Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy (16 page)

It took no time for Marissa to make the connection. She puts a hand in front of her mouth and whispers, “Oh… my… god! You think it's Hali?”

We both sneak a peek at Hali, who's screwing the gas cap back on. “Maybe, but more likely Reena or Inga.”

“Inga? How do you figure that?”

“Well, look. If Max is worth a bundle—which obviously he is—and if he never told Inga that Hali is his daughter—which, from their conversation this morning, I'd say he didn't—then Inga has probably been expecting to inherit his fortune. Enter my mother, whom Max has decided to start a family with, and
poof !
that pretty little purse of his is snatched right out of Inga's hands.”

Marissa keeps an eye on Hali as she walks over to the station's building, and whispers, “Wow!”

“But what all this
means
is that whoever thought they were killing my mother last night didn't get the job done. My mother is still a problem.”

“Are you saying you think they're going to try it again? Sammy, there are cops all over the place trying to figure out who killed LeBrandi. Who'd be crazy enough to try it again?”

“Maybe they won't. I don't know. I just can't take the chance. We've got to get back and talk to my mother and maybe Max.”

“Max? Why him? What about the police?”

“If I tell the police, then I have to break my promise to Hali—otherwise what I'm telling them won't make sense.”

“But what if it was
Hali
who tried to kill your mother?”

“What if it's
not
? I mean, you were right—that house is full of people we don't know anything about—and if it's
not
Hali and I break my pact with her, then…”

Hali pushes through the gas station door with a quart of oil in her hand. Marissa watches her approach the Bug and nods. “Then she can break her pact with you.”

I rested my head against the seat back. “I was crazy to tell her. Cra-zy!”

Hali calls through the window, “You two okay? I think I'm low a quart—it'll only be a minute.”

She pops the hood behind us, and I whisper to Marissa, “I need to find out if Inga knew.”

“That Max proposed?”

“Yeah. 'Cause if she
didn't
, then my prime suspects would have to be either Hali or her mother.”

“Or…,” Marissa whispers, “both.”

Hali slams the hood and dumps the empty oil jug in the trash. I lean back a little and say, “I don't know about that…. They're not even talking to each other!”

Marissa sits forward as Hali comes around to the driver's door. “Yeah, well, maybe that's why!”

Hali plops into her seat, whips her seat belt on, and says, “Okay, now we're ready to jam.” She fires up the Bug, lets the thing idle a minute, then throws it into gear and lays rubber getting out of the parking lot. “Did you hear it pinging before? God, this thing just eats oil, but hey, it beats shelling out my savings on a new one.” She looks at me in the rearview mirror. “You okay back there?”

I nod and try to change the subject. “Don't you think Max would, you know, buy you a new car?”

“You mean blackmail one out of him?” She laughs and says, “You've got a super-sized naughty streak on you, girl.”

“No, I didn't mean blackmail! I meant just ask.”

She didn't say anything else. Didn't mention life and death or what a freak I'd been at Java Joint. All she did was
shake her head and chuckle. The whole way home. And then, when we pulled into the driveway and parked inside the cottage garage, she grins at us and says, “Thanks, girls. I've got myself a whole new perspective on my situation.”

I buried the picture of Claire and the head shots inside a grocery sack, and we helped Hali carry in the dry cleaning and food. And as we let down the garage door, she started humming.

Humming
.

And she kept right on humming as she punched the code into the kitchen's back-door panel, thumped a bag of groceries on a counter, and went over to the laundry room door. I had a grocery sack, too, so I put it next to hers on the counter, but I guess I was taking too long, because she says, “C'mon, Burdock. The dry cleaning goes in here.”

I catch up to Hali and Marissa, saying, “Quit with the Burdock, would you?”

Hali grins. “Aw, it's cute. Suits you.”

I grumble, “Thanks a lot.”

So Hali pushes through the laundry room door, and all of a sudden we're like a rush-hour pileup. Hali screeches to a halt, Marissa plows right into her, and I bump
smack!
into Marissa.

And the reason we're all piled up is because standing there, blocking the road, is someone none of us is ready to see.

Hali must've decided that since there was no going around him, she'd put the pedal to the metal and go right through him. She gives him a sour look and says, “Hello…
Dad
.”

