Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries

by Warren, Nancy

He slipped her his card. “I’m investigating a crime. I’d like to ask a few questions about a couple who had dinner here Sunday night.”

  “I wasn’t working Sunday. Any idea who their server was?”

  “No. But they sat by the window.”

  “Probably Candy then. Or Ken.” She bit her lip as though not quite sure how to proceed then said, “Right this way. I’ll seat you and bring the server to you.”

  “Thanks.” Since she dropped a menu in front of him, he opened it and studied a list of steaks, ribs and chicken dishes, depicted in both glowing prose and vivid, mouth-watering photographs.

  “You were asking about one of my customers?” a female voice asked.

  “That’s right. Candy?”

  She nodded. Candy was a plump woman on the dark side of forty with short blond hair that was longer on one side than the other.

  After he introduced himself, he said, “Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” She seemed more than happy to sit down and join him.

  Their waitress approached. “Do you want to order anything?”

  “I’ll take a couple of the steak sandwiches to go.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And whatever Candy would like?”

  “Could you bring a couple of iced teas for right now, Lisa?” Candy added. The way the other waitress nodded and headed off to do her bidding suggested Candy was liked, or at least respected, by the other staff.

  He placed two pictures on the table. One was Mandeville’s publicity photo that he’d sliced from the book jacket with his pen knife, and the other was the photo of the dead woman, Amy Neuman. “Did you serve either of these people dinner Sunday night?”

  “Yeah, I remember them. They had dinner at Table 25. In the window there.” She touched Amy’s picture with a red fingertip. “What happened to her?”

  The iced tea came, real stuff, dark with tannins. Lisa placed two big glasses clinking with ice on the table, and set out sugar and lemon.

  “Thanks, hun,” Candy said.

  “Welcome.” After a curious glance at the pictures, Lisa headed off with her empty tray.

  “She was murdered. Sunday night. We’re trying to figure out who did it and why.”

  Candy’s eyes were a faded blue, but the concern in them was sharp. “She was killed right after she ate dinner here? God, that’s tragic. She seemed so nice.”

  “You must serve a lot of customers in a night. You’ve got a good memory.”

  She smiled briefly. “A good memory is a real asset to a waitress. I haven’t needed to write an order down in thirty years. Besides, those two were hard to forget. They were fighting.”

  He pulled out his notebook. “What about?”

  “I didn’t hear much, obviously, but you can always tell when customers aren’t getting along.” She sighed. “I don’t know why everybody thinks they have to do their breaking up in public. It’s a lie that anybody acts more civilized in a restaurant, believe me. I’ve been hit with flying food, wine, water, even had to help restrain a woman who went after her husband with one of the steak knives one time.”

  “Were the two at Table 25 violent?”

  “No. Not them. But that woman barely ate a bite of her food, mostly pushed it around on her plate. And it was the rib-eye and scampi platter, too. A specialty of the house. Everybody loves that dish.” Candy shook her head. “Didn’t even take the rest to go.”

  “And they were definitely fighting?”

  “They bickered, then would break off when I got near. Too bad, because they came in like a pair of lovebirds. Holding hands and all.”

  “Really?” He glanced up at her. “Do you think they were intimate?”

  “Sleeping together you mean?” She glanced back at Table 25, now empty and awaiting its next drama. “Oh, yeah.”

  So much for ‘the world is my Internet café.’ “What time did they leave?”

  “I can find out when he left exactly. He paid the bill, by credit card. It would be time and date stamped. She ran out ten minutes earlier.”

  “They didn’t leave together?”

  “No. Like I said, they were fighting. She left first. Pretty upset, too.”

  Henderson was snapping shut his cell phone when Marciano tracked him down in Longhorn B. He accepted the wrapped steak sandwich with a brief nod. “Amy got some calls that night. All from her husband’s cell phone.”

  “She was married?”

  “Mandeville was right. She’d filed for divorce.”

