Two Cooks A-Killing Page 18

  “Fred wasn’t clumsy,” Minnie countered, her jaw tight. “Of course, wearing those stilts…”

  “An accident sounds reasonable to me,” Connie said hopefully. Clearly, she’d been involved in too many “unreasonable” deaths since meeting Angie.

  “Living there has made me suspicious,” Angie admitted. “Nothing is as it seems. That’s the trouble with being around actors. They aren’t who or what they seem, either.” As she said this, she looked at Minnie, who’d been dabbing her eyes a moment ago. Her eyes, however, were clear and dry.

  “You think one of them is a murderer?” Minnie asked, appalled.

  “I think something happened to Fred that was much more than it…oh, no!” Angie cried. Digger Gordon entered the coffee shop.

  “You know him?” Connie asked sitting a little straighter and with obvious interest. At least today Digger’s slacks were clean and pressed. His corduroy jacket, however, was grungy. Angie wondered—once again—about her friend’s bizarre taste in men.

  “You ladies certainly brighten this corner of the room,” Digger said as he approached their table. “Mind if I join you?” He smiled at Connie. Angie could practically see the wheels in his brain chug mightily as he studied the diminutive Minnie Petite.

  Connie looked interested, Minnie wary, and Angie resigned. She made introductions and explained Minnie’s relationship to the dead chef.

  “Fred Demitasse…” Digger rubbed his chin. “I do remember that name. He was associated, somehow, with Eagle Crest.”

  “I would have remembered if he was on the show,” Angie said. “He wasn’t.”

  “Are you here to write a story about my Fred?” Minnie asked, smiling daintily.

  “I wasn’t originally,” Digger answered as the waitress came by to take his coffee-and-berry pie order. “I planned to write the true story of Brittany Keegan’s death.”

  “I thought she died because of an accident in LA,” Minnie said.

  “That was the story given to the press.” He gave Connie an I’m-connected-and-in-the-know smile. She smiled back.

  Minnie’s eyes widened. Digger’s words made a definite impact on her. Angie waited for some explanation, but none was forthcoming.

  “You think her death wasn’t an accident either?” Connie asked Digger.

  “That’s what I was here investigating, and then this new death happened,” he replied.

  “Of course!” Minnie exclaimed.

  “Of course?” Angie asked.

  Minnie’s head jerked toward her, her face pale. “I meant, of course a reporter would find it all quite curious.” She glanced at her watch. “Hell! Look at the time. Come on, Connie, we got to get our asses in gear. Death certificates, papers to sign. A body can’t just die anymore without the government’s nose in every damn thing.”

  Everyone stood. Digger inched closer to Connie. “Are you staying at the hotel?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Connie answered, her manner friendly. “I expect to spend most of my time at Eagle Crest, though. I can’t wait to see it.”

  “I’ll be heading that way myself,” he said. “In fact, I can help Minnie get through the red tape—as a reporter I know what she’ll be facing—and then I can show you the way to Eagle Crest.”

  “We’d appreciate the help,” Connie said. “That means Angie doesn’t have to wait.”

  Angie frowned. “Are you sure?”

  Connie glanced at Digger. “Sure,” she said.

  Chapter 28

  When Paavo returned to Homicide after getting a search warrant okayed on his part of the Birds of Prey murders, complete results of the search of the Eagle Crest group’s arrest records were on his desk.

  The first record belonged to Bart Farrell. Farrell had been arrested twice for assault and battery. Both times the charges had been dismissed. The first was in Brentwood fifteen years earlier, but the second was in St. Helena ten years earlier, which would have made it during the time the show was ending.

  Paavo dug deeper into that assault. The complaint had been made by Emery Tarleton.

  Rhonda Manning had received a DUI eleven years earlier, in Napa County. It was dated a week after Brittany’s death.

  Gwen Hagen showed two arrests and convictions for prostitution. The last was nineteen years earlier, shortly before she landed the role on Eagle Crest.