For a minute he just stares at her through his tortoise-shell glasses; then he nods very slowly and says, “This would explain your mother's disappearance.” He eyes Marissa and me while he asks Hali, “Who else have you told?”

“Oh, aren't you precious. Nineteen years of deception, and all you're worried about is who else knows? Well, the answer, my pathetic padre, is nobody. These girls do, but they're highly motivated not to talk.” She turns to us. “Isn't that right?”

Now, believe me, at this point I am sweating it out pretty good. I mean, she's driving this conversation like she drives her Bug, and any minute she's going to take a wrong turn and wipe us all out.

“Isn't that right?” she asks me again.

I swallow hard and nod.

Hali slaps back a braid that's fallen across her face. “And what's this about Mama?”

“She's nowhere to be found. We thought she might be with you, but obviously that's not the case.” He sighs and says, “I'm sorry things happened this way. Truly, I am. But right now Detective Doyle is anxious to speak with you, and I think it'd be a good idea if you'd go in there and dissuade his suspicions regarding you.”

Hali points to herself. “Me? He thinks
I
killed LeBrandi?”

“Your exit at their arrival did not exactly put you in a favorable light, Hali.”

“I went to get the dry cleaning!”

“Go explain that to Detective Doyle. He's in the dining hall. I believe he's finished interviewing everyone else.”

Hali grumbles a bit, but she takes off, and when she's gone Max looks at Marissa and me and says, “Dominique's been quite worried about the two of you, and I know she'll be greatly relieved to see you.
However
, this situation with Hali is personal and it's private, and I would greatly appreciate your not discussing it with Dominique.”

“But…it
is
her business to know, don't you think?” I look him right in the eye and try to forget the irony. “Wouldn't
you
want to know if the person you were thinking about marrying had a secret child somewhere?”

He freezes. “She's told you about my proposal?”

“Well, we could tell something was up, so we kind of talked it out of her.”

He closes his eyes and says, “Oh, heaven, what a mess.”

All of a sudden I realize that this is my chance. Maybe my only chance. I take a deep breath and say, “Mr. Mueller,
there's something else that I really have to discuss with you, but not here. Can we go into your office?”

“My office? Why?”

“Because I …I can't talk about it here.”

He snaps, “Why not?”

Now, I could've talked about it right then and there, but I didn't know how else I'd ever get into Max's office. I mean, it was easy to see that something, somewhere, was going to give, and that my mother's whole world was about to come crashing down around her. And even though I hadn't really done anything to get her into the mess she was in—well, except for that little mistake of confiding in a girl who might've been trying to kill her— I still felt like I had to at least try to get her out of it. Because I was beginning to understand that if my mother did get kicked out of Max Mueller's agency, she'd never work again. Not as an actress, anyway. Not with the way Max's contract sentenced her to his little financial prison for eight years. If my mother thought she was old now, she'd be Fräulein Fossil by the time her contract with him ran out.

So I wanted to get inside the office again. And this time I wanted to look at more than just the weird decor. There had to be a filing cabinet. Somewhere. And even though I knew I wouldn't be able to get my hands on her contract with Max standing right there, maybe—just maybe—I could do something about it later.

So when Mighty Max tells me he doesn't have time to go to his office, I signal Marissa, who digs up the ring and hands it over to him.

At first he doesn't take it. Then he turns red, then completely white. “Where did you get this? Do you have the other pieces?”

“Like I said, we can't talk about it here. Can we please go to your office?”

He blinks twice behind those glasses, then marches off. And while we trail after him, I whisper my plan to Marissa. I can tell she thinks I'm losing it again, but she can also tell that it's very important to me. She hisses, “If this lands us in jail…”

I try to kid her with “Maybe there'll be some drunk and disorderly movie stars in the cell next to us,” but she just hits me in the arm.

When we get to Max's office, he unlocks the deadbolt, whisks us in, and says, “So. Here we are.” He sits on the edge of his desk and unfolds his hand, showing us the ring. “Now. Where did you get this, and do you know where the brooch and necklace are?”

His eyes are looking glossy and hard. But in the center there's a soft spot, and to me, they don't look stern and fierce like he wants them to. They look like two kiwiflavored Tootsie Pops under glass.

“Well?” he demands.

“Well,” I say, “actually, it's sorta hard to talk about— and there's a lot
to
talk about—but since I know you're worried about your Honeymoon Jewels, I'll start at the end and work back, okay?”

