Dead at Breakfast Page 22

  “Earl Niner is not exactly mainstream either,” said Hope.

  “I don’t see Earl in this,” Maggie said. “He certainly wouldn’t have used his own pet as the murder weapon.”

  Toby raised his vast eyebrows. “I’m still having trouble with the concept of a pet rattlesnake. It goes to character.”

  “There is that.” Toby made some notes.

  “The Angelinos?”

  “The wife had a screaming fight with her husband that morning. But she was doped up after her accident, and looked pretty lame—I don’t see how she could have risen from her bed of pain to incinerate him.”

  “She would have had a key to his room, though. And the rest could have been an act. The hospital didn’t even keep her overnight.”

  “Do you see her with the snake?” Maggie asked Hope.

  “I’m keeping an open mind. All we really have to do is plant reasonable doubt.”

  “’Atta girl,” said Toby. “What about the sister?”

  They agreed that Gloria had more mobility but less motive, as far as they knew. Although in families, there could always be motives that didn’t show on the outside. They talked through the other members of the cooking class, but couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for any of them as suspects. Then they went through who in the hotel might have a grudge against Mr. Gurrell, and not mind if the place burned down, but that, regrettably, led them only to Cherry.

  “All right,” said Toby, “make the prosecution’s case.”

  Maggie did the honors. “She had recently been fired. She blamed Antippas and was furious with Mr. Gurrell. She has a juvenile record for shoplifting a fire accelerant. She shows up in the photographs of fire scenes when there’s no reason for her to be there, typical behavior of an arsonist. And as the desk clerk, she knew how to program the room keys. She’s got a dead end life and a pretty impressive chip on her shoulder.”

  “As front desk clerk she could make a key to any room in the house?”

  “Presumably.”

  Toby digested this. “I gotta admit, I see why they arrested her. Now give me the other side.”

  Hope said, “There are no fingerprints at the fire scene except the housekeeper’s and Mr. and Mrs. Antippas’s and Miss Poole’s. No fingerprints in Niner’s room except his, and Chef Sarah’s, but we know she goes there to visit the parrot.”

  “Cherry would have worn gloves,” said Toby. “I would if I were stealing a rattlesnake.”

  “Her sister says she goes to fires to see her father. He’s a volunteer firefighter. Cherry says she was at her mother’s watching TV that evening until she heard about the fire on the police scanner. She can tell you exactly what she watched.”

  Toby seemed unsurprised about the police scanner. He probably had his own. “But she was alone?” he asked.

  “Well. Yes. But her sister may become the mother of my grandchildren,” said Hope. “Brianna says Cherry is innocent and I believe her.”

  “How does Cherry get around. She have her own car?”

  “Some ancient Subaru you could total by losing the keys,” said Maggie.

  “Got a plate number?”

  “Sorry, no. I can tell you where to go see for yourself.”

  After a thoughtful pause, Toby leaned back in his chair, tapped his legal pad, and said, “Okay. I like a challenge.”

  Buster pulled his cruiser into the yard of a trailer on blocks at the north end of Beaver Creek Road. He saw the shadow of a figure cross the kitchen window inside as he got out. There had been a light frost that morning and the stumps of long dead geraniums in the planter box on the concrete steps were brown and sad-looking. Buster stood in the weak sun and stretched, then wandered around the side of the house toward the shed in back that served as a garage. When he had seen what there was to see there, he strolled back to the front yard, where a dog on a chain was lying in the dirt, a huge golden-something mix with a gray muzzle, who raised his head and thumped his tail at Buster, but did not otherwise stir himself. Buster walked over to have a look at the dog, and decided to risk scratching its ears. The dog, completely in favor of this development, rolled onto his back.

  “Hey, Jasper. You’re a good old guy, aren’t you?” Buster said as he scratched, and wondered if that was mange in the coat, and how long it had been since this beast had had a bath. At the edge of his vision, he could see a tiny movement of blinds in the back of the trailer, two slats slightly flexed, then closed again.

