A Corpse in a Teacup
Page 2
Holley came to life. “He has more speciments of lily’s than anyone,” she looked at him uncertainly, “in the world maybe?” She shrugged her confusion, then gave a charming but puzzled smile. “I don’t know. But he’s an expert.”
Holley had wandered over to his side and he put a hand on her shoulder, the bare one, the one revealed when her robe slid down after she and Tuesday hugged it out. Now alarm bells went off again about this guy. He was good looking in an old guy kind of way. More than a few wrinkles in that charming face. Tuesday didn’t go in for old guys, but maybe Holley did.
Greg laughed again. “Holley should be my press agent. I belong to a local garden club and I’ve cornered the market on lilies. Not as exotic as heirloom roses or African violets, but for some reason they call to me.”
Tuesday was trying to recall what a lily looked like. Spikey and orange was all that came to mind. Greg shook her hand again. “Nice to meet you, Miss Tuesday. I’ve enjoyed meeting some of Holley’s friends. Maybe we’ll do it again.”
Tuesday thought, I hope not, smiled and said goodbye.
Holley seemed to have forgotten about him before she had even shut the door. “I’ve already made the tea, Miss Tuesday.” She shook her robe. “Let me get dressed and then you can read the leaves and tell me what’s going on.”
Tuesday called down the hall to protest, but Holley had disappeared into the bathroom.
While she waited, Tuesday looked around the renovated bungalow. Holley’s house didn’t reveal much. No furniture or knickknacks to speak of. Walls bare except for a poster of her last movie, she in a space age skimpy costume shooting thunderbolts out of a weapon that Tuesday thought resembled the bright fluorescent plastic water canons kids used in pool fights.
But Holley was tidy. Kitchen counters, which Tuesday could see from the living room, were spotless, no dishes in the sink and the chrome shone like a restored Corvette. She spotted a teapot, cup and saucer on a Formica table in a corner of the breakfast nook.
This was a new experience for Tuesday. She never visited her clients at home. Oh, she’d lassoed her friends into acting as guinea pigs when she was learning to read tea leaves, palms, pendulums, any method of divination that promised to lead her to a higher truth, to teach her how to connect with her true self, how to convince herself her life was okay, that she was okay.
But she believed that what manifested in the bottom of a teacup was a reflection of the client’s psyche. The tea leaves only revealed what the person was ready to see. Walking cold into someone’s home exposed so much more about them, and Tuesday liked to respect boundaries. Some boundaries anyway, the one that said stay out of your clients’ lives. Let them show you what they want you to see. She had, after all, invited herself to Holley’s house. This visit felt a bit intrusive.
Holley returned a few minutes later tugging yoga tights into place. “What were we saying, Miss Tuesday?”
Tuesday looked up. Holley was a girl after her own heart. Even in the midst of a life or death crisis, she had taken the time to do her blond hair in a side pony with her bangs heavily sprayed in place and apply her usual half-inch of makeup. Tuesday liked her cosmos, too, her cosmetics, but she wondered how Holley could speak with all that lip gloss.
“Can we get started, Miss Tuesday?”
Tuesday forced herself to stop staring. “Slow down a minute, Honey Bunny. First, who is that guy?”
“Mr. Gregory? He told you. He’s my neighbor. He’s very nice to me, brings me things from his garden. Flowers and some vegetables. You should taste a salad from his greens. You just feel wholesome and healthy after eating them right from the ground. Washed of course.”
If Tuesday felt she was intruding, Holley didn’t seem to see it that way. She was her natural self, chirping away, stretching and gesturing wildly with her arms. Your every day Holley. Enough nervous energy to power downtown LA.
“So he knows your friends?” Tuesday noticed happily that Holley was ignoring the breakfast gifts from Greg, though she could have easily slipped them into her tote if no one was looking.
