A Talent for Murder (28 page)

Tim nodded as Placenta poured him a glass of champagne. “I suppose I could have drinks with him and offer a bit of bait.”

“Nah. Let your mother’s loose lips do their inevitable damage,” Placenta suggested. “Once the bubbles begin to kill off her inhibitions, she gets friendly and cuddly. She’s bound to say something about the blackmail note. Especially if we surreptitiously guide her.”

Polly soon returned. “For three hundred dollars, you should have been able to buy the Magna Carta,” she said, handing an envelope to Placenta.

“Who’s to say I didn’t?” Placenta smiled and withdrew the original note from her uniform pocket. “That deceitful, double-dealing servant made a photocopy for her own files, and when Tiara called her to explain the reason for a missing cupcake, I grabbed the copy and skedaddled.”

“Were you ever planning to give this to me, or were you going to keep it for your own future felonies?” she said as she picked up the flute of champagne that Placenta had poured for her.

Placenta feigned hurt pride. “I was planning to make you a present of it.”

“I’m not used to paying for my own presents,” Polly snorted. Just then, the house telephone rang. “If it’s the Benjamins’ maid, tell her that Placenta’s been dismissed,” she said as Tim reached for the phone.

In a moment, Tim brought the phone to his mother. “Randy,” he said as he held out the handset. “I think he should know what you’re up to.”

Polly made a face and covered the microphone with her hand.

Polly plastered a wide smile on her face as she spoke into the phone. “Sweetums, you’re avoiding me! It’s been two whole days since you were here!”

Polly paused, then swallowed hard. “Who suggested such a ludicrous idea to you?” With a heavy sigh she said, “All right. It’s true. But I’m getting very close to solving the mystery of who killed Thane. Oh, and Danny, too. As a matter of fact, I was going to tell you over dinner tonight.” After a beat she said, “Forgot? It’s right here in my calendar. ‘PP. Din-din. Seven. Wear BM, um, Bob Mackie.’ Goody! See you then.”

Polly pushed the Off button on the telephone and handed it back to Tim. “Drat! He’s coming for dinner,” she said. “Of course I want to see Randy, but when he hears how deeply involved I am in this case, he’s bound to throw one of his less-than-macho hissy fits. The lovely and talented Officer Betty spilled the beans.” She reached for the bottle of Veuve. “We’d better do our homework before he arrives.”

She picked up the original letter and read it aloud again. “This is way too queer. Look at the way the blackmailer refers to the money. ‘U.S. $.’ What about the
word
banknotes?
This was written by someone trying to disguise themselves as a foreigner.”

Tim took the letter from Polly’s hand and reread it himself. “‘Don’t be a wanker.’ I still think that’s funny, and definitely not an American expression.”

The room became silent for a long moment. “Thane Cornwall may have written this,” Polly said. “Steven and Tiara both admitted that Thane was no longer a friend when he died.”

“It arrived after his death,” Tim said. “Steven wouldn’t have been such an emotional wreck yesterday if the note came from a dead man. In fact, he’d be bouncing off the walls with glee.”

Polly looked at the letter once again. “The instructions to place the hotel room card key in a volume of
Wuthering Heights
seemed odd at first. But I think whoever wrote this is rather clever. Nobody buys a classic unless they’re forced to read it for school, or Oprah beams her mind control techniques at the masses and sends ‘em out to Borders. So the chances of somebody coming by and picking up a copy with the card key in it are remote.

“Second, the fact that the writer had to spell out where in the store the book is located tells me that either Steven is a dolt when it comes to literature, and/or the person who wrote didn’t want to risk having Steven ask for assistance finding the book and the possibility of a salesperson taking the wrong book or thinking the card key was rubbish and thus throwing it away.”

Tim said, “Any decent blackmailer would do their best to conceal their identity. The person who wrote could be pretending to be European. Maybe they’re just trying to mislead us.”

Polly and Placenta both nodded. “Michael worked for
Thane,” Polly said. “He would have picked up his phrases and the novelties between our two English-speaking countries. For example, the way we write out dates? We’d say August tenth, and they say ten August. And specifying United States currency… one would never spell that out, unless one wanted foreign money. As a matter of fact, whoever wrote this is a fool for not asking for euros!”

