“You got her to come over to the dark side,” Dinah said with a laugh as I finished describing Ilene “Mumsy” Alter’s visit. “How’d you leave it?” I had called my friend to give a report.
“I don’t think she intended to do anything but pacify her daughter by saying she had checked on Marlowe. She even said to me that she wasn’t a baby person. But what she is is a gossip person, and she repeated some of what Gabby had told her about the others in the mommy group.”
“I hope she came through with something about the people Peter is having you investigate.”
“Not much really. She kept going on about Taylor’s house,” I said. Dinah asked if I wanted to play the Sherlock Holmes game. “Okay, but let’s use Google.”
Dinah laughed. “I don’t think Sherlock would approve.”
“That’s only because he didn’t have a computer or Google, or I bet he would have used it. Besides, it’s our game and we make up the rules.”
“Then computer it is,” she said. “Your place or mine? Commander did his best to stay up, but he was out at nine thirty.”
“I’d love to come to you, but the troops have all left and I have Marlowe, plus the mess they left behind. You can man the laptop while I clean up,” I said.
I’d barely given the dogs some time outside when Dinah came across the back patio to the kitchen door. She walked in and looked around. There was stuff everywhere. “Every time my parents come, they bring all kinds of food. There’s the take-out and then bread and cookies. Marlowe has enough baby peaches to last until she’s a teenager.”
I helped Dinah set up at my kitchen table. It was a built-in small booth next to the large windows that overlooked the backyard. The dogs were running around and Blondie was sitting on a chaise lounge. Dinah looked at the terrier mix sitting aloof from the others. “That is one lucky dog,” she said.
“We were both lucky to find each other,” I said. Blondie was the first of the menagerie. It was right after Charlie died and I was feeling low and making too many bowls of caramel corn and then eating it. I found Blondie at a private shelter. She’d been at the shelter for a year and a half. Adopted once and returned. I had no doubts that it had to do with her personality. Whoever thinks of a terrier being anything but feisty? She was more like a cat. I’m not even sure she knew she was a dog since she mixed so little with the others.
Cosmo, the black mutt, was at the door, trying to push it open. Barry and his son had adopted him at an animal fair. Since they didn’t have a yard and didn’t have regular hours, the dog had stayed with me. The dog finally got the door open and came in, followed by Felix.
“You know who you are,” Dinah said, laughing at the gray terrier mix, who was running around the kitchen barking at nothing. “You’re a lucky dog, too,” she said as the dog came up to her. “I don’t get people. How could Samuel’s girlfriend just leave the dog to never see him again when she broke up with him?” Felix abandoned Dinah when Princess ran in and started trying to get the white puff ball to play with him.
“I know—she’s a lucky dog too,” I said, watching the dogs move around the kitchen and knock into their water bowl. When I’d found her at the house of someone who’d died, I couldn’t bear the thought of her going to the pound or worse, so brought her home with me. “She adores Peter. And though he tries to act indifferent, I know he loves the dog. But he can’t quite manage keeping her at his place.”
“They are all lucky animals,” Dinah said as the two cats sauntered in. Mr. Kitty was black and white with markings that made him look like he had half a mustache. Cat Woman was grayish with markings that made her look like she was wearing a skirt. Samuel had brought the cats home. He’d seen them at the SPCA, labeled “hard to adopt” because they were older. Who wouldn’t melt hearing that their owners had coldly dropped off the eight-year-old and ten-year-old cats who were both sweeties.
I had too many pets and Dinah had none, so we figured things averaged out.
I gave the dogs a round of treats and made sure the cats’ bowls were full and located where the dogs couldn’t get to them. “Okay, let’s begin,” I said, coming back in the kitchen. Dinah had the laptop open and had signed on to my Wi-Fi and was doing random searches based on curiosity.
“Did you know there are dogs that are autistic?” She looked at Blondie as she came through the kitchen to return to her chair.
“I don’t think Blondie is. I think she was in a shelter too long when she was a puppy and then her heart broke when she was adopted and returned.”
“Like I said, she is a very lucky dog.” I offered Dinah an assortment of leftovers. It was like the United Nations of food in my refrigerator. “There’s pad Thai, falafel and salad with pita bread, tikka chicken, and a platter of French cheeses.” I looked around at the other food. “And there’s plenty of deli stuff.”
“It all sounds great, but what I’d really like is some of your scrambled eggs.”
“I can certainly do that. It would be nice to cook something, even if it’s just eggs.” I went to gather up the butter and eggs and take out my favorite frying pan while Dinah asked me more about the conversation with Gabby’s mother.
“She seemed fixated on Taylor’s house. I half expected her to volunteer to take Marlowe to the mommy group the next time they meet there.”
