Pie A La Murder (35 page)

“Nothing.” It would have been more politic to act meek and apologetic to a bully like Keller, but I couldn’t do it. I responded to his unpleasant tone with ice in my own. “The car doors were unlocked. I put on latex gloves—”

“Yeah?” Keller smirked. “What were you doing with them? You just carry a pair around?”

“My profession is cooking,” I said. “Anyone who handles food—”

Weaver interrupted. “Forget that. What did you touch?”

“Only the camera. And I put it back on the floor in front of the passenger seat, exactly where I found it. It’s digital, and the SD card is missing.”

Keller said, “What if we get a female officer out here for a full body search? We might find that card.”

“By all means, have me searched.” I stared at him defiantly. “But why wait? You have my permission to do it yourself.”

Keller knew I was daring him. He blinked first, shrugged, and turned away. Without a further word to me, he opened the driver’s side door and peered into Gretchen’s car.

Weaver said, “What made you figure the girl’s car was here?”

“I had no idea where it was. I spent the last two hours going up and down streets in a kind of grid pattern because I theorized that whoever killed Gretchen moved her car from wherever it had been. Whether it was someone at the Olympia Grand Hotel, or Roxanne or Light in Brentwood, they wouldn’t have driven it too far away from their home base because they could get back without leaving a trail by using public transportation.”

“The killer coulda had an accomplice with wheels,” Weaver pointed out.

“That’s possible, but then wouldn’t the car have been driven a long way away? Whoever drove here left the doors unlocked and the keys on the floor next to the accelerator. The killer probably hoped that the car would be stolen and you’d never find it. Or if you did, it wouldn’t be in any condition to be useful to the investigation.”

“Go home,” Weaver said, making a shooing gesture. “We’ll take it from here.”

“You’re welcome,” I said curtly.

Weaver glanced at Keller, who by now was on the passenger side of the car, examining Gretchen’s camera. Leaning toward me and keeping his voice low, Weaver said, “We had an APB out on this car, but you found it first. Thanks.”

I was three blocks from home when my cell rang. It was Liddy, and she sounded upset.

“Del, where are you?”

“In the car, just turning onto my street. What’s the matter?”

“Have you seen today’s
Los Angeles Observer
?”

“No.” The
Observer
, a racy tabloid similar to the
New York Post
, had begun publication in Southern California as an afternoon paper about a year ago. I subscribed to the city’s morning daily, the
Chronicle
, and bought the
Observer
once in a while when it caught my eye on a newsstand. “Why? What’s in it?”

“Go find a copy,” she insisted. “Call me as soon as you get home.”

“Liddy, I’m tired. What are you talking about?”

“You’ve got to
see
it.” I heard the urgency in her voice. “It’s on the front page.”

I knew that Liddy seldom got upset over minor things. With a growing sense of apprehension, I told her that I would, and turned the Jeep around.

The corner of Montana and Eleventh had a line of vending machines in front of a popular coffeehouse that had several small tables outside where people were allowed to have their dogs sitting with them. I nosed the Jeep into the only empty spot I saw—a passenger loading zone—and kept the motor running.

The coin-operated box containing the
Los Angeles Observer
sat between similar machines selling the
Chronicle
and
USA Today
. I inserted three quarters, pulled the glass door open, and took out a copy of the
Observer
.

I felt my mouth drop open in shock.

Below the paper’s logo, and covering most of the front page, was Alec Redding’s photograph of Celeste holding the pie. Her nude derriere was concealed by the
Observer
’s judicious use of a black bar, but it was clear that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath the chef’s apron.

The headline above the picture read: “Motive for Murder?”

“Hey, lady, you’re going to get a ticket.”

A young man in a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, sitting with an English sheepdog by his side at one of the curbside tables, had called out the warning.

I looked up to see a Parking Enforcement person in one of those white golf cart–type vehicles approaching. My Jeep couldn’t stay in the passenger loading zone.

“Thank you,” I said, quickly folding the paper in half and shoving it under my arm. I jumped back into the Jeep. With seconds to spare, I managed to zoom into a momentary gap in the line of traffic on Montana Avenue and get away before the woman could cite me.

I drove straight home without stopping to read what went with Celeste’s picture. In red type just below her image, it said, “Sensational story on pages four and five.”

My cell phone rang as I put my key in the front door lock. Inside, I heard my landline ringing, too. I ignored both phones—voice mail would pick up the messages—rewarded Tuffy’s enthusiastic greeting with a quick pat, and headed for the kitchen to read the newspaper article. It was a good bet that the calls were about that. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, even to Liddy, until I’d read it.

