Evening Bags and Executions (8 page)

“I didn't know Lacy had a brother,” I said.

Of course, I didn't know anything about Lacy, except that the cake she made for my mom totally sucked, but I didn't think this was the time to say so.

“They weren't close,” Paige said, leaning her head right, then left, studying the cake she was sculpting. “He lives up north, some little town near San Francisco. I just met him when he showed up here after Lacy died.”

“And their cousin came down with him?” I asked.

“No, she lives here,” Paige said, and cut a big chunk out of the cake.

Maybe it was a frog.

“Belinda something-or-other,” she said.

“I need to find out about the cake,” I said, though what I really needed to find out was what was up with Darren and Belinda. “Do you have contact info for them?”

“Sure,” Paige said, and pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her apron. She studied it and said, “Belinda Giles. Yeah, that's her name. And take my number too, you know, just in case.”

She read off their phone numbers and I programmed them into my cell phone, then gave her my number.

“Darren is staying at the Best Western a couple of block down on Sepulveda,” Paige said. “You can't miss it—he's driving our delivery van.”

“Belinda must have loved that,” I said, hoping to get a little more gossip.

“Yeah, those two are seriously going at it,” Paige said. “I don't know where you can find Belinda. She'd been in here a few times, but honestly, I didn't know she was Lacy's cousin until she showed up after Lacy died and Darren mentioned it.”

“Well, thanks for the help,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. And let me know if you want me to do that Beatles cake,” Paige said. “Sounds like fun.”

I wondered if it would sound like fun to Belinda and Darren.

C
HAPTER
9

I
t wasn't hard to figure out which Best Western Darren Hobbs was staying in as I cruised down Sepulveda Boulevard—the delivery van with the Lacy Cakes logo on the sides gave it away big-time.

Best Western had nice motels, but nobody—not even Best Western—thought they were catering to discerning travelers. This one looked a little worn.

I swung into the parking lot, took a slot a few spaces down from the Lacy Cakes van, and cut the engine. Paige had told me Darren's last name was Hobbs, so I figured either Lacy had never married or she was using her maiden name for some reason.

Maybe she was trying to hide something.

I hoofed it to the motel office, and the guy on duty phoned Darren's room and let him know he had a guest. I went back outside. A minute or two later, a man stepped out of room 112 on the first floor, near the Lacy Cakes van.

“Darren?” I asked, as I walked up.

“Yes,” he said.

Wow, do I have mad Scooby-Doo skills or what?

Darren looked to be in his fifties, dressed in navy blue work pants and shirt, with a halfhearted comb-over ringed by a fringe of graying hair.

I introduced myself and added, “I'm sorry about your sister.”

I saw no reason to mention I'd found her body.

“Thanks. I appreciate that,” he said, though it didn't look as if it really made any difference to him one way or the other.

“I hate to bother you at a time like this,” I said. I didn't, of course, but this sounded nicer. “I have a cake order pending with Lacy Cakes. Paige said she wants to make the cake but that I should talk to you.”

“Paige told you that, huh?” he asked, and uttered a disgusted grunt. “She's anxious to keep the place going—a little
too
anxious, if you ask me.”

“Why's that?” I asked.

“That's all she's talked about since I got here,” Darren said. “Keeping the place open, filling the orders. Claims she can make cakes as good as Lacy.”

“You don't think that's true?” I asked.

“How would I know?” Darren flung out both hands. “I just got here. I haven't seen Lacy in years. I had to leave my own business and come down here to straighten out this mess. I had to come up with money for a plane ticket and look at what I'm driving—in this traffic.”

He pointed at the delivery van and shook his head. “Twelve miles to the gallon, if that.”

“I thought your cousin Belinda was helping you,” I said.

“Help? You call what she's doing help?” Darren's face flushed a deep red. “Sticking her nose into something that's none of her business. Coming around, making demands, telling me Lacy would want her to have her personal belongings. It's a lie. All of it.”

I could see that Darren was getting angrier and angrier, and while most people would have backed off, I saw this as the best time to push forward and antagonize him further in hopes of gathering more info.

I'm pretty sure that's how all the great detectives do it.

“If Lacy and Belinda were close, wouldn't you want Belinda to have her things?” I asked.

“Close? Who said they were close? Is that what Belinda is telling everybody?” Darren demanded. He made a little snarling sound under his breath. “I doubt they'd spoken to each other in years after what happened.”

