While I was showering, I thought about my next step in trying to find out who killed Keith Ingram and shot at Roland. Olivia was right when she said that the police had to be turned in a direction away from me. And I wanted them away from John, too. He was in a worse position than I was. Hatch knew that I’d broken into Ingram’s house, but he didn’t know why. He had guessed that I was one of the women on Ingram’s sex tapes, but couldn’t prove it because there was no evidence. Even if I had been one of those women, I was single and had nothing to fear from the exposure except, at most, some embarrassment. That wasn’t a credible motive for murder.
But Hatch knew John had something against Ingram that was powerful enough to make him lose control and deck Ingram in the middle of a ballroom full of people. Of course Hatch would like to know the reason John did it, but John’s action was bad enough to get him sidelined from the investigation, and possibly a suspension in his future. Or worse.
My only comfort was that there was no connection between John O’Hara and Roland Gray, and therefore no way to link John to the attempt on Roland’s life. Hatch would not be able to prove that John committed both acts, and he’d look ridiculous if he tried to claim that the two events were unrelated. Also, and I smiled remembering this, neither John nor Mack were very good shots. It was a joke in the department that the two best investigators on the force had to tackle fleeing felons because they’d never be able to bring them down any other way. For his birthday one year, Shannon had John’s worst target practice sheet framed. She’d hung it in their bathroom. “To remind him to be careful when he’s out there fighting the bad guys,” she’d said.
Although the water that poured over me was still hot, I thought of something that sent an instant chill through my body.
What if Hatch came up with the theory that John shot at Roland in order to throw the police off, because he knew that there was nothing at all connecting him to Roland.
But that didn’t make sense to me. Unless he had been following Roland around, John couldn’t know he would be at Caffeine an’ Stuff, or that he’d be sitting at a table in front of the window. And how could he have found the right sniper perch across the street in only a few minutes? No, Hatch couldn’t believe he’d be able to sell so wild an idea.
The comfort the realization gave me didn’t last long when I remembered that Hatch didn’t have to answer all the questions in an investigation-just enough for the DA to get an indictment and bring a case to trial. During the trial a good defense attorney could blast holes in the state’s case, but by then John’s career would be ruined. The ordeal of an arrest and a trial could send Shannon into a relapse, and Eileen might never get over the guilt she would feel for the damage her affair with Ingram had done to her family.
There was only one path out of this mess, and that was to find out who really killed Ingram and tried to kill Roland.
I turned off the water and got out of the shower. It was six PM by the ceramic poodle clock on my bathroom sink.
Saturday evening. I had no plans to go out, nor did I expect company. I wasn’t hungry because of all the food I’d tasted at the cooking school. After I dried off, I put on one of my oversized Bruce Lee T-shirts and a pair of pajama bottoms.
Next, I gathered up the two gala guest lists, the copies of the photos of those in attendance, a notepad, and pen; piled a stack of pillows against the headboard of my bed; and climbed in.
With Tuffy and Emma snuggled beside me, I made notes about the questions to which I needed answers. In a little while, a plan began to form in my mind.
It required a Summit Meeting.
I reached for the phone…
Sunday morning. It wasn’t going to be a day of rest.
Eileen had spent Saturday night at her parents’ house because she planned to take her mother to mass this morning, and then out to brunch with our Della’s Sweet Dreams manager, Walter Hovey. Shannon O’Hara loved Walter’s movie trivia stories. Eileen thought it would be good for her mother to have a few hours without worrying about what might happen to John.
At seven o’clock, just as I was taking a pan of fresh raspberry muffins out of the oven, the Summiteers began to arrive. First on the scene was Hugh Weaver. He’d barely crossed the threshold when we saw John drive up.
I settled the two partners at the kitchen table with mugs of fresh coffee and a basket of muffins when the doorbell rang. It had to be the last of the Sumitteers.
As soon as I opened the front door, the delightful aroma of fresh bagels hit me. Nicholas shifted the big Junior’s bag he carried to one side and leaned down to give me a quick kiss on the tip of my nose.
