The Proof is in the Pudding (15 page)

“You can bet I’ll be there. You shouldn’t be alone with someone who could be a murderer.”

“After the smoke bomb went off, Roland Gray kept me from getting hurt by the stampeding crowd. We were both crouched under his preparation counter. Before that, he was facing me. When the juggling started, he moved around to stand on my side of his stove to get a better view of Wolf Wheeler’s act. I’m hoping that he saw something or someone in the crowd behind me and has not realized that it’s significant.”

John looked skeptical. “It’s a long shot.”

“Practically everything in life is a long shot. If he knows something that helps the investigation, and you solve the murder, that should get you reinstated.”

“Instead of arrested,” John said glumly.

“Arrested?” I felt a jolt of fear for him. “You’re not serious?”

“Manny Hatch is going to try to hang Ingram’s killing around my neck.”

Tuffy, who had been relaxing while we talked, lifted his head to stare toward the front of the house. He got to his feet. I heard a growl low in his throat—and a second later the doorbell rang.

I started at the sound of the doorbell. John’s posture stiffened. I guessed John had the same concern as I did: that the visitor was Detective Manny Hatch, clutching hand-cuffs and a warrant for John’s arrest.

I calmed down when I realized it was too soon for Hatch to make a move against John. He didn’t have evidence other than John’s confrontation with Ingram. Thanks to my early morning burglary, he wouldn’t find a motive for John to have killed Ingram.

“It’s probably just Phil, or someone from his office,” I said. “He’s having the dress I wore last night picked up.”

I started toward the front door. John got up and followed me.

Through the living room window I saw that the person pressing my bell wasn’t Detective Hatch. I let out a little sigh of relief.

I opened the door to be ignored by Hugh Weaver, John’s LAPD partner. Without so much as a blink in my direction, he looked past me at John.

“We gotta talk,” Weaver said.

“Has there been progress in the investigation?” I asked.

“One of the SID guys found the smoke bomb foil balled up and shoved down into one of those palm tree containers.”

“Prints on the foil?” John asked.

Weaver grunted in frustration. “We got zilch.”

“Come into the kitchen and have breakfast,” I said.

Weaver’s scowl cracked, and he almost smiled.

A few minutes later I was cooking for the three of us. Scrambled eggs and bacon for me, and the same plus large pancakes for John and his partner. I’d learned years ago that John liked pancakes the size of a salad plate. No “dollar size” griddlecakes for this crime-fighter.

“The f***in’ captain—excuse me, Della.”

“That’s okay. I’ve heard the word before.”

“Anyhow, he put me on deskwork, taking calls from our grateful public.” Weaver’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Grateful, my left nut. Nothin’ we do is good enough or fast enough for the knuckle-draggers who scream when we can’t send detectives to find their missing dogs, or when they’re given the wrong order at McDonald’s.”

“At least you aren’t a murder suspect,” John said.

“ ‘Big whoop,’ as my ex-wife used to say. I’d rather been suspended than turned into a desk jockey, ’cause then I could get out of payin’ Candy her f***in’ final year of alimony. Hell, she’s makin’ more now at her hairdressing job than I take home.”

Weaver calmed down when I put a plate of bacon and eggs and a platter of the large pancakes in front of him. He inhaled the aromas and sighed with pleasure.

“Candy cooked up a storm when we were goin’ together,” Weaver said. “She stopped after the ring went on her finger. I shoulda sued her for false advertising.”

Before the first forkful of eggs reached his lips, Weaver’s cell phone rang. Glancing at the faceplate he said, “The house.”

I knew that was cop shorthand for their station house.

After listening for a few seconds, Weaver said, “Does anybody know what was taken?”

John and I put down our forks. I looked at John, but he was staring tensely at Weaver.

Weaver grunted, nodded at John, told the person on the other end, “Keep me in the loop,” and ended the call.

“That was Duff. A neighbor who was looking for a lost dog went into Ingram’s backyard and discovered some windows in the house had been knocked out. He called in to report it. Hatch and forensics are on the way over there to search the place.”

“Doesn’t he need a warrant to go inside?” I tried to keep my voice steady to make the question seem innocent, but guilt had caused a sudden ringing in my ears.

“Exigent circumstances,” John said. “When the home of a murder victim is burglarized that makes it an ancillary crime scene. No warrant necessary.”

Weaver and John put down their napkins, pushed their chairs back, and got up, leaving their food untouched.

“I’m going back to work,” Weaver said.

“I’m coming with you. I’m sidelined, not barred from the premises.”

“You need to eat.” I quickly filled two of the large pancakes with scrambled eggs and strips of bacon, rolled them into pancake burritos, and wrapped the concoctions in paper napkins. I handed them to the two detectives “Here. Mobile meals.”

“Thanks, Del,” John said.

Weaver immediately took a big bite. Nodding, with his mouth full, he mumbled something that sounded like “good.”

At the front door I watched them get into their separate cars and speed away. With the discovery that someone had broken into Ingram’s house, I was both elated and worried. The elation came from my hope that the police would find evidence to point them toward the murderer.

In another part of my mind, I was praying that I hadn’t left any trace of myself behind. I told myself that I was being silly to worry. I knew I’d been careful in Ingram’s house.

