Chapter Six #2
“We considered that,” Seth said, “but I checked the twins out, and their heart rates were through the roof. They were genuinely upset. If I’d known there was a medic on duty, I would have asked him to check their blood pressure.”
We were partway through reiterating the events of the day for Victoria when Howard reappeared. “You know, I think it might have been closer if I’d parked the limo at the house and jogged here.” He’d barely taken his seat when our server came back with a big tray of food.
With a steaming bowl of chili in front of him, Howard said, “I hope nobody gave away my secret of why I brought you here.”
He paused for a second when his cell phone dinged, and he grimaced at it, swiping away at the message. “That same number as yesterday at Foo-Chow,” he said. “Probably just somebody phishing.”
“ ‘This is Désirée. We need to talk’?” said Victoria, who’d been sitting near enough to see his screen.
“I don’t know anybody named Désirée.”
“Probably just a wrong number then,” Victoria said. “Still, she seems anxious to reach whoever it is she’s texting. Maybe you should text her back and tell her she has the wrong number next time.”
“Hopefully, she’ll take a hint and there won’t be a next time.” Howard slid his phone into his pocket. When it dinged again, he rolled his eyes but didn’t answer.
I cleared my throat. “I’m assuming Barney’s is a stop on our mystery tour?”
“Absolutely.” Howard held up a finger. “But we’ll get to it.
First, let me say that Barney’s Beanery is a big part of Hollywood history, including a fair share of controversy.
A lot of stars ate here: Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Rita Hayworth.
Some rock stars, too, like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin.
Even some famous writers ate here. Supposedly Quentin Tarantino wrote most of Pulp Fiction sitting at one of the booths, but nobody can tell me which one.
And one famous television detective was a regular. Anyone care to hazard a guess?”
“I need more to go on,” Mort said.
“Okay,” Howard said. “How about this?” He gestured toward the bowl of chili in front of him, added salt and ketchup, then crumbled a lot of crackers into the bowl. “The crackers make it.”
“Oh!” Maureen said. “Why is that familiar?”
Howard squinted one eye.
“Columbo!” half the table shouted at once, drawing a few glances from nearby diners.
We laughed self-consciously and dug our spoons into the food.
“I like Columbo,” Maureen said, “but maybe you can explain something, Jess.”
I used my napkin to dab chili from my lips in preparation.
“I know that mysteries are usually about figuring out who the killer is,” she said, “but when you’re watching Columbo, you know right from the beginning who did it, how, and why.”
“Oh, that would make my job a lot easier,” Mort said.
“But is that still a mystery?” Maureen asked.
“As long as there’s an unanswered question, it can be considered a mystery,” I said.
“The most common form is the whodunit, where the readers can figure out who the killer is, solving the case right along with the detective. A mystery where you know a murder took place, and maybe you’re even pretty sure who did it, but can’t figure out how—I’ve heard writers refer to as a howdunit. ”
“Like a locked-room mystery,” Seth said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Now, in Columbo—and there are others—the unanswered question is how the detective will be able to crack the veneers, false alibis, and corrupted forensics and solve the case.”
“Is there a fancy name for that?” Victoria asked.
“I’ve heard it referred to as a howcatchem,” I said.
“The thing I don’t get,” Howard said, “is how Columbo, who doesn’t see what the viewers see, also seems to know who the killer is, right from the beginning. It never takes him long to narrow in on the right suspect.”
“Cop’s instinct,” Mort said, his mouth still full of pastrami fries. He caught himself and swallowed before adding, “We all got it, to some extent.”
“Can we test it?” Howard asked.
“What do you mean?” Mort asked.
“Say, for example, what happened with Ray this morning,” Howard said, then stopped to recap what happened for his wife. “So, Sheriff, what are your instincts telling you?”
Mort rolled his shoulder uncomfortably. “I’m not sure that’s the best example. For all we know, Ray could be sitting up in a hospital bed right now being scolded to watch his cholesterol.”
Seth sighed. When he caught me looking up at him, he took a drink of his iced tea, then said, “You all are forgetting that doctors have instincts too.”
“What’s your gut telling you, Doc?” Mort asked.
“I’ll get to that, but an observation first. Even though we did CPR and used the defibrillator, that man’s heart was not beating on its own, nor did he take a single breath the whole time we were working on him. I hope I’m wrong, but I very much doubt he’s enjoying a good scolding about his diet.”
We sat quietly for maybe a minute while the import of that sank in.
“There’s more, isn’t there, Doc?” Mort said.
Seth moved his hands from the table and rubbed his thighs as if massaging out a knot. “Whatever happened to him, I don’t think it was natural.”
Mort mumbled what I suspected was an expletive, then looked at me. “Can’t go anywhere with you, can we?”
