s been in the oven for ten minutes, reduce the heat to 400 and continue baking for about twenty-five more minutes. If you don’t have a glass-front oven—and as you see, I don’t—resist the temptation to keep opening the door to look at your soufflé. Have a little faith, folks.”

  Through my earpiece, I heard Quinn say, “Della, lead in to the commercial insert.”

  I smiled at the camera. “We’re going to take a little break now while I start putting together the ingredients for the chocolate soufflé we’ll make next. Stay right there and I’ll be back to walk you through a fabulous dessert.”

  Taping stopped. I decreased the oven heat to 400 degrees and organized what I’d need for the next segment, hoping fervently that this wouldn’t be the time that my own soufflé fell.

  Luck smiled on me. With the beautifully puffed-up cheese soufflé out of the oven and photographed for the audience, it was time to make the salad, which would be the final dish of this day’s shows.

  “The best way to cut an avocado,” I said to Camera Two as I held up a ripe green Hass, “is to slice it in half lengthwise and then give it a little twist to separate the two halves. Like this.” I held the two halves up to face the camera.

  “Now to remove the pit without damaging that half of the avocado, just tap the pit with the edge of your knife, and—aggh!” The knife slipped off the avocado pit and I felt a sharp jab. Suddenly blood spurted from the palm of my left hand.

  In my earpiece, Quinn said, “Keep going. I’m not stopping tape.” I heard her order Camera Two in for a close-up.

  I grabbed a handful of paper towels from the roll next to the sink, soaked them with cold water, and pressed the paper hard against my cut. Forcing a grin, I said into Camera Two’s lens, “I hope you at home won’t do what I just did, but if you do, stop the bleeding right away by using clean paper towels and cold water.”

  I lifted the wad to take a look—and more blood gushed out of my palm. Dropping the soaked towels, I snatched fresh ones, pressed again, and produced a light laugh. “Don’t panic if it takes quite a few wet towels before the bleeding stops.”

  The studio lights were bright but the two cameras and their operators were close enough for me to see them clearly. Ernie Ramirez gagged. Jada Powell pantomimed asking if he was all right. He nodded and took a deep breath and nodded, but he looked queasy.

  One more wad of wet towels and when I lifted them from the wound this time, I saw that the bleeding had stopped. Turning my palm to the camera, I said, “Success.”

  Even though it wasn’t bleeding at that moment, I kept light pressure on the wound while I reached up to the top of the refrigerator and took down a blue metal box. “This is my first aid kit. I always keep it on top of the fridge because that way I never forget where it is, and—most important—seeing it reminds me to keep the medications inside up-to-date.”

  Jada, on Camera Two, followed me to the sink. Explaining what I was doing, I washed the wound thoroughly with antibacterial soap.

  “This next part stings a little,” I said, as I disinfected the puncture with peroxide, “but just for a few seconds. Then squeeze on some antibiotic ointment. If you don’t have any, use hand sanitizer. You can get a dispenser to mount near a kitchen or bathroom sink, and carry a little portable squirt bottle in your handbag for away-from-home emergencies.”

  With my palm facing the camera to show that it wasn’t bleeding any longer, I said, “If it looks like you can’t stop the bleeding, keep the pressure on but get to an emergency room. You might need a few stitches. But if you don’t, just slap on a Band-Aid, like I’m doing.”

  In my ear I heard Quinn say, “Lead in to the commercial inserts.”

  I aimed a bright smile at the future audience. “Okay, excitement over. It’s time for another little break now, and when we come back I’ll finish making our mixed vegetable salad. The romaine, the butter lettuce, and the spinach leaves I’ll tear with my hands, but I promise to be extra careful slicing the cherry tomatoes and that slippery avocado.”

  As soon as Camera Two’s red light went off, I opened the refrigerator door, took out three cold sodas—not the sugar-free kind, because we needed the lift—and gave one each to Jada and Ernie. I raised my soda can in a mock toast and said to the camera team, “At least this didn’t happen on one of the live shows.”

  Jada glanced up at the control booth above us, covered the mouthpiece on her headphones, leaned forward and whispered, “Quinn’s even scarier, now that I know she likes the sight of blood.”

  Ernie joked, “Maybe she’s not British, but Transylvanian. The bride of Dracula. She says she’s married, but she’s never brought her husband to the studio.”

  Jada picked up on Ernie’s theme. “I’m picturing them sleeping in a coffin filled with earth from their homeland.”

  In my earpiece, Quinn said, “Della, please figure out how to take the pit out of an avocado without maiming yourself and we’ll run that insert as a PSA when we air this near-disaster of a show.”

  I felt like a ten-year-old who’d just been reprimanded by the teacher, then I remembered a line from a philosopher I’d studied in school: “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” It was one of the rare bits in his writings where I agreed with Nietzsche.

