by Lee Hollis
“Well, my request for something romantic is now off the table for tonight. My date couldn’t make it. This is my business associate Matt Flowers,” Poppy said.
“Ah, the famous Matt Flowers. I’ve read a lot about you. You’ve made quite the impression around here,” Alfredo said as he stopped at a small table and gestured for them to have a seat. “I’ll send over some escargot and baked brie on the house,” he said with a wink.
“You’re too good to us, Alfredo, thank you,” Poppy cooed, blowing him a kiss, which he mimed catching and tapping against his cheek. He hustled off to attend to his other customers while Poppy picked up a menu to peruse the specials.
Matt glanced around the patio. “He’s got a good business going here. Hey, did you get the idea to come here because Violet mentioned she had dinner here last night with her new beau?”
“Not exactly,” Poppy said, eyes fixed on her menu.
Matt suddenly sprang to attention. “Hey, isn’t that—?”
Poppy followed Matt’s gaze over to a table on the opposite side of the patio, just outside the covered dining room where Detective Lamar Jordan and his wife, Lynn, were having dinner. He was devouring a breaded pork chop while she daintily picked at a macadamia nut–encrusted sole.
“What a coincidence,” Matt remarked.
“Not really,” Poppy muttered.
Matt snapped to attention. “So you knew they were going to be here tonight?”
“I may have been tipped off by Mrs. Jordan’s Instagram post. She loves to tell everyone everything she’s doing and everything she’s planning to do. It’s proven to be very helpful.”
Matt flashed a sly smile. “Well, then, it would be rude of us not to go over and say hello.” He jumped up, and ever the chivalrous gentleman, scuttled around and helped pull out Poppy’s chair so she could stand up. Then, arm in arm, they traipsed over to Detective Jordan and his wife.
“Hello, this is a surprise,” Poppy said, beaming.
Detective Jordan was just raising his fork, about to pop a piece of his pork chop into his mouth, when he suddenly stopped halfway as he looked up from the table to see Poppy and Matt.
“Is it?” Jordan snarled.
“What are the odds of us running into each other again so soon after the last time?” Poppy asked, feigning innocence.
“Are you intentionally following me around, Ms. Harmon?” Jordan asked, a tension in his tone.
Poppy mustered up a slightly hurt look. “What? No, my business partner Matt and I just happened to arrive here for dinner and saw you across the patio, and so we thought . . . I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”
“Lamar, why are you being impolite?” Lynn snapped before flashing her own radiant smile and sticking out her hand. “Lynn Jordan. I’m a huge fan of yours, Ms. Harmon. When I was a kid watching you on Jack Colt, I begged my mother to take me to her hairdresser’s so I could get the same style that you had on your show!”
“Oh, how sweet!” Poppy cooed.
Lynn caught her husband rolling his eyes and kicked him under the table. Lamar dropped his fork, then, aggravated, scooped up his glass of wine and guzzled what was left of it.
“We’re going to need another bottle,” he murmured.
“Lamar, stop it,” Lynn scolded.
“This is Matt Flowers,” Poppy said to Lynn, who went to shake his hand, but Matt caught it and planted a kiss on it.
Poppy wanted to signal him he was taking it too far, but she had learned a long time ago there was no reeling Matt back in once he was committed to charming any woman, or man for that matter. Luckily Lynn fell for his unabashed gallantry hook, line, and sinker.
Lamar flagged down the waiter and picked up the empty bottle of wine, signaling him to bring another.
Lynn threw him a judgmental look and muttered, “Looks like I will be driving us home tonight.”
Lamar sighed. “Lynn, don’t be fooled. It’s no coincidence that they’re here. Ms. Harmon tends to show up wherever I am when she is in need of information on my cases that she also happens to be investigating.”
“That sounds a bit paranoid to me,” Lynn sniffed. “How does she manage to track you down wherever you are?”
