The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala (9 page)

A
l Frink beat me into the office on Tuesday morning. When I came through the door, he rose and handed me two message slips. One was from a woman wanting me to organize a baby shower. A new customer—yippee! The other said that Flavia Dunbarton had called. She was a reporter for the
Grand Junction Gabbler
, and I'd met her after my friend Ivy Donner died. I eyed the inoffensive pink slip dubiously.

“What did she want?” I asked Al. As if I didn't know.

“To talk about the murder,” he said, confirming my suspicion. “She sounded hot. Is she hot?”

“Hot?” Al didn't usually react this way to our clients.

“Hot. Sexy, beautiful, a bombshell.” He looked at me eagerly.

“A femme fatale.”

“She is?” His eyes lit up.

“No, I was just playing our game.” I gave it some thought. “She's attractive. Dark hair, nice smile. Late twenties.” Which made her three or four years older than Al, I guessed.

“I guess I can judge for myself.” He moved to pick up a file folder so he wasn't facing me. “I told her you were free at nine.”

“Al!”

“Yes, boss?” He gave me an innocent look.

“Don't call me ‘boss,'” I said querulously, stomping back to my office.

I barely had time to glance at the schedule board and make a couple of phone calls related to events later in the week before Al appeared in my doorway with Flavia Dunbarton peering over his shoulder.

“Your nine o'clock is here, bo—Amy-Faye,” he said. The fatuous look he gave Flavia told me she fit his definition of “hot.”

I didn't see it. She was a thin woman, with shoulder-length brown hair, thin lips, and a long face. Still, she did had an energetic quality to her, a feeling of being alert and alive, and maybe that's what attracted Al.

“Would you like coffee, Ms. Dunbarton?” he asked.

I noticed he didn't ask me.

“Flavia.” She smiled at him. “No, thanks.”

He lingered in the doorway until I said, “Thanks, Al.” Reluctantly, he withdrew and closed the door.

Flavia plopped into a chair and pulled out a small recorder. “Right. Let's talk murder.”

I couldn't help but laugh a little. “Hi, Flavia, how've you been? How's the newspaper business? Did you have a good summer?”

She looked a little taken aback by my gentle sarcasm, but then grinned, her cheeks squishing her eyes into engaging half-moons. “Sorry. I can be a bit too focused on business. My mom used to tell me to take a breath and look around sometimes when I was caught up in a
project. How are you? Are you getting past what happened last May?”

I didn't know if I'd ever “get past” my friend's murder, and almost being killed by her murderer, but I didn't feel like going into it with Flavia. “Life goes on,” I said.

“And here you are, involved in another murder.” Flavia's eyes lit up.

“I'm not ‘involved,'” I said. “I happened to be at the Club when the body was discovered—that's all.”

“Tell me about it.” She set the recorder on the edge of my desk.

Dodging the request, I said, “Why are you talking to me? There were hundreds of people at the party.”

“Yes, but not too many of them saw Van Allen's body,” Flavia said. “And the police are pretty much at a dead end—they can't even locate his car or where he was staying—so I'm reduced to beating the bushes to get something worth printing by deadline. Help me out, please? I heard you knew the guy.”

She heard entirely too much, I thought, probably from one of the cops or ambulance people on the scene. “I didn't know him, but I'd seen him a couple of times that day.” Giving in, and thinking I might drum up some business for Gemma, I talked at length about the Celebration of Gothic Novels and Gemma's bookstore, and only a little bit about Van Allen having been present at some of the events.

“Why do you think he was hanging around the gothic festival?” she asked.

I thought briefly about telling her my theory about his having a specific interest in one of the authors, but it was mere speculation, so I shrugged and said, “Maybe he grew up reading Daphne du Maurier and watching
Dark Shadows
. Maybe he wanted to buy a book for his mom or his wife. Did he have a wife?”

Flavia shook her head. “Not according to the police. At least, he didn't have one while he was in prison. He might have acquired one as soon as he got out, one of those prison groupies who get off on marrying inmates.”

I was sure my expression of distaste mirrored Flavia's. “Ugh,” we said together.

