Death Takes the Cake Read online

  “This goes into a preheated 350-degree oven for about forty-five minutes, which means it will be ready for taste testing just before the end of the show.” I raised the first two fingers of my right hand and crossed them. “Wish me luck.”

  Quickly washing my hands at the sink, I said, “Now for the main dish comforts. First up are Cornish pasties. I learned to make them from my Grandma Nell. They’re little meat, potato, and onion pies that workmen in England, Scotland, and Wales used to take to their jobs for a nutritious lunch or dinner. They taste good whether they’re eaten warm or cold or at room temperature. After I get a batch of them started, we’ll be making a Chicken Biscuit Pie, from a book called Famous White House Recipes. According to my friend Victor Bardack, who compiled and published these recipes, Chicken Biscuit Pie was created during the period called the Great Depression when President Herbert Hoover asked his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, to come up with something tasty but economical to serve at the White House. It was such a terrible time for the country that President Hoover wanted to give the people a sense that the government was stable, so they continued to have state dinners, but without lavish meals far beyond the means of most Americans.”

  As I measured out flour, salt, shortening, and ice water, I said, “To make two pasties, you’ll need enough pastry for a nine-inch, two-crust pie. I’m cutting Crisco into the flour for this pastry because we’re making a meat pie. I’d use butter if this was going to be a fruit tart. Be sure to use only ice water to bind your dough. The colder the water, the flakier the crust is going to be.”

  After rolling out the dough on a floured board, I prepared the inside ingredients, brushed the tops of the filled and folded-over pastry with a beaten egg, put them on a greased baking sheet, and slipped them into a preheated oven.

  “Start your pasties at 400 degrees, but after fifteen minutes reduce the heat to 350 and give them another fifteen minutes.”

  In my earpiece, I heard Quinn’s voice from the director’s booth. “Ten seconds to commercial, Della. Nine . . . eight . . .”

  “We’ve got to take a break now while I cut this three-pound frying chicken into pieces.” I held it up to show the at-home and in-studio audiences. “When we come back in a couple of minutes, we’ll start working on Mrs. Hoover’s White House comfort food.”

  As soon as I saw on the monitor that commercials were going out over the air, I picked up my headphone from the shelf below the counter. It was connected to Quinn Tanner in the director’s booth.

  “Hi, Quinn—where’s Addison? I haven’t seen him since I got here.”

  “He came in at four o’clock but he didn’t honor us with his presence for very long.” Quinn’s sarcastic tone made her British accent sound even more imperious than usual. “The poor baby has a cold and went home to his bed. As any fool can plainly see, the show has gone flawlessly without an inexperienced producer mucking about. You might mention that to Mickey when you see him next.”

  “Give Addison a chance. He’s trying to find out where he belongs in the company.”

  “The Son—spelled s-o-n—Also Rises,” she said.

  It was too bad that Addison was sick because I’d intended to introduce him to the audience and have him taste the dishes on camera. I wanted to do it because I thought that seeing him on television would be a nice surprise for his mother.

  By the time the show was in its final segment, the Cornish pasties and the Chicken Biscuit Pie had been displayed and sampled by members of the studio audience. Happily, both had been praised by the volunteer tasters. Truth is always a risk on a live show, but sometimes disaster can be even more entertaining than success. I’ve made enough missteps in my life to know that one doesn’t die from embarrassment. My favorite episode of a show called Clean House was the time a woman whose rooms they’d cleaned, painted, and refurnished—attractively, I thought—was so unhappy with the result she had an emotional meltdown on camera. I felt bad for the unhappy woman, but that edition of the show injected a refreshing dose of “reality” into reality TV.

  With just three minutes left before the final credits started to roll, I picked up a pair of pot holders and told the audience, “Time to take the fruitcake bread pudding experiment out of the oven. As you here in the studio saw, I haven’t even taken a peek while it was baking.”

