Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries) (20 page)

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Authors: Lee Hollis

BOOK: Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries)
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Mona covered her eyes.
“You gays, always flaunting your gayness and naked bodies.”
“That would be true, Mona, if I had invited you here and greeted you at the door like this. But you just showed up here unannounced.”
Mona thought about this. “I guess he has a point.”
Hayley shushed Mona and then quickly explained to Randy the situation and how important it was for them to review the Kitty Cam recordings from the day before Karen Applebaum died.
“I’m sure if Sergio had seen anything, we would know about it,” Randy said.
Hayley nodded. “I know. But I won’t rest until I see for myself. Do you know where he has the tapes? Are they at the station?”
“No. He was watching them here when he saw the one of us inside Karen’s house. I don’t think he ever took them back, because he didn’t want anyone to see us breaking into Karen’s house.”
“So they’re still here?”
Hayley felt a surge of excitement.
“Yes. He keeps all of his work-related files and tapes in the top drawer of that wonderful zebra desk I bought in Africa when we went on that safari last year.”
“Oh, I love that desk,” Liddy cooed. “I have been searching the Internet for months to find one just like it for my home office.”
Hayley whirled around and glared at Liddy.
“Let’s try and stay on topic, shall we?”
“Right,” Liddy nodded.
Randy turned to go inside. “Let me just make sure. Although I’m not sure Sergio is going to be comfortable letting us all watch it.”
Hayley grabbed Randy by the arm.
“Does he have to know?”
“Hayley, he’s right upstairs,” Randy said.
“I know. In the bathroom. With the bath water running real loud. Probably can’t hear a thing.”
Randy hesitated, but then ushered the lot of them inside. “Okay, we’d better make this quick. I was downstairs looking for matches for the scented candles when you showed up. He’s up there waiting, so we don’t have much time.”
Mona clomped inside, the floor creaking underneath her weight.
Hayley waved frantically at her to restrict her movements.
Mona plopped down on the couch and rolled her eyes.
Randy disappeared into the den and within seconds reappeared with a compact disc. “Jackpot! He even labeled it with the date.”
Hayley mimed clapping her hands but didn’t really clap so as not to make too much noise and alert Sergio.
Randy went over and loaded the disc into a DVD player and then picked up a remote and snapped on the large screen TV that was mounted on the wall adjacent to the fireplace. When the scratchy image of Karen’s empty living room appeared on the screen, Randy fast forwarded looking for some kind of action.
“This reminds me of those movie nights we used to do. Should we pop corn and open a bottle of wine?” Liddy asked.
Hayley just threw her a look.
Finally, an image of Karen arriving at the house came on, and Randy slowed down the disc to normal speed. Karen looked radiant and happy and was checking herself out in the mirror. She seemed anxious and excited about her impending visitor. The doorbell rang, and she jumped a bit, startled. She turned and headed for the door, but then stopped and came back. She walked right up to the camera, her face filling the whole screen, and shut it off.
The image turned to snow.
“Oh, no!” Hayley cried.
When she turned the camera back on, Karen was alone again. Her visitor was clearly long gone by this point.
“Well, that’s why Sergio didn’t say anything. Karen didn’t want anyone finding out who it was that stopped by her house.”
“Back to square one,” Hayley said, disappointed and frustrated.
“No, we’re not,” Liddy said, staring at the screen. “I know who it is.”
They all looked at Liddy as she stood up and grabbed the remote out of Randy’s hand. She reversed the recording back to where Karen was primping, before the doorbell rang.
“Look, there!” Liddy screamed, freezing the image and pointing at the screen.
Suddenly they heard footsteps from upstairs followed by Sergio’s booming voice.
“Randy, is someone here?”
They all froze.
“No, baby! I’m just still looking for the matches!”
“Did you look in the Yosemite Sam cookie jar in the kitchen? I remember putting some in there when we went on a diet and threw out all the cookies, but still wanted to fill the jar with something.”
“Good idea. I’ll look, and be right up!”
They listened quietly as Sergio walked back to the bathroom, turned the faucet on again, and resumed filling the tub.
Hayley shot Liddy an admonishing stare, and whispered urgently, “Keep it down.”
Liddy whispered back, “I’m sorry, but I got a little excited because I’ve solved the case!”
She pointed at the screen again.
They all studied it.
“I don’t see anything,” Mona said.
