Killer Wedding (18 page)

“About what?” he stammered.

“About what? Now you see, Albert. That's the kind of smart answer that gets us ticked off. You don't want to tick us off, do you, Albert?” Martinez sounded pissed, all right.

“No. No, sir. I don't know what you are asking about. At the wedding I made the ice sculptures. For each table. Do you want to…”

“Forget the ice animals shit, all right? We look like fools to you, Albert? We're interested in the death of a lady named Vivian Duncan. You
do
remember that she was murdered that night, right?”

“Yes,” he said, his head bent.

“Okay. Are we through fucking around? What we want to know is did you see something, Albert? Or did you, maybe, get angry with the lady and do the job yourself?”

“
Me
? No. No. I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent. You…” The African began to stutter in fear. I was not sure I could watch it anymore. He was being questioned in the middle of the night, out on the street, with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Honnett!” I yelled his name sharply.

Chuck Honnett looked up, startled, meeting my eyes and holding them for a beat. And then he put his hand on Nbutu's shaking arm and tried to calm him down. “Look, let's just go sit you down in our car. How about that? I can't take the cuffs off, but maybe you'll be more comfortable. Okay? Easy there, Albert.”

When Albert had been put in the back seat, Honnett began to talk. “Here's what we know. You are in this country, Mr. Nbutu, without papers. You are an illegal alien, and we will be sending you over to our friends at INS to deal with. But, before we do that, we have
got to get to the bottom of this Duncan murder. You know who did it, or you wouldn't have run. It's best to be truthful.”

Albert Nbutu sat there, looking out at us, the two detectives next to the car and me, standing in the rear.

“And you?” he said to me, meeting my eyes. “I saw you at the party. Are you INS? That is what I thought. So I gave you a card where they would not tell you how to reach me. I am sorry, but…” He looked down, disheartened. Caught. “Are you also a police woman?”

“No,” Honnett answered for me. “Now what do you know, Albert?”

“At the wedding? I was working outside. What could I see?”

“And you're saying the only reason you've been in hiding out here is because you were afraid of INS? Come on!” Martinez had that macho sarcasm that made me want to punch him.

“I came to this country two years ago,” Albert said, quietly. “How do you think I could stay here so long and not get into trouble? It is because I am so careful, you see.”

“You come from Zimbabwe?” I asked.

Albert nodded.

Honnett shot me a look to cool it and continued his questions. He and Martinez kept asking Nbutu to talk about the night of Vivian's murder. They asked him where he was standing and what he could see from there. Over and over they asked him to account for each minute of the evening. But all Albert would say is he knew nothing.

After thirty minutes of getting nowhere, Martinez left us and joined the officers conducting the search of the house.

“How old are you?” Honnett asked. The change in subject was a surprise. Albert carefully responded.

“I am forty-nine years old. I was born in a tiny village in Rhodesia, as it was called then. My family was poor.
My father worked to build the national mine, so this brought in some money.”

“Sandawana,” I said.

Honnett looked at me. “Yeah, I noticed that tattoo. So that's the mine where you worked?”

Nbutu nodded. “When I was a child, yes. We would all go down to the mines and search for the emeralds. It was a game. And when I grew older I worked there, too.”

“And you got that tattoo in prison?” I asked. Honnett looked at me.

“Yes.” Albert hung his head.

“In prison? What were you in for? Assault?”

Honnett was such a cop.

“No, no,” Albert said, his voice strained. “It was a mistake. I was arrested by our government.”

Honnett was going to make another scathing remark, I was sure of it, so I put my hand on his sleeve to stop him.

“Is that why you are so frightened now? Because of what happened to you in Zimbabwe?”

He looked at me. “It was a terrible time, miss. Many were imprisoned. So many people, so many men just…disappeared. There was very bad corruption. We were free of the British Commonwealth, but our leaders fought. And then I was arrested. They accused me of stealing emeralds but that is a lie. They made this story up! There was never any proof. There was no trial. There was no witness. It was just done.”

“And you stayed in how long?” Honnett asked, more subdued.

“Ten years. From 1976 to 1985.”

“And then what?”

“The government changed again. And it became a little more stable. My relatives saved their money, and…”

“They bought your way out of prison?” I asked.

“Yes. It was very difficult. If the wrong man was in charge, he could have taken their money and had them arrested as well. But this time they let me out.”

“And why did you come here?” Honnett asked, seemingly resigned to talking about the past.

“The United States is a great land,” Nbutu said.

“Right,” Honnett said. “But why here? Why Southern California?”

“I have family here,” Nbutu said.

