How to Succeed in Murder (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

I did think about discussing Simon’s idea with Jack. Really. But he’d made it abundantly clear that, in the absence of any more data, he didn’t think there was anything to investigate. And I had a fairly strong sense that he might not see the immediate benefits of the let’s-go-undercover-to-gather-data scheme.

So, somehow, the subject didn’t come up.

***

I spent most of the next day reading bad plays in preparation for Friday’s meeting at the Rep. I couldn’t imagine what Chip had endured in order to come up with the fifteen he’d sent over, because they were uniformly awful. Never mind the one about the strip club—the absolute worst had to be an excruciating coming-of-age story written by a precocious eleven-year-old.

In blank verse, no less.

I had thought that the stack of manuscripts, while not giving me much hope for the future of the American stage, would at least serve to distract me from dwelling on the idea of infiltrating Zakdan to unmask Clara Chen’s killer. But the plan kept percolating in the back of my mind.

Simon’s enthusiasm had infected me, and it stuck even after the vodka was out of my system. I liked the notion of reality theatre. And the thought of being able to get some useful information for the investigation was very satisfying.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought we should do it. And soon. The office was bound to still be buzzing about Clara Chen’s death—every person there would have a theory about why she died. And I was guessing that “because she slipped” would be fairly low down on the list.

I wanted to hear those theories. If we could get the inside scoop on who really knew about the software bug she’d discovered, and who really knew she was about to be promoted and given all that stock, we’d find ourselves with a list of suspects.

I pictured myself striding into Inspector Yahata’s office—Did he have an office? Or was he at a desk in a big open room with lots of people and yelling and phones ringing? Anyway, staging issues aside, I’d stride in and present him with an amazing lead, or some sort of incontrovertible evidence. And then he’d look at me, and…

Oh.

He’d look at me and I’d get that feeling of being a bug under a magnifying glass, sizzling slightly while he examined me. I was getting a little fried just thinking about it. Then he’d tell me, quite calmly, that by messing with the chain of custody or something I’d ruined whatever chance the authorities had ever had to bring the killer to trial.

Maybe I’d better stick to the plays.

Or to finding something to go with my candlestick.

***

“Early” does not mean the same thing to me that it does to my husband. So on Friday morning Jack was long gone by the time I had showered and made the bed.

This was my morning ritual. I may not be big on housework, but I took a lot of pride in smoothing a fresh set of Frette sheets on the bed every morning, pulling up the duvet and arranging all the pillows just so. I bundled the old sheets and tossed them down a laundry chute, where eventually they were found and dealt with by the cleaning service that Eileen had arranged to come in once a week.

As a result, the hallway linen closet always contained neatly folded bundles that smelled vaguely of lavender, and I got a soothing glow just opening the door every morning. I’d have to remember to mention this to Brenda. She’d be thrilled at any evidence of domesticity.

It was bound to be freezing at the theater, so I pulled on a pair of jeans and a fluffy Eileen Fisher sweater. I went down to the kitchen carrying my shoes. I’d found the echoing sound of heels in the empty hallways to be a little unnerving lately, so I’d taken to wandering around in my socks.

Maybe we should have a house rule that people need to remove their shoes when they come in? That would be easier than finding rugs to muffle all the hardwood floors in the place. I turned the possibility over in my mind as I poured the coffee Jack had left in the pot.

Then I got distracted by a plate of healthy looking muffins on the kitchen island.

I blinked. Had Jack gone out to a bakery? Probably not, because if he had, he’d have gone to the Patisserie on Union Street and I didn’t think they produced anything like the brown globular specimens before me.

Then I noticed the bowl. It was freshly washed and drying in the dish rack. And it was accompanied by a measuring cup, a spoon, and a muffin tin.

Good lord, my husband had baked muffins this morning.

I approached them with caution, and picked one up. It was heavy. I sniffed it. Definitely healthy stuff in there. I took an experimental nibble. As I thought, it would take gobs of butter and jam to make it edible.

