The Sassy Suspect, page 10
"Sssh," Curt whispered, even though I hadn't said anything. I was doing plenty of thinking, though, and what I was thinking was that Petal had herself a new job and a big fat motive. And a big fat ego to go along with it, from the sounds of her. I hadn't heard so many wants since the local elementary school class had paid Mall Santa a visit at Christmastime.
"Let's go celebrate, huh?" Petal was asking.
"I just have to stop in my office for a second," Tony said. "I'll be right back. You stand right here, and don't move."
Geez. Sounded like Tony had a little control problem.
A second later there was a thump, and Petal let out a little squeak.
"I told you not to move," Tony yelled.
"What is it with you women?" Curt whispered in my ear.
I ignored him.
She did that girly little giggle again. "It's not my fault," she whined. "That wall wasn't there before."
Before whatever amount of booze was required to walk into walls.
"Guess I'll just have to carry you," Tony said. More giggling, some kissy sounds, a grunt from Mr. Romance, and they were gone, presumably down the hall to Tony's office.
Curt rolled off me, and we all sat up together.
Maizy stared at me. "Why are you so flushed?"
I ignored her, and I ignored Curt when he snickered. "We have to get out of here," I whispered.
"Agreed," Curt said. "Now that we've found out how easy it is to break into this building, we know that whoever shot Kay didn't have to be someone who works here."
"Just someone with a motive," I said. Which ruled out nobody, including the National Association of Broadcasters.
"Excuse me," Maizy said, "but there was nothing easy about it. It takes skill to be me." She peeked around the corner of the set. "They could be in there all night. Why don't I just check out one or two of the other offices while we wait?"
Wait? I had no intention of waiting until the conjugal visit was over. I had a cat to feed and a cold shower to take.
"If they turn on the lights," Curt said, "we're dead meat."
"We can't leave now," I said. "They could be right back."
I heard a moan arise from down the hall.
"Or not," I said. "Let's get out of here." I took a look around. "Where's Maizy?"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"It's not a bad picture," Maizy said a few minutes later, when we were back in the Jeep. She was looking at her cell phone. "Although he's a terrible kisser. Too wet. He was practically giving her a shower in there."
Way too much information.
"I can't believe you did that," I told her.
She shrugged. "Serves them right, showing up out of the blue like that. It was rude. That was Petal Peterson, right?"
I nodded. "And Tony, the director." The married director, I was pretty sure. Although I hadn't seen any wifely pictures in his office, and he didn't wear a ring, like a lot of guys who cheated on their wives. But I'd heard him mention someone named Barbara before, and it hadn't sounded like he was talking about his sister.
"Thanks to that performance tonight," Maizy said, "she's back on my list of suspects."
She was never off mine. She'd gained too much by Kay's death.
Curt chuckled. "What do you mean, 'thanks to that performance?'"
"Oh, please." Maizy gave a snort. "Didn't you hear all that stupid giggling? And all that phony moaning when they were sucking face?"
Curt drew back a little. "How do you know it was phony? Sounded real enough to me."
"That's your male ego talking," Maizy said. "Anyone could tell. Besides, all women fake it, to boost a guy's confidence. Right, Jamie?"
Curt stared at me.
"I don't know anything about that," I said immediately.
"We'll talk later," Maizy told me. "I've got books. Hey, Uncle Curt, can I drive? My test is in a week, you know. Dad let me drive a Hummer in the impound yard last weekend. I drove it over a Fiat. It was pretty cool."
"You can drive," Curt told her, "when you delete that picture."
"I'm not deleting the picture," Maizy said.
"Then I'll delete it for you." He reached for her phone.
She pulled back. "This phone is constitutionally protected from unlawful search and seizure. Besides, you never know when a chance photo could come in handy. How do you think all those trashy papers keep going? Because someone took a chance photo."
"I don't think anyone's interested in seeing Tony and Petal in the raw," I said.