“There! Behind Karen. Outside the living room window.”
Hayley moved closer to the screen and stared up at it. “I don’t see anything.”
“On the far left side.”
Hayley got even closer.
“What is that?”
Randy joined her. “It looks like some kind of tiny statue.”
“It’s silver,” Liddy added, waiting for them to catch up.
“Is that a tiger?” Hayley asked, scrunching her face up.
“No it’s a Jaguar. I saw it come into view a few seconds before the doorbell rang. It’s the ornament on the hood of a car.”
“You know, I think she may be right,” Hayley said, turning to the others.
“And there is only one person in town who drives a Jaguar,” Liddy said confidently.
“How do you know that?” Mona asked.
“She knows what everybody drives,” Hayley said.
“Ted Rivers,” Liddy said. “Karen was having an affair with Ted Rivers.”
“The lawyer with the office upstairs from your real estate firm?” Randy asked.
“Yes. The
married
lawyer with the office upstairs from my real estate firm,” Liddy said emphatically. “I just had lunch with his wife, Sissy, last week. She was cool as a cucumber, that one, she didn’t give anything away.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Hayley said.
“Which is why Ted and Karen had to skulk around in secret, and why Karen was so careful not to leave any evidence around that would expose their affair,” Randy said, getting excited.
“And why he didn’t sign the card on the flowers he sent to the funeral. He couldn’t risk anyone finding out they were involved,” Hayley said.
“Exactly! He loves that car more than anything. What if Sissy found out he was screwing Karen? She’d have the upper hand in the divorce proceedings and could wind up with his beloved Jaguar,” Liddy said.
“And maybe Karen decided to go public with their affair! And he couldn’t let that happen! Not if he didn’t want to lose everything. That would give him a motive to get rid of her! Ted Rivers poisoned Karen’s clam chowder!”
It all made sense. Hayley just needed proof.
Chapter 33
 
After leaving Randy to hop in the tub with Sergio—who was none the wiser—Hayley, Liddy, and Mona hurried excitedly back to their parked cars. At least Hayley and Liddy were excited. Mona was just sticking around because it was a better alternative than going home and watching TV with her husband and five screaming kids. Hayley suggested they continue this impromptu girls’ night out by driving over and staking out Ted Rivers’s house.
“Why?” Mona asked.
“Because we might get lucky and find out more about the state of his marriage,” Hayley said. “Maybe we’ll catch him sneaking out to see another woman, who knows how many he could be cheating with, or maybe we just might stumble across some hard evidence we can take to Sergio that will be enough to get him booked for Karen’s murder.”
“Okay. Sounds better than spending time at home,” Mona said. “But there’s no sense in all of us driving. Why don’t we just take my truck?”
Liddy laughed. “Oh, Mona, please. We can’t take your truck.”
“Why not?” Mona asked.
“Because, honey, we’re going to a high-end neighborhood and your dilapidated rusty truck that smells like—and I mean no offense by this—a stinky lobster boat, will get more attention than a virgin at a prison rodeo.”
“Did she really just say that?” Mona said, turning to Hayley.
“I think so,” Hayley said. “But sometimes it takes a few seconds for the words to sink in before my mouth drops open in shock.”
“This is a stakeout,” Liddy said. “So obviously we need to blend in.”
“Fine then,” Mona said, shaking her head. “We’ll take your Mercedes.”
They all piled into Liddy’s car and within five minutes were parked outside the Rivers’ house on West Street. Ted Rivers, a successful attorney who had bought one of the old majestic waterfront mansions just off the town pier, was indeed home as they pulled up; they could see him through the kitchen window.
Rivers was around fifty-five with silver hair and horn-rim glasses, a long handsome face, a few inches north of six feet. He was at the sink, and it looked like he was drying dishes. He was talking to someone but they couldn’t see who it was. Presumably it was his wife, Sissy.
Liddy, her eyes fixed on the Rivers’ house, slowed the car down but didn’t stop, and it rolled right into the back of a parked pickup truck. Hayley grabbed the dashboard while Mona was tossed around in the back.
“Liddy, watch where you’re going!”
Liddy spun her head around to see if Ted Rivers had heard the crash, but he was too engaged in his conversation inside the house and wasn’t even looking in their direction.
“What’s a ratty old pickup truck like that doing in this neighborhood?” Mona asked with a big smile.