I opened the refrigerator and located a butter dish. Interesting. The pale yellow rectangle was pristine. Jack hadn’t used it. Likewise, the jar of jam was still sealed. I took another sip of coffee and smiled to myself. I was a detective already. I could reconstruct Jack’s actions this morning perfectly. He’d made dietetically virtuous muffins and eaten them plain. I lifted the napkin off the plate and counted. Ten, and the muffin tin held twelve. He’d eaten two of them plain.

Further self-congratulation was delayed by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

“Simon?” The kitchen is at the back of the house, so I yelled as I went down the hall to the front door. “Is that you? You’re early.”

I opened the door. “And you’re not alone.”

***

“Charley!” Before I knew what I was looking at, I was swept aside by a six-foot-four, bald, chocolate-skinned set designer. “This place is huge, girl! Why haven’t you done shit-all with it?” He performed the by-now-standard routine of opening doors and looking into empty rooms while criticizing me.

“Hi, Paris,” I greeted him in return. “I thought you were going to…Paris?”

“I was.” He began to unwind a lengthy scarf from around his neck. It looked like it might take some time. “I am. But Simon told me you were in crisis, so I decided to give you my housewarming present early.” He nodded to someone over my shoulder.

I turned to find Simon struggling to maneuver an uncooperative piece of furniture through the door. There must have been someone on the other end of it, but I couldn’t see who. “Lord, this is heavy,” Simon gasped. “Paris, a little help, please?”

I looked back at Paris, who handed me an armful of scarf and said, “Think about a coat rack,” before lending a hand.

The gigantic slab of wood was finally angled through the doorway. When they turned it around and set it down I finally saw who my third guest was. Chip. And I finally realized what the furniture was.

“A table!” I ran my fingers along the richly polished surface. “It’s gorgeous!”

“It’s a handcrafted, solid cherry, artisanal dining room table in a modified Arts and Crafts style,” Paris informed me. “Built by my very own Gabriel as a gift from us to you. And by the looks of things, not a minute too soon.”

I ignored his last comment and hugged him. “Thank you! It’s perfect!”

“Of course it is,” Paris agreed.

“And it’s heavy,” Chip volunteered.

“Oh, thanks for bringing it,” I said. “And, um…” I looked at the dining room door.

“Yes, darling.” Simon gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. “We’ll take it the rest of the way.”

Chip was a lot smaller than the other two men. Fidgety and kind of squirrelly. Not what you’d look for in a mover of large furnishings. But he grabbed an end and hoisted, and the three of them got the thing into the dining room.

“Right in the center…yes.” I directed, dashing in ahead of them to pick up the candlestick, which had remained in the middle of the floor. “Or…” I looked at the table once it was positioned. “Maybe no. Maybe we should angle—”

“No.” Paris buffed a fingerprint away with the sleeve of his long grey coat. “It goes straight down the center of the room. Dead center lengthwise with the middle of the fireplace, and dead center widthwise with the middle of the bay window.” He made karate-chopping arm movements to illustrate this axis of perfection. “At least, until you get a sideboard or something that would balance it.”

“Or chairs, maybe?” Chip looked around the room.

“I have something better!” I placed my perfect candlestick in the center—dead center—of the table, and stood back to take in the effect.

“Yes, darling,” Simon murmured. “Much more original than chairs.”

***

So, instead of meeting to pick the remaining play for next season in the chilly offices of the Rep, we found ourselves having an early lunch on Union Street.

We wound up at Betelnut, sharing a dozen or so small plates of things like chili calamari, hoisin pork in pancakes, and green papaya salad. And since the bar specializes in Asian beers…well.

At one point I remembered my manners and thanked Paris again for the table. “Did Gabriel really make it himself?” I knew Paris’ partner was some sort of cabinet maker, but I hadn’t realized the extent of his talent.

“Designed it and made it,” Paris informed me, not without a touch of pride.

“Could he make more things?” I asked. “I mean, the house is pretty big, and I haven’t really—”

Simon’s snort cut off the rest of my words. I gave him a squinty-eyed look, and he took a sudden interest in a red lacquer bowl on a small shelf behind me.

“Girl, do you know how long it takes to make a piece of furniture like that?” Paris always brought out the remaining Texas notes in his voice when he wanted to make a point.

“A long time?”

“Let me put it this way—your babies would be having babies by the time he was through furnishing that house.”