“I don’t know, maybe if you didn’t tell the whole world where we are all the time on Instagram—”
“Oh, so it’s my fault?” Lynn growled.
“How’s the sole? I was thinking of ordering it for my entree,” Matt offered in an unsuccessful bid to break the tension.
There was a long pause.
“Well, enjoy the rest of your dinner,” Poppy said.
Poppy and Matt turned to go.
“Wait,” Lynn said before they left. She glared at her husband. “Why don’t you tell them what you told me during our appetizer course?”
Detective Jordan stared at his wife blankly. “What?”
“About Hal Greenwood,” Lynn sighed, annoyed.
Poppy’s ears instantly pricked up.
She wanted to give Lynn Jordan a big, loving hug, but resisted, keeping her cool so as not to prove too eager to lap up whatever information Jordan had to share.
Lynn sat back in her chair and folded her arms, eyes locked on her husband. “Look, Lamar, it’s not like you’re in competition with the Desert Flowers Agency. What’s wrong with offering a few details if it helps both of you?”
“Because the police are not in the habit of sharing our intelligence and evidence with just anyone—”
Lynn abruptly cut him off. “She’s not just anyone. She’s Poppy Harmon, and she was a role model to me growing up, and from what I have heard recently, she now helps people in need around here so I don’t see what possible harm could come from simply relaying what you know.”
Lamar Jordan dealt with enough drama and misery in his daily line of work, so his utmost priority at home was to keep the peace. And that was about to work to Poppy’s advantage.
“Fine,” Jordan sighed before pivoting around in his chair toward Poppy and Matt. “Hal Greenwood has an alibi for Danika Delgado’s murder. I checked it out. It’s solid.”
“Where was he?” Matt asked.
“One of the production assistants, Tommy . . .”
“Timothy,” Poppy corrected him.
“Yeah, him. He claimed that when Hal Greenwood arrived on the set in Joshua Tree on the day of the murder, he demanded to see Ms. Delgado. Timothy took him to her trailer where she was supposed to be. They knocked a few times but she didn’t answer. So he left. That was before you came around and discovered the body.”
“Yes, we know, but couldn’t Hal have doubled back on his own between the time Timothy escorted him to the trailer and the time Poppy found the body?” Matt asked.
Jordan shook his head. “No, because right after he left Timothy, he jumped on a conference call with the director and producer of another film he has in preproduction. I have phone records and witnesses to back it all up. It would have been impossible for him to sneak back to Danika’s trailer, break in, and suffocate her with that pillow before or after he was on that call.”
“So he didn’t do it,” Poppy murmured. “I was so certain that he was the one. . . .”
“What about Chase Ehrens?” Matt asked somberly.
“Missing,” Jordan said quietly.
“Missing?” Poppy gasped.
“After he posted bail, he up and disappeared. Neither his agent nor his manager have been in contact with him since and his landlord says he hasn’t been back to his apartment in days. I’ve got a couple of my detectives working on locating him but so far no luck.”
“Maybe you should assign Poppy to the task force since she is apparently so good at tracking people down,” Lynn joked.
Detective Jordan failed to see the humor.
“And still no word on Byron Savage?” Poppy asked, frustrated.
“Nope. But don’t worry, we’ll find him eventually.”
Poppy nodded appreciatively, but was truly worried. How would they ev
er solve Danika Delgado’s murder if the strongest suspects just kept vanishing off the face of the earth?
Chapter 30
I know who killed Danika Delgado.
Parker Hotel. Room 12.
Come ASAP.
Poppy stared at the text on her phone. She recognized the number. It was the one given to her by Fabian Granger when they had exchanged phone numbers at the Mary Pickford. Matt had dropped her off after dinner, and Poppy had barely unlocked the door of her house and stepped inside, exhausted and ready for bed, when she’d received the urgent text from Fabian.
Poppy considered texting back, or calling him, but she knew it was risky. Hal Greenwood’s operatives could have already hacked her phone, or Fabian’s phone, and might be following their communication in real time. No, it was probably safer if she followed his instructions and drove herself over to the Parker immediately.
