by Cheryl Crane
She watched the two men. She really didn’t want to share this conversation. Then she saw one of them pull a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and offer it to the other guy. They weren’t on a covert operation for Lieutenant Detective Cutie Pie; they were sneaking a smoke.
“Layman’s terms,” Rob said, “Eddie Bernard died because something—a sharp, pointy object—was plunged into his heart, stopping his heart from pumping blood to his brain . . . and other vital organs.”
“He died from a pair of pruning shears being stuck in his chest?” she said, getting up to pace.
“The heart was severely damaged; it was the only conclusion the coroner could make. There was some blood around the heart and in the chest cavity, which the coroner questioned, but there was no conclusive explanation, from what I could tell.”
“The coroner was sure the pruning shears were what killed him?”
“I think that was pretty obvious. The shears were in his heart.”
“They find fingerprints on them?” She walked along the side of the guesthouse, toward a little shed behind it.
“Multiple sets. At least five, maybe six. This was a busy pair of shears. The only prints that could be identified, though, were Jorge’s, and a Hector Alvarez. You can only identify prints already on file, obviously.”
“Hector works for Jorge,” Nikki said. “It would make sense that his fingerprints would be on them.”
“Right. He had a gang-related arrest years ago. He was questioned this morning by a Lieutenant Detective Down . . . Dow—Wait a minute, I wrote it down. He’s out of Beverly Hills.”
“Dombrowski,” she said.
“That’s him. He also interviewed another guy . . .” He paused. She imagined he was reading notes. “A Wesley Butterfield.”
Butterfield . . . Butterfield. The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Were his prints on the shears?”
“Nope. Not sure why he was called in. Just know that he was. In fact, he was questioned that Saturday morning.”
“He was at the Bernards’ Saturday morning?”
“I guess. Then he was brought into the police station Monday.”
Nikki’s thoughts were flying in multiple directions at once. Who was this Wesley Butterfield and why was he still at the Bernards’ the morning following the party? She needed to talk to Hector. And she still needed to talk to Ree. If she could find her. And why hadn’t her buddy Astro called her? She’d thought he would have taken advantage of her leaving her card. She tried to focus.
“Time of death?” she asked.
“Between one and four a.m.”
So had Eddie been killed while the party was going on, or after his guests went home? Nikki didn’t know what time the party had broken up, but she’d find out. “Did you get to see the tox screen, by any chance?” she asked Rob.
“He was high. Big surprise. Marijuana, cocaine, some serious cocktail of downers and something called Anavar. It’s an anabolic—”
“Wait, let me guess,” she interrupted. Reaching the shed, she turned and headed back toward the pool. “Steroid.”
“How do you know about steroids?” Rob asked.
She ignored the question. “You said Eddie was high. How high?”
“That, I don’t know. These were just preliminary lab results. We don’t even know everything he was on. Those were just the highlights. The full report hasn’t been written because all the results aren’t back. Some lab tests take days, some weeks. And I only got a quick look-see at the prelim.”
“So cause of death hasn’t actually been determined?”
“You mean, did he overdose and die and then someone plunged a gardening tool into his chest afterwards? No, Nikki. This is definitely a homicide. The drugs might have eased his passing, but he was murdered.”
“Right.” As much as Nikki hated to think about the logistics of it, she wondered if it had been a surprise attack. It would have had to have been, wouldn’t it? Otherwise, he would have fought his attacker. “There were no defensive wounds, were there?” she asked.
“Nope.”
Had he passed out before he was murdered? Had the cocaine and downers together rendered him unconscious? It would certainly be easier to kill a man with a pair of gardening shears if he was unconscious. Nikki heard male voices in the background.
“Sure, no problem,” Rob said to someone. Then to Nikki, “I gotta go.”
“I appreciate this, Rob.”
“You appreciate what? Who’s Rob?” The male voice that came from behind her scared the bejeezus out of her.
Nikki swung around as she disconnected. She knew that voice. How good a detective could she be if she let the same man sneak up on her twice in an hour’s time? “My boyfriend,” she said. That was quick, she thought. And good on the fly.
