“Madison,” I said. I was still pretty mad how cold she was to us the other day, and I hadn’t ruled her out as our attempted killer.
“Yeah, Madison,” Wenling agreed.
“But how will sending her a tip get us to confirm who she is anyway?” Dar asked.
Mom smiled. “Type this,” she said, handing over the iPad.
Mom dictated a letter saying that she knew Richard Conway was having an affair with his publicist Madison Von Hare. She could get proof tonight. The two were meeting for dinner.
“Where should we have them meet for dinner?” Mom asked.
“Someplace not too far,” Wenling said. “I don’t want to go in traffic anymore.”
I agreed with that. “We can say they’re deliberately meeting in an out-of-the-way place that’s near here so that no one knows about their affair,” I said.
“Good idea,” Mom said. “But which restaurant?”
“Mister Toodles?” I asked.
“Fancy people don’t eat at Mister Toodles,” Dar-Dar said.
“She’s got a weird thing with that place that I don’t get,” Wenling said.
“It has to be someplace quiet and out of the way, but not far from here,” Dar said.
“I haven’t dated in years,” Wenling said. “I just come here and go to the diner.”
“Me too,” Mom said.
“I was going to West Hollywood or Santa Monica for dates,” Dar said. “If I’m here in town, I’m only at the Lucky Dragon or the diner.”
Wenling smiled.
“I know a place,” I said. “The Starlight in San Fernando.”
“That’s a good one,” Wenling said.
Dar-Dar added it to the note and hit send.
“I’m so glad this is my day off,” Dar said. “I get to go on the stakeout! Let’s just hope she shows up.”
My cell phone rang. I thought it might be Richard returning our call. It wouldn’t hurt to get Fiona’s number as a backup. But when I looked down at my phone, it was DC.
“Hey!” I said, signaling for Darwin to scoot out of the booth so I could get up and take the call with a little more privacy.
“Hey!” he said back. “I’m out front.”
I looked out the front window of the restaurant and saw him waving at me.
“I see you” I said, waving back.
“Would you mind coming outside to take a walk and talk a little bit?”
“Sounds good,” I said and hung up.
I turned back to the table to tell them Mom that I had to step out, but they’d figured it out on their own. Wenling shooed me away and told me to hurry. They all were still rooting for me and DC. I was, too.
I met DC on the sidewalk. He looked as handsome as ever, but I was nervous and also a little angry at him. He hadn’t called me in so long.
“I didn’t want to go in there,” he said. “There might be a whole group of mystery readers or a crowd of people wanting to take your picture or something. I just kind of thought it would be better with just the two of us.”
“Cool,” I said, not knowing what to say.
“Your mother, Wenling, and everyone in the restaurant are staring at us,” DC said. “Everyone will be talking no matter what. How about we just take a stroll down Main Street and talk a bit. It’s a nice day out.”
I nodded. Main Street was a two-lane, tree-lined road at the foot of the Angeles Crest Mountains. When I was a kid, I used to think that this town was a little bit too small for my taste. But after living in Hollywood with all the noise and crowds, I’d grown to love Fletcher Canyon. It was peaceful.
We walked a few blocks past the bookstore and Mocha Muse toward the mountain.
“Remember your mom that night over here?” DC asked. He was smiling.
He was referring to one of our earlier cases. Mom made a guy confess right at the foot of this mountain. “She gave us the slip,” I said.
“She sure did,” DC said.
“Do you think they’re going to arrest me?” I asked.
“They don’t have the evidence yet,” DC said. “They probably won’t get it.”
“They won’t get it because I didn’t do it.”
DC stopped in his tracks and turned to me. “Of course you didn’t do it. That’s not what I meant. I just meant as time goes by, it gets harder to find evidence no matter what. Although, your ex didn’t do you any favors in his interview.”
“I know,” I said. “He and his stupid publicist really seem to want me to get arrested to boost downloads of our single.”
