by Laura Levine
“Oh, no!” I gasped, as I saw a red stop light looming ahead.
“At last,” Kandi sniffed. “A little sympathy.”
Up until then, I’d been taking my chances and ignoring stop signs. But this was a signal at a major intersection. I thought briefly about taking my life in my hands and running the red light. But I abandoned the idea when I saw a logjam of cars backed up in front of me. I was trapped!
I checked my rearview mirror and saw Dickie pulling up behind me.
Damn.
He got out of his VW and started for my car.
Double damn. What if he had a gun? What if he pulled it on me and made me drive back to his place at gunpoint?
At the fringes of my consciousness I could hear Kandi whining about how there was nothing decent to eat in the motel’s vending machine.
By now Dickie had reached my passenger door. I had to do something. And fast.
The light up ahead turned green, but the cars directly in front of me still weren’t moving. So I did what any rational human being would do under similar circumstances:
I made a U-ey into oncoming traffic.
All around me drivers honked their horns and slammed on their brakes. A medley of colorful curses wafted through the air. Thank heavens there wasn’t a cop around or I’d be doing five to ten in traffic school.
As I drove off, I saw Dickie in my rearview mirror, shrugging in defeat. I also saw several motorists giving me the finger, but hey, I’d escaped Dickie and that’s all that mattered.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” I said to Mamie, who was looking up at me, wide-eyed.
“Of course, I’m not okay,” Kandi’s voice squawked from my phone. “I’ve just spent the past ten minutes telling you how miserable I am. Oh, well. I suppose I’ll survive. So what about you, hon? Anything exciting happening in your life?”
“Yes,” I said, mopping the sweat from my brow, “I guess you could say things have been a little hectic around here.”
Chapter 24
After that heart-stopping little adventure, I wanted nothing more than to go home and soak in the tub for the next 48 hours. But I could not allow myself that luxury. I had to find out if Patti had indeed named Dickie beneficiary in her will.
I figured the Devanes would probably know. So after a pit stop at McDonald’s for some burgers—paid for with a credit card still damp with dog spit—I headed off to Bel Air.
I parked the Corolla in a shady spot on the Devanes’ driveway and cracked the windows open so Mamie would have some air. Then I left her happily munching on her burger.
I only hoped Daphna wouldn’t spot her and have a hissy fit.
But as it turned out, Daphna wasn’t home. Apparently her period of mourning had come to an end.
“She’s off in Beverly Hills on a shopping spree,” Rosa told me when she came to the door.
Fortunately Conrad was home and agreed to see me.
“Poor Mr. Devane,” Rosa said with a sigh, as she led the way to his study. “He’s worse than ever. I’ve never seen a man so unhappy.”
And indeed Conrad seemed in terrible shape. Worse, even, than when Patti first died.
He sat slumped at his desk, his eyes bloodshot, his hair matted, a glass of scotch at his elbow. What a difference from the day I first saw him stepping out of his Rolls in his megabucks suit, his hair styled to perfection.
“So how can I help you, Jaine?” he asked after Rosa had left the room.
“I know you’ll find this hard to believe, Mr. Devane, but I think Dickie Potter masterminded a plot to kill Patti for her money.”
“Dickie?” He blinked, puzzled. “But Julio saw a woman on the balcony.”
“He did. Veronica Hubbard was the one who did the dirty deed, but she was taking orders from Dickie. They’re having an affair, you know.”
If I expected him to be shocked, I was in for a surprise. There was nothing. Nada. No reaction whatsoever. He just took a slug of his scotch and stared at me dully.
“Look, Mr. Devane,” I said, as gently as I could, “before I can go to the police, I need to know: Did Patti change her will to leave Dickie all her money?”
“Patti didn’t have a will.”
“No will? With all that money?”
“She refused to have one drawn up. She said they were ‘spooky.’ ”
And just like that, my brilliant theory was shot to hell. Without a will naming Dickie her beneficiary, Dickie wouldn’t have inherited a cent.
