Nothing to Fear But Ferrets (11 page)

The kid repeated “doggy” and his mom laughed.

“So Chad had a roommate?” I asked to get back on the subject, knowing the answer. “Was his roommate in show business, too?”

“Hardly,” huffed Helene. “I never did figure out why someone as good-looking and charismatic as Chad roomed with a boring computer geek like Dave Driscoll.”

That conformed with what Charlotte had told me.

“Probably because the last guy standing on
Turn Up the Heat
didn’t want any competition,” Dee said drolly, earning her a glare from her companion.

Turn Up the Heat.
So
that
was the reality show Charlotte had been on. I’d not paid much attention to it while it was airing, and had other things on my mind when I’d taken her application to lease my house. But I’d definitely heard about the show. A lot about it. Who, with any hormones, hadn’t?

Helene confirmed my impression of it in her next aggravated riposte, one hand on a skinny hip. “Well, there isn’t much competition for Chad Chatsworth . . . or wasn’t.” Her blazing gaze dimmed again to gloomy. “I mean, he was definitely the most creative of all the guys on that show as far as coming up with sexy and romantic dates to tempt Charlotte.
I
was certainly tempted, and I wasn’t even there.”

“Do you think she actually sampled all the contenders on the show?” Dee asked with interest. Her son stretched his hand out toward Lexie, who sniffed it.

“That was the whole point,” Helene said scornfully. “Of course she did.”

“That makes the producers of the show p-i-m-p-s, then, don’t you think?” Dee said, glancing down as if assuring herself that her son hadn’t comprehended.

“Of sorts,” Helene agreed, with the first grin I’d seen on her otherwise dour face. It disappeared promptly.

“I’m sure the speculation didn’t hurt the ratings,” I chimed in, then faced Helene. “At the party you went to, was anyone from the show there?”

Before she replied, I noticed a few people exit Chad’s building—in suits. Cops? Could be—the detective kind. I kept my eyes peeled for my old nemesis Detective Noralles. But this area was in a different L.A.P.D. division—West Bureau, I thought. I was unlikely to be recognized by anyone there.

“Not Charlotte, that’s for sure,” Helene said, answering my question. “Did you see the last week? It was really something. Talk about hot—and I don’t mean sexy. Hot tempers, because of a lot of cool cash.” Her baby fussed, and she bent down.

“But Chad had no hint ahead of time that being the last guy standing wasn’t enough?” I persisted. I wasn’t sure how well she’d known her neighbor, but she might have heard some gossip and snickers while at the party at his place.

“No.” Helene stood, her baby in her arms. Cute. Even cuter, the tot wasn’t crying. “The guy really seemed upset at being dumped like that, and who could blame him?”

Yeah, but was it real or just for show? Or had he been upset because it ruined his well-conceived plan—the one he’d made with his real girlfriend?

“How well did you know him?” I asked Helene. “Did he live around here long?”

A uniformed cop by the car glanced toward our neighborly conclave. I bent toward the still-occupied stroller, not eager for him to notice me, let alone describe a loitering pet-walker in his report.

“Actually, no,” Dee said, kneeling at her kid’s other side. “He moved here between the time the show was filmed and when it aired. At least that’s what everyone here who met him said.”

She looked up at Helene, who nodded haughtily, as if she felt her importance was being usurped by a blabbing interloper who’d never even met the man. Still, she stayed quiet.

“Everything was taped ahead but the end of the last show,” Dee continued. She stood again, and I did, too. “Charlotte had already chosen Chad, but they weren’t allowed to get together till the final episode was aired for fear they’d give the ending away. But neither knew the final twist till the live part at the end, after they showed the clip where Charlotte chose Chad. Did you see it?” She looked at me.

“Sorry, no, but I wish I had.” Both women eyed me as if I’d claimed not to have showered for a week.

“Well,” Dee continued, “there he was all over Charlotte, pleased as punch to see her again, vowing eternal love. And she seemed happy, too. Who wouldn’t? I mean, she’d made the best choice. Chad was a total hunk, and I figured she’d had sex with him before the last episode. But then, in that last show the host came in and told her about her final choice. So what if the sex had been super? Chad became history immediately.”

