Death By Chick Lit (22 page)

“May I?” Leo gestured toward a chair. “Just waiting for Annabel. Could be a while,” he added with a rueful smile. “So what’s new? How are your drinks? Where’s Doug?”

“Hey, she’s allowed out without her husband,” said Quentin.

“Only on Saturdays,” Lola joked, though actually feeling a little defensive. “So listen to what just happened.”

She started telling Leo the Nina story, which somehow morphed into a conversation between the two men about Russian futurism.

A really
long
conversation about Russian futurism.

During which, thankfully, the waitress arrived with Penny’s drink. “Sorry for the delay,” she said, nodding her head back toward the bar. “We’re slammed.”

“No problem,” said Quentin. “Where’s Penny?”

Lola could not volunteer fast enough to check on her.

“Penny?” Lola pushed open the door to the bathroom, which was lit only with a—what was that smell?—gardenia-scented candle. No answer. A woman in a backless top and a cowboy hat tossed her paper towel in a basket and squeezed past Lola on her way out.

Lola was alone.

“Penny? It’s Lola.” The two stalls were large. One door was open, the other closed. She peeked under. Too dark to see feet.

“Penny?”

Nothing.

Lola fished in her bag. She turned on her fancy cell phone and held it under the door. There in the bluish shadows lay two scrub-green legs ending in two maroon Dansko clogs.

Forty-six

Oh, God. Oh, God, Penny.

Trembling, still on her hands and knees, Lola called 911.

Okay. Okay. Think. Think. What else? She got to her feet and grabbed the doorknob. Ah. She turned the tab to lock it, then patted her hands along the wall. Double ah. A light switch.

Click.

Suddenly the bathroom didn’t look so romantic. On hands and knees again, Lola peeked back under the door. She still couldn’t see much, and she couldn’t climb through from the other stall without hitting Penny. There seemed to be no blood, no bruises, no nothing. Yet as far as she could tell, Penny was not breathing.

Oh, no. Oh no no no no no.

Shaking so hard her bangles clattered, Lola stumbled to her feet and fled the bathroom. She flagged the nearest waitress, explaining why she might want to keep more people from going in. Then she turned toward the table, heart hammering, thoughts churning.

Quentin, there’s something I need to tell you.

Looks like you’re not the killer.

While I’m on the subject, Lola thought, neither is Wilma, given that she’s apparently still in custody.

Guess Reading Guy’s been promoted once again. Though I could swear I never saw him come in here.

Then again, Somerville, that’s what killers do. Fail to be seen. I should have been watching.

I should have been watching.

“Quentin,” Lola said. “There’s something I have to tell you.” Just then the EMTs burst through the front door. The hostess pointed toward the back. The stretcher left a trail of shocked, gasping patrons in its wake.

“Quentin,” Lola said, loudly, to get his attention back. She nodded her head back toward the restroom, where the EMTs were converging. “It’s Penny.” Quentin made a small sound and flew off his chair, knocking it over.

Lola polished off her drink in one gulp, then Quentin’s, then Penny’s. She reached for Penny’s first glass, too, but Penny had drained it dry, leaving only a few black seeds on the bottom.

Leo, sad-eyed and ever solicitous, held out his glass.

Lola, reeling a little, put up a hand. “I’m good.”

There was commotion behind them. Far as Lola could see, the EMTs were wheeling Penny out a back door. She saw Quentin’s beanpole figure trailing behind. This was not a time to interrupt. She’d just have to call him.

Lola turned to Leo, helpless.

“Leo, I can’t—I—what am I supposed to even say at this point?”

“How about ‘yes’ to a ride home?”

“Yes to a ride home,” said Lola.

Leo dropped a few twenties on the table while Lola stood uncertainly, dazed. “I mean, after we talk to the cops,” she added. She nodded toward the entrance, where two had just come in. Why not Bobbsey? she wondered, then remembered that with Penny’s book deal still a secret, there was no real reason for him to be there. Him or Wally, for that matter.

Wow, am I on the cutting edge this time, she thought, without joy.

 
When the police had finished with their questions, Leo gestured toward the exit.

“Wait,” Lola asked. “What about Annabel?”

