Pie A La Murder (18 page)

“Did you always want to be a journalist?” I asked.

She shook her head. “My original plan was to join the FBI, but that didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“Too many layers of bureaucracy. Too long before I’d be assigned any cases.” She sipped some coffee, gazing into the mug.

With the potatoes bubbling on the stove behind me, I began whisking together extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar with a clove of minced garlic, a little salt, and some black pepper.

“I read your bio. We can skip over the fact that your dad was a veterinarian, your mom and two sisters are accountants in San Francisco, you run a cooking school in Santa Monica, and that a year ago you were hired, without any TV experience, to host a cable show that’s become very popular. Unless any of that isn’t true.”

“It’s all accurate,” I said.

“How did you get your TV break?”

“One of my cooking school students, Iva Jordan, was the wife—I mean, she still
is
the wife—of Mickey Jordan, the man who owns the Better Living Channel. When he decided to replace the previous cooking show host, Iva recommended me. I auditioned and got the job. It was good luck for me, because they needed someone right away, and my years of teaching made talking to the cameras easy. I just imagined I was explaining cooking techniques and recipe tricks to a room full of students.”

The potatoes were done. I was carrying the pot to the sink to drain them when Gretchen Tully abruptly changed course.

“Everybody at the paper knows you and Nick D’ Martino have a
thing
going on. You know him so well, why do you think he killed Alec Redding?”

I set the pot down so hard that if my sink hadn’t been stainless steel I would have chipped the enamel.
“What?”

“I asked, Why—”

“I heard the question. My answer is that I do
not
believe for one minute that he had anything at all to do with Redding’s death.” I gestured to our recorders. “You have that statement on tape. Now tell me why you’re so quick to condemn him? He’s not some stranger—he’s your colleague.”

“If by colleague you mean ‘fellow reporter,’ he’s not anymore. He’s been put on the rewrite desk. The boss doesn’t want anybody else in the media getting to him, at least not until after he’s arrested. When he’s in police custody we won’t be able to keep him to ourselves anymore.”

I took a deep breath to control my anger and said calmly, “He’s not going to be arrested because he’s innocent.”

“You can repeat it like a mantra, swear it on a Bible, but the truth is that D’Martino was in the house alone when you came and found the man’s body,” she said. “He’s the cops’ primo person of interest.”

“Who told you that?”

She puffed out her chest. “I can’t reveal my source.”

I wanted to know who was leaking information, but for Nicholas’s sake, I couldn’t afford to make an enemy of Gretchen Tully. Somehow, I had to turn her into an ally. I put a friendly smile on my face.

“You’re right. Of course you shouldn’t reveal a source. Besides, I thought you were here to write about my TV show’s national bake sales project. What would you like to know about that?”

“Nothing.” She grimaced with distaste. “Your big bake whatever was the subject
before
this murder, when I was stuck in the Home and Family ghetto. But with the staff cuts and now that D’Martino’s sidelined, I’m getting my shot at crime reporting.”

You have a lot to learn, Ms. Tully, about getting people to reveal information. Don’t use an ax to open a bottle of milk
.

I composed my face into an expression of sympathy. “This is an important opportunity for you, I understand, and I feel bad because you’re not exploiting it to the fullest.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re locking yourself into only one theory of the crime. What happens if evidence surfaces that exonerates Nicholas D’Martino? If you’re concentrating only on him you’ll miss getting a great scoop because you weren’t looking for the real killer.”

Her forehead creased in thought.

The red potatoes were cool enough to handle. I cut them into chunks, added them to the bowl with the other ingredients, and tossed the vegetables with the simple vinaigrette dressing I’d made.

She said speculatively, “If D’Martino didn’t kill Redding . . .”

“Then somebody else did. That’s your real story.”

I dished the Tomato-Potato Panzanella salad into two pasta bowls and set them on our place mats. I put out the cutlery and gestured for her to sit.

“You wanted to join the FBI, so you must have an urge to investigate,” I said. “Use it. Think what a coup it will be if
you
solve the murder before the police do.”

I saw her eyes begin to glow with excitement.

I said, “As soon as you’ve had something to eat, to get your brain cells in gear, why not start digging into Alec Redding’s life and find out who might have wanted him dead?”

After saying that my Tomato-Potato Panzanella “rocked,” Gretchen Tully left the house full of an investigator’s zeal. I felt a stab of apprehension. I had set her on a path that I hoped would help clear Nicholas of suspicion, but what if the information she turned up made his situation worse?

John O’Hara’s voice echoed in my head:
Stay out of police business
.

Tuffy nudged me for an ear scratch.

“I can’t stay out of this case,” I whispered.

Tuffy must have caught the tone of worry in my voice, because he leaned against me and nuzzled his silky face into the palm of my hand.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, a little less than an hour after Gretchen Tully left my house, and the time that Olivia Wayne had said she could spare a few minutes to talk to me. She told me to meet her at Moonstone’s, a café on Century Park East in Century City, a block south of her law office.