“I guess I’m wrong,” I sighed. “If Dickie wanted to kill Patti for her money, he would’ve waited till after the ceremony.”
“Oh, but he didn’t have to wait,” Conrad said with a bitter laugh. “The day of the wedding, he and Patti were already married.”
Talk about your jawdroppers.
“Already married?”
“I just spoke with my attorney,” he nodded. “It seems they ran off to Vegas weeks earlier and got married in a quickie ceremony on the strip. Which meant Dickie inherited everything.
“Scheming sonofabitch,” he muttered, downing the last of his scotch. “I should’ve known he was up to no good when I saw him kissing Veronica.”
“You saw them kissing?”
“The day before the wedding. They snuck away from the cocktail party. I looked down at the gazebo and there they were, going at it like rabbits.
“Damn,” he said, staring down into his now-empty glass, “I need a refill.”
He heaved himself up from his chair and started for the door.
“Can I get you anything while I’m gone?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Which, of course, was a gross exaggeration. I was far from fine. I was stunned, flabbergasted, totally blown away by what Conrad had just told me. Not that Patti had run off to Vegas, or that she’d gone through with the wedding in L.A. even though she’d already tied the knot. If I knew Patti, she did it to cash in on the gifts.
What stunned me was that Conrad would let Patti marry a man he knew was cheating on her. At the time, he had no idea Patti was already married. And yet he allowed her to go ahead with the wedding, in spite of the fact that he’d seen Dickie kissing another woman in the gazebo.
And that’s when it hit me. The full significance of what Conrad had just said.
He said he’d looked down at the gazebo.
Patti told me that it was called the Secret Gazebo because it was hidden from view by the surrounding trees, visible only from her balcony. Which meant that Conrad Devane had to have been up on the balcony when he saw Dickie and Veronica kissing. And which also meant he was up there during the cocktail party, when the murderer jimmied with the railing.
You see where I’m going with all of this, don’t you?
Conrad Devane could very well be the killer!
But he couldn’t be. Julio swore it was a woman he saw out on the balcony. Had Julio been lying? And if so, why?
My mind spinning, I got up and paced the room.
It was a spacious book-lined study, with volumes no doubt purchased by the yard to color coordinate with the walls. Off to one side was a full-scale model of what I assumed was Conrad’s latest housing development, Sunset Estates.
I glanced down at the meandering streets. They were lined with papier-mâché trees and miniature mansions and had names like Pleasant Drive, Leisure Lane, and Easy Street—
Whoa! Easy Street?
Didn’t Julio tell his Godzilla apartment manger that he was going to be on easy street?
Was it possible he’d meant it literally?
What if it was Conrad Julio had seen on the balcony? What if Conrad made a deal with Julio? He’d give his gardener big bucks to keep quiet and swear it was a woman he’d spotted at the scene of the crime. Then he arranged to meet Julio on Easy Street, and when poor Julio showed up, instead of getting his payoff he got a bullet in his gut.
Oh, Lord. It all made sense.
Conrad was the killer!
I had to get out of there,
and fast.
I raced to the door and flung it open, only to find Conrad standing there with a handgun aimed straight at my heart.
“So you figured it out, huh?” he said, shoving me back in the room with the muzzle of his gun. “The minute the words were out of my mouth, I realized I shouldn’t have told you about looking down at the gazebo.”
I tried to look as if I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Figured what out?”
“Oh, come on. You know it was me up there on the balcony. Why else would you be running out of my study like a chicken with her head cut off?”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I just remembered an important appointment, that’s all. Now I really have to be going or I’ll be late for my tonsillectomy.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “but the only place you’re going is to your final reward.”
Oh, gulp. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“But I don’t understand,” I said, abandoning the innocent act he clearly wasn’t buying. “I thought you liked Patti.”
“Oh, I did. Very much. But the sad fact is, I needed her money.”
“You? But you’re one of the richest men in Los Angeles.”