I could tell from DC’s expression when I’d said “our single” that he didn’t like the sound of that.
We reached the foot of the mountain, crossed the street, and headed back in the opposite direction. As we passed Fletcher Diner, I thought about DC’s and my first pseudo date.
I sighed and just blurted out what was on my mind. “You should trust me.”
DC stopped walking. “I’ve dated some untrustworthy people in the past.”
It surprised me that DC might have dated someone who cheated on him. He was so handsome and confident. I guess it could happen to anyone.
“I can relate to that,” I said.
He nodded. “It’s just that you were gone for so long, and you came back looking so good. I guess I just went little crazy,” he said.
We were just passing the pharmacy when my phone dinged with a text.
“Do you want to get that?” DC asked.
“It’s probably just Mom,” I said. My phone dinged again.
“You should check it,” DC said. “It could be about the case.”
Mom wouldn’t bother me when I was with DC unless it was urgent, so I figured he was right. But when I checked my phone it was stupid Robert. I rolled my eyes without thinking. The first text was, “What’s up?” The second was three question marks. The third was, “Let’s hook up tonight. You know there’s something still there.” Sheesh! What was with this guy?
“Bad news?” DC asked.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
My phone dinged again.
“It’s not nothing,” he said.
My phone dinged yet again. Man, that freakin’ Robert.
“What’s your Mom saying?” DC asked.
“It’s not Mom,” I said. I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t feel like telling him it was Robert was a good idea. It wasn’t any of his business.
My phone dinged again.
DC’s face turned stern. “Let me we see that,” he said, reaching for my phone.
I pulled my hand away. “You’re not allowed to just reach over and take my phone,” I said. “It’s none of your business.”
“None of my business,” he said. “I know who it is. It’s Robert.”
“It’s not what you think,” I said. “There’s nothing going on.”
“Then why won’t you let me read it?” he asked.
“Because you’re supposed to trust me.”
DC grabbed the phone from me. I tried to grab it back, but he blocked me and read my messages. I was incensed.
“How dare you!” I screamed.
He turned around, crestfallen, and handed me the phone. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything like that ever again.”
He handed me my phone and walked away.
“DC!” I called after him, but he didn’t turn around. I rushed over to him to explain, but before I caught up to him he got into his truck.
He left me standing in the street.
Not knowing what else to do, I went back into the Lucky Dragon and rejoined Mom, Wenling, and Dar.
“What happened with DC?” Wenling asked.
Mom and Dar glared at her.
“I didn’t agree not to ask her,” Wenling said. “We’ve not asked her for days, and it’s not going good. She needs to talk.”
I slid into the booth next to Dar. “He’s jealous of Robert. He thinks that if Robert wants to get back together
with me, that I’ll want to get back together with him.”
“Did you tell him that Robert is a tool?” Wenling asked.
“Yes,” I said, a little disturbed at Wenling’s use of the word “tool.”
“And he didn’t believe you?” Mom asked.
“He started to believe me, but then my phone kept beeping with texts from Robert.” I showed Mom my phone.
“Did he see these?” Mom asked.
I wondered how much they’d seen through the window. “He took my phone.”
“He took your phone!” Dar said. “That’s a no-go zone.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“He’s jealous because he loves you so much,” Wenling said. “It’s flattering, but annoying.”
“He’s had people cheat on him before,” I said.
“Of all the times for that rat Robert to return your messages,” Dar said.
I agreed.
“What are you going to do, kid?” Mom asked.
I sighed. “I don’t know. Give DC time to cool off, and try not to get sent to jail?”
“That’s a good plan,” Wenling said.
Mom looked at my phone. “Would it be okay if we texted Robert back?”
“What did you want to say?” I asked.
“That he should meet you tonight at The Starlight at 9 p.m.,” Mom said. “I figured just in case Fiona decides to check and see if Robert has plans, this’ll make it really look like he’s going to meet Madison.”