  Buster straightened, looked at the sky, gave a tug at his pants to be sure his pistol could be seen beneath his jacket, and went to the door of the trailer. The morning sun was brighter than it was warm but he was glad to be outdoors.

  He rapped at the trailer door, and waited. Silence from within. Outside, he heard a hermit thrush in the woods, and from the road the tocktocktock of a woodpecker assaulting a Bangor Hydro pole. He waited. He looked at the discarded truck tires lying at the side of the house and a broken child’s swing, hanging from one length of rope from a maple someone had planted decades ago. The seat of the swing hung vertical. Useless.

  He rapped at the door again. “Roy, I know you’re in there. I saw you. Open the door.”

  Again nothing happened. Buster took his time.

  The third time he knocked longer and harder, and then he called, “Roy, unless you want to have a talk about that deer hide curing in your shed, you better open this door. I don’t want to talk about it, but I will if you make me break your door down.”

  Then he waited some more, and at last heard movement. The door opened, and Roy said, “I hit it with my car. Jumped right in front of me. You can look and see where it bent the fender.”

  “I know, Roy. And it shot itself in the chest before it died too.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t. Will you come out, or will I come in?”

  There was a standoff, during which Roy neither moved nor blinked. Buster found this deeply unnerving but he stood as still as he could.

  “Hold on,” said Roy. “Find my shoes.” He had come to the door wearing ancient socks of a gray-beige color that could not be achieved with dye. When he came back, he was wearing his hunting boots. He came out onto the concrete stoop, forcing Buster to step down into the yard, and shut the door behind him.

  “Well?”

  Buster said, “Your daughter’s in trouble. Cherry.”

  “I know which daughter.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Why should I do anything about it?”

  “Because you got a fresh deerskin in your shed and it isn’t deer season.”

  Roy stared at him, his expression calculating.

  “What is it you think I should do?” he said at last.

  “She wants to see you.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “To show you care what happens to her.”

  “And do I?”

  “Roy, get in the car before I get ugly.”

  Roy Weaver looked slightly surprised, then ambled down the steps, past Buster, over to the cruiser. He got into the passenger seat and sat there.

  In the car, they drove the first ten minutes in silence. Roy jiggled his legs and looked out the window. Buster was surprised to discover how much the jiggling legs annoyed him, when they weren’t his. Finally, to distract himself, Buster said, “You worked the fire at the inn last week.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So what did you think of it?”

  After a pause Roy said, “Do you want me to rate it or something? I give it three stars out of five.”

  “I want you to tell me what you think started it.”

  “Guy was smoking in bed, what the hell do you think?”

  Buster slowed down to pass a girl on a bicycle. She was riding on the road, as there was no paved shoulder.

  “I don’t think anything, that’s why I asked you. Brass thinks it was arson.�
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  “Shit for brains.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Shep Gordon has shit for brains, want me to spell it?”

  Roy sounded surprisingly angry.

  “I take it you know each other.”

  “Historically,” said Roy.

  Buster wondered whether he should press for more on this point and decided there were other ways to find out. “Why do you say it was smoking in bed that started it?”

  “Sheets and blankets gone. Mattress half-burned. Carpet all melted on the corpse’s side of the bed. No smell of accelerant, no evidence of any, the way the flames had moved . . . seen a dozen of them. They’re all like that. Wiring fires are different. Different patterns. Arson different still.”

  “I see. Would you testify to that?”

  Roy barked a laugh. “That’s a good one. Shep Gordon asking me to testify about anything.”

  “I was thinking of the defense.”

  A pause. “Whose?”

  Buster thought of asking him if he’d been living in a cave, and then thought that yeah, he pretty much had. “Cherry’s. Cherry is accused of setting the fire.”

  “Cherry? Weaver?”

  “Yes,” said Buster.

