Mumbo Gumbo (16 page)

“Oh, Fate…”

Her voice grew more stressed. “I’m convinced he’s sending a signal to some woman. He’s sending her a message of”—she stood up and tossed the bunched-up tissue into the wastebasket—“a message of love. So.” She gathered up her books and binders and briefcase. “That’s why I need an ally. If it’s not Susan Anderson, it is probably that obnoxious Greta Greene. And I honestly don’t know which of them I hate more. You help me find out, Madeline. You help me and I’ll help you, okay?”

I wouldn’t say yes and yet I couldn’t bring myself to say no to a woman so clearly in pain, so I said nothing.

“Thank you, Madeline. You know I love him, don’t you? Chef Howie is my whole world. I am willing to forgive him if he’ll come to me and apologize and promise me he won’t act crazy again. I just want us to go on.”

“I know,” I said. So lame.

“And if there’s anything I can do for you,” Fate said, “just say the word.”

I looked at the sofa she had just been sitting on.

“What? Name it.”

“Do you think you could help me move the sofa over against that wall?”

“You want to…?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking I’d like to push something heavy against that wall of bookcases right over there. And that sofa would be perfect.” I figured Fate was talking about offering me job security, but I had another kind of security on my mind.

“Against the bookcases? Are you sure?”

And after the two of us shoved the sofa across the room, I had had enough of being a gracious hostess. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do. It’s why I came in early.”

“Work?”

“Research, actually.” I had to hunt down Tim Stock’s copy of
The Professional Chef,
and check page 20. I had to find
Nobu: The Cookbook,
and check page 198.

“You are a great find for
Food Freak,
Madeline,” Fate said, and then she caught me off guard and
hugged me. “Even if Greta Greene is the one who found you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m so glad we’ve become best friends,” she said. And then Fate Finkelberg kissed me on the cheek.

W
hat’s new?”

“Well,” I said, “I spent the night with Honnett, I learned all about merino sheep, and I made a new best friend. But not all together. You?”

“What?” Holly’s pale face was made up with a lot of black around her eyes, emphasizing their wide-open reaction.

“There’s more. Tim Stock may be dead, I have been thinking about getting a German shepherd puppy, and I just found two thousand dollars in cash taped in some cookbooks in the
Food Freak
library.”

“Maddie, what gives? Tim Stock isn’t dead, he’s missing.”

“There was a fire at his house last night.”

“Oh, man,” Holly said, nodding her head in recollection. “Those sirens. And Donald said there was a fire.”

“And a body was found in Tim Stock’s burnt-out garage next to his melted BMW.”

“Ew.”

“But as to whether it’s Tim who’s dead or not, I am having some doubts.”

Holly was reclining on the new rose sofa in my office
with one of her long legs flung over the rolled arm. “How come?”

“Something about the way Susan Anderson reacted to the news. It was odd. She told me a long story this morning and it sounded like she and Tim have been very tight. But she seemed to dismiss the idea he’d been hurt in the fire.”

“It’s such a sudden and horrible thing to happen, Mad. Maybe Susan just couldn’t accept that Tim had died that way. She’s in denial. I would be if one of my very best friends…” Holly began to tear up. She looked at me funny.

“Oh, please,” I said, handing the second woman in as many hours the office box of Kleenex. “Let’s get a grip.”

“Fine,” Holly sniffled. “But Susan could be in shock. News like that, about a friend you love, it’s too tough to take.”

“Maybe.”

“And all that other stuff you were talking about, whew! I just can’t keep up with current events.”

“Did you stop by my house and get the magazine?”

“Yes. I got your message. Donald dropped me off there an hour ago.”

“Was Honnett still there?”

“No,” Holly said. “Are we going to have a discussion about why we are back with the guys who done us wrong?”

“No,” I answered. “We’re going on a treasure hunt, instead.”

“Thank goodness,” Holly said, sitting up on the sofa. “I found the
Gourmet
magazine on the kitchen island. It’s got Tim Stock’s address label on it so I figured it’s the one.” She reached into her backpack and
brought it out. “And there was a page of notes in Wesley’s handwriting. This what you wanted?”

I reached out and read through the list of cookbook titles Wesley had decoded. “Perfect. Now we’re going to have to hunt for some of these books.”

