When a number of days passed and nothing happened, I wondered if I’d been wrong about being considered a person of interest. In the old days, I would have been able to find out from Barry, but it didn’t feel like an option now. I had other things on my mind anyway. I was taking Marlowe to another of the mommy group get-togethers. This one was at the Langfords’ and I hoped to get some information I could pass on to Peter that he didn’t already know.
They lived just below Dirt Mulholland, as the unpaved portion of the road was called. The houses were all built on pads that had been cut into the steep hillside. They lived on the kind of street where you had to be sure to point your wheels in the right direction when you parked so that if your car slipped it would go into the curb instead of tumbling down the hill.
The house was one of the farmhouse designs that were replacing older houses that were being torn down. There were several variations on the wood-frame houses, which made them seem like tract houses for the wealthy. Personally, if I had spent all that money on a place, I would want it to be a custom design. Most were white with black trim, but a few were a brooding shade of gray. Theirs appeared to be the bigger version and was all white. Without even going inside, I already had an idea of the layout from others of these houses I’d visited.
They were all two stories with flooring that looked like wood. All the common rooms on the lower floor flowed together. The central common area on the lower floor was what was called a great room. The kitchen was part of it, separated by a massive island. Folding glass doors led to a patio that had ceiling fans and a TV screen. The living room felt like an afterthought and was an open space near the base of the stairs. They all had a formal dining room with a narrow cabinet-filled wet bar that led to the kitchen. The only room that had a door was the powder room.
I put Marlowe in her stroller and wheeled her to the entrance. Kath greeted me and invited me in, explaining that she had taken over for Lily, who’d had a last-minute situation with her shop. “Her husband is here, too, but he seems a little overwhelmed by it all,” Kath said. Not that I needed directions, but she pointed me to the great room.
I chuckled to myself as I noted that the rooms, or really areas, were exactly where I expected them to be as I went straight back to the space where everyone was gathering. Garth was already there with his twins. Plum was sitting on the floor holding a stuffed rabbit. Alexander went up to Plum and grabbed the rabbit, saying that it was his. I assumed the man in the middle of it was Miles. He was tallish with dark hair. His most outstanding feature was the downturn of his mouth, which made it look a little pouty. Taylor was walking behind Oliver as he toddled toward the others.
A woman came in dressed in a colorful skirt holding a guitar and a box of instruments. “The kids are going to do music,” Kath said to me. “The plan is that they’ll have their entertainment out on the patio.”
Taylor had Oliver by the hand and was attempting to get him to join Edgar and Lucy. She didn’t seem happy with the situation.
Kath looked at Marlowe still in her stroller. “You can let her loose. Miss Merry Music will take charge of the kids with the housekeeper’s help. The kids have juice boxes and pinwheel cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. And there is coffee and bagels on the island where those two nannies are sitting,” Kath said with a note of distaste. “I think Taylor is right about removing them from the group.” The two plain women were sitting on the stools appearing indifferent to their charges, who were wandering with the others.
I handed the baby off to the housekeeper, who seemed placid despite all the commotion. She held on to Marlowe as she and Miss Merry tried to lead the kids out to the patio, but they all resisted. Accepting defeat, they got them into a portion of the large room. There was a positive in all the confusion for me. I thought of my mission and realized it might be the only time I could check out Miles’s surroundings. I used the most obvious cover and asked Miles for directions to the powder room. He pointed toward the front and said it was on the right before going back to his conversation.
I checked that no one was watching and I went left instead. In addition to knowing the layout of the common rooms, I knew about the private area and went past the stairs to a hallway. Unlike the other side of the house where everything was open, there were closed doors off the hall. I wasn’t exactly sure of what was behind each door and began opening them. The first one led to a garage. It was dimly lit and all I could make out was a large black SUV. It seemed like there was nothing there for me to see, so I moved on. I did spend a few moments admiring the laundry room. I had just a washer and dryer crammed in a space off my kitchen. This was an actual room with a window. There was a sink and a counter for folding. After that I found a closet and finally what I was looking for. I knew there was a room that could be a guest room or office. It was obvious by the two desks and two computer setups that they used it for an office. I checked out the doors in the room. I’d barely opened one a crack when I saw that it led back to the great room. Miss Merry Music had just started singing the rainbow song and the kids and adults seemed caught up in the music.
Another door led to a full bathroom. I stopped to give it the once-over. It had a freestanding soak tub that was the style now. It looked like taking a bath in a bowl to me.
The last door went to a walk-in closet and yes, I did go in there to see if there were any skeletons. There weren’t.
Back in the office, I noticed one wall had a lot of photos, but I was more interested in the desks and wondered which one was his. I saw a receipt on one of them and realized it was from Shedd & Royal, which meant that desk was hers, as I knew she’d bought a book for Alexander the day she came into the yarn department.
I went to the other desk and was contemplating what to look at when the door to the great room opened and Miles Langford walked in. I swallowed a gasp as he gave me a surprised look. I didn’t give him a chance to say anything and offered an explanation. “I made a wrong turn looking for the powder room,” I said, trying to play the part of the ditzy grandmother and added quickly that I’d been fascinated by the photos. I had not actually looked at them until I had said that. A large frame held a screenshot of his credit as an executive producer for something. I remembered what Peter had said about trading investing on a project for getting that kind of credit. I deduced that Miles had done before what he intended to do with Peter. Obviously, nothing horrible had come out about Miles during that production, which I took as a good sign.