What the hell was it with people and babies these days?

I took a deep swallow of Tsingtao. “Never mind.”

***

Predictably, it was the single-minded Chip who brought us back to the purpose of the get-together, and it was the borderline-workaholic Chip who stayed back at the house with Simon and me after Paris left us with “I don’t care what show y’all decide to put on next year, as long as it has nice juicy sets.”

So the three of us got comfortable and indulged in a heated debate about the relative merits—or lack thereof—of the fifteen manuscripts we’d read.

Which is how Jack found us.

“Pumpkin, should I ask why you’re in bed with two men?”

This is not something I’d ever expected to hear my husband say, and particularly in such a casual tone. But since the only place in the house to get comfortable was the bed, we’d ended up having our meeting there.

“Jack!” Chip sprinted off the duvet and came close to standing at attention. Despite the fact that he’d merely been sitting, fully clothed, at the foot of the bed, he blushed furiously.

“Hi, Jack.” Simon, who had been lounging on his stomach with his head in his hands, merely rolled to his side and gave a finger wave.

“You’re home early,” I said. I was sitting cross-legged with my back against the headboard.

“Apparently.” He came over and put his finger under my chin to tilt my face toward him. “Maybe I should come home early more often.” He kissed me.

“Maybe you shouldn’t leave in the first place,” I smiled.

He looked at Simon. “But then how would you get any work done?”

“There’s this new thing called a chair that I’ve heard is all the rage,” Simon told him. “I’ve been trying to convince Charley to try one out.”

“It’s a thought,” Jack said.

“Really, Jack,” Chip volunteered. “We were only talking…”

Jack turned to give him a friendly clap on the shoulder. “Really, Chip, if I thought anything different you’d be dead by now.”

Chip attempted a grin. It didn’t come out quite right.

“Oh, don’t be silly.” I eyed my husband. “Give us your opinion on these plays—would you rather spend the evening with an albino in a snowstorm who’s dealing with feelings of invisibility, or a young boy confronting his junior high angst against the backdrop of highly competitive slam poetry?”

Jack cleared his throat. “I think I’ll leave that to the professionals.”

I sighed. “This professional has had it.” I closed the last of the manuscripts and faced my director. “Chip, thanks for all your work, but there’s no way we’re putting on any of these next season.”

He nodded. “I thought you’d say that. I’ll send over the next batch in the morning. I’d have brought them with me, but the copier was down.” He perched on the bed again. “There’s one that I think has real possibilities. It’s about a logger and an environmentalist trapped in the crown of a redwood tree while—”

“Chip, old man.” Simon stood and stretched. “I’ve been kicked out of enough bedrooms in my sorry life to know when it’s time to make my exit.”

“Oh.” Chip seemed to realize something, then jumped off the bed again. “Oh! Okay. I’ll just…we’ll just…”

“We’ll just find our own way out.” Simon took him by the arm and led him to the door. “It’s called surrendering the playing field. You’ll get used to it.”

“’Bye, guys!” I called after them. Then I turned my attention to my husband. “Want to join me on the playing field?”

A speculative gleam appeared in his eye. “Always. But we don’t have time for anything but a warm-up if we’re going to be on time.”

“On time for what?” I stopped in mid pillow-plump.

“Dinner at Bix.”

“Oh!”

“With Harry.”

Oh.

Chapter Thirteen

I hadn’t forgotten another dinner with Uncle Harry. Apparently it was a spur-of-the-moment thing that he’d arranged with Jack that afternoon. Funny how he’d called Jack instead of me.

In any case, as I contemplated which pair of shoes to ruin on yet another rain-soaked night, I consoled myself with the thought that the choice of restaurant was just right for both the weather and my mood.

Bix is an old-school supper club, tucked away in an alley near the financial district, with dim lighting and good jazz in the background. The kind of place where you can imagine guys in fedoras smoking cigars and deciding among themselves who the next governor will be. The kind of place where the bartender really knows his stuff.

It was, I acknowledged, Harry’s kind of place.

***

I slammed the door and shook the rain out of my hair once I got in the car—a black Lexus SUV that we’d borrowed from Harry months ago and hadn’t gotten around to returning yet.

