Dolled Up to Die (8 page)

A sudden new thought seemed to electrify Donna. “Maybe that’s how the two of them planned it from the very beginning. Marry him, murder him, inherit his assets. Maybe they took out a big insurance policy on him!”

A mother-daughter murder conspiracy. Sounded like juicy tabloid stuff. Yet Eddie had that gun, and a permit to carry it, which might suggest a different possibility.

“What about business enemies?” Cate asked.

“Back when we had the burger business, I knew all about everything that was going on, every penny that came in or went out, everyone we did business with. Eddie ran the food part, and I took care of the business end.” Jo-Jo sounded wistful. “Later, after we sold the burger business, I managed the wedding business for a while. I liked doing that. But
then Eddie said I was working too hard and we should get someone else to do that. What he really wanted, of course, was someone younger to dress up the place.” Jo-Jo gave an audible sniff that turned into a gulp and then a sob.

Cate put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Jo-Jo reached up and grabbed Cate’s hand. Cate thought the woman was going to plead for her help, but what she said was, “The sheriff’s people took Lucinda and Toby and Marianne. Will I ever get them back?”

Not if they convict you for murder.

“Sweetie, there are more important things to worry about,” Donna said.

Right.

Mitch was already at the Hong Kong when Cate arrived. He waved to her from a booth. A candle in a Chinese bowl flickered when Cate slid into the bench seat across from him. Her spirits rose, and some of the weariness dropped away. Mitch did that to her. Sometimes she thought she was falling in love with him. Sometimes that seemed like a great idea. Sometimes it didn’t.

“A thousand, seven hundred sixty thousand and one. A thousand, seven hundred sixty thousand and two.” Cate touched her chest as if she were breathless. “A thousand—”

“What are you doing?” Mitch asked.

“Counting seconds, of course. Until we could be together again.” She smiled at him. “And now we are.”

“That’s very charming. I’m flattered.” Mitch dipped his head in acknowledgment. He also frowned. “But what have you been up to that you’re trying so hard to distract me with all this butter-him-up sweet talk?”

“It’s graduated from hogwash to sweet talk?”

Mitch’s scowl reluctantly turned to a grin, and he shoved a menu toward her.

“Belmont Investigations is looking into the death of Eddie Kieferson,” Cate said.

“Belmont Investigations meaning Cate Kinkaid?”

“Well, um, yes.”

“Have you told your Uncle Joe?”

“Oh yes.” Cate was relieved she could say that. “We discussed it, and I went over to talk to Jo-Jo and her friend Donna.”

“Something tells me this death is no longer a suicide.”

Cate told him about the newspaper article, which Mitch hadn’t yet seen. The waitress came, and they ordered the #3 family dinner for two, wonton soup, barbecued pork, butterflied shrimp, chicken chow mein, shrimp fried rice, and tea.

After the waitress left, Mitch said, “So you’re officially investigating a murder. Cate, do you think you should be doing this, even if it’s okay with Joe? Last time you investigated a murder you almost got yourself killed. Twice in one day, as I recall.”

“Well, that was an unusually bad day. It’s not likely to happen again.”

“Tell that to the killers,” Mitch muttered.

“The sheriff’s department is apparently quite suspicious of Jo-Jo. She needs help.”

The waitress brought their tea, and Mitch filled the tiny bowls. “And how do you plan to go about helping her?”

Cate told him she’d started the investigation by looking at the glass house and going to the Mystic Mirage. Which meant she also had to tell him about her undignified exit and the reason for it. She appreciated that he did not snicker, although he did make a couple of peculiar snorts and coughs.

“I’d like to know more about both Kim and her mother. But there’s no way I can go in there again.” Gloomily Cate added, “Celeste would probably meet me at the door swinging one of those swords hanging on the back wall.”

“Maybe I could talk to her.”

“You?”

“Why not? It’s a public store. I might be looking for a gift for my girlfriend. Something unusual.” Mitch tilted his head. “I turn on my magnetic charm and personality, and she tells me everything.”

