“No, thank you. I can’t stay very long, Roland.” He appeared so disappointed I added, “It’s just that I have a lot to do.”
“Two regular cappuccinos,” Gray told the waiter. “Nothing else.”
“You got it.” Joe College flashed us a professional smile and hurried toward the service counter to relay our order to the barista.
Roland Gray was staring down at his hands. It seemed as though he was inspecting his manicure, looking for flaws, but his nails were trimmed and his cuticles neat. Even if he hadn’t phoned so late and insisted on talking to me right away, it was obvious from the troubled expression on his face that something was bothering him.
I was about to urge him to tell me whatever he knew about Keith Ingram when the waiter returned with our cappuccinos. I kept silent until he’d delivered them and withdrawn again.
Gray picked up his spoon and stirred his coffee in a slow, contemplative way.
“What I have to tell you is difficult for me,” he said. “I wasn’t frank with either the police who questioned us in the ballroom, or earlier tonight, with you and your friend O’Hara. The truth is that I knew Ingram quite well at one time. It came to be an introduction I wished that I could have avoided.”
“Why did you agree to be in the cook-off? The names of the judges were announced weeks ago.”
“Will and I were researching an aspect of my new book in some recently released records in Eastern Europe when my publicist e-mailed me the opportunity to participate in the gala. He told me who some of the celebrities were who had accepted, but he didn’t mention the names of the judges, and it didn’t occur to me to ask. I only returned to my flat in Los Angeles this past weekend, and didn’t know Ingram was involved until I arrived at the ballroom that night. Seeing him there was a dreadful shock.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“There were other people around, so we just nodded at each other. Actually, I nodded. He smirked. In spite of my discomfort, I certainly couldn’t withdraw at that point without raising questions I didn’t want to answer, so I decided to just get through the evening-ideally without a confrontation. To stiff-upper-lip it, so to speak. I resolved to change my original plan of writing in Los Angeles and instead finish my book in London. That was a hard decision for me, because I much prefer to work here. This is where Alan Berger lives-he’s my literary agent. I don’t trust electronic transmission with something so important as my book, and certainly not the mails. Alan always reads my manuscripts first-and in my living room. I insist. What I need from him are his immediate reactions. More than once, he’s saved me from veering off course in a plot.”
“You’d go to London and change your professional routine, just because Keith Ingram happened to be in the same city? Hadn’t you ever run into him in California before?”
“No. When I’m here, primarily I’m writing. I seldom socialize. Changing my established pattern might seem extreme to you, but…” He took a breath and clamped his lips together.
I squelched the temptation to fill in this conversational “white space” and interrupt whatever internal struggle he was having. If I didn’t say anything, sooner or later the silence should pressure him to continue.
After a few seconds of quiet, his mouth relaxed and he sighed. “This is difficult for me. Because of my past association with Ingram, I have-had-reason to believe that he might try to harm me.”
That was a shocker, but before I could ask the next question, Gray began to massage his left temple, pressing hard against his skull.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m getting a tension headache,” he said. “It happens when I’m under stress, but it’s nothing, really-it will pass.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
He shrugged dismissively. “I can handle it.”
“You’re going to ‘stiff-upper-lip’ it again?”
“I hate doctors.” He said it with a finality that closed the subject.
I thought his attitude was foolish, but Roland Gray’s headaches were his business. Mine was to try to pry out of him anything that might be helpful to John. “Roland, do you have any idea who might have killed Ingram? Or did you see anything that-”
CRACK!
Something pierced the café’s front window from outside, spiderwebbing the glass.
My immediate reaction was that someone had thrown a small stone at the window, but suddenly Gray jerked backward, and began to topple sideways toward the floor. I tried to grab his wrist to stop his fall, but I wasn’t quick enough.
A woman screamed-and a man yelled, “Gunshot!”
The instinct for self-preservation kicked in. I threw myself onto the floor, below the level of the window.
More screams. A babble of voices. A table turned over. Silverware clattered, dishes broke. Footsteps pounded toward the rear of the café.
Roland Gray lay a few feet in front of me. He was still, and his eyes were closed. Icy tentacles of fear knotted into a ball in my chest. I stretched my arm to give him a gentle prod on his shoulder. “Roland?”
He didn’t move.
On my hands and knees, I inched closer to Gray’s body.
Blood oozed from a red crease that ran across his forehead.
In the distance, I heard the faint shriek of sirens.
21
I searched for a pulse in Roland Gray’s throat and found a beat. It was faint, but he was alive. The blood from his head wound was matting his hair. Praying that the bullet had only grazed him, instead of penetrating deeper, I grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the table and pressed them against his bleeding forehead.
“Roland, can you hear me? Roland?”
No answer.
The sirens were closer now. Mercifully, there hadn’t been any more shots.
“Hang on, Roland. Help is almost here. Hang on.”
A paramedic van screeched to a stop in front of the café, double-parking next to the blue Rolls. Two emergency medical technicians jumped out. A man and a woman. The woman carried a medical kit. The man wheeled a gurney.
