Watchin' The Detective: A Mystery Dinner Romance (9 page)

“That’s great! What brings you in here
tonight?”

“Well, I was admiring those shoes,” she says,
pointing to the window display.

“Oh, yes. We just got them in a few weeks
ago. What do you think of them?”

“I love them. I’m not even going to ask the
price, though.”

“They cost almost as much as your dress
did.”

“Phew! How can people afford to shop
here?”

“Some people have all the luck.”

The salegirl’s attention is caught by a woman
who’s just come into the store. She says, “Hello, Paula. It’s nice
to see you again!”

Isabella looks at the woman and is taken
aback. She boldly asks her, “Aren’t you the sister-in-law of the
man who was murdered at the dinner theater?”

“Yes. I am. How did you know?”

“I was there that night, too.”

“Oh yes. I remember you, too. You were
dressed like Joan in ‘Mad Men’.”

“And you were dressed like Audrey
Hepburn.”

“Well, that was the look I was going for. I
don’t know how well I pulled it off. Your friend looked a lot more
like her than I did.”

Isabella says, “Do the police have any idea
who killed your brother-in-law?”

“If they do, they’re not telling the family
anything.”

“It’s such a tragedy what happened. I’m so
sorry for your family’s loss.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s your sister holding up?”

“She’s having a rough time.”

“I’m so sorry. Tell her I’m praying for
her.”

Isabella scolds herself:
Why did I just
say that? Praying for her is the last thing I’ve been
doing.

The salesgirl says, “Isabella was admiring
the shoes in the window.”

“Yes. The ones my sister and I have.”

Isabella pats herself on the back.
Yes! I
knew it!

Paula says, “I’m here to buy a pair in
another color.” She points to some shoes that she likes.

“Great!” the salesgirl says. “I’ll go get
your size.”

She comes back with a shoe box and helps
Paula try them on. Paula walks around in them to see if they’re
difficult to walk in.

Isabella says, “Those look fantastic on you.
What a knock-out you are! Your husband had better keep an eye on
you when you go out of the house in those shoes!”

Paula laughs, “Thanks for the encouragement.”
She says to the salesgirl, “Brenda, I’ll take them.”

As Brenda rings them up, another salesgirl
enters the store and says to her, “Here I am at last. Sorry I’m
late. Thanks for covering for me.”

“It’s okay.” Brenda tells her and grabs her
purse.

“My shift is over,” she tells Isabella and
Paula. “Would you girls like to go out for a drink?”

Isabella answers, “Oh, I don’t want to
interfere.”

Brenda says, “We’d be happy to have you join
us. Wouldn’t we, Paula?”

She says, “Sure. Come with us.”

“Let’s go to Wolfgang Puck’s,” Isabella says.
“Their wine is half off tonight.”

“Sounds good,” the others say. They take a
shortcut through the Macy’s Men Store and dodge the ladies standing
at the top of the escalator who are trying to get them to sample
cologne. When they enter the restaurant, the server says, “Hi,
Isabella. Your table is free.”

Paula asks her, “You have your own
table?”

“I come in here a lot.”

“Then it has to be good.”

They chit chat about clothes as they have
their first drinks. By their second drinks, their voices are
getting noticeably louder, and everything seems funny to them. The
wine makes Isabella bold and she decides to broach the subject of
Paula’s brother-in-law’s death. She says, “So do you have any idea
who killed him?”

Paula answers, “Who knows? That man was
traveling all the time. He could have a whole other family for all
I know.”

“Really?” Isabella says.

“Well, he was an outside salesman for an
electronic distributorship. He was always going to Las Vegas. He
told my sister that it was for business, but I think he went there
to gamble.”

“Interesting. So did he have a gambling
habit?”

“My sister thinks so.”

“Were they having financial troubles?”

“Not that I know of. He was still spending
money like there was no tomorrow.”

“Were they happily married?”

“My sister loved him. I never could
understand why. He was a bastard, in my humble opinion.”