  Opening the oven door, I was met by a wave of the most delightful aroma. “It smells good,” I said.

  I carried the hot baking pan over to the prep counter and set it on a cooling rack. “It’s hot, but I can’t wait.” I removed a spoon from the cutlery drawer and scooped up a little of the pudding, blew on it, and put it into my mouth. “Yes!” I said with relief. As I’d hoped, the audience laughed. They even applauded.

  “Who’d like to come and taste?”

  Several arms shot up. I chose the first two I saw: a man and a woman who were sitting several seats apart in the front row.

  “Please, Nina,” I said to Nina Reyes, the floor manager who stood between Camera One and Camera Two, “help these two brave souls over the cables.”

  Even though something terrible had happened to the “taster” on my first live show—not my fault, as it was later proved—I’d done several live shows since then with only good results. Fortunately for me, the public had short memories and I’d had no shortage of volunteers from the audience.

  The man and the woman took the offered spoons. From opposite sides of the pan, they dug into the fruity bread pudding.

  I said, “What’s the verdict?”

  Mouths full, they rendered their opinions with enthusiastic nodding from the woman and a thumbs-up sign from the man.

  “Whew,” I said.

  As the show’s end credit theme music began, the camera followed me while I took the wrapped Cornish pasties and passed them out to the audience and the crew.

  “Don’t eat these driving home,” I said. “On a night like this, keep both hands on the wheel.”

  Because strong winds had developed during the afternoon, I’d hoped that by the time the show was over the storm would have blown away, or at least lessened. No such luck; the wind had died down, but the rain was even heavier now. It had been hard enough driving from Santa Monica to North Hollywood, but going home it was worse. The rain was coming down in sheets, and many of the streets were hubcap-deep with standing water.

  It was very difficult to see the lines dividing the lanes of traffic. I would have taken the 101 Freeway home, but the on ramp was closed. Seeing the flashing red and blue lights of police cars and fire trucks, it wasn’t hard to guess there’d been a bad accident. That crash had increased the number of cars on the surface streets.

  Every time I had to cross an intersection on a green light, I held my breath, hoping that other drivers would obey the signals, too. Every time I splashed through the deep water in a speed dip, I prayed that no sinkhole had opened up beneath. Southern California had had a plague of sinkholes in so-called firm ground during the past year. They were the stuff of night-mares.

  It took twice as long as it did normally, but I finally reached the turnoff onto Beverly Glen Canyon. This was my favorite of the routes that had been cut through the mountains so that San Fernando Valley dwellers could reach Los Angeles and the westside communities, including Santa Monica.

  Beverly Glen was a narrow, twisty road until one reached its peak, the Mulholland Drive intersection. About a mile on the other side, Beverly Glen widened comfortably. Unlike the other canyon boulevards, it didn’t have as many teeth-rattling potholes, and was subject to fewer mudslides from the hills that lined the west side of the road.

  Visibility was terrible. My headlights seemed to bounce off the lashing rain and back at me. I was still making my way up the tight, coiling Valley side of Mulholland when I heard a driver behind me gun his motor. Through the rearview mirror, I saw the headlights of a car rushing up behind me. With high beams on, the glare they produced in the mirror blinded me momentarily. I almost lost control of my Jeep, swerving to
ward the sheer drop on my left, but managed to right the wheel just in time to avoid plunging down to my death at the bottom of the canyon.

  I swore at the driver who had almost killed me, but of course he or she couldn’t hear me over the rain pelting the tops of our vehicles. In fact, I couldn’t see into the car behind me to know whether the driver was a man or a woman. Nor could I tell what kind of car it was, except that its shape was that of some type of ordinary sedan.

  My heart was racing, but having dodged disaster, I expelled a sigh of relief and started to calm down as I saw Mulholland Drive up ahead and realized that I was going to catch the green light at the intersection.

