The Morning Show Murders (1) (36 page)

In a nearly empty waiting room, we sipped bitter machine-dispensed
coffee and I explained that Detective Solomon had suggested I inform her of a few things I knew that might help her investigation of Ted Parkhurst's murder.

"Yes," she said, "he mentioned something you told him about a mysterious gathering in Afghanistan."

So once again I described the infamous meeting of the toe-tag gang in Kabul, embellishing it a bit to give A.W. as much time as possible with Bettina, which was my purpose in distracting the detective. I ended by asking her about the man shot in the old mansion's basement. "You said his name was Gault. Steve Gault?"

"Stephen. You knew him?"

"No. But he was at the Irish pub in Kabul, too."

She smiled. She had that Spencer Tracy rueful grin down cold. "You make my head swim, Chef Blessing," she said. "So let's see what we've got. Six men shared a table in a bar in Kabul about a month ago. Now all of 'em are dead. And what should I deduce from that fact? That a serial murderer is at work? That'd be interesting. I've never investigated a serial-killer case. Probably because we don't get many serial killers in real life. Certainly not any with IQs higher than Stephen Hawking's who like to play tricky games with us."

"What about Zodiac?" I said.

"Well, that's the West Coast," she said. "They live the fiction out there. Here, we're a little more down to earth. We get Son of Sam. No criminal genius. Just a homicidal nutjob with a talking dog who had a lucky streak that eventually ran out."

"I'm not suggesting all those guys were killed by the same person," I said. "But now that we know that Ted Parkhurst was capable of murder, I think it's possible he did away with one or two of them."

"Not to put too fine a line to it, chef, I really don't give a rat's ass who he killed, unless it helps me find out who killed him. That's my assignment."

"I'd be looking for a partner in crime," I said.

"Well, thanks for that suggestion, chef. I've been thinking along those lines, too. What I need help with is figuring out who the partner is."

"And how Parkhurst was injected with the stuff that killed him."

"That I know. A hospital is a great place to commit murder with a hypodermic needle and get away with it. How hard would it have been for somebody in a white or green uniform to brush up against
Parkhurst as he was being taken out? Maybe standing behind him in the elevator? And the beauty part is, you toss the needle in a hazmat bag, and no cop I know of is going to go rooting around in there looking for a weapon. No. I'm not concerned with the how. Just the who. I don't suppose you might have been Parkhurst's partner?"

"If that's a serious question, the answer is no."

"Solomon thinks you killed Gallagher," she said. "Why shouldn't we add Parkhurst to your bill? You were here last night. You had opportunity."

"But no motive."

"Unless you were his partner and you didn't want to risk him giving you up."

"You're just playing with my head, aren't you, Detective? You don't really think I killed anybody."

"I'd be a fool if I went by what I thought," she said.

"If you seriously suspected me of anything, you'd have invited Detective Seestrunk along and read me my rights."

"Has Detective Solomon read you your rights?"

"No."

"That's because he doesn't have enough evidence. I have even less."

She looked at her watch. It was a big, silver retro Swatch. "We've been chatting for about fifteen minutes. Anything else you feel compelled to tell me?"

I shook my head.

"Well," she said, "I think your friends have had enough time to compare notes, don't you?"

I told her I did.

"I like the story about the Irish pub," she said.

"It's true," I said.

"That's why I like it," she said.

"How did Bettina know not to mention the kidnapping to Detective Hawkline before you clued her in?" I asked A.W. as we drove away from the hospital.

"She's pretty intuitive," he said. "And we were lucky that it was Detective Hawkline's partner who was on duty when the doctor said she was well enough for visitors. Before he began to ask her questions, she started throwing questions at him about how she'd wound up at the hospital and what exactly had been going on.

"He told her just about everything he knew. But he never once mentioned the word
kidnapping
. And later, when Detective Hawkline arrived, she wanted to know what Bettina had been doing at the boarded-up mansion, which meant none of us had said anything about the search for Ms. McCauley. So she improvised."

"She wasn't improvising about not seeing anything in that basement," I said. "I know from personal experience it was too dark down there to see anything."

