Swept Up (6 page)

“She is a friend who wanted the party to be a success, so she helped out.”

“Fine.  Anything else?”

“I saw Cal talking to Mellie.  She looked pissed—”

“That’s her default expression,” I grumbled.

“And then she stormed up the stairs.  A while later, I saw Cal racing up the stairs.”

“How long?”

“Four or five minutes?  Maybe a little more.  Maybe a lot longer.  The whole night is a blur.  Honey and I finished working at the bar and were on our way out back again to look for you.  The next thing I know, there were cops and people running upstairs.  No one would tell us what was going on.  I couldn’t find you or Cal.  I.…” 

He let the sentence fade and looked as if he were trying to collect himself.  “You scared the hell out of me.  I was worried that something had happened to one or both of you.”

“Why would you think that?” Cal asked. 

“Cal, remember the first time you brought Quincy into the restaurant?  I said if you locked her up I’d break her out of jail?”

“I think you said you’d slip me a file,” I said, smiling.  I liked Big G from the moment I met him.  And it wasn’t just that he was a heck of a cook and fed me.

He laughed.  “Same difference.  Either way, you’ve had a few…uh…incidents.  When I saw the cops, I was afraid that you’d had another and there was more than a threat of jail.  No one had seen either of you for a while.”

I patted his hand.  Cal’s best friend was a nice man.  Over the almost two years I’d known him, he’d become my friend, too. 

As if our conversation had become too emotional for him, Big G said, “And how can I woo you away from Cal if one or both of you is in jail, or worse?”

I waved my engagement ring at him to remind him, and he raised an eyebrow.  “Well, until you guys say I-do, I still have a chance.”

I laughed and Cal mock-scowled as he asked, “I-do’s are as good as said as far as you’re concerned, buddy.  Can you think of anything else?  Anyone at the party seem less than happy?”

“Your doppelganger,” he nodded at me, “and the guy that played me had words.”

“Cilla and Dylan?”

“I just know them as Quincy2 and Me2.”

“They’re married,” Cal said.

“Look at you,” I teased my fiancé.  “You’re almost ready to write for the tabloids if you decide on a career change.”

He snorted.  “Not likely.”  Then turned to Big G and said, “So the married couple…?”

“Let’s just say that they had a married fight of some kind.”

I’d seen Dylan and Cilla together throughout the filming and I’d never seen them as anything but a lovely couple.  They were the kind of couple who still holds hands.  The kind of acting couple who run lines together.

“No one else mentioned that to me, how about you, Cal?”

“No one else said anything to me, either.”

“They were outside, sitting on that bench in the middle of all those bushes.  You know the one with the sandbox next to it.”

“That’s not a sandbox, it’s a serenity garden,” I said.  Peri had tried to convince Jerome he needed to meditate.  He insisted he wasn’t the kind of man who sat around and said
Namaste
and
ohm
.  So, she tried the serenity garden.  He’d scoffed at the idea that raking sand might relax him, but she’d confided that she’d caught him at it more than once.

“That’s not a garden,” Big G argu
ed, “its a sandbox.”

I decided not to argue the point.  That area he was talking about was tucked away and designed to be private.  “You’re sure they were arguing?”

“I work in a restaurant.  I know what a couple who’s fighting looks like. Especially a couple in public who’s trying to keep the fight private.”

I’d been afraid all I was going to be able to do was make calls and put together a timeline.  But now, I had something. 

I looked at Cal…
we
had something.  A direction to start looking.

“What do you say we go see Cilla and Dylan tomorrow?” I asked my fiancé.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter Five

The next morning, I was in the kitchen reading
GoErie.com
, my hometown’s online version of the newspaper.  I love to keep up on what’s happening in good old Erie, Pennsylvania.  But today’s article me made me feel uncomfortable.

The paper had written articles about me in the past, and local television news stations had done reports.  They’d all covered me when I’d solved Mr. Banning’s murder and then solved the painting heists.  They’d even told good old Sherlock Holmes to move over.  They wrote about my movie deal, and then they sent a very nice reporter with a passion for plaid out to follow me when the movie was in production.

Here’s the thing, I am not logic minded like Sherlock.  I’m absolutely in love with the new BBC incarnation of the character—it doesn’t hurt that I love Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch.  And I love the new US television version,
Elementary
.  But I could never work all logical and deductiony.

Let’s not forget that
a lot of movie reviewers referred to my character in the movie as ditzy.  More than that, they said the only reason I’d solved either case was clearly just dumb luck.  One reviewer went so far as to mention that if Lucille Ball were still acting, they’d have had her play me rather than Cilla.

Cilla laughed off the review.

If you asked me what my investigative procedure looked like, I wouldn’t have said logical or comical.  And I certainly wouldn’t have said ditzy.

I’d have said, I investigated like a mom and business owner

When the boys were little, I’d take a laundry basket through the house and pick up all the minutia three boys generated.  Dirty socks, wads of paper, candy wrappers, video games, books…. 