  I got through it just before the light changed, but a glance in my rearview mirror showed that the car behind me had sped through the yellow light. The way down Beverly Glen immediately below Mulholland is the most dangerous part. The car ahead of me was at a great enough distance that I could increase my speed—as much as I dared. It wasn’t much.

  The car behind increased its speed, too, roaring up behind me on my right. He almost crashed into me, but at the last split second the driver swerved enough that his front wheels were level with my rear wheels.

  Simultaneously, he pounded his horn with such a powerful blast of noise that I nearly jumped out of my skin. At that same moment I realized that he was crowding me toward the sheer drop on my left!

  Desperate to escape, before I could form the thought, I stomped down on the accelerator and shot ahead of the maniac behind me. The combination of punishing rain, the slippery roadway, and my dangerous velocity was causing the Jeep to rock from side to side.

  Please, God, don’t let me turn over!

  Then I remembered that the Jeep Compass, while it had a high center of gravity, was also the most compact of the styles I’d considered. That gave me the courage to put on more speed.

  The Jeep found its balance—and I found mine.

  Able to think again, I realized that about twenty yards ahead of me, after the next curve, was Beverly Glen Circle, a small shopping plaza on a rise overlooking the boulevard.

  In order to get there before the driver behind me saw what I was going to do, I put on as much more speed as I dared.

  Behind me, I saw the sedan’s lights sweep from side to side as the car fishtailed. It didn’t crash, but the driver’s momentary lack of control gave me the precious few seconds I needed to put more space between us.

  Once around the bend and out of sight of the pursing car, I switched the Jeep’s lights off and made a sharp turn uphill into the plaza’s parking lot. Visibility through the rain was still bad, but there was just enough illumination from the security lights to prevent me from hitting another car, or, God forbid, a human or an animal.

  The far end of the lot, beyond the lights, was in total darkness. A perfect place to hide.

  I headed for a spot next to a line of trees, away from the cars that had parked close to the shops, and made a tight swing around, backing into the space in case I needed to get out of there in a hurry. After turning off the motor and checking the doors to be sure they were all locked, I found the big Maglight I kept under the front seat and settled down to peer through the heavy rain at the lights of the cars in the canyon below.

  None had made the uphill turn into the plaza after I had.

  It was reassuring to have a cell phone, but unless an attacker approached me, I couldn’t call the police. What would I tell them? That some driver I couldn’t see, in a car I couldn’t describe beyond the word “sedan” was driving too fast, trying to crowd me off the road and nearly caused me to crash? The dispatcher would probably laugh and remind me that most Californians drive badly in the rain. We’re famous for it. I imagined him or her suggesting that the car I thought was chasing me might just have had bad brakes. If I wasn’t hurt there was nothing they could do. End of conversation.

  My imaginary dispatcher could be right. Bad driving, bad brakes—those were possible answers.

  Except I don’t believe it.

  I think someone really was trying to harm me. But who? And why?

  The car was some kind of sedan . . .

  The vehicle in T. J. Taggart’s parking space was a sedan. Could it have been Taggart who’d tried to force me off the road? If it had been, would he try something else? We didn’t get enough rain in Southern California to be able to depend on it. If he tried something else, might that be more successful?

  It took a half hour sitting and shivering in the dark before I felt safe enough to drive home.

  If Taggart was the one who’d been trying to force me off the road, he knew where I worked and where I lived.

  But I couldn’t tell anyone—especially John—what I was afraid of because then I’d have to tell him why I suspected Taggart.

  I didn’t sleep very well that night.

  25

  Friday morning the sun was out and all trace of the rain was gone, except for the lovely bright green of the freshly washed grass. I forced myself to forget how frightened I’d been the night before. Still, when I was taking Tuffy for his morning walk through the neighborhood, I paid much closer attention to our surroundings than usual.

  Eileen came out of her room. Instead of her usual college attire of jeans and sweatshirts, she was dressed like a young executive in a knee-length pale gray suit, a single strand of good pearls that I recognized as her mother’s, and her blonde hair held back with a black clip.

