On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) (A Coffeehouse Mystery) (18 page)

“Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that—”

Slight French accent. French last name. But first name
Eduardo
?

“Were you raised in France?” I asked.

I felt Matt’s hand rest lightly on my arm. I ignored it. There was something shady about this guy, and my gut urged me to do some fishing.

“My father was French,” said Eduardo. “My mother Portuguese.”

“That’s why Mr. Lebreux was so helpful to Pierre in the import-export business,” Madame said, leaning toward us. “His connections in France, Portugal, and in Spain, too.”

“Yes, that’s right. You know how it goes. A shipment here or there, of champagne, port, perfume, whatever, may go missing on its way to America if the right wheels are not—how you say—
greased.
”

“Clare—” Matt whispered. His hand moved to my elbow, squeezed.

“How interesting,” I said to Lebreux. “Tell me more.”

“Really, it’s boring stuff…. I just helped Pierre with his business.”

“And now that Pierre has died and his business is closed,” I said pointedly, “what do you do?”

“Oh,” he said, looking away as if bored. “A little bit of this. A little bit of that.”

“Clare!”

The entire table jumped and turned. Now every one of our dinner companions was staring at us.

Smooth, Matt. Smooth.

“Excuse me, everyone,” said Matt with a sheepish smile. “I, uh, left my Palm Pilot in Mother’s room, and it’s vital I retrieve it. Clare, I’m sure you’ll remember where I set it down. We’ll be right back—”

I was reluctant to leave off my questioning of Eduardo, but I was even more reluctant to be parted from my right arm, which was being aggressively tugged upward by an ex-husband whose carved marble biceps were no match for me.

“Go on, then,” said Madame, who looked oddly pleased by this announcement. I didn’t know why until we’d taken two steps away. “Matt’s father used to make excuses to slip away from parties, too. Matt is so romantic! Just like his father!”

“Matt,” I whispered. “Did you hear that? Your mother thinks—”

“Let her,” he said. “Better she suspects us of having a sexual fling than what we’re really going to do.”

I myself wasn’t so sure.

T
HE
elevator door slid open. I inhaled, exhaled, and wrung my clammy hands.

“Don’t worry,” Matteo had told me back in Madame’s suite. “Everything has gone smoothly so far, hasn’t it?”

“If by ‘smoothly’ you mean that no hotel detective has caught on yet and handcuffed us, then I guess you’re right.”

Matt actually laughed at me.

“Clare, you’ve seen too many film noirs. Or maybe episodes of
The Three Stooges.
And I can just imagine you watching the Stooges on the local Podunk, New Jersey, channel out there in suburbia.”

“Ha, ha.”

We had gone to Madame’s suite, just as we’d said. I had to make the call from an actual guest room—given the advances in telephone technology, the hotel staff could easily see where you were calling from, and I couldn’t risk using a house phone because they might get suspicious.

“Don’t worry about Darla Hart showing up, either,” Matt insisted. “Before I came to the table downstairs, I called your friend Dr. Foo at St. Vincent’s. He told me Darla’s still at Anabelle’s side, so there’s no chance you’ll be caught in the act.”

Somehow his words didn’t comfort me. After all, I was the one who had to be the con artist here. Matt—who, in my experience, was so much smoother at misdirection than I—couldn’t do it this time.

“Go ahead, make the call,” Matt said, indicating the telephone on the night table. “Nobody who picks up that phone will believe that
I’m
Darla Hart.”

“I know, I know,” I said.

I cleared my throat, lifted the receiver, and pressed the button marked
HOUSE KEEPING
. Someone answered on the first ring.

“Hello,” I said. “This is Darla Hart, from Room 818—” (As Madame was checking in, I had asked the desk clerk if “our friend Darla” had checked in yet—and then asked for her room number so we could visit. The clerk was reluctant to give out a guest’s room number because it wasn’t the hotel’s policy to give out such information. But I pressed, and since Madame was a familiar guest, she gave it up.) “I’m visiting Mrs. Dubois on twenty-six, but I’m about to return to my room for a nice long bath. Please send up extra towels.”

“Certainly, Ms. Hart. Right away!” said the male voice on the other end of the line.

“Thank you,” I said. And for a split second, I imagined the same male voice dialing the police the second I hung up.

“This will never work,” I told Matt.

“Of course it will,” Matteo replied, pushing me out the door. “Now get going and watch for the maid to enter Darla’s room. Ring me here when you get inside, and I’ll come up. And don’t forget this.”

He thrust Madame’s key card into my hand. “Hold it in your hand, as if you were about to unlock the room,” Matt reminded me. “But don’t let her check it in the door lock or you might be spending the night on Riker’s Island.”

“What do you mean
you;
don’t you mean
we
?”