“Sarcasm noted, thank you, Mona,” Liddy said, throwing her an annoyed glance through the rear view mirror.
“Are you going to get out and check for any damage?” Hayley asked.
“No, I can’t risk being spotted,” Liddy said.
“Well, are you going to leave a note on the windshield?”
“What for? That truck’s got to be twenty years old. Look at all the dents it has already. Who is going to notice one more? If anything sustained serious damage, it’s my Mercedes. I’ll take it in tomorrow and have my mechanic look at it.”
Mona swiveled around and was looking out the back window. “I think there’s an old lady in the house across the street watching us. I saw her part the curtain and she was putting her glasses on.”
“She’ll go back to watching Bill O’Reilly in a minute. Don’t worry about her,” Liddy said, rolling down the window and sticking her head out to get a good clear view of what Ted Rivers was doing in his kitchen.
Suddenly, Rivers ducked his head as a coffee mug sailed through the air past him.
Liddy gasped. “Somebody just threw a coffee cup at him!”
Rivers’s wife, Sissy, was now visible. She was a bottle blonde with sunken cheeks, tired eyes, and a few too many wrinkles from stress, and she was wearing a low-cut white negligee that sadly didn’t do much to enhance her cleavage, which was generally lacking. She was yelling at her husband, pointing a finger at him with one hand, while holding a dish in the other.
“What great timing,” Hayley said. “They’re having a huge fight!”
“I just wish we could hear what they’re saying. I bet it has to do with his affair with Karen Applebaum!”
Mona popped her head in front from the backseat. “That old woman is looking right at us.”
“Would you relax, Mona?” Liddy said, pushing her face away.
And then Liddy opened the door and started to get out.
“Where are you going?” Hayley asked.
“I’m going to move in closer so I can try and hear what they’re fighting about.”
“Liddy, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. What if ... ?”
But before Hayley could get any further, Liddy was already out of the car, crouching down like some U.S. Marine Commando, sprinting across the front yard of the Rivers’ house, and then dropping down just underneath the windowsill.
She slowly raised her head just as Sissy Rivers threw that dish that was in her hand. Ted Rivers raised his arm, and the dish hit his elbow. They could hear him howl in pain as the dish hit the floor and shattered. Liddy dropped back down, pressing her back against the brick wall exterior of the house.
Inside the car, Mona was now rocking back and forth, nervous and jumpy. “Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”
“What is it?” Hayley asked.
“The old woman is now at her front door, looking right over at Liddy, and she’s talking on the phone.”
Hayley looked at the house across the street and, sure enough, an old woman with gray hair and granny glasses in a powder-pink-colored robe was talking on her cordless phone.
“I better warn Liddy. That lady might be calling the cops,” Hayley said, opening the door and slipping out. She kept low as she circled around the front of the parked Mercedes, where she noticed a giant gash in the bumper where Liddy had collided with the truck in front of her.
Hayley called out to Liddy in an urgent whisper. “Liddy, I think we need to get out of here! Now!”
Liddy waved her away. And then she turned back around, took a deep breath, and prepared to take another look inside the kitchen window to see if Ted and Sissy Rivers were still fighting.
Hayley knew she had to get Liddy out of there. She sprinted across the yard, hunched over, and joined Liddy underneath the windowsill.
“I’m serious, Liddy, that old woman across the street just called the cops.”
“How do you know? She might have just been talking to her grandkids or something.”
And at that moment, Hayley saw the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser turn the corner heading straight toward the Rivers’ house.
Liddy didn’t notice at first because she had already raised her head high enough to get a peek inside the house, and was staring right into the face of Ted Rivers, who at that exact moment was looking out the window to see why the cops were pulling up in front of his house.
Ted Rivers jumped back and screamed. Liddy screamed. Sissy Rivers dropped the ceramic bowl she was about to hurl at her husband and screamed. Everybody was screaming. Except Mona, who Hayley caught a glimpse of looking out the open backseat window of Liddy’s Mercedes, with the biggest “I told you so” expression on her face that she could muster.
Donnie and Earl got out of the cruiser and ambled over to where Hayley and Liddy were crouched down together underneath the window.
“Evening, Hayley,” Donnie said, tipping his hat.
“Evening, Earl, Donnie, how are you boys doing tonight?”
