Fanny Packs and Foul Play (A Haley Randolph Mystery) (15 page)

“This section is for the kids,” I said, as we
strolled along.

A maze had been created with hay bales. There
was a kid-sized table with building blocks and another for
crafts.

“There will be face-painting,” I said, “and
games like relay and three-legged races. All the staff will be in
pilgrim costumes.”

Melanie dabbed the corner of her eyes and
said, “Veronica would have loved this.”

“These are her ideas,” I said.
“Everything.”

“You’ve done a wonderful job bringing her
vision to life,” Melanie said. “Truly you have.”

We walked past the bandstand and the dance
floor, and circled back toward the house.

“Well, this trip didn’t turn out like we
thought it would,” Melanie said. “We’re leaving tomorrow, you
know.”

With everything that had been going on in the
past few days, I hadn’t learned about their plans to leave. I
hadn’t heard, either, whether Melanie knew of Brandie’s excursion
to Starbucks. I sure as heck hadn’t told her.

“The funeral will be on Monday,” Melanie
said. “I think Patrick wanted to bury her out here, but his mother
convinced him it was best to take her back home and lay her to rest
with her family.”

I hadn’t seen Patrick yet today but I wasn’t
surprised. Getting through the feast, no doubt thinking of Veronica
every moment, would be tough.

“Thank goodness there’s a suspect in
custody,” Melanie said.

Apparently, she didn’t know the suspect was a
member of her own family.

I wasn’t going to tell her that, either.

“And Pammy Candy will keep turning out
delicious treats,” Melanie said, and managed a smile. “Veronica
would be just pleased as punch about that.”

My cell phone rang. Melanie gave me a quick
wave and went into the house as I glanced at the screen and saw
that Jack was calling.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

From the background noise, I figured he was
driving.

“No problems,” I said.

“I’ve got two men in place,” Jack said. “I’ll
be there in a few minutes.”

I’d seen his men dressed in suits, standing
like sentinels watching over the grounds.

“Anything new on Darrell?” I asked.

“Nothing yet,” Jack said.

I’d hoped Darrell would have confessed by
now. From the tone of Jack’s voice, I knew he’d wished for the
same.

“See you in a few,” he said, and we ended the
call.

I went into the house through the west
entrance and walked down the hallway past the bathroom and the den,
then turned into the massive kitchen. The caterer had been here for
hours and the place smelled delicious. Cooks were busy tending the
two stoves, the double ovens, and chopping veggies at the
worktable.

The menu was extensive—turkey, ham, beef,
fish, plus all the traditional side dishes. I’d seen the selection
of pies they’d brought in for dessert—so yummy looking I wanted to
lay my face down in one and eat my way to the tin.

Julia walked in. She stopped short just
inside the doorway when she saw me. I was surprised to see her,
too.

She looked exquisite, of course,
magnificently turned out in a conservative skirt and blazer that
screamed I’m-here-under-protest.

“I’m assuming the hostessing duties today,”
she said. “It was called for, under the circumstances.”

I figured she would have shoved Erika into
the position alongside Patrick, had it not been the height of bad
taste.

Julia nodded oh-so-slightly toward the large
windows that overlooked the grounds.

“The job you’ve done is most favorable,” she
said in her always careful, measured tone. “I’ll have my assistant
call L.A. Affairs on Monday with my compliments.”

As if she were doing me a favor.

I liked her less and less every time I saw
her.

“The ideas were all Veronica’s,” I told her.
“She approved all the plans.”

Julia uttered a laugh. “If you say so.”

She kept gazing out the window and finally
said, “Thank goodness this ordeal is almost over.”

Then I felt kind of bad. Julia—along with
everyone else in the family—had been through an emotional trauma
these past few days. Maybe I should cut her some slack.

“They’re leaving tomorrow,” Julia said.

She’d said it in an off-handed way, as if she
was merely thinking aloud. It struck me as odd.

“There’s still the funeral,” I pointed
out.

Julia turned to me and shrugged. “The family
will have a presence there, of course.”