The waitress comes over to their table and
asks, “Are you ladies going to have anything to eat?”

Paula says, “Yes. We better get something in
our stomachs after all this wine.”

They order a fennel sausage pizza.

After the waitress leaves, Isabella asks
Paula, “So, why did you say your sister’s husband was a
bastard?”

“We think he was having an affair.”

“Really?

“My sister found some credit card receipts
from The Hotel Laguna.”

“He went there without her?!”

“Yes!”

“She must have been so mad when she found
them,” Isabella says.

“Yeah. She was mad, but really hurt,
too.”

“Men can be such jerks sometimes.”

Brenda says, “So, ladies. Let’s talk about
something else, shall we?”

Damn. Just when it started to get
interesting,
Isabella thinks.

They spend the rest of the meal talking about
the new season of “Girls” and Isabella doesn’t have the courage to
ask Paula any more questions about her sister’s marriage.

*******

When Isabella comes back to her house, she
takes a long bath and starts thinking about the detective again
.
I wonder if I should call him and tell him what I’ve discovered
tonight. He might be interested in learning the guy had gambling
and marital problems. I don’t know. Maybe I should wait until I
know more before I start bugging him again.
She closes her eyes
and fantasizes about the detective once again. Hearing Paula
talking about the secret tryst at the Hotel Laguna really got her
thinking. She imagines sitting on a blanket at the beach and
watching the sun go down with “Don”—as he told her to call him.
When the sun disappears behind the waves, Don offers his hand to
help her up from the blanket and takes her to a room he’s rented
for the night at The Hotel Laguna. He’s made some arrangements
beforehand at the hotel, and when they enter their room, she sees a
beautiful bouquet of a dozen red roses in a vase on the table,
along with a bottle of champagne that’s chilling in an ice bucket.
The king size bed has rose petals strewn across it. He takes some
candles out of a drawer, along with some massage oil. She looks at
him with amazement, and says, “These aren’t usually in the drawers,
are they? Did you buy these in advance and tell the hotel to put
them in our room?”

He says, “Yes. I wanted it to be
special.”

You think of everything, don’t you?” she
says, lovingly gazing into his dark eyes.

He laughs and lights the candles. “Would you
like me to give you a massage?” he asks.

“Only if you let me give you one first,” she
tells him.

The sound of her phone ringing breaks up her
revelry.
Who the hell is calling this late?!

*******

Isabella steps out of the bathtub and grabs
her robe. “This better be good,” she says aloud. Listening to the
message, she hears Nicole’s insistent voice saying, “Call me back
tonight, okay?!”

Isabella calls back and says, “What’s
up?”

“There you are. I was getting worried!”

“Why?”

“You were acting so strange today. It’s like
you’re totally obsessed with this guy.”

“Well, I do like him, you know.”

“I’ve never seen you so far gone.”

“I hope he feels the same way about me.”

“Maybe he does; but feels he can’t tell you
until the investigation is over. Maybe he considers you as a
witness at the murder scene and fears someone might think it’s a
conflict of interest if he dates you.”

“Well…Inspector Morse gets romantically
involved with his female witnesses and suspects sometimes.”

“And it never works out, does it?”

“No. The woman he likes is usually the one
who did it.”

“Or there’s some other obstacle.”

“Where were you when I called?” Nicole asks.
“Were you listening to your aunt’s 1980’s albums again?”

“No. I was taking a bath, if you must know.
I’ve had a very interesting evening. I’ve been talking to the
sister-in-law of the guy who got murdered. She told me that he had
gambling problems and was having an affair.”

“What?! How did you find all this out?”

“Nancy Drew has ways….”

“No. Really. How did you find out?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow at work.”

“Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Bye for
now.”

“Bye,” Isabella says, and goes into the
living room to put on one of her aunt’s 1980’s albums. Squeeze’s
song, “Is That Love?” is the last thing she hears before she drifts
off to sleep.