That’s what I tried to do with my ‘investigations.’  I gathered up information.  Minutia really.  That was the mom part.

The business owner part had to do with some of that, with a bit of my gut mixed in.  When Mac’Cleaners got calls from new clients, I had to talk to them and get a feel for what they really wanted.  Most would say they wanted their house cleaned.

But for some that meant the basics…Pine Sol, a dustcloth, and the Dyson.

For others, it meant moving every piece of furniture, as well as cleaning all the curtains.  It meant baseboards and ceiling fans.  When I interviewed new clients, my job was to listen, take in everything they said, and then figure out what they really meant.  I had to dig through everything and pull out what really mattered.

That’s what we were going to do today.  I had my figurative clothesbasket all ready to visit with Dylan and Cilla.  I’d just go out and collect minutia until I stumbled on some clue that would lead us to the killer.

I turned off my iPad and took a long drink of my tepid coffee as Cal walked into the kitchen.

“Good morning, fiancée,” he said with far more chipperness than seven a.m. called for. Cal was not a chipper
seven a.m. guy by nature.  But there he was, grinning at me…chipperness personified.

He leaned down, kissed my forehead, and headed over to the coffeemaker.  “It feels weird to not set an alarm.  I thought I’d sleep in until nine or later, and yet, here I am.”

“I get that.  When Theresa started taking a more active role in the office at the business, I thought I’d do some major sleeping in.  Turns out that between kids and work, I was broken.  I couldn’t sleep late any more.  I didn’t set an alarm and yet I was up early every day.  Turns out, mornings are my best writing time.”

“You’re not writing today.”  He brought his coffee over and sat down next to me.

This was how I pictured our life together.  Me and Cal, sipping coffee together in the morning.   Him going to work, me staying home and writing. Talking about our days over dinner.  Just being together.

Today we had more to do than linger over coffee.  “I don’t think I’ll be doing much writing for the time being.  You and I have to catch a killer.”

“Were you working on the case?  You could have woken me.”

I shook my head.  “No, I was reading the Erie Times-News.”

“You don’t look pleased.”

“I was the subject of a front page article.  Local girl goes to Hollywood, fails at acting, starts a successful cleaning business, then starts a potential successful screenwriting career—”

“I’d say your Mortie proved that you’re not potentially successful, you are.”

“
Steamed
could be a fluke.  Plus, I don’t actually have my Mortie.  It’s at the murder scene.”

“But you won one, and that’s proof enough,” he said with fiancé pride.

“Thanks.  You know, the Morties are a rather new award…and they’ve been involved with two murders.  Do you think there might be some curse involved with winning a Mortie?”  Frankly, winning hadn’t done Mr. Banning much good, and right now, it wasn’t looking so good for me either.  Not that I was a suspect, but because someone I know wasn’t just a suspect but a murderer.

“No.  Mr. Banning won one and was killed with it, but you won yours and someone else got killed…and not with yours.”

“With someone else’s,” I said.  Having two people murdered by a Mortie didn’t seem to bode well for the awards.

“She didn’t look bludgeoned to me.  I purposefully didn’t go in and study the body, but if the Mortie had killed her, I’d think she’d been…messier
.  I’ll call Randolph and see if he’s got anything preliminary from the ME.”

“Tell Charlie I said hi from me when you call.”

“You know, he might prefer you call him Detective, or even Detective Randolph.”  He paused a moment, then we both laughed.

“Yeah, he might prefer it, but we both know that’s not going to happen.  I think one of my jobs in this lifetime is to keep cops humble.”

Cal snorted.  “Back to the newspaper.  What did they write that you didn’t like?”

“No.  The article was fine. Very nice, as a matter of fact. It’s just that I’ve discovered I’m not a fan of the spotlight.  And I guess that makes the fact I came out here to be an actress seem funny.”

“Well, you figured out that maybe you should be writing movies, not acting in them, that’s what matters.”

I shook my head.  “It took me forty years to find out what I wanted to be when I grew up.  You’ve always known who you were.”

He laughed as he took another sip of coffee.  “No.  I didn’t intend to be a detective, much less a cop.”

After almost two years, I was still occasionally surprised about some new Cal tidbit.  “Really?  What did you want to be?”

“When I was younger, I wanted to be a cowboy, but when I got older, I wanted to be a rodeo cowboy.  I learned to rope.”

“Really?  Like with a lasso and the whole thing?”

He nodded.

“Did you have the hat, the boots, and the chaps?”  I asked, as a delightful fantasy began playing in my head.  One in which Cal wore the hat, the boots, and the chaps…and nothing else.

He chuckled and laughed.  “Yes.”

I told him about my fantasy.

Coffee, newspaper articles and even the investigation were forgotten as I went into great, lurid detail about that new fantasy.

Two hours later, shortly after nine, we drove to Dylan and Cilla’s. 

We’d talked about calling first, but Cal said as a detective he’d always found there was something to be said about the element of surprise. 

Since I didn’t have anonymity on my side this time, surprise was going to have to do.