“Anything else you can tell me?” Flavia asked.

“Nope.”

She turned off the recorder and gathered her things. “If you think of anything, let me know. This story will run tomorrow morning, but I'll need something for later in the week, too, since my editor wants follow-ups. It's not often we get a story with famous authors and murder in Heaven or Grand Junction.”

She said it with a shade too much relish for my taste. “Thankfully,” I said, rising. Mindful of Al's crush, I called, “Al, can you show Flavia out?”

He appeared with the speed of the Flash. The scent of aftershave preceded him and I suspected he'd slapped some on for Flavia's benefit. I bit back a grin as he said, “Certainly! Right this way, Ms. Dun—Flavia,” he said, for all the world as if he were guiding her through the Minotaur's labyrinth instead of shepherding her twenty-five feet through the reception area to the clearly visible French doors. When he didn't come
right back, I suspected he was walking her all the way to her car, and I laughed as I picked up the phone to call Hart.

When he answered, I said, “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

I heard the smile in his voice and smiled in return. It flashed through my mind that I hadn't felt this goofy about a man since the early days of my relationship with Doug.

“You're calling about the brick, aren't you?”

“You heard, then?”

“Of course. It was the most exciting thing that happened last night. Well, unless you count old Mrs. Beasley locking herself out of her house in her nightie and calling for assistance, which I don't, since that happens at least once a week.”

“Wow. Being a cop is a thrill a minute.”

“If Mrs. Beasley were twenty-two instead of eighty-two, and her nightie was more Victoria's Secret than Queen Victoria, the troops might find it more thrilling to go to her rescue. As it is . . .”

I laughed. “Seriously, did you learn anything from the brick or the note?”

“No. Bricks aren't made for holding fingerprints, and we couldn't lift any from the paper, either. Not too surprising. Unless someone saw whoever threw the brick . . .”

I heard the shrug in his voice. “Mary Stewart and her brother think it was that Eloise Hufnagle. They're worried that she's escalating, getting more violent, that she might hurt Mary.”

“Unlikely. It's a far cry from splashing stage blood on someone or tossing a brick through a window to assault and battery. If she's worried, Stewart should take simple precautions—not walk down dark alleys alone, stay with a group of people.”

“Did you know her brother's a professional bodyguard?”

“Anyone can call themselves a bodyguard,” Hart said, clearly unimpressed. “It's not like there's a licensing organization or required training. On the other hand, if he's halfway alert, that should be all it takes to keep Hufnagle away.”

We made arrangements to have dinner on Wednesday night—the only night of the week I didn't have an event planned—and hung up. As I replaced the phone, I heard Al come back. He was whistling. I bit back a smile when he appeared in the doorway, a fatuous grin on his face.

“She asked me out,” he said, the grin getting wider, if that were possible.

“She did?” There was too much surprise in my voice, so I added, “On a date?” Not much better. “Uh, what did she say? Where are you going?”

“We were standing by her car—she's got a sweet ride, a 1968 Corvette she says she and her pop restored, turquoise with white leather interior—and I told her it was cherry. We went back and forth about cars, and she asked me if I was going to the muscle car show in Grand Junction this weekend, and I said ‘yeah,' and she said we should go together.” He tweaked his bow tie straight.

“That's great, Al. Sounds like fun.” Fun for Al, and apparently fun for Flavia. I'd rather watch asphalt cure than go to a car show. But Al was a car nut, and I knew he'd have a great time. He might not even get around to looking at the cars if Flavia was nearby. “You'll have to tell me about it on Monday.”

“Sure thing,” he said. His brow creased. “What should I wear?” He immediately winced, and said, “Delete that. That was such a girl question.”

I laughed as the phone rang and he scooted back to his desk to answer it. I called the caterer working tonight's birthday party to let her know one guest had a strawberry allergy and another wanted a gluten-free meal, and then devoted some time to Thursday's corporate off-site and the party for five hundred on Saturday night. I had only last-minute details to attend to for both events, so when I rang off with my point of contact at Delaney Construction, I called Brooke and talked her into taking a walk with me around Lost Alice Lake. I knew she and Troy had the appointment this evening to talk to a mother-to-be who was planning to give up her baby, and I wanted to take her mind off it. Brooke has always been a worrier.