“Do you own an umbrella?” Jack asked, flicking my second-hand drops off his jacket.

“Several. I only wish I knew where I put them.” I looked back at the big empty house as we pulled away. There were a lot of places to lose things in there.

Jack turned down the steep hill to Broadway and made a right. It was almost eight, so the worst of Friday rush hour was over. There was still a bit of cross-street congestion ahead of us, but our straight shot to the Broadway Tunnel, which makes a swooping cut through one of the steepest hills in the city, was relatively clear.

After about the fourth stop sign, Jack made an irritated sound and adjusted his rearview mirror.

“What’s the matter? Ow!”

Jack didn’t need to answer my question because I’d just been temporarily blinded by the lights of the car behind us shining directly into my eyes from the side mirror. “That guy seriously needs his headlights adjusted.”

Jack was alternately squinting into the rearview mirror and squinting to see the road ahead of us. We were getting to the busier intersections, with lots of pedestrians, and visibility was already bad because of the rain.

“They aren’t headlights,” he told me. “He’s got a row of spotlights across the roof of his truck.”

I turned around to look, shielding my eyes. “Isn’t it against some sort of law for him to have them on in traffic?” We went through a green light at Van Ness.

“It should be.” Jack signaled and moved to the left lane as we approached the mouth of the tunnel.

We had a moment of relief from the glaring lights, then the truck pulled forward, as if to pass us on the right, flashing the bright lights like strobes and blaring the horn.

Jack accelerated instantly, but it wasn’t fast enough. Exactly at the point where the tunnel curves, the truck smashed up against us, slamming into our right side as the white tiled wall of the tunnel rushed to meet us on the left.

“Jack!” I grabbed the arm of my seat and held on. I couldn’t see anything beyond the blinding lights of truck that was trying to crush us.

Jack fought to keep the car under control, still accelerating as we were being pressed into the tunnel wall. The sound of metal crashing against metal on one side and metal screeching against tile on the other was deafening. Sparks were starting to fly past Jack’s head.

“Hold on!” he yelled, wrenching the steering wheel to the left as the tunnel straightened. There was a last ear-splitting metallic squeal as we scraped deeper into the wall, but when Jack gunned the engine we were suddenly free of the truck’s pressure.

The truck roared past as Jack slammed on the brakes to avoid crashing into the backed-up line of cars outside the tunnel.

“Are you all right?” he shouted.

“Jack! He’s getting away!” I saw the truck—some huge black sort of extra-wide pickup—race through the stoplight while we were still stuck in our lane, the traffic to the right moving too quickly for us to change lanes and follow it.

“Never mind. Are you okay?”

“Yes! Did you see a license plate?”

He shook his head grimly. “There wasn’t one.”

Jack pulled over as soon as he could, and we took refuge in the tiny driveway of a Chinese greengrocer. We stared at each other. I was shaking uncontrollably, still hearing the screech of metal, still seeing giant purple spots in the shape of the truck’s lights bouncing around.

Jack, not surprisingly, looked good. Face slightly flushed, eyes slightly blazing. More like he’d just navigated a particularly tricky stretch of alpine roadway than nearly been crushed to death at high speed.

As soon as I got my breath back, I had one question for him.

“Jack, just exactly who did you piss off at Zakdan the other day?”

I waited. He appeared to be thinking. Then he nodded his head, as if he’d figured something out.

“I was at Zakdan again today,” he began.

“
What!
Why? Were you going to tell me—”

“Mike and I went back today.” He cut off my questions. “So he could…it doesn’t matter why. The important thing is that I got the call from Harry inviting us to Bix on my cell while I was there.”

“Who were you with?”

“Just Mike. We were in Lalit Kumar’s office. He was out today. Morgan put us in his office so we could work undisturbed.”

I was a little disturbed at the news that Kumar had been out that day. Had he been back to work since Brenda and I had followed him all over town two nights before? But Jack was still talking.

“I don’t know how soundproof any of those offices are. I don’t remember anyone passing in the hall when I was talking to Harry, but I’ll find out who has the offices next to Kumar’s, and who might have overheard my side of the call.”

