Pie A La Murder (31 page)

Nicholas was skeptical. “I don’t know if the cops will buy that story.”

“They have to. I’d gone to the crapper, left my phone on the table. When she called, Barry answered. He talked to her first.”

“He knows her voice?” I asked.

“Sure. Gretch and me go out a lot with Barry and his girl. Anyway, right after she called, Barry and me went to the station to check in. We were together all the time until midnight.”

Downey looked from me to Nicholas and back to me, a plea in his eyes. “I know my making a copy of the phone dumps looks bad—okay, it was really wrong—but I swear to God, on my mother’s life, Gretch promised whatever she found out that could help clear the Redding case, she’d turn it right over to Lieutenant O’Hara or Detective Weaver. All she wanted was to make a name for herself as a reporter.”

Something seemed to occur to Downey and he sat up straighter. “You two . . . you’re doing an illegal search. I live here. I got home and found you with—” Apparently he realized where that sentence was heading. He slumped again.

“You found us with material that
you
stole from an LAPD investigation,” I said.

The room was silent for a moment. Nicholas’s expression was thoughtful. I guessed we were thinking pretty much the same thing: that we should turn Officer Downey in for what he did, but then we’d have to confess how we found out. For my part, I felt queasy about the hypocrisy of destroying Downey’s career. Nicholas and I had been investigating on our own, in spite of John’s telling us to drop it.

But Nicholas and I couldn’t stay out of it; the stakes were too high. He had risked going to jail by leaving the country to learn what he could about Prince Freddie, and I’d been physically assaulted for trying to get information out of Galen Light.

And for her ambition, Gretchen Tully had paid with her life.

With the surprise of discovering her relationship with Downey, and almost simultaneously being confronted by him at gunpoint, I’d lost sight of the most important human element in this scene.

“Have Gretchen’s next of kin been told what happened to her?” I asked Downey.

“Her folks died in a car accident couple years ago. She only has a sister, Jolene, up in Wisconsin. Married, with a little kid. I guess somebody should call her. . . .”

“Let one of the detectives do it,” Nicholas said. “They’ll want to question her to find out when she last talked to Gretchen, and if she knows what Gretchen was doing the past few days.”

“Officer Downey, I have a suggestion,” I said. “Right now, before they find out on their own, go to Detective Keller, and to John O’Hara. Tell them that you and Gretchen were living together, but don’t tell them you gave her a copy of the phone dumps.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate—”

“This isn’t a charitable contribution,” I said. “It’s a deal.”

“What do you want?”

“To keep the phone list,” Nicholas said.

Downey considered his options, then shook Nicholas’s hand. Next, he shook mine. “Okay,” he said.

I put the silver frame with their photo on the top of the dresser.

Nicholas slipped the pages of numbers back into the manila envelope.

We told Downey that we were very sorry about Gretchen, and left the apartment.

Outside, Nicholas walked me to my Jeep and took me in his arms. “Those poor kids—Downey and Gretchen.”

Our arms tightened around each other as we stood in the darkness.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” Nicholas whispered.

“We have some things to talk about,” I said, stepping back. “But first we need to get you out of this mess. Maybe those phone numbers will help.”

“I’ll take them home and fax copies to you.”

“No. John and Weaver are going to bring you in for questioning again. If they get a warrant to search your house, they mustn’t find these. Let me have them.”

“Good thinking.” He handed the envelope to me. “Today’s Wednesday. You’re not working, are you?”

“No.”

“Get some sleep. I’ll call you as soon as I know when I can go over those numbers with you.” He leaned forward; we kissed, and said good night.

I locked myself in and watched Nicholas hurry across the street to his car. It was only when I inserted the key in the ignition that I saw I was still wearing my burglar gloves. Stripping them off, I was about to throw them into the little receptacle I kept beneath the dashboard for trash when I changed my mind. I folded them neatly and put them in the glove compartment under the flashlight.

Were they going to be a memento? Or a memory? I didn’t know.

After a few hours’ sleep, I woke at seven and was just coming out of the shower when Liddy called.

“Sorry to phone so early,” she said, “but I’m working on a set today and have to leave soon. What happened at the police station last night?”

I told her about my conversation with Detective Keller.

“Yikes. He sounds like a real charmer,” Liddy said. “Do they have any idea who killed her—Gretchen Tully?”

“Not yet. No exact time of death, either, but it looks like she was killed somewhere else and dumped behind the hotel after dark.”

“Oh, that poor girl.”

I told Liddy about meeting Nicholas at Gretchen’s apartment, and discovering that she was living with one of the two uniform officers who were at Alec Redding’s house the night of his murder. I didn’t tell her about Officer Downey stealing a copy of the phone lists for Gretchen, and that they were now in my possession. I couldn’t tell Shannon or Eileen, either, because it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to keep such a secret from John.

“You thought there was a leak at the department,” Liddy said. “Now we know it was Gretchen Tully’s cop boyfriend who tipped her off about Nick being under suspicion.”

I gave myself a mental shake. It was useless to speculate on what might have happened. “That’s the quickest way to drive yourself crazy,” I said.

“What is?”

I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud. “What I meant was that we can’t go back and change the past.”

