How to Crash a Killer Bash (18 page)

“Why do they call them floaters?” I asked, and then wished I hadn’t. It didn’t make for a good prelunch conversation.

“Floaters are corpses found floating in water, and it’s harder for the ME to determine their time of death. They decompose more slowly in water than on land.”

My stomach lurched. I tried to think of another topic to change the subject. Brad apparently felt the need to share his knowledge.

“If the body is in there a long time, say a couple of weeks, first the body sinks. When it starts forming gas, it rises again. Jason hadn’t been in that pond long enough for his body to swell much and the skin to separate.”

“So they can’t tell how many hours he’d been dead, only how many days?”

“Like I said, it slows down the process. But they’ll figure out a ballpark figure.”

By the time we reached the restaurant, I’d lost my appetite. But the smell of burgers and fries brought it back, and I led the way into the double-wide trailer. We sidled up to the bar, placed our orders, and carried a couple of beers onto the attached glass-enclosed patio to watch the colorful windsurfers.

“So Christine was married, divorced, and lost her job at another museum,” Brad said, summarizing my latest information, his upper lip damp with beer.

“Which proves nothing, really.” I took a deep pull from my own beer. “I feel like I take two steps forward and I fall back three. Either that, or I’m going around in circles.”

He leaned back in the wicker chair. “You need a specific game plan.”

“I have one,” I countered. “Except it’s a party plan.”

He frowned, puzzled.

“I’ve been using one of my party planning sheets to try to solve this. Planning a party and solving a mystery have a lot in common. The problem is, I’m a newbie at this event planning career, and not even close to being a detective.”

Brad sat up to welcome the burger plates from the waiter. He immediately decorated his bun with heavy dollops of catsup, mustard, and relish. When the waiter asked if we needed anything more, I almost suggested he bring Brad a hose, but instead I shook my head and dove into my own lightly seasoned burger.

“I know you’re no detective,” Brad said as soon as the first bite had cleared his mouth. “But like a detective, a party planner is a problem-solver.”

Grabbing a napkin, I wiped away a drip that had made its way down my chin. I was sure I looked adorable with hamburger juice all over my face.

“A detective gathers details—clues—to discover whodunit,” Brad continued after a swallow of beer. “The party planner—”

“Event planner,” I corrected him.

“Event planner,” he said, enunciating the words, “gathers details—props and stuff—to provide the perfect party. It’s all in the details.”

I set my burger down and wiped my greasy fingers on two napkins, then pulled out an annotated party-planning sheet from my purse. “Okay, here’s what I have so far: the victim, Mary Lee, aka guest of honor, is dead. She was stabbed to death with a sharp instrument like a dagger, aka the theme. The weapon wasn’t missing from the crime scene, aka the party venue. And one of the guests, aka my-primary-suspect-slash-her-ex-husband, is also dead. That’s about it.”

“Think about who had something to gain by killing Mary Lee,” Brad said.

“Everyone?”

“That narrows it down,” he said sarcastically. “Seriously, who?”

“Her ex, for one—before he got himself killed. I suppose her son, Corbin, but that seems like a long shot. I just don’t think he has it in him to kill both parents. And now I think there’s something going on between Christine and Dan. But I can’t tell if it has to do with Mary Lee, or it’s just personal.”

“Okay, you now have three viable suspects. Who else?”

I took another bite of my burger and thought while I chewed. Was I overlooking someone? Someone at the party who had a hidden agenda? Someone in Mary Lee’s social circle? Someone, someone . . .

“
Cherchez la femme
,” Brad said, interrupting my circling thoughts.

“What?” I asked.

“
Cherchez la femme
,” Brad repeated. “Only, instead of looking for the woman, how about looking at the woman’s home? You learn a lot by studying the victim’s home.”

I took a sip of beer. “I doubt I can get into Mary Lee’s house. Don’t the cops have it secured?”

“Maybe not. It wasn’t the crime scene. I’m sure they’ve been there looking for clues, but I’ll bet you could get her son to let you in.”

I sat up, suddenly energized, either by the burger or by the ideas Brad had suggested. “Good idea. And maybe I could get into his dad’s place too. I’m sure there’s a connection between the two murders.”

We finished up our meals and drinks. Brad pulled out a few dollars for a tip from his leather wallet.

“You got the tab,” I said, pulling my wallet from my purse. “I’ll leave the tip.”

“Next time,” he said, standing up. He pulled out my chair.

The walk back to the office building was leisurely, no doubt due to our full stomachs. We strolled back in silence. I was pondering my options; I had no idea what Brad was thinking.

He stopped abruptly in the office parking lot and glanced at his motorcycle. “I’m got some errands to run.”

I turned to face him, a little surprised he wasn’t returning to his office. “Oh, sure. Uh . . . Actually, I meant to ask if you could take a look at that anonymous e-mail I got. Do you have a minute?”

Brad looked alarmed. “So that’s why you were asking about the remailer? What did the e-mail say?”

“Not much. Whoever it was just sent a picture and asked how I liked it. It was a cell phone snapshot of my mother and me at Fisherman’s Wharf.” I filled him in on the purse-snatching and the fact that the snatcher now had my mother’s address and room key.

The frown deepened. “Did you call Melvin?”

“I . . . meant to. I will. I figured it was a random purse-snatching, and there wasn’t much they could do. Until I got the e-mail. So can it be traced?”

Brad followed me inside my office. I sat down and called up the e-mail. He leaned over my shoulder and read it. I could feel his chest brush against my back and smell his lime-scented aftershave.

