Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too (25 page)

“Do I look all right?” She blew her nose with a honk.

“I'm Nora Blackbird. Delilah Fairweather introduced us. Can I help?”

“Can you raise the dead?” she snapped. Then, as I apologized and began to withdraw, she said gruffly, “No, no, come in. I'm having an old-fashioned blubber, that's all.”

She heaved a sigh and pulled herself together with the air of a woman whose luck never changed. On the desk lay Zell Orcutt's obituary, clipped from the newspaper. His outdated photograph glared up at both of us. Looking down at him, ChaCha said, “I'm the only one who's going to miss the old bastard, aren't I?”

When I didn't answer, she said, “Nobody gives a damn that he's gone—not his family, nobody. I'm the last person on this earth who cared about him.”

“Uhm . . .”

“He loved me, you know. In his own way. He told me all his secrets, and that has to count for something, right?”

Around us, her office was crammed with account books, reams of computer printouts and office supplies, plus mementos of her stage career. I saw a stack of old theater programs, a dusty ukulele with NASHVILLE painted on its neck and several pairs of black tap shoes in various states of wear lined up on a shelf.

ChaCha shook a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros and thumbed a dime-store lighter. She wore a bulky oversized sweater that reached her midthighs over panty hose with woolly leg warmers on her lower legs. But
Flashdance
looked more like
The Golden Girls
now. She had taken off her shoes to reveal swollen bunions through the reinforced toes of her support hosiery.

She sucked hard on her cigarette, then burst into a hacking cough that quickly got out of control. As she struggled to suppress it, I noted that the fine wrinkles around her eyes, which hadn't been so visible at night, were now a spiderweb of lines.

I reached across the desk for an opened can of Dr Pepper. It was still cold to the touch. Handing it to her, I said, “Try this.”

“Thanks,” she croaked, and took a swig, which quelled the cough. Setting down the can, she eyed me. “You're not half bad.”

I perched on the edge of her desk. “I'm sorry for your loss. You must have been very good friends.”

She shrugged and took a more cautious drag on her cigarette. “Sure, friends. We checked into a hotel every Wednesday afternoon, but if that's what you mean by friends, that's what we were.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I'm gonna miss that randy goat!”

I tried to come up with a sympathetic response and failed. The mental picture of ChaCha and Zell in a hotel room temporarily overwhelmed me.

ChaCha rubbed tears away with her knuckle. “I was the only living person who bothered to be nice to him. Even his stupid granddaughter saw him as nothing but a meal ticket.”

“You must have known him . . . differently.”

“Those hoity-toity Fitches never understood him.” With more venom, ChaCha said, “He hated the opera and didn't play their stupid country-club sports. A trip to Atlantic City to hit the tables once in a while—that was Zell's style. And mine. We used to go to the Limelighter Lounge to dance. Man, he could rumba!”

“He enjoyed spending time with you.”

“Yeah, we had some good times.” She started to go misty again.

“And if he chose you for a business partner, he obviously had a lot of respect for you, too.”

She nodded. “Zell and me—we were good together.”

Gently, I kept going. “Will you keep Cupcakes open now that he's gone?”

“I only own half of this place.” She allowed a grumpy sort of grin. “He didn't always like what I had to say about the way things should run around here, but he let me try being the boss. I suppose I'll have to fight with those Fitch bitches now.”

“I heard one of you fired Clover.”

ChaCha laughed shortly. “It was me. Zell never shoulda let the kid bully him into hiring her as a Cupcake in the first place. No talent, two left feet, can't get a drink order straight to save her life—plus she walked in and right away started acting like one of those bubblegum divas on MTV. And she whined to Zell whenever I chewed her ass.”

“So you fired her the night he died.”

“Hell, I fired her the day before! But she thought I was kidding or something, because she came back. I didn't want her in the show at all, but she turned up here on opening night. She performed with the Cupcakes before I knew she was here.”

“She wasn't supposed to be in the show?”