“Good thing, too—we’d probably screw up the future,” Liddy said. “I’ve got to leave in a minute, but did Gretchen have family here?”

“All I know is that there’s a sister in Wisconsin, but Nicholas said the paper is doing a feature article on her life and career. There should be a lot of information in it.”

“I’d like to send a donation in her name to a charity. Maybe her obituary will mention some cause she was interested in.”

“When we find out, I’ll send a contribution, too.”
Guilt money
, I thought ruefully.

“Well, I’m off to be the ‘Woman Who Gets out of Cab’ just before Leonardo DiCaprio gets into it. They told me to wear a flared skirt because they’ve got a wind machine and want to show some leg. Thank God panty hose hides cellulite!”

“Panty hose—one of the Western world’s great inventions,” I joked.

“You’re not kidding, Del. Remember how people were stuffing them with human hair to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf? And last weekend, I saw a woman wearing them with her tennis outfit.”

“I can beat that. Once when I was out of cheesecloth, I cut the leg off a pair to squeeze the liquid out of some ricotta when I was making a cheesecake.”

We laughed, I wished Liddy good luck on her shoot, and we said good-bye.

Tuffy and I were coming back from our long morning walk just as Nicholas drove up. He got out of his car carrying a bulging plastic grocery bag.

Indicating the bag, I said, “Those are just about outlawed. I’ll give you a cloth reusable.”

“ ‘It’s not easy being green,’ ” he said.

“That’s cute, Kermit. Thank you for not singing it.”

“I’ve got to meet Olivia at Butler Avenue at ten, but first I brought something to make our investigating a little easier.”

“What is it?”

“Not out here. Come on inside and I’ll show you.”

I unlocked the front door and unhooked Tuffy’s leash. Nicholas followed us down the hallway and into the kitchen. I offered coffee, but he declined.

“Where’s that list of phone numbers?” he asked.

“Hidden.” I opened the door of the freezer and from the bottom shelf removed a roll of what looked like premade biscuit dough wrapped in aluminum foil. Stripping off the foil covering, I unrolled the manila envelope and smoothed it out flat on the table.

Nicholas gave me an admiring smile and said, “Pretty clever.” Opening his plastic grocery bag, he took out a thick book. “Here’s what I’m bringing to the party.”

I felt my eyes widening in surprise. “A reverse phone directory? I thought only the police and the phone company had those. Where did you get it?”

“Can’t reveal my source,” he said. “Even to my partner in crime, who’s also the woman I love.” He tipped my chin up to examine my face. “You’re looking better. How does your mouth feel?”

“The cut’s healed.”

“Good.” He drew me into an embrace and gave me a gentle kiss. I put my arms around him and responded with enthusiasm.

When we came up for air, Nicholas said, “I want you so much it’s a physical ache.” He stepped back, but took my hand and held it. “Before we get to finding out who the Reddings have been calling, there’s something I need to say.”

“You have another child I don’t know about?” I kept my voice light.

“No. Seriously. A couple of minutes ago I called you my partner in crime, but I admit lately I haven’t been the real partner you deserve. It’s created a wedge between us; I saw that when I came back from Vienna. I couldn’t let you know where I was because I didn’t want to put you in a more difficult position than I have already. But being away from you—not being able to talk to you—made me realize how you must have felt on the other end of my silence. What I want to say is that I’m sorry I cut you out for a while. I hope you haven’t given up on me because I promise not to do it again.”

“You’re right about the wedge,” I said. “I won’t settle for a fair weather relationship. Whatever problems are thrown at us, if we can’t be truly together in dealing with them—and that’s not a matter of geography—then we’re not my idea of a couple.”

“I won’t let Celeste come between us,” he said.

“Oh, Nicholas,
please
. I’m not in competition with your daughter. I told you I’m very happy she contacted you so you can build a relationship with her, and I meant it. But right now we have to concentrate on getting you both out from under suspicion of murder.”

“This is the first time in my life, and I’m including my marriage to Tanis, when I’ve felt like half of something complete. I’ve been a bit of a slow learner.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I think you’ve learned pretty fast.” I stretched up and gave him a quick kiss. “Now let’s get to work.”

He sat at the table and removed the pages of numbers from the envelope while I got one of my white legal pads from the desk next to the computer. I tore off a few sheets for him to use, and took the chair opposite.

Nicholas was skimming through the pages. “The cops got the phone records from the day Redding was killed going back for three months,” he said.

“They had two landlines and three cell phones,” I said. “Let’s separate the pages into the calls from each number.”

The landlines and two of the cells had several pages of numbers each. One cell had only two pages. Suspecting that was the mystery phone, I picked them up.

“I’ll start with this phone,” I said. Nicholas nodded and began studying one of the other piles.

There was a list of twenty-two calls on my pages. Twelve of them were to the same number. Six were to another number. Those eighteen were all to numbers in the 310 area code, which meant the Los Angeles area encompassing Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood, Bel Air, Santa Monica, and Malibu. The final four were all to one number in the 949 area code, a location considerably south of Los Angeles, in the vicinity of San Clemente or Del Mar, in Orange County. I knew that because one of my cooking students lived in Del Mar and had a 949 number.