"Not yet," Maizy said. "But when they're arrested for killing Kay Culverson, they'll be famous and in demand. That's the way society works. I'm surprised you don't know that at your age." She slipped the cell phone into her backpack and tapped Curt's shoulder. "So can I drive anyway? You don't want me failing my test. Then you'll have to keep providing transportation, and you're much too busy for that."
Curt ran both hands down his face and sighed. "Fine. Drive. Slowly."
"Now you sound like Honest Aaron," Maizy said.
He dropped the keys in her hand. "Who's Honest Aaron?"
Honest Aaron was the owner of a shady rental-car joint specializing in hunks of rusted metal with bald tires and bloodstains. On the plus side, he charged by the hour and didn't require a driver's license.
Maizy and I traded glances.
"He's a driving instructor," I said quickly. "Maizy took a few lessons with him."
"It didn't work out," Maizy added. "He was peeved that I drove through that garden. I guess he really likes tomatoes."
Curt's eyes closed briefly.
"It wasn't my fault," Maizy said. "I swerved to avoid the dogwood tree." She smiled beatifically. "I like dogwood trees."
I suppressed a smile. I could listen to Maizy all day. Trouble was, sometimes I believed her.
Maizy and Curt changed places, and Curt lay down in the back as best he could, his forearm resting across his forehead. I could practically see a thought bubble while he considered women faking it, but he didn't say a word. Which was fine, because Maizy filled the silence nicely as she guided the Jeep around the back of the building and down the curb into the parking lot on the far end, away from Butternut's entrance. "I can't believe they're giving Kay's show to the Giggler. Who wants to listen to a half hour of that? God. Did I tell you Crystal Portnoy giggles? Where are we going, anyway?"
"Home," I said. "I have to feed Ashley."
Maizy nodded and swung a jerking left turn. I heard a thump from the back that might have been Curt. I didn't look. There was nothing I could do for him once he'd handed over his keys.
"A show like that needs an intellectual type," she went on. "Someone who reads books with words, not just pretty pictures."
I didn't like where this was going.
A second later she went there. "I could host that show. I'd be a great host. TV pays a lot of money, right? I always wanted a lot of money. And it doesn't look like this Starla thing is gonna work out." She was quiet for a moment, thinking.
I peeked over my shoulder into the backseat. No reaction.
"On the other hand," she said, "I do disdain modern celebrity culture."
I'd have to remember to keep my Star magazine out of sight.
"But I'd be an awesome celebrity," she told me. "Just so you know."
"You're made for it," I said. "But it's just as well since Petal's the new host. Besides, you have to finish school."
She screeched onto the entrance to the interstate. "I finished two years ago. They just don't know it yet."
"How about this?" I grabbed for the dash to hold on. Maizy's perspective was less acceleration lane and more launch pad. "We still have to find Peter Thomas Warrington, find out what his connection is to Millard Parsons. And now Thomas Casaviti. That should keep us busy, right?"
She nodded. "Yeah, that'd be good for a little while."
I smiled with relief. "Great. So where do you want to start?"
Maizy swerved into the center lane in front of a tractor trailer and gunned it. "How about we hire a killer of our own?" she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After a weekend filled with the excitement of eating, drinking, and sleeping, Monday was uncommonly quiet at Parker, Dennis. After the arrival of two lawyers, two deponents, and a court reporter for a deposition with Wally, all herded into the conference room and supplied with beverages by Missy, there wasn't much going on. The phone didn't ring. No one else came in. The mail was sparse. Suddenly I had the perfect job.
I took advantage of the downtime to do a little research. I wasn't a whiz on the computer like Maizy, and I didn't have Curt's contacts, but I managed to Google Tony Sabatini and come up with enough results to keep me busy for a few minutes. There were some photos of him with different women at various functions on behalf of the show. None were named Barbara, but all of them looked like gigglers.