"If Parkhurst hadn't been so paranoid," A.W. said, "he wouldn't have gone after Betts and messed himself up."

"Going after her wasn't his idea," I said. "Felix phoned him and
sent him to the hospital. She's the one who's paranoid. Or maybe she wanted to set him up."

"Whatever, it worked for her," he said. "He's dead and she's still at large."

"For now," I said, with more hope than conviction.

Trina had left a message for me at the Bistro. It read, in Cassandra's delicate hand,
Meeting five p.m. at the Central Park Ritz-Carlton, room 601
.

There was another note.
Call Lee ASAP
.

"Chef Blessing, dear," Lee said, answering her phone. "I am still at JFK with two very uninteresting agents, awaiting the arrival of our client from London. The flight is forty minutes late, and we are not amused."

"You called earlier?"

"Yes. To ask you to arrive at the hotel a little before the meeting. Say four-forty-five. There are a few things we should prepare."

"No problem."

"I assume A.W. is with you," she said.

"He's in the building. Want to talk with him?"

"No. Just tell him that he is to drop you at the hotel entrance. I will be waiting for you there."

"I'll tell him," I said.

"Till four-forty-five, then. Are you still worried?"

"A little."

"Don't be. Everything will go as planned," she said.

"Just like your client's arrival time," I said.

A.W. was having a late lunch in the main dining room at a table for two that provided a clear view of Cassandra at her hostess perch near the front door. I wondered which of them had picked that table.

Business had been brisk, and there was a fair amount of after-lunch dawdling. Middle-management types engaged in office talk, some well-dressed wedding-ringed ladies taking time out from their shopping, a tourist couple, a table of ten twentysomethings celebrating a birthday, and a few reliables from the nearby ad agencies, who ate
with us three or four times a week and would return later for a pre-commuter cocktail.

I took the empty chair across from A.W.

He was halfway through his meal, a baby-lamb-shoulder salad, accompanied by, it pains me to report, some kind of soft drink. He was, after all, on duty.

I told him Lee's request that we arrive early for the meeting. "You're going to be in on this, right?" I asked.

"No. There's a special team for takedowns."

"We have to talk about that," I said. "And I'm going to need a few things that you know more about than I."

"Like what?"

I checked my watch. We had about three hours before magic time. Long enough for me to talk him into a slight adjustment to Lee's plans that would make me feel a little less vulnerable. I smiled at him. "That salad looks good," I said. "Maybe I'll have one, too."

Lee must have been standing just inside the Central Park South entrance to the Ritz-Carlton. When A.W. pulled up behind an idling horse and carriage, she stepped through the door and waved to me.

"Here goes nothing," I said to A.W.

He gave me a concerned look.

Lee took my arm and led me through the hotel lobby without paying much mind to its heralded antique/contemporary ambience. "How are you holding up, chef dear?" she asked.

"To reference an old joke: Like the suicide jumper said as he passed the fifth floor, 'So far, so good.'"

"Relax. Everything is in place. And you will appreciate Goyal."

"Appreciate?"

"I am sure you two will get along famously."

"If you say so," I said.

Of the three men in the suite's almost too antique-y sitting room, Goyal Aharon was the last I would have picked to be ex-Mossad. His hair was blond, almost white, cut short and neatly brushed to the side. His eyes were gray. He was clean-shaven and tanned. He was on the thin side and maybe two or three inches shorter than me, six inches shorter and fifty or more pounds lighter than the two rugged InterTec
agents who were guarding him. He was wearing pressed khaki trousers, a black Polo pullover, soft black leather loafers, and a crooked grin. He resembled an actor playing a young professor in a TV show set on a 1950s campus.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Blessing," he said, with only a mild accent. It was his handshake that offered the main hint of a rugged past. There was callused strength in it.

"Call me Billy," I said. "Everybody does. Almost." I glanced at Lee, who rewarded me with a smile.

"I understand you are a famous chef, Billy," Aharon said. "Will we be talking about food tomorrow? I learned from my grandmother the Ashkenazk cuisine, but I am also conversant in other styles. I worked in a bakery in my youth. Perhaps I could demonstrate how one prepares sufganiot?"