The crunchy candy outside starts to crack. “Yes. Please.” He puts a hand toward two carved ebony chairs. “Would you be more comfortable sitting?”

Marissa takes a seat, but I start moving around a little, saying, “No, actually—”

Marissa pipes up with “Actually, Sammy has trouble talking and sitting. Actually, she has trouble thinking and sitting, or eating and sitting, or…”

I pull a face at her and say, “He gets the idea, Marissa,” but when I'm sure Max can't see, I wink at her so she knows
I
know she's doing me a favor. Then I say, “Yes. I know where the necklace and brooch are, and yes, you'll get them both back today.”

He springs up from the corner of his desk and says, “But how did you find them? Who had them? Where are they now?”

“Like I said, it's pretty complicated, and we'll tell you the whole story, but first, I'm confused about a couple of things. You called these the Honeymoon Jewels. Is that because you're planning to give them to Dominique?”

He blinks at me a minute, then sighs and says, “From your vantage point, I'm sure I appear to be a real cad.” Then he looks up toward the ceiling and proceeds to talk about good intentions and human frailties, and how he hopes he'll make fewer mistakes the next time around.

Now, while he's musing about his mountain of mistakes, I'm checking out furniture, lifting table skirts, moving slowly away from him and Marissa to the other side of the room. And I'm in the middle of finding a whole lot of nothing when he swivels on his desk to face me and says, “So yes, I was planning to present them as a token of everlasting love.”

I scratch my neck and signal Marissa to start snooping. “Who knew this?”

“No one, really. I had only recently taken them out of…of storage.”

“You didn't tell Reena? Or Inga?”

He frowns. “Inga knew nothing of the jewels, and discussing a gift of this kind with Reena would have been most insensitive.”

“But they both knew you wanted to marry Dominique?”

“Yes. I tried my best to explain it to Reena, but she didn't grasp the concept.”

So Inga did know! My heart was kicking and bucking, but I tried to hold the reins tight. “The concept?”

He looks at me and sighs. “Yes. I'm afraid it's something that's beyond Reena's grasp, and at this point it's too late for me to do anything about that.”

“But what concept?”

“The concept of Claire. Now please. You were telling me about the jewels?”

I still didn't understand what he meant, but I had to concentrate on keeping his focus away from Marissa. I mean, I was afraid she wouldn't do anything, but there she is across the room, moving around like Super Snoop. It's amazing—she's not biting a thumbnail or doing the McKenze dance. She's being nervy. Very nervy. It's like she's whipped on a mask and double-S cape.

So I start maneuvering myself around the room in such a way that Max's back is always to Marissa. And while she's busy sliding open his desk drawers and checking inside boxes, I'm telling Max the story, handling his knickknacks
and artifacts just enough to make him nervous so he won't take his eyes off me.

I'm dragging the story out, too, telling the tiniest little details about the brooch and how we'd figured out Cosmo's phone number, and about going to the curio shop and confronting Opal at the Peppermint Peacock.

Finally he interrupts me, saying, “She admitted it?”

I'm pretending to be interested in the big hieroglyphic shapes that are woven into the tapestry that's hanging on the wall, kind of fingering them as I say, “Well, she couldn't exactly deny it…,” when all of a sudden I get this vague, heady feeling of déjà vu. And that's when I realize that something — the tapestry? I'm not sure —
smells
familiar. So I sniff. And it's coming back to me, but not quite, so I stick my nose right into his woolly woven heirloom and take a good hearty whiff.

Well, I guess he didn't appreciate me Dustbusting his tapestry because he comes over, takes me by the shoulders, and steers me into a chair, saying, “You have no idea of the value of some of these items. Please, try not to touch, or
sniff
, anything else, would you?”

Marissa's already slid back into her chair, twitching and shaking a little beside me as she recovers from her adventure as Super Snoop. She shakes her head just enough so I know she wasn't able to find anything, and really, I can't think of an excuse to stall any longer. So I signal Marissa to give him the necklace, and when she does I say, “The brooch is in LeBrandi's dresser. In a pair of olive green socks.” Then I stand up and say, “You've got the jewels
back now, so… well, I hope you don't do anything to Opal. I know she was wrong to steal them—which is why we're giving them back to you—but she was upset about, you know, about how she was fired and everything. And besides, she didn't kill LeBrandi.”