Miles had no idea about my thought process and started talking about the photographs. “They’re all from Back Home on the Range. We filmed up in Chatsworth.” He seemed extremely proud of the photos and also seemed to have forgotten that he found me wandering in his office.
He went over them one by one. The first had Miles sitting in a director’s chair with a pair of headphones hanging around his neck. A tall man was next to him wearing a baseball cap and jeans that seemed like the uniform for a movie crew. “That’s me and Rance,” he said. “He was my buddy on the set.” He pointed to another picture. “I love this one,” Miles said, gazing at a picture of him sitting on a horse wearing a white cowboy hat. The same tall man was next to him in this shot, too. “Rance was great. He made sure I was good on the horse so I could do this.” He indicated a group shot of men wearing jeans and cowboy hats with a rugged background. “Not only was I an executive producer, but I got to be an extra along with those guys.” He laughed. “We were the posse going to stop the bad guys from robbing the stagecoach. It was a grown-up version of a little boy’s dream.” He moved down to more of the pictures. This time they were all dressed in western-style formal wear on a stage. I looked over the crowd and recognized the tall man who’d been in the other shots with Miles. This time he wasn’t wearing a baseball cap. He noticed who I was looking at. “He cleans up pretty good. We were collecting our award. We won a Westie for Best Old Style Western Movie.” He went to the credenza against the wall and grabbed a statue of a horse with a plaque on it. “This is it.”
I pretended to be impressed and asked what his actual job had been aside from being an extra. “Oh, you know, this and that,” he said, being vague. “It’s very exciting being part of it all. Who knows what I’ll get to do next time.” He let out an unhappy sigh. “I hope this guy hurries up to finalize our deal. I can’t understand what the holdup is.” I knew he was talking about Peter and it felt strange, like looking at a scene from the other side of a one-way mirror.
“Is that a western, too?” I asked. I didn’t actually know much about what Peter was putting together other than I thought it was for a streaming channel.
“No. It’s a touchy-feely drama that I have a feeling could be another This is Us.” I was sure he would have said more, but Lily came through the open door.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked and then she saw me.
“Miles was telling me all about being a cowboy star,” I said.
He put the horse statue back as his wife had us rejoin the others.
Miss Merry Music had corralled all the kids in one section of the big room. They seemed fascinated by her singing and guitar playing. Garth’s twins had helped themselves to the bag of instruments and were shaking maracas not exactly in time to the music. The housekeeper was standing guard to make sure there were no wanderers. Lily led us to the dining room, explaining she had moved the adults there.
“I found them,” Lily said, pointing at us as Miles and I came in. I took one of the chairs, but he begged off now that she was back. Then she followed her husband out of the room. Taylor was looking at her phone and went to the other room to make a call. The nannies were still sitting in the great room at the island. The only ones left at the table were Garth and Kath.
The food had been moved and was set out on the table. I went to snag one of the bagels and get a cup of coffee. They were from a new trendy bagel shop that supposedly had lines waiting when they opened at six a.m. The bagel had all different kinds of seeds on the outside, including pumpkin and sunflower seeds. There was a selection of cream cheese, but I went with the plain.
“We were just talking about what happened to Daisy Cochran. You must know all about it. Give us the inside dope, the behind-the-scenes story,” Garth said.
I had a mouthful of bagel, which was delicious, but I didn’t want to be rude and talk with my mouth full so I held up my hand to beg off. Kath said, “I’d forgotten but Michael reminded me that Daisy had interviewed him about what sort of plastic surgery his celebrity clients were getting. He didn’t name any names. Doctor-patient privilege and all, but I think she figured out who he was talking about. He was not happy about it.”
“Maybe you should burn some sage in the bookstore to clear out any bad vibes,” Garth said.
Kath seemed unconvinced. “I’m not so sure anything like that works. Taylor can have all the psychics do their chants and burn wads of sage, but it doesn’t seem to change anything. Every time I go there, I feel like someone’s spirit is still hanging out there.”
I was hoping for more details, but then Taylor returned and Kath stopped talking. Taylor glanced over the three of us. “Did I interrupt something?”
Garth shook his head. “Molly was just telling us about what happened to Daisy Cochran.”
“It was quite a night,” I said. I glanced at Taylor, expecting her to say something about being there and taking over the conversation to give her take on what happened, but she seemed more interested in the bagels and the trendy place they’d come from and went on that it was quite a coup to score them. Kath and Garth listened to her politely, but quickly turned their attention back to me. Given a choice between bagels and a woman they know of collapsing and dying in front of a crowd, no surprise which they were more interested in.
“I heard it was a seizure,” Kath said.
“I don’t think they have determined it for sure,” I said.
“Did Daisy say much about the podcast?” Garth asked.
“I think she’d just started talking about it. There was a lot going on so I wasn’t paying that much attention,” I said.
“But then she probably told you about what she was going to cover in the podcast,” Garth said, making it sound like a question.
“Not really,” I said. “She never told me much other than she wanted to give a tease to get people’s interest.”
Lily came in the dining room flush with excitement. “I just got off the phone with a national morning show. They want me to come on and talk about the cocoons and show off the different styles of them.”
I waited for Lily’s excitement to calm a little and then I approached Taylor. “I guess you managed to slip out before the police arrived the other night at the bookstore.” When she gave me a blank look in response, I continued. “When Daisy Cochran died. You were there for her author event,” I added.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “The only time I came to the place you work was when I brought my son.”
What?