“How sad,” I said, then turned to Helene. “Did he tell you at the party how awful it felt when he thought he’d won the woman’s heart, and instead she booted him for the booty instead? Embarrassing, wasn’t it? In front of the entire country—maybe the whole world.”

“I didn’t know him well,” Helene admitted. She swayed back and forth as her baby’s little hands clenched the air. “But at that party—it was Dave Driscoll who invited some neighbors, to make sure the place was packed. He didn’t want Chad to feel worse because no one wanted to come to his condolences get-together. Anyway, Chad seemed depressed. Drowned his sorrows in so many pints of Guinness that I lost count. Kept talking about how much he’d cared for the Big Bad Bitch—his words, not mine.” She flushed a little and gave a guilty look toward her sweet-faced daughter. “His old girlfriend showed up to try to make him feel better, but I don’t think that helped.”

Aha! The co-schemer, Trudi, right on the spot.

“Since it sounds as if he was pissed at the Big Bad Bitch,” I said, not reluctant to repeat her epithet and run with it, “any idea why he happened to show up in that same bitch’s house?” Alive first, then dead, though I didn’t say that.

“Revenge,” Dee crowed. “The rules said they weren’t to see each other afterward or Charlotte would forfeit everything.” Nothing new in that. “He probably wanted to latch on to her like glue so she’d wind up with nothing, too. Charlotte would have been furious. No wonder she killed him.”

Which was the conclusion probably the entire viewing world would draw, even with ferrets sitting there like furry scapegoats.

I turned again toward Helene, who seemed to grow noticeably cool in her warm sweats despite bouncing her increasingly fussy baby. “Did anyone mention at the party Chad’s roommate threw—?”

“Are you from around here?” she suddenly demanded. “I don’t remember seeing you before.” She must have realized they were wasting perfectly good gossip on a total stranger.

“Actually, I live in the Valley.” I waved vaguely north. No way did I intend to spill that Charlotte, her boyfriend, and the suspect ferrets were my tenants. “I’m a pet-sitter,” I continued truthfully, pulling on Lexie’s leash so she stood and eyed me attentively. “Do either of you have dogs you’d like walked during the day? Or pets that need care while you travel?” Were they stay-at-home single moms?
Did
they travel? For once, I hoped for a nice, nasty negatory. Not that my business cards contained an address that would arouse anyone’s suspicions about my unrevealed ulterior motive, since I only had my cell phone number printed on them. Still, I’d kept my pet-sitting services confined to the Valley, for ease of jaunting between clients as fast as possible. Palms was way too many miles away to take on assignments here.

“Not me,” Helene sniffed. “Allergies.” She looked around her kid and down her long, mean nose at Lexie, who took a step backward before settling into a sit.

Dee let out a sorrowful sigh. “I had a cat, but she was old and I had to have her put down last year. I think Tommy was too young to understand and haven’t wanted to take on that heartache again. But if I ever do, I’ll be sure to think about you. Do you have a card?”

Discretion seemed a better course than truth. I patted one pocket, then the other. “Not with me, but next time I’m around I’ll bring them. Hopefully we’ll run into each other again.”

They’d given me a lot of food for thought. Would I need a second helping from them? Brazenly, I asked for their last names and addresses.

Wisely, both demurred giving out vital statistics to this nosy nonneighbor.

Well, I’d probably gotten all I could from these particular people. They’d mostly known Chad from his fleeting stardom.

I’d need more than awed fan info to figure out his murder.

Chapter Thirteen

BACK AT THE Beamer, still sitting in the tight parking space, I let Lexie leap into the front passenger seat beside me. I turned the engine on long enough to crack open the windows to let in some air, for despite fall’s having supposedly arrived weeks ago, the car’s interior had morphed into a ceramics kiln while we were out canvassing the neighborhood.

I reached beneath Lexie’s seat to extract notes I’d been accumulating in response to Charlotte’s appeal for assistance. I added the names
Helene
and
Dee
to my growing list of players in the Chad Chatsworth ferret fiasco.

