Fatal Reservations (16 page)

“We’ll think of something,” Miss Gloria said. She got up to clear the dishes away and refill our coffee cups for the third time.

“We can do some good old-fashioned sleuthing without getting into trouble,” I said. “Especially if you give us some guidance. Who are your friends down there at Mallory Square?” I asked. “Who are the good guys? The guys we could chat with and tell them you’d sent us?”

“The fellow who owns Snorkel the Pig,” said Lorenzo. “He’s a decent guy. Pretty new to performing. So he’s not involved in all the ugly politics that have been going on for years. But on the other hand, will he know anything? I’m not sure.”

“What about Dominique the Cat Man?” Miss Gloria asked.

Lorenzo sighed, scraped a stray blueberry onto his fork, and popped it into his mouth. “He’s smart because he stays out of the petty machinations of the rest of the Sunset Celebration. Have you noticed that he’s always got a spot on the outer perimeter of the madness?” We both nodded. “He’s earned it because of the show he puts on.”

“He’s very entertaining,” said Miss Gloria. “And it’s wicked hard training cats to do things. We tried with Evinrude and Sparky, and honestly we got nowhere.”

“They got a lot of great treats for doing nothing,” I agreed.

She wiggled her fingers and clucked her tongue to get Lola the kitty’s attention. “Maybe with this new baby girl we’d have better luck.”

“I don’t know,” I said shaking my head. “As far as I can see, Evinrude and Sparky are busy teaching her everything they know. And it’s not all good. I saw her out yesterday teasing poor Schnootie to the point of apoplexy.”

My cell phone skidded across the counter as it rang, and I got up from the table to answer. Torrence. “Good morning,” I said brightly, though I was tempted to send it to voice mail.

“What’s this about a break-in on your houseboat last night?” Torrence asked.

“I’m pretty sure it was an overreaction,” I said. “You know how you’re always telling me not to try to handle things by myself?” I glanced over at Miss Gloria and Lorenzo, feeling sick with guilt. But even more afraid I’d say something odd that would bring him rushing over. “So rather than attack a burglar on my own, I
called nine-one-one. But I think it was just the cats banging around. We have a new kitten and they’re all acting crazy. As I’m sure you know, your cops didn’t find any sign of a break and enter, nor did they find anyone on the finger who shouldn’t be here.”

“You did the right thing,” Torrence said. “Don’t let the possibility of embarrassment keep you from doing it again, got it?”

“I got it,” I said.

“That’s not the only reason I called,” said Torrence. He paused for a moment. “I’m hoping you can promise to keep this confidential. But I think you should know, so I’m taking the chance. If—or I should say when—we find your friend Lorenzo, aka Marvin Smith Junior, he will be under arrest for murder. I can’t say exactly why; I can only tell you the case is quite clear.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell me?” I asked. “It’s not quite fair to give me that information and no facts to back it up.”

Torrence cut me off. “I can’t say anything more. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. But I’m hoping that you will keep this in mind if you’re in touch with your friend. Encourage him to turn himself in. It will go easier for him if he cooperates, and that’s not just a television crime show cliché.”

“Thank you for calling,” I said in a weird, high voice that didn’t sound like me. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” And then I hung up and returned to the table, not sure how much to say.

As much as needed and nothing more, I decided. I took Lorenzo’s hand and stared into his eyes, noticing for the first time the wide pupils, surrounded by two concentric rings of rich brown. And then the tired lines webbing from the corners of his eyes that left him
looking older than I figured him to be. I thought I knew him, but maybe I didn’t. Maybe he had been driven to a heinous personal attack that I could scarcely imagine.

“I need you to tell me the truth. Did you kill that man?”

“No, I did not,” Lorenzo said. “I did not.” He pulled away from me and rubbed the fingers of both hands together. A washing motion. “But Cheryl Lynn might have killed him.”

“Cheryl Lynn is your client?” I asked.

He bit his lip and nodded. “That’s where I found the fork.” He looked back up at me and then over to Miss Gloria, whose face was frozen with disappointment and dismay.

“What do you mean you found the fork?”

“On her counter,” he said. “I cleaned it up and put it at the back of her silverware drawer.”

This boggled my mind. “What fork are we talking about? And what the heck was on it?”