“Wait!” Tim said. “Maybe we should add another name to the list of suspects. What about the Benjamins’ maid?” He looked at Placenta. “She’s obviously duplicitous. You said she was one of the most astute women you’d ever met. She’s around Tiara all the time and would easily pick up her idioms and way of speaking and writing.”

Polly whined. “No. Please. Not another suspect! We have too many as it is. Let’s just hang the guilty charges on someone and be done with it.”

Placenta was taken aback. “The whole reason you got involved in this case is to clear the name of an innocent!”

“But it’s getting so confusing,” Polly complained. “Okay. I started this. I guess I have to follow through. But please, someone, get me on the first flight to the moon the next time a body lands at my feet.”

Placenta said, “What about
Wuthering Heights?
Might that be a clue? Does Emily Brontë have any significance here?”

“I saw the movie,” Polly said. “As I recall, Larry Olivier was a hottie. I don’t know what the hell he saw in Danny Kaye as a lover. Unless it’s true what they say about redheads.” She looked at Tim. “Is it true?”

Tim was irritated. “I. Don’t. Know! You’re the redhead.”

“Formula 271!” Placenta called out.

“And what is it that ‘they’ say anyway?” Tim asked.

“Never mind Tim,” Polly said to Placenta. “His taste is so vanilla. He’s still hung up on the adult Doogie Howser and Niles Crane, for crying out loud.

“Oh, and I recall there was a lot of retribution going on in
Wuthering Heights
. Which sort of takes us back to considering everybody who hated Thane.”

Tim shook his head in bewilderment. “With so much animosity going on behind the scenes of a show that’s based on foul play, the blackmailer could be anyone.”

“Nope!” Polly said, and drained her flute. “I can’t agree. It had to be someone with either too much to lose, or someone who’d already lost everything and wanted vengeance. This leaves a very intimate group.”

Placenta poured more champagne all around. “No. The group isn’t so small. The killer, at least Thane’s killer, could still be one of the contestants on the surveillance tapes, or Lisa or Richard or Brian. They all have more to lose if those tapes get out and circulated on the Net.”

“Let’s wait and see what Randy has to say,” Tim suggested. “In the meantime, let’s catch Steven again in

Anything Goes—Disc Four of Six.’

At eight o’clock, Sergeant Sandy announced that the driver from Spago had arrived with dinner. She opened the gate and allowed the Mercedes-Benz to enter the estate and park near the front entrance. Tim tipped the man twenty dollars and took the warm bags into the kitchen. As Polly and Randy rubbed noses in the great room, Placenta and Tim set the table, and ladled the spring-green asparagus soup into four bowls,
and placed the Cantonese roasted duck in the warming oven. Rather than ringing a bell to call Polly and Randy to dinner, all Placenta had to do was pop the cork from another bottle of champagne, and the infatuated couple stopped what they were doing and came to the dining room.

Always a gentleman, Randy held out the chair at the head of the table for Polly, and did the same for Placenta, whom he seated to Polly’s left. Randy took his seat opposite Placenta while Tim faced his mother from the other end of the table. After a few sincere comments from Randy about how great the soup looked, and oh, boy, was he hungry, everyone simultaneously picked up their spoons and began to eat. Amid sounds that could be mistaken for amorous pleasures, Polly took another long swallow from her champagne flute and said, “Did you notice the lovely new addition to our estate security?”

Randy nodded. “I was going to ask about her. I should be on a permanent list of approved guests. She’s not very adept at frisking men.”

Polly nodded. “Absolutely!” She turned to Placenta. “Be sure that Sergeant Sandy places Randy’s name on the ‘A’ list. Remind her that Tim and I are the only ones allowed to do a strip search.”

“Do you really need the Secret Service?” Randy asked as he scooped up the dregs of his soup.

“Tim has the bizarre notion that just because we may have major evidence to exonerate Lisa Marrs in the Thane Cornwall murder case, we’re all going to be dead soon.” Polly looked up at Randy. “Oh, drat!”

Tim and Placenta shared an infinitesimal smirk.

“Dead?” Randy said, taking a sip from his water glass.