“Your cousin,” Honnett said, and then he looked at me. “There's nothing else he's going to tell us here. We'll have to take him downtown anyway, so I'm going to…”

“Can I ask you a few more questions, Mr. Nbutu?” I said, turning to the man in the car.

I could imagine what had pushed him near the edge. As a young man, Albert Nbutu had been savagely arrested, illegally thrown into some primitive African jail to rot for a decade, and then he'd had to watch his family barter away their small holdings and risk their own safety just to bribe his way out. I could understand why he'd been driven almost crazy to escape from more police.

“What things do you want to ask?” Nbutu seemed unsure.

“Back in the old days, who sent the militia to arrest you? Was it a white man, perhaps?”

Nbutu looked at me, shocked.

“Was it Jack Gantree?”

Now Honnett looked at me, puzzled. “Are you saying that Gantree knew this guy back in Africa?”

“Gantree was there, in Zimbabwe. His wife's sister lived there, with her rich husband. Gantree stayed there all the time.”

“When he was making his television series?” Honnett asked, catching on.

“Yes. But he also had a lucrative investment scheme on the side. Big Jack financed an emerald-smuggling operation.”

“You know this for a
fact
?”

I nodded.

Honnett turned to look at Albert. “Did you know Jack Gantree, like she says?”

“Everyone in Rhodesia knew Mr. Gantree. He made the television films.”

“Is that why you came to Los Angeles? To get back at Gantree for something that happened to you twenty years ago in your home country?”

“No! I swear to you. I did nothing wrong. I did not hurt anyone. Please, I am not lying. I…”

Before Nbutu could finish, Detective Martinez came out of the house, all smiles. “We got it! We got the bastard!”

He walked over to the car and held up his clenched fist. “We just found this in the toilet tank, wrapped in a nylon stocking.”

We all watched as he opened his hand to reveal the damaging evidence.

There were two small, shiny objects. The first was a silver tube of lipstick, a MAC color I was familiar with called Spirit. And the second object was a beautiful gold cigarette lighter with the initials V.D. in tiny emeralds. Vivian's lighter.

L
et me explain why a trained chef like me is so good at solving crime, in my opinion. I've been thinking about it quite a lot. The answer, I figure, goes back to how we eat. Well…and what doesn't?

When I first taste a brand new dish, with the very first bite, I feel a splendid joy. I close my eyes, in fact, just to better appreciate the sensuous pleasure of the palate. Is there anything better? But next, almost without my conscious choice, I find the second bite brings with it a puzzle. I must, it seems, know how and why and where and what it took to get this unique result. I find myself deconstructing the tastes, solving the puzzle, if you will, of how a few ingredients could have been coaxed into such a unique melange. A dozen thoughts occur to me, all at once, as I ponder what type of cooking method performed at which precise degrees combined with what particular dough made from which exactly right grain, and mixed in what specific order and proportions had wrought this fine éclair, for example. It's how my brain works, overanalyzing its neurons to a frazzle, working out the recipe from the finished dish backwards.

It is not that different, I was finding, with murder, and I had sampled too much of this particular “dish” to dismiss it. I knew all the ingredients. I had only to reconstruct the timing and temperatures, the motives and movements, and I felt I was close to knowing who had
killed Vivian Duncan at the disastrous Silver-Bell wedding.

Albert Nbutu had not done it. I was certain of it. Let the police take him in if they thought they must. He'd be out.

Honnett had a car drop me at my house and I jumped into my own car as soon as my escorts left. I drove across the city from east to west. Traffic was nonexistent at three
A.M.
and I was cruising fast down the wide, black streets, slick now with a sudden unseasonable downpour.

At home, Holly and Wes were still hanging out with Paul. On the phone with Wes, I could hear Paul in the background playing his sax. But after I filled them in, Paul, of course, was gonzo to take on the authorities and see what he could do to help out Albert Nbutu. Wes and Hol were still wide awake and agreed to meet me in Beverly Hills. Arlo, I was told, had gone to bed. My bed. It was a territory thing, Holly tried to explain to me, but I was too jazzed with what was pinging around in my head to pay much attention.

Some cities are known for their nightlife. Not ours. Bars close at two in the morning in L.A., so there isn't much reason for anyone to be out late. And if Wilshire Boulevard going west into Beverly Hills was any example, nobody
was
. I sped through my share of yellow lights, wondering if I would beat them all.

I turned left and pulled up in front of the custom tailor shop and cut my engine. Mine was the only vehicle parked on either side of this commercial block. Rain fell softly and I let my wipers run as the car idled.