“I made it a point to come last,” he said. “No need to raise O’Hara’s Irish by having him think I’d spent the night here.”
“Will you stop this nonsense about John? You and I have nothing to hide. I’ve told you at least a dozen times that John is my friend, and only my friend.”
“I believe you,” Nicholas said. “But I’m sure that if he were free he’d marry you in one minute flat.”
“Not without my permission,” I said. “I love John, in the same way I love Eileen and Shannon and the Marshalls.”
“You didn’t mention me,” Nicholas said.
“No, I didn’t.”
I took the Junior’s bag from him and started toward the kitchen.
The detectives and the reporter exchanged polite greetings. I unpacked the bagels, arranged the goodies on a platter, and set it in the middle of the table.
Surveying the spread, John nodded at Nicholas. “Thanks.”
“We’ve got four kinds of bagels: onion, garlic, cheese, and pumpernickel,” I told John and Weaver. “And at least a pound of lox and a tub of cream cheese.”
Weaver smacked his lips. “What are the rest of you going to eat?” He took two halves of a garlic bagel, slathered cream cheese on the surfaces, topped them off with slices of lox, and said to Nicholas, “I’m almost getting to like you.”
“Great love stories have started on a less promising note than that,” Nicholas said wryly.
The bagel stopped an inch away from Weaver’s mouth. “Hey! What are you implying?”
“It was a joke,” John said. “Chew.”
When breakfast was consumed, I refilled the men’s coffee mugs. No more for myself; I’d had enough caffeine. I’d been up since five to do my pet care chores and make the muffins.
John stood and started to clear the table. Nicholas was just behind him and began picking up dishes. Working in tandem, but silently, it took them less than two minutes to rinse the plates and stack them in the dishwasher.
Weaver watched them with an expression that was about as close to a good-humored smile as he got. “Who says you can’t get good help nowadays?”
When John and Nicholas came back to the table, I said, “Time to call this meeting to order.” I indicated the guest lists. “I’ve gone over all these names and the photos with Eileen. She told me she never met any of these people, and that the only ones she ever heard Ingram mention were Yvette Dupree and Eugene Long. According to Eileen, Ingram disliked the two of them intensely. She said Ingram called Long a vindictive drunk and said he was a crook who deserved to be in jail, but he wasn’t specific.”
I told them about Yvette coming to see me at the cooking school on Saturday.
“She said she thought a jealous woman killed Ingram, and she’s worried that Eugene Long’s daughter, Tina, might be in danger because Ingram had asked Tina to marry him and she’d accepted.” I left out the part about Yvette thinking that the jealous woman was Eileen.
“Yvette acted as though she’s very close to Tina,” I said, “but she dropped that subject the moment I told her about the attempt on Roland Gray’s life.”
“You shouldn’ta done that,” Weaver said, shaking his head.
“The chief’s managed to keep a lid on it,” John said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But her immediate reaction was interesting. All she asked me was if Roland was alone. I told her that I’d been with him, and then she rushed off. I didn’t tell her what hospital he was in, but later that afternoon I saw her leaving St. Clare’s. She must have found out where Roland was and went to see him. She left in a taxi.”
I pushed the piece of paper from Liddy’s notepad toward Weaver. “This is the number of the cab that picked her up at three thirty yesterday afternoon. I’m sure you can find out where the driver took her.”
John said, “If Hatch finds out you talked to Gray before he-”
“I didn’t talk to him. I admit that’s what I’d intended to do, but I found out Roland left the hospital, accompanied by two men. From their descriptions, one of them sounded like Roland’s assistant, Will Parker. The other was a big man who was dressed like a chauffeur.”
I handed the guest lists to John and to Weaver.
Indicating the pages, Nicholas said, “That’s not everyone who attended. Three people bought tickets at the door that night. They paid by check.”
Nicholas removed a slip of paper from his jacket pocket and placed it between the two detectives. “The first two people on that list are legitimate. That third name, George Green, is a phony. The check was bogus. I don’t mean it was rubber. What I’m saying is that the account doesn’t exist. Somebody designed and printed the check. The ticket people were so busy that none of them remembers what the guy looked like.”
