Pie A La Murder Page 7

  “Ten seconds, Della,” the director’s voice said in my ear.

  Back behind the preparation counter, I was smiling at the audience when the red light over Camera One came on and I began to talk and demonstrate again.

  The show continued without a problem, and without another call. The Stuffed Acorn Squash, Zucchini Canoes, and Brown Rice with Chopped Raw Vegetables—a dish I could, and have, I told them, made a meal of all by itself—came out of the microwave on time, and perfectly cooked. After wrapping up the show with another announcement about our national bake sale for charity, I displayed the muffins and summoned interns Cliff and Jerry to distribute them.

  The studio audience applauded as the trays of muffins were passed around, and again when I told them that tonight’s microwave recipes, and also those easy-to-make-from-scratch muffins, were on my Web site. When we went off the air, even my TV director, a woman hardly ever given to compliments, said that this show had been one of our best.

  Ironic, considering the drama that was going on in my private life.

  As soon as the audience filed out, I untied my chef’s apron—an object I had a hard time looking at without thinking of that deliberately salacious seminude photo of Celeste—said quick good-byes to the crew, and hurried outside to my Jeep.

  I hadn’t lingered back at the studio, but still it was nearly eight forty-five by the time I’d turned off Lankershim Boulevard and onto Ventura Boulevard. The night was clear and cool and traffic was light. There were about a quarter of the number of vehicles that would be on the roads in twelve hours, during the morning rush. Most of those who worked days were at home by now, and people on night shifts were at their jobs.

  Usually when I’m on my way home taking my normal route to Santa Monica via Beverly Glen Canyon, I passed the corner of Coldwater Canyon and Ventura Boulevard with barely a glance sideways.

  But not tonight.

  Without a previous conscious thought, instead of going straight ahead to Beverly Glen, I made a left turn onto Coldwater. I was a hundred yards into one of the three canyons that connected the San Fernando Valley to Los Angeles before I realized what I had done.

  What’s the matter with me?

  Going across “the hill” via Beverly Glen Canyon would take me closer to Santa Monica.

  Taking Coldwater Canyon into Beverly Hills meant that I would have to pass Brentwood on the way home.

  Once my Jeep was accelerating through the narrow, twisting canyon there was no turning back.

  By fifteen minutes after nine I’d reached Sunset Boulevard and turned west. Within a few more minutes I saw the corner of Sunset and Bella Vista up ahead. I knew I should have ignored that intersection. I should have turned south to Montana Avenue and gone straight to my home on Eleventh Street.

  But something made me rotate the steering wheel to the right, onto Bella Vista, at twenty minutes after nine.

  In the second block, I felt my heart lurch in my chest and my hands go damp and cold.

  A different car was in the carport: a big black SUV. The Lexus I’d seen yesterday was gone. So was the older model Buick that had been in the driveway behind the Lexus.

  In its place was Nicholas D’Martino’s silver Maserati.

  That black SUV must belong to Alec Redding. Either the housekeeper lied about how long he’d be gone, or he came back early.

  My heart pounding, I cut the motor and sprinted up the walk.

  The light in the carriage lamp above the front door was on. I reached out to press the bell, but my hand stopped inches short of the button because I saw that the front door was standing open a few inches.

  Automatically, perhaps a muscle-memory from my years as a police detective’s wife, I used my shoulder to push the door open far enough for me to step across the threshold.

  I called, “Hello?”

  Silence.

  Brass wall sconces provided dim illumination, but stronger light poured into the hall from an archway about twenty feet ahead of me on the left.

  I took a few steps toward it, when suddenly I realized that I was about to become one of those stupid women in novels or TV shows who go alone into strange houses and through doors that shouldn’t be open. Those scenes made me slam a book closed or turn off the TV. Instead of continuing that stupidity, I grabbed my cell phone and spun around to leave. I was a foot from the front door and two numerals into punching nine-one-one when behind me I heard, “Della!”

  I turned again and saw Nicholas emerging through the lighted archway.

  “Del, get out of here!”

  I couldn’t move. A fresh surge of fear momentarily paralyzed me.

  “Get out, now!”

  “No,” I said. The same instinct that had led me to this address dissolved my paralysis and compelled me toward the archway.

  Nicholas stepped into the middle of the hall, blocking my path. He half whispered, “Don’t go in there.”

  I pushed past him.

  And I was immediately sorry that I hadn’t turned and run.

  The archway led into a high-ceiled room that had been turned into an elaborate photo studio. Blackout drapes covered the windows. Three rolls of heavy background paper, each three feet wide, in white, in light blue, and in darker blue, hung from the ceiling. Lights on stands faced a roll of white paper that had been unfurled so that it covered not just the wall, but provided an unbroken line on the floor.

  Before I could have articulated what I saw, my mind took a flash picture of the scene.

  A man lay facedown on the white paper. Blood covered the back of his head and had pooled onto the paper. Vivid red against stark white. An overturned white wooden stool, an edge of the seat stained dark red, lay near the body.

  The wound in the man’s skull was so deep I didn’t need the expertise of a medical examiner to know that Alec Redding was dead.