“Is this how you found the money?” Holly asked.

I opened the top drawer of Tim Stock’s desk. Since Holly and I had spent much of the previous evening cleaning up the office, the drawer was now tidy and organized. In the center was a neat stack of $100 bills, held together by a paper clip.

“Wow. Okay, read off the book titles and let’s get moving.”

We spent the next forty minutes finding an extraordinary quantity of hundred-dollar bills, each cookbook holding anywhere from four to twelve. They were taped neatly onto the pages that had been indicated in code.

“How much?” Holly asked.

I had bundled the money we found into stacks of fifty hundred-dollar bills each. “I’ve got”—I had already finished the count but had decided to count them over just to be sure—”ten stacks here.”

“And there is, like, five thousand dollars in every stack?”

I nodded.

“Wow. Fifty thousand dollars,” Holly said.

“In cash.”

We sat there, pretty dazed.

“Well,” Holly said. “I guess this could explain why everyone seems to want to break into this office. I wonder who knew the money was hidden here?”

“I wonder. It also might explain why Tim Stock was
so keen on living in the little bedroom right next door,” I said.

“He was?”

“I just found out from Susan. Maybe he didn’t want to get too far away from his cash. I wonder what he planned to do?”

“And where all that money came from. Do you think this could be his life’s savings?”

“Maybe. But wouldn’t it have made more sense to park these hundreds in a nice safe money market account? Susan told me that Tim had a dream and he needed a lot of money. But something is wrong about all this cash, Holly.”

“Cash,” Holly said, as her leg hanging over the sofa arm tapped a mindless rhythm. “It’s untraceable, Madeline. People don’t hide this much cash unless they are worried about making big deposits in their banks because then it could be traced, right? I’ll bet this cash has something to do with money laundering! Of course, I don’t have a clue what laundering money means. It’s not really washing the money, I know that.”

I threw Hol an affectionate look. “Very good.”

“Maybe it’s drug money,” she riffed on. “Or from a bank robbery?”

Drug money. I wondered. Could Honnett’s theory be right? I considered his suggestion that there had been a series of murders taking place each week and the targets had been involved in some way with the illegal drug trade. I set the ten stacks of bills like the spokes of a wheel, aligning them so they were perfectly arranged on the desktop. What if Tim Stock’s hidden cash was drug money?

“What do you want to do?” Holly asked.

“We’ve got to get the money out of here,” I said, “and locked up for the time being, until we can figure all this out.”

“Where?”

“Take it over to Wesley’s house, the one he’s selling on Chiselhurst. Ask him to put it in the safe in the bedroom floor and not tell anyone it’s there.”

“Okay.”

I was scribbling a note and stuffing it into an envelope. “And do me another favor. Mail this letter for me.”

Holly looked at the address. “You’re mailing a letter to Tim Stock? But I thought he was…”

“Maybe he is. But it’s a way to show our honest intent. We found his money and we’re keeping it safe until he can claim it. If nothing else, the letter will get to one of his heirs…”

“Right.”

“…and I’ll feel a lot safer. I’ll let it be known that we found some money in the office and have put it in a safe place off-site. It might dissuade anyone else from thinking of banging me over the head and trying to search this damn room.”

“Okay,” Holly said, as she finished stuffing the last packet of hundreds into her large black backpack. “I’ll see you later.”

“Be careful.”

“Careful?” Greta Greene asked, from the doorway. Holly and I both looked up and saw Greta standing there, calm and cool in a tan pantsuit. “Hi, Holly,” she said. “I need a moment with Maddie, but you can stay.”

“That’s okay. I was just leaving.” Holly gave me a quick wave and left the room.

“Do you like your new sofa?” Greta asked when we were alone. She seemed pleased with herself.

“You sent it?”

“Didn’t I promise you? You both did a wonderful job of cleaning that mess in here last night. By the way, I stopped back to say thank you but you and Holly must have already gone home. I was worried about you fainting. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re sure? Well, we’ve got to get started on writing a new final-episode script immediately,” Greta said. “I hate to pile more work on you, Madeline, but I just saw Jennifer in her office and I’ve called a meeting for ten o’clock. That’s in fifteen minutes. Are you all right with that?”

I nodded, and then changed the subject. “Do you have a second?”