“And you were thanking him for . . .” The detective waited.
Nikki smiled up at him. “Oh, Tom, it would be unladylike for me to say.”
Tom Dombrowski smiled. “You’re good.” He pointed at her.
“Thank you.” She smiled back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should probably go back inside and offer my condolences.”
Nikki didn’t make it beyond the kitchen. As she stepped into the breakfast room, she heard a voice she knew entirely too well.
“Now that you’re a big star, do you still hire out?” Victoria was saying. “My housekeeper’s always done our cooking, or we bring a caterer in, but it might be nice to have a private chef for one of my movie nights.”
“I’m not exactly a big star,” Ellen said as Nikki entered the kitchen. She caught Nikki’s eye, her blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “So the answer to your question is that I do hire out for special occasions and that I’d love to come cook for you and your guests some night.”
“Do you hear that, Nicolette?” Victoria stood at the granite island, looking perfectly at home in her Coco Chanel dress, in her neighbors’ kitchen. “Ellen would love to prepare something amazing for one of my movie nights.” She looked back at Ellen. “But I’d prefer real food, appetizers that look as they should.” She pursed her lips. “No cream puffs in the shape of meatballs or anything on that note.”
Ellen chuckled. “I can make whatever you like, Ms. Bordeaux.” She left a tray of mushroom caps she was stuffing with crab imperial and reached into a black canvas bag on the far counter. “Here’s my card. You can have your assistant call me.”
“Oh, I don’t have an assistant, dear. What would a retired woman my age do with an assistant?” Victoria accepted the card and held it in the air. “Look, Nicolette, I have Ellen’s card. Now you can give her a ring and ask her to lunch.”
Chapter 14
Ellen cut her eyes at Nikki as she returned to stuffing the mushroom caps.
“Mother, I don’t need you to help me make play dates.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Ellen is a nice young woman and she’s new to L.A. She’d probably enjoy having lunch with you, maybe making a new friend. Frankly, Nicolette, you could use some nice friends.”
Nikki could tell that Ellen was struggling not to laugh. Nikki did like Ellen. And she was liking her better by the minute.
Victoria waved the business card as she walked away. “Ellen’s mother would probably appreciate it if you asked her daughter to lunch. I’ll keep this card for you, dear, and give it to you later.” She walked out of the kitchen.
Nikki just stood there for a minute. She and Ellen were alone in the room. Finally, she just said, “I don’t know what to say. I’m beyond embarrassed. I’d like to apologize, giving the excuse of poor judgment in a time of bereavement, but the fact is, this”—she waved her hand in the direction Victoria had gone—“is my mother on her good behavior.”
Ellen grinned as she added a bit of curly parsley to the tray of mushroom caps. “I think she’s a hoot. She and my mother could be identical twins . . . separated at birth. Except that my mother was born in Nairobi and is black.” She looked at Nikki across the counter, smiling
. “The truth is, she’s right. I don’t know many people in L.A. and most I do know, I wouldn’t have lunch with if I could help it. So . . . how about lunch?”
It was funny; the older Nikki got, the smaller her circle of friends seemed to become. It was just that, as the years passed, it was harder to make the effort. Maybe harder to trust people. She did need to get out more, make new friends. Wasn’t it natural to just hate it when your mother was right? “I’d love to have lunch with you. Tomorrow?”
“Perfect. I heard Villa Blanca has changed up their menu. I’ve been dying to try it.”
“One o’clock?” Nikki asked, turning one ear toward the doorway. She thought she heard Lissa’s voice. A phone conversation.
“Sounds good.” Ellen glanced toward the front of the house. “I brought six servers with me. You’d think one of them would wander this way, at some point.”
Nikki glanced at the tray of delicious-looking crab imperial–stuffed mushroom caps. “Want me to take them in?”
“Don’t be silly.” Ellen grabbed a pile of white napkins. “If Ms. Bernard saw one of her guests serving food, she’d have a seizure. Mrs. Ginny Bernard, that is. Melinda’s a sweetheart.”
“You don’t get along with Ginny?” Nikki asked. “I just assumed because you and Abe are friends . . .”