  I was transfixed by the sight in front of me. Then I felt Nicholas’s hand on my arm.

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. I just got here and—” He turned me around to face him. “You don’t think I did this!”

  I wanted to say “No, of course not,” but my mouth had gone so dry the words wouldn’t come out.

  Nicholas let me go and looked at me with pain in his eyes. “Jesus H. Christ. You don’t believe me.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said, recovering my senses. “Who else is here in the house?”

  “I don’t know. This room is the only place I’ve been.”

  “How did you get in?” I asked.

  “The front door was open.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Not yet. I was about to when you came in.”

  “We’ve got to call them now.”

  “I will,” he said. “You get out of here.”

  “I’m not going to leave you,” I said emphatically, handing him my cell phone.

  But it seemed that someone had already phoned for the police. In the distance, we heard the unmistakable siren of a patrol car.

  I knew what was going to happen within the next hour.

  A pair of uniformed officers would be first to arrive on the scene. They would see the body. One would secure the area, while the other asked for our identifications, questioned us briefly, and contacted their headquarters—the West Bureau office which had been Mack’s base—to request that a medical examiner, SID techs, and homicide detectives be sent to this crime scene.

  I hoped that when the detectives in plain clothes arrived, one of them would not be Eileen’s father, John O’Hara.

  The first responders were patrol car officers Downey and Willis. Downey, in his twenties, blond, blue-eyed, and stocky, looked more like a corn-fed Iowa farm boy than he did an urban cop. Willis was black, a few years older than Downey, with a body taut as wire. The expression in his dark eyes suggested automatic skepticism. While Downey, with his easygoing lope of a walk, seemed like a big kid in an LAPD costume, Willis inhabited his uniform as though it were a suit
of armor. His default expression appeared to be skepticism. The two went through their routine, and asked the predictable questions.

  Officer Willis nodded toward us and said to Downey, “Stay with them. I’ll check the grounds.”

  Willis was still outside when an unmarked LAPD car carrying two West Bureau homicide detectives pulled up in front of the house. Watching from just inside the front door, where Officer Downey had told us to stand, I saw the first detective step out of the vehicle.

  It was Lieutenant “Big John” O’Hara.

  Nicholas grunted. “Things aren’t bad enough. Now the only person who hates me more than my ex-wife does is going to investigate the murder where I’m bound to be a suspect.”

  11

  “Big John” O’Hara earned his soubriquet because he’s six feet five and built like a pro ball player. At age fifty, he’s still in starting lineup shape. He was halfway up the front walk by the time his partner, Detective Hugh Weaver, seven inches shorter and three years older, maneuvered himself out from behind the steering wheel. Weaver, who I knew had quit smoking a few weeks ago, had put on considerable weight since the last time I saw him.

  When John was working a case, he had a classic poker face. That’s what Mack had told me about him when they were partners, and there had been a few times since Mack’s death when I had seen it for myself. No matter what John found at a crime scene, or what someone told him, on the job his stony expression seldom changed. According to Mack, John’s rigid jaw and piercing eyes had caused more than one felon to confess before they began interrogating him. Mack had said, “John never hit anyone in custody; it was the look on his face that made some of them wet their pants and start babbling.”

  But when he saw me inside that doorway on Bella Vista, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. He wasn’t playing poker now. I saw concern in his eyes. “Della—are you all right?”

  Then he spotted Nicholas standing behind me. The eyebrows came down and his eyes narrowed. Big John O’Hara was back on the job.

  Hugh Weaver, puffing his way up the path, saw me in the group at the front door and gaped. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Before I could say anything, Officer Downey, who was guarding the entrance, identified himself to John and Weaver.

  I saw a light go on across the street. Second floor. A man and a woman came to the window and peered at us. The front door of the next house opened a crack. Someone was there and stared out at the activity in front of number 190 Bella Vista.

  While keeping me in his peripheral vision, John asked Downey, “What have we got?”

  “Victim’s an adult white male. Looks like he died from a blow to the back of his skull, but we didn’t roll him over, so I don’t know if he has any other wounds. According to these two”—Downey indicated Nicholas and me—“his name is Alec Redding and this is his house. I found them inside when I got here.” Downey consulted his notebook. “Their names are—”

  “I know their names,” John said curtly. “Who else is here?”

  “My partner, Officer Willis, searched the house, and didn’t find anybody. He’s checking the property out back.”

  A silent signal passed between John and Weaver.

  Weaver responded by addressing Officer Downey. “Show me the vic.”

  “Sure. This way, Detective.”

  Weaver followed Downey inside the house. He gave me a quizzical look as he went past, but shot Nicholas the hostile glower he usually aimed at members of the press.

  As soon as they were out of earshot John said, “Tell me.”

  I resisted the urge to glance at Nicholas. I was going to tell John the truth, but only as much of it as I had to. Nicholas was right—he was likely to be a suspect—but I didn’t believe he had killed Redding and I didn’t want to make his situation worse.

  “The front door was standing open,” I said. “We came in and found Redding on the floor in his studio. We were about to phone the police, but before we could dial nine-one-one we heard a siren and Officer Downey and his partner arrived. Obviously, for the police to be called, someone had to have been in the house with Redding before we got here.”

