by Cheryl Crane
Nikki laughed. “Some people say he’s on the edge of making it big.”
“Some people’ll say just about anything. Don’t make it true.”
“Don’t you like Thompson, Chessy?”
“I like him all right.” She started rolling out another circle of dough. “He’s nice to me. He treats my Shondra good. I like him. It’s just natural, a woman like me distrusts a man like him.”
“Because he’s good-looking?”
“That and because he says he loves Miss Edith.”
“And you don’t think a man like Thompson Christopher could love a woman like Edith?”
Chessy sniffed. “ ’Spose anything is possible.”
Nikki gazed around the kitchen. “I don’t suppose you know anything about Rex being here the weekend of the party.”
“Dead or alive?” Chessy lifted a dark eyebrow.
Nikki opened her arms. “Either.”
“Nope.”
“How about an argument between Edith and Thompson . . . or anyone else?”
“I was in the kitchen supervisin’ the makin’ of food for two hundred of Miss Edith’s closest friends. I didn’t have time for listenin’ in through peepholes.”
Nikki watched Chessy roll the dough again for a minute. “Can you think of who might know if Mr. Christopher left the party early?”
Chessy stopped rolling to think. Grimaced. “You could check with my sister’s boy, Marquette.”
“Marquette would know?”
“Might. He was parkin’ cars here that night. Works for Numero Uno Valet Service. Downtown. It’s a good job. Pays good. He’s a smart boy, my nephew Marquette. Goin’ to UCLA.” She nodded proudly.
Nikki watched Chessy retrieve an identical pie plate from under the counter and lay the pie crust inside. Apparently, Nikki was getting a potpie whether she wanted one or not. “I don’t suppose you have a number for Marquette?”
“I can do better’n that. He’s comin’ to my place for dinner tonight. Him and his mama. If you stop by ’bout dessert time, you could talk to Marquette and have one of Chessy’s famous apple dumplin’s.” She winked. “ ’Less you got somethin’ better to do.”
“No, no, actually I don’t,” Nikki said, thinking of the in-laws at Jeremy’s. “I told Mother I’d stop by, but other than that—”
“Good. You can bring her, too.” She began to pour the fragrant filling into one of the pie shells. “And she can tell me what she thinks of my potpie.”
Chapter 19
When Nikki invited her mother to go to Chessy’s that evening, she was sure she’d decline. It sometimes took Victoria hours to prepare for an outing. But when Nikki warned her that she had to leave in half an hour, Victoria beat Nikki to the door. After some discussion, Nikki had managed to convince her mother that it wouldn’t do to have Amondo drive them in the Bentley. Chessy lived in such a poor neighborhood that Nikki thought it would be just plain rude to arrive in a chauffeured car that cost more than their hostess’s home.
“How do I look?” Victoria asked, tugging at the hem of a pale peach tunic.
Standing at Chessy’s front door, Nikki glanced at her mother. Victoria looked casual and comfortable in the brown slacks, peach tunic, and patent-leather brown ballerina flats. She was completely out of place in the poor neighborhood, but had movie star trying-not-to-look-it chic going on. “Quite appropriate for a movie star paying a call to a run-down house in East L.A.”
“You’re poking fun. Don’t poke fun, Nicolette. This is quite exciting for me. I’m not often invited to people’s houses. Homes.” She glanced up at the tired-looking single-story bungalow that couldn’t have been more than eight hundred square feet. “Not people like Chessy. She’s a smart cookie, Chessy.”
“She said the same thing about you.”
“Did she?” Victoria looked up at Nikki, beaming. “Do you have the house gift?”
“I do.” Nikki held up a gold gift bag. “But I really don’t think it was necessary, Mother. She told me to just stop by. Shalini perfume is a little over the top.”
“What, you think just because she’s a housekeeper, she can’t appreciate good perfume? Nonsense. Every woman appreciates good perfume. Ring the doorbell, Nicolette.”
Nikki glanced at the door. There wasn’t a doorbell.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Victoria reached around Nikki and rapped the door with the knuckles of her ringed fingers.
A dog barked and a moment later Chessy was standing in the open doorway, grinning for all she was worth. “You came.”