Soon I could see a pair of headlights coming up the street from the opposite direction. The car slowed, then pulled a wide U-turn to park directly behind me at the curb. When the car cut its lights, I could see in my rearview mirror a white Lincoln Continental. The door opened slowly and a hobbling figure hunched beneath a large hooded rain cape emerged.

When he got to my car I rolled down the window.

“I'm soaking wet,” grumbled Whisper Pettibone.

I jumped out of the Jeep and we walked up to the street door that led to the stairway to his office. Whisper used his key on the outer door lock and then I insisted I help him climb the steep staircase one floor up.

At the top were the two doors facing each other, just as I remembered. Only this time, there was crime scene tape across both Vivian's and Whisper's doors.

“You want me to…” Whisper stared at the yellow police tape.

I tore some of it off. “Open it.”

Soon, Whisper's key had unlocked the heavy door to his own office and we were inside. Whisper flipped on the office's overhead lights.

It had been a mess before. Papers every which way, drawers pulled out and dumped. Files slashed. Everything now seemed almost exactly as it was, except added to the picture were the black powder reminders that the fingerprint squad had been here with a vengeance.

“I simply cannot cope,” Whisper said, unmanned by the sheer enormity of the destruction.

“Madeline?” It was Wesley. He was calling up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Come on up,” I called back. And to Whisper I said, “Have a seat. We've got reinforcements.”

Holly and Wesley entered and we all four tried to find a place to stand where we weren't trodding upon sliced wedding photos or ripped invoices or, I pulled one intact slip of paper from the shredded mess, a recent California Lotto ticket.

“Loser,” Holly sniffed after checking it out. She keeps these things in her head.

Wesley took charge and righted a tan velvet loveseat, pushing aside the drifts of defiled papers.

“Please sit down,” I said to Whisper.

“Thank you. Oh, and by the way. When we spoke earlier, you asked me if I could find some photos, do you remember?”

“Yes. I was interested in seeing if we might recognize one of Vivian's young, um, employees.”

“Well look around, dear,” Whisper said, sad and grumpy. “Here are our files and photos. Watch where you step or you might destroy some vital clue.”

We all contemplated the extraordinary mess around our feet.

“Actually, I am interested in finding something much more important, now.”

“I'm sure I told you,” Whisper said, “the police have already spent a day here, trying to see what might have been taken. They aren't sure if anything has. They say it may have just been vandals looking for a kick. Someone who hated Vivian, perhaps, but not a thief.”

Wes perched next to Whisper and asked, “Was there anything here of value?”

“I do beg your pardon. Clearly you do not remember to whom you are talking. All, I repeat,
all
of our parties were written up in the newspapers. We had files of our clippings going back to 1977. Miss Taylor's weddings,” he said, “and I do mean in the plural. Miss Streisand's wedding. And now look at them. So,” Whisper held back a sob, “so, was there anything of value here, my friend? I don't know.
You
tell
me
.”

“Gentlemen,” I said, hoping to get back on track before Whisper tore off on another rant. With the trauma of seeing his precious “things” so messed up combined with the shock he must be feeling to reenter the location where he had been recently attacked, he was getting less steady by the minute.

“Which reminds me,” Holly put in, “how did you ever get the nickname Whisper?”

We all looked at him. His voice had been raised most of the time I'd known him.

“Ah, that. When I first began working with my lovely Vivian, she told me I spoke too loudly. It upset her. And so every time we'd be having a talk, she'd remind me, over and over, ‘Whisper, whisper.' In fact, her daughter
Beryl heard her mother say that to me so often, she just figured it was my name.”

I had not been expecting a sweet story. Somehow Vivian had grown into a caricature in my mind. I realized again how real and human Vivian Duncan had been to her grieving partner and friend. It made me more determined than ever to find out the truth.

“I believe there was something here. Something Vivian may have been killed over.”

“But nothing much was missing,” Whisper protested, sitting forward. “I assure you I had a detailed list of the company's assets and…” he looked around, miserably, “they are all pretty much here.”

“Perhaps, but we intend to search.”

“We do?” Holly did not sound optimistic.

“What? Through all this rubble? Do you have any idea what time it is?” Whisper asked. “Don't any of you young people sleep?”

“Calm down. We can do this. Now, Whisper, can you tell us the general layout of your offices? What rooms were used for what?”

“We had both sides of the stairs. Viv's office was on that side, of course, along with a bridal parlor where we display wedding photos from some of our past triumphs. That's where our clients come for their meetings with Viv. I remember now, the police officer told me the hooligans destroyed even the furniture in there. They broke the back off the television monitor, if you can imagine that. And they hacked up the VCR and even pried open the videocassettes we had in our wedding memories library.” He stopped with a sniff.