“Maybe one,” she said, smiling.

“It’s just some office gossip. But it’s interesting.”

“Well, for gossip I have two seconds,” she said, pushing her hand through her short blond hair and sitting down.

“It’s about Chef Howie.”

“Tell me.”

“Do you know anything about Chef Howie hooking up with anyone on the staff?”

Greta looked even more interested. “Have you heard something?”

If she was hiding her own involvement, she was one smooth actress. “What do you make of Fate? They aren’t the most likely pair.”

“She hates me, you know. She fought hard to get my ass kicked off the show.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She has this raging-jealousy thing going. She seems to hate every woman who works within ten feet of her husband, so watch yourself. She’s older than he is and I think she’s so insecure she’s half crazy.”

“But, you and Howie…?”

“Never. Come on! I have better taste than that! Are you serious? Besides, I’ve already got a guy.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “Is he someone on the show?”

“That wouldn’t be very smart, would it?” she asked. “He’s a great guy.”

“Cuter than Howie?”

“Well, I go for a different type, Maddie.”

“So you think Fate is just insecure.”

“Howie seems to tolerate her pretty damn well, considering she does everything but cut his steak for him.”

“What do you know about Artie?” I asked. “Has he always been a sweet guy around you?”

“Why?” Greta asked, then quickly changed her tone. “Everyone loves Artie. Artie’s wonderful. He’s a doll. They don’t make executive producers like Arthur Herman anymore.”

“Do you remember something happening a long time ago down in Mexico?” Greta didn’t seem to get what I was referring to. “In Mexico. With Susan Anderson?”

“Oh, that.” Greta got up and closed the door. When she returned to the sofa, she scooted over so I could join her there. “This is a very sad story, really, but it goes to show what a prince of a guy Artie Herman is.”

“Really?” I sat next to Greta on the sofa.

“We were working on a show called
Great Escapes.
Different celebrities would get a free vacation to some exotic location in exchange for letting our crew come along and shoot a lot of footage. As a matter of fact, Tim Stock was the writer on that show. It was a fabulous job to land. We all loved it. We’d get to travel to all these romantic destinations and stay in the best hotels, and everything was comped. Well, Susan was the PA on the show. Artie always hired her. He’s so loyal. And here’s the sad part. I’m not sure if you are aware of it, but Susan had a very serious drinking problem.”

“What?”

“Yes. And on that particular trip, she got totally out of control. It got so bad that she disappeared one night and drank an entire bottle of tequila or something. We were frantic. Artie couldn’t find her. I couldn’t find her. And remember, we had a show to shoot. Roma Downey was waiting in the makeup trailer and Artie couldn’t even find the script.”

“I heard this story a little differently,” I said slowly.

“Really? Well, no one could forget how trashed Susan was that next morning when we finally found her.”

“Where had she been?”

“Poor Tim,” Greta said. “When Susan was wasted, she’d go to bed with any man who’d buy her a drink.”

“Are you saying that Susan and Tim were together?”

“Tim was genuinely fond of Susan, I’m sure. But I’m afraid she was just in a downward spiral. Under the circumstances, Artie should have shot her. But not Artie. He was magnificent. He talked Susan into getting help. He gave her a promotion so she’d get health insurance, which could help pay for her to sober up. And he even talked her into starting a hobby. He came up with the neatest idea. He bought Susan some pet
sheep. And now, everything has been going so well for her. She loves those animals. Just talk to Susan. She’ll tell you what a sweetheart Artie is. He saved her life.”

Oh, man. Which version of the story was correct? It
might
have happened that way. But perhaps someone had devised a very clever cover story that accounted for most of the facts and made Arthur Herman look noble in the bargain?

Greta stood up and checked her watch. “We’re having our meeting in less than five minutes. I’d better get going.”

“Greta,” I said, stopping her at the door. “Look, there’s something you might not know yet. Have you heard anything about Tim?”

“Tim?” she said, turning back quickly. “Did Tim finally get in touch with somebody? Do you think he’ll come in today? That would be perfect.”

“This is difficult news. I thought you might have already been informed by the police.”

Greta looked pale. “What is it?”

“There was a fire at his house last night. And the police found a body. They think it’s Tim.”

Greta opened her mouth to say something, but not a word came out.