The Proof is in the Pudding (18 page)

I spotted Gray’s Rolls parked in front of the entrance. The man himself was standing in the middle of the empty parking space directly behind his car. When he saw me, he stepped back onto the curb and waved me into the slot. There were no other empty spaces on that block.

When I parked, Gray appeared at my driver’s side door and offered his hand to me. I took it, and hopped down onto the street.

“Did you drive yourself tonight?”

“Yes. Will Parker assists me—he doesn’t come along when I’m out with a lady.”

I indicated our cars. “Either you are the luckiest driver in the state of California, or you bought these two spaces.”

“It was partly luck. Someone was pulling out of my spot as I arrived, and let’s just say I
rented
yours,” he said with a smile. “It’s a bit chilly to sit outside, so I secured a table by the window. I hope that’s all right with you?”

“It’s fine,” I said.

In spite of the fact that the temperature was in the fifties tonight—frigid by Southern California standards—three of the four outside tables were occupied by young couples. I remembered being that young, in college at UCLA, and being that impervious to cold when I was on a date and in the first heat of attraction.

Caffeine an’ Stuff was comfortably warm inside. Soft lights, soft voices, and tables arranged just far enough apart to give the customers a sense of privacy. Being overheard wasn’t going to be a problem, I saw, because fewer than half of the tables were occupied. At the wide front window, there was no one closer to us than two tables away.

Gray pulled out a chair for me, waited until I was settled, then took his place across the wooden divide. With the name of the café on the window just above our heads, we had an unobstructed view of the people strolling along Montana Avenue.

As a college-age waiter in a letter sweater came toward us, Gray asked me, “What will you have?”

“A cappuccino.”

“Decaf or regular?” the waiter asked.

“Regular, the more regular the better,” I said.

Gray looked at me and asked, “Perhaps a pastry with it?”

“No, thank you. I can’t stay very long, Roland.” He appeared so disappointed I added, “It’s just that I have a lot to do.”

“Two regular cappuccinos,” Gray told the waiter. “Nothing else.”

“You got it.” Joe College flashed us a professional smile and hurried toward the service counter to relay our order to the barista.

Roland Gray was staring down at his hands. It seemed as though he was inspecting his manicure, looking for flaws, but his nails were trimmed and his cuticles neat. Even if he hadn’t phoned so late and insisted on talking to me right away, it was obvious from the troubled expression on his face that something was bothering him.

I was about to urge him to tell me whatever he knew about Keith Ingram when the waiter returned with our cappuccinos. I kept silent until he’d delivered them and withdrawn again.

Gray picked up his spoon and stirred his coffee in a slow, contemplative way.

“What I have to tell you is difficult for me,” he said. “I wasn’t frank with either the police who questioned us in the ballroom, or earlier tonight, with you and your friend O’Hara. The truth is that I knew Ingram quite well at one time. It came to be an introduction I wished that I could have avoided.”

“Why did you agree to be in the cook-off? The names of the judges were announced weeks ago.”

“Will and I were researching an aspect of my new book in some recently released records in Eastern Europe when my publicist e-mailed me the opportunity to participate in the gala. He told me who some of the celebrities were who had accepted, but he didn’t mention the names of the judges, and it didn’t occur to me to ask. I only returned to my flat in Los Angeles this past weekend, and didn’t know Ingram was involved until I arrived at the ballroom that night. Seeing him there was a dreadful shock.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“There were other people around, so we just nodded at each other. Actually, I nodded. He smirked. In spite of my discomfort, I certainly couldn’t withdraw at that point without raising questions I didn’t want to answer, so I decided to just get through the evening—ideally without a confrontation. To stiff-upper-lip it, so to speak. I resolved to change my original plan of writing in Los Angeles and instead finish my book in London. That was a hard decision for me, because I much prefer to work here. This is where Alan Berger lives—he’s my literary agent. I don’t trust electronic transmission with something so important as my book, and certainly not the mails. Alan always reads my manuscripts first—and in my living room. I insist. What I need from him are his
immediate
reactions. More than once, he’s saved me from veering off course in a plot.”

“You’d go to London and change your professional routine, just because Keith Ingram happened to be in the same city? Hadn’t you ever run into him in California before?”

“No. When I’m here, primarily I’m writing. I seldom socialize. Changing my established pattern might seem extreme to you, but . . .” He took a breath and clamped his lips together.

I squelched the temptation to fill in this conversational “white space” and interrupt whatever internal struggle he was having. If I didn’t say anything, sooner or later the silence should pressure him to continue.

After a few seconds of quiet, his mouth relaxed and he sighed. “This is difficult for me. Because of my past association with Ingram, I have—had—reason to believe that he might try to harm
me
.”

That was a shocker, but before I could ask the next question, Gray began to massage his left temple, pressing hard against his skull.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m getting a tension headache,” he said. “It happens when I’m under stress, but it’s nothing, really—it will pass.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

He shrugged dismissively. “I can handle it.”

