Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 06 (29 page)

Considering the proximity of the climactic moment of the Krazy KoKo-Nut Kontest, it was pretty dull stuff.

I was engaging in a lewd fantasy featuring the man sitting beside me and a boat in the middle of Beaker Lake (no doors) when Geri strode briskly into the room, a platter dotted with peculiar-looking lumps in her hands. Ruby Bee came next, her bundt cake on a plate, followed by Brenda with her Kut-ups, already cut up into oblongs, and Kyle with a pie masked by whipped cream. It was the official KoKo-Nut parade, this time with Geri as the prancing majorette.

“Perhaps you’d like to be a judge, too?” she asked Henbit as she put down her platter and gestured for the others to do the same.

“I think not,” he said hastily. “How about you, Detective McRowan?” The invitee slithered down in his chair and shook his head, as any of us would do. “Well, then,” Henbit continued, “why don’t the four of you get this over with as soon as possible? It’s getting late.”

Geri produced a knife, but paused to say, “I can tell time, Lieutenant Henbit. I went to a very good preschool before I entered kindergarten. Rick, would you and your employee please take your plates and be seated at the table by the far window? Kyle, we’ll need water to cleanse our palates and paper on which to make notes. I have nice, sharp pencils for everyone. Any questions?”

She was really rolling by now, the knife darting here and there, her smile vivid, her eyes glittering with visions of escape. She kept up the chatter until she’d gotten everyone where she wanted them, warned us not to approach the judges’ table, and nodded approvingly at the scene.

Ruby Bee was beside herself with repressed anxiety, watching the table where forks rose to lips, bites disappeared, jaws moved slowly and thoughtfully, eyes drifted, throats rippled, faces reflected varying degrees of distaste.

“I just can’t stand it,” she whispered to Estelle, who was equally entranced by the solemnity of the moment. “Who’d ever think I’d be in Manhattan being awarded ten thousand dollars! I’m getting tuckered out thinking about it!”

Of the remaining three contestants, only Gaylene was watching the judges with any expectancy. Durmond was slumped in his seat, perhaps mentally writing a report—or engaging in the same fantasy I’d concocted. Brenda was wan, but she’d had a helluva day.

Ignoring Henbit’s glower, I sat down next to her, produced a sympathetic smile, and quietly said, “You’ve been through a lot today, haven’t you? First thinking Jerome had walked out on you, and then learning he’d been murdered.” I tut-tutted for a moment. “Not to mention being arrested at Grand Central with all that money. Were you hoping to take a train to California?”

“I suppose so,” she said so softly I had to lean forward. That was okay with me, in that I wasn’t yet ready to share my ideas. “I wanted to get away from …”

“From your memories?” I said encouragingly. When she failed to be encouraged to share further confidences, I said, “I’m dreadfully sorry I had to tell the police that I saw you at the Xanadu, but it is a double-homicide investigation.”

She played with her lip for a moment, then glanced at Henbit and said, “I truly didn’t know Jerome was dead until the police told me. I was at the Xanadu, but Mr. Lisbon was alive when I left. We conducted some business, a private matter, and then I took a cab to the station.”

If she’d shot Jerome in the kitchen, she might have gotten hold of some cocaine to sell to Lisbon. Then again, if Lisbon was the sort to buy it, he was also the sort to be unhappy with cocaine that rightfully belonged to someone as powerful as Gabardi. The only thing she could have sold, I thought slowly, was information. The most interesting (although erroneous) information she had centered on her errant husband’s whereabouts.

I made sure Henbit was occupied in conversation with his minion, then gave Brenda a penetrating look as I said, “You told Lisbon Lisbon that Jerome and his girlfriend were on the plane to Rio, didn’t you? Did you also mention he’d stolen cocaine from the cartons in the kitchen? Is that what made your story so expensive?”

“Do you know …?”

“I know about the cocaine, and I know he was working for the mob,” I said softly but sternly.

“He’d squirreled away more than a million dollars in pre-laundered money,” she admitted. “He was juggling the books for the remodeling so Rick could pay cash. Most of it comes in air conditioners from a Florida firm that coincidentally is owned by Mr. Gabardi and his associates.” She took a deep breath. “Mr. Lisbon was willing to pay for me to get out of town before they caught up with Jerome and his hussy. Otherwise, I warned him, I might be so overcome with grief at Jerome’s death that I’d blurt out everything to the police.”

