Pie A La Murder (24 page)

“What it means is that none of them have an alibi.”

“But so far D’Martino’s the one with the motive.”

“There was a time when the police thought that about
you
,” I said softly. Without thinking, I reached out to take his hand, but he stepped away quickly.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, and left without another word. A moment later I heard the front door close.

I exchanged my slacks for a pair of sweatpants, and the high heels I had worn for the photo shoot for a pair of running shoes, hooked Tuffy’s leash to his collar, and took him for a walk. We were well into the second block when I realized that John had gone without asking me to give him my word that I’d stay out of police business.

Had he forgotten? Or didn’t he ask because he knew I wouldn’t promise and he didn’t want to fight?

By the time Tuffy and I had strolled the neighborhood for a good half hour, I had decided on my next move. It didn’t involve investigating; this was personal. Inside the house, I shoved my driver’s license, some cash, and my keys into a pocket of the sweats, and gave Tuffy and Emma good-bye strokes. Climbing into the Jeep, I drove down to the Santa Monica Pier where I planned to spend as long as I could manage working out on their climbing wall. That exercise was not only good for strengthening my legs and tightening my waist, but it was going to keep my upper arms from the dreaded “flapping” that Roxanne Redding had predicted.

I got home two hours later, my hair damp with sweat and every muscle in my body aching.

In the kitchen, intending to find something to have for dinner after I showered, I noticed that I’d left my black suit jacket on the back of a chair instead of hanging it up in the closet with the matching slacks.

When I picked the jacket up by the collar I got a surprise. It was heavier than it should have been. Looking closer, I saw a bulge in one of the pockets. When I slipped my hand inside, I pulled out the two little spy cameras that had disappeared from the table.

Liddy or Shannon must have put them there when they heard John at the front door.

I had no idea what I would find, but after taking a shower and having something to eat, I planned to carefully go through the pictures they had snapped.

It was a place to start.

After showering and taking Tuffy for his final evening walk, I lay down. I told myself that I just needed a few minutes to rest my eyes before beginning to examine the spy photos, but I fell asleep in my clothes with the light on and didn’t wake up until a few minutes before five next morning.

Tuffy was lying on the foot of the bed, snoring softly, and Emma was curled up on what I called “the guest pillow” beside me. “Guest pillow” was a term Liddy had coined a year after Mack died, when she told me it was time I started to date and “to live again.” It took another year before I could even think about romance. Since then, the only human head that had rested on that pillow was Nicholas’s.

I thought about Roxanne Redding. Was she lying in the bed she had shared with her husband? Was she sleeping? It was Sunday, the beginning of her fourth day of widowhood.

When Mack died, I’d lain on his side of the bed for several nights, as though that could somehow reverse time, flip the calendar backward to an hour before his heart attack, when I’d be able to think of something that would have kept him from going out on the jog that killed him. Part of me knew that nothing I did could change what happened, but I wasn’t being rational. The pain of his loss was deeper than I could have ever imagined. I thought I’d never be able to breathe normally again.

There’s a cliché that claims “time heals all wounds.” Many clichés are rooted in truth, but not that one. Yes, pain fades with time. Even the memory of pain fades, but there are some wounds that become part of who we are. As horrible as it was to lose Mack, it made me stronger. Not tough, but tougher. Short of losing a child, the worst had happened to me, and I survived.

My faith holds that I’m still here, alive, for a reason. Nobody can tell me what that reason is, but, to me, “faith” means believing what you cannot see.

I believe Nicholas is innocent of Alec Redding’s murder.

At the moment, I’d like to thump him over the head with a sauté pan for shutting me out of whatever he’s doing, or feeling. But the reality is that I’ve never hit anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me, so I’ll have to exorcise my frustration about Nicholas by trying to solve a murder.

John O’Hara made it clear he doesn’t want my help.

Another shower. Put on clean clothes. Clean Emma’s box. Take Tuffy for a walk, and serve breakfast and fresh water to my friends in fur. Feeding them, I realized that I was ravenous; I’d fallen asleep last night without having dinner.

Passing Eileen’s bedroom door, I heard the sound of her shower running.

She’s up. Good. I have an excuse to make pancakes
.

I heard her turn off the water, and tapped on the door.

She called out, “Yes?”

“Pancakes in ten minutes?”

“I’ll be there,” she said.

While Eileen and I were eating, I told her that I wanted to view some pictures from a digital camera on the computer monitor, but I didn’t know how.

“It’s easy. People have been doing it for years.”

“I haven’t. Basically, I use my computer like a typewriter.”