“You’re going to ‘stiff-upper-lip’ it again?”

“I hate doctors.” He said it with a finality that closed the subject.

I thought his attitude was foolish, but Roland Gray’s headaches were his business. Mine was to try to pry out of him anything that might be helpful to John. “Roland, do you have any idea who might have killed Ingram? Or did you see anything that—”

Something pierced the café’s front window from outside, spiderwebbing the glass.

My immediate reaction was that someone had thrown a small stone at the window, but suddenly Gray jerked backward, and began to topple sideways toward the floor. I tried to grab his wrist to stop his fall, but I wasn’t quick enough.

A woman screamed—and a man yelled, “Gunshot!”

The instinct for self-preservation kicked in. I threw myself onto the floor, below the level of the window.

More screams. A babble of voices. A table turned over. Silverware clattered, dishes broke. Footsteps pounded toward the rear of the café.

Roland Gray lay a few feet in front of me. He was still, and his eyes were closed. Icy tentacles of fear knotted into a ball in my chest. I stretched my arm to give him a gentle prod on his shoulder. “Roland?”

He didn’t move.

On my hands and knees, I inched closer to Gray’s body.

Blood oozed from a red crease that ran across his forehead.

In the distance, I heard the faint shriek of sirens.

I searched for a pulse in Roland Gray’s throat and found a beat. It was faint, but he was alive. The blood from his head wound was matting his hair. Praying that the bullet had only grazed him, instead of penetrating deeper, I grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the table and pressed them against his bleeding forehead.

“Roland, can you hear me? Roland?”

No answer.

The sirens were closer now. Mercifully, there hadn’t been any more shots.

“Hang on, Roland. Help is almost here. Hang on.”

A paramedic van screeched to a stop in front of the café, double-parking next to the blue Rolls. Two emergency medical technicians jumped out. A man and a woman. The woman carried a medical kit. The man wheeled a gurney.

As soon as they were in the doorway, I waved my free hand at the EMTs and yelled, “In here—he’s been shot!”

The paramedics reached us at a trot. Immediately, I stepped back to get out of their way. Quick and focused, they bent over Roland, working on him. I couldn’t see what they were doing, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. All I could do was stand with my fingers laced together tightly in front of my chest and hope.

Seconds behind the paramedic van, a City of Santa Monica police car zoomed into view and came to a squealing stop. Two officers in uniform got out: one young and short—probably the minimum height for admittance to the academy—and the other older and a head taller. The older officer began to clear people away from the entrance to Caffeine an’ Stuff. The younger one hurried into the café, surveyed the scene, saw the EMTs at work, and used his mobile phone. I guessed he was calling for reinforcements.

Shocked customers watched the paramedics and the arrival of the police. Some started to chatter among themselves. Others moved toward the paramedics, craning their necks to get a better look at the star of this drama. The police officer ordered them to back off.

Two middle-aged men, in nearly matching leather jackets worn over T-shirts advertising a rock group I’d never heard of, demanded to know when they could leave.

“When we’ve taken statements,” the younger officer said. “Stay calm, everybody. Complaining won’t make things go any faster.”

He conferred with the paramedics. I saw the female EMT nod at me. The officer headed in my direction, taking a notebook out of his shirt pocket. When he reached me, I saw the nameplate on his chest identified him as Officer Currie.

With his pencil poised over his notebook, he said, “You were sitting with the guy who got shot?”

“Yes.”

Looking past Officer Currie, I saw the paramedics lifting Roland onto the gurney. They’d put an oxygen mask over his face.

“Officer, you talked to the paramedics—is my friend going to be all right?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“What hospital are they taking him to?”

“I can’t give you that information. Your name, ma’am.”

“Della Carmichael.”

“Address?”

I gave it to him.

“Do you have some ID, ma’am?”

“Of course.” I fumbled in my purse and found my wallet. I opened it to the driver’s license window and showed it to him.

“Remove the license, please, ma’am.”

I did as instructed and watched him study my photo as though he was trying to connect it with someone he’d seen on
America’s Most Wanted
.

He handed it back to me and nodded toward the direction of the stretcher the paramedics were placing in their van. “And who was he?”

“Please don’t talk about my friend as though he’s dead!”

“Sorry, ma’am. What is the name of the victim?”

I told him. He didn’t seem to recognize it.

Officer Currie was about to ask another question but I stopped him. “Wait. You should notify Detective Manny Hatch at West Bureau about this. He’s handling a murder case that could be connected to what happened here.”

He cocked his head and frowned at me with doubt, but he used his mobile to call West Bureau.

Twenty minutes later, more police officers had arrived on the scene. They used their vehicles and road flares to shut the street down. The area around the café was marked off with crime scene tape. A team from the Scientific Investigation Division had arrived. The SID technicians were photo-documenting the scene and searching for clues.

Three members of this law enforcement army were taking statements and contact information from the customers and employees of Caffeine an’ Stuff. Two more were questioning the people who had been sitting outside when the shot was fired.