“You were blackmailing the mob?” I said, awed by this housewife in a nice blue dress, with a pleasant face that concealed the raw courage of an Apache warrior. “Weren’t you afraid this Lisbon man wouldn’t just …?”

“Oh, no, they’re not at all like that anymore. Craig and Charlotte Lisbon have been out to dinner several times, and he’s my younger daughter’s godfather. The religious kind, not that other kind. Only last summer Jerome and I had a wonderful time at Mr. Gabardi’s condo in the Grand Cayman Islands. He even sent over his yacht so Jerome could go deep-sea fishing all week, and every December we get a lovely fruitcake and bottle of champagne from him. I had lunch with his wife on another occasion when we were down for a business meeting. She’s a marvelous girl, so pretty and clever. You’ve been watching too many of those movies. They’re really a nice group of people.”

“Right,” I said as I battled with myself not to allow one teensy giggle to escape. Silly ol’ me was all wrong about Cambria, Rick, the manager of the Xanadu, and even the faceless Mr. Gabardi, who shared his condo and his yacht and was a reformed Scrooge. They were businessmen, and if their business was not yet socially acceptable, who was I to go around accusing them of dumping bodies in New Jersey like so much toxic waste?

“May I have your attention?” Geri said, tapping her fork on a glass. “We’ve arrived at our decision.”

“The grand winner of the Krazy KoKo-nut Kontest is …” Geri patted down her hair and smiled at us, her shoulders squared with power and padding, “Before I make the announcement, I want to thank all of you for coming, and I’m sure Kyle Simmons, as the company’s representative, will want to apologize at length for all this dreadful business with shootings and bodies and policemen disrupting my schedule. I think it’s obvious to all of us that the contest should have been held as originally planned, in which case I could have arranged adequate publicity before and after. As it is, I’ll have to write up the press releases and fax them from the Cape, and I doubt we’ll get half the coverage I could have provided.”

Ruby Bee rumbled like a truck changing gears. “I’m sure it’ll be just fine. The winner?”

“It should have been Catherine!” Frannie said, slamming her fist on the table hard enough to send the crumbs bouncing into the air like frightened fleas. “I need the money to finance the pageants and take trips to broaden her experiences. The best colleges require that these days. If that awful Jerome hadn’t encouraged her to start drinking again, none of this would have happened! He deserved to die for what he did to my daughter.”

“He ain’t the only one,” Estelle added, pointedly staring at Rick. “And it’s a darn shame, her being sixteen and from a little town. I think the police ought to arrest that fellow sitting right there, instead of letting him be a judge.”

Rick shot a paralytic look at Cambria. “Hey, I don’t know what she’s talking about. I didn’t do anything to that girl.”

“We shall discuss it later,” Cambria said, his lips barely moving.

Gaylene stood up unsteadily. “I think we’d better discuss it right now, if you don’t mind. What’s this about Rick and this girl? Are you saying that before the contest he got her drunk and screwed her?”

“In what I would guess is 319, on account of it being above mine,” Estelle said.

“It could have been 317, on account of—” Ruby Bee stopped when she realized we were not intrigued by details.

Gaylene marched across the room to tower over Rick. “Is this true, you son of a bitch? How could you do such a thing? Here we’ve been seeing each other for two years, and you go and screw the first girl that walks by? Do you realize I could have gone on a Caribbean cruise last summer and ended up with a really good tan? But no, I tell Mr. Gabardi that I have a steady boyfriend and I’m not the sort of girl to party behind his back with other men. And I had to miss three nights of work to be a contestant—as a special favor to you! When I get back from delivering that suitcase to Vegas, I won’t even have a job because the club’s closed! Unless my dancing career takes off, I’ll have to go back on the street again.”

Rick and Cambria sat like lawn statuary, neither reacting to Gaylene’s sputtery outburst. One had a white face, and the other’s was growing darker by the minute.

Lieutenant Henbit, in contrast, was blinking at her as if she’d accused Rick of murder and put the weapon on the table. “So you know Gabardi, do you?”

“Of course I do, and he’s a swell guy. I wish I’d taken him up on his offer. One of the girls at the club went, and she came back with a diamond bracelet that almost blinded me.” She curled her fingers as if to rip into Rick, then lost her resolve and returned to her table, saying to Frannie as she went, “I’m real sorry about what he did to your daughter, honey. It’s sickening, and if you want to have his face rearranged or something like that, you let me know and I’ll pass it along to some friends of mine.”