He groaned, a long, low noise like an animal in distress. “I don’t know exactly. It looked messy. It could have been blood, maybe even from the meat Bart used in his act. But it just as well could have been spaghetti sauce. I told you about how I grabbed the goggles—I wasn’t thinking straight. I wanted to help her in case she’d done something awful. So I cleaned it up and hid it in plain sight—with all the other oversized implements in her kitchen.”

“But that’s tampering with the evidence,” I said. “You can’t do that—it’s against the law.”

Lorenzo set his lips in a thin line. He got up and went over to the sink, where he began to rinse our breakfast dishes. “The ants will come if you don’t wash that syrup off right away,” he said.

“I suppose that lets out going to search her house,” Miss Gloria said. “That was my next bright idea. But maybe we could take a quick look before the cops figure out it might be part of the crime scene.”

“No, no, no,” said Lorenzo, slapping the sponge down on the counter. “I can’t believe she did it. And even if she did, it wouldn’t have been at her home.”

“Then why in the world would she have a bloody murder weapon?” I asked.

“It wasn’t bloody, it was—it had something on it . . .”

“This has really gotten bigger than what we can deal with, even for a dear friend. You’re changing the story every time we talk. You have to call Torrence yourself and turn yourself in.”

“But—” he began.

“There’s a murderer loose and you’re protecting him. Her, I should say. And meanwhile, you’re the main suspect in the investigation, sitting right here at our breakfast table.” I pounded on the Formica, more upset than I’d been in a long time.

“What if we look for clues just for today?” he suggested, his voice pleading. “If nothing turns up that points us in the right direction, I’ll drive over to the police station and turn myself in.”

“You won’t drive; I will take you,” I said. “It’s that or nothing.”

The disappointment on his face was plain, but keeping him here any longer, even just the day, felt wrong. I no longer trusted what he said.

“You look tuckered out,” Miss Gloria said. “Why don’t you grab the first shower? Come on. I’ll show you the ropes and get you a clean towel.”

Lorenzo followed her to the bathroom while I
washed the dishes and cleaned up the ingredients from the blue pancakes. The celebratory euphoria that I’d felt earlier, the kind of good feeling I get from helping a friend, was gone. I wiped the burners of the stove clean and wrapped up the leftover pancakes to store in the freezer for a snack at some future low-blood-sugar moment. I left a message for Eric, reminding him to meet me at Azur at noon, then pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and thought about making a list.

I pictured the Sunset Celebration and how hard it was to get the truth from unusual people with unusual lifestyles who had not a shred of a reason to trust me. Maybe a better idea was to take something irresistible to eat to a local, someone who’d been around town forever and who would’ve heard whatever there was to know about Bart Frontgate.

I heard the patter of the water running in our shower and Miss Gloria returned to the kitchen. “I have to take a shift at the cemetery in about an hour,” she said. “I’m thinking maybe you should swing by after work and we could go look at this Cheryl Lynn’s house.”

“I don’t think—” I started, but Miss Gloria cut me off.

“She could be dead in there and who would know? Lorenzo didn’t look any further once he saw the goggles and the fork. He totally panicked. He swears she’s in some kind of trouble, but definitely not murder.”

“So what, she stole the murder weapon from somebody else’s home and just happened to leave it lying around?” I asked. “If Lorenzo really washed it up and put it in the drawer, how in the world did it get in the Dumpster?”

“Well, maybe she threw it out after he was there,” said Miss Gloria. “Or maybe he did and he’s afraid to
tell us. Anything is possible. And worse comes to worst, I get a ride home—instead of driving myself”—she grinned—“and then we can swing by Mallory Square and see if any of Lorenzo’s friends are around.”

Lorenzo emerged from the bathroom, his hair wet and his face worried. “I know you don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you for doubting, but I think Cheryl Lynn is in some very dark trouble. And by trouble, I don’t mean she murdered someone.”

Either he really believed this, or he’d memorized a couple of lines that he would parrot until he won us over.

“We have to trust him,” Miss Gloria said. “His judgment is better than ours—he’s psychic.”

“And while I was in the shower, I thought over what you said,” Lorenzo added. “You’re right. If nothing turns up by this evening, I’ll go with you to the police station. I shouldn’t have hidden the evidence. But you know this yourself: You see something that doesn’t belong, that doesn’t feel right, and you respond. You just act without thinking.”