Beyond her through the window, I spotted Jack
walking onto the grounds. He was dressed in a dark suit. I wondered
if he had a gun in a shoulder holster under the jacket.

“Patrick’s father will meet him there,” Julia
went on. “Our attorney will be on hand in case there’s any …
unpleasantness regarding that company.”

“You mean Pammy Candy?” I asked.

She shuddered. “Really, could that girl have
picked a more common, tasteless name for a business?” she
asked.

“It was a family name,” I reminded her.

“Oh, yes, that family. Entrepreneurs, all of
them,” Julia lifted her chin. “Fanny packs. Seasonal fanny packs,
at that. They honestly thought my Patrick would agree to put our
name—our good family name—on such a horrible product.
Ridiculous.”

Through the window I saw Jack stop and speak
to one of the security guys, then disappear from view.

I was frantically formulating a good excuse
to get away from Julia and go hang out with Jack when it hit me
what she’d just said.

“You knew about Renee’s idea for the fanny
pack business?” I asked.

I couldn’t imagine that Renée and Julia had
spoken prior to their arrival at the house last week. So how had
Julia learned about it?

“Did Veronica tell you?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Another big idea she and that
family of hers had come up with,” Julia declared. She pressed her
lips together. “I knew when I saw those people get out of the
limousine wearing those things that something was going on. And, of
course, Veronica admitted it as soon as I confronted her. She was
actually proud of it.”

Oh my God. There was only one place and one
moment when they could have had that conversation.

“So you went upstairs and discussed it with
Veronica as soon as her family arrived?” I asked.

“I certainly did,” Julia told me.

Behind her in the kitchen doorway, Jack
appeared.

“I was not going to stand in front of this
house and welcome them, as if I were hostessing,” Julia told me. “I
went inside. Erika had the good sense to come, too. I asked her to
go to the kitchen and alert the cooks while I went upstairs to find
Veronica. Really, to have guests—even guests of that nature—and not
be present upon their arrival. It’s simply not done. I intended to
tell her that.”

I got a yucky feeling.

“Veronica didn’t know that?” I asked.

“She knew nothing,” Julia said, agitated now.
“I should have realized sooner that something was amiss with
Patrick. He kept delaying his return from back east. I never
thought that some small town, average girl was keeping him there. I
should have stepped in sooner. I should have never allowed his
father to send him there in the first place.”

The noise level in the kitchen dropped. The
caterer’s staff had turned to us. Julia, caught up in memories and
growing more upset by the minute, didn’t seem to notice.

“You went upstairs to the master bedroom
suite,” I said. “You saw Veronica there, and she told you about the
fanny pack business.”

“She bragged about it,” Julia said, her voice
rising slightly. “And then—then—she thought she could actually calm
my horror at the news by informing me of an announcement she
intended to make. As if I should feel special that she’d told me
before anyone else.”

I yucky feeling got yuckier.

“They intended to start a family next year,”
Julia said, her eyes blazing. “I would never have gotten rid of
her, if that had happened.”

Yeah, I was feeling totally yucky now.

“She had no idea I’d become upset. She
actually thought I’d be pleased. Can you imagine?” Julia said. “She
ran out onto the balcony. I followed her. She began to scream like
the scattered-brain girl that she was, and I—”

Julia froze. She glanced around the room and
saw that the caterer’s staff was staring.

“So you pushed her?” I asked softly.

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” she
told me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Julia turned to leave but stopped short at
the sight of Jack blocking the doorway. No way could she get around
him.

She turned to me again and drew herself up.
“You think you’ve discovered something? That I’ve confessed to
something?”

I didn’t say anything.

Julia uttered a bitter laugh. “People like me
don’t get convicted.”

“Mrs. Spencer-Taft,” Jack said softly, “would
you come with me, please? We need to call your attorney.”

He stepped back and gestured down the
hallway. Julia put her nose in the air and walked out of the
kitchen.

Jack followed her.

I left.