  Fred Demitasse, aka Larry Rhone, Kyle O’Rourke, Emery Tarleton, Mariah Warren, Camille Spentworth, and Brittany Keegan had no records. He’d learned long ago to always check on the victims as well. They weren’t always as innocent as they seemed.

  He then turned to the information about the Waterfields. Arrest records were blank for Sterling and Silver Waterfield. But a surprise awaited him.

  Sterling Waterfield II, known as “Junior,” had a restraining order served against him when he was twenty years old. He’d been ordered by a judge never to approach by less than three hundred feet, a woman named Julia Dean. He had been stalking her, and she’d pressed charges.

  Paavo phoned Angie to tell her and for once, he was able to reach her in St. Helena.

  To say she was shocked by the news was to put it mildly.

  Camille Spentworth sat alone at a table in the St. Helena Hotel bar, a drink in front of her, her elbows on the table and her forehead pressed to her hands.

  Angie left Connie and Minnie with promises to see them soon at Eagle Crest, and approached the screenwriter. “Remember me? Angie Amalfi.”

  Camille started. “I remember.” She seemed even plainer and more tired than the day Angie met her. With no makeup and straight hair, her features were scarcely noticeable, giving her an overall appearance of beige—and just as lively.

  “What are you doing here?” Angie asked.

  “I had to get away from that house and all those Christmas decorations mixed with unhappy people…”

  Angie wanted to hear an explanation, and she knew Camille was the type who would talk just to avoid the awkwardness of silence.

  Camille sipped her drink. “It’s been a long time since I celebrated Christmas,” she said, “but my memories—I grew up on a farm in Iowa—are good ones. I suppose it made me a little nostalgic. Christmas isn’t the same in L.A.”

  “I can imagine,” Angie said. A cocktail waitress came over, and she ordered tonic with a lime twist, no gin. When Camille added nothing more, Angie asked, “How’s the script coming?”

  The writer rubbed her already red-splotched forehead. Forehead-rubbing was clearly something she did too much of. “I don’t see how I’m supposed to integrate Tarleton’s Christmas Carol story with mine. So far, he won’t drop his.”

  “Director’s prerogative,” Angie said. “What’s your script about?”

  Camille swirled the maraschino cherry in her Old Fashion. “It was a typical Eagle Crest storyline,” she said. “It was Christmas. Natalie wanted to prove she was still young and beautiful, so she planned to perform a solo version of the Nut-cracker Suite on ice. While she was rehearsing, Cliff had time to fool around with Leona. Then, Leona’s mother—and Cliff’s first wife—managed to free herself from terrorist kidnappers, flee to the United States, and contact Leona. She showed up in St. Helena on Christmas Day, and all hell broke loose. She was the big surprise present Leona was planning for Cliff.”

  “Oh, my God!” Angie cried, so intrigued she scarcely noticed that her drink arrived. All her love for Eagle Crest, the emotion that had brought her to this strange location in the first place, came back to her upon hearing the story line. “Finally, Natalie would have learned her marriage wasn’t legal! After all she’d been through, too. That would have been so exciting! Then what happened?”

  Camille smiled secretly. “I won’t tell, in case Tarleton changes his mind. I’ll only say Eagle Crest fans would not have been disappointed, and I also left the possibility very open for another special to tie up some of the new loose ends.”

  “If only!” Angie wailed, hands to her head.

  “It would have
been great.” Camille sighed as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “The least Tarleton could have done was tell me he only wanted to use the four main actors. Of course, nobody expected him to give his chef a speaking role, either.”

  “Did you hear the chef was actually Fred Demitasse?” Angie asked.

  Camille looked genuinely shocked. “I had no idea. I didn’t recognize him. I worked with him and Kyle O’Rourke a couple of times.”

  “So you didn’t know he’d have a role either?”

  “Not at all. Not that his role is a problem anymore.” She drained her glass and motioned to the waitress for a refill. She ate the cherry. “I don’t know what to do. I’m broke and I’ve already spent most of the money they paid me for the script, so I’ve got to go along with them.”

  “Aren’t they working on your script at all?” Angie asked.