Not much I could say about that. More than once, he’d seen me shoot off like a pressure cooker with a blocked steam release valve.

“But who is this Cheryl Lynn?” I asked. “Could she possibly have had a reason to take the fork used to stab Mr. Frontgate?”

His face looked even more worried. “Drugs, I suppose. If she was really high, she might steal. That would fit with the craziness I’d seen during her last couple of readings. And that awful red color.” He shuddered and Miss Gloria patted his back.

“But maybe it wasn’t drugs at all. Maybe it wasn’t
her. Maybe she just picked the fork up somewhere.” He drooped into a chair.

“Oh, come on, what are the chances?” I asked. “Would you pick up a bloody implement?” Silence. Of course he would—he’d done exactly that.

Finally Lorenzo said, “Bart wasn’t an evil person.”

“How would you describe him?” I asked.

“He didn’t think much about the people around him. ‘Oblivious’ is the best word, I guess. It probably took up all his energy, living on the edge as he liked to do.” Lorenzo laughed. “Of course, you don’t have to be terribly observant to realize that. He made his living on a high wire, juggling flaming forks.”

“Good point,” Miss Gloria said.

“And Cheryl Lynn, like I said, she liked the excitement of the edge, too. I could see that all over her cards. But I didn’t notice anything that made me think she’d be a danger to others.” He dropped his head to his hands and ran his fingers through his curls.

I noticed a few sprigs of silver that I hadn’t seen before. Almost as if the last few days’ worth of events had aged him beyond his years. “So anybody else at Mallory Square he didn’t get along with?” I asked.

“Well, Louis. He’s the guy who weaves those hats. They butted heads all the time. But Louis gets on everybody’s nerves. But on the other hand, he knew exactly how to push Bart’s buttons.”

I studied his face. Was he telling us the whole truth now? “One more thing,” I said to Lorenzo, determined to ferret out a lie if he’d fed us one. “Why in the world did you wrap that fork in your own tablecloth and then throw it in the Dumpster where anyone could find it? It just sounds dumb. Unless there’s something else you’re not telling us.”

His eyes grew wide. “No, no, I swear I told you everything. I did not remove the fork from the house. I panicked and grabbed it and threw it in her drawer. Then I got out of there and started to ride my bike back home. The cops were stopping everyone who came from the direction of the cemetery. You know how freaked-out they are about catching the thief.”

Miss Gloria nodded. “The longer the robberies go on, the more embarrassing it is for the police. Not to mention scary for the neighbors.”

“They were stopping tourists, kids, even the iguanas,” said Lorenzo.

Miss Gloria giggled, but I was finding it hard to see any of this as funny.

“It was only then that I realized my tablecloth was missing from the cart. I couldn’t go back to look for it. And I was so sweaty and nervous, I’m surprised they didn’t arrest me right on the spot.”

“Which would probably have been for the best,” I grumbled. “She may very well have been the murderer—you like to think the best of everyone. And we’re the idiots who are hoarding information to keep the cops from solving the problem. If Wally ever gets hold of this drama, I won’t have a job or a boyfriend.”

“Hayley sounds harsh,” said Miss Gloria, reaching around the rounded corner of the table to hug Lorenzo. “She’s worried about you; that’s all.”

I made a face and headed for the shower. Then I
spent an hour holed up in my room, tweaking the article about For Goodness’ Sake that I’d started on the ferry last night. The mood I was in probably colored my review, because I didn’t find all that much positive to say. I raved about the burger and the tempura and the beautiful night on the boat, winding up with a semihopeful suggestion that seeing as it was early in the season for this restaurant, things would likely get better. And that Valentine’s Day was probably not the best night to judge anyone’s food. And that I was looking forward to trying dinner there again.

Which I wasn’t. There was a major contrast between this opening night and the one I’d experienced at Edel’s restaurant, Bistro on the Bight, last December. Edel was the kind of chef who wanted every detail taken care of. Who wanted every bite memorable. For Goodness’ Sake, on the other hand, gave the impression that good enough was fine. That the Japanese-style food was a gimmick because maybe the chef otherwise couldn’t cook.