“Make that past tense, sweetheart. Was one of the richest men. Due to a string of unfortunate investments, I’m afraid I’m in dire financial straights. I’ve already worked my way through my money—and Daphna’s, too, for that matter.
“Fact is, I’m stone-cold broke. I needed Patti’s money to finance Sunset Estates and get back on top again.
“If Patti died as a single woman,” he said, plucking a piece of dust from one of the miniature houses on Leisure Lane, “her money reverted back to Daphna. Which meant it reverted back to me since I handle all of Daphna’s finances.
“So I had to kill her, quickly, before she married Dickie.” He actually managed to looked pained. “I hated to do it, but surely you can understand. I had no other alternative.”
The man had no idea he was a roaring sociopath.
He adjusted one of the trees on Easy Street, clearly in love with the project he’d already killed twice for.
“It was simple enough to slip out during the cocktail party and jimmy the railing. I’d already snatched one of the workmen’s drills and hidden it in the linen closet. That thing was powerful. Loosened the bolts in no time. Afterward I tossed the drill in the bushes, but I kept the drill bit. I figured I’d plant it on Cheryl and frame her for the murder. Everyone knew she loathed Patti. But when Normalynne showed up at the wedding and made such a scene, I decided to plant it on her instead.”
“Let me guess. You dropped it in the backseat when you and Kyle ushered her out to her car.”
“Clever touch, wasn’t it? But it was all for nothing. What I didn’t know at the time, of course, was that Patti and Dickie were already married. Dickie’s the one who inherits, not me.
“What a waste of lives,” he sighed. “First, Patti. Then Julio. And now you.
“Well, time to get started,” he said, checking his watch. “Rosa should be gone by now. I sent her off on an errand. She won’t be back for hours. Can’t have any witnesses to your untimely demise, can we?
“Come on, honey.” He nudged me with the butt of his gun. “We’re going to take a little walk.”
“Where to? Easy Street?”
“Ah, so you figured that one out, too. No, we’re not going to Easy Street. We’re going upstairs to the balcony. Back to the scene of the crime.”
He shoved me out to the foyer, his gun lodged firmly in my back.
“Let’s go,” he said when we reached the foot of the winding staircase. “Upsy daisy.”
With pounding heart, I started up the stairs. By the time we reached the top, I felt like I’d climbed Mt. Everest.
Conrad prodded me down the corridor to Patti’s room, his gun now an appendage to my spine.
Patti’s bubblegum pink palace hadn’t been touched since the last time I saw it. Beyond the French doors, the balcony still loomed ominously, without a railing.
“Now here’s what’s going to happen,” Conrad said. “There’s going to be an accident. I’ll tell everyone you came to the house investigating Patti’s death and asked if you could search her bedroom for clues. I let you go upstairs alone. I warned you to be careful, that there was no railing on the balcony, but minutes later I heard you scream and came racing up the stairs only to find your mangled body splattered on the ground below. Now all you have to do, my dear, is jump.”
“What if I won’t?”
“Then I revert to plan B.”
“I don’t suppose that involves letting me go and forgetting we ever had this little chat?”
“Not exactly. Plan B is where I shove you in the trunk of my car and drive you to a deserted ravine and blow your brains out execution style.”
“Ah. Death a la Julio.”
“What’s it going to be, sweetheart?”
So there I was, trying to choose between a suicide leap or a bullet to the skull, when suddenly a barking ball of white ball of fur came flying into the room.
Holy Mackerel. It was Mamie!
Somehow she’d managed to open the car door. What an escape artist. I swear, that dog was a regular Houdini with paws. I had no idea how she got into the house; probably through her old doggie door in the kitchen. I didn’t care how she did it. All that mattered was that she’d distracted Conrad.
And indeed she had.
He’d whirled around in surprise when she made her grand entrance. Which meant that I no longer had a lethal weapon pointed at my internal organs. I took advantage of my momentary freedom to lunge at Conrad and tackle him from behind.