As soon as they were in the doorway, I waved my free hand at the EMTs and yelled, “In here-he’s been shot!”
The paramedics reached us at a trot. Immediately, I stepped back to get out of their way. Quick and focused, they bent over Roland, working on him. I couldn’t see what they were doing, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. All I could do was stand with my fingers laced together tightly in front of my chest and hope.
Seconds behind the paramedic van, a City of Santa Monica police car zoomed into view and came to a squealing stop. Two officers in uniform got out: one young and short-probably the minimum height for admittance to the academy-and the other older and a head taller. The older officer began to clear people away from the entrance to Caffeine an’ Stuff. The younger one hurried into the café, surveyed the scene, saw the EMTs at work, and used his mobile phone. I guessed he was calling for reinforcements.
Shocked customers watched the paramedics and the arrival of the police. Some started to chatter among themselves. Others moved toward the paramedics, craning their necks to get a better look at the star of this drama. The police officer ordered them to back off.
Two middle-aged men, in nearly matching leather jackets worn over T-shirts advertising a rock group I’d never heard of, demanded to know when they could leave.
“When we’ve taken statements,” the younger officer said. “Stay calm, everybody. Complaining won’t make things go any faster.”
He conferred with the paramedics. I saw the female EMT nod at me. The officer headed in my direction, taking a notebook out of his shirt pocket. When he reached me, I saw the nameplate on his chest identified him as Officer Currie.
With his pencil poised over his notebook, he said, “You were sitting with the guy who got shot?”
“Yes.”
Looking past Officer Currie, I saw the paramedics lifting Roland onto the gurney. They’d put an oxygen mask over his face
.
“Officer, you talked to the paramedics-is my friend going to be all right?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“What hospital are they taking him to?”
“I can’t give you that information. Your name, ma’am.”
“Della Carmichael.”
“Address?”
I gave it to him.
“Do you have some ID, ma’am?”
“Of course.” I fumbled in my purse and found my wallet. I opened it to the driver’s license window and showed it to him.
“Remove the license, please, ma’am.”
I did as instructed and watched him study my photo as though he was trying to connect it with someone he’d seen on America’s Most Wanted.
He handed it back to me and nodded toward the direction of the stretcher the paramedics were placing in their van. “And who was he?”
Was?
“Please don’t talk about my friend as though he’s dead!”
“Sorry, ma’am. What is the name of the victim?”
I told him. He didn’t seem to recognize it.
Officer Currie was about to ask another question but I stopped him. “Wait. You should notify Detective Manny Hatch at West Bureau about this. He’s handling a murder case that could be connected to what happened here.”
He cocked his head and frowned at me with doubt, but he used his mobile to call West Bureau.
***
Twenty minutes later, more police officers had arrived on the scene. They used their vehicles and road flares to shut the street down. The area around the café was marked off with crime scene tape. A team from the Scientific Investigation Division had arrived. The SID technicians were photo-documenting the scene and searching for clues.
Three members of this law enforcement army were taking statements and contact information from the customers and employees of Caffeine an’ Stuff. Two more were questioning the people who had been sitting outside when the shot was fired.
Per Officer Currie’s order, I’d remained at the table and was watching the activity outside through the sunburst of cracks around the bullet hole in the front window. It wasn’t long before I saw a brown Crown Victoria with a red bubble light clapped to its top being let through the police barricade. It slammed to a stop next to Roland’s blue Rolls.
Detective Hatch got out of the Crown Vic. I’d expected to see him because I’d suggested he be called, but I was surprised to see Hugh Weaver with him.
The two detectives stepped carefully around the area where the techs were working and came into the café. They flashed their badges at Officer Currie. A few brief words were exchanged. Hatch pivoted toward me. Weaver’s eyebrows lifted in an expression of surprise when he saw me. The two detectives marched in my direction.
Detective Hatch demanded of me, “What happened?”
Choosing my words carefully to keep Hatch from learning that I was here to try to find out who killed Ingram-and possibly inviting a charge of interfering with a police investigation-I stuck to the barest of facts. “Roland Gray phoned to invite me out to coffee. I met him here.”
“You and that writer hooking up?” Weaver asked bluntly.
“Certainly not.” I said that with a touch of heat. I was hiding my reason for being here, but I didn’t want anyone to think it was romantic. “It was just for coffee. Roland Gray was a guest on my television show earlier tonight. I’m worried about his injury. Where did the medics take him?”
Hatch retrieved that standard law enforcement notebook and pen from his jacket pocket. “My questions first. So you agreed to meet Gray for coffee. Who picked this place? You?”
“No, he did. What possible relevance-”
“I’m asking the questions. When you got here, what did you two talk about?”
This was dangerous ground; I had to step carefully. “We were only here for a few minutes. The waiter had just brought our coffee. We didn’t have time for more than a sip.” I let my eyes light up with what I hoped looked like a sudden memory. “Oh, Roland told me he was getting a headache. He started rubbing his forehead. I asked him if he was all right, but that’s when the window cracked. At first I thought someone threw a rock, but then I saw Roland had been hit. Things happened so fast. As I said, I thought that-”
“Yeah, a rock.” Hatch’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “But it was a bullet. Tell me who wants to kill you.”