  “I didn’t know you had a ‘power suit,’” I said.

  “I bought it after Mickey set our official meeting on the fudge project.” She gestured to the black leather portfolio in her hand. “This I borrowed from my artist friend. Tell me the truth, Aunt Del: Do I look okay for the meeting?”

  “Right out of the Fortune 500. Seriously, that outfit inspires confidence. In fact, you’ve inspired me to put on something businesslike, too.”

  “Your black slim skirt, the red blazer, and the white silk blouse Mother and Daddy gave you last Christmas.” Realizing her take-charge tone might have sounded a bit too forceful, she dialed it down and said, “I mean, if that’s what you want to wear. It’s a great outfit.”

  I felt such a surge of affection for my “honorary niece” that I wanted to give her a big hug. But I restrained myself; it wouldn’t have been businesslike.

  At ten thirty, Eileen and I, both now dressed to impress, stepped out my front door to go to the meeting at Mickey Jordan’s house.

  To my surprise, we were met by two familiar figures coming up the walk.

  “Hello, John. Good morning, Detective Weaver.” I tried to keep the concern out of my voice. Unexpected visitors rarely bring good news.

  John looked startled to see Eileen. Or perhaps he was taken aback to see her seeming so mature.

  John said, “Hi, sweetheart. I thought you’d be in class.”

  “Our big meeting’s this morning—I told you.” Suddenly, the smile left her face. “Daddy, is something wrong? Why are you here?”

  “Everything’s fine. You know my partner, Detective Weaver.”

  “Yes. Hello, Detective,” Eileen said.

  Weaver nodded to Eileen, then said to me, “We need to talk. Alone.”

  “Eileen, go ahead to Mickey’s house in your car. I’ll follow in a few minutes.”

  I could see she was eager to get to the meeting, but she said, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. Go on. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Okay.” She beamed at her father. “This is my first big meeting, Daddy. Wish me luck?”

  “Always.” John watched Eileen hurry into her car and back down the driveway to the street before he turned to me. “In going through Regina Davis’s financial records last night we found checks she’d written to a private investigator. T. J. Taggart. We went to visit him early this morning.”

  I felt a lump of dread forming in my stomach. Had Taggart told them that I’d been there? Had he given them copies of his reports? To buy time to think, I said, “Would
you two like to come into the house? I’ll make some coffee and—”

  Weaver shook his head vigorously. “Forget that. You went to see Taggart yesterday.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.” I was afraid to ask the next question, but I had to. “How did you know?”

  John said, “A woman in the office next to Taggart’s saw you through her window. She recognized you from your show and wondered what a TV cook wanted with a private investigator.” He stopped. It was one of a cop’s interrogation techniques: stop talking so the other person will fill in the silence with words.

  I resisted that impulse.

  Weaver reached into his jacket for a package of cigarettes, started to take one out of the pack, then stuffed it back inside. He held onto the package, tossing it from one hand to the other.

  John said, “Why were you there, Della?”

  He’s calling me Della, not Del. Bad sign.

  “I had a theory and I wanted to see if it was correct,” I said.

  Weaver balled up his fist, squeezing the life out of his cigarette pack. “Jeez, ice caps move faster than this conversation. What theory?”

  “That Reggie had me investigated when she agreed to sponsor the cake contest.”

  Weaver said, “What’d you find out?”

  “Taggart refused to tell me anything.” A limited truth: that had been his initial response.

  John said, “What made you think Ms. Davis went to Taggart?”

  I responded with another limited truth. “When I looked up private investigators in the Yellow Pages I saw that his address was almost exactly halfway between Reggie’s corporate office on Wilshire Boulevard and the Davis Food Test Kitchens on Pico.”

  Even though that was technically true, it sounded pretty lame, even to me. All Weaver did was roll his eyes, but John watched me with an intensity that made my throat feel dry.