Murder and Mega Millions: A High Desert Cozy Mystery

by Dianne Harman

  “Swell, that’s all I need. First a sister who’s a psychic and now a dog who’s on the same other-worldly wavelength. Jeff, I think we should have left directly and never come out here to say goodbye.” Marty stood up with a laugh. “We’re off for whatever. Wish us luck. We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

  “Oops, Marty, I almost forgot,” Laura said. “Dick called and asked if you could do an appraisal for a woman named Melissa Ross.” She looked over at John and said, “It’s probably the woman you were just talking about. From what Dick said she won the lottery several years ago and has amassed a huge art and antique collection that needs to be appraised. He thought it would be a good idea if I took both of you to lunch, and you could discuss it with her and set up a time. He’d like to get it started sooner rather than later, so I suggested we meet Monday. I’ve already checked with Melissa, and she can do it. Okay with you?”

  “Sure, shall we go to our favorite Mexican restaurant or is that not fancy enough?”

  Laura shook her head. “Not fancy enough. I thought we’d go to Melvyn’s. It’s an experience, and I don’t think you’ve been there yet. The restaurant has been around for fifty years, and all the stars like Frank Sinatra used to go. It’s known for making dishes like Steak Diane at your tableside. And the waiters - I think all of them have been there since it opened. Anyway, have a good time mingling with all the important people of Palm Springs.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jeff said as he held the gate to the compound open for Marty and at the same time gave Patron the “stay” command, since it was clear the little guy had every intention of accompanying them.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I’m sorry, Ed, but you have a disease called Valley Fever,” the prison doctor said. “The results of the chest x-rays and the blood and culture tests all point to one of the worst cases I’ve seen since we started diagnosing it in 1990. I know you’re getting out of prison tomorrow, so I’m sure this is the last thing you want to hear from me.”

  “Sorry, Doc. Don’t have a clue what that is. All I know is I haven’t felt good for a couple of months. Seems like I’ve been coughin’ for a long time and figured that’s why I was gettin’ the headaches and just generally feelin’ lousy. How did I get it, and what can I do about it?”

  “The disease is primarily caused by a fungus that’s in the soil in this part of the San Joaquin Valley as well as other areas of the Southwest. Wish I could be clearer, but that’s essentially it. It gets windy here in Delano, and I’d bet you caught it when you were exercising out in the prison yard.”

  Ed coughed violently and then said in a raspy voice, “That’s all well and good, Doc, but now what? Got some special medicine for me to take?”

  The doctor looked Ed straight in the eye. “Son, I don’t know how to tell you this. The good news is that you’re going to be a free man starting tomorrow. The bad news is that there is no known cure for a case of Valley Fever as serious as yours.” He turned away, reaching down for his battered black leather doctor’s bag.

  “Wait a minute. Are you givin’ me some kind of a death verdict? Is that what yer’ sayin’?” Ed asked as he began to cough again.

  “I’m not God, Ed, and miracles happen. All I do is report on what I see. Let’s just hope there’s a miracle in your future.”

  Ed was quiet for several long moments and then said, “How long do you think I have?”

  “I don’t know. As I said a moment ago, miracles happen, but if one doesn’t, I’d say about six months or so. I’ll give you some cough medicine now. I’m also going to start you on a new medicine, Noxafil. I’ll give you a prescription for both when you leave here. Valley Fever is a relatively new disease and quite frankly, there have been very few cases as serious as yours. It’s not curable, but we can try to make what time you’ve got left comfortable. I really am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.”

  The doctor looked at his watch and said, “I have to go, but your medicine should be here within the hour. Hopefully, that will give you some relief from your cough. Good luck.” Leaving Ed’s bedside, he hurriedly walked over to the steel door of the cramped cell before pausing and turning back towards Ed. “Since you’re getting out of here soon, you might want to start a list of the things you want to do. My advice is don’t waste any time, Ed. Do them.”

  He rapped on the door, and the prison guard standing on the other side of the cell door let him out.

  Swell, Ed thought. Have a nice day and by the way, ya’ ain’t got long to live, so do what’s on your bucket list. Sheesh, I’ve been in the joint for twenty-five years, so yeah, there’s a lot I want to do. Took the fall for the brothers and sure never heard no more from them, other than a couple of ‘em that were baby gangsters with me and ended up in here. People dis the gang members, but man, they covered my back more than once. Nice to have someone watchin’ yer’ back when yer’ in prison.

  The door slid open again, and a nurse entered. “Mr. Ross, I’ve brought you some medication and some newspapers. Thought you might like a change from having nothing to do but watch television. First, take this capsule and the cough medicine for me.” The nurse waited while he swallowed the pill with the water she’d given him and then carefully measured out a spoonful of cough medicine. “Very good. Now, here are the newspapers. I brought you the Los Angeles Times and the Desert Sun. Since you’ll be leaving here tomorrow, might as well go to Palm Springs and see what the wealthy folks down there are doing these days.”