  “Not necessarily. A neighbor might have spotted the open door and become alarmed.”

  “Did you hear the nine-one-one tape? Do you know if it was a man or a woman?” I said.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” John said curtly. He nodded toward the driveway and street. “I see both your cars. Who got here first?”

  “I did,” Nicholas said. “And Redding was dead when I found him.” His voice was strangely without inflection. I looked at Nicholas, but he didn’t look at me.

  “How did you know he was dead?” John asked.

  “I felt his neck for a pulse, but that was just automatic. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was gone.” There was no emotion in Nicholas’s voice; his tone was the same as though he was answering a stranger who had asked him what time it was.

  “What else did you do, D’Martino?”

  “Nothing else,” Nicholas said.

  I stared at him, willing him to show some emotion. He was behaving as though he wasn’t really present in this scene.

  John turned his attention to me. “What time did you get here?”

  “About twenty after nine. Maybe a couple of minutes later.”

  “You said the front door was open when you arrived?”

  “Yes.” I realized what question was coming next and I braced for it.

  “You’re smart enough to know it’s not a good sign when somebody’s door is standing open. Why did you go in the house instead of locking yourself in your car and calling nine-one-one?”

  Because I knew Nicholas was here and knew he was angry and I wanted to stop him from doing something rash.

  Of course, I didn’t say that. I used the old “exigent circumstances” excuse that allows police to enter a building without a warrant. “I thought I heard a cry—I was afraid someone inside needed help.”

  Nicholas said softly, “That’s not true. Della came in because she saw my car outside.”

  “And why were you here?”

  “I wanted to talk to Redding,” Nicholas said.

  John again turned his focus on me. “It’s Thursday night. You usually go right home after the live show. Why did you come here instead?”

  “I . . . wanted to talk to Nicholas.”

  “Don’t you both have phones?”

  “Mine was off,” Nicholas said.

  “Della, how did you know D’Martino would be here?”

  Nicholas stiffened and shot a pleading look at me. I guessed he was afraid of what I was going to say. I would have preferred that he trusted me to protect him as best I could, but at least I saw life in his eyes again.

  “Della, I asked how you knew D’Martino would be here?”

  I was saved from answering that loaded question by the sound of another siren. Flashing red and blue lights were racing toward us from Sunset Boulevard.

  More of Redding’s neighbors were turning on lights and stepping out onto their front walks, watching as an official LAPD van—the medical examiner’s—double-parked beside my Jeep.

  Just a few yards behind came an SID vehicle that would be carrying the Scientific Investigation techs. That van double-parked behind the ME’s.

  The medical examiner, Dr. Sydney Carver, stepped down onto the sidewalk, followed by a young male assistant with a platinum buzz cut. Both carried medical bags.

  Behind the two of them, three SID criminalists wearing identifying jackets opened the back of their van and began unloading the paraphernalia they would use to document the murder scene.

  As she came closer, I noticed that Sydney Carver had dyed her hair auburn since the last time I’d seen her. Also, she had let it grow out from cropped at the ears to a well-shaped style that touched her chin. With the pewter gray color banished and the longer length, she looked younger than the “I’m-fifty-and-mind-your-own-business” she admitted to. Nothing else about her h
ad changed. Her walk was still brisk, and her strides as long those of a man who was six feet tall. Her face was set in a serious expression, but she was a decidedly more attractive woman now than when she’d been hired as the new ME a year ago.

  Nicholas let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Looking good, Sydney.”

  “Against all odds, I got myself a personal life,” she said. Glancing from Nicholas to John, she added in a sardonic tone, “Cops and reporters—natural enemies. I thought next time I saw you two together at a fresh crime scene, one of you would be sprawled inside the chalk lines.”

  “Maybe next time,” John said.

  “You wish,” Nicholas said.

  “Boys, boys, stop the pissing contest,” she said. “Big John, what have you got for me tonight?”

  Just as the SID techs were coming up the walk with their cameras and their equipment cases, Officer Downey and Hugh Weaver came out of the photo studio and joined us in the crowded doorway. John gestured for Nicholas and me to step back against the wall as he told Downey, “Take Dr. Carver and SID inside.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Dr. Carver moved past him, John said, “As soon as you can, I need a TOD.”

  “When I know, you’ll know,” she said brusquely.

  Weaver aimed a thumb over his shoulder toward the back of the house. “I’ve been outside with Willis. The gate to the alley doesn’t have a lock on it—just a latch with a pull cord that lets you open it from either side.”

  “That must be how the killer got away,” I said.

  Weaver gave Nicholas a skeptical stare. “If the killer got away,” he said.

  I was about to protest that, when we heard the sound of a racing motor speeding up the street toward us and looked outside. The new arrival was driving the tan Lexus that I had seen in the carport on Wednesday. It came to a brake-slamming stop at the mouth of the driveway. A woman whose bony arms and legs made her somewhat resemble a marionette leapt out of the car and bolted toward us. Her black hair was still gelled into spikes and her eyes were still heavily outlined in that extreme Cleopatra-style. I wondered if she ever allowed herself to look natural.