Nothing to Fear But Ferrets (20 page)

Of course I’d have to pay. I’d done the inviting, after all. No matter what she’d been conniving with Chad, Trudi had struck me as being a wholesome-looking escapee from middle America. Except that now, Hollywood had apparently gotten hold of her. No longer was she makeup-free save for lipstick. Her freckles were hidden under a layer of base and a swath of artificial blush. Her pale brown eyes didn’t disappear into her head, for they were enhanced by a load of liner and eyelashes mounded with mascara.

She hadn’t, however, done anything to the mousiness of her brown hair. Maybe that was because she could wash all the rest off easily enough when she headed home to her dad’s nursery.

I commenced our caucus with a little tap dance. “I hope you won’t go scare Dave about this,” I told her, “since I think Charlotte’s strategy is to bring in as many possible suspects as she can in the interest of confounding the cops. Dave was Chad’s roommate, so he’s an obvious choice to drag into the confusion.”
You, too, as the girl Chad left not far behind,
I thought but kept it to myself. “The thing is”—here I really winged it, basing my prattle on what Charlotte and Philipe suggested—“she seems to think that Chad was consulting with Dave on some reality show ideas of his own. Dave was delighted to be included, but when Chad made his move to force Charlotte to lose everything, he also knew Charlotte’s name might make his show actually work. She wouldn’t talk to him, of course, but her friend Yul told her Chad offered her a more-than-half interest in anything they earned, just to grab her attention. If so, that could have made Dave mad.”

“Well, sure he was mad,” Trudi said ingenuously, sipping her strawberry shake. “Who wouldn’t be? I mean, I loved Chad, but I saw him for what he was—a user. I’d have accepted him that way, warts and all. Taken him back even after Charlotte dumped him right in front of a TV audience of millions.”

But had
she
let him go in the first place, given their reputed conspiracy? And had she offed him when he still went after Charlotte, then sicced the ferrets on him?

“He’d only been Dave’s roommate for about eight months. I’ve gotten to know Dave a little since coming here to find out what really happened to Chad”—so that was her articulated rationale—“and I can tell he believed everything Chad told him, poor guy.” She lifted her hands, and I noticed her nails now were polished bright red. “Not that I think Dave was angry enough to kill Chad, you understand. But he was finally beginning to see Chad for what he was.”

“A louse?”

She scowled so much that she suddenly looked older and evil, despite how I’d previously pegged her as the wholesome sort. “No. Not Chad. He was just . . . Well . . .” She waved her hands again, this time helplessly. “He was just Chad.”

And now, thanks to being Chad, he was just dead. But I still didn’t know for sure who’d made him that way. Though I now had no compunction about keeping both Dave and Trudi way up near the top of my suspect list.

 
BUT WHAT WAS I going to do with that little list? I decided to keep it to myself, even when Charlotte came speeding out of the house as I parked the Beamer in its spot.

Her braid was bushy, her blue eyes red and round, and I anticipated she was about to impart some terrible news.

In a way, it was. “I’m having a party tonight, Kendra.” Her voice was shrill and a bit belligerent, as if she expected me to argue.

“Any occasion?” I managed mildly. I’d wondered a lot whether Chad Chatsworth’s last stand at one of Charlotte’s last parties was the reason for his demise. I suspected somehow that it was, whether for the obvious or a more subtle reason. Otherwise, why die here?

“Just because I can.” Her eyes slunk into narrow lines that dared me to say she couldn’t. “I’m still here and free and alive, even if that damned Chad can’t say the same thing and I’m going to wind up being blamed for it one way or another.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Have you heard something?”

“It’s what I haven’t heard,” she moaned. “That detective is up to something, but he hasn’t come with a warrant for my arrest. Yet. So, I figured I’d take advantage of borrowed time.”

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t ask. I wasn’t her lawyer, and what she told me would hold no attorney-client privilege. But since I’d been doing some checking on her behalf, I really needed to know. And so, I asked for the umpteenth time, “Did you kill him, Charlotte?”

