Killer Sudoku (18 page)

The décor of the Skye Room didn’t run much to mirrors, and even those featured smoked glass with veins of gold in the background. That still allowed Liza to get a good look at herself. The bee sting below her eye had caused swelling, and the thin and delicate tissues of the lids and their surroundings hadn’t liked that. Tiny blood vessels had ruptured, and even though it was less than an hour since the bee had attacked her, Liza wound up with the beginning of a glorious (or godawful, depending on your point of view) shiner.

Liza’s personal opinion fell more on the godawful end of the spectrum, but she still had to hide a grin at the reflected expressions on the two police officers.

The tall, young cop’s eyes zipped back and forth as if he were watching a tennis game on fast-forward—or trying to formulate a lie. He had been out of the room for a good deal of time and had no idea what Janacek might have gotten up to.

Janacek, on the other hand, looked even more stolid than usual, just a little more hunched in on himself, his lips downturned and pursed as if he were trying to decide if the latest bite he’d taken had some ingredient that had gone bad. He, too, realized that he’d been alone with Liza, and that this could easily turn into a very nasty case of she said/he said.

Liza turned to Alvin. “I was attacked—”

The lawyer stretched up to the tallest height his short, rotund form would allow.

“By a bee,” Liza finished.

Alvin lost his height, his face scrunching up in confusion. “Is that some kind of slang I don’t know about?” he asked.

Liza shook her head, winced, and reapplied the cold compress. “No, I’m talking about a real bee—the insect. An angry bee stung me up by the pool. Babs Basset got stung, too, before she fell off the rooftop.”

“The deceased?” Alvin obviously knew that already. He was actually asking, “Is this our story, and are we sticking to it?”

“Those bees up there were acting way out of character,” Liza went on, ignoring the cues Alvin was silently trying to give her. “Detective Janacek just got a call to that effect.”

Janacek harrumphed, trying to hide the near heart attack Liza’s initial words had almost given him. “Ah. Yes, Ms. Kelly. I think our business here is done for the time being. Perhaps sometime tomorrow you can stop by the station to give a formal statement—”

“And I’ll be happy to accompany my client.” Alvin maintained a steely tone, but from the look in his eyes, there went another tee time.

“I’d also request that you don’t discuss any of our conversation with the media,” Janacek went on.

“That might be interesting,” Alvin said.

Liza glanced at him. “Just how many newspeople are out there?”

“There’s a SINN camera crew, naturally,” Alvin told her. “And crews from all four of the network news affiliates, plus a couple of local news stations. With three apparent murders in a row, people are bound to start taking notice.”

“And I have to go out and face all that in a bathing suit, a towel, and this.” Liza lowered her compress again, getting a wince out of all three men.

“Maybe some sunglasses?” Janacek fumbled in his jacket pockets. “I’m afraid I left mine in the car.” He turned to his partner, who produced a very stylish pair of shades, with lenses so small as to be useless in actual sun, much less hiding the damage to Liza’s eye. “From the Ben Frank lin Collection, I see,” she said, handing them back.

“You could use mine,” Alvin began, producing a pair with lenses that, if anything, were oversized. But when Liza tried them on, she reeled slightly.

“They’re prescription,” Alvin explained, somewhat unnecessarily.

“But they do hide the eye.” Liza peered into a mirror. Her view was blurred and a little crazy. She could make out that much, though.

She reached out to Alvin, missed, and tried again, this time linking her arm through his. “I think you’ll have to lead me,” she told him. “All we have to do is get to my suite.”

“All right,” he said a little nervously. “Don’t say anything—let me do the talking.”

“No problem on that,” Liza told him. “I’ll be too busy trying to navigate.” She took a deep breath. “Shall we get going?”

Liza not only had to match her steps to Alvin’s shorter stride, she had to bend down to rest her arm in his. Even as he opened the door, she was off balance.

They found the hallway outside the door filled with media people. Liza was used to the shouted questions, the blinding camera lights. However, she usually worked to protect clients, leading them past this circus. Instead, this time she was the focus of all the questions.

“Can you tell us why you were up on the roof with Babs Basset?”

“How exactly did she come to fall into the bay?”