  He sat down at the conference table, unwrapped his own sandwich and took a bite. “How many calls?”

  “Four between the hours of 8 and 10 p.m.”

  “They stopped before she died. Interesting. None since?”

  “Nope. And it gets better. Guess where the husband is?”

  Marciano stopped mid-chew. “Son of a bitch.” He banged his fist softly against the fake oak boardroom table. “How long’s he been in town?”

  Henderson’s expression didn’t change, but then it rarely did. “He got here Sunday.”

  “Where do we find him?”

  “The Best Western. Three blocks away.”

  “Anybody told him yet about his wife?”

  “They’re leaving that to us.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Mandeville lied to us,” he said as they headed for the car. “Waitress at the restaurant said he and Amy came in all over each other and then had a big fight and Amy left alone. He paid the bill and followed.” Henderson took a bite of his sandwich, chewed reflectively. “Maybe the ex didn’t like that she was having an affair.”

  “Mandeville said she started writing to him a year ago. Wonder when they started sleeping together?”

  “And how the husband felt about it.”

  “After the autopsy, how about we pay Amy’s husband a call?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.

  -- Cindy Crawford

  “Your two best friends,” Toni announced, standing at the front of the seminar room and holding up a glass of water in her left hand and a signature mauve tube in her right. She thought of how horrified Luke had been when she’d handed him a colored tube and found even more fuel for her smile.

  “Water and daytime moisturizer with sunscreen.” She made a cheers motion with the water, sipped to make her point, and put it down on the table beside her.

  “I mean it. The best moisturizer is water. You should be drinking at least eight glasses a day.”

  She heard a theatrical groan from a preppy looking gal in the front row who couldn’t be more than twenty-two. “Water tastes boring.”

  “I find a little added lemon or cucumber makes it easy to drink. If you don’t have lemon, use a squirt of the lemon concentrate. Try replacing a couple of cups of coffee with herbal tea. You’ll sell more skincare products when your own skin is glowing and radiant. Trust me on this. And it’s good to remind your clients, too, that they should be drinking water.”

  “Or juice?”

  “Sure. But not soda. In summer or after you’ve been on a plane or in air-conditioned buildings like this one the air is super dry. A couple of extra glasses will help moisturize your skin from the inside. In fact,” she paused to look out over the room. “There are definitely a few tired and dehydrated faces out there. At the back of the room you’ll find a handy ice water station and lots of glasses. Go ahead. Help yourselves.”

  About half the women stood and headed for the back of the room. A few waved water bottles around so she could see they were hydrating in their own fashion.

  She took another sip of water and put the glass down again. “Now, sunscreen. Winter, summer, wear it. You’re looking for a minimum SPF of 15 for daily wear. You know what you should wear at the beach?”

  “SPF 30?” her preppy friend shouted out. She held up her water so Toni would see she’d listened.

&n
bsp; “Wrong. Stay away from the beach!” She grinned at them. “It was a trick question. If you insist on going to the beach, wear SPF 45 plus a hat and cover up. Nothing ages our skin faster than the sun.

  “As you all know, Lady Bianca daytime moisturizers all contain sunscreen. Don’t forget to apply it to the back of your neck if you wear your hair short and the tops of your ears if they are exposed to the elements. Of course, you should always have sunscreen on your lips. If your lipstick or gloss doesn’t already contain it, use our patented lip balm. To moisturize, plump and protect.”

  Her skincare basics class held about fifty reps. Some new to the company, some looking for a refresher course.

  Or a chance to sit quietly for fifty minutes. She went through the full range of products for dry skin, oily skin, combination skin, sensitive skin and aging skin.

  A Halle Berry look alike in a pale blue suit raised her hand. “Do you have any suggestions for puffy eyes?”

  “Puffy eyes are annoying and make you look tired. Usually because you are tired, it’s why your eyes are puffy in the first place.” She stopped to sip more water. “First you want to bring the puffiness down. In the morning or late afternoon before you go out for the evening. Good old cucumber slices work great. So do cold, wet tea bags. Regular tea is fine. But I like chamomile. Of course, you’re going to brew a pot of chamomile tea and drink it. Great for the skin and very relaxing.”

