How to Host a Killer Party (12 page)

I wadded up that message and its twin—one about a couple of last-minute guest additions—and tossed them into the wastebasket.

The next five were from my mother, also marked “Urgent!” as usual. I set them aside, promising myself I’d see her as soon as I had a moment. I knew she was lonely—and confused—and my visits had a way of grounding her, at least temporarily. Thankfully the return phone number wasn’t the San Francisco Police Department.

The rest of the messages were from a variety of businesses, all wanting parties.

Friends of the San Francisco Library: “We’d like to do a Murder Mystery set in the stacks. . . .”

Gay Pride Coalition: “Can you do a kind of Queer Eye Makeover party for the Exotic Erotic Ball? . . .”

Glide Memorial Church: “Looking for an American Idol in Heaven karaoke fund-raiser for a new organ . . .”

The de Young Museum: “When are you free to host a gala for a new wing?”

Overwhelmed by all the prospects, I shuffled through the rest—Morrison Planetarium, Mark Hopkins Hotel, Angel Island State Park, Industrial Light and Magic. A group of Red Hat ladies wanted a Chocolate Decadence theme. The Sally Rand Madams were asking for a Pimps and Hos party. Even my former employer, San Francisco State University, was looking for a Cheerleaders and Jocks alumni party.

Whoa. What was in that article I hadn’t finished reading?

I set all the messages down, except for the last one. As usual, Delicia had written it in text messaging code.

“OMG! Gov. wd like to mt w/U to discuss his 60th b’day pty—a MM theme! Pls call ASAP! OMG!”

Oh. My. God. was right. The governor wanted me to host his Big Six-O birthday party? With a murder mystery theme? This was beyond the society page—this was front page headline: MARTHA STEWART DOES THE WHITE HOUSE.

Where was that damn newspaper article?

“Delicia?”

Delicia appeared in the doorway and handed me the paper. “Did you call him?”

“Who?”

“Johnny Depp. Duh! The governor!”

“I will. I want see what this says first.” The paper was already folded open to the article.

Delicia pirouetted out and, with a curious glance at Brad’s office, headed back to her own office. “BTW,” she threw over her shoulder, “if you see Rocco, tell him he owes us for cleaning up his mess. Where the frick is he, anyway?”

Delicia never swore. She used every word but the actual expletive. I figured that was because she’d never really had a reason to. Just wait until she’d been fired from her job, lost her longtime boyfriend, run through five fathers, dealt with a crazy mother, and become a murder suspect.

But that was a good question. Where
was
Rocco?

He’d pestered me relentlessly to cater the mayor’s event the moment I’d been hired. As soon as I agreed, he’d been in the kitchen twenty-four/seven. Being the star of his own local access cooking show wasn’t enough for this culinary artiste. He was constantly cooking up ways to make the leap into the Food Network fry pan. He saw the mayor’s wedding as a way to highlight his gastronomy—and frost his résumé.

Now, with this chocolate fiasco, was he out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Enough with the food metaphors
, I decided.

I held up the newspaper and skimmed the article to the point where I’d left off in a huff.

When I reached the point where I’d stopped, I read more carefully:

Whoa! Was I at the same party as the purple-penned reporter? Guess she hadn’t heard about the deaths—murders. At least, not in time for the morning edition of the
Chronicle.

And thank God for that.

Now the phone was ringing off the hook and I had more “Please call back!” messages than business cards. I let the next few calls go to my voice mail and listened in while school principals, museum coordinators, and restaurant owners left requests for party info.

I hated to be a party pooper, but I didn’t see how it could be helped. Number 1: How was I going to manage all these potential events? And Number 2: How was I going to manage them from jail?

Still . . . the governor? I thought of the amount of money he could raise for a good cause. And hosting a murder mystery for him would be a piece of cake. I already had a plot in mind:

The phone rang, jangling my nerves and bringing me out of my murderous daydream. What was the matter with me? That’s all I needed—one more murder on my hands, even if it was the detective’s.

Letting the call go to voice mail, I glanced at the newspaper article. Jeez, until today I’d have used any excuse to host a party—just to bring in a little money. I’d even taken to reading the want ads for some part-time temp work to keep me going until the party business kicked in. I glanced over at the section where I’d circled half a dozen dead-end jobs: process server, personal shopper, coffee barista, convalescent hospital assistant, meter maid, dog walker. . . .

I wadded up the section and tossed it into my wastebasket. The trash was filling up nicely. If the phone kept ringing like it was, I might even get my own
Killer Parties
show on HGTV.

After I was paroled, of course. Like Martha.

Before I could start planning my Going Away for Good party, a blast of salt air swept in through the front door and into my open office, whipping my daydreams out to sea.