“Well, I wouldn’t say he knows them. He was watering one time when some people came over for a pizza and movie night. I introduced them to him before we came inside. He told me the next day he was excited because he’d never met celebrities before. He’d recognized one of the guys who was in a TV show a while back. I guess he’s a little,” she rolled her eyes and posed as though she were on the red carpet, “star struck. I think that’s why he likes me, because I’m an actress. He doesn’t give his flowers to anyone else on the street. I know that.”
She ran over to the dining table and lifted the lid from the teapot. “The tea is cold. Let me make some more.”
“Whoa, honey. I can’t do a reading for you here. It would violate my contract with the Café. You found me there so if I do a reading for you anyplace other than The Mulberry Cat, I’ll get fired. They don’t want me siphoning off their clients for my private practice.”
Tuesday wasn’t sure Holley understood, but she did get the message that the tea leaf reader was not going to solve her problem just yet.
Tuesday needed to get the full story. “Tell me what’s been going on and then, if we have to, we can go to the Café. Take it from top. Who threatened you and why?”
Holley threw up her hands, mystified. “But that’s just it. I don’t know.” She did a stress-relieving stretch and then folded herself into an impossible yoga pose. Tuesday shut her eyes, as though watching something obscene. She tried to force down the envy she felt at the yoga porn. It was bad karma to be jealous of a client. She had an admirable set of abs herself, but one look at Holley’s ripped midriff in her hip hugging tights and sports bra made Tuesday feel like she was lugging around a baseball player’s beer belly.
She got her mind off comparing herself to Holley by continuing her interrogation. “Tell me about this new gig. How’d you hear about it? Who’s working on it?”
Holley still hadn’t offered her a seat, so Tuesday slipped off her shoes and helped herself to one of the two fashionably weathered leather club chairs, the only items of trendy décor in the room. She tucked her feet under her legs and waited for Holley to relate her bizarre story. Holley seemed almost unaware of Tuesday’s presence as she gathered her thoughts. She uncorkscrewed herself and collapsed on the couch, speaking to the ceiling.
“Well, I told you that I read for the lead. I want this part, Miss Tuesday. It could make my career. See there’s this pilot and she . . . “
Tuesday loved Holley, and usually had patience for her wild-eyed exuberance, but sometimes it was work to keep her on track.
“Lovey, I don’t mean to be rude, but could you cut to the chase? Maybe we’ll track the script later?”
“If you say so, Miss Tuesday. Well my agent told me about the part. Said EVERYONE had to read. The director didn’t care how many blockbusters they had done. Not that I’ve had a blockbuster. Not like Angelina Jolie or anything, but close. You know my last film, if I’d had the lead . . .”
Tuesday was on Orange alert. Ten minutes had passed and she still didn’t know what had upset Holley. While Holley blathered on about her career, Tuesday remembered that Holley had once told her that she wore her wealth on her back. That seemed to be true, judging from the sparse furnishings, and the fact that Holley told her she was making decent money. She wore mostly H&M off the set, cheap designer knockoffs, but she must have a lot of it if that’s where she spent her money.
Whoops. Tuesday caught herself. She was letting her mind wander while Holley prattled on, losing focus. She snapped her fingers and Holley seemed to come out of a trance. “Names, Holley. Who’d you read for?”
“Goren Vitale. He did that movie about . . .
Tuesday jumped in before she was off on another tangent. “Who else was there?”
“A bunch of other people.”
Tuesday slowed down her voice as though talking to a child. “Do you know their names?”
Tuesday rolled her eyes, thinking, I could do with a PA.
Holley continued. “And Gray Star, this ambidextrous actress who’s in all of Mr.Vitale’s movies. I think because her costumes can be worn by men and women and it saves money.”
“Um, do you mean androgynous?”
“Right. That’s what I said. And Ariel Cuthbert. She read for the part, too. My agent told me to watch out for her. She’ll do anything to get a role. One time, I heard she put cayenne pepper in a rival’s tea. The poor girl’s mouth was burning so much she couldn’t read for the part, so Ariel got it. She’s always been nice to me, but I didn’t let her get near my drink.”
