“That’s her name-and I refuse to be Gracie Allen to your George Burns.”
“Thank God, they’re both dead. It wasn’t a mistake, someone deliberately erased the files?”
“The killer did-so there would be no trail leading to him. He even stole the back-up disc.”
“You’d better stop boiling that soup or-”
“Oh God!” She ran to it, grabbed a hot pad and lifted it off the burner. “It’ll take forever to cool.”
“You may have something, Doreen. Let’s talk to Lupe about it.”
“There’s more. Gould’s appointment book is missing. Hyacinth assumes the police have it. If they don’t that’s more evidence of an intruder.”
“Good work.”
She curtsied. “Thank you, kind sir, but there’s still more.” She reached in her purse and handed him a paper. “I should phone that number and find out who Sophia and Cyn are, don’t you think?”
“Eat your soup first.” He worried about her getting enough to eat. A bird could starve on her calories sometimes. “And while you dine on that liquid grass, I have my own super sleuthing to report.” He told her about Addie Kinkaid and how she’d come to be on the street.
Doreen reacted with exasperation. “I’m sure she’s a nice woman, I regret she’s been treated so shabbily, and I’m sorry she’s living on the street, but what has that to do with Harry Gould’s murder and the lost mother of a three-year-old named Jamie?” She made an exaggerated “whew” sound and panted after her long speech.
He ignored her. “Addie asked me to drive her out to the Kinkaid estate, so I did.” He made an expansive gesture. “Damndest looking place I ever saw, huge, sort of oppressive looking, dominated by this huge tower, kind of creepy, like a set for an old Vincent Price movie.”
“A tower of evil. How fascinating!”
“It’s way up in the boonies, populated by trees and igneous rocks, guarded by not one but two iron gates and-”
“Stop it this instant, Walter Byerly, it’s not funny.” Then she squinted at him. “I know when I’m being put on. If I’m not going to be Gracie Allen, I’m not about to be Ma Kettle either.”
“Ma Kettle?”
“Wasn’t she always getting worked up over nothing?”
“Do you really think of me as Percy Kilbride?”
“I will if you don’t stop teasing me.”
“Very well.” Now he spoke rapidly, as she had. “The driveway contained a black limo, the sticker on the back bumper read, JUSTIN WRIGHT FOR PRESIDENT, the chauffeur who most definitely didn’t want us there fit the description given by Henry Clay, and, yes, he does look like a Ninja Turtle.” He laughed. “You really should enter a gaping contest, dear.”
“Karl Kinkaid abducted a woman?”
“At best someone using his limo, and that’s far from certain. Maybe his chauffeur is in love.”
“And maybe Karl Kinkaid has something to do with a little boy named Jamie.”
“As you know, adored one, I couldn’t possibly be a bigger fan of your famous intuition, but this time don’t you think-”
“Well, it could be, couldn’t it? At least it’s something to think about.”
“Want something more?”
“If this is going to be the long version, I’ll eat my soup.”
“Addie told me who Kincaid’s wife is. Supposed to be a celeb, only I never heard of her and didn’t want to admit it.”
“No reason you should. You have me for these things. Who is the good woman?”
“Somebody named Joy Fielding. Addie said she’s some kind of advice guru.”
“You sure you’re not putting me on?” Now she laughed. “Of course you’re not. Darling, your lack of interest in celebrities is so remarkable it ought to be written up in a medical journal.”
“I knew Percy Kilbride, didn’t I?”
“But nobody since. Joy Fielding is Dr. Joy. She has an advice column, radio and TV shows. She’s an author, lecturer, the most famous blonde since Barbie-and just as plastic with about as many brains.” She laughed. “Now she really is someone who should be named DeeDee.”
He roared. “Only jiggling Jezebels named Joy are-”
“Still don’t know who she is? Okay, more clues. Dr. Joy is four square for family, family, family. She rails against premarital sex, abortions, divorce, homosexuality, liberals in general and women’s libbers in particular. Dr. Joy is a regular scold-and people eat her up.”
“Now I know who you mean. I may tune out phony celebs, but I do follow politics. You’re talking about that darling of the Christian Right.”
“Self-appointed.”
“She backs every half-baked nut there is. Hell, she makes Charles Manson and the Boston Strangler look like caregivers, the KKK and Adolf Hitler seem enlightened. She’d happily return to the Spanish Inquisition and Ivan the Terrible.”
He had Doreen doubled over with laughter, which pleased him greatly. Finally, she could say, “You exaggerate, but not by much.”
“So she’s Mrs. Kinkaid. That accounts for the bumper sticker. Justin Wright is her kind of guy-and maybe the next President, unless the country comes to its senses.”
“He is good-looking and glib.”
“So was Attila the Hun.”
Again she laughed. Doreen was such a good audience. He opened his cell phone. “Who are you calling?”
“Lupe, I’d better fill her in.” She shook her head. “Why not?”
“Just don’t tell her about Jamie. She’d be duty bound to call Children’s Services and-”
“Very well. Meanwhile, see if you can get anybody at that Boston number.”
“What will I say to her?”
“Tell her you think Sophia has been kidnapped by King Midas and turned into a gold statue.”
“These are young people, my love. They think King Midas is a rock singer.”
“Rocks sing?”
9: An Old Pol Helps
Try as she would, Lupe couldn’t quite shake her sense of dread whenever she approached Sgt. Brogan. She had been a cop four years, commended twice, made detective, at least as a probationary, but none of that mattered. Det. Sgt. Brogan was “the man,” a relic of her days on the street, her B.D. period, Before DeeDee. Maybe she’d get over it one of these days.
“I have some information on the Gould shooting, sergeant.” She hoped her voice sounded matter-of-fact.
Buster Brogan was in his 50s, gray and excessively wrinkled around the eyes. When he leaned back in his chair, as now, causing his sizable belly to protrude, he looked every inch a model for the Lord Buddha. “What have you got?” He smiled and motioned to the chair beside his desk.
She sensed his cordiality had more to do with her being female than a fellow detective. She sat but did not cross her legs. “Gould’s mother doesn’t think her son would kill himself. He was-”
“Have you spoken to Mrs. Gould?”
“Well, not directly.” She hesitated. “A friend told me.”
“What friend?”
He had no right to ask. She was entitled to her own sources “If you must know, her name is DeeDee Byerly. She owns a flower shop, her husband, Walter Byerly…”
His laughter stung her.
“You’re kidding, Hernandez. You’re listening to some dame in a flower shop? What’s your hairdresser and manicurist say?”
Oh why had she ever brought this up? “Forget it, sergeant, it’s your case.”
“You got that right. It so happens, Hernandez, that I spoke to the Gould woman at length. I sympathize with her, but when you have more experience you’ll realize that families, mothers especially, try any form of denial to avoid accepting suicide.” His smile was positively avuncular. He might have been Walter Cronkite addressing a sixth grade class at parochial school. “There are no fingerprints, Hernandez, no witnesses, no evidence of any kind to suggest Gould did anything other than take his own life.”
Did he have to humiliate her this way? Her anger flared, changing her flight into fight. “Did you perform a paraffin test on Gould to see if he fired the gun?”
“I saw no need for it.”
She stared at him. The test was routine in such cases. “Did you know somebody erased Gould’s computer files?”