Mom was a genius. We texted him. He agreed to meet. Now we had to hope that Wiley Jenner/Fiona took the bait.
We arrived at The Starlight restaurant forty minutes early. We wanted to get the perfect parking spot to be able to see everything in the restaurant, but we worried that Robert or Fiona would recognize our catering van. We pulled into a dark spot at the edge of the parking lot and faced the back windows of our van toward the entrance.
Wenling had brought her husband’s birdwatching binoculars, and Darwin had spent the afternoon downloading walkie-talkie apps to our telephones to make sure that we could communicate with each other on the stakeout.
“Testing 1-2-3,” Wenling said into her phone as she stared out the window with her binoculars.
Her voice rang out on all of our walkie-talkies.
“You guys can stop testing the walkie-talkies,” I said. “We’re all sitting four inches apart from each other.”
“What if she parks on the other side of the restaurant?” Dar said. “We might miss them both if they go to the back entrance.”
“I was just thinking about that,” Mom said.
“Maybe we could just go inside and get a table,” Wenling said.
“They’ll see us,” I said.
“Well, he’s expecting you,” Wenling said. “And your mom and I are short. Wiley or Fiona doesn’t even know Dar, and Robert only met him once.”
“And I was carrying my blonde wig when I met him. Tonight I’m a redhead,” Dar answered. “I can go in and wait at the bar, and walkie-talkie you guys if anything happens.”
Mom and I traded looks. Dar was over six feet tall, wearing full makeup, a red wig, and all black—his attempt at being “stealthy.” But his sweater had sequins on the lapels. But no matter what he wore, Dar wasn’t the kind of person who blended into a crowd.
“Keep a low profile,” Mom said. “If you see Robert, don’t let him see you.”
Dar flung the doors of the van open, jumped out, and sprinted across the parking lot.
“That’s not obvious at all,” Wenling said.
“We’re still early,” Mom said. “It’s probably best for him to get into position now.”
That made sense to me, but I hoped that Fiona hadn’t come early. On the other hand, she didn’t know who Darwin was. And Robert never showed up anywhere early.
We waited a while, and then a car rolled in to The Starlight parking lot. We didn’t recognize it, but Robert stepped out.
“It must be a rental,” Wenling said. “His girlfriend’s car is probably impounded or something.”
I looked down at my watch and noted that Robert had come five minutes early. He hadn’t been early to meet me for anything since we got married. I was always the person who could wait.
“Look alive,” Wenling said into her walkie-talkie. “We’ve got a bogey on the way.”
“A bogey?” Mom asked. “Isn’t that golf?”
Wenling shrugged.
“Bogey spotted through the window,” Dar whispered over the walkie-talkie. Although, whispering in a walkie-talkie wasn’t that different from talking, volume-wise. I hoped that Darwin had put in headphones or something. Otherwise, we’d be caught.
“The Eagle has landed,” Dar said excitedly. “He’s getting a table.”
Well, Robert had arrived, but he wasn’t the one that we were hoping to see. We waited a few minutes.
“I see a car through the bar window,” Dar said through the walkie-talkie. “It’s a silver Honda.”
Mom, Wenling, and I all shared an excited look.
“Oh wait!” he said. “The bogey has come back out of the dining room. It looks like he’s looking for Christy.”
“Don’t let him see you,” Mom said into the walkie talkie.
“Should we drive to the other side?” Wenling said, staring into the binoculars. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Christy,” Mom said. “Get out and go into the driver’s seat. We’ll move when they’re all inside.”
I hopped out of the van and got into the driver’s seat just as Dar-Dar started saying, “Mayday! Mayday! Houston, we have a problem!”
“Have you been spotted?” Wenling asked.
“Negative,” he said. “The bogey has spotted the coyote.”
It took me a moment to realize that he meant that Robert had spotted Fiona, aka Wiley Jenner.
“He’s going out to talk to her,” Dar said.