Not that they were suspects, but they were witnesses of sorts. Maybe their kids, too—but they weren’t talking. Helene and Dee had added to my short supply of information that might eventually clear Charlotte and Yul and their little furry buddies.

The ferrets. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them, too. They’d gnawed Chad, sure, but they’d most likely been set up. I wanted to visit them in their ominous incarceration, ensure they were being treated humanely.

Humanely euthanized
. The phrase from the animal control officer reverberated in my miserable mind. No, that had to be a last resort, only if they were found guilty in the court of animal control evidence of more than chewing the food left for them.

I was eager to rescue them, if humanly possible.

But not now. This afternoon, I had a person with a pet problem to talk to—Jon Arlen, Fran Korwald’s friend.

And as I studied my schedule, I was bluntly bashed in the face with one little calendar detail that I’d unsuccessfully attempted to store deep in the recesses of my mind.

This was Wednesday. The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam—the test that had for so long seemed much too far off for me to wait to resume my law license—was now only two days away. It was scheduled for the second Friday in November, starting early afternoon. I’d elected to attack it at the Cal State Northridge campus.

Or rather, it might assail me, with lots of questions I might not be able to answer, particularly without adequate preparation.

“Let’s go, Lexie,” I said with a shaky sigh. Her black-and-white tail beat a keen cadence that showed her pleasure at being addressed. I started the car like I meant it this time, and slowly eased my Beamer from its tight space.

Before I stepped harder on the gas, I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Time for Widget’s early-afternoon walk. Then, to Darryl’s for my meeting with Jon Arlen. My discussion with him would be the final frolic and detour I’d undertake before immersing myself for final hours of uninterrupted ethics study. Or rather, interrupted only by scheduled pet-sitting services.

An excellent reason to ignore one big gorilla-like invitation that had been constantly crouching at the edge of my thoughts, even when I’d purposely turned my focus in far-away directions.

Should I move in with Jeff?

Bad idea. Hadn’t I already convinced myself that my preferences in picking lovers were the pits?

But I’d also asserted to myself that Jeff was the exception. He was a great guy. A super lover. Someone unlike my last long-term lover, “Drill Sergeant” Bill Sergement, who’d used his influence as mentor at my former law firm to seduce new female associates, including me and many since I’d extracted myself from his attentions. He was a louse. A user.

And I was already living a lot of the time at Jeff ’s. Lexie and I both were, since it was the optimum place to be while watching Odin.

Was I honestly considering it?

Maybe. But not now. I had Widget the terrier to tame for a while, a meeting with someone named Jon Arlen, more pets to tend, then total immersion in studying.

That was enough to fill this fool’s thoughts for the next few days.

 
AS I LEFT Widget’s later and headed for Darryl’s, my cell phone sang out, “It’s My Life!” I hummed along as I lifted it and said, “Hello.”

“Kendra, it’s Avvie. How are you?”

“Fine,” I answered, surprised. I hadn’t heard from my former protégée at Marden, Sergement and Yurick since I’d made it clear that, once my license was restored, I had no intention of returning as an associate to the law firm that had been less than supportive during my prior problems.

Not that they’d actually offered . . .

I’d called Avvie a couple of times after our last get-together, tried to schedule another lunch, but she’d always been too busy.

Firm loyalty, I’d figured, won out over our friendship.

“Are you still pet-sitting?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Unless you’re calling to offer me my old job back.” I knew full well that Avvie wouldn’t have the authority to tender that offer, even if I was tough enough to want it. I was just having fun at her expense. Mainly because I was irked. She’d acted so supportive before, then had absented herself from my life for months.

Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that, last time I’d seen her in person, I’d all but accused her and her lover, Bill Sergement—yes, Avvie was one of his current associate conquests—of being involved with the murders I’d been trying to solve.

I had intended to upset them then, hoping one or both would spill something helpful. Like a confession.

As it turned out, something Avvie said had in fact helped me figure out who’d done it.

“Are you really interested in coming back here?” Avvie asked. “If so, let me warn you. Things aren’t great.”

“No?” So much for my assumption of firm loyalty. I’d have thought she would be singing the Marden firm’s theme song while standing on her head, if it would help her stay on partnership track.