“Oh. Yeah. She texted me while you were in the bathroom,” Leo said. “She bailed.”

“Ah,” said Lola.

Now I feel double-sick. She probably canceled when she realized I’d be there, too.

As she followed Leo out of the bar, steps heavy, she let her gaze rest on some dangling wisteria: so lovely—so incongruously so.

You know what? she thought. That’s it. I’m done. Done with all the mediocre sleuthing that’s coming between me and my loved ones, including my suffering garden. Quentin’s got more on his mind than Mimi right now. Wilma’s effectively in the clear. Bobbsey knows what he’s doing. That’s it. I’m going home to wait up for my husband and salvage my best friendship—along with, first thing tomorrow, my poppies. A book idea will come, but not like this.

I quit.

No lie this time.

I quit.

 
Lola got into Leo’s SUV. She closed the door on the summer drizzle, closed the door on her role as crappy detective. Leo put on a Buena Vista Social Club CD, and they rode for a good while without speaking, Lola relaxing a bit into her hollow relief.

“So what are you working on these days?” Leo said as they rumbled past Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and, on a prime corner across the street, the columned, zinnia-circled home that she knew to be Jennifer Connelly’s. Doug, citing the cinematic importance of
The Rocketeer
, had pointed it out. And walked by it whenever possible.

“You know, the usual,” said Lola. “Same articles, new headlines.”

“Any new books in mind?” he asked.

“Not without any new ideas,” she said.

“Well, don’t they say you gotta write what you know?” Leo asked. It was possibly the least helpful thing he’d ever said, thought Lola. “Like with Penny and her ER memoir. Looks like maybe that deal’s off now, though.” He shook his head.

Lola started to look at Leo, then caught herself and stopped.

There was no way Leo could have known about Penny’s book deal.

Forty-seven

“Looks like,” Lola said, fake offhand, her mind racing.

How does he know, how does he know, how does he know?

What does this mean, what does this mean, what does this mean?

Lola’s thoughts spun first back to the last time she’d been in Leo’s car, that time after Oona’s shower, though they’d never actually gone anywhere. Now that she thought about it, the spa Leo said he’d been working on was right next door to Penny’s publisher.

“So did you do any work at Jitney Books?” Lola asked on a hunch.

“Yeah,” said Leo, eyes on the road. “I created a Tide-Pool Experience.”

“Do they mind that you work for the competition?” Lola asked. Her hunch confirmed, she’d moved ahead with a massive bluff.

Which worked. “If they did, I’d be out of business,” Leo said. “Once Poncho Books had their whole prairie grass installation—to go with all their prairie skirts, the five minutes they were in style—all the other hip publishers had to have something like it, too.” His tone was light, but he’d glanced sharply at Lola as he spoke.

Lola forced a laugh. “Figures.”

So. So so so. Lola could practically feel the gears cranking in her head like the inside of an old watch. Leo could have overheard something about Penny’s book while working at Jitney. That’s innocent enough. He could also have put in a good word for Annabel at Poncho in some way. Maybe he brought her blog to their attention or even influenced their decision to offer her a contract.

But her earlier hunch was starting, slowly, to take a more sinister shape. She changed the subject, still not entirely sure what she was fishing for.

“So weird and creepy about Penny. I mean, I saw her. No blood, no marks, no nothing. Think maybe some new bartender forgot everything he’d been taught about hemlock?”

Leo raised his eyebrows. Lola, shifting her legs nervously, kicked something beneath her feet. She peeked down just as they passed a round-the-clock construction project: a five-acre Whole Farms Market was going up, complete with an on-site trout hatchery that had rerouted Brooklyn’s only natural spring. The bright spotlights briefly illuminated the inside of the car, including what Lola then saw on the floor.

Bulbs. Narcissus. Lola was sure of it.

Which, she was also positive, was poisonous. Like hemlock.

And like wisteria seeds, which, now that she thought about it, were the seeds that she’d seen in the bottom of Penny’s glass. Not ginkgo. Wisteria. Poisonous wisteria.

Couldn’t the seeds have just fallen in? In theory, yes, but probably not this early in the season—the blooms, after all, were just starting—and how would they have escaped their pods by themselves?

In other words, Lola determined, I should probably start thinking about how to get out of this car.

