If there was a way of returning immediately to sleep after being awakened and brain-teased by a drunken, paranoid Irishman, I was not able to find it. I lay abed for the next hour or so, trying to puzzle through his ravings. I got it that he believed Des was the intended victim on the night of the bombing and that it had been payback for something the comedian had done in the past—an eye for an eye. What I didn’t know was if Fitz had had any legitimate reason for his belief. Or if his comment about me saying something that sent Des on a guilt trip had any basis in reality. If so, what the heck had I said?
Somewhere around five or six I must have drifted off, because when I opened my eyes again, the room was filled with sunlight and Fitz’s odd visit seemed less important and more lunatic. And yet …
I showered, shaved, and dressed. I fixed coffee and drank a cup while I put together an egg-bacon-toast breakfast and ate it. I washed the dishes. I did all those things mainly by rote. My mind was primarily occupied in trying to recall every word I’d spoken to Des before he and Fitz took off that first night. I remembered them playing the videogame with Gibby. Des had seemed more interested in the game than in anything I was saying.
Finally, I gave up. I poured another cup of coffee and took it and my cellular out to the villa’s patio.
I paused briefly to enjoy the sun, the cloudless sky, the mild surf. Then I phoned Cassandra.
“Oh, hello, Billy.” Her voice was full of faux gentility. “How lovely of you to return my call AT THE BUSIEST TIME OF THE DAY!”
I checked my watch. Nine-forty-two. Twelve-forty-two in Manhattan. I heard lots of noisy luncheon chatter in the background.
“Busy is good,” I said. “You called last night?”
She lowered her voice and said, “I have to replace Margaret.”
“Why?” I asked. Margaret Leifer was a seemingly pleasant and efficient middle-aged lady who’d been our cashier for about five years.
“Call you right back.”
The phone went dead.
I placed the cellular on the glass-top table, leaned back, and closed my eyes. I did not open them until the phone made its music. I picked it up and said, “So what’s the problem with Margaret?”
There was a momentary silence, then a very crisp, very British, very feminine voice asked, “Is this Mr. Blessing?”
“Right. Sorry, I was expecting a call …”
“Mr. Malcolm Darrow calling. Wait one, please.”
I was put on hold, something that ranked just a notch below arrogant British receptionists on my things-I-don’t-need-in-the-morning list.
“Mr. Blessing,” lawyer Darrow began without social preamble, “Roger was wondering why you haven’t contacted Gloria Ingram.”
“Well, let’s see. I had a business meeting, a rehearsal, a show. Then, before I knew what was happening, I’d frittered away the whole day. I can send you a fax on that if you’re not taking notes.”
“A fax will not be necessary,” he said. “I was just speaking with Ms. Ingram. She’s at work and available. I believe you have her number, but if not …”
“I’ve got it. Thanks,” I said. “I’ll give her a call.”
“That would be excellent,” he said.
My next call was not to Ms. Ingram.
“So many busy signals,” Cassandra said. “Thanks for fitting me in.” There was no longer the sound of a chatty, happy lunch crowd in the background.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Your office. It’s very unpleasant, Billy. Dusty and musty.”
“Put the cleaners on it, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t have time to watch them when they’re in here.”
“Nobody watches them when I’m there,” I said. “We’ve been using the same cleaning crew since we opened. I think we can trust them to dust my office.”
“Really? Then let me tell you about trust.”
“First tell me about Margaret.”
“It’s the same story. You know she got a divorce from Otto last month?”
“I’m not that up on Margaret’s private life.” My attention was drawn to a familiar surgically rearranged figure in the far distance, heading my way across the sand. The pride of Crockaby Realty, Amelia St. Laurent. I considered going back inside the guesthouse.
“Margaret and Otto had been married for twenty-three years,” Cassandra said, as if that were a record. “She told me she grew tired of him, but, actually, it was because of Heinrich.”
“Heinrich being …?”
“Margaret’s twenty-seven-year-old boy toy.”
“Not exactly a boy.” Ms. St. Laurent paused to observe the home to her right.
“Man toy, then. Or more to the point, she’s his mommy toy.”
“Bottom-line it, Cassandra, in the middle of your busiest time of day. Why fire Margaret?”
“I thought I made that clear,” she said. “She’s smitten with Heinrich.”
“So …?”
Ms. St. Laurent had resumed her march. I stood, picked up the coffee cup, and walked to the guesthouse.
“Heinrich is an identity thief,” Cassandra said.
“You know this for a fact?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “A.W. looked into it.” A. W. Johansen, Cassandra’s paramour, was in charge of the East Coast office of a top security agency. “He said Heinrich’s MO is seducing lady cashiers, bank tellers, and the like, any female who can provide him with credit card information.”
“Last I looked, there was a law against such things.”
Just as I entered the guesthouse, Ms. St. Laurent was marching toward the villa’s sliding glass doors with a ring of keys in her hand.
“A.W. says you have to catch Heinrich with the goods,” Cassandra was saying. “Otherwise, he could say he simply had a jones for frumpy women. Oops, strike that, Billy. Matronly women. I’m trying not to be overly critical.”
“Since when?”
I entered the kitchenette and plucked a nice red apple from a now-empty bowl.
“Anyway, we could wait until he sweet-talked Margaret into providing him with our customers’ credit card information. But that would mean Margaret would be arrested, too. So I want to fire her instead.”