"I think we'll have plenty to talk about other than food," I said.

"Where are you going, Lee?" Aharon asked, suddenly distracted.

I turned to see Lee and the two security brutes heading for the door.

"Just giving my men their final instructions," she said. "As I mentioned, we have a specific plan that will be going into effect in just a few minutes."

He turned to me and shook his head. "I do not quite understand what Lee expects to happen. Do you?"

"I get most of it, I think."

He gestured toward an armchair with a red-velvet seat. It was part of a gathering of furniture surrounding a coffee table containing a French Limoges tea set. He waited until I was comfortable, then sat across from me on a Victorian love seat with a pale-blue silk padding. "So explain it to me," he said.

"What don't you understand, Goyal?" Lee asked as she joined us, sitting next to him on the love seat.

"To begin," he said, "if I am in danger, as you keep telling me, why have you dismissed my guards?"

"They are not dismissed," she said. "Merely less visible. They're in the suite across the hall, watching everything we do and listening to everything we say via state-of-the-art visual and audio equipment hidden in this room."

"Hidden where?" I asked.

"There are cameras in that enclosed bookcase," she said, "and in the chandelier. Tiny transmitters have been placed in key positions. For example, the pen on that desk is a transmitter, but you can also write with it."

"It seems so odd," Aharon said. "You have reason to believe this Felix has been hired to kill me, and we are supposed to just sit here, bait for your trap. Why are we taking the chance she may succeed, when there is a much safer and more efficient way to handle the problem? Why not just remove her?"

"As the Irish have said for centuries, it is better to deal with a devil you know than a devil you do not know," Lee said, filling our cups with tea. "If we merely remove Felix, we probably would have to face a new, unknown replacement. What we must do is get Felix to tell us who hired her so that we can stop the threat at its source."

Aharon nodded. "I suppose you are right. Actually, I am interested in meeting this murderous lady I've heard stories about. Call me a chauvinist, but I had assumed Felix to be a man."

"We have Chef Blessing to thank for that bit of clarification," Lee said.

Aharon turned to me. "Ah. Then you are not only a chef, a restaurateur, a television performer, and an interviewer, you also dabble in crime?"

"Only when forced," I said.

Aharon took a sip of tea and settled back on his chair. "So what do you expect, Lee? That she will try to remove me with you and Billy sitting here?"

"I think she will try to remove all of us. But we will not let that happen."

"Good," he said. "I was hoping to write another book."

"This might make an interesting chapter," I said.

"In fact--"

Whatever Aharon was about to say was preempted by the chirping of Lee's cellular.

Aharon and I stared at her as she brought the phone to her ear. "Yes?" she said, and was silent for the next several seconds. "Good" was her next and final word before she put away the phone.

"I've had a team shadowing Trina," Lee informed us. "She is on her way up."

We sat there, silently staring at the door to the suite.

It couldn't have been more than a minute or two, but it seemed like an eternity until an electronic
bing-bong
sounded.

Lee rose, adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder, and went to open the door.

After a brief sharing of hellos, Trina Lomax entered the sitting room carrying a worn leather briefcase. Lee was a step behind her.

Aharon and I had risen.

I was staring at Trina, trying to decipher her expression. Curiosity, perhaps. Maybe a hint of annoyance. But no sign of suspicion. "Billy," she said. "Early and eager?"

"Something like that," I said.

"And this must be Mr. Aharon." She stepped forward, hand extended. "I'm Trina Lomax, executive producer of
Wake Up, America!
on Worldwide Broadcasting."

He hesitated for only a millisecond before shaking her hand. "A pleasure," he said, smiling. "But, please, I prefer for beautiful ladies to call me by my first name, Goyal."

"That's very sweet, Goyal," she said, putting the briefcase on the glass top of the coffee table, beside the tea service. "I hope you'll call me Trina."

She took the remaining chair, one similar to mine but with a purple-velvet seat. Aharon and I followed her lead.