“Why are you in a bathing suit?”

“Is it true that you threatened her while setting up a meeting?”

Liza simply concentrated on covering ground, leaving Alvin to tell the reporters, “No comment. Please let us pass.”

One avid press person shoved a microphone into Alvin’s face with some inane question, forcing the lawyer to break step and Liza to look down to see where she was going.

Very bad move. The sunglasses were bifocals, and Liza got a whole new distorted view of her feet. She stumbled, the towel went one way, and the glasses slipped off her nose.

The media people pounced like barracudas scenting fresh blood in the water.

“Liza, what happened to your eye?”

“Did Babs Basset do that to you?”

“Did the police?”

Alvin got them moving again, repeating his “No comment” mantra. Liza followed him half-blindly, squinting out between her swollen eyelids.

We’re never going to make it down this corridor, much less to the elevator,
she thought in dismay.

Suddenly, the door to one of the other event rooms swung open, and Fergus Fleming beckoned them in.

“Any port in a storm,” Liza murmured into Alvin’s ear, half-steering, half-stumbling toward the entrance.

They made it just before the media people could block them. Fleming firmly shut the door on the cameras and twisted the lock. He ran a hand across his eyes in delayed reaction to the camera lights. “Is that what they call a perp walk?” he asked, sounding exhausted.

“I think that would fall more under media frenzy,” Liza told him. Then she introduced Alvin.

“I know of you by reputation, Mr. Hunzinger,” Fleming said. His tone of voice definitely suggested that he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t get to know Alvin in a professional sense.

“Liza’s partner heard about her involvement in the situation here and thought she should have some legal advice,” Alvin responded smoothly.

Liza glanced around for the makings of a new ice pack. She suspected Michelle Markson had been a good deal more peremptory about it, but she didn’t see any reason to point that out.

“You look like hell, Liza,” Gemma Vereker said, suddenly appearing and steering Liza toward a makeshift bar. She also smiled down at Alvin. “And how is the smoothest lawyer in Hollywood? He managed to fix things after a director of photography said some stupid things about me in front of a stunt man friend—a
large
stunt man friend.”

“I just managed to find a couple of witnesses who said the director had been drinking and started the argument,” Alvin said, but he flushed with pleasure as Gemma patted his arm.

Gemma shook her head as she surveyed the bar. “Only paper napkins here. They’ll turn to mush as the ice melts, and you can’t just put a cube directly onto your skin.”

She turned as Kevin hustled up. “I should have expected that.” He sounded annoyed with himself. “Is that the door to the kitchen?”

Fleming nodded, and Kevin headed off.

“You’ve got quite a congregation here,” Liza told him.

“The police left me here after asking some questions. When the newspeople showed up, I figured it was just as wise to stay. Several other people showed up after talking with the detectives, so I decided to arrange a little hospitality.”

“I came for the privacy and stayed for the free booze.” Gemma picked up a bottle of single malt Scotch, refreshed Fleming’s glass, then poured herself a healthy snifter.

“This probably won’t be a good idea applied topically,” she said to Liza. “But it might not be a bad idea taken internally.”

Liza suspected that even half the dose Gemma had in her glass would be enough to lay her on the floor. She spotted a nearly full bottle of white wine in an ice bucket and poured a small glass for herself.

“Speaking of badmouthing, the cops heard that the Wicked Witch of Frisco had some choice things to say about me, so they asked some questions.” She shrugged. “Luckily, I could honestly say that I really hadn’t heard much.” Her lips stretched in an evil grin. “All I could say is that I guessed she was growing a little desperate about getting her ass handed to her in the competition.”

And since I’m one of the people doing that, the cops ended up looking at me more closely,
Liza thought.
Thanks, Gemma.

She took a sip of the wine.

“They asked me about how our marriage ended.” Fleming lowered the contents of his glass pretty dramatically. “How did they think it ended?”

“I didn’t know if I should mention something about a loss—”

Fleming’s mood quickly shifted. “Whatever we had was dead long before whatever happened on the roof.”

“I’m sure the police told you about that, if not Kevin and Michael.” She’d spotted her former husband staring in horror at her eye.

“But you were there and actually saw it,” Fleming said.