  Detective Kim Prince had a conflicted relationship with the LAPD. Early in his career he’d been partnered with a dirty cop named Hritzko, now in jail himself, who had a great conviction rate because he used paid snitches as witnesses when he knew he had the right man but not enough evidence. As Hritzko had a huge ego, he always knew he had the right man. Prince hated him, but learned quickly how dangerous it is to break the unwritten code. If your partner can’t trust you, you can’t trust him not to leave you in an alley with three armed gangbangers and no backup. Prince asked for a transfer, made detective, and now worked alone whenever he could.

  He didn’t know how they did things up in Maine, but he had a feeling it was the same all over. Detective Gordon had gotten up his nose when he’d first called for help on the Antippas case. He’d been a little too full of himself, a little too accustomed to being admired. But since then Prince had worked with Deputy Babbin, and that had gone better. What a deputy from the sheriff’s department was doing working with staties he didn’t know, but Babbin seemed to actually want to solve this thing, not just convict the first boob his eye fell on. And of course, there was the Artemis piece of it. What the hell had gone on in that family? Separate bedrooms. Silk-covered walls. Where were they when that poor girl was falling down the crapper? He happened to have seen her once, being brought into his station house after a DUI in the middle of the afternoon, about five blocks from the Chateau Marmont. Must have been some lunch. She looked so much younger than she did onstage in all that pancake and garbage. She looked beaten, being hustled inside past the paparazzi, a big bruiser in uniform holding either elbow. She showed no bravado, no anger at the press or the police; she just seemed ashamed. It made him sad.

  Which was one reason he was once again at the gate of the Antippas home in the Bel Air hills at nine Thursday morning, holding his shield up to the security camera.

  Manuela’s voice said, “Mrs. Antippas is not at home.”

  “That’s all right, I think you can help me. That way we won’t have to bother her.”

  After a long silence, the gates swung open. Prince drove through, parked his car, and crunched across warm gravel toward the kitchen door. On his way he passed a stocky man in clean khaki work pants and shirt, standing with a hedge clipper, watching him.

  “Buenos dias,” said Prince, and Freddy returned the greeting warily.

  Manuela opened the kitchen door to his knock.

  “Good morning,” he said, and offered her his identification. She studied it carefully, then handed it back to him and opened the door wide enough for him to pass.

  “I was here before,” said Prince.

  “I remember.”

  “I came back for some more of your cookies,” he said. He got no response.

  “Sorry. I guess no one is in a kidding mood. Your name is Manuela, yes?”

  She assented to that.

  “Mind if I sit?” He gestured to the table under the window where Manuela and Freddy took their meals. “This is a great kitchen,” he added. “Mine is the size of a phone booth. And I like to cook.”

  Still no response. She followed him to the table, where he pulled out a chair and sat, and she continued to stand.

  “Manuela. Do you mind if I call you that?”

  She shrugged.

  “You are very protective of Mrs. Antippas. I like that.”

  She tipped her head slightly.

  “Tell me this. You went to Mr. Antippas’s funeral at Forest Lawn?”

  Another nod.

  “That had to be a nightmare day for you. For all of you.”

  Manuela said nothing.

  “I know. What would I know about it? More than you might think, but we don’t need to talk about that. I’ll get to the point. Did Mrs. Antippas have one of those mourners’ books there, at the chapel, at Mr. Antippas’s service, where people can sign their names so the family will know they were there?”

  “I did,” said Manuela, slightly startling Prince, who’d become accustomed to her stonewalling. “I bought a book and put it there. She was not thinking.”

  Prince nodded. “You take good care of her,” he said respectfully.

  “I take good care of all of them.”

  “And you brought the book back too?”

  “Freddy did. My husband.” She tipped her head toward the back door, to indicate he was near; she was not alone. In case he thought she could be bullied.

  “And gave it to Mrs. Antippas?”

  “Not yet. She isn’t ready.”