Swapping my low-heeled pumps for walking shoes, I checked my e-mail one last time and headed out. I had to tell Al twice that I was taking a long lunch and would be at Lost Alice Lake. He was caught up in a daydream—about Flavia, I was sure. “Yeah, okay, later, boss,” he responded absently. I suspected I could have told him I was headed to Mars for a little look-see and he would have given the same response. He was
probably still trying to sort out his wardrobe options for the date. The dark-wash jeans or the distressed ones?

*   *   *

Brooke was waiting when I pulled up beside her Mercedes ten minutes later. Her dark hair swung in a ponytail and she had an Athleta jacket over slim-fitting workout pants. She gave me a hug. “Thanks for getting me out of the house,” she said. “I was just sitting there stewing.”

“I know. You are the Queen of Stewing. Remember how you lost four pounds waiting for the acceptance letter from CSU? And the time you threw up because you were so worried about how your dad would react when you scratched the car door?”

“I'm better than that now,” Brooke protested as we made our way down the slight incline to the path that circled the lake. A cold front had come through last night and I zipped my fleece against the bite of the wind made keener by the water. The lake gleamed blue, dappled by sunlight and riffled by the breeze. With the already snowcapped Rockies in the background, it looked like a postcard. Grasses waved from the bottom by the shore, and I glimpsed a foot-long trout before a flick of his tail hid him among the waving fronds. A handful of people were enjoying the beautiful fall day, conscious that soon the path would be covered with snow and the lake frozen over. Two high-school-age kids who should probably have been in school were tossing a Frisbee, and other people walked or jogged. Brooke set a brisk pace down the path; she was much more conscientious about working out than I was.

I filled her in on last night's cocktail gathering and the brick, and told her about Flavia Dunbarton coming by this morning.

“Lucas Stewart is a bodyguard?” she asked.

“Out of all that, the first thing you pick up on is that Mary's brother is a bodyguard?”

“C'mon, A-Faye. That's interesting. It's like having Kevin Costner or Jean-Claude Van Damme in our midst. Remember that movie Costner made with Whitney Houston? What was it called?”

“The Bodyguard.”

“That's it. I'll bet Lucas has all his own hair, which makes him way hotter than Costner.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said, huffing a little and swinging my arms to keep up with her longer stride. “Costner's engaging. Likable.”

Hronk, hronk.
A V of geese flew low overhead, headed south, a bit late in the season, in my opinion. I watched them for a moment, and then said, “Do you think the brick's related to the murder, the lawsuit, or something else?”

Brooke cocked her head, considering. “I think we don't know enough about any of the players,” she said. “Troy Sr.”—her wheeler-dealer, powerful father-in-law—“says you never sit down at the negotiating table with someone until you know them better than their wife or dog does.”

We weren't negotiating anything, but I got her point. “You think we should find out more about the authors.”

“About everyone who came to Heaven for the gothic thingie,” she said. “The authors, bodyguard Lucas,
Constance Aldringham's hub and daughter, the movie guy, and that Hufnagle woman. I don't suppose Hart would fill you in?”

I shook my head, then palmed a strand of hair out of my eye. “No. He lets a kernel fall now and then, but he's not going to turn over dossiers on all those people. I don't even know how much he's looked at them.”

“Well, we can Google with the best of them,” Brooke said. “I'll find out about Mary Stewart—”

“You just want an excuse for cyber-stalking her brother. What would Troy say?”

She ignored me, which was justified, since I knew she was still madly in love with Troy and was only funning about Lucas.

“—and Maud can research the Aldringham clan, since she knows them from the olden days. Kerry can look into Francesca Bugle, and Lola can take Eloise Hufnagle.”

“I'll find out what I can about Cosmo Zeller,” I agreed, liking the plan as much because it would keep Brooke occupied for the afternoon, and help her not worry about the adoption interview this evening, as because we might learn something useful about the murder. “Can you phone the others and let them know?”