Dylan and Cilla lived in a modest house in in Palisades.  Well, modest in any other market.  I come from Erie.  When I first saw how much houses cost in LA I was in shock.  For what a paid for my more-modest-than-Dylan-and-Cilla’s house in LA, I could have bought a huge house on the bay in Erie.

“Do you have a script?” Cal asked as I parked.

“A script?”

He shot me a devilish look that made my knees go weak.  “I thought I’d try Hollywood jargon.  Do you know what you’re going to ask them?”

“No, I’ve never known the specifics of what I’m going to ask before I ask someone.  I’ll start with the basics, I guess.  The things I’ve already asked almost everyone on the phone.  I’ll ask them what they remember about the party, and specifically about Mellie’s entrance, and of course about their fight.”

“All right.”

“We’re not grilling suspects,” I reminded my coppish fiancé.  “I’m talking to friends.”

“You’re talking to friends who
are
suspects until they’re not,” he insisted.

I shook my head.  “By that logic you’re a suspect.”

“I guess I am.”

“No, you’re not.  You couldn’t murder someone.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around to face him.  “Listen, Quince, I need to be clear about this.  Everyone has it in them.  Even the most mild-mannered person can be pushed too far.  They can take a life.  Sometimes it’s self-defense.  Sometimes self-preservation.  Sometimes anger.  Fear.  I’ve arrested mild-mannered accountants, stay-at-home moms, and college professors.  I’ve arrested career criminals and one-time-offenders.”

“But not—”

“Tell me, if someone was threatening your boys, would you do anything it took to save them?”

I knew instantly that he was right.  I’d do whatever it took to save my sons if I needed to.

I looked at Mr. Tough Detective and knew that the same applied to him.  I’d do whatever it took to save him.   I didn’t say the words.  I could see that he knew what I was thinking.

“I know you’ve trusted your gut in the Banning and painting investigations.  While your gut might be a good starting point, in this case, you know pretty much everyone at the party.  The only person you didn’t like is the person who’s dead.  There’s a good chance that whoever killed her is someone you know and like.  Your gut might not be trustworthy.  You need to understand that.”

The fact that he was right made my heart ache but I nodded.  “I’ll try and remember that.”

“Remember this, too….  The person who killed Mellie will not be happy that you’re talking to people.  And once someone’s killed once, it’s easier to do it again.  There’s a chance that they’ll kill again and I don’t want them coming after you.”

“I’ll be careful.”

He kissed me.  “Good.  And if you forget, I’ll be here keeping an eye on you.”

We walked, hand in hand like two heartsick high school students and knocked on the door.

Cilla answered.

Cilla was the type of woman who looked good first thing in the morning.  Even worse, she looked good first thing in the morning when she’d obviously been working out.  She was wearing yoga pants, a sports bra covered by a hardly there shirt and a towel around her neck.  The towel was the most generous part of her ensemble.

I sucked in my stomach, which after three kids had a tendency to pooch.

Cilla took the towel from around her neck and patted off her face.  “Quincy, Cal, what a pleasant surprise.  Come on in.  I was just finishing my workout.  Dylan was making the smoothies.  I’ll have him make you two one if you want to try?”  She led us toward the back of the house.  “It’s his secret recipe.  Fresh fruit, kale and…”

Two glasses of very green smoothies were on the counter, and Dylan was smiling as we entered the kitchen. 

“…avocado.” Cilla finished.  “Look who the cat dragged in?”

“No thanks on the smoothies,” I said.  The concoctions looked suspiciously…green.  For years I avoided split pea soup because of its greenness.  When I finally tried it, I realized I’d been missing out.  But just because one green thing was good, didn’t mean all green things were.  Look at Brussels sprouts.  Those were green…and not good at all.

Cal’s expression said he agreed with me and I added, “We already had breakfast.”

“So what brings you to our humble abode?” Dylan asked as he picked up a glass and took a slurp.

“We’d like you to run through the party again.  See if you remembered anything else that could be helpful.”

They carried their green smoothies to the table and nodded for us to take a seat.

“I’ve done nothing but think about the events at the party,” Cilla said.  “I tried to think things through, like you did in
Steamed
.  But Quincy, I didn’t see anything more than I’ve already told you.  Mellie came in.  She tried to kick up a fuss.  Cal asked her to leave.  And the next thing I knew, cops were coming into the house and she was dead.”

“Same here,” Dylan said.  “I didn’t see or hear anything.”

“What did you two fight about?” I asked bluntly, without preamble.

That surprised them.  You could see it on their faces.  They didn’t think anyone knew.  “Out by the meditation garden,” I added.

“Meditation garden?” Dylan asked.

“Sandbox,” Cal clarified.

“Oh.”

Dylan looked at Cilla, who looked at him.  They had a silent conversation.

I know, that sounds like an oxymoron,
a silent conversation
, but I was well acquainted with them.  My parents used to have them when we were growing up.  My brothers and I would see them look at each other and come to a decision about this or that, without ever having said a word.