“Kid,” Mom said over the walkie. “Drive over to the other side.”
“They’re fighting in the parking lot,” Dar said. “He’s telling her that she can’t be here. That he’s meeting someone important.”
I caught myself feeling slightly flattered until I realized that was ridiculous. He was such a user.
“Don’t go too fast,” Mom said. “We don’t want to attract attention.”
Our old van wasn’t exactly the quietest vehicle in the world. And chugging along in first gear wasn’t my forte. Anyone looking in our direction would see a dirty, white van puttering through the parking lot on the verge of stalling out with the occasional wild lurch forward.
“The coyote is on the run,” Dar said. “I repeat, the coyote is on the run.”
“What does that mean?” I yelled into my cellphone/walkie-talkie.
“Hurry,” he said. “She’s driving away. Follow her.”
“Which way do we go?” I asked.
“She’s going east on—
I cut him off. “I don’t know east. Left or right.”
“Go right,” he said.
I threw the van from first to third and into fourth and lurched right into the road with the sound of what I thought might be Mom and Wenling tumbling in the back of the van. I spotted the Honda approaching a stoplight at the end of the road. But on the sidewalk I saw Dar-Dar running in heels with his wig in his hand after her car. Was he going to attempt to go on foot?
“I’ll make sure she can’t cross at the light if it turns green,” he said into the walkie.
I sped after Fiona, wondering what Dar planned to do. He reached the crosswalk and pushed the pedestrian button. Was that the big plan? To use the crosswalk?
Her light turned green, and Dar leapt in front of her car, rolled onto her hood, and bounced into the windshield.
“Oh my God!” I heard myself say.
“What happened? What happened?” Wenling and Mom called out into their walkie-talkies.
Fiona’s brake lights went on, and she jumped out of her car.
I pulled up behind her, put on the emergency brake, and got out of the van.
“Are you okay?” I heard Fiona ask Dar.
Mom and Wenling joined me.
“Did you see this,” she paused, “person just jump out in front of my car?”
She turned to the three of us. “What are you doing here?”
“Tracking down you, Wylie Jenner,” Dar-Dar said, jumping off the hood of her car.
“Are you insane?” she screamed. This wasn’t going at all to plan. Although, I wasn’t sure we’d had much of a plan.
The five of us shared a table at the doughnut shop about a hundred yards from the stoplight where the “accident” took place.
“You scared the heck out of me,” Fiona said to Dar. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I went to a bit of acting school and learned how to do a few stunts,” he said. “I learned how to roll off the top of the car and some fight stuff.”
“I didn’t know that,” Mom said. “You should talk to my agent.”
“That’s cool,” Fiona said.
“Thanks,” Darwin said. “It just sucks that I scuffed my shoes and tangled my wig, and you’re not the killer.”
“Wait! Did Honey die?” Fiona asked.
“Don’t get excited,” Wenling said. “She’s still alive. We just mostly solve murders, so we’re kind of in the habit of calling people murderers or killers even though this is just an attempted homicide.”
“That makes sense,” Fiona said, disappointed. She sighed. “So you all thought that I did it?”
We nodded.
“Why?” she asked.
“Jealousy,” I said. “You were having an affair with Robert.”
“That wasn’t serious. He’s a narcissist. I just wanted to be close to the band to see if I can get in gossip. Besides, Honey wasn’t supposed to drive that car home after the party. She only left because she and Robert got into a fight.”
“What do you mean?” Mom asked.
Fiona’s eyes went wide, and she smiled. “If I tell you this, you have to give me the big scoop if you figure out who sabotaged those brakes.
“We could tell people that we know who you really are,” Dar said.
“If all goes right, I’ll have my own gossip show on television,” Fiona said. “I don’t mind people knowing who I am now that I’m starting to get pretty well-known thanks to this killer bee story.”
Honey Buns and Homicide_A Funny Culinary Cozy Mystery Page 9
