Watchin' The Detective: A Mystery Dinner Romance (5 page)

Nicole says, “And you didn’t even notice that
when you were putting them on?”

“Obviously not,” Isabella says and continues
laughing at herself.

Her friend observes, “You really do have it
bad.”

“I know. I know.”

The phone at the reference desk rings and
Nicole says, “You better answer that. It’s probably Joshua. He’s
already called here three times looking for you.”

Isabella rolls her eyes, and answers,
“Reference Desk…Oh...Hi, Joshua. Yes, I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t
call you back yesterday. I forgot to check my messages.”

Nicole stands up and leaves the reference
desk in order to give them some privacy. When she comes back a few
minutes later, she asks her friend, “So, is everything okay with
you two?”

“Yeah. He wanted me to come get some coffee
off his cart, but I told him about my shoe fiasco. He just
laughed.”

“Isabella,” Nicole says, putting on her
judgmental/holier-than-thou tone, “Do you like Joshua?”

“Well, sure I do. He’s cute. What’s not to
like?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure. He is kind of young for
me.”

“I know. But don’t lead him on. He seems like
a nice guy.”

“You sound a bit like you want him for
yourself.”

“I would never date your boyfriend.”

“But, what if he were free? Would you go out
with him, then?”

“I’m not sure how easily he’d get over you. I
don’t want to date someone who’s on the rebound.”

Isabella says, “On the rebound? We were never
bound in the first place.”

“I saw the way you two were making out after
the show.”

“It was our first date. You always kiss on
your first date.”

“I don’t always.”

“Are you saying I’m a ‘ho’?”

“No.”

You can be so judgmental sometimes.”

“I don’t mean to be.”

“So, anyway, Nicole. Let’s change the
subject. I am just dying to call that detective. But I don’t know
what to say. Any ideas?”

“Well, he gave us his card, right? He’d like
us to call if we thought of anything helpful to the murder
investigation. Maybe you’d better think of something.”

“Like what?” Isabella asks.

“Well, think about it. Did you see anything
unusual that night? Was somebody there acting in an unexpected
way?”

“I can’t think of anything right now.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,
Isabella. You always do.”

Isabella gives her friend a dirty look and
they don’t talk to each other for the next half hour. Finally,
Isabella says, “That’s it! I thought of something.”

“What did you come up with?”

“Well, I remembered seeing that Hamid guy
acting strangely.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he was there at the bar when we
arrived, but after the show started, he seemed to vanish for a
while, letting that waitress take the drink orders.”

“So?”

“Well, then after the lights dimmed and the
actors came out with the flashlights, I could’ve sworn I saw him
wandering around from table to table.”

“What do you think he was doing?”

“I don’t know. He never really seemed like he
was part of the show, did he? It was like he was too serious for it
or something. Maybe he owns the place?”

“I think you just found your reason to call
the detective.”

“You’re right. I think I just did.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“For my ‘official morning break’, then I’ll
call him?”

“Oh, puhlease...”

“Well, I am a dedicated government worker,
after all.”

They both start laughing.

*******

On her “official morning break”, Isabella
calls the number on the detective’s card. He picks up on the first
ring. She’s surprised to hear his voice and her stomach does
flip-flops. It takes a few seconds to find her voice and she says,
“Hello, Detective Sterling. This is Isabella Forshey calling.
Remember me from the night of the murder at the dinner
theater?”

“Oh, yes. How are you Isabella?”

“I’m fine. And you?”

“I’m fine, too. How may I help you
today?”

Isabella can think of a million ways he could
help her, some of them happening in the bathtub with her, but she
behaves herself and says, “I’ve thought of something that might
help your investigation.”

“Great. What do you have?”

“Well, I was hoping I could meet you
somewhere. It’s pretty long and involved, what I have to tell
you.”

“Okay. Why don’t you come into the station
and we’ll talk?”

“Well, police stations kind of give me the
creeps. There are a lot of scary looking guys lurking around all
the time.”

