The Bad Always Die Twice (24 page)

Nikki met Marquette’s gaze in the semidarkness of the laundry room. She smelled fabric softener. “And she didn’t say what she wanted, or why she was there?”

“Nope. Duran was polite to her. He just told her she couldn’t go in because she wasn’t invited. She said okay and took off in this old blue BMW.”

“Marquette!”

“Excuse me,” he said, stepping in front of her. “I better rescue Duke.”

Nikki stepped aside to let him go by. An old blue BMW. A blonde with a southern accent. It
had
to be Tiffany. Were she and Thompson more than she’d led Nikki to believe? So . . . when she was turned away at the party, did she call Thompson? Was that why he left in such a hurry? Did that mean it was Tiffany and Thompson who were involved in Rex’s murder, rather than Edith and Thompson?

“Nicolette?” Victoria beckoned.

“Coming.” Nikki walked into the bright light of the kitchen, once again with more questions than answers.

Sunday morning, Jessica called and invited Nikki for brunch at her place. Just a thank-you, she had said. Nikki had still been in her silk PJs, sitting out on the patio, reading the Sunday paper when she rang, and had seriously consider turning down the invitation. It was a beautiful day and she wanted to take the boys up to the dog park in Laurel Canyon. In the end, Jessica had begged and Nikki decided to go have brunch, then take the dogs for an afternoon run. It would also give her an opportunity to stop and say hello to Mrs. McCauley. Just in case she now remembered seeing someone carry Rex’s dead body into Jessica’s apartment. It was a long shot, but Nikki had always been an optimist.

As Nikki was taking the stairs in Jessica’s apartment building, she ran into Pete, coming down. He was in gym shorts and a t-shirt, with a gym bag in his hand. The odd thing was, he already looked sweaty, his hair rumpled.

“Hey,” he said, meeting her on the landing between the second and third floors.

“Hey.” Nikki stopped.

“Going up to see Jessica?”

She nodded. “Brunch.”

“Cool.” He slipped his gym bag over his shoulder. But he didn’t head down the steps. He just stood there. “So . . . it’s looking pretty good for Jess, right? I mean, with the murder investigation?”

“I think so,” Nikki said, noncommittally.

“Because, like, there’s no way she could have hauled that lardass around, right? And . . . because of what time she came home that Saturday night?”

Nikki waited, thinking the whole conversation was a little odd. She barely knew this guy. Why was he chatting her up?

“Because, I guess she told you, I saw her. I ran into her that night. We talked in the hall. I gave the police a statement. I’ll really be glad when this is over. She’s too nice to have something like this happen to her.”

“Right . . .” Nikki looked at him, finally getting it. Pete Toro, like half the guys in L.A., had the hots for Jessica. That was what this was about. “I don’t think the police care if she’s nice or not, but they don’t have any evidence.”

“Right. No evidence. This is the United States. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I gotta run. Hit the gym.” He passed Nikki and headed down the stairs. “You have a good day.”

“You, too,” she called after him.

At Jessica’s door, Nikki rang the bell. When Jessica didn’t answer, she rang again, wondering where she was. She was certainly expecting her; she’d invited her.

“Keep ringin’.”

Nikki looked up to see—actually she
heard
her first—Mrs. McCauley with her walker, tooling toward her. She was dressed, maybe for church, in a pink silk Easter bonnet, a white fluffy sweater, bike shorts and yellow Crocs. There were colored Christmas lights looped around her walker. Not plugged in, fortunately.

“Keep ringin’. She’s a busy woman.”

Nikki smiled. “How are you this morning, Mrs. McCauley?”

“How do I look?” She halted in front of Nikki and leaned forward on her walker.

Nikki was afraid she’d be forced to answer. Luckily, Mrs. McCauley went on. “Got arthritis in my back, my left ear’s ringing, and I got dry skin. Like an alligator. How do you think I am?”

“Pretty bonnet,” Nikki remarked.

“Thank you.” She grinned. “You have a nice day.” She started to roll by.