“I think you ought to do just that,” said Ruby Bee, possibly unaware of the implications of her remark—but I wasn’t sure.

“She asked for it,” Rick muttered, jabbing his thumb at the sleeping girl. “She came up to my room, her blouse unbuttoned to her waist, and grabbed my crotch before I knew what the hell was happening. She had my zipper open and was on her knees before I could get out a word. I’ve met her kind before, and lemme tell you, she’s not a little virgin with ribbons in her hair. I tried to get rid of her, Gaylene honey, but she was all over me like hot tar.”

“Hot tar,” Cambria echoed with an approving nod. “I can’t remember when we last used it.” From Rick’s expression, it seemed likely that he did.

During this, Geri had picked up her clipboard and was frantically scanning the top page, all the while mewing like a stray kitten. “I don’t think we need to discuss this further,” she said in a high voice. “Catherine’s propensities do not concern the results of the contest. It’s unfortunate that we had to listen to what should have been a private conversation, but it’s really none of our business …” She looked at Gaylene. “Please don’t mention the product if you do go back to your former profession, and forget you were ever in this totally ridiculous contest. Forget the name of my firm, and forget me completely. Pretend I never existed.”

Gaylene put a piece of gum in her mouth. “Suit yourself.”

“We’re down to three,” Ruby Bee whispered to Estelle.

“Be quiet!” Geri snapped at her. “We’re going to put this unpleasantness behind us and be done with this mess. I am going to announce the winner and head straight out the door. My car is parked in the lot across the street, and my luggage is in the trunk. I’m going to say one name, and then I am history. History! Do you people understand?” No one had the nerve to so much as nod. “All right, then,” she continued grimly, “the winner is … No, wait a minute, she’s been arrested for murder. Wouldn’t the media have a goddamn field day with that? Interviews from a jail cell! A press conference with handcuffs! I’ll have to redo the figures. Give me a minute and I’ll have the result.” She sat down and began to scribble on her clipboard, talking to herself in a shrill and distracted voice.

“I can’t believe it!” Ruby Bee said in a voice remarkably similar. “Are you saying that those bars are better-tastin’ than my chocolate chip bundt cake? That’s flat-out impossible, missy.”

“Someone has to win,” Geri snarled without lifting her head.

Ruby Bee stalked over to the table where the entries were placed and, with the solemn sincerity of a funeral home director, said, “I have been making this exact recipe for twenty-five years, and you can just ask Arly if it’s not the best dadburned cake she’s ever had.”

I smiled benignly. “I guess it doesn’t come out as well with the fake coconut. What a shame.”

“But it ain’t got that nasty stuff in it,” Ruby Bee blurted out, then realized what she’d done and clutched her chest as if experiencing the onset of a heart attack.

“Actually, I gave it low marks for its rubbery texture,” Kyle contributed helpfully. “Rubbery texture?” Ruby Bee snatched up a fork, took a bite and chewed it vigorously. After she’d swallowed, she gave him a bewildered look. “It is on the rubbery side, I have to admit. But how can that be? I made it the same way, and even though some of the ingredients are from these parts, I sure know how to fix this particular cake and it always comes out the exact same.”

I decided to butt in, now that the stage was set. “You bought a bag of real coconut and one of the Krazy flakes the evening you arrived. Yesterday afternoon in your room you switched the contents. Last night you went down to the kitchen, discovered the door was unlocked, and went in to make the exchange. Despite the necessity of having to step over a corpse, you completed your mission and stole away like a common thief—which you are, by the way—with what you thought was a bag of Krazy KoKo-Nut. Am I right?”

“I still don’t understand how come there wasn’t real coconut in my box tonight,” she said, not willing to acknowledge any guilt.

“Because whoever cleaned up the blood in the kitchen took all the bags out of the boxes and replaced them with real Krazy KoKo-Nut,” I explained. “We’re going to have one unhappy drug dealer somewhere down the road.”

Lieutenant Henbit came across the room. “Mrs. Hanks, what did you do with the bag you took from your box? You didn’t flush its contents down the toilet, did you?”

“I was afraid it would stop it up, and I’d hate to rely on that stupid stupid plumber to fix it. I just tossed it in the trash can with what I bought the other night.”