“Just fine. No complaints.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Only one complaining tonight is Mrs. Wentworth, who lives across the street,” Earl said. “Said she spotted some prowlers casing the neighborhood. Said one of them looked a whole lot like Liddy Crawford and the other one resembled that nice lady who writes the food and wine column at the
Island Times.”
Another uncomfortable silence.
Ted and Sissy Rivers raced out their front door. Whatever conflict had been brewing between them was momentarily sidelined while they investigated who was outside their house stalking them.
“Liddy Crawford, what are you doing skulking around my house at this time of night?” Ted demanded to know.
“I’m not skulking,” Liddy said, climbing to her feet and brushing off the twigs and dirt from her blouse. “It just so happens I had an out-of-town buyer inquire about your house today and I was just stopping by to see if you might be interested in selling.”
Nobody said a word. They didn’t have to. Liddy’s on-the-spot excuse wasn’t going to fly with any of them.
Earl stepped forward. “Maybe we should discuss this further over at the station.”
“I’ll radio the chief and have him meet us all over there,” Donnie said.
Hayley went to stop him. “Now, Donnie, I don’t think we have to bother Sergio about this.” She went to grab his arm, but her hand ended up pulling at his gun holster, which snapped open. Donnie jumped back in surprise and stumbled, before drawing his weapon from the holster and pointing it at Hayley.
“She just went for my gun!” he wailed in a high-pitched voice.
“I did not!” Hayley said.
“Earl, you better cuff her,” Donnie said, eyeing Hayley warily.
“Cuff me? Why, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Hayley said, laughing.
But Earl was already behind her pulling her wrists together and snapping handcuffs on her.
Liddy charged forward. “Let her go!”
Donnie intercepted Liddy, yanking her arms behind her and holding her tight. She struggled, trying to shake his grip, but he was too strong for her.
“Ma’am, please don’t resist arrest,” Donnie said softly.
“If you don’t want me to resist, don’t call me ma’am. I’m not old enough to be a ma’am, Donnie.”
“Yes, Ms. Crawford, now hold still while I snap these on you.”
“You’re arresting me, too? I didn’t go for anybody’s gun!” Liddy cried.
“I didn’t either! It was an accident!” Hayley yelled.
Donnie turned to Ted and Sissy Rivers. “Would you folks mind getting dressed and meeting us over at the station?”
“Not at all, Officer,” Ted Rivers said, eyeing Hayley and Liddy suspiciously.
Then he and his wife went back inside the house as Donnie and Earl escorted Hayley and Liddy to their cruiser.
Mona was already out of the back and getting into the driver’s seat of Liddy’s Mercedes. “I’ll follow behind you and meet you there.”
Mona got behind the wheel, turned the ignition, and the Mercedes roared to life.
“I’m really not comfortable with her driving my car,” Liddy said as Donnie put a hand on top of her head and lowered her into the backseat of the squad car.
“That’s really not our biggest problem right now, Liddy,” Hayley said as Earl did the same to her from the other side.
Luckily when they all arrived at the station, Sergio was already there and intervened just in time to stop Donnie and Earl from booking Hayley and Liddy on a number of charges. Liddy was quickly dismissed and sent home, and Donnie ushered Hayley into Sergio’s office, where she was brought a cup of coffee and told to sit tight until Sergio was finished interviewing Ted and Sissy Rivers.
The wait was interminable. But maybe her misguided attempt to expose Ted Rivers’s affair with Karen Applebaum would somehow lead to the truth of what really happened. If anybody could grill a suspect, it was Sergio. He came off at first as this naive foreigner who hadn’t quite mastered the English language, and gave the impression he could easily be manipulated, but before you knew it he was backing you into a corner with the facts. He was a master of getting you so scared and off-kilter, a full confession would just fall right off your tongue. There was a reason he was made chief at such a young age.
Hayley gulped down the last of her coffee and was peeling away the Styrofoam from her cup out of boredom when the door to the office finally opened and Sergio walked inside.
“Did you get him to confess about his affair with Karen?” Hayley asked, sitting up in her chair.
“No,” Sergio said. “He very emphatically said he didn’t have that kind of relationship with her.”
“He’s lying,” Hayley said.
“I honestly don’t think he is.”
“Well, then what were he and his wife fighting about tonight?”
“She was angry because he wasn’t drying the dinner dishes properly.”
“What? Now that’s a whole lot of crazy! She was throwing dishes at his head! Over something silly like that? And they live in a mansion! They don’t have a dishwasher?”

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