Melinda Wells - The Proof is in the Pudding

“Weaver just told me what happened to you. Are you all right?”

“I’ve had better days, but I’ve had even worse ones, too. I survived.”

His voice was strong, but I knew that losing his job, even if it would only be for a while, had been a cruel blow. He was putting up a front. In deference to that, I stopped expressing my sympathy.

“I don’t want Shan and Eileen to worry, so don’t tell them,” he said.

“If you don’t want me to, of course I won’t. What are you going to do while you’re pretending to be working?”

“Working. Investigating on my own. After I found out that Yvette Dupree was one of the women on Ingram’s tapes, I asked a friend at Interpol to check her out. He got back to me a few minutes ago. I was about to phone you when you called me.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Her real name is Fabienne Talib. I know you said you like the woman, but I want you to stay away from her.”

“John, you’re making me crazy. Lots of writers and other celebrities change their names, so what’s this about?”

“Ten years ago, in London, the woman now known as Yvette Dupree killed a man.”

“Killed a man?” Stunned, I repeated John’s words, trying to process the information. “But if that’s true, then why isn’t she in prison?”

“She claimed she was defending herself. The man was her husband, Fouad Talib, a Turk. Yvette-Fabienne-brought in three women who signed statements that Talib was violent, had beaten Fabienne in the past, and threatened to kill her if she tried to leave him. Self-defense isn’t recognized as a plea in England, so she was put on trial for manslaughter. The jury heard her story and acquitted her. According to my friend, the police thought it was premeditated murder, but they couldn’t prove it. There was talk at the time that she’d fallen in love with another man, a Brit. She had just begun proceedings to divorce Talib.”

“Her story must have been credible for the jury to acquit her.”

“Juries are made up of human beings. They liked her, and sympathized because her barrister painted the victim as a vicious bully. Talib was an importer of antiquities. His business partner and his brother both testified that Talib had never laid a hand on her in anger, but that he was opposed to the divorce and wanted to take Fabienne back to Turkey with him.”

“How did she do it? Did she stab him?”

“No. It was blunt force trauma. She smashed him in the head with a bronze bust of Julius Caesar. It was almost an Olympic feat, because Yvette was a foot shorter than the late Mr. Talib, and almost a hundred pounds lighter.”

“Are you saying that she might have had help?”

“According to her, she acted alone, claiming she hit him out of fear for her life. She called the police herself. Without delay, according to the medical examiner in London. Her fingerprints were the only ones on the bust. Still, my friend said it was as though a cat had killed a Rottweiler.”

“ ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce,’ ” I quoted, almost to myself. But John heard me.

“Richard the Third,” he said.

“So you managed to stay awake the night we all went to see it.”

“Yeah. I was mentally counting up the charges I would have lodged against Richard.”

“John, I’m outside the Santa Monica Library. I’ve got something to look up before it closes at four today.”

“Is this for your show, or about the case?”

“The case. It’s some research I want to do. I may not find out anything useful, but it’s worth a try.”

“If I can’t keep you out of this, at least I’m glad you’ll be safe in the library,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Go home. I’m taking Shan and Eileen to an early movie and then out to dinner. But if you need me, during the movie I’ll have my phone on vibrate.”

When the call was over, I sat in my Jeep for a few more moments and tried to sort out the new pieces of the puzzle I’d acquired. All of them focused on Yvette Dupree.

Alan Berger told me that Yvette had cooked a special dinner for a little party to celebrate Roland Gray’s book sales. That was evidence of a connection between Yvette and Gray.

Weaver told me that at different times both Tina Long and Yvette Dupree had been filmed in Keith Ingram’s bed. Earlier, Eileen had told me that Ingram despised Yvette, and yet at some point I knew that he’d had sex with her.

Yvette’s protective behavior toward Tina Long the night of Ingram’s murder, and Yvette’s own words to me yesterday, indicated that she was a mother figure to motherless Tina. I wondered if the young girl knew that both she and Yvette had been to bed with the same man, and what, if anything, that shocker might have had to do with Ingram’s killing.

Last, according to John’s friend at Interpol, ten years ago, when Yvette Dupree was known at Fabienne Talib, she killed her husband. Her claim of self-defense was believed and she was acquitted of the crime. Not long after that she must have changed her name and became the Global Gourmet.

These were certainly colorful parts of the puzzle, but there were still too many pieces missing for me to be able to see the picture they formed.

The most glaring of those missing pieces was the question of who shot into the window of Caffeine an’ Stuff. Hatch was acting as though he had his man. If he believed that, then it meant he could concentrate on proving John killed Ingram.

I hoped that Hatch was wrong about the shooter-but hoping was not good enough with John’s life on the line.

Opening my cell phone again, I dialed 411 and asked for the number for Olivia Wayne, attorney at law.

The operator’s mechanical voice found the listing and offered to connect me to it. I pressed the button that meant “yes” and heard ringing on the other end of the line. Another mechanical voice answered with the name of the firm. Among the offers it made was the option to hear the list of attorneys and their extension numbers. Another press of the appropriate button. The firm’s lawyers were listed in alphabetical order, so it took a while to get to W. When I heard Olivia Wayne’s extension number I punched it in.

I’d expected to leave a message on her voice mail, but to my surprise Nicholas’s favorite criminal lawyer answered in person.

“Hi, Olivia, this is Della Carmichael, your one-dollar client.”

All business, she asked, “Have you been arrested?”

“No. I’m calling to buy an hour or two of your time.”

“What’s the problem?”

“A friend on the LAPD told me that a man named Victor Raynoso was arrested for shooting at cars on the freeway, but that Detective Manny Hatch also believes that he was the sniper who fired into the front window of Caffeine an’ Stuff in Santa Monica in the early hours of Friday morning.”

“I hope you’re not asking me to represent him.”

“No. All I’d like you to do-what I want to hire you to do-is to talk to him in jail and see if you can find out whether or not he was the one who shot into the café. He claims he didn’t do that.”

“Nick told me you and the writer, Roland Gray, were sitting in the café’s window and that Gray was wounded. Is that why you’re interested?”

“Partly.” I told her that I believed the shooting at the café was connected to the murder of Keith Ingram at the celebrity cook-off Wednesday night, but that if Raynoso was the shooter then they had to be separate acts.

“Why do you want the two events to be connected?”

“Because if the wounding of Gray was just a coincidence, then the detective in charge of the Ingram murder-Manfred Hatch, of West Bureau-will keep trying to prove that John O’Hara killed Ingram. John was my late husband’s partner in the LAPD. I know that John didn’t commit murder as surely as I know I’m sitting here talking to you.”