“Ginny’s . . . shall I say . . . territorial?”
“With?”
“I’m sorry.” Ellen picked up the tray of mushroom caps. “I’m being catty and it’s wrong of me. Ginny is Abe’s wife and Abe’s been too good to me for me to talk about her.” She offered the silver tray. “Would you like to try one?” She held out the napkins.
Nikki couldn’t resist. “Thanks. See you tomorrow, one o’clock. I’ll make a reservation.”
The crab-stuffed mushroom was incredible. Nikki waited until Ellen was gone, and then headed out of the kitchen, in the direction of Lissa’s voice.
She found the twenty-year-old standing in her stepfather’s study, on her cell phone. Nikki had only met Lissa a couple of times, and then just to say hello. The young woman had been at boarding school when Abe and Ginny had married. A year ago, she’d moved in with Abe and Ginny . . . and Melinda and Eddie. Nikki heard she was going to UCLA.
Lissa looked up.
Nikki nodded and pretended to be looking at Abe’s half a dozen Emmys on a shelf in the study. She scarfed down the rest of the amazing appetizer.
“So . . . I’ll see you later?” Lissa said into her phone. She paused. Giggled. “Me, too.”
“Pretty impressive.” Nikki crumpled her napkin and nodded toward the Emmys.
Lissa glanced over her shoulder. She was wearing a very short, very tight, black knit dress and black, short boots with four-inch spike heels. She shrugged, looking back at Nikki. “I guess. I don’t really watch his shows.”
Nikki took a step toward her. “I’m really sorry about your brother.”
“Stepbrother,” she corrected. Again, a shrug. “It’s not like we were close.” She met Nikki’s gaze, lowering her voice. “Let’s face it, we both know what a shit he was. He hadn’t been out of rehab a week and he was doing coke again?”
“I still wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Nikki said carefully. “Being murdered, his body dumped like that.”
Lissa cut her eyes at Nikki. “Yeah, I know everyone’s going on about that gardener doing it, but you and I both know it was only a matter of time before someone did it.” She held out her hand, checking her manicure. “I mean, it’s pretty bad when your own family members are threatening to kill you.”
“One of his family members threatened to kill him?” Nikki said. Was she going to get a confession out of Lissa? Was it really going to be that easy?
“His mother,” Lissa whispered.
Wow. Nikki hadn’t seen that coming. It took her a second to regroup and reply. “Melinda threatened to kill Eddie?”
“Every time he got out of rehab.” She pointed a finger. “You do drugs again, Eddie, and your mama’s gonna kill you,” she mocked. She went back to talking in her own two-pack-a-day sultry voice. “No, seriously. The police might have that gardener locked up, but any number of people could have done it. The gardener was just the easiest to pin it on. And have you seen the TV and papers? The press is loving it.” She looked up at Nikki, lowering her voice to sound conspiratorial. “Personally, I was suspicious of the pool boy when I heard.”
“The pool boy?” Nikki echoed.
Again, the shrug. “Think about it. He had total access to our shed where all that gardening crap is kept. Maybe he walked in, grabbed a pair of those scissors, and stabbed him in the heart.” She demonstrated an overhead stab with an invisible weapon.
Either Lissa didn’t hear or didn’t understand that the shears had belonged to Jorge. But what she had to say was certainly intriguing. “Why would you be suspicious of . . . the pool boy?” Nikki asked.
Lissa looked up the hall toward the sounds of the gathering. She waved Nikki into Abe’s study. Nikki stepped in, tossing her napkin in a leather trash can behind Abe’s enormous cherry desk. Lissa went on, no encouragement necessary.
“Didn’t you hear? The fight with the gardener wasn’t even Eddie’s first of the night. Rocko, the pool boy, crashed the party and he and Eddie got into it big-time.”
Rocko . . . Rocko, the pool boy. Wasn’t Victoria’s pool boy named Rocko? Surely there couldn’t be two Rockos who serviced pools in Beverly Hills? “What were they fighting about?” Nikki asked.