“Steady there. And are those all the rooms across the hall?”

“There is a little powder room on that side, as well.”

“Good. Now what about your side?”

“I've got this little entry,” Whisper said, gesturing. “And then down the hall is my office. I have my own bathroom off of that.”

“But there is another room in the back,” I said, “where you were found.”

“The supply room, yes. It's also where we keep the Xerox machine and those sorts of things.”

“So you were knocked unconscious and then locked up in a supply closet?” Holly asked, fascinated.

“It wasn't as much fun as it sounds, dear child,” Whisper said.

I thought it all over again and asked Whisper about my one insistent memory. “The other day, when the police rushed out of nowhere and scared the soufflé out of me, I didn't notice anything. But afterwards, after they found you and took you off to the hospital, I do remember getting a quick look through the open front door into Vivian's side of the office. There was a small desk. And on it was a silver dish. Am I right?”

Whisper looked at me. “Why yes. Vivian always had candies in a sterling candy bowl for her clients. It was one of her trademarks. You know, that kind of thoughtfulness.”

Wes spoke up. “Maddie, are you saying you remember seeing an expensive silver dish which the thieves left behind?”

Whisper jumped in, “That does seem peculiar. That candy dish was an antique, worth over a thousand dollars. I would certainly imagine even a
cretin
would know silver could be melted down.” They all thought it over, but I was interested in something else.

“Whisper, quick! What sort of candy did Vivian keep in that dish?”

They all turned and looked at me.

“Chocolate,” Whisper said slowly, not following my train of thought at all.

I got excited then. I
knew
it would have been chocolate! I made Whisper give Holly his master key and sent her across the hall to find the candy dish and bring it back to us.

A few minutes passed and then Holly returned, hold
ing a beautiful Sheffield dish, the one I remembered noting, but nothing more.

“This was on the desk,” she said. She turned to Whisper and asked, “What kind of chocolate was kept in that dish, anyway?”

But before Whisper had a chance to respond, I spoke up. I had to be right. I said, “Kisses!”

Whisper nodded. “That's right. Viv always insisted we keep Hershey's Kisses in that dish. It goes with the theme. Naturally, we were very aware of that sort of sentiment. Our brides appreciate it, you know.”

Wes looked at me, excited. “What's up, Mad?”

But I was too excited to slow down and explain. I jumped up and said, “Come on.” Jogging down the short hallway to the back of the offices I pushed open the door to the supply room. On one side a counter ran the length of the room. A broken coffee maker sat tipped over. I stepped over the cord to the copy machine, which had been shoved over against the water cooler, which had in turn spilled over the mess of papers on the floor.

Wes and Holly were right behind me. Whisper discovered renewed energy as well, and pushed past them. I pulled open the supply closet door, the one that had recently housed the unconscious body of Mr. Pettibone himself. In the closet were several cardboard cartons of kitchen supplies. One box contained packets of coffee for the coffee maker. The carton had been slit open by the intruder and its contents checked. Nothing but coffee.

In another carton was a supply of tea bags. This box, too, had been roughly ripped open and a few dozen tea bags had been yanked out and were now on the floor of the closet. No doubt the thorough search had left no box unchecked.

I bent down to pull out the brown cardboard box that was marked in black with the name “Hershey's.” Its top had been ripped open, revealing a few dozen bulk-sized cellophane bags of Hershey's Kisses.

“Oh my God,” Holly said, squeezing her arms to
gether and bouncing on her heels. “Oh my God. What is it?”

After feeling around to the bottom of the box, I pulled out one individual cellophane bag. From the look of it, it was identical to all the others.

“You've been filling up the candy dish for how long, Whisper?”

“Years. Since we opened. Why? What is that you have?”

“It's a bag that was at the very bottom of this carton. But it wasn't just on the bottom,” I said, turning it over. “It was taped to the bottom.” I showed them.

“Each month when I order fresh supplies for the office,” Whisper explained, “I put the new bags of candy right in there.” He gestured to the carton I was holding.

I ripped the cellophane top off the bag and poured several dozen silver-wrapped Kisses out onto the table.

“Hey, there are some smaller ones. They're not the right shape,” Holly said, reaching for a candy. She untwisted the foil and pulled out a dark green rock the size of a Milk Dud.

“What is it?” she asked.

“One,” I said, “of fifty-two missing rough emeralds from the Sandawana mine district in what used to be Rhodesia. Wrapped in silver foil.”

I began unwrapping another one.

“Oh, mercy me!” Whisper Pettibone said, collapsing in the room's only chair.

“What do we do now?” Wes asked.

We had to know for sure.

I handed them out to the group and said, “Count them.”