How to Host a Killer Party (9 page)

“No! I mean . . . I guess you could say that we had similar businesses, but I was no threat to her. She’s been the party queen in this city for years. I’m just starting out, hoping to raise money for some important causes. . . .”

Detective Melvin looked down at my irritable bowel syndrome shirt. I felt my face flush. He lifted another sheet of paper, buried under the files. I recognized the name at the top left-hand side of the page: “Presley Parker.”

“What’s that—my rap sheet?” I said, half kidding.

He didn’t even give a half smile. “So you raise money for good causes? Says here that after you were fired—”

“Downsized.”

“Let go . . . from San Francisco State University, where you were teaching”—he glanced at the paper—“abnormal psychology. . . .” He looked at me pointedly, as if checking to see whether I might be abnormal myself, then continued. “You abruptly moved from your flat in the Marina to the former navy housing on Treasure Island, and out of the blue, with little experience, decided to go into the party planning business—”

“Event planning,” I said, maybe a little shrilly.

“Says here you’ve only done a couple of kids’ birthday parties and a
murder
mystery for IBS. . . .” He emphasized the word “murder.” “And then—in a stroke of amazing luck—you were hired to replace Ms. Sax as host of Mayor Green’s ‘surprise wedding.’ ” He crooked his fingers mockingly around the last two words.

I shrugged. “I guess they were desperate, since Andi had . . . quit.”

“Quit? Or been fired?”

“I have no idea.”

“According to the mayor’s admin—Chloe Webster—you were highly recommended to them by former socialite-slash- party hostess Veronica Parker—”

Oh no. Mother. “Shit,” I hissed under my breath.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Veronica Parker is my mother—although I’m sure you know that already. I should have known why the mayor’s wedding fell so easily into my lap. Although how she pulled it off, I’ll never know. She’s been out of the business for years.”

Detective Melvin pulled yet another sheet out of his ass and held it up. This one featured a front and side photograph of a smiling woman wearing too much makeup in her effort to look younger, with wild red-blond-brown hair and a flirtatious gaze inappropriate for her age and the circumstances.

A mug shot.

Underneath, a list of personal statistics and misdemeanors filled the page. I skimmed it, already aware of most of the contents.

I couldn’t read any more and let my mother’s list of arrests and misdemeanors float back onto Detective Melvin’s desk.

Oh, Mom.

“She’s got quite a rap sheet.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s got Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t always know what she’s doing. But whatever it is, it’s for a good cause—at least in her mind.”

“Like mother, like daughter, huh?”

I bristled. “Look, Detective, if she really did help me get the job—which I doubt—hosting the mayor’s wedding isn’t a crime. Having a mother with a debilitating disease isn’t a crime. And knowing a dead person isn’t a crime.”

Melvin the Magician opened his drawer of tricks and conjured up another plastic bag. With a twist of the wrist, he dumped the contents onto his desk.

It was a miniature replica of a black bird.

Made of chocolate.

I looked up at him, puzzled. “Where did you get that?”

“In Ms. Sax’s car. Four others, including one half eaten, are at the ME’s lab.” He raised his eyebrows, apparently waiting for my confession.

“But why . . . how?”

“That’s what I want to know, Ms. Parker.” He rolled the bird over with a flick of his pencil nib.

Flabbergasted, I couldn’t speak for several seconds. Then I said, “Look, Detective. I. Don’t. Know. Rocco, my caterer for the event, made a bunch of chocolate Maltese Falcons and chocolate handcuffs for the mayor’s wedding. He thought they’d be appropriate for the ball-and-chain theme—falcons for the crime solvers and handcuffs for the criminals. But you’re not implying . . .”

Detective Melvin stuck his hand inside the empty plastic bag, grasped the dark chocolate bird and, turning the bag inside out, pulled the bird back in. He placed it in a concealed desk drawer and locked the drawer securely.

“Look, Detective, I don’t serve poisoned chocolates at my events. Tends to decimate the guest list, you know.”

“Any idea how these got into Ms. Sax’s car?”

I shook my head. “Maybe . . . someone took them from the reception, then somehow injected them with poison . . . I don’t know. Could have been anyone. There were a lot of people there. Half of them were wearing masks or disguises of some sort.”

“You’re forgetting, Ms. Parker. Andrea Sax was killed
before
the wedding.”

Oh yeah. What a great detective I’d make.

While I tried to come up with a plausible explanation, Detective Melvin watched me squirm. A smug smile played on his face, causing tiny crinkles at the corners of his impenetrable eyes. I could see his jaw working—probably rehearsing the Miranda warning. I was surprised he wasn’t salivating.

“Obviously someone stole them from the barracks kitchen. That’s where Rocco made them. We’ve had some break-ins at the office lately.”

“That might explain it . . . except for one thing.”

“What?”