“What?” My heart lurched with a sudden rush of fear. I froze, unable to think.
“Kill her?” Weaver said.
The sound of Weaver’s voice penetrated the shock that had momentarily paralyzed my brain. “No one has any motive to kill me.”
“Think about it,” Hatch said. “Wednesday night somebody offed a judge at that celebrity thing. Not much more than twenty-four hours later another judge is sitting near where somebody gets shot. Two nights, two judges in the same contest. Maybe the shooter wasn’t aiming at Gray, but at you.”
“We better find out where that third judge is,” Weaver said. “A Frenchwoman. What was her name?”
“Yvette Dupree,” I said.
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, but if one of your officers didn’t get her contact information at the gala, I’m sure Eugene Long knows.”
“Have somebody put a guard on her until I can question her.” Hatch turned back to me and gestured toward the table. “Show me exactly where you were and where Gray was.”
I sat down in the chair I’d occupied. As my mind worked to recreate the scene, my initial fear began to recede. I was sure I hadn’t been the target. While I couldn’t explain why in any rational way, it was a powerful conviction.
“Think about it,” I told Hatch. “Keith Ingram’s throat was slashed, and whoever killed him took a huge risk by doing it in the middle of five hundred people. Even acting under the cover of smoke, it was an enormous gamble. That was an intensely personal murder. Nothing random about it. I’m convinced that whoever killed Ingram intended to shoot at Roland Gray. You should be looking for a link between those two men.”
Hatch’s features twisted into a sneer. “If you’re such a great detective maybe you should be leading this investigation instead of me. Where’d you earn your badge, at the Betty Crocker Police Academy?”
I decided that the “better part of valor” at this moment was to be quiet. Hatch and I locked eyes.
He broke the silence. “As I said before, show me exactly where you and Gray were sitting.”
Tapping the tabletop, I said, “I was here. Roland sat across from me.”
Hatch took Roland’s place and fixed me with a skeptical stare. “Do you always sit up straight like that?”
“Yes, I do. My parents brought us up to have good posture. What you’re really asking is: Was I leaning forward so that my head was close to Roland’s. The answer is no, I wasn’t. And he wasn’t leaning toward me.”
I motioned to Hugh Weaver. “Roland was sitting about the way Detective Hatch is. How far apart would you say our heads are?”
Weaver squinted. “Three feet, give or take a couple inches.”
Hatch looked disappointed. I didn’t know whether he was upset because I hadn’t told him anything helpful, or whether his sour expression was one of the interrogation techniques cops used to get the person being questioned to keep talking. I stared back at him and kept my mouth shut.
A Scientific Investigation Division tech who had been kneeling in front of the bar called, “Hey, Detective.” He summoned Hatch with a wave.
“I bet he found the bullet,” I said.
Hatch told me to stay where I was. He and Weaver went over to talk to the SID tech. The tech photographed the front of the bar, then, with great care, he began digging an object out of the wood. In less than a minute, he’d extracted it. With a ceiling light directly above him, I could see that the object was a bullet.
I watched the two detectives examine it, after which the tech dropped it into a clear plastic evidence
bag, sealed and initialed it. If they were following procedure, the bullet would be taken to Ballistics for microscopic examination.
Hatch and Weaver came back to my table.
“What kind of a bullet is it?” I asked.
Weaver said, “Sniper-”
“Shut up! What’s the matter with you?” Hatch said.
Weaver’s face turned crimson. While he kept his hands down at his sides, I saw his fingers curl into fists.
I stood up and grabbed my handbag. “I’ve answered your questions, Detective. Now, I want to know where the paramedics took Roland Gray.”
Hatch and I stared at each other.
He blinked first.
22
St. Clare’s Hospital was the city’s newest facility and covered half a block on Colorado Boulevard between Sixth and Seventh Streets. I’d never been there, but a recent article in the Los Angeles Chronicle had listed its emergency room as one of the best in the state.
It was nearly two in the morning and there were plenty of parking spaces available in the hospital’s visitor lot. I picked a spot beneath the nearest security light. Before I got out, I stuck to my woman-alone nighttime habit of scanning my surroundings for potential danger. Seeing none, I climbed down to the pavement, and looked around again. Still nothing to cause my mental alarm to go off. I locked the Jeep and hurried toward the entrance to the emergency room.
In contrast to other emergency room reception areas I’d been in, these walls were painted a cheerful yellow, the lighting was bright but not harsh, and there was only the faintest trace of disinfectant in the air. Half a dozen people occupied chairs around the room. Some sat in tense postures, others seemed sunk in weary resignation.
One man was at the reception counter, bent across the expanse of Formica, speaking quietly to a young woman wearing a floral print medical smock. Even though his back was to me, there was something familiar about his stocky frame, the short, curly hair, and the tweed jacket.
Approaching the reception counter on his right side, I saw the young woman smile at him. He scribbled something on a slip of paper, handed it to her, and she took it. It struck me that this exchange was more social than medical.
The Proof is in the Pudding Page 12