  As I was wrapping up the show—careful to keep the blood-soaked paper towels below camera range—I saw John O’Hara move quietly into my line of sight.

  “That’s all for today, folks. Take pictures of your perfect soufflés, send them to me here at the Better Living Channel in North Hollywood. You’ll find the address on the screen at the end of the show. I’ll show them on the air and put them up on my Web site, Dellacooks.com.”

  Camera’s red light off. Taping over.

  Tuffy, spotting John as he came toward the preparation counter, stood and wagged his tail.

  “This is a nice surprise,” I said, even as some internal warning signal told me that “nice” might not be the perfect word. “Is everything all right?”

  “Pretty much. Are you through for a while?”

  “For the day.” Without thinking about my sliced palm I brought both hands up above the counter. I saw that a little trickle of blood had seeped out below the Band-Aid.

  John took one look at the wad of bloody paper towels and blanched. “My God!” He took hold of my arm. “We’re going to the nearest hospital.”

  I pulled back. “We are not. I’m all right. See, it’s stopped bleeding.” Finally.

  “You might need stitches—”

  “No, I don’t, but I appreciate your concern. Really. I’m okay. I’d go to a doctor if it was necessary.” To get him away from the subject of my hand, I said, “Tell me why you came all the way out here.”

  Glancing about to be sure that there was no one close enough to over hear us, John said, “The Regina Davis autopsy’s been completed. There was a surprise in it.”

  “What?”

  “The blow to her head didn’t kill her. It rendered her unconscious, but she died from asphyxiation—from her face being forced down into that bowl full of cake batter.”

  I shuddered. “That’s horrible.”

  “It was ugly. And personal. Whoever killed
her was filled with rage.”

  “Do you have a suspect?”

  John took two photographs out of his jacket pocket and turned the pictures toward me. “Do you recognize this?”

  They were shots of a gold fountain pen, both sides.

  Automatically, I smiled. “It’s Bill Marshall’s. I was with Liddy when she bought it for him, for their last anniversary.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Of course. See the two hearts engraved on the cap? If you look closely you’ll see there’s a little ‘B’ in the center of one heart and ‘L’ in the other. Liddy had the store engrave it like that. Where did you find it?”

  The smile died on my lips when I saw the unhappy expression on John’s face.

  “It was in Regina Davis’s handbag. The engraving is how we knew it wasn’t hers,” he said. “Can you explain how Bill Marshall’s pen happened to be in the murdered woman’s possession?”

  16

  My mind, so often racing with ideas and theories, crashed against a virtual wall of shock. I was stunned into silence at the news that Bill Marshall’s pen was found in Reggie’s handbag. How in the world could that be?

  Ah—I’ve got it! In my head I sounded as triumphant as Alexander Graham Bell must surely have felt when he discovered that his assistant could hear his voice through the first telephone. “The answer is simple,” I said. “Reggie’s probably a patient of Bill’s. She was in his office recently and needed to write a check to him, but she didn’t have a pen, so Bill handed her his, and she forgot to give it back. That sort of thing happens all the time.”

  In his measured baritone, John said, “That’s a logical explanation, Sherlock.”

  “Just call me Irene Adler—the only woman Holmes thought was his equal.” But my enthusiasm began to ebb when I saw the unhappy expression on John’s face. “What’s the matter?”

  “From the times we’ve all been together, I thought I recognized the pen. However unlikely, the initials might have been a coincidence, so I asked Weaver to check out the high-end stores where that kind of pen is sold, and I went to Bill’s office.”

  Apprehension was prickling my skin. “What did Bill say?”

  “He wasn’t there. His nurse said that he’d called her very early and asked her to reschedule his patients. What he told her was that he decided to take a ‘vacation day’ with his wife.”

  John paused in a way that told me more was coming, and that the “more” probably wasn’t good news.

  Even though I was sure I would not like the answer, I had to know. “What’s the rest—the part you haven’t told me yet?”

  “Regina Davis wasn’t a patient of Bill’s.” John’s voice was heavy with concern.

  A cold, hard lump of dread filled my chest. “Are you positive she wasn’t a patient? Maybe she used to be, but then—”

  “No. According to his nurse, Ms. Davis has never been one of his patients. So we’re back to the question of how Bill’s pen got into the dead woman’s purse.”

  I didn’t feel much like the brilliant Irene Adler anymore. “What are you going to do?”

  “Tell Weaver what I found out, and then we’ll have to question Bill. Do you know where he and Liddy would have gone for his unscheduled ‘vacation day’?”

  “No,” I said.

  But that was only the literal truth. While I didn’t know where they were, I had an idea . . .