“Ikea Takeda.”

“What about her?” I snapped. “She drowned! I’m sorry, but it was an accident. She must have fallen off the ferry on her way back to the city.”

His silence told me everything I didn’t want to know. I shook my head and forced the words out. “Not an accident?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Poisoned, right?”

Stone face.

“I guess it won’t do any good to say I have no idea what’s going on with these two . . . mishaps?”

“Actually, I think you do. Someone overheard you last night threatening to kill Ms. Takeda.” He rapped his pencil eraser on the table lightly, as if accusing someone of murder was routine.

“What? I certainly said no such thing!”

He flipped through a few pages of his notebook. When he found what he was looking for, he read aloud. “ ‘Yes, I overheard Presley say,
I’m gonna kill the bride. . . .
’ ”

All the blood in my body rushed to my feet. The phone call I’d received—of my own voice—saying those very words. “That’s ridiculous!” I said, laughing too loudly. “Where did you hear that?”

“I believe your exact words were”—he read his notes—“ ‘I’m going to slap the mayor, kill the bride-to-be ...’ ”

Shit. Of course I’d said it. Under duress. Under the influence. “Well . . . if I said it at all, it was just a manner of speaking. Taken out of context. Stress release, you know? Everyone says it: ‘I’m gonna keel you!’ ” I tried to sound like Peter Lorre, but it came out sounding like Shrek with a bad cold. “Nobody really means that when they say it.”

He made a note in his book. Apparently he didn’t share my understanding of the nuances of language.

I leaned in, trying to read his scribbling upside down. “Who told you, anyway?”

He flipped the notebook closed.

“ ‘Everyone has something to conceal,’ Ms. Parker.”

I recognized the quote instantly. How could a jerk like this be a fan of
The Maltese Falcon
, the best noir film ever made? I answered him in kind. “Well, Detective, ‘I won’t play the sap for you.’ ” I stood up and slung my knockoff purse over my shoulder like Brigid O’Shaughnessy.

“ ‘It happens,’ Ms. Parker, ‘we’re in the detective business. . . . It’s bad business to let the killer get away with it.’ ”

It took all I had to meet the detective’s gaze. “Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet,” he said, grinning, his top lip slightly curled under. I swear he looked like Bogart at that moment.

I felt a jolt of heat flush through my body.

“But as they say, don’t leave town.”

Sweetheart.

I slammed the hell out of Detective Melvin’s door and stormed down the hall to the elevators. By the time I reached my car, fear had replaced anger—I could almost feel the handcuffs snapping around my wrists. And they weren’t made of chocolate.

Two murders. Both linked to me. No alibi. Plenty of motive.

Shit.

I pulled the parking ticket off my car’s windshield, got into my MINI Cooper, and fought the thick traffic to the Bay Bridge, replaying the detective’s words on my way back to Treasure Island. The fog had abated, but the seagulls were out in force, and I only hoped my car wouldn’t be covered in gull guano by the time I arrived at my office.

My MINI, like my office and my condo, was full of random party crap—medieval swords, Styrofoam ball-and-chains, sparkly ribbons, and “Killer Party” balloons. I’d gotten the car to save money—besides, it was so cute—then wished I’d bought a big SUV like everyone else on the road so I could haul all this stuff. A couple of black and silver balloons bounced around in the backseat as I drove over the retrofitted bridge toward the midway island turnoff.

I still couldn’t believe it, but as ludicrous as it seemed, I was looking like Suspect Number One. I had to figure out a way to clear my own ass or I’d end up being arrested for a double homicide.

I needed an alibi.

Or an attorney.

Or a ticket to Argentina.

Or maybe I just needed to find out who killed those two women. I sure wasn’t going to get any help from that wannabe Sam Spade.

Driving with one hand on the wheel, I reached the other hand behind me, feeling for the Kinko’s box in the backseat. Removing the box lid (and nearly sideswiping a PT Cruiser), I grabbed one of the fresh event planning forms I’d had made up for my Killer Parties business. Of course, in view of the latest “events,” I would probably have to change the name to something less murderous. Extracting a balloon-decorated promotional pen from my knockoff Dooney and Bourke bag, I held it between my teeth and placed the paper on my lap.

My party checklist was based on a diagnostic tool I’d adapted for my ab-psych students to help them differentiate a patient’s symptoms. Since it worked for academic problem solving, I’d made a few alterations and turned it into an event-planning checklist. Amazing how useful it was for both.

Holding the paper in my left hand and the pen in my right, I steered with my knees, my eyes shifting back and forth between the road, the wheel, and the planning form. With a last look in the rearview mirror for traffic cops, I began filling in the who-what-when-where-how blanks listed next to the little red balloon icons. But instead of answering questions like, “Who is the party for?” and “What is the occasion?” I substituted details I’d learned from the detective’s interrogation.