Cate doubted Celeste Chandler would be confessing to murder no matter how much magnetism Mitch turned on, but he might be able to pull something helpful out of her.

“You’d do that?” she asked. “Even though you’d rather I weren’t involved in this?”

He reached across the table and cupped her chin in his hand. “Sweet Cate, for you I’d climb the highest mountain, swim the widest river—”

“If the hogwash gets any deeper in here, I’m going to have to start swimming myself.” She studied him. “Maybe what you’re doing is pulling the knight-in-shining-armor act again. Saving me from my own incompetence as a PI.”

“Cate, I do not think you’re incompetent as a PI. It’s true that I’d rather you came to work with me at Computer Solutions Dudes. But I know you’re going to jump into this even if it looks as risky and dangerous as doing a Tarzan swing on a spiderweb. So, on the old theory of ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,’ I’d like to help.”

The waitress started filling their table with steaming dishes, and Cate waited until she was gone again. “Actually, I think it’s a pretty good idea.”

Mitch’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but all he said was, “Anything in particular you want me to find out?”

As they ate, Cate loaded him up with the information she already had about both Kim and Celeste. “Anything you can add to that would help. Any particular time you can do this?”

“How about tomorrow afternoon? Later, we’ll get together in the evening at my place, and I can tell you what I find out.” He waved a hand over the table laden with food. “I think we’ll have plenty of leftovers for dinner.”

 8 

Cate spent most of the next morning at the courthouse again working on the tangled property ownerships. After lunch she took time out to look up the Kieferson house on Riverwalk Loop in the records of the assessor’s office. In spite of numerous amenities, including a temperature-controlled wine room and an indoor pool, the property was not now valued at nearly the $1.6 million Jo-Jo had said she and Eddie paid for it. Property values had gone down everywhere.

When Cate arrived at Mitch’s condo that evening, he had the leftovers from their Chinese dinner already in the microwave, ready to heat. The gas fireplace in the living room flickered with cozy warmth, and the open drapes framed a view of city lights from this hillside location.

“Okay, tell me about today,” Cate said as Mitch punched the microwave buttons. “What happened at the Mystic Mirage?”

“First we eat, then business.”

“This feels like Christmas at my grandparents’ house when I was a kid,” Cate grumbled. “First everyone eats breakfast together. Then the dishes have to be done. No dishwasher in their old farmhouse, of course. Only when dishes are all washed and dried and put away does Grandpa hand out the presents.”

“Good system.” Mitch nodded approvingly. “When I’m a grandpa, I think that’s exactly how I’ll do it.”

Mitch would make a great grandpa, Cate decided. She felt an odd little twinge inside. Who would be the grandma?

After their leftovers dinner, which was almost as good as the first time around, Cate expected Mitch would admit he hadn’t been able to get anything out of Celeste. Instead he led her to his home office in the other room. With a flourish, he pulled a gold and black pen from his shirt pocket. It looked like an ordinary pen until he used a USB connection to plug it into the computer. When she heard a recognizable tinkle, Cate realized what the pen was and what he’d done.

“You recorded your conversation with Celeste!”

“I figured that would be better than just telling you about it. Remember back when I got you that pen that’s actually a video camera? I got this at the same time, an audio recorder.”

“Why?”

“I guess I’m a sucker for electronic gadgets,” he admitted. “Did you know there’s a cell phone you can wear on your wrist, with a voice-activated control? Wouldn’t that be handy for a PI if he—or she—had one when escaping down the side of a building or cliff, hanging on by his or her fingertips, and needed to make an important call to the CIA or Interpol?”

“Interpol and the CIA aren’t exactly on my speed dial, and I don’t anticipate hanging by my fingertips from anywhere in the near future. Do you?”

“You never know.”

“Sometimes I think you’re really a PI at heart.”

Mitch grinned and turned up the volume. “Hi. Hey, what an interesting place you have here,” he said on the recording, and Celeste’s voice responded warmly, “Welcome to the Mystic Mirage.”

“She sounds much more friendly to you than she did to me,” Cate said. “Is this legal?” she added doubtfully.