“You’ve got a USB port,” she said. “All you need to do is attach a cable from the camera to the computer. I know you have a cable.” She gestured toward the desk on which the computer sat. “I saw one in the junk drawer over there.”

“Oh, right. I’ve got a collection of mystery cables and electronic gizmos.”

With teasing good humor, Eileen rolled her eyes at me. “Aunt Del, you’re one step away from being a Luddite.” She took our empty plates to the sink to rinse them off and put them into the dishwasher. “Give me the digital camera and I’ll set it up for you.”

When I returned to the kitchen with the little cameras, Eileen examined them closely. “Where did you get these? Have you been moonlighting with the CIA?”

“Liddy bought them at a spy shop in Beverly Hills. She and your mother helped me do some investigating yesterday afternoon at Roxanne Redding’s. Your dad arrived and wasn’t too pleased to find us there.”

“That’s a safe bet. I can just hear him.” She lowered her voice and frowned with ferocity. “‘Della, this is police business. Go home and cook something.’”

It was a pretty good imitation of John O’Hara and made me laugh.

Eileen connected the cable she found in the drawer to the first camera, then to the computer’s USB port. “This is all you do.” She turned on the monitor and we saw a panel made up of a dozen postage stamp–size photos. From what I could make out, this camera held Liddy’s photos of the Reddings’ financial records, but they were too small for me to read the information.

“Enlarge whatever you want by choosing the image, and . . .” Eileen moved the cursor to the first of the little images and clicked the mouse. “There.”

The first page of a tax return materialized almost life-size on the screen.

“Looks like dull stuff,” Eileen said, scanning it.

“Your tax returns and mine are dull,” I said, “but I’m hoping this one has a useful secret somewhere in here.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Something unusual, that doesn’t seem to fit with the total picture.” I admitted that I was on a fishing expedition, and the chances were that it would be a waste of time as far as finding a clue to Redding’s killer. “But I have to try.”

Eileen said, “Dad calls working a murder case a matter of wearing out the shoe leather.”

I gestured to my chair. “Or wearing a shine in the seat of the pants.”

“Good luck,” she said. “I’m off to do a little investigating of my own.”

That yanked my attention away from the computer. I turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Not
your
kind,” she said with a smile. “I’m going to meet a man for coffee, see if I like him enough to try having a whole meal with him sometime.”

I saw that her cheeks were coloring.

“Tell me about him.”

Eileen straddled one of the kitchen chairs and propped her elbows on the back of it. “He came into the shop yesterday to order a box of cupcakes to take to his parents. He’s a lawyer. Seems nice. He asked me out, but all I agreed to was Sunday morning coffee at that place on Montana and Fifth. After coffee, I’m going to take Mother out to lunch. Daddy’s working today.”

“Tell your mom from me that she’s been a terrific help.”

Eileen stood and put the chair back in its place at the kitchen table. “Listen, I know you and Daddy are on opposite sides of the fence about this, but I’m really hoping you, or somebody, can prove Nick didn’t kill that man.”

“I appreciate that. I know you’re not crazy about Nicholas.”

“He makes you happy, so I’ve learned to like him. More important, his daughter needs a father.”

“I love you, honey,” I said.

“I know. You’re the best second mother and business partner anybody could have. Happy detecting.”

She gave me a quick hug and was gone.

I went back to examining the pages and pages of financial information that Liddy had copied. An hour into the tedious work of studying the couple’s financial life line-byline, I saw an item in their list of deductible expenses that snagged my attention. Roxanne claimed $3,000 for “continuing education,” but there was no explanation as to what that meant. Probably nothing, but . . .

I advanced the frames, hoping that Liddy had photographed their cancelled checks. She had. I went through them quickly, looking for the name of a class or a school. Nothing. But I did find two checks made out to “cash” for $1,500 each. But what kind of “continuing education” had she paid for in cash?

Eileen had called me a Luddite, and she was partly right. I did prefer some things as they used to be done, such as getting one’s cancelled checks back from the bank instead of just a sheet of tiny replicas. By turning over cancelled checks, one could find out who cashed them.

“Wait. My bank also sends sheets duplicating the backs of my checks. They don’t use the same bank, but maybe . . .” I made a note of the two check numbers.

I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud until Tuffy got up from his bed and came over to look at me curiously.

“Good boy. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.” I reached down and gave him strokes with my left hand while with my right I kept advancing though the photos.

Yes! There were pages showing the backs of the checks. I skimmed through them until I found the back of the first check number I’d copied. It had been endorsed by a man whose name was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it.

The second check for $1,500 had been endorsed by the same man: Galen Light.