  “Now, while you’re stretched out for five or ten minutes with your eyes shut don’t be thinking you need to waste that time. You can put on a motivational tape, you can dream up ways to increase your sales or you can practice visualizing yourself wearing a tiara and accepting whatever prize you are working toward at the annual Lady Bianca convention’s closing banquet.”

  She held her right hand in the air, palm toward herself. “I bet you can guess what prize I visualize winning.” She waggled her ring finger. “I’ve got the spot all ready for my two-carat diamond ring. Can we all visualize it?”

  There was a spurt of laughter and some applause. It was an open secret that she and Nicole were neck and neck for the division sales title. Again. “If any of you ladies would like to order some product from me before month end, I’d be happy to take your order,” she teased.

  More laughter.

  “Okay, back to our relaxing eye treatment. Five or ten minutes later you rinse with cool water, pat the area dry and then apply your eye cream. Remember, there are no oil glands around the eyes, which is one reason why you get those pesky crow’s feet. You need to dab plenty of eye cream around the area, never rubbing or pulling the skin just gently stippling with your fingertips.” She demonstrated, gently rat-a-tat-tatting her index and middle fingers around her smile lines.

  “Now, let’s move on to exfoliation.”

  Luke didn’t like autopsies. He didn’t like the industrial, disinfectant smells, the knives, the scales for weighing organs, the bone saw. He didn’t like the casual way the medical examiners treated dead bodies or the fact that he should have conquered his nausea by now.

  As always, he tried to concentrate on the facts Gil Sefton was throwing at him and Henderson.

  “Death due to pericardial tamponade, secondary to a penetrating knife wound.” He smiled at them. “Single knife wound killed her. Killer struck upward so the blade entered under the left breast and pierced the heart, causing blood to fill the sac around the heart -- the pericardium -- which then compressed the heart. She lost consciousness almost immediately and death occurred within two to five minutes.”

  “Time of death?” Henderson asked.

  “Between 10:30 and midnight.”

  “What can you tell us about the blade?” Luke asked.

  “Six inches long. Straight across the top, comes to a sharp point, and curved on the bottom. Around a half inch, wider where it meets the handle. I’d say you’re looking for something like a fishing knife.” He pointed to a spot on the body. “See this mark here? Made by the hilt.”

  “She was killed in a hotel. Could the blade be some kind of chef ’s knife?”

  Gil nodded. “A specialty carving knife of some sort. Sure. I’ll have the full report to you guys tomorrow morning, but those are the highlights.”

  He turned to Henderson and said, “Let’s check out the hotel kitchen, see if any of their knives are missing.”

  Henderson nodded. “And find out if the husband likes to fish.” As they were leaving, Luke turned back. “Had she had sex recently?”

  “Not that day.”

  “Thanks, Gil.”

  As they were heading out, Henderson’s cell rang. He listened, seemed to tense slightly, then said, “Fine. Now is fine.”

  He turned to Luke. “It was the captain. He says the DA’s office wants a quick update on the Neuman case and now would be good.”

  “They don’t need both of us, Frank. You okay to take it? I’ll check the hotel kitchen and then we’ll go interview the husband.”

  Luke appreciated the smell of the hotel’s kitchen a whole lot more than the morgue, but there were odd parallels between the two locations. A lot of stainless steel, tools of a trade he had no clue about, and people who made a career of cutting into dead things.

  Lunch was over and dinner a few hours away but still, the place was hopping. And the first person he bumped into didn’t look like she cooked – not with diamond fingernails and a pale yellow sleeveless dress patterned with flowers.

  “Toni.”

  “Detective, we’ll have to stop meeting like this.” She presented him with her slick, pearly smile, then, when she looked into his face, the smile faded and a tiny frown pulled her brows together. He thought he saw concern in her eyes. “Rough day?”