Tuesday’s neck hairs pricked up. Was Ariel a possible suspect for the threatening call? A girl who’d put pepper in a rival’s cup could be capable of anything. She made a mental note to check out Miss Cuthbert as Holley continued with her rundown of attendees at the audition.
“Roger was there. Roger Brand, this photography guy. You know, to see if the camera loved me.” Holley batted her eyelashes. “I’ve always been told it does. He’s not really a cameraman. He’s an assistant or something. He has a thing for me, but on my end? Meh?”
Tuesday knew a lot of industry people, but hadn’t spent much time on sets. She had no reason to; her ambitions were for success off screen. It wasn’t that she didn’t like movies, she was obsessed with them. She pegged people by their resemblance to her favorite actors or film characters, but her eyes glazed over at the specifics of an audition. “Let’s finish the rundown. Who else was there?”
“Let’s see. Electra. The costume director. She does amazing things with duct tape and aluminum foil to make the costumes authentic.”
Tuesday grinned. “Authentic as in authentic made up aliens from outer space wear?”
“Absolutely. You get it. And Harry, of course. The hairdresser? All the makeup and hair people were there working on getting the look right. Plus the director’s wife showed up. She’s amazing. They didn’t have a craft table for the auditions so she came in with a big pot of soup and home made bread. She joked that it wasn’t made in her home, though. She’s so nice and the soup was super delicious. I think the chef at the Mulberry Cat makes it. They have take out, you know.”
Tuesday did know. She worked there. As Holley well knew.
Holley proceeded, clearly enamored with Mrs. Vitale. “Amazing the way she supports her husband. I’ve never seen a wife do that before. I mean a wife of a director. You know, some of the costumes are just short of malfunctioning if you know what I mean. Electra’s work isn’t like that. Well a little but not too much. Guys don’t like their wives to see what’s prancing around them all day. But she’s cool. I’m going to support my husband like that when I get married. I’ll stand by my man no matter what.”
Tuesday had been out of town for a week and had a lot of catching up to do today. After a deep, calming breath, she tried to move things along. “Good for you, baby girl. I’m sure you’ll be a model of marital devotion . . . or something. Now, anybody else?”
Holley silently counted on her fingers. “Nope. That’s pretty much it.”
“Did anything unusual happen at the reading? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Holley shook her head. “No, I read the part. Mr. Vitale gave me some direction and we did a few more takes. His assistant? The Zora person I mentioned?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, I don’t really know their relationship, but it seemed to me she was butting in a lot. Not really being a director or anything, but telling me where to put my purse, that I was sitting in somebody else’s seat, that I was talking too loud. That kind of thing.”
“And the director allowed it?”
“He didn’t seem to notice, so maybe that’s the way they roll. She whispered in his ear a lot while I was doing my reading. Kind of made me nervous, but then I found my center and just read my lines.”
“Zora sounds like a charmer.”
“I didn’t get the feeling anyone on the set liked her. Well, it wasn’t really a set but a set of rooms where they held the auditions. I heard a rumor that one time? On another movie? Zora gave an order that Mr. Vitale’s wife was not allowed on the set.”
“And he stood for that?”
“Well, my friend, Harry? The hairdresser? Harry said Mrs. Vitale never came back after that. But she was there yesterday, so maybe they worked it out.”
“Mrs. Vitale must be a force to be reckoned with.”
“I can tell you it was nice to see her friendly face show up. It can be hard to make friends on a movie. There’s a lot of jealousy. You know, everyone wants to be the star, even if they’re not. I get that a lot because my parts are so crucial to the narrative.”
Holley took a deep breath, stretching her abundant frontal assets forward. Tuesday thought, that’s not all that’s crucial to the narrative. But she just said, “What happened next?”
Holley curled back into a comfortable position and continued. “Then Mr. Vitale said he was really happy with my work and asked about my schedule and dates. Would I be available, did I have a passport? The usual stuff. He said he’d let me know. They were considering a few other people.”