Come to think of it, all the great detectives bring backup with them for occasions such as this.

I'll be sure to remember that next time.

“Lacy left home right after high school. Just walked out with no thought to what it did to our family,” Darren said. “She came to Los Angeles and—and I don't know what she did for years because we seldom heard from her. Then she ends up with this bakery, and still we almost never heard from her. Broke my mother's heart. Left me to try and keep Dad's cabinet shop going, and figure a way to pay for their medications, their care.”

“That was really crappy,” I said.

“Darn right it was,” Darren said. He huffed for a couple more minutes before his anger eased away. “Growing up, Lacy and Belinda were like sisters. Did everything together. Went everywhere together. Typical kid stuff, then typical teenage stuff. Listening to records, buying those magazines and all that other stuff, all that nonsense with the long hair. England this, British that—like all of it was so damn important. Who knows the Dave Clark Five now, anyway?”

I sure didn't, and I really hoped Eleanor and Rigby weren't going to quiz me on whatever it was.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Something stupid,” Darren said, and waved his hand as if he could wipe away whatever it was that had happened. “Belinda got tickets to some concert—won them in a radio station contest, or something—and took her boyfriend. Lacy went through the roof. They never spoke again.”

Wow, that must have been an awesome concert.

“But Belinda moved to Los Angeles, like Lacy did?” I asked. “Why would she do that if they weren't friends anymore?”

“How the heck should I know?” Darren said, and flung both arms into the air. He sighed heavily. “All I know is that I've got another mess to clean up—because of Lacy.”

“You could probably use some money,” I said, as delicately as I can ever say anything. “The cake I need costs twelve thousand dollars, so if you—”

“Twelve grand?” Darren's eyes flew open. “For a
cake?
”

“Actually, that's probably one of the least expensive cakes Lacy made,” I said. “Most of them were way more than that.”

Darren muttered under his breath and shook his head. “Lacy was making that kind of money? And she couldn't send anything home to our parents? Or to me for taking care of them? Not one red cent?”

He fumed for a few more minutes, and, really, I couldn't blame him.

“I can't turn down that kind of cash,” Darren said, though it didn't seem to please him in the least. “Tell that girl—what's her name?—that girl at the shop to go ahead with it.”

“I'll let her know,” I said.

“But I don't know what I'm going to do with the business,” Darren said, his anger rising again. “So don't let her think this means she can keep working there. She already went ahead with a couple of orders without discussing them with me. You ask me, she's awful anxious to take over the place herself.”

“Maybe she just needs a job,” I said, remembering what she'd told me about leaving her previous employer.

Darren shook his head. “She wants to run it, and now that you're telling me the kind of money it brings in, I can see why. You ask me, it's suspicious. Makes me wonder.”

It made me wonder, too. Paige claimed she'd been hired away from Fairy Land Bake Shoppe by Lacy, but how did I know if that was true? Had she seen a better opportunity at Lacy Cakes and gone for it? Had her ambition taken her further—all the way to murder?

Darren went back into his motel room and slammed the door.

I got in my Honda and left.

 

Since the Lacy Cakes bakery was on my way to the office—and would delay my actual arrival—I decided I'd stop in and give Paige the go-ahead for the Beatles cake Sheridan Adams wanted for her party. I parked near the entrance to the alley, grabbed the portfolio I'd brought with me from L.A. Affairs, and headed toward the rear door of the bakery.

My cell phone rang. Muriel's name appeared on the caller I.D. screen.

I froze. Oh my God, was she calling to tell me that Eleanor and Rigby had reported to Sheridan that I'd failed their Beatles trivia quiz and that I was fired? This was exactly the sort of thing someone like Sheridan would push off on her personal assistant.

Since I'm not big on suspense, I answered.

“Hi, Haley,” Muriel said. “Listen, I hate to spring this on you so close to the party, but Mrs. Adams has decided she wants gift bags for all her guests.”

“All two hundred of them?” I asked.

“Custom-made,” Muriel said.

Where the heck was I supposed to get custom-made gift bags?

“Something that reflects the essence of the Beatles.”

The Beatles had an essence?

“And she wants them filled with special, unique items,” Muriel said.

Now I kind of wish she'd fired me.

Muriel seemed to read my these-people-have-way-too-much-money thoughts and said, “I'll e-mail you the details. Call me if you have any questions.”

“I'll get it handled,” I said.