  After the nurse left, Ed felt tired and soon fell asleep. The cough medicine was formulated to ease the severity of coughing, but those same ingredients caused patients to sleep. Three hours later he awoke with a strange feeling that something was wrong. Then he remembered his conversation with the doctor. He was going to die in a few months. He was finally getting out of prison, but he’d soon be a dead man. Talk about irony. So much for the old gang members talk of him working in the new gang.

  Ed was only forty-three years old. It never occurred to him that he’d die at such a young age. He had things he wanted to do. He wanted some nice wheels. He remembered the 1955 black and white Chevrolet convertible Spider had owned. He’d tricked it out, and it was one bad car. Ed wanted one just like it. And clothes. He’d worn nothing but an orange prison jumpsuit for the last twenty-five years. He deserved some nice threads.

  And where does someone who has no job or money and is near death go? he wondered. Maybe to a county hospital. The prison hospital can’t take me in because I won’t be a State of California prisoner.

  Suddenly, leaving prison was a scary thought. He had no money and no place to go, and he was running out of time. At least if he were to live out his last days in prison, he’d be looked after by nurses who treated him with respect, and he wouldn’t have any medical bills to pay.

  His head hurt from all the thinking he was doing, so he decided to read the newspapers the nurse had brought him. He read the Los Angeles Times and thought not much had changed while he’d been in prison. People were still getting killed, politicians were still being caught in scandals, and whatever the celebrities did was still worth being written about. He picked up the Desert Sun, figuring there was nothing in there that would be of interest to a kid who came from the outskirts of Barstow and was a soon to be an ex-con. He was leafing from one page to another when a name leapt off a page at him. Melissa Ross.

  That was the name displayed under a photograph of a woman on the society page of the paper. It had been his sister’s name, but he figured she’d gotten married, and he’d never see her again. She sure had never tried to find him. He read the article twice. It was about how she’d donated three million dollars to the Children for Charity event in Palm Springs which had been held the previous evening.

  It made mention of the fact that she was considered to be the leading philanthropist in the Palm Springs area and even had a quote from her. “One of the best days in my life was when I compared the numbers on my lottery ticket to the winning Mega
Millions drawing numbers and they matched. There will never be another feeling quite like that.”

  The article went on to state that her windfall had allowed her to indulge in two things she’d wanted to do since she was a child – give money to charitable causes she considered to be important and surround herself with beautiful art and antiques. The article concluded by saying she was looking forward to the upcoming antiques and fine arts auction that was going to be held in Palm Springs, since it was the first time a really large auction house had held such an event in the city.

  Ed spent a long time studying the photograph of the woman shown in the paper. He hadn’t seen his sister for a long, long time, but he thought there was a resemblance to the young woman he’d known. He didn’t know much about plastic surgery, but it looked like her nose was a little straighter. He remembered that she’d had a bump on it from when she’d fallen off the gas station roof. He smiled involuntarily, remembering how they used to get on the roof and play. Four Corners definitely wasn’t a child-friendly place to grow up in.

  The smile turned to a frown as he realized his sister was now a very wealthy woman, and not only did he have nothing, he was going to die broke and in pain. It wasn’t fair. He wondered if she’d give him some of her money if he told her he was terminally ill. He thought about it for a few minutes, but he decided that was probably a dead-end street, considering how she’d always lectured him about being in a gang and that no good would come of it. He even remembered how she’d once said, “Mark my words. You’ll end up in prison or worse, and if you don’t get out of the gang, I want nothing more to do with you.” He’d left the tarpaper shack a few days later and never returned.

  Ed didn’t think Melissa would be amenable to a deathbed reconciliation with her long-lost brother. The more he thought about it, the madder he got. He was sick and was going to die on loser street. Meanwhile, his prissy sister had everything. Money, a glamorous lifestyle, and she was so rich she could afford to give three million bucks to some charity he’d never heard of. She’d had her share of the good life, now it was his turn.

  He really didn’t have much to lose by committing murder, and he was pretty sure she’d agree to see him, maybe when she was on a high after attending the auction described in the paper. There had been a lengthy article in the paper about it which he hadn’t paid much attention to.

  Ed picked up the paper again and this time, carefully noted all the details about the auction. He put it down and thought about the gate money he’d be given when he got out of prison. Two hundred dollars. Big deal. They should have instructions on it like “Don’t spend it all at once.” It was a pittance for the time he’d served, but he thought it would be enough for him to get a bus ride to Palm Springs and find a cheap motel. He had no idea if his uncle was still alive, but other than him, Ed was her only living relative, and he was closer in kin to her than their uncle He thought even if his uncle was alive, it was unlikely he knew anything about Melissa. The article in the paper had stated that she was free to do as she wished with her money, because she was the last surviving member of her family.

  He didn’t think she’d greet him with open arms, but all he needed was for her to open the front door to her home. He’d handle it from there.

  CHAPTER 6

  Thirty minutes after they’d left the compound, Marty and Jeff entered the La Quinta Resort, one of the premier hotel and golf courses in the Palm Springs area, and certainly one of the oldest.