  “They are. They want to go over it first without me there, which makes me nervous.” She grabbed the drink before the waitress set it on the table and took a big gulp. Her eyes were beginning to glaze. “I’ll have to get back by three p.m. and listen to all their ideas for changes. I don’t know if I can stand it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Angie said.

  “I can’t afford to pull out, but if they use my script and make a hash out of it like they’re coming close to doing, my career could be ruined.” She rubbed her forehead again. “Somehow, I’ve got to stop them.”

  “Rehearsals over?” Angie asked Kyle, as she stepped behind the bar for a lemon Calistoga water. She’d take it into the kitchen and get started cooking. Minnie and Connie should be showing up soon.

  “I wanted a break.” He sat on the sofa. No one else was in the room.

  “I heard the rest of the crew gets in tonight,” she said.

  He nodded, uninterested.

  “What do you think of the script?” she asked. “I hear Camille Spentworth isn’t happy with it. Is the Christmas Carol segment still being used?”

  “We haven’t rehearsed it, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s hard to tell how anything—TV or movie—will turn out since they’re often shot in scenes, out of sequence. We just act and hope.” He flashed her a nice-guy Adrian smile straight out of an Eagle Crest playbook as he picked up his beer and turned toward the doorway.

  “You don’t seem happy to be back here,” Angie said hurriedly.

  He stopped. “I don’t?”

  “Am I wrong?”

  He strolled her way. “This show gave me my start. I owe everything to it—and Em for taking a chance with an unknown like me.”

  “He used a lot of unknowns, didn’t he?” Angie asked. “You, Gwen, even Brittany Keegan hadn’t done anything but bit roles, from what I understand.”

  “That’s because we were paid shit when the show began,” Kyle said bitterly, the façade gone. “No one dreamed it would take off the way it did.”

  She was frustrated. All his answers were trite, the same clichés he’d said time and again in interviews. “All of you must have grown close working together over so many years.”

  “We’re like family,” he answered, his gaze never leaving hers as he stepped to her side, leaning against the bar. “There’s a lot of love between us.”

  “Fred Demitasse apparently worked on St. Helena in the past, but he wasn’t in any of the shows. That surprises me.”

  Kyle looked annoyed by her mention of Demitasse’s name. “Did he? I don’t remember.”

  “Do you know why he was here?” Angie asked.

  Kyle gave her a cold stare. “Em obviously wanted to surprise us by bringing up stuff about Brittany’s death.”

  “Why?”

  “How the hell should I know? Ask him.”

  “What do you think happened to Brittany?” she asked.

  His eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about Rhonda, too?”

  She studied him. Did he, like Fred Demitasse, think Rhonda had something to do with Brittany’s death? “Rhonda?” she acted surprised. “No, not really.”

  “I’m sick of people accusing her. I’m sure she’s innocent. Brittany died accidentally. Demitasse, too. Let them both rest in peace.” He slammed his drink on the bar and left.

  Angie stayed behind the bar after Kyle left. With this crowd, she knew someone else would show up before long. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “Well, well,” Bart said, perusing Angie. “What have we here?”

  “Call me Joe the Bartender.” Angie smiled. “What’ll you have?”

  “Beer,” Bart answered.

  “Same.” Rhonda said.

  Angie found Heineken and glasses. “Have you both heard the chef was Fred Demitasse? Isn’t it interesting no one recognized him? Surely, all of you knew Fred.”

  Bart and Rhonda stiffened like stone sculptures. “All I remember about Demitasse is he was a little fellow and grouchy,” Bart said. “Frankly, I never paid attention to the chef. And, Fred had dark hair. Wasn’t the chef blond?”

  “And when Fred read from the script, he wore a mask,” Rhonda added.

  “It sure was strange behavior on Tarleton’s part, giving him a role and keeping him in disguise. Same as having Mariah disguised so she’d surprise you when she dressed as Brittany.”

  “That was Mariah?” Bart asked, his face flushed with surprise or anger.

  “The thing that’s the biggest puzzle to me,” Angie said, handing a glass to Rhonda, “is why Tarleton set up this whole ruse. Why did he do it to you?”