I looked up to see a gun pointing in my direction.

“Watch out with that thing!” I screamed. “You might put an eye out!”

Raj Reddy, the island’s foremost security guard, looked more dazed and confused than armed and dangerous. Of course, just arming Raj was probably dangerous in itself.

“I got your 911! What is going on?” Raj said, glancing around, his eyes wild with anticipation.

“Nothing—
now
. You’re a little late. And put that gun away before you shoot someone.”

Raj holstered his gun awkwardly, finally jamming it home. He’d only recently completed the weapons requirement for his security guard job, and it showed.

“Actually, they were shooting over at CeeGee Studio.”

“Shooting?” I raised an eyebrow.

“A live-action scene. Actually, they were needing an extra for playing a police officer and they chose me.” He puffed up visibly.

I glanced at his badge. His TI ID had been replaced by a realistic-looking SFPD logo.

“Well, it’s impressive, but you’d better take that off. You could get arrested for impersonating an officer.” I grinned.

Raj nodded. “Ha. You are pulling my legs again.” He plucked off the badge and replaced it with his real badge, tucking the bogus one into his pocket.

“So why were you calling me? Was there another breakin?” He sniffed the air. “It’s smelling funny in here.”

“False alarm.” I jerked my thumb at Brad Matthews, who had closed his office door while he worked on his box collection. “Delicia thought the new guy was an intruder. Turns out he’s our new renter.”

Raj looked through the door’s window at Brad. “Actually, there was another breakin-in last night. When I was doing my rounds early this morning, the back door to our own barracks was open. I was looking around to see—”

“What?” I bolted up from my chair.

Startled, Raj pulled his head back. “Yes, that is what I am telling you now. Someone was breaking into the kitchen—”

I ran down the hall, where I found Delicia reheating her gourmet tea in the microwave.

“What’s up?” she asked, looking up.

I glanced around the kitchen and shook my head. Not only had we apparently had a break-in, but if there had been any evidence, it was now completely wiped away—by crime scene cleaning products. I ran a finger along a countertop.

“Great. Just great.”

Delicia frowned. “Hey. If you don’t like the way I clean, next time you can do it all yourself!”

“That’s not it.” I turned to Raj, who had come up behind me. “Raj said we had a break-in last night, probably sometime during the wedding. He found the back door open early this morning.”

Raj nodded.

“Oh my God!” Delicia glanced around the kitchen. “Did they take anything?”

I did a spot check for the espresso maker, Cuisinart, and the rest of the appliances that weren’t nailed down. Nothing was missing as far as I could tell.

Not that it mattered to me. I never cooked, aside from brewing lattes when I couldn’t get to Starbucks or microwaving Rocco’s leftovers. The Cuisinart container occasionally came in handy to drink from when there weren’t any clean cups.

“Where do you keep your cleaning products?” came a voice from behind me.

Brad Matthews had silently stepped up behind us. He slid in between us and pulled open two cupboard doors.

“Uh . . .” I shrugged. “No clue.”

“Up there.” Raj pointed to a cupboard over the refrigerator.

Brad found a stool and stood on it to open the cupboard door. Inside was a collection of bottles I’d never seen before. Mainly because I’d had no reason to. We had a janitorial service to clean the building, and aside from some Lysol, we’d used Brad’s cleaning stuff to get rid of Rocco’s stinky leftovers.

“What’s all that?” I said stupidly.

Brad shuffled through the bottles in the cupboard, one by one. “Drain cleaner, glass cleaner, sink cleaner. Bug spray, roach motels, ant traps.” He looked at me. “Essentially a bunch of toxic chemicals.”

“Poisons?”

He nodded, then glanced back at the cupboard. “Where’s the rodenticide?”

“Rodenticide?”

“Rat poison.”

“Rat poison?” I was beginning to develop echolalia. “Why would we have rat poison? We don’t have . . .” Oh God. Of course we did. We had a kitchen. A kitchen meant rats—especially in an old barracks like this.

I looked at Delicia and Raj. Both shrugged.

“Maybe Rocco would know,” Delicia offered.

Rocco. Where the hell was he?

Brad closed the cupboard and stepped down from his perch. “Next time you have a break-in, don’t touch anything.” With that, he left the room, leaving us standing there feeling like naughty children caught with our hands in the poisoned cookie jar.

How had he known about the break-in?

 

Back at my desk, I quietly steamed.
Don’t touch anything?
Who did he think he was? Detective Melvin in a white jumpsuit?

“Enough!” I said aloud and stood up. I needed to clear my head. Too many thoughts were rattling around inside my brain—Detective Melvin, the deaths, the phone calls, Rocco, the new guy, the break-in, the questionably missing rat poison.