Damian had called him Mr. Big Shot, and reading over the search results, that didn't seem too far off. Over the past fifteen years or so, Tony had apparently worked on a few shows with more cachet than Dishing with Kay. He hadn't gotten lucky enough to become attached to a hit. All but one had died a premature death. Nothing about why his association with the lone survivor had ended. There was a sidebar about a piece of equipment he was developing that, according to him, would revolutionize the broadcast industry. Short on details, long on bravado. Another point for Damian. On a whim, I Googled the other Butternut employees too. There was nothing on Damian other than a tiny press release about the staffers hired on for the inaugural season of Dishing with Kay. Not a surprise. I wouldn't expect that the invisible writer of a cable talk show would be considered worthy of media mention.
To my surprise, there was a newspaper article about Bull from about eighteen months earlier, when he'd apparently been involved in a car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike involving a Honda, a Toyota, a Volkswagen Beetle, and one of those garish trucks that cruise around advertising a gentlemen's club by plastering ginormous girly posters on its sides. Apparently the Beetle driver had tried to change lanes for a closer look, sideswiping the Honda driver and sending him into the Toyota driver, who happened to be Bull, on his way home from a hockey game at Madison Square Garden. Bull's car and the Honda had been totaled. The girly-poster truck driver had cruised away, unaware of the carnage he'd left behind, a rolling menace to inattentive drivers and flat-chested women everywhere.
Next I Googled Rod Cameron and found a profile piece from a local paper. It made for interesting reading, particularly when I got to the part about In Tune with Rod Cameron starting in the fall of 2015. There was a photo of Rod dressed in all black, standing in front of a brick wall with his arms crossed and a smoldering stare directly into the camera. I only knew one other man who could look like that, and I rented an apartment from him.
I kept reading, but the article didn't go into depth about why the show had never launched and Rod hadn't left Dishing. Might be worth looking into. No one in his right mind would stay with Dishing when given an alternative.
There were a half-dozen hits on Petal Peterson, pure fluff probably provided by her agent, along with a photo that was one of those unnatural over-the-shoulder shots you see all the time from celebrities in the tabloids.
There were a few articles about Cindy, most of them relating to local theater productions for which she'd done the makeup, visiting sick kids at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, or with homeless pets at the local shelter. I'd forgotten the little nugget tucked into a random quote by the manager of a food bank for which she volunteered: "We're really going to miss Cindy when she leaves us for The Whole Truth."
The sitcom in New York. When Tony had said the staff would be back on Monday, I'd assumed Cindy would be there with everyone else. It looked like she'd gotten the job.
There was a lot to think about, later, when I had Curt and Maizy to think with me.
I closed the browser and reached for the file Wally had left on the floor beside my desk. Myrtle Gregory's file, surprisingly bloated for being a non-case. Still, Wally wore his lawyerdom like Batman wore his cowl and about as subtly. Wally wanted to request Myrtle's medical records all the way back to early childhood vaccinations. Probably looking for some medical explanation as to why she'd plowed into a picnic table full of six-year-olds plus Happy Harry. Easy work for me: print off some letters, attach them to a medical release, and off they went. No problem.
The problem was lurking behind Wally's scribbled demand to obtain the meds. He was planning another brain-freeze experiment. I'd worked with Wally long enough to know when his lawyer antennae were twitching. He wanted to find a link between brain freeze and temporary psychosis, hoping to plumb an exciting pool of defendants from every corner of the frozen dessert world.
I didn't want to go through that again, and I knew Donna didn't either. She still had a facial tic from the first time around. But it seemed that as long as Myrtle Gregory's file remained open, good-time Wally would keep the ice cream coming.
It would serve him right if one of the recipients beat him to death with his own scoop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I pulled into the McDonald's drive-through lane Monday after work to pick up a milkshake. While I was there, I got a hamburger and some fries. I was digging beneath the seats for loose change to pay for it when my passenger door opened, and Maizy got in carrying a large tote bag. She wore a black leather jacket open over a T-shirt so tight you could count her ribs, torn-up jeans riddled with holes, and scuffed Doc Martens. Heavy on the black eyeliner. She wore a ring on every finger, and her nails were painted black with white skulls on both middle fingers. Her nimbus cloud of blue hair floated out from beneath a knit cap pulled down to her eyes. The bottom two inches were dyed black. A pair of mirrored sunglasses rested on top of the cap. "Quick, put this on," she said, holding up the bag. It reeked of mothballs.