I made sure everything was set for the feast,
told Andrea and all the vendors to call me if a problem arose, then
said goodbye to Melanie, Cassie, Renée, and Brandie, and left.

Julia was sequestered with a team of
attorneys. Jack was locked away with another team of attorneys. The
homicide detectives had been called. Patrick hadn’t shown up
yet.

No way did I want to be there when he
arrived.

Going to Mom’s for Thanksgiving sounded
better than staying at the Spencer-Taft home—that’s how bad I
didn’t want to be there—even if I’d likely end up listening to a
history lesson about Cuba through dinner.

I pulled out of the driveway and drove away
without a backward look. The streets were quiet. Everyone was
inside eating turkey, I figured.

Darrell was off the hook—for murder, anyway.
I guessed we’d never know for sure if he was blackmailing Veronica
to keep quiet about her mom being in prison, or if she was
willingly giving him money.

It was small consolation to know that I’d
been right all along about Veronica’s planned announcement leading
to her death. Hearing that she and Patrick intended to start a
family in the coming year had, apparently, been the final straw for
Julia.

At the corner I stopped while two catering
vans drove past. Seemed nobody in Calabasas was cooking for
themselves today.

I turned right, thinking that I might have
figured everything out sooner if Patrick had told me what the big
announcement was. I guess he’d been too busy running Pammy Candy to
realize how important it was to Veronica, and that she’d planned to
make a big deal out of it.

Then, too, I might have realized Julia was
the murderer if I’d known she’d been lying right from the start.
She’d probably figured the police would eventually determine that
Veronica was pushed from the balcony so she’d muddied the waters
with the story of Veronica leaving Patrick, moving back home, and
committing suicide.

Whether Julia would ever get what was coming
to her, I didn’t know. She had an excellent team of lawyers and
millions of dollars.

I wasn’t sure her freedom would mean much,
since her son would likely never speak to her again.

I turned another corner and rolled up to the
security gate. The guard was on duty, checking I.D.s, waving people
in. The gate slid open and, as I drove through, I noticed a car
parked at the curb. A man was standing next to it.

Oh my God. It was Liam.

He was dressed in khaki pants and a pale blue
shirt. The breeze had ruffled his hair. He straightened away from
the fender when he saw me and shot me a big smile.

I pulled up behind his car. He opened the
door for me and I got out.

“What do you call a lawyer who shows up with
a picnic lunch on Thanksgiving?” he asked. “A potential
boyfriend.”

My insides got all gooey.

I looked inside his car and saw a big wicker
picnic basket and a blanket on the back seat. I was totally
impressed—with his initiative and the effort he’d put into finding
me today.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked.

“All my life,” he said, and grinned.

Now my toes were curling, too.

“I got the idea you’d be okay with showing up
late to your mom’s house,” he said.

“Mom who?” I said, and he chuckled.

“I know a great spot not far from here,” Liam
said. “How about it?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll drive.” He told the guard we were
leaving my car parked there for a while, then we both got in his
car and he drove us to a park a couple of miles away.

We had the place to ourselves, as he spread
out the blanket under a tree and unpacked the picnic basket. There
were big, hearty turkey sandwiches, potato salad, chocolate-chip
cookies, and two bottles of wine.

“What do you call a lawyer who tries to get a
girl drunk on the first date?” he asked. “Thinking ahead.”

He passed me a plate loaded with food, and a
glass of wine. We ate and chatted for a while.

“Can I get your opinion on something?” he
asked.

I was feeling pretty mellow—though I wasn’t
sure if it was from the wine or Liam’s presence.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and
started scrolling through screens.

“My sister works at Neiman Marcus. They just
got these in stock and they’re holding them for a mid-December
sale,” he said. “But she thought my other sister would love one so
she suggested I buy it for her for Christmas. What do you
think?”

Liam passed me his cell phone and—oh my
God—there was the most fabulous handbag I’d ever seen. My heart
started to beat faster. It was a gorgeous clutch in rich dark
leather with a ruby Swarovski crystal clasp.