Okay, I had no idea how I was going to pull this off, but what else could I say?

“Send me the contract amendment and I'll have her sign it,” Muriel said, and we hung up.

I flipped open the portfolio and got the name and e-mail address of the woman in the L.A. Affairs' legal department who'd drawn up Sheridan's original contract. I sent her a message about the gift bags.

Lucky for me, Jewel, Vanessa's former assistant—who was probably working under an assumed name at a Taco Bell drive-through somewhere in Montana—had done a great job setting everything up, so all I had to do was pull off the gift bags and follow up on everything else—provided, of course, that Sheridan Adams wouldn't make any more requests for additions to her party.

I tucked my phone away, then closed the portfolio and went through the Lacy Cakes back door. Paige was still working on the cake—and yes, now I could see that it was definitely a frog, although why anyone would want a cake shaped like a frog I couldn't imagine. A guy was busy at the huge mixer whipping up cake batter. We exchanged head nods.

“Hey, girl, come on in,” Paige called.

Darren's comment that Paige seemed
too anxious
to take over Lacy Cakes flashed in my mind. She seemed happy and carefree, yet conscientious enough to fill the orders Lacy had accepted and not let her customers down.

But looks were deceiving. I'd been fooled by appearances in the past.

I'm sure all the great detectives had made that mistake. Pretty sure.

“I talked to Darren about the cake,” I said, joining her at the worktable. “He said to go ahead with it.”

“Awesome,” Paige said, and gave a little fist pump.

I opened the portfolio and pulled out L.A. Affairs' copy of the info on Sheridan Adams's cake that had been given to Lacy and was now in the possession of the LAPD along with all the other stuff they'd taken from the bakery as evidence. The cake was supposed to be shaped like a six-foot-long submarine.

“She wants it to be yellow,” I told Paige.

“Yeah, sure. Off their
Yellow Submarine
album,” she said, bobbing and swaying as if the tune was playing in her head. “One of their best songs in, like, the whole world is on that album.”

I wasn't in the mood for another Beatles quiz.

“You're sure you can do this cake?” I asked. “Sheridan Adams is a huge deal.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem,” Paige said. “Because all you need is love. Right?”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“So Darren's keeping the bakery open, huh?” Paige asked.

I didn't think that telling Paige her future at Lacy Cakes didn't look so hot would benefit anyone—especially me.

“He hasn't decided anything yet,” I said.

Yeah, okay, that was a kind-of lie, but I needed that cake and I needed it to look perfect, and it absolutely had to be delivered on time, so what else could I say?

“I'll photocopy all this stuff and bring it back,” I said. I tucked the papers into the folder again and left.

I headed back to L.A. Affairs—it was late and I didn't want to miss my lunch hour—thinking about Darren, Belinda, and Paige. So far, they were my only suspects in Lacy's murder and, really, none of them had much of a motive—that I'd uncovered, anyway.

Then I remembered the owner of Fairy Land Bake Shoppe who'd been mad about losing Paige to Lacy. I wondered if he was mad enough to kill.

Then my mom flashed in my head. She'd been unhappy with the cake Lacy had made for a charity event she was involved with—Mom had told me what it was, but honestly I wasn't listening. She'd been so upset about the way the cake had turned out, I'd had to drive over to try to calm her down.

True, Mom was a perfectionist and a demanding customer, but the charity had forked out a ton of money for the cake, and while Lacy Cakes was big on presentation, the thing ought to be edible. It wasn't.

I figured that if Mom's experience with Lacy Cakes hadn't gone so well, maybe hers wasn't the only one.

As I waited for the traffic signal to change at Sepulveda Boulevard, I put my Bluetooth in my ear and called her.

“I hope this means you've found me a housekeeper,” Mom said when she picked up.

“I need to ask you about that cake you got from the Lacy Cakes bakery,” I said.

Sometimes, if I hit her with a topic that's all about her, she doesn't notice that I've ignored her comment.

“Oh, that cake!”

Mom went into what everyone in the family referred to as The Great Cake Tirade that we'd all heard a couple of dozen times already. I tuned her out with practiced ease. By the time I pulled into the parking garage she took a breath. I jumped in.

“So, Mom, do you know of anyone else who wasn't pleased with their cake?” I asked.

If anyone would have this info, it would be Mom. For a reason I've never understood, women always confide in her. Among her former beauty queen, old-money, and society friends, she's considered warm—which says a lot about her circle of friends.