“Timmy overreacts.” Polly smiled. “The fact that the boy we almost adopted, Michael, a kid who was living in the most degrading circumstances, which I’ll tell you about some other time, discovered that we unwittingly possessed the secret surveillance sex tapes of Steven Benjamin and the cast … and I mean the entire cast of
I’ll Do Anything
… and tried to steal them from us, which is what dear dead Danny was probably trying to do when he got yanked out of the physical world, and the fact that everybody else on the show seems to know that we have these amazing and undoubtedly extremely valuable DVDs of
I’ll Do Anything for an Orgy
, Tim got paranoid and said we were as good as dead. That was before we discovered that Steven was being blackmailed, but now that we’re certain of that, I think it’s a good idea to have the extra security.”

Polly came up for air and took a long swallow from her glass. “If nothing else, it’s good for potential Polly Pepper killers to see that it isn’t so easy to barge in on the estate of the queen of television!”

Tim put down his spoon. “Mother, we all agreed that it was wise to have the extra help since the dumb security alarm service can’t keep our unit working. Sergeant Sandy is a very good investment in our safety.”

Randy sat back and folded his arms across his chest. When Polly noticed his eyes boring into her own, she smiled. “Yes?”

“Adoption? Sex tapes? Blackmail?” Randy smiled. “If I act all innocent and full of wide-eyed wonder, would you indulge my naiveté and elaborate?”

Polly touched Randy’s arm. “I’m so happy that you’re not angry with me! I just couldn’t involve you until I had all the evidence I need to clear Lisa Marrs of the crime of murdering Thane Cornwall. Actually, I
don’t have any evidence, but I’m close. And you can help.”

Randy shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

Polly smiled with pride. “I’m getting pretty good at this sleuthing business, aren’t I?”

Randy sighed. “I mean, it’s unbelievable that you would suggest that I help you continue this crime spree you’re on.”

“I’m not the one committing crimes,” Polly said. “I didn’t know that I had important evidence until I watched the DVDs of
Anything Goes
, which we inadvertently stumbled across in Lisa’s apartment. Oh, I know what you’re going to say. You’ll want to know what we were doing there in the first place. Then you’ll ask how we came into possession of the evidence. It’s all a long story and I’m too hungry to discuss it right now.”

“I’ll wager it’s rather a very short story. Here’s how I see it. You either broke into Lisa’s apartment or conned your way in. Then you burgled the place. The end.”

“Polly Pepper is not a burglar,” she insisted. “I simply borrowed an old movie that turned out to be new, and not even what I thought it was. Bing Crosby was nowhere on those DVDs! Look, I probably did the wrong thing taking anything out of Lisa’s apartment. And I should have asked you for help a long time ago. But I didn’t think you’d let me get involved. You know how dreary my days have become. This is the most excitement I’ve had since—”

Randy could not stay mad at Polly. He touched her arm and smiled. “What can I do to help?”

“That’s more like it!” Polly squealed. “What you can do is get a few of your police pals to attend tomorrow’s taping of
I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous
. It’s the final night of the competition, and I’m going to insist
that J.J. get my old job back as a judge. By the time he gets through with Richard Dartmouth, I’ll probably get a raise, too. Anyway, I have a hunch I may say something that will cause a bit of a stir.”

“T
ell me again how you made him cry,” Polly laughed into the phone as Tim and Placenta eavesdropped on her conversation with her nefarious agent, J.J.

Polly smiled when she had completed her call. “J.J.’s a gem. Chipped and most definitely cracked, but he got me back on the show, starting tonight!”

“What about that Saddleback creature who replaced you?” Tim asked.

“Booted back to the coffee klatch,
The Shrews.”

“Consorting with J.J. is playing with the devil.” Placenta tsk-tsked. “What sort of evil did J.J. perpetrate against Richard?”

“That’s the best part.” Polly smiled. “Apparently, Richard and J.J. frequent the same, shall we say, massage therapist. J.J. threatened to let America’s mommies know how Richard spends his weekends—special uniforms, and all. The country’s little kiddies would be yanked away from watching
Lafayette and Boom Boom
, and those darling teen heartthrobs on
Youth and Eyes
on the Sterling Channel as quickly as one could say the
Jonas Brothers have zits. Sterling’s stock would plummet, and soon handsome but kinky Richard would be out on his butt alongside that former Sterling senior VP, Shari Draper.”

Tim looked at his watch. “It’s nearly noon. What’s the call time? You’d better get ready. And start thinking up crazy questions for the interview segment of the show. It’s your last chance to find out who will proudly say, ‘I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous.’ I’m going outside to check on the gardeners.”