Matt’s dark eyebrow lifted, and he crossed his arms. This unfortunately emphasized how beautifully his broad shoulders tapered down to his narrow hips, all of which were handsomely defined by the smooth lines of his exquisitely tailored Armani dinner jacket. “I don’t know. You look pretty hot tonight,” he said. “Seeing you handcuffed in this little Valentino number might be worth it.”

“Fine,” I said, more irritated by my momentary attraction to Matt’s damned irrepressible masculinity than his bawdy little joke, “but if I get caught, I’m cutting a deal. You’re the one who masterminded the operation—the DA’s going to want you, not me.”

“You
have
been watching too many film noirs.”

“All right, I’m going.”

“Clare—”

“What?”

The teasing laughter left his eyes. “Don’t worry.”

“Too late.”

Darla’s floor seemed to be deserted when I got there. Good, I thought.

I walked down the hallway, which was pleasant but not plush. This was a business-class floor, after all, the floor for the more budget-minded guests. Since Darla Hart seemed to be nearing the bottom of her cash barrel, that made sense. What didn’t make sense was why she chose the Waldorf-Astoria in the first place. Even a “cheap” room in this place could run three to five hundred dollars a night. Why not seek more economical digs?

Well, Clare,
I told myself,
that’s what you’re here to find out…

I turned a corner in time to see a young Hispanic woman in a maid’s uniform stepping out of Darla Hart’s room.

“Hello!” I said, brandishing Madame’s key card as I hurried forward. “Thank you so much for the extra towels.”

I brushed past the maid and stuck my foot in the door.

“This is for your trouble,” I said as I produced a ten-dollar bill. I pressed it into the woman’s hand.

“Good night,” I said.

Slipping past the maid, I entered the room and closed the door behind me. Bolted it, too. Then I peered through the peephole until the woman pocketed her tip and vanished around the corner.

So far, so good.
I’d like to thank the Academy for this award…

I dived for the phone and called Matt.

“I’m in,” I said and hung up.

The décor was what I expected of a 2,000-room hotel—what I called “Commercial Colonial Moderne.” Of course, Darla’s “Business Class” room here on the eighth floor was much smaller than Madame’s “Astoria Level” suite up on twenty-six, which had a foyer, a separate bedroom, living area, a wet bar, French doors, a spectacular view of Park Avenue, and access to an executive lounge that served complimentary evening hors d’oeuvres.

Tourists to New York City are often surprised at the small size of hotel rooms even in grand hotels like the Waldorf. But real estate comes at a premium price on Manhattan Island, and spacious living, even in hotels, is a rarity indeed.

Well, I thought, at least it wasn’t Tokyo, where Matt tells me an economy room can be as small as a horizontal phone booth. The Waldorf’s Business Class wasn’t
that
small, more like 200 square feet, nothing compared to Madame’s 700-square-foot suite upstairs. But it was well appointed, if not up to the lush opulence of the grand lobby.

The furniture consisted of a queen-sized bed with a dark wood headboard. The cream-colored coverlet had been turned down and a foil-wrapped chocolate placed on the fluffy white pillows. There was a nightstand, a matching dresser, an upholstered armchair draped with a floral-print slipcover that reached down to the thick-pile carpet, a large wood-framed mirror, a few lamps, and a desk in the corner.

Darla was pretty neat. There were a few pieces of clothing draped over the armchair (a lovely satin negligee and thigh-high silk stockings) and some shoes next to the bed (Manolo Blahnik Alligator pumps, retail $850), but otherwise the room was well kept. On the desk was a tangerine Mac laptop computer, plugged into the phone jack. That surprised me. Somehow I never pictured Darla Hart as a computer user, but this was, after all, the high-tech yet still-violent twenty-first century; everyone was either getting plugged or plugging in.

A familiar rhythmic knock interrupted my search.
Rat-tat-uh-tat-tat. Tat. Tat.
I opened the door, and Matt slipped inside. I bolted it again.

“I told you it would be easy,” he said.

“We’re not out of the woods—or the room—yet,” I countered.

It occurred to me that Matteo’s little plan was so foolproof in his mind, he might have used it successfully before. Probably to slip into some other woman’s room, I figured. Three guesses why.

“We don’t have much time,” I announced, opening the drawers and riffling through them. All were full of neatly folded clothing. “Donna Karan, Miuccia Prada, Dolce & Gabbana…” I muttered, “Well, it’s easy to see where her money goes.”

“A laptop!” Matt said, moving to the desk. “Shit, it’s a Mac.”

“I like Macs,” I said. “Need help?”

“No. I can use them. I just don’t like them. We’ve
had
this discussion.”

“Yes, let’s not go there again. Wouldn’t Darla have a password or something?” I asked, still tossing drawers.

“Maybe,” Matt replied. “But you’d be surprised at how many people don’t bother with—presto!”

I turned. Matt had opened the cover on the computer, pressed the space bar, and the machine had come to life.

“She actually left it running!” Matt said. He couldn’t hide his boyish glee at doing something naughty.

I continued my search while Matt examined the contents of the files on Darla Hart’s computer.