“Okay. Where do you suggest?”

“How about Original Mike’s? Do you know where
that is?”

“Sure. I’ve been there a few times.”

“How about lunch tomorrow?”

“Sounds good. See you there at noon.”

“Okay. Bye,” Isabella says, wishing they
could have talked more.

That night, Isabella is in a panic over what
to wear to her meeting with the detective. She doesn’t like
anything in her closet. She tries on several outfits; then gives
up.
Time to go shopping at South Coast Plaza
, she tells
herself, grabbing her car keys.

She has a favorite store at the mall but has
never had the courage to go inside. It’s one of those boutique
shops that only the bussed-in tourists from Japan can afford to
shop at. She’s always admired the window displays at “Missoni” when
she and Nicole walked by the store on their way to “Wolfgang
Puck’s” for pizza. Tonight, she finally has garnered the courage to
go inside and try on some of their very expensive dresses.

“Maybe, I’ll just look around,” she tells
herself.

“Missoni” is a very small store with only
about forty dresses on their racks. She wonders how they stay in
business since she rarely sees customers inside. She hopes that she
won’t be the only shopper getting all the attention. To her
discomfort, upon entering the store, she realizes she’s the sole
customer. She walks over to look at a rack of dresses and a
saleslady comes up to her, introduces herself, and asks her name.
She asks what brings her to the store and Isabella says that she’s
always admired the window displays, but has never tried on any
dresses yet. The saleslady shows her some dresses and Isabella says
that they are very pretty but she can’t wear horizontal stripes
because they make her look fat. Isabella looks around at all the
dresses in the store and before settling on three to take to the
dressing room. The saleslady informs her that these dresses are 40%
off. Isabella does the math in her head.
Forty percent off
of
$850.00 still costs $510.00
.
That is a freakin’
boatload of money.

The saleslady tells her that the dresses are
a bit tricky to try on because their slips are sewn into one
shoulder seam of the dress. “You must put the slip on first, then
the dress,” she tells Isabella. This is more difficult than it
sounds and Isabella is all thumbs trying to first get the slip on.
She is a tangled mess when the saleslady checks back in with her.
Isabella asks if the lady could help her dress, which she gladly
obliges. Her first choice is beautiful: the knit dress has an Art
Deco Fleur de Lis design, in cherry, teal, and black. She has never
seen such a gorgeous dress. The saleslady admires how pretty she
looks in it. Isabella says, “I think it makes me look fat. I wish I
would have worn my Spankx.”

“Do you want me to go next door to the
lingerie shop and see if I can borrow a girdle for you?”

Isabella says, “They’d let you do that?”

“It’s worth a try,” she answers.

Wow! This store is a whole other shopping
paradigm.
They’d never do this at Kohls
. While waiting
for the girdle, Isabella tries to put on the other dresses. Once
again, she gets tangled up in the slip straps and can’t figure out
which hole to put her arms and head through. The saleslady comes
back with the girdle and sees Isabella struggling with the dress.
She offers, “Would you like me to take the dress and detach the
slip for you?”

“Sure. You’d do that?” Isabella says in
amazement.

“Yes. I’ll sew it back on later if you don’t
want to buy it.”

“Okay. That would be great.”

The saleslady asks, “May I get you some
bottled water while you try on your dresses?”

“Sure.”

“Would you like Perrier or Evian?”

“Perrier is fine, thank you.”
Wow! This
must be what it’s
like to shop in Beverly Hills.

The lady brings back some bottled water on a
silver tray. (Isabella feels like a princess). Then she brings the
detached slip and dress back for Isabella to try on. Isabella says,
“Are all your customers as inept as I am trying to put these
clothes on?”

“You’re not the only one. That’s why our
customers detach the slips once they get home. We just keep the
slips sewn on so that they don’t get lost from the dresses they
belong to.”

Isabella squeezes herself into the borrowed
girdle and tries on all three dresses. She loves each of them; it’s
hard to choose which one she likes best. She can’t even afford one,
let alone three.