Poppy turned back around, marched outside to her car parked in the driveway, and drove to the elegant Parker Hotel just off Highway 111 near the border of Palm Springs and Cathedral City. She parked on the street and headed into the lobby where a bright-eyed, sun-kissed, perky hotel clerk awaited her behind the opulent reception desk.
“Can you please direct me to room twelve?” Poppy asked.
“That’s one of our poolside rooms. Just follow the path outside past Norma’s, and you’ll see signs pointing you in the right direction,” the bubbly girl answered.
“Thank you.”
Poppy continued on outside, past the brightly colored open-air terrace restaurant Norma’s, which was still serving a few guests, and quickly spotted a sign that led her to a long hallway with doors leading to the room.
When she reached number twelve, she knocked but there was no answer. She tried again. This time a little more forcefully. The third time she pounded on it with her fist, startling a couple returning from a night out on the town. They were a little tipsy and eyed her suspiciously, the husband nodding as he passed, “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” Poppy responded with a smile.
The couple moved on down the hall and let themselves into a room on the end. When they were safely inside, Poppy tried the door handle to room twelve. It was locked. Then she remembered the clerk saying the room was a poolside room. Perhaps there was another way in on the opposite side.
She scurried back to where she had come from, circled around to see a petite aqua gem of a pool with soothing lighting, one of several on the property, and counted the bougainvillea patios until she got to the one she assumed was number twelve. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching her. There was an older couple in the pool smooching and not paying any attention. No one else was around. She quietly tiptoed over to the sliding glass door. When she reached for the handle, she realized it was already open and the curtains inside were wafting in the soft night breeze. Poppy pulled them aside and entered the room, which was dimly lit and eerily quiet.
“Fabian?”
No answer.
“Fabian, are you here?”
Nothing.
She had thrown caution to the wind by coming here, but now she felt a nervous twinge. Perhaps this had been a mistake. She was about to turn around and hightail it out of there when she noticed a flickering light coming from the bathroom. The door was wide open. She slowly, cautiously stepped toward it until she was close enough to see a mason jar candle burning on the tiled sink. There was a strong vanilla scent. Her eyes fell upon the bathtub, which was filled with foamy white bubbles that covered the top of the water. Instinctively, she slowly walked over, reached down with her hand, and began clearing the bubbles off to the side until she could see the haunting, dead eyes of Fabian Granger staring up at her from underneath the water. Poppy reared back, screaming, slipping on the wet floor and landing hard on her bum.
She scrambled to her feet and ran out of the bathroom just as the doorbell to the room rang. She raced over and whipped it open to reveal a portly young smiling waiter with a rolling room service cart and a plate covered with a metal tin, a bottle of Pinot Noir, a wineglass, and utensils rolled into a cloth napkin.
He started to push his way inside with a friendly wave when Poppy threw herself in front of the cart, and cried, “There is a dead body in the bathtub! Call nine-one-one!”
The startled waiter’s smile quickly faded and he grabbed his phone from his back pocket and fumbled to make the call.
Poppy was feeling faint from the shock of discovering poor Fabian Granger dead, and had to sit down on the couch in the living area to collect herself.
Within ten minutes, the room was crawling with police officers. Poppy cringed when Detective Jordan swept inside, conferring with a couple of his subordinates, a man and a woman, not yet spotting her.
“Who discovered the body?” Jordan asked gruffly.
The female detective pointed at Poppy sitting stiffly on the couch, hoping that if she did not move and pretended to be invisible, she would not be noticed.
No such luck.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Jordan roared.
“Do you know her?” the male detective asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Jordan spit out. “She just stalked me and my wife while we were having a nice dinner out, and now, once again, she turns up at another murder scene!”
“Another murder scene?” the female detective asked, incredulous.
“Don’t get me started!” Jordan bellowed.
Poppy knew at this point she was going to be in for a very long night.
