Duffel Bags And Drownings (3 page)

Good question.

“Miss Randolph?” Detective Elliston called.

I turned and saw him standing outside the conference room next to—oh, wow, some really
hot looking guy. He was in his early thirties, I figured, a little over six feet tall
with a muscular build, blond hair and—oh wow again—deep blue eyes.

“My partner, Detective Grayson,” Elliston said.

“Dan Grayson,” he said, and offered his hand.

I took it. Heat raced up my arm.

“She found the victim,” Elliston said. “Haley Randolph.”

Dan nodded. “We’ll need a few more minutes of your—Randolph? Haley Randolph?”

The heat that had consumed me turned to ice.

“
The
Haley Randolph?” Dan asked, frowning.

Oh, crap.

Yeah, okay, I had a bit of a reputation with the LAPD. It was because of those other
homicide detectives I’d met during past investigations—long story.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said, then put my nose in the air—one of the few traits
I’d inherited from my pageant queen mom—and glided into the conference room.

I took a seat at the table. The detectives sat side by side across from me.

“I’ve heard about you down at headquarters,” Dan said.

I don’t think he meant that as a compliment.

“Then you’ve probably also heard that I’m better at solving murders than some of the
detectives,” I told him, and refrained, somehow, from doing a fist-pump.

A tiny grin pulled at his lips—which I only noticed because he was sitting directly
across from me, I swear.

“Tell us what happened,” Dan said, shifting into serious-cop mode.

“Faye needed to find Cady and Jeri, so I and some other people went looking for them,”
I said, trying to make it sound routine.

“But you’re the only one who looked in the ice room,” Dan pointed out. “Why is that?”

I’d learned a long time ago that the less said to a homicide detective, the better—for
me, anyway. So no way was I going to let this interview get bogged down with a lot
of unnecessary details.

“You’d have to ask the others why they didn’t look there,” I said.

“Why did you come here today?” Dan asked.

This didn’t seem like the best time to mention that perhaps my job at L.A. Affairs
was hanging in the balance, and that hiring Cady Faye Catering for a huge event had
put me out on a very shaky limb.

“A routine call,” I said.

Dan glanced at the notebook Elliston had placed on the table. “You’re coordinating
a big party for some important Hollywood people, aren’t you? Were you worried about
the success of your event?”

Of course I was.

“Of course not,” I said.

No way was I admitting anything to two homicide detectives looking for a suspect.

“There’s a lot of pressure on you to make these parties come off flawlessly,” Dan
said, and made it sound like I was on the bomb squad.

“Your job was at stake, wasn’t it?” Dan went on. “You and the victim got into a confrontation.”

“No,” I told him. Okay, now I was starting to get rattled.

“Things got out of control,” Dan said. “You hit her.”

“I did not,” I said. Yeah, I was really rattled now.

“She fell into the water tank and you left her there to die,” Dan said.

“Of course not!”

Jeez, I’m usually better at this sort of thing. Something about this guy had me all
keyed up.

He leaned closer. “There was no trail of water leading from the ice room. And you’re
the only person in the entire building whose clothing is wet. How do you explain that,
Miss Randolph? How?”

I drew in a breath and tried to calm myself. Honestly, I’m not very good at calming
myself, so what could I do but shift the conversation in a different direction?

“There’re all kinds of exits from this place,” I told him. “There’s construction going
on so things are wide open. People are all over the place—the builders, catering staff,
servers, the costume people, delivery guys—and none of them know who’s supposed to
be here and who’s not. Anybody could have slipped in and out unnoticed. Have you looked
at the surveillance tape?”

Both detectives just stared at me.

“And tell me this,” I demanded. “How the heck could killing somebody at my caterer
cause my event to go smoother?”

Neither of them said anything, which suited me fine.

I shot to my feet and said, “If you have any more questions, you can call my lawyer.”

I stomped to the door, stone-faced, hoping nothing about my expression revealed that
I didn’t actually have an attorney.

Detective Grayson called my name. I turned around. He was on his feet, his chest puffed
out, his nose slightly flared—which is a totally hot look on men—and said, “You’re
involved in a murder investigation, Miss Randolph. Don’t leave town.”