  The first thing I did after John left, and after snapping Tuffy into his safety harness, was climb behind the wheel of my Jeep and dial Liddy’s number on my cell phone. Listening to the ringing on the other end of the line, I hoped that she wasn’t home, because if she was there, and not away somewhere with Bill, then that would look even worse for him in the eyes of Detectives O’Hara and Weaver.

  Voice mail picked up and I heard Liddy say, “Hi, friends and family. We’re out of town just for today. You won’t really have time to miss us, but I’ll be checking for messages. Bye for now!” She sounded so happy; her voice was full of little musical trills. I was afraid that happiness would evaporate once they were found.

  As soon as John caught up with Detective Weaver and filled him in, they’d start looking for Bill and Liddy. I was sure they’d first check the airlines to see if the Marshalls were listed on any of the manifests. If not, they’d guess that the couple might have driven across the border to Mexico. John or Weaver would alert the officers in San Diego to check outgoing tourists and stop Bill and Liddy for questioning.

  While the detectives were waiting for news from the border, they’d begin to check places in the Los Angeles area where a well-to-do couple might “hide out” for a day. They would theorize that Bill Marshall might seek the anonymity of the huge crowds at Disneyland, Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm, or at one of the other magnets for fun-seekers. After that, John and Weaver and others in the squad would probably canvas the luxury hotels in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, and maybe even ninety miles north, in Santa Barbara, or a hundred and ten miles south in the resort community of Coronado Bay.

  That kind of wide-ranging investigation requires both manpower and the power of a detective’s shield. I couldn’t compete with that, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have to. One advantage I had over the police was that Liddy was my best friend, and had shared her most personal feelings with me. One of Liddy’s confidences was the investigative track I was about to follow.

  I put the Jeep in gear, drove away from the Better Living Channel’s production facility, and headed for Ventura Boulevard. At Ventura, instead of turning right, toward Beverly Glen Canyon and home, I turned left, toward Laurel Canyon, and an area of Los Angeles that had none of the elegance of Bill and Liddy Marshall’s usual haunts.

  My idea sprang from a conversation I’d had with Liddy a few weeks ago when she shared with me that she and Bill had been acting like honeymooners ever since September, when their twin boys left for college in the east. She said she was feeling really wild again, and giggled about her fantasy of taking Bill to one of those motels along La Cienega Boulevard that catered to people who checked in under phony names and stayed for only a few hours. “It would be like being crazy young again,” she’d said.

  I’d replied, “I’ll bet you never did that even when you were young.”

  “Well, no,” she admitted. “I grew up in Nebraska, and when I met Bill he was already becoming successful, and we were both unattached and had our own apartments. Still . . .” She’d looked wistful for a moment.

  When I warned her that those “hot bed” motels might not be perfect models of sanitation, she’d joked, “What’s the worst that can happen? We’ve got great medical insurance.”

  The conversation that at the time had seemed merely silly ended there, but now I wondered if doing something “crazy young” might be Liddy’s way of quashing her fear that Bill had been cheating on her.

  As I drove east toward Laurel—the most narrow and winding of the canyons, and the one that connected the San Fernando Valley directly into Hollywood—I thought about Liddy’s misery when she discovered Bill had lied to her. Then her unhappiness had been swept away by a tide of euphoria when he’d told her that he’d been taking secret ballroom dancing lessons in preparation for surprising her with a holiday cruise.

  I’d wanted to believe Bill’s story, and I’m sure my nagging vestige of doubt would have vanished if he continued to be where he told her he would be. But now the question plaguing me was how had Bill’s gold anniversary pen wound up in Reggie’s handbag on the night she was murdered?

  After the thrill ride that was twisty-turny Laurel Canyon, I reached Sunset Boulevard and turned right toward La Cienega Boulevard. La Cienega winds south down from Sunset all the way to Culver City, where Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, once the gold standard of Hollywood studios, used to be located. The land is still there, but now it’s the site of an international company called Sony that manufactures movies and all kinds of entertainment hardware and software. Liddy told me that Hollywood us
ed to be called “the dream factory.” Now it seemed to be just a factory, turning out a lot of movies and television shows that appeared to come off an assembly line.

  The first mile or two of La Cienega boasts excellent restaurants and expensive furniture, fabric, and decorators’ shops, but once one crosses Wilshire Boulevard the ambiance plunges on the economic scale down into a parade of motels barely more alluring than the one Norman Bates owned in Psycho. Few of those I passed had pools, which would have indicated that they catered to families. Most had signs advertising “Cable TV.” Some also offered “Free Internet Connection.”

  I drove slowly past a cluster of them with names like “Paradise Motel,” “Motel of the Stars,” and “Happy Hours,” looking for either Bill’s bronze Cadillac or Liddy’s ivory Land Rover. There would be no mistaking either car because of their personalized license plates: Bill’s was “SAY AHH” and Liddy’s proclaimed her “TWINS MA.”