  “He set it up?” Bart asked.

  “Now, a man is dead!” Rhonda cried, her hands clenched. “Why didn’t Em leave everything alone? Why, Bart?”

  He shook his head.

  Rhonda glared at Angie, took her beer and fled the room. Bart followed like a whipped dog.

  “Well, that certainly didn’t go well,” Angie muttered as she found a white and blue striped cloth and began to wipe down the bar top, humming “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” as she did so.

  Chapter 29

  The leader of the Quetzalcoatl gang lived in the gray one-story flat-roofed shack that Paavo and Yosh watched. They were at the back of the house. Calderon and Benson would be approaching from the front. The SWAT team had it surrounded.

  When Calderon found out one of the workers at the Lake Berryessa wild life reserve was a cousin of a leader of the Quetzalcoatl gang, that was the connection he needed to go in to make the arrest. The cousin could easily have supplied the gang with the feathers they’d been using on their victims.

  The birds of prey feathers were most likely what was going to convict the murderers. Luckily, the gang hadn’t used common ones from a pigeon, chicken, or goose.

  Thoughts of a goose caused Paavo’s thoughts to wander to the bizarre e-mails Demitasse had sent to the screen name “Etstar.” It all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

  After Paavo got the list of people in the house with Angie, the name Emery Tarleton had jumped out at him. On the Internet, he’d checked the IMDB director database for Tarleton. Sure enough, in the contact information was the e-mail address of “Etstar.”

  “Paavo, you paying attention?” Yosh asked suddenly.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Paavo tried to concentrate on the shut door, the windows, the roof, the grassy area behind them. Any move, any glimmer out of the ordinary could mean trouble. Once this was over, he’d be able to head north, finally, and see just what was going on at the Christmas reunion.

  Christmas…looking around, he couldn’t help but wonder if Christmas ever came to a neighborhood like this. If it didn’t, that might be one reason why the area seemed so devoid of hope, of love, of a soul.

  Demitasse’s e-mails had to do with Christmas, and a goose. He could understand the one about Christmas coming more than once a year—a reference to the April reunion show.

  “What gander plucked ‘your’ goose?” one had asked. Another made reference to the goose not being kosher.


  He knew nothing about kosher food or kosher poultry. He’d ask Angie.

  Earlier she’d left a message that Connie was bringing Minnie Petite to Eagle Crest. Petite bothered him. She knew lots more than she was saying—including about Angie and the soap opera. He needed to question her. How much longer?

  He looked at his watch to see how long he’d been out here.

  When he looked up again, the back door had opened.

  A gunshot rang out.

  Minnie Petite sulked, sitting at the center island in Eagle Crest’s kitchen. She wanted to meet the director and cast, but Angie wasn’t about to interrupt their rehearsal.

  Using that as an excuse for not staying, Digger left almost immediately…after arranging to connect with Connie for drinks that night in St. Helena.

  Connie was so gaga over being in the same house with Bart Farrell and Kyle O’Rourke that Angie had to watch her closely to make sure she didn’t cut a finger as she sliced eggplant. Since the prior evening’s Italian meal was such a hit, Angie decided a touch of Greece would be appreciated.

  Serefina came in to greet Connie, then the two pitched in to help prepare moussaka, egg-lemon soup, stuffed grape leaves, cucumbers and tomatoes with feta dressing, shrimp and rice pilaf, and pastitsio. For dessert, rice pudding and baked walnut halva.

  As they worked, Angie talked about her ideas for an engagement party until both Connie and her mother threatened to puncture their eardrums with shish kebab skewers. Could she help it if she had a lot to think about—date, time, place, colors, patterns, music, food, wine, guest list, gift registries, invitations, decorations, announcements, favors, her clothes, Paavo’s clothes, the list went on and on. The details that had to be dealt with for a simple engagement party were so endless she had no idea how she’d cope with an entire wedding.

  She’d hoped this time in St. Helena would allow her an uninterrupted opportunity to decide exactly what she wanted. Boy, had she ever been wrong.