She gave him the bare facts with no interpretations—and no mention of the information Janacek had gotten.

Fleming shook his head. “She knew bees were dangerous for her. But instead of keeping still like a sensible person, she’d always try to wave them off.”

I wonder if he mentioned that to Janacek—or any of the other cops,
Liza thought.

Fleming retrieved the Scotch bottle, refilling his glass and topping off Gemma’s. “Maybe it’s selfish,” he said heavily. “But all I can see coming out of this is damage for my business.”

Either he’s genuinely upset, or I’m seeing an Oscar-quality performance,
Liza thought.

“My partner often says there’s no such thing as good or bad publicity,” she told Fleming, quoting one of Michelle’s favorite aphorisms, “only publicity or none.”

Gemma nodded. “She’s got a point, Fergus.”

Kevin came bustling over. “Here’s an ice pack, and something else for that eye.” He grinned. “I thought that Angus guy was going to come at me with a cleaver when I asked for it, but he finally came up with some meat tenderizer.”

“Meat tenderizer?” Liza asked in disbelief. “Like, from the kitchen?”

“That’s where I got it,” Kevin replied with a grin. “You see, it has enzymes to break down protein—and that includes bee venom.” As he spoke, he mixed in some water to the little pile of powder on a small saucer. Then he applied the paste carefully to the area under Liza’s eye, his fingers surprisingly gentle as he worked. “When you go to bed, take an aspirin or some sort of analgesic—good for the pain. You can also take an antihistamine, too. That will help with the swelling.” He glanced at the glass in Liza’s hand.

“I just took a couple of sips,” Liza said, putting the wine down. “As for the pills, I saw Mrs. H. unloading what looked like a traveling pharmacy in our room.”

Gemma gave her a crooked grin. “That’s our Liza, safe and sane—and I hope dependable. I’ll certainly be depending on you tomorrow morning.”

“Before I can put myself to bed, I’ve got to get up to my room.” Liza beckoned Michael over. “Can you get up to Mrs. Halvorsen and have her send me down some clothes? I’m going to look a little conspicuous trying to sneak around the hallways dressed as I am.”

“Especially with all those newspeople out there.” Michael frowned for a second, then said, “Kevin said he came back from the kitchen, but he didn’t come through that door.”

“There’s a back hallway connecting each of the event rooms with the kitchen,” Fergus Fleming explained.

“Then that’s my way out—yours, too, Liza, when I get back.”

Soon enough, Liza had changed into some nice, nondescript clothes and had a pair of sunglasses that didn’t make the world look like a funhouse. As she said good night to everyone, Gemma said a little blurrily, “G’luck. An’ remember to get me in the morning,” apparently forgetting she’d already asked.

Liza emerged from the kitchen to an empty hallway and quietly headed off to the elevator bank. She made it upstairs with no excitement, except for the fuss Mrs. H. made when Liza finally got to their suite.

It seemed that Michael had reported at least part of the story to Mrs. H., because she had a fresh supply of ice for compresses. She’d also sorted through her pill bottles for the appropriate nostrums. Liza let her neighbor play mother hen all the way to her bedroom. To tell the truth, she felt exhausted, but she forced herself to take a shower to get the dried chlorine off her. Mrs. H. had already turned down the covers, and Liza just about fell in. She didn’t even remember the light going off.

By morning, the pain was down, but the bruise remained like a big, dark thundercloud under her eye. Liza winced at her reflection. Mrs. Halvorsen, though, sounded encouraging when she saw Liza in her sunglasses. “You can’t tell a thing, dear.”

The older woman insisted on accompanying Liza, ready to run interference with any rogue camera crews they might encounter. Liza, however, put her faith in the news cycle. There’s always another story for a crew to cover.

They’d reached the lobby before she remembered her promise to Gemma Vereker. “I’ve got to go back up,” Liza told Mrs. H. “Could you get yourself a cup of tea and a nice table out on the patio, and we’ll join you.”

The elevator doors were just closing when Michael scooted inside. “I wanted to check in and see how you were doing.” He peered in from the side of Liza’s shades. “Looks like Kevin’s miracle cure didn’t work much in the way of miracles.”