  He was about to blow her off with some smartass remark, but instead he nodded. “Yeah.”

  To his surprise, she touched his arm lightly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Goes with the job. What are you doing in the kitchen?”

  “Checking on a special surprise dessert. It’s Lady Bianca’s birthday tomorrow. Even though she doesn’t travel to the conference any more, we thought it would be fun to arrange a huge cake for her and all sing; we’ll do a live video feed. Of course, we have to eat cake pretty early in the day so she gets to see it before she goes to bed in England.”

  He knew that Lady Bianca was an American who bought herself a title and a fancy estate in England, but he hadn’t realized she was still alive. “She must be pretty old.”

  She nodded. “Eighty. Which is a lot of candles.” She grinned at him. “Luckily, it’s a very big cake.”

  She opened her arms wide to illustrate and the way her biceps and triceps came to attention, he got the strong impression that Toni Diamond didn’t spend all her time selling cosmetics. Some of it she spent working out.

  “Who’s in charge here?”

  “Chef ’s over there. He’s been a darling about the cake. ” She turned and pointed, past a young Asian guy with a huge bag of prawns in his hand, to a thin man with a moustache wearing a pristine apron and white hat who didn’t look as though he partook of his own creations.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll introduce you.”

  “Not necessary,” he said in a Go Away tone, but she tagged along anyway.

  As he walked toward the head chef, the kitchen helper upended the bag and out spilled enough prawns, gray and curled, to coat half the ocean floor. “Excuse me, Chef?” They made their way -- him and his uninvited companion -- over to the big stove where the chef was stirring something.

  He glanced up, looked them up and down, took in the badge. “Help you?”

  “I’m investigating the recent murder in the hotel a couple of nights ago. Any chance you’re missing a knife?” It was like asking a lifeguard if the beach was missing a grain of sand. There were knives everywhere.

  But the chef didn’t laugh. He shook his head. “Can’t tell about dinner knives or anything used out front. But the chefs are all maniacs about their knives.
Believe me, if one was missing, I’d know.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” He pulled out a card. “If you think of anything.”

  They turned and the chef said, “There was one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Lucy threw a fit couple days ago. Which is not unusual. Lucy gives PMS a bad name, if you know what I mean.” Toni opened her mouth and Luke grabbed her wrist and squeezed it, hoping he could subtly communicate to her that feminist rants were better saved for after he’d finished work. “What did she throw a fit about?”

  “That’s her coming out of the fridge. Go ask her.”

  Lucy was a muscular woman with a mass of curly black hair tied back. Her apron was stained, her cap on crooked and her face set in a frown. “Lucy?”

  She glared at them, kicking the door to the walk-in fridge shut behind her. She glanced from Luke to Toni and if possible, her frown deepened. “I already told you. The cake’s under control. Got the perfect icing color match for the corporate logo and yes, the specially ordered sparkly candles arrived.” She tilted her hands like a cheerleader about to go into a routine. “All eighty of them. What do you want now? Sing along napkins?”

  “Don’t tempt her,” he said, before Toni had a chance to speak. Then once more displayed his badge. “I’m a cop. Understand something happened with one of your knives?”

  Her lip curled in a half grin. “You guys running out of crimes to solve?”

  “It’s in connection with the murder that happened here in the hotel.”

  “All my knives are here, but some cretinous moron put one of them in the dishwasher. Nobody touches my knives. I have to special order them from Japan.”

  “And you’re sure the knife was yours?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “I mark all my knives.” She stomped over to her station and pulled out a wicked-looking blade about six inches long and approximately half an inch wide. “See, here? I etch the blade with a special mark so I’d find them again if anybody stole them.”

  She glared at them both. “This isn’t some crappy Sunday roast carving knife from Target; my knives are the tools of my art. I wash them myself. By hand. Then some brainless millipede shoves this one in the dishwasher.” Her voice rose to screeching heights.