I ignored him and turned to Seth. “What makes you think it wasn’t natural?”
Seth bobbed his head as if contemplating the question. “Right now? Just a feeling.”
I shivered. When it came to hunches that paid off, I’d put Seth right up there with Columbo.
* * *
Despite Howard’s offer to take us sightseeing after our meal, suggesting maybe the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theatre, Maureen proposed we return to the house to study.
“After all,” she said, “if we don’t advance, we’ll have plenty of time for sightseeing, but that’s not really why we came, is it? ”
Mort seconded her motion. While I was rather tempted by both the idea of sightseeing and the exercise, I went along. Seth, looking a little better than he had when we left the studio, still seemed a bit fatigued, and I thought maybe he’d benefit from a less physically demanding evening.
Back at the house, Maureen passed out a stack of maps and colored pencils. “I thought instead of more quizzing, we could work on our geography, so I gave everyone a different continent.”
“Coloring?” Mort said.
“The tactile activity of coloring the map is supposed to help you remember where everything is,” she said. “Besides, it calms the nerves.”
Mort raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Kinesthetic learning,” I said. “She’s not wrong.”
Danielle asked if she could join in, and Maureen handed her a map of Europe.
“Oh, I loved France,” Danielle said. “Paris! The Riviera! So much more open and progressive. I met Josephine Baker there. What a woman she was! She had a cheetah, you know, and I told her about my lion.”
“A dancer, wasn’t she?” Mort asked.
“Oh, and how!” Danielle said. “And born an American. She started out on vaudeville but proved too risqué for American tastes at the time. And far too black, frankly. Our loss, France’s gain though.”
“Wasn’t she also a spy of some sort?” I asked.
“During the war. Far before my time there, of course, but oh, the stories she could tell.” Danielle laughed.
“They were never quite the same each time, mind you, but I’m sure there was more than a kernel of truth in each one.
” Her eyes teared up. “I was never happier than when I was in France. I should have stayed.”
“Why didn’t you?” Seth asked.
“Family drama,” she said. “And a few financial setbacks. That and my agent worried that I would get the wrong kind of press. Bad for my good-girl image.” She sighed, then picked up a colored pencil.
I turned to my map of South America. Somehow Danielle’s tales invoked the storyteller in me, and instead of concentrating on geographical features as I colored each country, my mind was drawn to the history of the continent, from the Indigenous people and their monuments that exist to this day, the often brutal conquistadors, the Nazis fleeing to Argentina, and the struggle, often romanticized and quite often tragic, for liberty and democracy.
What a world we live in.
* * *
I excused myself early—I guess I was still on East Coast time—and fell asleep after just a few pages of Flavia.
I woke up with a start. My groggy mind suggested that maybe a sudden flash of lightning followed by a thunderclap from a storm had awakened me. I stumbled to the window, pulled back the curtains, and found that all was calm. Then the bright lights illuminating the backyard turned off.
I used my little en suite bathroom and splashed cool water on my face, then sat on the edge of the bed. I listened intently for a few moments, but no more sounds came.
I’d reached that time of life when sleeplessness was a frequent visitor.
For me, at least, that forced lying in bed just led to more stress about not sleeping, and I was much better off occupying my time until my brain signaled it was ready to drift off again.
In this case, I was craving another cup of chamomile, so I pulled on my robe and stuck my feet into my slippers.
As I stepped into the hallway, I was startled by a bright light coming down the corridor, obscuring the features of the dark figure who carried it.
The light instantly shifted from my face, and Maureen’s voice said, “Did you hear it too?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Something woke me.”
“I was still awake,” she said. “Mort’s snoring was something awful tonight, so I was doing a little more studying. It sounded like something heavy fell and like it came from this direction.”
I spun around the dim hallway, looking for anything out of order, when I spotted a thin sliver of light coming from under a door at the end of the hall—from one of the rooms Victoria had said wasn’t renovated yet. I pointed it out to Maureen.
She took a step toward the door, and I put a hand on her arm.
“Do you think we should get Mort?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Better let him sleep. Besides, I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”
“Quote from a movie?” I asked, thinking her poor grammar unusual.
Maureen gawped at me for moment, then said, “Seriously, Jess, if we win any money on this show, I’m going to buy you a wide-screen TV, then sit you down on the couch and help get you caught up in the last forty-plus years of popular culture.”
We crept together to the end of the hall. Maureen put her hand on the knob and her ear up against the door. “I can’t hear anything,” she whispered.
She flung the door wide open, and we both looked inside.
Two bedside lamps were turned on. The large bed that took up most of the room was made, but the coverings looked a bit crumpled. Then again, I wasn’t sure how its last occupant left it or when it was last occupied.
But nobody was in sight.