She tells the saleslady, “I can’t decide. I
can only afford one. I don’t usually pay this much for my clothes
and I want to be sure that it’s exactly what I want. I look at it
as an investment.”

The lady agrees, “It is an investment. You
will have this dress for a very long time.”

They decide that they like the first dress
she tried on the best and Isabella takes the plunge and spends more
money than she’s ever spent on clothes in her life.

What have I just done?
she asks
herself when she leaves the store with her shopping bag and walks
back to her car.

Before getting into bed that night, Isabella
makes sure to set the alarm. She’s going to need some extra time to
put herself together tomorrow morning for her big lunch meeting
with Detective Sterling.

When the alarm goes off the next morning, she
has trouble dragging herself out of bed. She didn’t sleep well the
night before; she was too busy scolding herself for paying $510.00
for a dress.
I hope this investment pays off
, she tells
herself. She showers, does her nails, and fixes her hair into a
stylish French twist. Just when she gets her hair fixed the way she
likes it, she realizes that she should have put the dress on first.
If she puts it on now, it’ll mess up her hair when she’s pulls it
over her head. She gives it a try anyway. She squeezes into some
Spankx, rearranges the fat bulges, and puts on the slip and the
dress over her head. Miraculously, her hair doesn’t get too messed
up after doing this.
It must be because of all the hairspray I
used. My hair is in a nice “helmet-head condition” and it isn’t
going anywhere
, she thinks. She puts on her sexiest strappy
sandals, grabs her purse, and does a last-minute-mirror check
before she goes out the door. She plans to drive to work today
instead of walking. That way, she can get back and forth to
Original Mike’s without using up too much of her lunch hour.

Sitting outside in the Palm Court Oasis, she
enjoys the perfect weather and the sound of the water fountain in
the center of the patio. Original Mike’s is such an unusual place:
it has Victorian-era horse-drawn carriages outside that people
sometimes climb up into to get their picture taken. There’s a sign
by the main entrance that says, “Hippies use other door.” The patio
is made up of bricks that were originally from adjacent buildings
that were torn down. It definitely has a lot of ambience. She
orders a glass of wine and stares at the parking lot, hoping to
spot him as he drives up. She checks her lipstick in her compact
one more time when she finally sees the detective walking towards
her.

Wow!! He is mouth-watering handsome.
She stands up to wave at him; he smiles and waves back. The first
thing he says to her is, “What a beautiful dress you are
wearing.”

This investment is worth it. Just to hear
him say that
, she tells herself
.

The waitress comes over and asks if he’d like
anything to drink. He orders an iced tea. Isabella says, “Isn’t
this a gorgeous spring day?”

“It certainly is,” he answers. “So, Isabella,
what is the information you have about the night of the
murder?”

She notices he has no wedding ring and
thinks,
Yay!
Then she says, “Well, I thought that Hamid guy
was acting strange.”

“Hamid the bartender?”

“Yes. You know, the guy who looks like an
extra on ‘The Soprano’s’.”

The detective sets a small tape recorder on
the table and says, “Do you mind if I record this?”

She says, “It’s okay…I guess.”

“Don’t let it intimidate you. Just talk as
you would naturally,” he reassures her.

“Well, I hope I don’t say anything
stupid.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” he says and smiles at
her.

“Uh…okay. Where was I? Oh, yeah…Well, so
here’s what I noticed. Once the show started, it seemed that Hamid
had left for the night because he wasn’t at the bar anymore and the
cocktail waitress was serving all of our drinks. I thought that
maybe he’d gone home for the night. And then, all of a sudden, I
could have sworn I saw him moving around the tables when the actors
with the flashlights came out.”

“Tell me about what you saw.”

“It was almost pitch-black. We had trouble
seeing our plates to eat our dinners. You needed a flashlight to
see.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Well, when the flashlight guys were looking
around, I could’ve sworn I saw Hamid moving between the
tables.”