In the kitchen, I opened the door to the backyard for Tuffy and told him we’d go for a walk a little later. Seeming to understand, he trotted outside.

It was close to five thirty. Not dark yet, but the sun was going down. I turned on the strong kitchen light and opened the paper.

Pages four and five had a large photo of Celeste in one of the fully dressed modeling poses that Redding had taken. Also accompanying the article were pictures of Alec Redding, from some Hollywood event, a shot of his home on Bella Vista Drive—they captioned it “the murder house”—and also a photo of Nicholas, taken two years ago, when he won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles in the
Chronicle
called “The Making of a Monster,” about the history of a serial killer.

Because of the tabloid size of the
Observer
, and the emphasis on photographs, there wasn’t a lot of room left for text. Unfortunately, there was enough to be damaging to Nicholas. Three reporters shared the byline. They had managed to find out that “prize-winning
Los Angeles Chronicle
journalist Nicholas D’Martino’s long-estranged teenage daughter” had come to Los Angeles from Europe to live with him, that Nicholas was “reputed to be enraged” when he saw the “scandalous” photos of his “child” taken by “celebrity portrait artist” Alec Redding.

That term—“celebrity portrait artist”—told me that the photo and the information had surely come from Roxanne Redding. One of the tricks good photographers use to relax a subject is to get them to talk during a session. While Celeste was sitting for Redding, I imagined that she had talked about not having known her father.

The
Observer
article then recounted gory details of the “rage-fueled slaying” of Redding: “his handsome head in a pool of blood, with the bloodstained bludgeon” discarded nearby. It went on to say that the “young girl’s angry father, Nicholas D’Martino, was discovered at the murder scene when police arrived, but claimed to have found Redding already dead.” The reporters added, “Arriving following the discovery of the body was glamorous TV chef Della Carmichael, with whom D’Martino has been keeping company. Because Redding’s time of death eliminates Ms. Carmichael as a suspect, her presence at the murder house is not considered significant by authorities.”

I didn’t think the article could get any worse for Nicholas, until I read the next paragraph, about the murder of “fellow
Chronicle
reporter, Gretchen Tully.” The
Observer
referred to her as “a rising young journalist rumored to be moving in on D’Martino’s crime beat territory.” The story concluded with this: “An unnamed LAPD source who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the department stated that D’Martino had not been taken into custody because the investigation was ongoing.”

My cell phone rang again. Just as I answered and heard Liddy’s voice, the landline started to ring again, too. I ignored it.

“Did you see that awful story?” Liddy asked.

“Yes, but you’ve got to remember that paper’s in competition with the
Chronicle,
so they’re trying to make Nicholas look bad.”

“They succeeded. Where did they get all that information?”

I told Liddy my belief that Roxanne Redding had sold the photos, probably for a lot of money, and that Celeste had talked about personal matters while she was being photographed. “Either Roxanne put a negative spin on whatever Celeste said, or the
Observer
reporters did.”

“At least they called you ‘glamorous,’ ” Liddy said.

“I should be flattered?” I said dryly. “I doubt whoever wrote it has ever seen me. Somebody throws in a bit like that to make their sleazy story a little more titillating.”

“I’m going to send an e-mail to the editor telling him that this story is so disgusting I’m never going to read their rotten paper again.”

“You’re wonderful, Liddy. Go get ’em.”

“I will. I can be very stern when I see an injustice being done.”

“Oh, I just realized—I should call Olivia Wayne about this. She may not have seen it.”

Olivia had seen it, and had already been on the phone with the
Observer
’s owner.

“Why go to the editor, when I can try to scare the hell out of the person who has much more to lose in a lawsuit?” she said.

“Are they going to retract this libelous story?”

“The problem is that they’ve stayed just this side of libel, quoting unnamed sources and only
implying
that Nick is a murderer. The piece was vetted by a lawyer before it went to press. I couldn’t win a case against them in court, but I persuaded the paper’s owner that I could make enough trouble for him—and cost him enough to make me go away—that he agreed to have the paper do a
positive
story about Nick.”

“What good will that do? This is so frustrating! People who read this will think Nicholas killed Redding, and maybe even poor Gretchen.”

“The public tends to remember only the last thing they read,” Olivia said briskly. “The moment the real murderer is caught, or there’s a new celebrity scandal, Nick will be forgotten. Until then, just keep your head down. Don’t talk to anyone from the
Observer
. You’ve got a live show to do tomorrow night, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Look on the bright side: You’ll probably get a bump up in ratings from this,” Olivia said. I could imagine her wry smile.