Her glare could have fended off a fire-breathing dragon as she applied the same old answer. “Of course not. I might have been mad as hell at him for trying to spoil everything, but forget what I said before. I really had the hots for the guy. And even if I couldn’t listen to him directly, from what I gathered he was trying his hardest to come up with a reality show idea to make us both gobs of money so I could have both him and riches, too. He even claimed he’d dump the old girlfriend once and for all. In a way, it was kind of sweet.”

I remembered the row in my den the night of the party Chad crashed. Charlotte hadn’t acted in the least like she thought him sweet then. But hey, what did I know? Everyone acted differently on their attraction to people of the opposite sex.

“I believe you,” I said. “I’ve been looking into—” Not a good time to go there, not without info that could hand her some hope of staying out of jail free. “Into how to take care of a potbellied pig. They’re really cute. I had no idea, but—”

“Then I’ll see you tonight, Kendra?” This woman didn’t even like Lexie. I had no idea how attached she was to the ferrets, but they seemed to have been Yul’s. Obviously, she had no interest whatsoever in hearing about petite and playful porkers.

Which was fine with me, as it ended this conversation.

“Of course,” I said.

 
DID I ACCEPT her invitation and go? Yes. Did I have fun? No. Did I at least achieve my purpose of pushing for answers from the usual suspects—er, guests—about Chad’s murder? Yes to the pushy part, but no to getting any answers.

Oh, yeah, one good thing came of being present at the party: a chance to talk to Ike Janus about his insurance people. Once again, he promised to do some pushing of his own. And I believed it, like I believed someone would saunter over to me and confess to killing Chad.

Eventually, exhausted, I crossed the yard and mounted the steps to my apartment. Apparently Lexie was dog-tired, too, since she barely padded over to greet me before following me back to the bedroom and crashing on the bed while I undressed to shower.

The phone rang. I considered letting it roll over to the machine, since it was so late.

Was it Jeff? I didn’t want to talk to him. On the other hand, I liked the idea of letting him know I’d just come in after one heck of a fun party, all wined up and mellow and getting along fine without him.

And so I picked up the receiver and said very sweetly, “Hello.”

“Keep your nose out of the Chad Chatsworth matter, if you know what’s good for you,” said a voice I didn’t recognize—probably because it sounded hollow and electronically enhanced.

Trying to keep my voice steady, I countered, “Who is this?”

The only answer was a loud thump as my caller hung up.

Chapter Twenty-two

THE DAMN VOICE definitely spooked me, but it didn’t render me stupid. I immediately dialed *69.

Apparently the caller wasn’t stupid, either, since caller ID was blocked.

I stood there for a good minute staring at the receiver. No, it was a not-so-good minute, since my thoughts swirled indecisively.

Should I take the warning seriously and leave Charlotte to save herself from a murder prosecution?

She wasn’t exactly on her own. Yul was on her side. But the strong and silent Yul could actually be the killer, which would keep him from saving his sugar mommy’s behind in favor of protecting his own.

Charlotte had Esther Ickes as her lawyer. That, at least was a good thing. But was it enough to save Charlotte?

Could I save her? I would never know, if I did as I’d been told and butted out.

Okay, then. I might be standing here quivering in my Reeboks, but I wasn’t easily intimidated. Especially not when I thought I could help an almost-friend in imminent peril of being framed for something I didn’t think she’d done. Fine. That decision was easy.

Next . . . should I notify the cops about the call?

What, and have Noralles tell me that, no matter what kind of creep the person who threatened me was, he—or she—had sent a sensible message? He, too, would rather my relatively well-shaped and definitely functional nose not be smack-dab in the middle of the Chad Chatsworth matter.

Speaking of noses, I was jolted out of my indecision by a cold, wet one applied to the hand free of the phone, which I’d let fall to my side. “I’m okay, Lexie,” I told my pup, who regarded me with as much concern in the cock of her head and anxious glimmer in her deep brown eyes as if she’d understood the ugly call. Maybe she couldn’t speak English, but she definitely comprehended all a dog could.

I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and carried my cell phone and my sharpest kitchen knife—which was still damnably dull—as Lexie and I engaged in our last actions of the night. I ensured that the outer gate was engaged behind us and triple-checked all the locks in my apartment. I wondered whether there was such a thing as an A-number one security system, complete with 24/7 monitoring, that could be counted on—assuming I could afford it someday.