I gave him what I hoped was a defiant glare—which I’m afraid was actually an I-think-you’re-really-hot
glare—and left the room.

I headed toward the rear of the building, more than a little rattled. I desperately
needed my all-time favorite drink, a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks. But since this
place was, after all, a catering business, I figured I could find a suitable chocolate
substitute in their kitchen.

I mean, really, if you can’t pilfer something sweet after finding a dead body, when
can you?

I headed for the cool room where the desserts and salads were prepared, but got lost
in the maze of hallways and ended up at the employee lounge. Vending machine candy
would do nicely, I decided, and walked inside.

The place was oddly quiet, after the hustle and bustle of the earlier costume fittings.
I figured the police had already gotten the info they needed from the servers. The
duffel bags and backpacks were all gone, except for one, so I guessed most everyone
had gone home or, hopefully, was headed to the catering event the staff had been loading
the vans for when I drove up.

Wendy stood at the clothing racks, going through the costumes and consulting her iPad.
I headed straight for the vending machines.

“This is crazy, isn’t it?” Wendy said. “I mean, Jeri dying? Do you think maybe it
was, you know, an accident? She wasn’t really murdered?”

“All I know is what the cops are saying,” I said, as I pulled a ten from my wallet
and fed it into the vending machine. “Want something?”

Wendy walked over. “Sure. How about a—oh my God, I love your handbag!”

I held up my Chanel satchel—it was a fabulous bag, and believe me, I know a fabulous
bag when I see one—and we spent a minute or so admiring it, a welcome break from talking
about Jeri’s murder.

“Have you seen the new Flirtatious?” Wendy asked.

My senses jumped to high alert. A new handbag was out? And I hadn’t seen it?

“
Elle
is featuring it this month,” Wendy said. “I got my issue this morning.”

That explained why I hadn’t heard about it. My issue was probably in my mailbox waiting
for me.

I whipped out my cell phone and Googled it. A few seconds later the Flirtatious appeared
on my phone. Wendy crowded close and we stood in reverent silence admiring it, a gorgeous
yellow leather satchel perfect for spring and summer.

“I’m getting it,” I said, the image burning into my brain.

“Really?” Wendy asked, dragging her gaze from my phone to my face. “It costs a fortune.”

“Handbags are my vice,” I admitted. “I don’t smoke or do drugs. I buy handbags.”

“Cigarettes and drugs would probably be cheaper,” Wendy said.

I couldn’t disagree.

I forwarded the Flirtatious link to Marcie, as a best friend would, and started pushing
buttons on the vending machine. I gathered the candy from the delivery tray, passed
some to Wendy, and we sat down at a table.

“Maisie’s going to be really ticked off,” she said, ripping open a Snickers bar and
nodding toward the racks of costumes. “One of the leprechaun outfits was stolen.”

I tore into a bag of M&Ms and poured most of it in my mouth.

“I wonder if any of the police are still here?” Wendy said, glancing toward the door.
“Maybe I should tell them.”

“There’s no such thing as costume police,” I said.

Wendy bit into the candy bar. “Even if the guy brought it back later, it’s still wrong
to just take it.”

I gulped down the M&Ms.

“Wait,” I said, as the chocolate super-charged my brain. “A costume is missing? Other
than Jeri’s?”

Wendy nodded. “It’s crappy, you know, not turning it in, keeping it for himself to
wear on St. Patrick’s Day.”

“It was a guy?” I asked. “How do you know?”

Wendy touched the screen of her iPad. “It was a size extra-large. Only two of the
guys needed that size.”

My brain cells starting popping. I shoved the rest of the M&Ms in my mouth. One of
the servers—a big guy—had been so anxious to leave the place he’d run out in a costume,
looking like a giant leprechaun?

“Maybe he’ll bring it back,” Wendy said. “Maybe he had a family emergency, or something,
and had to leave right away.”

Ideas pinged around in my brain as I finished off the M&Ms—none of them involving
a family emergency—and I pointed to the lone, green duffel bag sitting under the lockers
I’d spotted when I walked in.