“I told you I would,” Nikki said.
“Miss Victoria, so nice of you to come. I got fresh-baked apple dumplin’s.” Chessy stepped back to let them in.
As Victoria stepped into the tiny, neat-as-a-pin living room, a shaggy mutt rushed across the room, barreling into her.
“Down, Duke!” Chessy shouted. “Marquette! Come get this dog before I make him into a dog pie!”
“It’s all right,” Victoria insisted as the dog licked her hand. “Dogs like me. Don’t they, Nicolette?” She petted the big dog affectionately, paying no attention to the drool.
“Marquette!” Chessy shouted as she closed the front door behind Nikki.
“Coming, Aunt Chessy!” a young man hollered from the back.
“Nicolette.” Victoria nodded to the gift bag Nikki was holding.
“Something for you,” Nikki said, feeling a little embarrassed. “Mother likes to bring house gifts.”
“That’s ’cause your mama, she got good manners.” Chessy chuckled as she accepted the bag. “Oh my!” she exclaimed as she pulled the perfume box from the bag. “Shalini!” She was blushing, she was so excited. “How did you know I always wanted to try this?”
“You know Shalini?” Nikki asked.
Chessy looked up indignantly from reading the box. “A delightful scent of sandalwood, musk and tuberose,” she mimicked haughtily from something she’d seen or read. “ ’Course I know Shalini,” she snapped in her own voice. “Miss Edith got some on her dresser. I like it way better than that Hermes stuff.” She turned to Victoria, who was still petting the slobbering, boisterous dog. “You shouldn’t have done this, Miss Victoria.”
“Oh, please, Chessy. Call me Victoria. You’re not on my staff! And you know very well I didn’t pay for it. Someone gave it to me.” She raised a finger almost beneath Chessy’s nose and smiled. “But I knew you would enjoy it. And it’s never been opened.”
Nikki groaned but knew better than to speak. Instead, she tried to lure the dog off her mother.
“Well, come on back to the kitchen.” Chessy waved them along. “I just pulled the dumplin’s outta the oven. Marquette! You comin’ to put this dog out or not?”
Chessy’s kitchen, like the living room, was covered with worn linoleum and furnished with old, battered furniture, but it was so clean it sparkled. And the heavenly scent of cinnamon-baked apples was practically making Nikki drool.
“Shondra’s workin’ late. Overtime. She’ll be sorry she missed you.” Chessy stopped at the table and indicated a large black woman that could have been her twin. “This is my sister, Sissy. Sissy, Victoria Bordeaux and Nikki Harper. Friends of mine.” She beamed.
The rotund woman stood, not seeming to be in the least bit intimidated by Victoria’s fame. “Pleasure to meet you both,” she said, shaking Victoria’s hand, then Nikki’s.
“And that’s my nephew, Marquette. He’s the one that parked the cars at Miss Edith’s that night.”
A handsome young man turned from the sink, grabbing a towel to dry his hands. He’d been washing the dinner dishes. “It’s nice to meet you both,” he said, offering his hand. “Sorry about the dog.” He tossed the towel on the counter and clapped his hands. “Come on, Duke. Come on, boy.” They disappeared down a dark hallway.
“Sit yourself, Victoria, and I’ll get them dumplin’s. Look what Victoria brought me, Sissy.” She slid the gift bag with the perfume inside across the scarr
ed Formica table. “Take a sniff, if you want.”
Chessy turned to Nikki. “He’s just gone out back to let the dog out. You go talk to him in private.” She lowered her voice. Not that it was necessary. Sissy and Victoria were busy chatting about the wonders of Shalini perfume. “His mama don’t need to hear nuthin’ ’bout no murders. Lost her oldest son on the streets few years back. Marquette, he’s all she got.”
Nikki dropped her bag over the back of the nearest wooden kitchen chair and followed Marquette and the dog. Off the hallway was a tiny laundry room. There was an old washer, but not a dryer; wooden drying racks held rows of large items of clothing. The door to the backyard was open. “Marquette?”
“Right here,” he called from just outside the door. “Sorry, light’s shorted out again.”