“At least we know the mystery person was a man,” I said.
“But we don’t know whether he just wanted to get in free, or if he went there to kill Ingram,” Weaver said.
“He didn’t just forge someone’s name on a check,” I said. “He went to all the trouble of creating a fake personal check and account number, which suggests to me that he was there for something more important than watching celebrities cook.”
John nodded. “I agree with Della. If we find that man, we’ll have our killer.”
“No description, and by now there hasta be dozens of prints on that check,” Weaver said. “Finding him, we got about a snowball’s chance in a haystack.”
I refused to be discouraged. “We know more than we did the night Ingram was murdered.” I looked at John and Weaver. “What have the police found out?”
“Not much,” John said. “Apparently, there’s no connection between that actor who did the juggling-Wolf Wheeler- and Ingram. Wheeler’s pretty well-known as a compulsive performer whenever he can corral an audience.”
“He’s got a rep for jumping up on the stage in Vegas during other people’s acts,” Weaver said. “Not all of them like it. I got the feeling that some of ’em wouldn’t be surprised if it had been Wheeler who got offed instead of Ingram.”
“I’ve been doing background checks on the people who were in closest physical proximity to Ingram when he was stabbed,” Nicholas said. “One of the things I did was go back through the past eight years of Ingram’s Chronicle columns. He wrote two negative reviews of Yvette Dupree’s Global Gourmet books, and, up until a few months ago, he slammed the restaurants in Gene Long’s hotel. Then he suddenly did a one-eighty. Lately he started sucking up in print, giving glowing mentions to those same restaurants that he used to call ‘insults to the educated palate.’ In one piece he accused Long’s executive chef of ‘a criminal misuse of the gift of fire.’ ”
“Roland Gray and Ingram had a history,” I said. “I think that if I’d had a little more time I could have gotten him to tell me about it. Just before the bullet came through the window, Roland told me he was afraid of Ingram. He said he thought that Ingram was going to try to harm him.”
“That might be a reason for Gray to strike first,” John said, “except that somebody shot at Gray after Ingram was already dead and no more threat to anyone.”
“We’re going around in a circle,” Weaver said. He reached for the last muffin in the basket and took a large bite.
I pulled my notepad closer and turned to a fresh page. “Then let’s break out of that circle. Let’s list what we know about Ingram and his associations, both those on the premises the night he was killed, and others who might have hired someone to kill him.”
John indicated my sheet of paper. “Start with Eugene Long and Long’s daughter, Tina.”
I wrote.
“Yvette Dupree,” Nicholas said. I added her name.
Weaver grunted and pointed to the paper. “John and you.” He looked at his partner. “Sorry, buddy, but you did slug the bastard. And we know you broke into his house, Della.”
My pen remained poised over the page. “You can’t really think of John and me as suspects.”
“Hatch is thinking like that,” Weaver said. “But okay, scratch your names and put down Roland Gray.”
I did. “And I’m going to add the phony name, George Green, as a ‘placeholder’ until we find out who he really is.”
“This is one of those ‘locked room’ mysteries,” Nicholas said. “A smoke bomb goes off in a ballroom with only one entrance and a guard posted there.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “There were two ways to get into that room. You’re forgetting the door to the kitchen.”
Weaver stood up. “We questioned the waitstaff, but only the ones who were in the ballroom when the smoke bomb went off. I’m gonna go track down the all kitchen workers, find out if they saw somebody in the kitchen who shouldn’ta been there.”
“I’m going to call a friend at Interpol to see if they have a file on Gray,” John said.
Within a few minutes, I was showing the two detectives to the front door.
When I started back toward the kitchen, Nicholas met me in the hallway. Gently, he drew me into his arms and kissed me. Not so gently. Our arms tightened around each other, our lips parted. We kissed deeply. I felt my heart begin to beat faster.
Nicholas grabbed my hand and led me into the bedroom.
“I thought you would rather play gin or Scrabble,” I said.
His answer was to pull me around toward him. He tugged my sweater up over my head, dropped it on the floor, and unhooked my bra. “Shut up,” he whispered.