  “Jeff, this is beautiful. I’ve heard of this hotel ever since I moved to High Desert, but I’ve never seen it. I mean look at this dramatic entry.” They were driving along a divided brick road with a center median filled with flowers, palm trees, and Italian cypress trees. In the twilight, Marty could just make out the mountains that backed up to the resort. She gasped in delight. “Look at all of those beautiful fountains that are scattered everywhere around the resort property. I don’t know why I was dreading tonight. It’s just gorgeous. No wonder the gala is being held here.”

  Jeff smiled, turned onto the curved driveway, and stopped in front of a line of waiting valets. “Welcome to the La Quinta Resort,” the uniformed valet said as he held the door open for Marty. Jeff gave his car keys to the valet and then took Marty’s elbow as they walked into the large lobby. A sign directed them to the Charity for Children event and they began to walk down a long hall. They weren’t the only ones attending the gala, judging from the large number of tuxedo-clad men and elegantly dressed women in the hallway.

  Two long tables, one on either side of the double doors leading to the grand ballroom where the gala was being held, served as sign-in tables. One had the letters “A-M” attached to the wall behind it, and the other had the letters “N-Z” behind it. Jeff steered Marty over to the first table and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Combs.” He smiled at Marty and said, “I know professionally you go by Marty Morgan, but it makes me feel good to say Mrs. Combs.”

  “Me, too,” she said smiling back at him, reaching out to hold his hand. “We should have date nights more often.”

  The young woman sitting at the table was properly attired for the gala in a nondescript simple black dress. From the lack of important jewelry and the way she was dressed, Marty was pretty sure she was an employee of the nonprofit organization, rather than one of the committee or board members. She handed Jeff and Marty a card that contained their auction bidding number and table number, which was number one.

  “Let’s go into the auction room, get a glass of wine, and see if there’s anything there we can’t live without,” Jeff said, nodding towards the room across the hall. They entered the room which contained about everything that would appeal to anyone who wanted to take something home in exchange for donating money to a charitable cause. Waiters carried trays with various types of canapes which she and Jeff tried out in the hopes of being able to find something that they could share with John so he could serve it at one of the many different events he catered.

  Jeff told the waiter he didn’t want to spoil his dinner by eating anything else, but Marty took the napkin the waiter handed her along with two different appetizers. A moment later, she turned to Jeff and said, “The waiter’s over there. You have to get one. I can’t tell you how good these are, and I need your help in describing them to John. These would be perfect for him to serve.”

  Jeff walked over to the waiter and helped himself to the two appetizers Marty was raving about. When he returned, he took a bite and said, “Agreed. These are absolutely wonderful. I’ve had stuffed mushrooms before, but never one as good as this one. Why don’t you go talk to the waiter and see if he knows what’s in them? I’m sure John could recreate it.”

  “I will, and I also want to ask him about the shrimp and grits puff pastry. That is really different. Back in a minute.”

  She walked over to the waiter and when Jeff saw Marty take a pen and a small paper pad out of her cocktail purse, he was pretty sure she’d gotten the ingredients, if not the full recipes, for the two appetizers.

  “Mission accomplished,” she said when she returned a few minutes later. “I got the recipes, and after I type them up, I’ll give them to John. Of course, I’ll have to request that he make them for all of us so Laura and Lee can try them as well. In my opinion, the evening is already a success.”

  “I’m sure John would agree with you,” Jeff said.

  An hour later they heard a bell ring indicating that dinner was ready to be served as well as blinking lights in the room emphasizing it. At the same time a voice came over the microphone advising that the silent auction would be ending in five minutes. Frantic guests rushed to put their last bids on the items they wanted.

  When Marty and Jeff entered the banquet room the first thing they noticed was bouquets of exotic flowers everywhere – from the centerpieces to the large standing vases on the stage and scattered around the perimeter of the room. The brightly colored orange and blue birds of paradise, soft yellow and white plumerias, various colors
of purple orchids, pink and red heliconias, and yellow hibiscus plants, all matched with various kinds of greenery was simply breath-taking.

  “Jeff, I’ve never seen most of these flowers, but they’re simply gorgeous,” Marty said, her eyes widening.

  “I recall from the invitation the chief gave me, that the theme of tonight’s gala is ‘Tropical Paradise.’ All those flowers look a whole lot different than what I saw when I was growing up in the Midwest. I agree, they really are beautiful. Ah, here’s our table, directly in front of the center of the stage. I see a woman who I assume is our hostess showing people where to sit. Smile, we’re up next.”

  He placed his hand in the small of Marty’s back and they walked up to the woman. “By any chance would you be Tammy Crawford?” he asked her.

  “I certainly am, and since I know everyone else sitting at the table, I assume that you’re Detective Combs and this must be your wife, Marty. Welcome to the annual gala for Charity for Children. I’m sorry the chief couldn’t make it, but I’m glad you were able to fill in for him. Marty, why don’t you sit next to me, and your husband can sit on the other side of you.”

  As they were getting seated Tammy introduced them to the others at the table and said, “Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to introduce you to my husband, Lew Crawford. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s in the papers almost every week with news about his business, Crawford Investments. It’s the largest hedge fund headquartered on the West Coast” she said smugly. “He’s so generous with me, and because of it, I’ve become the number one philanthropist in Palm Springs.”