Nikki stepped out onto a small wooden stoop. “Pretty night,” she said, looking out into the postage stamp–size fenced-in yard. Duke was running the parameters of the chain-link fence, much the same way her dogs ran the parameters of her mother’s eight-foot-high privacy fence. “I guess your aunt told you,” she said awkwardly, “that I had some questions about the night you worked Edith March’s party.”
“I was parking cars. Had a good night. Good tips. Watch your step.” He pointed to a cracked board on the stoop.
Nikki stayed where she was, in the doorway. She could hear the three women in the kitchen chattering. It amazed her; despite the lifestyle Victoria had been accustomed to most of her life, she could still fit in with anyone. Nicolette, people are people, she often said.
“I was wondering, do you know if Thompson Christopher left the party that night? While guests were still there?”
“Sure did. Get away from there!” he hollered to the dog, who was sniffing at the corner of the fence.
“Hole in the fence. He goes under it sometimes,” Marquette explained.
Nikki nodded, totally able to relate. Stanley had once dug a hole under Victoria’s fence and escaped. Nikki had been scared to death for the minutes it took her to run out the front gate and down Roxbury. Stanley had, fortunately, been waiting patiently for her on the next corner.
“So, Mr. Christopher did leave the party?”
“Yup. Super-cool Ninja bike. 1000 cc’s. He tore off down the street; I bet he was going a hundred.”
“Do you know about what time that was?”
He exhaled. “Phew. Can’t say for sure.”
“It’s important, Marquette. I’m sure your aunt told you that Rex March’s body was found in my good friend’s apartment. She didn’t kill him, but right now she’s the number one suspect. Their only suspect, apparently.”
He looked at her. “Ten, maybe ten-thirty?”
“But you were sure it was him?”
“It was his bike, for sure. I’ve seen him on it before. I was parking cars in Holmby Hills last month and he came in on it. Mrs. March was on the back.” He chuckled. “Everyone was talking about it.”
It certainly sounded like Thompson had left the party, but she was trying to take her mother’s advice and keep an open mind. “But you didn’t actually see him.”
“Well, no. Not his face. He was wearing a black helmet. But it was a guy wearing a white dinner jacket on his bike.”
“You know where he went?”
“No idea. Come on, Duke,” he called. “Let’s go, boy.” He looked to Nikki. “We better get inside before the ladies eat all the apple dumplings. My Aunt Chessy’s apple dumplings are bangin’.” He shrugged. “Sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“No, no, that’s fine. I’d heard he left; I just wanted to confirm it with someone I could trust. Your aunt says you’re a student at UCLA. She’s pretty proud of you.”
“I’m an accounting major.” He hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “Kinda boring, but I’m good with numbers and there’s plenty of jobs for CPAs.”
“Good for you.” The dog bounded up the steps and Nikki turned to go inside, then turned back to Marquette. “Did . . . did you see anything else?” she asked, on impulse, wondering if maybe Rex could have been there that night, or something equally crazy. “Anything else out of the ordinary?”
“Nope. Inside, boy!”
The dog bounded past Nikki into the laundry room.
“Oh, wait! There was something,” Marquette said.
Nikki turned around.
“There was this woman . . . this blond chick that pulled up in front of the house. She kinda looked like a, well, a hooker,” he said hesitantly. “Her dress was really short and she had a lot of makeup on. And she didn’t have an invitation, so Duran wouldn’t park her car. He told her she had to leave. He was the one in charge.”
“Did she say who she was?”
He shook his head. “No, she didn’t give her name, but she had this accent.”
“An accent?”
“Like she was out of the Deep South. I recognized it because I have a friend from Georgia and we give him a hard time about it.”
Nikki immediately thought of Tiffany. Could Tiffany have been trying to crash the party? If so, why? “Did this happen before Mr. Christopher left or after?”
“Definitely before. Around nine-thirty.”
That had been about the time Victoria had been arriving and Nikki had been leaving.
“Marquette, you better get this dog of yours outta my kitchen before he gets a spatula across his nose,” Chessy hollered from the kitchen.