“Do you know who?” Tuesday inwardly groaned. Holley could spew out endless, mindless detail but skip over important facts.
“I don’t know. My agent heard it was just between me and Ariel at first. But she was going to try to find out if there was anyone else. You know, so I could audition to my strengths? And show up their weaknesses? She heard Alicia Wayne was a possibility, but then she got dropped. She’s the one who posts her rivals’ bad reviews on Facebook. Not a nice person.”
Tuesday made a note to check into Alicia, but right now she needed Holley to move on.
“But honestly? I think Ariel Cuthbert is my only big competition. She did the Vampires from Another Planet franchise. She’s an awesome actress and all? But she doesn’t have my depth. That’s what Mr. Vitale told me.”
“Before or after the reading?”
“After.”
Clearly, Holley was too gullible to come up with a suspect. Trust was a big part of Tuesday’s spiritual path, but some situations called for a healthy dose of suspicion. If Holley wasn’t going to be her own sleuth, she’d have to be one for her.
“Tell me about Ariel. We know she isn’t trustworthy. What’s your relationship with her?”
“We’re cool.”
“But it sounds like she’s not above pulling a stunt to scare you away from a part she wanted.”
“Gee, I never thought of that.”
No, you wouldn’t, mused Tuesday. No creepdar on our girl Holley. The downside of innocence. Sometimes Holley was so sweet she just wanted to hug her. But at this moment she thought she might have to lock her up in a gilded birdcage to protect her. “So what happened after the director talked about your depth?”
“Then he walked me out to my car. He wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t happy with me and going to give me the part, so I was really excited on the way home. Then my phone rang. This guy just said don’t take that part or else, and he hung up. It was a blocked number so I couldn’t call him back.”
Tuesday was doing her own hair-twirllng trying to channel Detective Richards, the guy who solved Olivia’s case in Darling Valley. What would Detective Dreamy do right now? Probably say something insulting, but that wasn’t Tuesday’s style. Not that she had a style. Darling Valley was the only other crime case she had ever been involved with, but she wasn’t the insulting type. Impatient maybe, when Holley couldn’t seem to get to the point.
“Holley, could it have been a crank call? Do you have a friend who knew about the reading and was just yanking your chain?”
&nb
sp; Holley returned an exasperated eye roll. “Oh Miss Tuesday, I don’t have friends like that. I’m in a spiritual circle and we visualize positive manifestations for ourselves and each other.”
“I’m sure you do, sweetie, but what about somebody that you don’t know very well. Someone not into positive vibes?”
“Well,” Holley looked up at the ceiling again to see if the beams were manifesting an answer. “I certainly know types like that. But no one who knew about the audition. It came up at the last minute. I had no time to let my circle know so we could visualize me getting the part.”
Tuesday was trying to put the pieces together. She was forbidden by her contract with the Café to read Holley’s leaves in her apartment, and she didn’t have Tarot cards with her. Not that she was any good at reading them. She never really liked doing puzzles. She preferred clear-cut answers. Give her a cup with squiggly lines made from stems and leaves any day. She could never understand why her clients couldn’t see the anchors and windstorms that were so obvious to her. This crime thing was a stretch, though, bringing her into a world reeling with negativity, something she worked hard at exorcizing from her life. Yet, the Darling Valley murders helped her understand the pressure and urgency of figuring out life and death puzzles. She pushed her brain to find the right questions.
She leaned forward, trying to recall Detective Richards’ interrogation tricks. She reminded herself that Holley hadn’t done anything wrong, so she shouldn’t harrass her just because she wanted to get the show on the road. Urgent but calm, she told herself. “So who did know about the audition?”
“Just my agent and the people at the reading. My agent called me about it the night before.”
“And your agent wouldn’t try to spook you?” Tuesday slumped back, reconsidering her question. “But then, why would she? If she scared you away from the part, she’d be shooting herself in the foot, right?”
Holley sat upright in one fast, effortless move. “That’s right.”
Tuesday couldn’t help herself. “So those abs are no accident?”