To make sure I’d get at least a little sleep, I left my phone off the hook in the living room, so I wouldn’t hear buzzing in the bedroom reminding me to hang it up.

 
I HAD A new potential client to call on the next morning—a guy referred to me by Darryl. Harold Reddingam, a construction company executive, lived in a home in North Hollywood with a couple of cats. November was edging toward December, so I didn’t have a lot of sun to worry about as I left Lexie in the Beamer.

“My buddies don’t need a lot of attention,” Harold told me after asking me in. He was tall and chunky enough to appear as if he belonged in construction, though he didn’t look like a Harold or a man fond of felines.

Good thing for me he was, though, since he was heading out of town tomorrow for a week for an industry conference, and was willing to pay a premium to have me visit three times a day.

“Though you might not see them when you come,” he told me, “they’ll know you’re here. That’s what I care about—letting them feel like I haven’t abandoned them.”

They’d been invisible when Harold first invited me in. But once he’d called them as if they were pooches, they’d appeared in his den from different parts of the house. One, Abra, was a sleek, beautiful Siamese; the other, Cadabra, a fluffy tabby. Both arched their backs in similar ecstasy as Harold stroked them, and regarded me with twin expressions of disdain when I attempted the same.

“We’ll get along fine,” I assured Harold after he led me to the kitchen and showed me kitty food and the litter box.

After that, I leapt into regular rounds, visiting Pansy the pig, followed by some pampered puppies, and ending the morning with a call on Widget for his day’s energy-burning gambol.

Finally I had a few minutes. Lexie and I beelined for Doggy Indulgence. I needed to talk to Darryl.

As if waiting for me, he sat alone in his office. I aimed a grateful wave toward Darryl’s least likable assistant, Kiki, when she eased Lexie into a group of cavorting charges.

“That’s different,” I said to Darryl when I pushed my way into his office after the most perfunctory of knocks.

“What?” he asked.

“The color.” Taking my usual seat on a chair across from his cluttered desk, I pointed to his skinny chest. He wore his typical Henley-style shirt with the Doggy Indulgence logo over his heart, but instead of green, it was red.

“Just needed a little change around here,” he said, peering at me playfully over his wire-rims. “Shake things up a bit.”

“Go wild,” I agreed.

“Yeah,” he said. And then, “What’s wrong?”

“Who said anything was wrong?”

“You’re going to tell me, with that extra wrinkle between your eyebrows, that nothing is?”

“What extra wrinkle?” I reached for the offending spot over my nose.

“The one I haven’t seen since you were being accused of murdering your pet-sitting clients every couple of weeks.”

“You didn’t tell me about any wrinkles then.”

“You had enough problems. So, are you going to tell me?”

I told him about the threatening call.

“And you’ve been asking questions about who might have killed Chad Chatsworth?” At my nod, he asked, “And who’ve you been interrogating, Sherlock?”

“That’s
Ms.
Sherlock to you.” Since I valued Darryl’s point of view, I ticked off on my fingers the various suspects from whom I’d sought information, futilely or not. “What do you think?” I finished.

“I think that, this time, you ought to let Detective Nemesis do his job.”

“Noralles?”

“That’s the one.”

“But he’s liable to arrest Charlotte.”

“And your point is—?”

“You don’t really think she’s guilty.” I stood and leaned over Darryl’s desk.

“Who says?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want her to be. She’s begun to grow on me.”

“I gather she began to grow on Chad Chatsworth, too, in front of millions of viewers—before she dumped him for money.”

“I know. But the ferrets weren’t hers. They’re Yul’s.”

“They’re the ones getting the shaft in this situation. First, accused of murder. Then, maybe they’re only accessories, but they’ve also been seized. Best case, they’re still going to be shipped to new homes—out of state.”

“I know,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve intended to visit them, too. Want to come?”

“Absolutely,” Darryl declared.

 
THE EAST VALLEY Animal Center, part of the City of L.A.’s Department of Animal Services, crouched in a gaudy commercial area of mom-and-pop businesses and chain discount stores along Sherman Way in North Hollywood. Its reception building, squat and as aqua as the bottom of a swimming pool, lurked off the street, behind a parking lot and a line of palm trees and flag poles.