Nikki turned to her. “Mrs. McCauley, I was wondering. The Saturday night before Rex March’s body was found, do you happen to remember seeing Jessica when she came home? Somewhere around ten, probably?”

“Ten o’clock at night? I’m in bed! Not that I was asleep. That was the night they had the dog circus in the courtyard. You wouldn’t believe the racket dogs’ll make flying around on a trapeze and such.”

“Right. And . . . you don’t remember anything unusual you saw that
Monday
that Mr. March was found in Jessica’s apartment? Other than Captain Picard,” she reminded, feeling silly even saying it.

“Glad you asked.” She slowly turned the walker around so that she was facing Nikki again. “I did. I thought I should give you a call, but that Jessica, she wouldn’t give me your number. She thinks I’m a bother. Do you think I’m a bother?”

“No, not at all.” Again, Nikki smiled, just as she’d been taught. “You were saying you remembered something from that Monday?”

“Yup. A washing machine.”

“Pardon?” Nikki leaned closer . . . as if that were going to aid in interpreting the conversation.

“There was a washing machine. The hula dancer tried to deliver it but I told him he had the wrong apartment. Last week I got a girlie magazine in the mail. Wrong mailbox.” She steered her walker around in a circle and started for the elevator again.

At that moment, Jessica opened the door. She was in her robe, her wet hair up in a towel. “Sorry. In the shower.”

“Have a good day, Nikki Harper,” Mrs. McCauley threw over her shoulder as she rolled away. “I’ll let you know next time those dogs are back. It’s quite a sight, really, dogs on a tightrope.”

“Have a good day,” Nikki called after her cheerfully. Then she looked at Jessica as she darted into the apartment. “You don’t want to know . . .”

Chapter 20

“I
brought bagels and that strawberry cream cheese you like,” Nikki said, walking into Jessica’s apartment. She held up the paper bag. It was the first time she’d been inside since
that
night. She tried not to think about it. “Lox and plain cream cheese for me.”

“And I’ve got champagne and OJ in the fridge.” Jessica took the bag and left it on the kitchen counter. “Come on back while I get dressed; we’ll sit on the balcony and eat.”

As Jessica walked down the short hall to the master bedroom, Nikki noticed that she was wearing high-heeled slippers. The kind with the powder-puff bunny tail glued on them. Nikki was fascinated. They looked like something her mother would have worn in one of her early movies.

Nikki left her handbag on the white couch and followed Jessica to the back. She avoided looking at the bed. Even though the sheets and comforter were different than the ones on the bed that night, she couldn’t stop thinking about Rex lying there dead, that black hole where his eye had been. She wondered how Jessica could stand to sleep in the same bed where a dead man had lain.

“I was organizing my clothes. They’re a mess.” Jessica motioned to the mirror-doored closet that appeared to run the entire length of the wall.

It was actually a row of closets, rather than one long one. Jessica had spent several thousand dollars adding shelves for shoes and clear boxes for handbags. Nikki, who mostly kept her clothes in dry-cleaning bags flung over a chair and in the clean clothes basket in her laundry room, had always been fascinated by Jessica’s meticulous care and organization of her clothing. Fascinated, and maybe just a little frightened that anyone would spend that much time, effort, and money for the sake of fashion . . . or organization.

Nikki sat down on a white damask–covered chair just inside the door. Jessica went to the far right, where she kept casual clothing, and began to pick through a row of neatly pressed blue jeans.

“I ran into Pete Toro on the stairs,” Nikki said conversationally. She wanted to talk to Jessica a little bit about what she’d learned last night from Marquette, just so she was up to speed, but she wanted to ease into that conversation. Maybe after Jessica had had a couple of glasses of champagne.

“Did you?” Jessica murmured, her back to Nikki.

“He said he talked to the police. About when you got home the night of the party.” Nikki stared at the closet on the far left where the shoes and handbags were stored. There were little labels attached to each bin that looked like they had been made with one of those label makers Nikki used in the office to mark her files. She slid forward on the chair, squinting. “Are those labels on your shoes?”