“Hell, no. She was a whiner. She went running to Zell every time she got a blister on her toe. Plus she couldn't dance to save her life.”

“So you fired her because she couldn't dance? Or was there something else?”

ChaCha hesitated.

I said, “ChaCha, I know Zell was drawn to younger women.”

“Not women.” The fire blew out of her, and she said with resignation, “Girls. Look, I know he had his weaknesses. Hell, maybe that's why he and I first got together. I've always been kinda petite and flat-chested and—well, he wasn't perfect.”

Of course I had already noticed the physical resemblance between Zell's wife, Hannah, and ChaCha. Both were small, childlike women.

“And his relationship with Clover?” I asked.

ChaCha shook her head vehemently. “It was never anything like that. Nothing sexy. It's the other one, the girl who's always following Clover.”

“Jane?” I said, startled.

ChaCha toyed with her cigarette. “I caught Zell with girls before. Half the time, it was them who started it. He was a good-lookin' man. I found him with that Jane girl a couple of times and told her to get out. But she was always back the next day because of Clover.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's some kind of paid groupie for Clover. Tags along everywhere or Clover has one of her hissy fits. I threw Jane out of here half a dozen times while we were getting ready to open this place, but Clover always made her come back.”

“And then Jane and Zell—?”

“Zell couldn't keep his hands off her. And the only way I could permanently get rid of Jane was to fire Clover. Of course, that was no great loss. Except . . . Zell was awful mad at me. Last time I saw him, he was—he was awful unkind.”

“He wanted Clover in the show?”

“No, he knew she was bad and was causing trouble with the other girls, too. He said good riddance. But he didn't want Clover thinking it was his idea. He told me I shoulda taken full responsibility for firing her because she and her mom were gonna make his life miserable and it was all my fault.”

ChaCha started to weep again. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out half a dozen old photographs, all of them creased and faded, with edges bent as if they had been handled thousands of times. “Zell,” she said, looking down at the pictures. “He wasn't a prince, but I loved him.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. ChaCha traced a face in one of the photographs with her finger, then laid all the pictures onto the desk and gathered them into a neat stack, like a deck of cards. She dropped them back into the drawer.

She took one last look at the photos, then inhaled a deep breath, closed the drawer and checked her watch. “I gotta get back to rehearsal. We need to go over tonight's show before the cops come to interview me.”

“The police are coming?”

“Yeah, to ask a bunch of questions. I told them I don't know nothing about who killed Zell, but they want to talk anyway.”

“Perhaps you observed something without realizing its significance,” I suggested. “They probably want to hear your impressions.”

She grunted as she bent to buckle her right shoe. “Maybe it was that nephew, Boy. He came in here a few weeks ago with some hotshot. They talked to Zell about turning Cupcakes over to me before the place opened, which no way in hell was Zell gonna do. They said it would screw up Boy's campaign to be connected with a place like this.”

“Boy said that?”

“The other man did the talking. Then Boy got into it with Zell. I heard them arguing right here in this office. Boy left looking hotter than a chili pepper.”

As she bent to struggle into her second shoe, I leaned over to peer at the framed photo tacked up on the wall over the desk. A young Zell Orcutt in jeans and a Western shirt with a dusty bandanna around his neck smiled as he held the reins of a pinto cow pony. A tiny girl in a cheap blouse and flounced skirt sat on the spotted horse. She wore a tiara and a sash printed with the words RODEO QUEEN.

The face of the rodeo queen was that of a very young ChaCha Reynolds. She looked like a child.

One of the Cupcakes knocked on the door then and poked her head in to say there was someone to see ChaCha in the bar.

I followed them down the hallway. The rest of the Cupcakes lounged in the restaurant, picking lazily at their fingernails and yawning. Most of them, anyway. Up on the bar, two more intrepid girls appeared to be coaching my sister Libby in the steps of their Cupcake dance. Libby waved to me, waggling her hips with gusto, but she didn't miss a beat. She looked great.