Would that mean Clara’s killer was one of the Zakdan executives? Because, as far as I knew, the only person who might want to scare Jack away from his investigation was the person who had killed Morgan Stokes’ fiancée.

Jack looked at his watch. “Are you hungry?”

“Are you kidding? You still want to meet Harry?” I was thinking of something more along the lines of a quick call to the police followed by a very large martini, enjoyed from behind some barricaded walls.

He started the car. “If we don’t show up there will be questions.”

“If we do show up there will be questions,” I countered. “Such as ‘where is your side mirror and most of your car’s paint?’”

Jack grinned. “Remind me not to park under a streetlight.” Then he reached over and touched my cheek with the back of his hand. “Sorry for putting you in the middle of that, Pumpkin.”

Which only made me want to burst into tears and throw myself into his arms. But I’m a big girl, so I told myself I could do that after dinner. Instead I took his hand and held on.

***

Jack called Mike as soon as we were moving again, to let him know that apparently someone had been noticeably unhappy with their presence at Zakdan that day. I spent the rest of the trip jumping every time a car came near us, but I think by the time we parked (not under a streetlight) and scurried through the rain to the restaurant, I probably looked as composed as I ever do.

“Let’s not tell Harry about this,” I said as we shook off our coats under the awning outside the door. “He’ll want to call in his own personal cavalry, and I really don’t think I could deal with that right now.”

“Agreed,” Jack said. “There’s just one thing I need to do before we go in.”

At which point he pulled me into one of the most spectacular kisses of my life, swift and intense, leaving me breathless and disoriented and feeling that having nearly been killed was almost worth it, if this was the effect it had on my husband.

Then he turned me around and propelled me into the restaurant.

***

Harry, unsurprisingly, was already there, and for once he wasn’t dressed like an aging beach bum. Instead he wore a sober gray suit that I was willing to bet he’d bought for a funeral. He gave it a distinctly personal flair with the addition of a vintage Hawaiian print silk tie.

He was not alone.

“Brenda!” I couldn’t wait to get her off to the ladies room and tell her everything.

“Hi, you two,” Brenda greeted us. “Isn’t this nice?”

Her glasses were sliding down her nose and her long black hair was, as usual, drawn into a ponytail bound by some hippy device one of her students had given her years ago.

I looked from her to my uncle, who had draped an arm proprietarily over the back of her chair. “Nice” was one word for it. “Suspicious” was another. Maybe our little brush with death wasn’t the only frightening aspect of the evening.

Jack held my chair as I slid into the seat next to Brenda. “What’s Harry up to?” I hissed.

“Good to see you too, Charley,” Harry said loudly. Then, “What’s new, Jack?”

“Not a thing,” Jack said, just a beat too quickly. He looked beyond Harry. “Well, it looks like the gang’s all here.”

I followed his gaze over to the door, where Simon had just entered and was making something of a production out of removing his Burberry.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked.

“Joining us for dinner.” Harry exhibited wide-eyed innocence.

It was just as well the waiter arrived then with Sidecars for everyone. Simon sauntered up just as he was leaving. “Hullo all.” He kissed Brenda on the cheek before sitting. “Isn’t this nice?”

“Simon, I spent all day with you,” I reminded him.

“Well, yes, darling. But that was work. And this is…” He looked at Harry. “Not that I wasn’t delighted to get your message when I got home, old man, but…what’s the occasion? I gather it’s not entirely social?” He grinned with the attitude of someone who would enjoy it immensely when the other shoe dropped.

“Not entirely, no.” Harry leaned back and took us all in. “I think this is what you showbiz folks call schmoozing.”

Oh, good God.

“Harry’s written a play,” Brenda told us.

“Yes,” Jack filled the ensuing silence. “He mentioned something about that.”

“Charley didn’t seem too enthusiastic.” Harry was speaking to Simon. “So I thought, since you’re the artistic director of the Rep, I should pitch it to you directly.”

Simon clearly found the evolving situation less and less amusing. He was blinking rapidly and making clever comments like “Ah, Um, Well, Ah…” when Jack raised his glass in a toast.

“To the theatre!”

Hilarious, my husband.