Mitch stopped the recorded conversation. “I did some checking first. It’s kind of a gray area, but this state is what’s called a one-party-consent state. Which means, so long as it isn’t a conversation where privacy could reasonably be expected, then only one person in a conversation has to be aware that it’s being recorded.”

Mitch turned the recording on again. His voice coming through the computer’s speaker system sounded enthusiastic about the jewelry in the glass counter.

“We have some lovely new astrological design earrings that just came in. I can get them out for you.”

“Let me look around first. Oh, that little girl was here before me—hey, she isn’t a little girl, it’s a big doll!”

“Yes, isn’t she real looking? Her name is Kimmy.”

“She looks like something my girlfriend would really like. I suppose she’s very expensive?”

“She’s from my personal collection of treasures, and I haven’t been planning to sell her. I just thought she seemed so lonely at my apartment, so I brought her here. But wait, I’m getting a real vibe here—”

“She put her hands on her temples and closed her eyes,” Mitch whispered to Cate.

“Yes, I can feel it,” Celeste said. “A real cosmic connection between Kimmy and your girlfriend. What’s her name?”

“Corinne.”

“Corinne?” Cate whispered in surprise.

“Yeah. Your middle name.”

“How’d you know that?”

“The internet knows all. But I didn’t think she should know the name you actually use,” he whispered.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“. . . a really powerful connection between Kimmy and Corinne,” Celeste continued.

They’d missed a little, whispering between themselves. Cate wasn’t sure why they were whispering. It just seemed appropriate, as if they were eavesdropping on a live conversation.

“More like a common destiny joining them,” Celeste said. “Something beyond our limited understanding on this plane.”

“She’d make a great used car salesman,” Cate said. “‘You and this ’94 Buick have a common destiny. You’re meant to be together.’”

“I’ll have to consider that, then,” Mitch’s voice said to Celeste from the recording. “My girlfriend also likes to read, and I see you have a great collection of books here.”

There were some rustles and bumps on the recording, and Mitch whispered to Cate that Celeste had come around the counter and held out a copy of her book to him. Although the biggest bump had come, he admitted, when he accidentally hit the stack of books with his toe and knocked it over.

Cate could imagine what Celeste would have said to her in that situation, but what she almost playfully said to Mitch was, “Men. You’re all alike. You all have that proverbial bull-in-a-china-shop trait.”

Mitch apologized to Celeste, then said, “This book looks interesting.”

“It is.” Celeste gave the silvery peal of laughter Cate remembered from when she was in the shop. “Not that I’m biased in my opinion just because I wrote it.”

“You’re Celeste Chandler?” Mitch had managed to sound awed. “
Dr
. Chandler, I see here on the cover.”

“You can call me Celeste.”

Cate could hear a smile and something else in Celeste’s voice and statement. Something flirty. “I can’t believe this woman,” she muttered.

“And your name is?” Celeste added.

“I didn’t know quite what to do then,” Mitch whispered to Cate. “I really didn’t want to give her my name, but I didn’t feel comfortable lying about it.”

“Mitchell,” he’d finally said to Celeste, without giving his last name.

“Mitchell? I didn’t realize Mitch was short for Mitchell.” How many other details were there that she didn’t know about Mitch?

“Although I must admit doing the book wasn’t actually writing,” Celeste went on. “I simply recorded what people told me about their past lives and added information that connected their hidden memories with actual history.”

“How do you meet these people?”

“I’m a metaphysical psychologist. The people in the book are men and women who came to me with problems in this life, and I helped them understand how their past lives affect their present existence. How about you? Would you like to find out about your past lives?”

“Well, I’ll, uh, have to think about it. What kind of past could I have had?”

“Well, you’re a big guy. Well built and muscular. An air of self-confidence. Definitely no couch potato.”

“She was feeling my biceps when she said that,” Mitch whispered to Cate.

“I see intelligence in your eyes. Determination. Leadership. Courage. I’d say that in previous lives you were undoubtedly a warrior, probably a leader of warriors. And women were strongly attracted to you. Many women.”