“Mm-hmm.” Jessica pulled a pair of jeans from the closet and held them up to look at them. “It was nice of Pete to call Detective Lutz. He’s a good neighbor.”

“Mrs. McCauley said there was a dog circus in your courtyard the night of Edith’s party.” She was still staring at the labels on the shoes and handbags. “Three letters? What are the three letters on the labels?”

Jessica returned the pair of jeans to the closet and grabbed another pair. “It’s a code. So I know what bag goes with which shoes.” She kicked off her slippers and slipped out of her robe. She was wearing a matching pink bra and lace panties.

“A code? You have a
code?
You’ve got to be kidding me!” Nikki slid back in the chair and watched Jessica step into the jeans. It had occurred to her this morning that she’d never tracked down the bellhop at the Sunset Tower again and she made a mental note to call today to see if he was working. Nikki had held up her end of the bargain—Victoria had called his grandmother for her birthday. At this point, the fact that Rex was seeing women at the hotel didn’t really seem to matter to her investigation, but she didn’t want to leave any potential leads dangling out there, just in case one became a real lead. Besides, a deal was a deal.

Nikki crossed her arms, still staring at the boxes of shoes and bags. They were kind of like little plastic coffins . . . “Pete said he was going to the gym, but he looked like he’d already been there. Weird.”

“Hmm,” Jessica responded, not really paying attention. She pulled two white t-shirts from the closet. “Which one?” She held up both.

They looked identical to Nikki. “One on the left.”

“Good choice.” She put the other back, tossed the wet towel from her hair on the floor, and slipped the shirt over her head. “How long do you think the police investigation will take?”

“I don’t know. As long as it takes, I suppose.”

“Can they do that?” She stepped back into the slippers. “I don’t see how they can.” She grabbed the towel and strode to the bathroom. “I mean, I can’t remain a suspect permanently, right? I have that trip to Cancun for Christmas. I should be able to leave the country by then, shouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. That would be something you could ask
a lawyer
.”

Jessica threw her a look as she went into the bathroom.

“I know,” Nikki groaned. “You don’t want a lawyer. But I think you’re being foolish not to at least talk to one.” She watched Jessica in the reflection in the mirror as she combed out her gorgeous blond hair. Self-consciously, she tugged on her own rather hastily done ponytail.

“I’ve heard that the more time that passes after a murder, the less chance police have of catching the killer. They said that on that show on TV,
First 48
. You ever watch it?” Jessica rubbed some kind of goop into her hair. “They show how real cops catch the bad guys. What they do in the first forty-eight hours of the investigation.”

“You never gave any guys a key to your place, did you?” Nikki asked.

“No. You sound like Detective
Duntz
now. Why would you even ask me such a thing? I’m not stupid. I’m just promiscuous.”

Nikki smiled to herself, glad to see that Jessica was keeping her sense of humor about this. “I just keep wondering how on earth whoever killed Rex got him into your apartment. The police said there was no forced entry.”

Jessica flipped off the bathroom light and walked into the bedroom, twisting her wet hair up on her head. She was holding a plastic clip in her mouth, so her speech was garbled. “Obviously, he used one of those lock pick thingies; I sure as hell didn’t let him in.” She took the clip from her mouth and clipped it into her hair. “My brother had one when we were in high school. He used it to get into my bedroom and read my diary. You hungry?” She walked past Nikki and out of the bedroom.

“Starved.” Nikki popped up out of the chair. “I need to make a quick phone call,” she said, thinking about the bellhop again. “Then I’ll meet you on the balcony. I’ve got some stuff to tell you about the case.”

“Oh, goody,” Jessica replied, without much enthusiasm. “Good thing there’s alcohol.”

Nikki caught Julius at work. He told her he couldn’t talk, but he was off at seven. At seven-fifteen, she was waiting for him in a coffee shop on Sunset, not far from the hotel.