“Margaret’s been honest up till now,” I said. “What makes you think she’d turn crook for Heinrich?”
“Haven’t you been listening, Billy? She left her husband of twenty-three years for the creep.”
“Good point,” I said, replacing the apple, saving it for another day.
“This way, with her out of a job, Heinrich will drop her like a hot rock. She’ll be heartbroken. But she won’t be in prison. She may even go back to Otto.”
“You’re a combination Solomon and Ann Landers,” I said. “Do what you think best.”
“Don’t I always?” she said. “And Billy, in the future, please don’t wait forever to return my calls. It’s so simple, even for someone like you, who keeps fighting technology. Your phone has a touch-screen capability. You see my number on the recent call list. You press my number. My phone rings. We talk.”
“I know about the touch screen. It’s just that it was very late—”
“I don’t think you do know about the touch screen. Otherwise, you’d be more careful.”
“Come again?”
She hesitated a moment. “The touch screen. It’s possible to engage it accidentally. Something in your pocket presses against it. Or someone bumps into you in a crowd. It’s called ‘ass dialing,’ as in your ass presses the dial and—”
“I get it. So?”
“I’ve … overheard you … once or twice.”
“The damn thing can phone somebody without me knowing?”
“Well, you should be able to hear it dialing,” she said.
“Unless I’ve got the volume turned down. What have you overheard?”
“Nothing that interesting. I heard you at a meeting a couple of days ago. Mainly other people I didn’t know talking. Got bored and clicked off. I should have mentioned this before. It’s the sort of thing that could have embarrassing consequences.”
“You think? I need a new phone.”
“Touch screen is a popular feature,” she said. “You may have to just be more careful.”
That was her exit line.
I stared at the phone, the list of numbers on the touch screen, and wondered which, if any, I may have unknowingly allowed to listen in on my life.
Too late to worry about that now.
Now I needed to put the traitorous phone to use.
Gloria Ingram answered on the third ring. Her voice had a measured, unaccented sound that I associate with people who speak professionally.
After the awkward amenities, she said, “As I told Roger, I have no objection to talking with you about the night of Tiffany Arden’s murder, but it has to be off the record. I’m employed by the Bank of California, a company not known for having a broad-minded nature, even in times of plenty.”
I assured her that our conversation would be kept private.
“Then suppose you tell me exactly what you want to know,” she said.
“Would it be possible for us to meet?” I asked.
She hesitated, then asked, “When?”
“Are you free for lunch?”
“Actually, no. I’m on something of a deadline. But I can spare you a few minutes. I assume it won’t take longer than that.”
We settled on an appointment at eleven. I bid her good day and clicked off the phone, making sure I’d be able to hear it if it decided to make any calls.
I was pouring a third cup of coffee when someone began pounding on the front door.
“Mr. Blessing!” Amelia St. Laurent’s voice was just a few decibels shy of glass-breaking.
I was heading toward the door to open it when she barged in, tottering a bit on her platform wedges. “What in God’s name has been going on in the villa?” she demanded.
“Good morning, Ms. St. Laurent,” I greeted her, settling on a world-class passive-aggressive approach. “Care for a cup of coffee?”
“What went on here last night? The villa’s a disgrace.”
“That’s news to me.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick didn’t mention it?”
That one caught me off guard. “What makes you think Fitzpatrick was here?” I asked.
“The security guards still have him listed as an occupant of the villa,” she said. “According to the log, he arrived at two a.m. and left at three-fifty-two. You didn’t see him?”
“I went to sleep at a little before midnight,” I said. “What’s up at the villa?”
“It’s an unholy mess. I came here this morning to prepare a home down the beach. When I saw that Mr. Fitzpatrick had been here at such an odd hour, I figured I’d better check to see if he’d disturbed anything. Thank God I did. I’ve a cleaning crew at the other home. I’ll have to deploy some of them here. Prospects are due in less than an hour.”
“Show me the damage,” I said.
I followed her from the guesthouse through the sliding glass door and into the villa. The living room looked pristine. What I could see of the formal dining room looked just fine.
Amelia St. Laurent was clip-clopping toward the den. “Just look in there,” she said. “I won’t. The sight absolutely makes me sick.”
She was overdoing it a bit. There was a strong smell of whiskey in the room that I traced to a bottle of Bushmills resting on its side in a puddle of its former contents. Other than that, the furniture had been moved around. The leather couch was several feet from the wall, with a throw rug wrapped around one leg. The giant TV screen was slightly askew. One of the leather chairs had tipped over backward.
It looked as though there’d been a struggle in the room. But it may have just been Fitz hunting for something. Maybe one of those bags that he or Des had left behind.
If that was the case, he’d been on a fool’s errand. The police gave the place a thorough vetting after Des’s death. It was doubtful they’d have missed a bag full of drugs.
“Well?” Amelia St. Laurent was waiting just outside the room.
“It’s a mess,” I allowed. “How’s the rest of the place look?”
“Passable,” she said. I took that to mean it hadn’t been touched. “This is all very annoying. I’ll be talking to Mr. Halstead at your network about this. It was my understanding that while you would be staying in the guesthouse temporarily, the villa would be unoccupied. Would you have any idea if Mr. Fitzpatrick plans any other visits?”
I shrugged helplessly.
“Well, I shall have to deploy some cleaners from the other job. Rest assured, I shall charge your network for their services.”
I gave her my blessings.