We spent the next few minutes grappling for the gun, Mamie nipping at Conrad’s ankles. It wasn’t long before the gun went off with a ghastly bang, shattering Patti’s vanity mirror. Mamie, frightened, skittered under the bed. I only wished I could join her.
Finally, after taking an energetic bite of his wrist, I got Conrad to drop the gun. Whooping in triumph, I reached down to grab it.
Big mistake.
I’d given him the chance to tackle me. And he took it.
For a guy in his sixties he was amazingly strong. And as you well know, for a gal in my thirties, I was amazingly out of shape. Which is why seconds later, he had me pinned to the floor, his hands around my neck in a viselike grip.
Apparently he’d had a change of plan. Instead of shooting me, he’d decided to choke me to death. And he was doing a heck of a good job. I was gasping for air, certain that each breath was my last, when I heard:
“What the hell is going on here?”
Daphna stood in the doorway, aghast.
Conrad loosened his grip on my neck, and the minute he did, I started babbling.
“Daphna,” I shrieked, my voice raspy from near-strangulation. “Thank God you’re here! Your husband killed Patti! He did it for her money. He sabotaged the railing and put the drill bit in Normalynne’s backseat and killed Julio on Easy Street and I discovered the truth, and now he’s trying to kill me, too!”
“Don’t listen to her, Daphna,” Conrad said calmly, getting up from where he’d been straddling my chest. “She was trying to kill me. The woman is mentally unhinged. You can hear it in her voice.”
Oh, rats. I had been ranting like a refugee from a loony bin, hadn’t I?
“She’s the one who killed Patti,” Conrad continued, Mr. Cool and Collected. “She’s had a pathological resentment toward her ever since high school. All her life she’s been waiting for an opportunity to kill her, and when she was invited to the wedding, she finally got her chance.”
“That’s not true!” I wailed, once again sounding like a woman in serious need of her meds.
“Daphna, darling. We can’t depend on the courts to deliver justice. We’ve got to take the law in our own hands and kill her ourselves.”
Daphna’s eyes narrowed into angry slits. She bent
down and picked up the gun.
Oh, Lord. She believed him.
“Go ahead!” he urged. “Shoot her!”
But much to my surprise, she aimed the gun at Conrad.
“Shut up, Conrad,” she said. “I know you’re broke. When I went shopping today, all my credit cards were denied. I just got back from our lying, cheating dirtbag of an accountant who admitted under threat of a lawsuit that for years he’s been allowing you to steal my money. According to him, we don’t have a pot to piss in.”
A nervous smile flitted across his face.
“So we’re broke. No problem, darling. I’ll get back on top again. But that doesn’t mean I killed Patti.”
“But he did!” I screeched. “He stole the workman’s drill and snuck upstairs during the cocktail party and—”
“Enough, Jaine,” Daphna said, holding up her hand. “You had me at Thank God you’re here.”
She turned to Conrad, her eyes now blazing with fury.
“You killed my daughter.”
“Okay, I killed her,” he admitted. “But she was a brat. You said so yourself many times. You didn’t even like her.”
“She was my daughter, Conrad. I may not have liked her, but I loved her.”
A fat tear rolled down her granite cheek.
“Call the cops, Jaine.”
I did, and with the kind of lightning response you get in places like Bel Air, they were at the front door in mere minutes. Mamie came out from hiding to give them a thorough sniffing.
Valiantly ignoring the dog saliva on their ankles, they took down our statements and, without further ado, hauled Conrad off to a luxury suite at the county jail.
When everyone finally cleared out, Daphna turned to me and started to speak.
“Jaine ...” she began.
Was it my imagination or had that granite face somehow softened? Was there a spark of newfound compassion in her eyes? Maybe after all that had happened, she’d opened her heart and become a kinder, gentler Daphna. Maybe some good had actually come of Patti’s death.
“Yes?” I said, flashing her an encouraging smile.
“Get that yapping mutt out of here.”
Oh, well. I guess the only good to come of Patti’s death was the deli at the funeral reception.
