Melinda Wells - The Proof is in the Pudding

Liddy came over to where I was standing by the door.

“Eileen’s going to stay at John and Shannon ’s house tonight,” Liddy said. “John’s going to take them home. Why don’t you stay over with Bill and me?”

“No, thank you. I can’t leave Tuffy alone all night. Just drop me off at home.”

“We’ll pick Tuffy up, and get a change of clothes for you.”

“I can’t.” I drew Liddy a few feet away from the person nearest to us and lowered my voice. “Ingram had something that I can’t let anyone find. The police are going to be searching his house for clues to his murder, probably as soon as tomorrow morning, so I’ve got to go there tonight.”

Liddy’s eyes widened with excitement. “If you’re going to break into somebody’s house, I’m not letting you go alone.”

The first thing I did when I got home, after greeting Tuffy and Emma, and assuring Tuffy that we’d go for a walk shortly, was to take off my once-beautiful gown and get a good look at the damage.

It was awful. While I was wearing it, I could tell that it was bad, but studying it on the hanger I knew that it was hopeless. Beyond even the best dry cleaner’s art. The stains on the front of the delicate peach chiffon fabric had hardened, and turned from the vivid red of fresh blood to a dull shade of old rust.

Even though he was a disgusting human being, the fact was that a man had died a violent death tonight; that was far more serious than the loss of a designer gown. I wasn’t sure Phil Logan would see it that way. I dreaded calling him, but I knew that I had to. After putting on a sweater and slacks, I sat down on the edge of my bed and picked up the receiver.

Instead of dialing Phil’s cell phone, which I knew he answered twenty-four hours a day, I did the cowardly thing and punched in his office number, to get his voice mail.

One ring.

“Hello,” Phil said.

Ooops. “What are you doing at the office so late, Phil?”

“Working. I heard about Ingram’s murder.”

“How did you know? It couldn’t have been on the news yet.”

“There’s no such thing as a secret-if you’ve got friends who are cops,” Phil said. “I’m writing a press release that mentions your name, but doesn’t make it sound as though I’m using somebody’s death for publicity. It’s a delicate balancing act.”

“Must you do that? It makes me uncomfortable.”

“Sometimes effective PR is like making sausages-you shouldn’t see how it’s done,” Phil said.

“I make my own sausages, and there’s nothing to hide.”

“Talking about food is making me hungry. Listen, the story I’m writing says that you ruined a six-thousand-dollar Jorge Allesandro gown trying to save Keith Ingram’s life.”

Six thousand dollars!

“Two security men worked on him. You can’t give me credit for-”

“My hotel source said you were the first to try to administer aid. Right or wrong?”

“Well, I tried to stop the bleeding from his wound, but it was just for a second or two until the security men-”

“But you tried. Right? And in thinking about Ingram, your dress was ruined.”

It was useless to try to talk Phil out of doing his job as he saw it. I gave up and moved on to the subject I feared. “You said the dress cost six thousand dollars. Will Mr. Allesandro let me make partial payments over time?”

I heard Phil chuckle. “Are you worried about that? Don’t be. Jorge won’t ask you for money. He’ll get many thousands of dollars of free publicity out of the fact that you were wearing his gown at the scene of a murder. Luckily, my photographer got pictures.”

“When?”

“Tonight. There was so much going on, you probably didn’t notice.”

“No, I didn’t.” A new thought occurred to me; it was about Phil’s boss and mine, Mickey Jordan. “Does Mickey know what happened tonight?”

“No. He and Iva are sailing around the Greek Islands, and Greece is nine hours ahead of us. He makes his daily check in call at six PM his time, which is nine AM ours. I’ll tell him about it then.”

“The trip is their second honeymoon. I hope this won’t make him cut it short.”

“No reason for him to do that. You were just on the scene of a crime-you didn’t commit one.”

Not yet, anyway.

“Get some sleep,” Phil said. “You’ve got a live show to do tomorrow night. Actually, you’ll be going on the air about nineteen hours from now.”

I agreed-but with my fingers crossed. Phil told me he would have the dress picked up sometime tomorrow, and we said good night.

My second call was to Nicholas D’Martino’s cell phone. He answered in two rings, but sounded sleepy. When he heard my voice, he said, “Hi, Slugger. How’d the judging go?”

“The contest was interrupted. Somebody threw a smoke bomb, and when everybody could see again we found that Keith Ingram had been stabbed to death.”

“Details.” His tone was brisk, professional. All trace of sleepiness was gone from his voice.

I told Nicholas everything I knew, including the fact that John had hit Ingram close to an hour before the murder. There was no way to keep that a secret to protect John because there had been too many witnesses. Because John was a decorated lieutenant in the LAPD, that detail was sure to be in every report of the crime.

“Do you think O’Hara killed Ingram?”

“No! And I’m not saying that because he’s my friend. John is not a murderer. In fact, he’s never even killed anyone in the line of duty.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get mad at me. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but socking Ingram looks bad. It had something to do with Eileen, didn’t it?”

I didn’t want to lie to Nicholas, but I wasn’t going to betray Eileen. Taking a middle course, I said, “Maybe John heard bad things about Ingram and women. Look, I can’t talk about this anymore right now. I have a live show to do tonight. When are you coming back?”

“Friday morning. I’m going to call the paper now, see who’s on the Ingram story and work with him on follow-ups.”

“See you Friday?”

“Without fail.” His voice took on a caring tone. “Sleep well. I know it won’t be easy.” He added something sweet and we said good night.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when Liddy phoned from her car to tell me she was on her way. As we planned, she had waited until Bill was asleep, and then sneaked out.

I grabbed the gym bag in which I’d packed the items I would need: a pencil flashlight, a roll of duct tape, a spray can of WD- 40, a hand towel, a fresh pair of the white cotton “beauty gloves” I wore when I went to sleep with my hands covered in cream-and an auto center punch. The final item was something I had taken from the glove compartment of my Jeep shortly after I got home. It was five inches long and half an inch in diameter: about the size of a stubby pencil. With its alloy steel point, it was the most crucial tool of my new trade: burglary.

Even though I had committed to memory every inch of Eileen’s diagram of Ingram’s house, I didn’t want to risk the smallest mistake, so I folded the precious sheet of paper and shoved it into the pocket of my slacks.

After petting Tuffy and Emma, and assuring them that I would be back soon, I slipped outside to wait in the darkness for Liddy. Lucky for me-for what I intended to do-there was only the tiniest sliver of new moon, and clouds obscured the stars.

My neighborhood was quiet. None of the houses I could see from where I stood in the driveway showed the glow of interior lights. The dogs in this canine-friendly area weren’t barking. The only sounds I heard were faint traffic noises in the distance. I knew most of the vehicles carried people who were going to their work, or coming home. Or returning from late night revelry. I wondered if any of the motorists were heading toward commission of a felony. Given the most recent Los Angeles crime statistics, I guessed that there were probably a few villains among the innocent commuters.