Chapter 31
Poppy yawned and rubbed her eyes while sitting at her kitchen table, sipping coffee, holding her cell phone out in front of her, the speakerphone enabled. “You’re going to have to repeat that.”
“I’m afraid our installation team will be unable to complete the job today,” the representative from Smart House Security said, trying to remain chipper.
Poppy sighed, agitated. “Why not?”
“We overbooked. I swear to you, this never happens,” the girl promised.
“Well, it just did,” Poppy said through clenched teeth. She was dead tired, having not arrived home until after three in the morning due to exhausting questioning from Detective Jordan at the Parker Hotel crime scene. Then, she had to set the alarm for six-thirty in order to be up in time to greet Smart House Security, which was scheduled to install her new home security system, but now was a no-show.
Poppy had waited over an hour before calling the company to find out what was going on. After another fifteen minutes on hold, a representative had finally gotten on the line. She cheerfully announced her name was Britney, and explained how excited she was to help Poppy with whatever she needed. But after a few clicks on her keyboard, Britney somberly delivered the bad news that her guys would not be coming today.
Then it was back to perky. “We have an appointment open in three weeks, how does Thursday the tenth sound to you?”
“It doesn’t sound good to me at all, Britney,” Poppy seethed. “This appointment today has been on the books for weeks. It’s very important to me I get this done. I scheduled this security alarm installation before I even moved into the house.”
Poppy wanted to explain why she was so eager to have peace of mind, knowing her new house was wired and being monitored by all the emergency services. How she was supremely uncomfortable with the local press excitedly documenting her purchase of this house, because of its pedigree and the fact that Poppy herself passed as a “celebrity buyer,” someone who had enjoyed a modicum of Hollywood success, if ever so briefly. It was enough to warrant an article in the real estate section of the Desert Sun. And then there was the run-in with Byron Savage and his brutish brother Axel. Both were currently on the run, off the grid, free to show up out of nowhere and strike at any moment. She wouldn’t feel safe until she had a direct line to the police in case anyone tried to break in to frighten her, terrorize her, or worse, as Axel had so ominously promised. She wanted to stress to this cheery
young woman that if anything bad happened to Poppy between now and Thursday the tenth, then Smart House Security would be responsible.
But true to form, in the end, Poppy kept all that information to herself because she knew the young woman was just doing her job, and frankly, Poppy relating her fears would probably not do much good. She would just be seen as some paranoid old woman from Britney’s millennial vantage point.
“I can put you on a waiting list in case we have a cancellation between now and the tenth,” Britney offered.
“Yes, fine, do that,” Poppy huffed.
Poppy’s phone buzzed.
It was Sam.
“Great. You’re all set,” Britney said. “Now would you like to fill out a survey online about how your experience was with us today?”
“Believe me when I tell you this, Britney, you do not want me to do that. Good-bye,” Poppy said, ending the call and answering Sam’s. “Hi, Sam.”
“Hey, beautiful.”
Poppy grimaced. Always the flirt to be sure, but there was a detectable strain in Sam’s voice.
He coughed and cleared his throat. “I just wanted to apologize again for breaking our date. I’m sorry if I ruined your evening.”
“Sam, you cancelling was a disappointment, but it was a far cry from the cataclysmic event that really ruined my evening.”
“You got me curious.”
Poppy just did not have the energy to breathlessly recount her stumbling across the dead body of Fabian Granger in a bathtub at the Parker. Nor would Sam be shocked by that news, given her escalating habit of coming into close proximity with recent corpses. No, she was not going to go there, at least for now. “Never mind. I’m safe and sound, that’s all that matters. How are you feeling, any better?”
“I wish I could say yes, but after we spoke on the phone yesterday, things took a little turn for the worse.”
“Oh no. Did you go see a doctor?”
“Yeah, eventually. And now I have a full-time staff looking after me.”
Poppy crinkled her nose, confused. “What do you mean?”