“If he left in such a hurry he didn’t have time to change out of his costume,” I said,
“maybe he left that duffel bag behind.”

“Yeah,” Wendy agreed. “His name is probably in it and I can contact him to get the
costume back before Maisie finds out.”

My heart rate amped up as I grabbed the duffel bag and placed it on the table. Oh
my God, could this really belong to the guy who murdered Jeri? I couldn’t believe
the cops had overlooked it.

I flashed on calling Detectives Grayson and Elliston, insisting they come here in
person, then presenting them with the major break in the case that I’d discovered.

Cool.

There was no name tag on the strap of the duffel bag, so I unzipped it, visions of
I’m-a-better-detective-than-you dancing in my head. I looked inside and my spirits
fell.

“Damn,” I muttered, as I pulled out a black lacy teddy and a handful of sexy lingerie.

Wendy sighed. “Well, I guess somebody is going to have a great getaway.”

I shoved the clothing into the duffel bag and tossed it onto the floor where I’d found
it.

Yeah, okay, my brilliant idea to solve the murder hadn’t panned out, but oh well.
It was really up to the detectives anyway.

Still, I couldn’t imagine an emergency big enough to cause an extra-large guy to run
around in a leprechaun costume—unless he’d just murdered someone.

I’d had enough of Cady Faye Catering for one day, but I couldn’t leave without talking
to Faye. The Brannocks’ party was coming up in a few days. I had to make sure the
staff was still up to handling the event.

I found Faye in her office, a windowless, cramped space furnished with thrift store
cast-offs, where she was frowning at a spreadsheet on her computer.

I rapped on the doorframe. Faye looked up.

“Haley, please come in and sit down,” she said, with the same forced smile I’d seen
on her face before. It was starting to freak me out.

Faye hopped up and moved a stack of file folders off a plastic chair in front of her
desk. Even though there was little room to work, everything seemed neat and well organized.
Faye had personalized the space by adding what I figured were family photos, shots
of her, a man, and two tweens who must have been her husband and daughters. They were
at the beach, gathered around a Christmas tree, and squeezed together at a picnic
table.

“I’ll be so glad when all this construction is finished,” Faye said. “We so desperately
need the space. I’ve tripled our business in the past year, you know.”

“How is Cady?” I asked, sitting down.

Fay rounded her desk and dropped into her chair. “Resting, resting, resting. Cady
always needs rest.”

“She was really upset about Jeri,” I said. “Were they close?”

“Cady was just being Cady,” Faye said, and waved her hands as if her sister’s hysterical
breakdown were nothing. “Completely over the top in her reaction to the news. She
missed the entire episode, as usual, off somewhere doing something else, then falls
to pieces in front of everyone. Typical.”

“So she wasn’t here earlier?” I asked. “Someone said they’d seen her car in the parking
lot.”

“She drives a white Mercedes. There must be hundreds of them on the streets. Obviously,
someone else’s car was mistaken for hers.” Faye paused, squeezed her eyes shut for
a few seconds, then looked at me again. “I can’t believe this has happened—to Jeri,
of all people.”

I remembered that Faye had referred to Jeri as a trusted agent, although Lourdes didn’t
seem to think very highly of her.

“Was she a big part of your business?” I asked.

“Jeri was a hard worker, very anxious to learn all aspects of the business,” Faye
said. “And believe me, I can use all the help I can get.”

“Any idea who might have killed her?” I asked.

Faye sat back in her chair and shook her head. “None whatsoever. I can’t imagine anyone
here would do such a thing. I know my employees, and none of them are capable of something
like this.”

I figured that Faye, like most business owners and supervisors, didn’t know her employees
nearly as well as she thought. In fact, people in Faye’s position were usually the
last to know if there was a problem among the employees.

I didn’t think this was the best time to say so.

“Look, I know none of what happened here today is your fault,” I said. “But I have
to know if you’re okay with the Brannock party.”

Faye seemed taken aback. “Of course. Why, of course. Don’t worry about the party.
Not for a minute. Cady will get with you on the menu and everything will be perfect.
I promise.”

Faye was definitely confident about handling the event, which made me breathe a little
easier. She was the kind of person who would make things happen—no matter what.