  “I can imagine. Where is she by the way? I could wait for her.”

  Manuela paused, then said, “Lawyer, I think.”

  Prince nodded knowingly.

  “Manuela, could I have a look at that book?”

  She looked back, impassive.

  “Why?”

  “It would be helpful, for the people trying to find out what happened to Mr. Antippas.”

  “They sent you?”

  “They did, yes.”

  He could see she was trying to figure out how to say no, on general principle. “It would help them do their jobs. They’ll keep it private.” He saw her glance out the window toward the gates, where today there were only two photographers left from the pack that had been here five days ago. “The press will not get near it, I promise you. You’d be helping Mrs. Antippas.”

  Reluctantly, she left him, disappearing into a room beyond the kitchen that seemed to be her domain. She returned with a stack of books and set them down in front of him. Then she stood back and crossed her arms. Some of the books were large with gilt edges to the pages. These, he quickly inferred, had been at the Staples Center, since they were filled with messages to Artemis from friends, admirers, and fans, plus drawings and stickers and tear blotches. Another pair were covered in white leatherette that said CONDOLENCES on the covers in silver script. There was one with a silver weeping willow tree against a blue background. The neat script in the front identified this one as being for Alexander Antippas.

  Prince opened the book to the first page of signatures, propped it against a melamine sugar bowl to improve his angle, took out his phone, and began photographing the pages. When he was done, he said to Manuela, “By the way, is Mrs. Antippas’s sister here? I saw her car in the driveway.”

  Glory was at a desk in the sitting room of the guest suite. “A second master, really,” the decorator had called it. It had been designed for Jenny, when she was still, from time to time, living at home, but those days were long gone, and it had been redone in English chintzes for when the senior Pooles came to visit. Manuela showed Detective Prince in, and wordlessly left them.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, I can see you’re busy,” said Prince.

  “That’s all right,” said Glory, thou
gh she hadn’t risen to greet him. “I’m getting started on the envelopes for my sister.” She gestured to the piles of notes and letters stacked on one side of the desk, and a stack of fresh envelopes from the stationers at her right. “She’ll write the notes herself, but I can do the addresses.”

  “Must be quite a job,” said Prince. “Considering Artemis.”

  “Not the fan mail. Those are at her manager’s office. But the personal ones for Jenny and for my brother-in-law. Lisa’s determined to answer those herself.”

  “Admirable,” said Prince. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  “Please,” said Glory, glancing at her watch. For a moment there was silence as Detective Prince looked at her pleasantly, as if she had called him here and he were waiting to find out why.

  Finally Glory gestured to the work waiting on the desk and said, letting her impatience show, “Can I help you?”

  “Oh. Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking that you look different in person than on camera.”

  “Do I?”

  “You do.”

  After a pause, in which Glory waited for the usual compliment, which didn’t come, she said, “I hope in a good way,” as if reminding him of his lines.

  “Oh. Yes. I was just reading up on your career before I came over. My ex-wife was a fan of your talk show.”

  Glory relaxed slightly, and smiled. “I’m glad,” she said. “That makes her and my mom.”

  “Oh, you had a pretty good audience share, for daytime cable.”

  Glory looked pleased. “You do your homework.” She gave him an impressive camera-friendly smile.

  “She liked the shows you did with that animal guy, Cliff . . .”

  “Hagerty. Those were fun.”

  “Some of them are on YouTube, did you know that?”

  “They are?” she lied.

  “Yes, the one with cheetah cubs?”

  Glory preened a little. “They were adorable. They had sharp little needle teeth though.” She had made a joke on the show about how good they’d look as a coat, after one of them bit her rather hard.

  “They must give you some training before they actually tape the show, when you’re working with wild animals.”

  “They do, of course. My producer wanted me just to be surprised, on camera, he said it would be funnier, but I didn’t think it was safe. Cliff didn’t either. He taught me how to hold them, and made sure my smell was familiar to them.”