But I also knew there was no such thing as a
perfect
crime.

By five o’clock, when it was time for me to leave for the Better Living Channel’s studio in North Hollywood, there hadn’t been any news—either from John or on TV—about the break-in at Ingram’s house. While walking Tuffy, I kept my cell phone in my pocket, with the ringer on “Loud.”

No one called.

It was nerve-wracking, not knowing what the police had discovered, but there was nothing I could do to get information without calling attention to myself, so I said good-bye to Tuffy and Emma, gathered what I needed for the show that night, and climbed into my Jeep.

I wished Nicholas were here. In order to protect Eileen, I couldn’t tell him that I’d broken into Ingram’s house, and certainly not my reason for it, but he had good sources of information in the LAPD. Because of John’s behavior at the gala, he was being kept out of the loop. As John’s partner, Weaver, too, had been sidelined. I was sure Nicholas was more likely to be able to get confidential information, but he wouldn’t be back in town until tomorrow afternoon. I’d have to be patient. To play it cool.

Traffic through Beverly Glen Canyon and into the valley was heavy at that hour of the day, so I’d left home in plenty of time to allow for delays. Naturally, because I allowed for traffic tie-ups, they didn’t happen, so I was early when I turned into the driveway leading to the studio’s security gate. I stopped at the call box, pressed the button, and heard the always-cheerful voice of Angie Johnson.

“You got a visitor inside, Della. And I’m impressed,” she said. Angie, who was usually blasé, sounded as though she meant it.

“Impressed with what?”

“Your Mr. Roland Gray,” she said.

“You’ve read his novels?”

“No. It’s his car—a blue Rolls-Royce. It’s just like one I saw Will Smith riding around in.”

“Gray was supposed to be here at six. I wanted to get here first, to greet him and show him around,” I said.

She snickered. “Don’t worry ’bout it. From what I saw when he came in the front door, he’s being taken care of real well.” In an amused tone, she’s turned “real” into a two-syllable word.

Angie opened the security gate and I drove around the building to park near the studio entrance.

The first thing I saw was a sapphire blue Rolls in one of the spaces marked “Visitors.” It was an older, classic model with the distinctive boxy shape and the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament that distinguished it as the automobile equivalent of royalty.

I parked my Jeep Compass, grabbed my tote bag, and hurried through the open studio doors. Car Guy’s TV show repair shop was closest to the big, barn-door entrance so that he could drive his demonstration vehicles in and out easily. His set was dark, except for a couple of safety lights to keep people from tripping over cables or bumping into equipment.

On the far side of Car Guy’s set, I saw my lights had been turned on and that a gaffer on a tall ladder was methodically testing the security of each light casing. This was done before every show, ever since one had crashed down onto the preparation counter during my Halloween show. No one was hurt, but it gave me and my in-studio audience a heck of a scare.

Quinn Tanner and Roland Gray were perched on stools at my preparation counter, drinking from china cups that I’d brought from home and kept in the dish cupboard next to the refrigerator. On the counter in front of them was a Wedgwood teapot I’d never seen, and a little silver tea strainer on a saucer beside it.

Quinn was laughing at something Gray had said.

Laughing?
In the nine months that I had known her, I’d barely seen Quinn smile, and I’d never heard the cheerful soprano trill that was coming from her throat until now.

I should have been pleased that Quinn was entertaining my show guest with such uncharacteristic warmth. Instead, I was a bit annoyed. Not that they were getting along so well, but that they were doing it in my kitchen. Granted, it was a set constructed in the studio for use in broadcasting shows, but it was a replica of my cozy, yellow and white kitchen at home. I didn’t care what either Quinn Tanner or Roland Gray did socially, only that they were doing it on
my
turf. The feeling surprised me, but then I’d never seen anyone else using my set as a café. It was unreasonable, I knew, but I couldn’t help feeling proprietary.

The two of them were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t look up until my “Hello.”

“Oh, Della, you’re here at last,” Quinn said.

“I’m fifteen minutes early.”

Roland Gray stood up, smiled, and greeted me.

I said, “Please sit down.” But, gallantly, he remained standing.

“Join us for a cuppa,” Quinn said.

“Quinn has been kind enough to give me true English tea,” Gray said. “Steeped in a china pot, made properly with leaves.”

“From my private stash,” Quinn said, smug as the Cheshire Cat.

“I’ll take a rain check. Unfortunately, I have too much to do right now.” The truth is that I’m a devoted coffee person, just short of being a coffee addict.

“Ah, brewed tea,” Quinn said, inhaling steam from the cup. “The hallmark of a civilized people.”

Ignoring Quinn’s little dig, I moved around past them and into the kitchen, took my small handbag out of what I called my “cooking tote,” and bent down to put it away on the bottom shelf of the utensil cabinet. When I straightened up, I almost collided with Roland Gray, who had followed me.

“Ooops. I seem to always be running into you,” he said, grinning.

“It’s all right.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Quinn glaring at us. She folded her arms across her chest and crossed her legs: the human body language equivalent of a coiled snake.

Gray indicated the fluted mold encased in foil resting on the rear display counter. “That is my finished steamed pudding. The shopping bag on the floor contains what I need to demonstrate how to make it.”