“She’s got a security password set up on her banking program,” Matt said. “No chance I can get in.”

“Don’t worry about that,” I replied. “Judging by her behavior, there are no secrets lurking in Darla’s bank account. It’s empty.”

Behind me, Matt continued tapping the keyboard.

After more searching, I found Darla’s suitcases—monogrammed Louis Vuitton leather with polished brass trim—tucked in the back of the closet. I dragged them out and opened one after the other. The first bag was empty. The second, a small beauty case, contained cosmetics. The lipsticks were all pinks and neutrals and perky pastels that were more appropriate for a much younger woman—or a woman who wanted to look much younger. Ditto the mascara. Darla certainly wasn’t wearing this kind of makeup the day I met her. Could it belong to someone else? Perhaps Anabelle?

I closed the cosmetics bag and opened the third case. Inside I found buried treasure—a wad of papers clipped together with a black metal clamp. I pulled them out.

“I’m going to access her Internet files,” Matt said. “There’s a dedicated line here and it looks like she automated the password to her AOL account.”

I sat on the edge of the chair and paged through the paperwork. One of them—dated just a few months ago—was actually an official court document with the title “Darla Hart vs. The Penn Life Insurance Company.” I turned the pages, wading through the legalese.

As far as I could puzzle out, about eighteen months ago Darla Hart had—or claimed to have had—an on-the-job injury that occurred while she was employed as an “artistic dancer” at a “place of business” called The Wiggle Room in Jacksonville, Florida.

Darla claimed her injury prevented her from working and demanded disability payments. The manager of the establishment, one Victor Vega, disputed her claim and the matter was settled in a court of law.

Not in Darla’s favor, as it turned out. Not only did she lose her case to the insurance company, but the State of Florida denied her disability claim. The last few letters were from her lawyer, demanding payment for legal fees that were in arrears.

At least now I knew that Darla had learned what my dear old dad had called the “slip-and-fall” ploy—a variant of which she was now threatening to use against the Blend.

Clearly, Darla was an opportunist. But just how far would she go to exploit an opportunity, that was the question. As far as pushing her pregnant stepdaughter, who’d just made the dance company of her dreams, down a flight of stairs?

As unpleasant as she was, it was still difficult to picture even Darla stooping so low.

“Bull’s-eye!” Matteo announced. He turned around and faced me, a dazzling grin on his handsome face. “Wanna know why Darla’s in New York?”

I raced to his side. “Why?”

“There are about thirty e-mails to a guy named Arthur Jay Eddleman, who appears to be the partner in the accounting firm of Eddleman, Alter, and Berry.”

“I found something, too.”

I showed Matteo the legal papers. Then I pointed to the list of e-mails on the computer screen. “Are these e-mails part of another lawsuit or something?”

“More like
or something
,” Matt said with a bawdy tone.

“What?” I asked. “What!”

“I opened a few of the more recent e-mails in Darla’s download file first. By then they were Darla and Arthur. But when their relationship began, they were called ‘Muffy’ and ‘Stud366’—their chat room names.”

“You mean an Internet romance?”

“And a hot and heavy one, too. The first e-mails date back about three months, the last few were sent yesterday and today.”

I sat down and read the letters. It was obvious that once Darla had discovered the real identity of the affluent “Stud366,” she set out to hook the fat fishy and reel him into her net.

Darla’s e-mails made her out to be a respectable woman of independent means—not exactly the broke, unemployed ex-stripper she really was.

Yet from the letters themselves—barely literate with misspelled and misused words—Mr. Arthur Jay Eddleman would have had to be pretty darned gullible to be fooled into thinking Darla was even a high school graduate, let alone a cultured woman of wealth.

Some of her e-mails were vulgar and explicit enough, however, to get any male’s attention. And Darla Hart clearly had succeeded in getting Mr. Arthur Eddleman’s. With an explicit e-mail of his own, outlining all the things they might do together (and I’m
not
talking Central Park carousel rides and trips to the Statue of Liberty), he’d agreed to meet her when “she came to New York City on business.”

That’s
why Darla had taken a room at the Waldorf-Astoria! It fit her false front as an independently wealthy woman, thereby assuring Mr. Eddleman she wasn’t after him for his credit cards, stock portfolio, or four-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side.

Finally, Matt showed me an e-mail that was sent by Darla at eight o’clock in the morning on Thursday, the very day I found Anabelle lying broken at the bottom of the Blend’s steps—a letter gushing with happiness at the wonderful evening they’d spent together, and the night they’d spent together, too, right here in this room.

So while Anabelle was tumbling down stairs, her mother was tumbling in Waldorf sheets here with Mr. Arthur Jay Eddleman of Eddleman, Alter, and Berry, Accountants. Or at least it
looked
that way. She could easily have sent the e-mail as a ploy, to cover her ass.

“God,” I cried. “That name.
Eddleman.
I think he’s on the list!”