I got there a little early, took one of the two booths in the rear, and positioned myself so that I faced the door. Moonstone’s was small and clean, with a counter to the left of the entrance, tables at the front window and along the right side. The space was anchored in the back by the pair of booths. The decor was glass and chrome, with black Formica tabletops, black vinyl chair backs and banquettes. Framed black-and-white photos lined the walls: stills from old movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, dancing in art deco splendor.

The café was nearly deserted. A young couple, a man and a woman, occupied seats at the counter, drinking coffee and talking softly with their heads close together. An older man sat alone at a table near the front, reading the
New York Times
. He had a half-eaten sandwich in front of him
.

I had just ordered a cup of coffee when I saw Olivia Wayne enter.

Saw her?
She was impossible to miss.

Hurricane Olivia swept through the heavy glass and chrome front door with the authority of a gale force wind. From the smiles and waves with which the counterman and the waitress greeted her, it wasn’t hard to guess that she was a regular here, and that she probably tipped well.

Olivia returned their smiles as she headed toward me. Just as she slid onto the opposite banquette, the waitress appeared with pad in hand.

“Hi, there. What can I get for you today?”

Olivia ignored the plastic-covered menu in a metal holder between the salt and pepper shakers and the bowl of artificial sweeteners.

“Bacon cheeseburger with avocado and tomato, no onion, no pickle. And coffee,” she said.

“Fries?”

“Of course.”

“You got it.” The waitress turned to me. “Are you ready to order yet?”

“Just this coffee.”

“I’m ravenous,” Olivia said as the waitress hurried to the kitchen. “No lunch, and probably no dinner.”

She put her black leather handbag on the seat next to her and shrugged out of her dark blue Armani suit jacket, revealing a pale blue silk shell underneath. Her only jewelry was a strand of what were unmistakably real pearls. No earrings. No rings on her long fingers, nails perfectly manicured and finished with colorless polish. Her watch had a black leather band. Its large face was turned to the inside of her wrist, allowing her to check the time without being obvious about it.

“What did you learn from Celeste?” I asked.

“I’ll get to that. First the crime-scene news: Nick’s prints are not on the stool that was used to bash in Redding’s skull. Nobody’s were.”

“Somebody wiped it clean.” I was immediately embarrassed that I’d stated the obvious. Before she could say “Duh” or something equally as derisive, I said, “No prints on the murder weapon means that the only thing tying Nicholas to the crime is his finding the body. That’s good.”

She grimaced. “Did the Pollyanna-bug bite you in your cradle?”

I snapped back at her. “Being nasty is not a good use of your valuable time.”

“You’re right.” She expelled a breath. “My disposition is rotten when I go too long without eating.”

“I accept your apology,” I said.

A corner of her lips lifted in a hint of a smile. “You’re tougher than you look.”

“ ‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it,’ ” I quoted.

“Fortune cookie?”

“Shakespeare. When I was in the public school system I used to try to teach Shakespeare, as well as good grammar, to pre-felons.”

“Nick told me you stopped being the pretty little schoolmarm when some hard case took a shot at you.”

“Not every career path runs smoothly,” I said. “Now,
please
, tell me about the police interview with Celeste.”

She shook her head. “Not good.” But before she could elaborate, the waitress returned with her order. She put the large plate down, and filled Olivia’s coffee cup and refilled mine from the pot she carried in her other hand.

Olivia lifted the top part of the bun, added a few shakes of salt and a squirt of catsup, then picked up the burger and took a bite. She closed her eyes and made an
mmmm
sound that comes from happy dining, or good sex.

I watched, fascinated. It was a big, juicy burger. I expected that at any moment her silk shell was going to acquire some serious staining. But she ate a full third of the burger before putting it down, and without getting even the tiniest spot on her blouse.

How did she manage it? If I ate that wearing good clothes, I’d look like a Jackson Pollock drip canvas.

Olivia blotted her lips, picked up a French fry, and took a bite. “Bad news from the police interrogation of Celeste. She said she hadn’t seen her father all evening. Worse, she said she went to the hotel to stay with her mother because she was afraid Nick was angry with her.”

I felt a cold lump of dread form in my stomach. “Naturally, John asked her why . . .”

“And she said it was because of ‘the picture.’ O’Hara jumped on that like a hungry cat on a fat, sleepy mouse. Celeste started to cry. Frankly, I think it was an act, but she managed to produce real tears. She described the picture she’d posed for—the one you told me about, nearly naked with a pie—and sniffled that she’d meant it as a joke, but now everybody was
so upset
. Boo hoo.”

“She said ‘everybody.’ Meaning that her mother, and maybe even the prince, were angry at Redding?”

“That was my argument, but O’Hara and Weaver didn’t see it that way. They want to question Nick again. I agreed that I’d have him back at the West LA station at six o’clock tonight. That’s why I’m sure I’m not going to get any dinner.” She started in on the burger again. “By the way, that party of four in the Presidential Suite has been ordered to stay in town for at least the next five days. Thanks for the tip that they were planning to fly away.”