My eyes started to water. "What are you up to now?"
Her look was of such pure innocence, I expected shepherds to start showing up with frankincense and myrrh. "What do you mean?"
I hooked a quarter with my fingernail and dragged it out from beneath her seat. That made two bucks. "Kinda busy here, Maize. How'd you find me, anyway?"
She rolled her eyes. "It's dinnertime. You're certainly not going to be home cooking. What are you doing?"
"Paying for my food." I handed over the change to the cashier with an apologetic smile. He looked in his hand and sighed. "Be right with you," I told him. "I'm pretty sure I left some money in the glove box."
"Take your time," he said. "It's only the dinnertime rush."
I was going to overlook that, just like I was going to overlook the eighty-five cars now backed up in the drive-through lane behind me. I had just as much right to dinner as any one of them. Even if I couldn't pay for it.
I looked at Maizy. "Have you got any money?"
She passed over a ten-dollar bill. "Keep the change. You need it more than I do."
I was going to overlook that too. I traded Maizy's ten for my food and screeched out of the drive-through lane as fast as my wheezing Escort would carry me.
"You want me to drive?" Maizy asked. "That way you can eat, and we can make it to our meeting with P.T."
"Who's P.T.?" I rummaged in the bag until I found a French fry.
"Peter Thomas Warrington." Maizy stuck a straw in my milkshake and passed it over. "He goes by P.T. He's a pretty decent guy, long as you don't let him get too close to you. He's kind of light-fingered."
"I thought you said he stole taxis," I said.
"He's diversified."
If I had anything actually worth stealing, that might worry me.
"How'd you find him?" I asked. "Didn't he just get out of jail a few weeks ago?"
She nodded. "He went where everyone goes when they get out of jail."
"The strip joint?"
Her nose wrinkled. "Be serious. He went home to his mother."
Oh. Guess they'd go there too.
"I don't know," I said while I munched on fries. "We should probably wait for Curt before meeting up with this guy. It could be dangerous."
"Uncle Curt's stuck in traffic up in North Jersey," she said. "He won't be home for a couple hours. We can handle it ourselves. We're fierce." She hesitated. "Besides, this stuff's got to be back before ten. My parents will be home by then."
I took a bracing sip of milk shake. "What stuff?"
Her face lit up. She tore open the bag, unleashing a tsunami of mothball reek, and pulled out a pair of violently pink pants, a tie-dyed T-shirt, a brown suede vest with a foot of fringe, and a pair of hideous white platform shoes. Emphasis on the hideous. "This stuff. These are for you."
Oh no, they weren't. I pinched my nose closed. "Why would I want them?"
"We're going to talk to an ex-con," she said. "Do you really want to be yourself?"
I rarely did.
"Like he'll never remember these?"
"That's the point," she said patiently. "He'll remember these, not your face."
Pretty sure that wouldn't have been an issue. I wasn't all that memorable to begin with. "You've been watching too much retro TV again," I told her. I reached for the bag of fries, but my vision was blurred by the tears, so it took two tries to find it.
"This stuff is back in style," she said. "You're just out of touch 'cause you're old. Retro is cool." She unfurled the T-shirt, and it came into clearer, more aromatic view. Improbably, it was even worse on second glance. A giant peace sign was plastered across the front.
"I'm not wearing that," I said flatly.
Maizy assessed it. "It does smell pretty bad."
Yeah. That was the only problem.
"It was in a storage trunk in the basement," she said. "My mom wears it to the lame Halloween party she throws every year. She says it makes her look like someone named Goldie Hawn from the '70s. You probably know who that is."
I gave her a look.
She didn't even blink. "I know it's not exactly your style."
No kidding. I wasn't even sure I had a style, but I was pretty sure this wasn't it.