Nikki met Marquette’s gaze in the semidarkness of the laundry room. She smelled fabric softener. “And she didn’t say what she wanted, or why she was there?”
“Nope. Duran was polite to her. He just told her she couldn’t go in because she wasn’t invited. She said okay and took off in this old blue BMW.”
“Marquette!”
“Excuse me,” he said, stepping in front of her. “I better rescue Duke.”
Nikki stepped aside to let him go by. An old blue BMW. A blonde with a southern accent. It had to be Tiffany. Were she and Thompson more than she’d led Nikki to believe? So . . . when she was turned away at the party, did she call Thompson? Was that why he left in such a hurry? Did that mean it was Tiffany and Thompson who were involved in Rex’s murder, rather than Edith and Thompson?
“Nicolette?” Victoria beckoned.
“Coming.” Nikki walked into the bright light of the kitchen, once again with more questions than answers.
Sunday morning, Jessica called and invited Nikki for brunch at her place. Just a thank-you, she had said. Nikki had still been in her silk PJs, sitting out on the patio, reading the Sunday paper when she rang, and had seriously consider turning down the invitation. It was a beautiful day and she wanted to take the boys up to the dog park in Laurel Canyon. In the end, Jessica had begged and Nikki decided to go have brunch, then take the dogs for an afternoon run. It would also give her an opportunity to stop and say hello to Mrs. McCauley. Just in case she now remembered seeing someone carry Rex’s dead body into Jessica’s apartment. It was a long shot, but Nikki had always been an optimist.
As Nikki was taking the stairs in Jessica’s apartment building, she ran into Pete, coming down. He was in gym shorts and a t-shirt, with a gym bag in his hand. The odd thing was, he already looked sweaty, his hair rumpled.
“Hey,” he said, meeting her on the landing between the second and third floors.
“Hey.” Nikki stopped.
“Going up to see Jessica?”
She nodded. “Brunch.”
“Cool.” He slipped his gym bag over his shoulder. But he didn’t head down the steps. He just stood there. “So . . . it’s looking pretty good for Jess, right? I mean, with the murder investigation?”
“I think so,” Nikki said, noncommittally.
“Because, like, there’s no way she could have hauled that lardass around, right? And . . . because of what time she came home that Saturday night?”
Nikki waited, thinking the whole conversation was a little odd. She barely knew this guy. Why was he cha
tting her up?
“Because, I guess she told you, I saw her. I ran into her that night. We talked in the hall. I gave the police a statement. I’ll really be glad when this is over. She’s too nice to have something like this happen to her.”
“Right . . .” Nikki looked at him, finally getting it. Pete Toro, like half the guys in L.A., had the hots for Jessica. That was what this was about. “I don’t think the police care if she’s nice or not, but they don’t have any evidence.”
“Right. No evidence. This is the United States. Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I gotta run. Hit the gym.” He passed Nikki and headed down the stairs. “You have a good day.”
“You, too,” she called after him.
At Jessica’s door, Nikki rang the bell. When Jessica didn’t answer, she rang again, wondering where she was. She was certainly expecting her; she’d invited her.
“Keep ringin’.”
Nikki looked up to see—actually she heard her first—Mrs. McCauley with her walker, tooling toward her. She was dressed, maybe for church, in a pink silk Easter bonnet, a white fluffy sweater, bike shorts and yellow Crocs. There were colored Christmas lights looped around her walker. Not plugged in, fortunately.
“Keep ringin’. She’s a busy woman.”
Nikki smiled. “How are you this morning, Mrs. McCauley?”
“How do I look?” She halted in front of Nikki and leaned forward on her walker.
Nikki was afraid she’d be forced to answer. Luckily, Mrs. McCauley went on. “Got arthritis in my back, my left ear’s ringing, and I got dry skin. Like an alligator. How do you think I am?”
“Pretty bonnet,” Nikki remarked.
“Thank you.” She grinned. “You have a nice day.” She started to roll by.
Nikki turned to her. “Mrs. McCauley, I was wondering. The Saturday night before Rex March’s body was found, do you happen to remember seeing Jessica when she came home? Somewhere around ten, probably?”
