A crowd lined up along the White House fence startled me for a moment, and I slowed my pace. But then I remembered what day it was. Egg Roll tickets would be handed out today and hundreds of people were already lined up-some of them having camped out overnight just for the chance to be part of Monday’s festivities. Bundled up against the morning chill, they sat in small groups-in lawn chairs, or huddled in sleeping bags on the cold sidewalk.
“Listen,” Liss said.
“No, you listen. Did you not hear what I just said about my relationship with Tom?” I clenched my eyes shut. I’d been careful not to use his first name in this conversation. Too personal. But I’d gotten so worked up with all the interruptions that I’d lost that small measure of control. I coughed and clarified. “I am no longer involved with Mr. MacKenzie.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
This man was definitely crackers. “The heck you are,” I said. “If it weren’t for you threatening to make it public-”
“That’s not what I want to talk with you about.”
I was within thirty feet of the gates. I kept my voice low to prevent eager ticket-seekers from overhearing my conversation. But most looked too sleepy to care. “In case you didn’t understand me the other day, I have no desire to talk with you. About anything. And now that you no longer have Mr. MacKenzie to hold over my head, our conversations are finished.”
“But don’t you want to know who killed Minkus?”
I stopped walking. “Like you have that information. Give me a break. If you knew, you’d tell the world.”
“Knowing something and proving it are two completely different things. You’ve learned that, haven’t you, Olivia?” Now that he was standing outside his office building-an assumption I made based on the ambient noises and his intense desire for privacy-his voice took on a condescending air. “Wouldn’t it help you-and help your assistant Bucky-if the real guilty party were brought to light?”
“When I find out,” I said, “and I say ‘when,’ not ‘if,’ it will be through proper channels, not through some delusional journalist’s mad ravings.”
He made a noise that sounded like, “Tsk.”
“Have a good day,” I said, for lack of a better send-off.
“Wait.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Well then maybe your mother does.”
My hand tightened on the phone. “Don’t you ever-”
“She really likes that Zenobios Kapostoulos, doesn’t she?” he asked. “But I believe you know him better as Kap.”
I was stricken silent until I remembered that we’d all been in the same small group at the Minkus wake. “You are mistaken,” I said. “Yet again.” I resumed walking to the gate.
“Am I?” His voice resumed its playful arrogance. I hated it. “Then I assume your mother didn’t tell you about her dinner date last night.”
“How the hell-?” I stopped myself, took a deep breath, then continued. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to poke into my family’s life?”
“Your mother’s friend Kap is involved with Minkus’s death.”
“What?” I asked. “How?”
“Oh, so now I have your attention.” I heard him lick his lips. He must have covered the mouthpiece, because suddenly the background noises grew quiet and hollow. “I don’t know precisely. Yet.”
My mind raced as I tried to piece things together. “Kap wasn’t at the dinner Sunday. He couldn’t have done it.”
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t at the dinner.”
He chuckled. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. How sure are you that he didn’t do it?”
I wasn’t. “Then why don’t you tell me how he did?”
“I can’t. But what I can tell you is that Kap isn’t working alone. And I don’t even believe that’s his real name.”
I glanced at my watch. I needed to be in the kitchen posthaste. Not standing out in the chilly morning, listening to outlandish scenarios. This moment held a peculiar sense of déjà vu.
I started toward the gate again. “I gotta go.”
“Wait,” he said, so quickly and forcefully that I stutter-stepped. “Phil Cooper.”
“What about him?”
He heaved a huge sigh. “I didn’t want to get into this right away, but I’ll tell you.”
“Then hurry up.”
“I have reason to believe that Phil Cooper committed the actual murder.”
“You just said Kap did it.”
It sounded like he licked his lips again. He’d be chapped before he knew it. Good.
“I said Kap was involved. Listen, please. The two of them are meeting today.” He started talking very quickly. “I have a source.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because another one of my sources trusts you. And through you-through your mother, to be precise-I can gain access to Kap.”
This was getting totally out of hand. I would not allow him to involve my mother. “I’m done,” I said loudly. I excused myself to make my way through the line of waiting people, then slipped my employee ID through the card reader at the gate. “Good-bye.”
“Kap and Cooper have ties to the Chinese government. They took Minkus out.” His words were tinctured with an air of desperation. “I have a source that can prove this. I know I’m right. And you’ll be reading about it in my column soon. Why not help me? You like all that attention, don’t you?”
I passed the guard in the front gatehouse, who had been watching my animated movements with a look of concern. Giving him a little wave, I said into the phone: “No, I don’t. And to be perfectly frank, I’m convinced that Liss is not more.”
Before he could say another word, I hung up.
“Sorry,” I said, stripping off my jacket and donning an apron. “I meant to get here sooner.”
Cyan waved me away with a mixing spoon. “You’re hardly late. I just got here myself.”
“What are you working on?”
She brought me up to speed on breakfast preparations. She had gotten almost everything done already-so her protestation that she’d only just arrived really didn’t ring true. I gave silent thanks for having such a reliable staff to depend on, then felt the immediate crush of disappointment when I remembered Bucky’s situation.
“Howard Liss called me this morning,” I said as I pulled an asparagus and artichoke frittata out from under the broiler. I eased it onto a serving plate and looked up just in time to see Jackson walk in.
The head waiter smiled. “Ready to go?”
“Just about.” Cyan sprinkled a little cinnamon onto the president’s French toast. He and his wife had completely different breakfast favorites. While he preferred basic fare such as scrambled eggs, hash browns, and French toast, his wife had a more adventurous palate. Today’s veggie frittata wasn’t exactly exotic, but it had been considered “unusual” the first time we served it to her. Now it was one of her favorites.
With all the recent upheavals, I thought that it would be nice to treat them to their particular comfort foods this week. I garnished the plates with fruit and edible flowers. “There you go.”
Jackson took off, plates in hand, and Cyan and I cleaned up. “Howard Liss called you?” she asked. “Why?”
I tried to summarize his ramblings as best I could, but in the end all I could say was, “The man has crazy ideas. I’m ashamed to say I stayed on the phone with him as long as I did. I should have hung up immediately.”
“You’re just too polite, Ollie.”
“And it gets me into trouble.”
Cyan laughed. “Tom wouldn’t argue with that.”
My breath caught.
Her voice lowered. “What happened?”
I shook my head and started to pull out recipes for the next day’s meals, but she stopped me with a firm hand on my arm. “Talk to me.”
“We have a hundred things to do before Easter dinner tomorrow, and before the Egg Roll on Monday.”