Dinah started typing something into the computer as the butter melted in the frying pan and sent out an appealing scent. Making the eggs made me think of Barry and all the times he just showed up and I’d made them for him. I was pretty sure that Carol wasn’t swirling butter in a pan when she got off a shift at the ER. I started wondering if she felt like cooking after all the blood and guts she must have to deal with in her job. But then Barry had to deal with a lot of the same. It was hard for me to imagine how either of them dealt with their jobs and then just returned to normal life. Since they were on the same page, maybe they could be there for each other in a way that outsiders could not understand. I was so lost in thought, the butter started to sizzle before I thought to pour in the eggs. The actual cooking of the eggs took barely any time and I slid some for each of us on plates.
“Sherlock would be impressed,” Dinah said from across the room.
“What did you find?” I asked, coming to join her at the table. I glanced out at the yard. The floodlights illuminated the row of orange trees. The white blossoms were just beginning to open. I realized I should have grabbed a couple of the oranges and sliced them for garnish.
“A lot,” Dinah said. “That house is famous. I glossed over the stuff when it was the Beltron estate, though it is interesting that they considered it their second home and beach estate. Andrew Palmer and his first wife, Margo, kept up with the Beltron tradition of lavish parties. There are lots of photos.” Dinah turned the laptop around so I could see.
I looked over Dinah’s shoulder as she scrolled through some photos. I recognized some of the rooms, but the furnishings were different, though you could barely see them for all the people in the pictures.
Dinah moved to photos from a holiday party. The living room had a huge Christmas tree decorated to the hilt. I looked closely at the faces of the people around it. It was a candid shot and the people were holding cups of eggnog and were socializing. The first Mrs. Palmer was in the center of it. She was wearing a red cocktail-length dress and high heels to match. Her blond hair framed her face in the style of the day. “That’s Andrew Palmer, a much younger Andrew Palmer,” I said, pointing to the tall man whose hair was still dark. I tried to make out the faces of the people around them and noted some A-list stars. “That’s her,” I said, excited as I pointed to a woman in tailored evening wear. “That’s Daisy Cochran.” Dinah leaned in closer to get a better view.
“Okay, now we make Sherlock proud and see what we can deduce from that,” Dinah said.
“It’s clearly from the time when Daisy was at the height of her power from the column. It looks to me like Daisy is in the middle of things.”
Dinah looked at the pair again. “Look at the way Mrs. Palmer has her hand on Daisy’s arm. It’s a friendly gesture. Maybe they were actually friends.” Dinah typed in something and more pictures of parties showed up, but the crowd was much sparser.
“No Andrew in these,” Dinah said. “And by Margo’s hairstyle, I’d say these were more recent.”
“You don’t have to do much deducing to figure that Andrew was the draw. Without him, she was just another ex-wife with a fancy house,” I said.
We looked at more photos focusing on the house itself. “The house has eight thousand square feet.” Dinah shook her head in disbelief. “Commander would have a field day turning off all the lights,” my friend said with a laugh. “But seriously, that’s a big place to live in alone. But then it seems the house was her claim to fame.”
“And now it’s Taylor’s place,” I said, thinking of how she had seemed so enamored with having the place. “Let’s see what we can find out about Taylor.” Dinah was in charge of the keyboard and typed in her name. A torrent of things came up and we skimmed through them before deciding which one to click on. We went for the stories connected to her wedding to Andrew Palmer. We stopped on a photo of them cutting the wedding cake. It was from six years prior and I was surprised at how different Taylor looked. She was model-thin now with cheekbones that looked almost sunken, but in the wedding her face was full and her bust seemed to be overflowing the white lace dress.
“I bet Sherlock would say she was pregnant,” Dinah said, and I nodded before telling her what I’d heard about how Taylor had snared her husband. “It must have been a revolving door from his divorce to his wedding.” Andrew was standing next to her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was the father of the bride walking her down the aisle,” Dinah said. I had to agree.
We read more about her history prior to her marriage to Andrew. She had been a production assistant working on a film of his and apparently had managed to cozy up to him. “Enough so she got pregnant,” Dinah said with a laugh.
“It’s hard to believe that old ploy still works.” I shook my head with disbelief. “It’s surprising that such a powerful guy like him went for it.”
“Back to what Sherlock would say,” Dinah said, showing me yet another article. “Andrew seems to think of his children as his legacy. And men are so hooked on having a son. Once he heard she was having a boy, it probably locked the deal and he divorced the wife who he’d been married to for twenty years.”
We had been neglecting our eggs and finally began to eat them as she told me about the latest hijinks her students were up to and mentioned again how there was one who made it all worthwhile.