C
hapter Eighteen

The following morning, Isabella struggles to
get her clothes out of the dryer without dropping anything on the
floor.
Damn! How could one person create so many dirty
things?
she thinks, as she bobs and weaves with an armful of
warm clothes into her bedroom. Dumping everything onto the bed, she
looks out her window and sees birds flying in and out of her small
backyard. She smiles while folding her clothes thinking about how
nice everything is and how perfect it all seems.
Well,
everything except for him. Why can’t I stop thinking about him?
she asks herself, as she folds some t-shirts that she wears to bed.
He’s on my mind all
the time!
She wants to call him
and tell him about her dinner with Karen’s sister-in-law. She
thinks it will help him with his investigation, but can’t shake the
feeling that he’s going to start getting his fill of her annoying
calls. She imagines how proud he would be of her sleuthing
abilities and how skillful she was in getting so close to the
family. She’s pretty proud of herself, if truth be told. Looking
outside, she imagines the view from his bedroom window. In her
fantasy, she is in his bedroom folding his laundry, like a good
little wife, and he walks into the room, sneaks up behind her, and
pulls her down on top of the warm folded clothes on the bed,
messing up all the work she’s just done; but neither of them care.
Aw, who am I kidding?!
she thinks.
He doesn’t feel that
way. This is just a young girl’s fantasy.

Putting the last of the folded clothes away,
she passes by the telephone in the den and sees the answering
machine blinking. With much anticipation, she runs over to it and
presses play.

“Hello. This is UCI’s Breast Imaging Center
calling to confirm your appointment for a mammogram tomorrow at
11:00. Please provide 24 hour notice if you must cancel your
appointment.” She and her hopes slump as she listens to the
recorded message.

Ugh! Welcome back to the real world
.
She remembers finding the lump in her breast and her doctor
insisting she get a mammogram.
I am not going to freak out over
this,
she tells herself.
Yes, I am.

*******

Isabella sits in the waiting room at UCI’s
Breast Imaging Center and looks around at all the other scared
patients. Some women have brought along their husbands for moral
support; others hold x-rays that they brought from their doctor’s
office. Little kids run around, some crying, as are one or two of
the waiting women.

The receptionist finally calls out Isabella’s
name and takes her to a small room with lockers. She says, “You can
put your stuff in the locker. Put on the robe open in the front.
I’ll give you a few minutes while you dress.”

After a few minutes, Isabella is taken to a
room with an X-ray machine. “The technician will be in shortly,”
the receptionist tells Isabella and leaves the room. It seems like
it takes hours for the technician to finally come. This is
Isabella’s first mammogram and she doesn’t know what to expect. She
heard it’s painful. Right now, she isn’t afraid of the pain.
Bring it on
, she imagines saying. It’s the mental anguish if
something’s wrong that causes her the most grief.

The technician takes several X-rays; then
tells her to wait until she shows them to the radiologist.
Okay
, Isabella thinks.
This is all just routine
. She
breathes a sigh of relief when the technician finally comes back;
but her hopes are dashed when she hears the technician say, “The
doctor wants to take some more pictures of this mass right here.”
She puts up the x-ray on a lighted screen and shows Isabella the
area where the radiologist circled.

Fuckin’ A!!
Isabella thinks, looking
at the circled mass.

More x-rays are taken and the technician
leaves the room, once again. Isabella starts to cry. She fears that
her life is over.
I was so happy before. Now I’m going to die,
without ever having sex with the detective. He will not want me if
I don’t have any breasts.
They were always the one part of her
body that she wasn’t ashamed of. Men seemed to really like them.
Would he really be that shallow if I didn’t have any?
she
asks herself. Then, she starts thinking about her own funeral.
What will people say about me? What kind of music would they
play? Would it be a Catholic Mass or a grave side service? Where do
I want to be buried? What will my headstone say?

The technician comes back into the room and
says, “The doctor wants to do an ultrasound on the mass.” Isabella
lets loose her tears, and the technician says, “Don’t worry. It may
just be a cyst. Okay? Let’s stay positive!” Isabella hugs her like
she’s her best friend.