Act casual, Somerville. Real casual. It’s Casual Day. It’s Casual City, and you’re the mayor. Lola hummed along with the CD while her mind snapped together the remaining puzzle pieces.

The deaths started right after Annabel got her book deal—that is, right after Leo found out about Annabel’s book deal. Leo is clearly crazy about Annabel. But exactly how crazy? He probably helped her score the deal in the first place and wanted to help make it a success . . . Could he have been trying to kill off her competition?

He could have popped those seeds into Penny’s drink when we were all saying no to a second round. He could have had them on him, or at least known to pop them out of a hanging pod; this could easily look like a terrible accident. He could have blended right into Bergdorf’s and could, somehow, have attacked Honey. He could have gotten to the party and killed Mimi before we all met afterward; he
said
he got stuck on the subway like everyone else, but since when does Leo take the subway? He could have—

“Thanks for telling me when Daphne’s flight was coming in,” said Leo. He was pulling up on the bridge over the Lundy Canal. Speaking of Daphne.

Lola’s mind stumbled backward. Of course. Her gut clenched with guilt. She’d been on speakerphone with Annabel, discussing the Daphne return that never was, when Leo had walked in.

Leo stopped the van. The bridge, as always, was dark and deserted. He looked at Lola, all of a sudden distinctly less handsome. Right now, his longish hair made him look less hot, more crazy. His huge, lash-fringed eyes were sunk in soulless shadow. “Let’s take a walk,” he said.

“Is gas that expensive?” Lola asked. Must stay in van. My one hope for safety is this: Leo will seriously not want to get blood in his precious Escarole.

Something glinted in the muddy moonlight. Leo was holding a small—but sharp enough—root digger.

Or maybe he could deal with a little blood.

“It’s not as theme as my other weapons, but it’ll have to do,” Leo said.

So much for my plan to lunge for the keys and gas pedal, which was probably not airtight to begin with, thought Lola. And I doubt I could outrun him. She reached for her bag, taking all the time she could, and then stepped out into the night.

Forty-eight

This, Lola knew, was the part where the hero stalls for time.

The hero, or the victim.

“Sure could have used that gizmo when I dug—” she cleared her throat, hoping to hide the shaking in her voice “—dug those dandelions this spring,” she said. By then, Leo had come around the front of the car to face her.

“Are you serious? You don’t have one of these? They’re incredibly useful,” Leo said. “Please tell me you at least have a spading fork.”

“That, yeah,” said Lola. “So when did I figure you out?”

“When you saw the obviously-not-ginkgo seeds in Penny’s glass.”

Hmm. Untrue, but flattering.

“But then why would I get in the car with you?”

“’Cause you’re a little reckless and a little desperate for attention and to be where the action is, so you figured you’d make a plan on the fly?”

Hmm. True, but unflattering.

Lola glanced around. The pointy root digger hung from Leo’s hand. The grimy canal yawned at her side. One ratty sneaker, inexplicably, hung by its laces from the single faraway streetlight. A white plastic Key Food bag, borne by a hot, twitchy breeze, dipped and twirled in the air, slapped against the bridge, and then sailed away into darkness.

Time. Need time.

“So Mimi, I get. Daphne, what, you just happened to swing by the airport and offer her a ride?”

Leo nodded. “Not bad.”

“Okay, Honey Porter, then. That one’s trickier,” Lola said. “Gimme a sec.”

She pretended to think for a moment, even though she’d already worked most of this one out. “You did the new installation, whatever you call it, in the Bergdorf’s salon, didn’t you?”

“The Cliffs of Biarritz? Yes, ma’am,” said Leo, with some pride. “Tip: if you need to import gorse bushes, go straight to the Basque.”

“So what sort of mickey did you slip into her hair product?”

“Warm,” said Leo, leaning against his car hood.

“Had to have been something toxic to the touch, or—”

“Warmer,” said Leo.

“Or . . .
Fumes
. Toxic fumes.
Poison ivy
fumes.” Lola knew that her father would break into hives if he so much as breathed anywhere near the offending plant. “You mad-scientisted the oil off the plant, slipped it into her kerastase extra-volume serum blah-blah whatever, so that when she sat under the dryer, she was overcome.”