“She’s coming on to you!” Cate whispered indignantly. “What do they call older women who go after younger men? Cougars. She’s a cougar, and she’s after you!”

“I don’t know about that, but she made me uncomfortable,”
Mitch admitted. “An older couple came in the store then, and I turned the recorder off.”

Good thing other customers arrived. Who knows what Celeste might have done next? But all Cate said was, “That’s the end of it?”

“No, there’s more. I skimmed through her book while they were there. Weird stuff. One man ‘remembered’ he was President Lincoln in a previous life. He said an unknown ‘fact’ about his previous existence as Lincoln was that his beard was really itchy.”

Mitch turned the recording back on, and Cate heard the tinkle of the bell over the door as the customers departed. Then Mitch’s voice saying to Celeste, “This is your place?”

“It was mine originally. Then my daughter’s first marriage ended, and she came here to stay with me. So we’re partners now. But she just lost her present husband and is in seclusion for a time.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your daughter’s husband.”

“It’s an unpleasant situation. He was shot—murdered, actually. You may have heard or read about it. It’s been on TV news and in the newspaper.”

“Hey, I think I did. He owned a popular local restaurant?”

“Yes, Mr. K’s. It’s a tragic situation for Kim. Her first marriage was such a mistake, and now, just when she’d found happiness with Ed, this happens. They’ve been so blissful together. He was a remarkable man.”

“And the police have no idea who killed him?”

“It happened at his ex-wife’s home. She’s caused them all kinds of grief. A very greedy and vindictive woman, always after money. Ed told Kim he was going out to the house to try to reason with her, but there’s no reasoning with that woman. The next thing anyone knows, he’s lying dead on her floor.”

“You mean the ex-wife may have killed him?”

“That’s rather obvious, although it’s apparently going to take diagrams or a video for the police to figure that out.” A hesitation and a little cough before Celeste continued. “I’m sorry. I get a little emotional about this. I’m afraid my feelings for the first Mrs. Kieferson are more than a little hostile. I guess I’m something of a mother bear protecting her cub where Kim is concerned.”

“But why would the ex-wife want to kill him?”

“Is a half million in life insurance reason enough?”

“Jo-Jo gets his life insurance?” Cate’s startled question popped out aloud. She slapped a hand over her mouth, as if Celeste might hear. Did the authorities know about the life insurance? Probably. No wonder they were zeroing in on Jo-Jo.

“I’m sure the authorities will uncover the truth before long,” Mitch said to the woman. “Well, I’ll give my birthday gift for Corinne more thought. Thanks for your suggestions.”

“What about a reading on your past lives? It can be very enlightening.”

“How do you do it?”

“A light hypnosis. Occasionally something to help a person relax.”

“You do the readings right here?” Mitch asked.

“No. I find the familiar setting of a person’s home much more conducive to the level of relaxation necessary for full regression.”

“Now she’s trying to grab an invitation to your condo,” Cate said in what she intended as a whisper but which came out more of an indignant yelp.

“And you really believe everyone has lived lives before this one?” Mitch asked Celeste.

“Of course. In ancient times, in an earlier life, I was an artist, painting on the walls of a cave in France. Later, I was
a princess, daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, poisoned by a half-sister rival. I was a peasant girl in the Middle Ages, pulled out of poverty by a powerful lord to become his wife. But I was unfaithful to him, so in my next life I suffered greatly. We pay for our wrongdoings in one life by what we are and what happens to us in our next life.”

“No heaven or hell?”

“We keep coming back in new lives until we’re worthy of heaven.”

“We’re never worthy of heaven,” Mitch said with a forcefulness that surprised Cate. “Jesus’s death on the cross is our only route to heaven.”

“I believe it’s dangerous to be so closed minded that we see only one viewpoint when there are many viable viewpoints.” Celeste’s voice coming out of the computer’s speakers had now cooled considerably. “Knowledge about past lives explains why what may appear to be injustice in this life really isn’t. We’re paying off a debt from a previous life, so we can eventually reach the heavenly existence and not have to come back again.”