Lissa shrugged. “I don’t know. Some ongoing thing. Aziz said he heard that Eddie and Rocko got into a fight at The Python Club months ago, before Eddie went into rehab this last time, and Eddie still had a beef with Rocko.” She thought for a moment. “Or maybe Rocko had a problem with Eddie. Who knows?”
“The Python Club,” Nikki repeated. The Python Club was a den-of-iniquity type of bar on Sunset, well known for its hip celebrity crowd and the drugs that flowed freely there. A decade ago, a promising young actor had died of an overdose in the men’s bathroom, shutting the place down for weeks. Supposedly, the owners had cleaned up their act before reopening, but Nikki heard rumors and The Python Club still, periodically, made the papers with scandals and arrests involving drugs and sex.
“That’s really . . . crazy,” Nikki said, not sure what else to say. Or ask. If they were talking about the same Rocko, he was definitely big enough to have moved Eddie’s body after he was dead. But how had he gotten the pruning shears? When did he get them? Nikki saw Jorge with them around four. The fight had been around five, because Nikki remembered telling Jorge when they got back to Victoria’s that it was time to quit for the day and go home.
“You know when Rocko and Eddie had this fight the day of the party?”
“No, but it was early. People were just getting here. There were girls laying out by the pool. I saw them from my window. I was getting dressed to meet Aziz.”
“But it was before Eddie had the fight with Jorge?”
“Definitely. I left around four, so it was before that.” Lissa’s phone rang and she checked the screen. Smiled. “Hey,” she said into her phone. She turned and walked away from Nikki, out into the hallway. “I said I’d see you later.” Her laugh was deep and throaty and so . . . young.
Boyfriend again, Nikki thought as she walked out of the study, giving Lissa a wave as she went in the opposite direction. It was time she joined the other guests, anyway, and made her condolences.
After that, she thought she might go for a ride. Ree’s cell phone was still going straight to voicemail. Nikki had questions for Ree. Like exactly what was her relationship with Eddie? Were they boyfriend and girlfriend? Dating? It was time she paid her a visit.
“No sé,” said the young Mexican woman who answered the apartment door after Nikki knocked, then beat on it. Politely. “She not here.” She was wearing a waitress’s apron that was stained with food and grease. Her English was pretty good, but heavily accented. She glanced over Ni
kki’s shoulder suspiciously.
The hall smelled of fried food, rodents, and . . . desperation. Ree lived in one of the many apartment buildings in South L.A. that should have been condemned years ago . . . along with the owners. Nikki didn’t know what the solution to illegal immigration was, but this wasn’t it.
“No entiendo por qué . . . why people keep coming here and coming here, asking.” She looked at Nikki closely. She was a pretty girl. Probably mid-twenties. But she looked as if she had already led a hard life. “You’re not the policia?”
“No. I’m a friend of Jorge Delgado’s. Ree’s his cousin. I’m sure you know Jorge’s been arrested for killing a man in Beverly Hills. I don’t think he did it. I know he didn’t. Ree’s not in trouble, but I need to talk to her. She might be able to help me help Jorge.” Nikki frowned and glanced down at the young woman, who couldn’t have been much taller than five feet. She wondered who had been here ahead of her, asking questions about Ree. “Have the police been here?”
She rested her hand on the doorknob. “Tall hombre. Gringo. Nice suit.” She brushed her hand over her stained white blouse. “We don’t answer the door.”
Had to be Dombrowski. He really was investigating the murder. “Have you seen Ree?”
“No. No, since sábado. Hector came. Ree, she went with him.” She motioned with her hand. “Since this time, we do not see her.”
“Wait. Hector was here and Ree left with him on Saturday?” That didn’t make any sense. Rosalia told Nikki that Hector had looked for Ree Monday and hadn’t been able to find her. That no one had heard from her since Friday. “She went with him? When?”
The young woman thought for a moment. “My dinner,” she said. “It es cooking.” She started to back into the apartment and close the door.
“Please,” Nikki begged. “I swear. I’m not trying to get Ree into any trouble. I’m trying to help Jorge.”
The woman hesitated. “He came here sábado . . . Saturday. It was morning. I never liked him. Hector. He has una cara fea—ugly face,” she said with distaste.