“Like I said, a hacker could probably do it. And the police may be able to trace it, with probable cause. It’s pretty easy these days to send this kind of stuff, with all the Web sites available. The sender can make the e-mail look like it came from any address he wants—if he knows what he’s doing.” He straightened up. “Call Melvin. Now. This is a credible threat.”

I pushed back my desk chair. Brad extended his hand and pulled me to my feet, just inches from him in the crowded office space.

“I will. I promise. Thanks for lunch. And for your help.”

He raised his hand and started to reach toward me.

I froze.

Oh God.

Was he going to kiss me?

He touched the side of my mouth. “You have a little something . . .”

I let out a breath, partly disappointed that he didn’t kiss me, and completely mortified that I’d been wearing some kind of food on my face the whole way back to the office.

I reached up to wipe it away, but Brad caught my hand. “I’ll get it,” he said. “It’s catsup. You’ll smear it all over.”

He placed his hand on my cheek, I assumed to steady my head while he removed the hideous red blob from my lip.

He leaned in—to get a better look?

And kissed the catsup right off my face.

I sat in my office staring at a blank screen, unable to focus. I’d just been “cleaned” by a crime scene cleaner. And that kiss had sent an electric current from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair.

Crap.

I tried to shake the feeling away, but it kept coming back. I really didn’t need anything demanding more attention in my attention-deficit life. What did I really know about this man who’d moved into my life via the office across the hall? Only that there was something more to him than simple crime scene cleaning. I hadn’t even known he’d had a brother until today.

Why did he have to go and kiss me like that?

“Enough!” I said aloud, slamming my hands down on my desk.

Raj Reddy appeared in my office doorway. “You okay, Ms. Presley?”

“I’m fine, Raj. Sorry about that.”

“Enough working for today?” he said, his head bobbing side to side. “I’m down to that.”

“I’m down
with
that,” I said, breaking into a grin. I loved it when Raj tried to be hip with the English language. While well schooled in English, he’d only lived in the United States a few years and was trying hard to pick up the current slang. His malapropisms always cheered me up.

“It’s a little early for quitting time,” I said. “Been busy today?”

“Oh yes. Lots of tourists trying to sneak into the film set. Anytime Robin Williams is making a movie here, it’s giving me a headache.”

Raj was such a sweetheart. In fact, he reminded me of Sam Wo. Both men were conscientious, polite, and there to help out beyond the call of duty. They were almost father figures. I wouldn’t have minded if my mother dated either one of them. At the moment, it looked like Sam was heading that way. He’d mentioned that his wife had recently left him. No doubt he was lonely, much like my mother. The thought of him becoming my next “father” was kind of weird, but if it made my mother happy, I could live with it.

I tried to work on party planning for the next couple of hours, then gave up. Brad hadn’t returned, and I figured if he had more news, he’d let me know. Maybe I could focus better at home. I rose from my desk and gathered my things.

“ ’Bye, Raj,” I called down the hall. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He peeked his head out. “Good-bye, Ms. Presley. Have a nice night. And please say hello to your kind mother for me.”

Hmmm. Maybe Sam would have a little competition after all.

 

I drove the Smart Car the short distance to my condo and parked in the carport. I unlocked the front door and went inside to greet my cats. The place looked as if it had been vandalized, but then, it always looks like that. Makes it hard to know when I’ve actually had an intruder. Luckily, that had only happened once, a few weeks back, when I stuck my nose into the death of the mayor’s unsuspecting bride-to-be. Since then I’d added a new lock, secured the windows, and tried to train my three cats to attack anything that moves—other than me. So far they preferred to ravage couch pillows, coffee table legs, and my feet.

I fed all three, filling their separate bowls, then snuggled up with Thursby and a glass of wine to watch the evening news. The de Young double murders were headliners, and Detective Melvin looked pretty hot during his interview, with his slicked-back hair and charming grin. The gorgeous female reporter was practically drooling for him.

Unfortunately, Melvin had nothing new to offer. He quickly fell back on the usual cop clichés—“We can’t discuss an active investigation,” “We have no further information at this time,” blah, blah, blah. When the segment ended, I roamed the channels looking for something to take my mind off the endless whodunit loop playing in my head. I surfed past a romantic comedy on Lifetime, a romantic suspense on AMC, and a romance with zombies on Sci-Fi. When I realized I couldn’t escape all the romance, I turned off the TV and went to bed.

Naturally I dreamed about a romantic crime scene cleaner.

Brad was just about to rescue me from a museum mummy who had come to life when my cat alarm went off. Cairo was kneading my stomach, digging in with his sharp little claws, while Fatman licked my cheek. Only Thursby slept in; he still lay across my ankles. Snoring. I knew cats purred, but I never knew they snored. Maybe he had a deviated septum. Maybe he needed rhinoplasty. Maybe I needed to get up.

I headed for the shower, my mind running random non-thoughts, until the warm water really woke me up and brought me back to more realistic concerns. Like getting Delicia out of jail. Or finding the real killer. Or dealing with that kiss . . .

Somewhere between the shampoo and conditioner I decided that I wanted to learn more about Mary Lee and Jason’s relationship—and I needed Corbin’s help. Like Brad had said—sometime before he kissed me—“
Cherchez la femme.
”

And Corbin was the only one with an all-access pass to their pasts.

I dressed in my usual black jeans and a T-shirt with a cat on it that read, “If you don’t talk to your cats about catnip, who will?” After downing a triple latte and a cinnamon bagel, I pulled out my phone and tapped his number. After five rings, a lethargic-sounding voice answered, “Yeah?”