Standing beneath the bar was Verbena Barnstable. She was dressed in the uniform of a Main Line matron—expensive navy blue blazer over light wool slacks and flat shoes. She looked as if she'd put on a costume. Her white hair was unmistakable, however. And her Viper persona still glowed in her radioactive gaze.

In both hands, she balanced a bakery box. I hesitated in the shadows, sure I shouldn't let her see me.

ChaCha had no such qualms and strode over to the bar, tap shoes clicking on the floor. “Who invited you?”

Verbena dropped the bakery box on the bar. “I brought you something.”

They faced each other as if across the dusty expanse of the OK Corral. ChaCha seemed to gather strength from the half-dressed Cupcake girls who lazed around her. I couldn't see her face, but her wiry body bristled with dislike. “What for?”

“Considering your relationship with my—with Zell, I thought we should try to be friends.”

“Friends?” ChaCha sounded surprised. “You knew about us? Zell and me?”

“Of course,” Verbena said. “He bragged about you. He said you were the only person who really knew him. The only one he could talk to. Is that true?”

“Sure, I guess so. Zell told me just about everything.”

“Pillow talk,” Verbena said.

“You could call it that,” ChaCha drawled.

“Have the police been here to ask what you know?”

“They're coming this afternoon.” She leaned close and popped the lid on the box. “You brought me some cupcakes! That's real cute.”

Verbena stood stiffly still in her dress-up clothes, towering over little ChaCha. She could have squished the smaller woman with one fist, but she kept her voice low and measured. “I thought we might talk a little business, too.”

ChaCha backed up a step. “What kind of business?”

“Shall we speak in private?”

“There's no need for privacy, Miss Priss. You gonna tell me to close down? Turn off the lights and lock the door so we don't embarrass anybody in your hoity-toity family?”

“On the contrary, I hope you'll stay in business. At least a little longer.”

ChaCha gave a short, barking laugh. “Well, lasso me and tie me to a fence post! Do I have a new partner?”

Verbena didn't answer. Instead, she said, “I hope you'll reconsider an earlier decision about Clover.”

Enlightened at last, ChaCha said, “You want me to hire the kid back.”

Surprised that Verbena had changed her mind, I listened from the shadows.

“Working here was important to Clover. And she thinks she needs this job to get her career started.”

“What do you think?”

“Doesn't matter,” Verbena said curtly. “I'm here to make my daughter happy.”

“You gotta have some talent to have a career. And you gotta get along with your coworkers. This is a team effort around here, not a showcase for a wannabe.” ChaCha put her back against the bar and leaned there, spreading her arms with confidence. Around her, the Cupcakes stirred in agreement.

“She'd like to try again,” Verbena said, still controlled, yet not. I could see Viper's fire building. “She'll do better this time.”

“And Mama brought me cupcakes to sweeten the deal?” ChaCha laughed again, apparently unaware of Verbena's mounting temper.

“It's not bribery. Someday Clover is going to be a big star. You'll be able to say you got her started. Surely that has some appeal for you?”

“If your kid wants to be a star, Mama, you're gonna need more than cupcakes.”

“It takes vision to see the truth sometimes.”

I thought Verbena was going to try again. Surely she had more ammunition. Physically, she could have squashed ChaCha like a bug. And Viper could have cleared the room with one of her screaming stage tantrums. But Verbena lifted her chin and turned around.

She made a silent, angry exit. The gunfight was over without a shot fired.

ChaCha laughed, and the Cupcakes joined in. But I stood still and thought that the woman known as Viper could not have given up so easily.

Unless getting Clover's job back hadn't been her purpose at all.

I wondered if she had come for information.

“Damn!” ChaCha said when the laughter died down. “She left her cupcakes behind. Doesn't she know dancers don't eat junk food?”

Libby stepped forward on the bar. “I'll take them! For my kids, of course. I'm making a lifestyle change, but my children might enjoy the treat.”