Watchin' The Detective: A Mystery Dinner Romance (14 page)

*******

The next morning, she’s up at the crack of
dawn. She can’t wait to call the detective to tell him what she’s
discovered; she’s just waiting for a “decent” time to call. Today’s
a work day; no more spa visits with the rich and famous. She takes
a white halter dress out of her closet. She’s going for the Marilyn
Monroe, “Seven-Year-Itch,” look today.
Wait until everybody sees
my hair
, she thinks.
They are going to freak.

The first one to freak out is Joshua. When
she nears his coffee cart on her morning walk to work, she takes
out her phony reading glasses and puts them on.
Let’s see if he
recognizes me
. She stands in line with the rest of his
customers and he casually glances her way. He smiles at her and
continues his barista’ duties.
That’s it?
she thinks. When
her turn comes to place an order, she smiles at him and he does a
double-take. “Isabella! I didn’t even recognize you! What have you
done to your hair? Please tell me you’re wearing a wig!”

“No. This is my real hair.”

“How could you do that to yourself? I loved
your hair.”

“It’ll grow back. Besides, I donated my long
pony-tail to the American Cancer Society. They are going to use it
to make real-hair wigs for breast cancer patients.”

“In that case, sorry I reacted like I did,”
he says. She feels a tinge of guilt because she thought of cutting
her hair before she’d learned that she could donate it. She only
found that out after she made the hair appointment. It was hard to
let her pony-tail go, but it’s for a good cause. She tells Joshua
that she’ll see him later and heads off to the library. She hasn’t
warned Nicole before-hand about her new look; so she can’t wait to
see the look on her friend’s face.

She walks up to the front door just as
Nicole is unlocking it. At first, Nicole is in a Monday-morning
daze and is on automatic pilot, once more going through the motions
of her daily routine. Then, she sees her friend and lets out a
little scream. Some of the patrons turn around and look at her.

“Isabella!! What have you done?!”

“I know; I know. You’re going to say that my
hair was my one beauty.”

“No I’m not. In fact, I absolutely love
it!”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. How long have you been wanting
to change your looks?”

“Not until I decided to go undercover as an
amateur-sleuth.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I have to
make an important call to the detective.”

She already has his phone number
speed-dialed into her phone, and makes the call. When he picks up,
she says, “Detective. It’s Isabella.”

“Isabella? C’mon. It’s Don.”

“Okay, Don. I have some very important
information about your case and I need to show you something right
away. You’re going to be very interested. It’s a major
development.”

He tells her, “Hold on, Isabella. You’re
going too fast for me. Slow down and tell me what’s going on.”

When she tells him that she has a picture of
Hamid on the night of the murder holding a gun, he tells her that
he needs to see it right away.

“Can you email it to me?”

She wants to show him in person and she’s
curious how he will react when he sees her new look. She tells him,
“I have some other important news. Can you meet me here?”

“Okay. Are you at the library?”

“Yes. At the reference desk.”

“Is now a good time to come?”

It’s always a good time to come,
her
dirty mind thinks.
Especially with you
. Instead, she tells
him, “Of course. This is a good time.”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

“Bye.”

She looks at her friend and says, “He’s
coming here.”

“Oh, goodie! He’s such a nice piece of eye
candy.”

“He’s mine, remember? Besides, you have
Joshua now.”

“I’m just teasing.”

Isabella tells her friend about all the
things that have been happening in the last few days and how her
visit to Karen Black’s house convinced her that she didn’t kill her
husband.

Nicole says, “What about the tete a tete she
had with Hamid at the train depot?”

“I think I may have misinterpreted their
meeting. I think there’s more to the story.”

“Be sure to tell the detective about what
you saw there, though.”

“Of course I will. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe you want to protect Karen?”

“I’ll tell the detective everything I
know.”

“Good.”

Isabella shows Nicole the picture on her
cell phone and the two of them look at each picture again. Nicole
zooms in on the picture and says, “That’s a gun alright. How come
you’re just now noticing this?”

“Last night, I got the idea of uploading the
pictures to my computer so I could see them on a larger screen. And
when I zoomed in on this one, I saw the gun.”

“What made you take the picture in the first
place?”

“I didn’t take it. I think Joshua did. He
was taking pictures with my phone that night. He must not have seen
a gun either; otherwise, he would’ve said something.”

“That’s true.”

Isabella says, “When I first saw these
pictures, I thought that they were shot accidentally. It’s a good
thing I didn’t erase them.”

“Good job, Nancy Drew. The detective is
going to be very impressed.”

They laugh and Isabella catches sight of him
walking up to the library. She takes a deep breath and thinks,
He looks great. Really great. Melt-in-your-mouth great!

He doesn’t recognize Isabella at first. She
has to wave at him.

“Isabella! What have you done?”

“It’s my new look. What do you think?”

“I’ll let you know once I’m over the shock.”
He looks around and says, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Isabella says. She
leads him out the back door and they walk towards the Plaza of
Flags between the law library and the courthouse. There’s an empty
bench in front of the law library and they both sit down.

The detective says, “You had a picture you
needed me to see?”

“Yes. But first I want to tell you want I’ve
discovered.”

“I hope you’re not going to tell me that you
contacted the family again.”

“Well…”

“Isabella. What have you been doing?!”

“It was completely innocent. I was having
dinner at Sarducci’s and I saw Karen Black there with Hamid.”

“Really? What were they doing?”

“He was holding her hand and she was
crying.”

“That’s interesting. Go on.”

“Well, I noticed he was wearing cufflinks.
There was a gas fire burning and it bounced off light from the
cufflinks. That’s why I noticed.”

“Okay. So?”

“Well that’s a very important piece of
information. I just want you to remember that.”

“I will. I promise. Were you in your Marilyn
Monroe disguise yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Aha! So you admit that you’ve changed your
appearance because you wanted to go undercover and be a spy.”

“You’re in a funny mood today.”

“I’m afraid of what you’re going to tell me
next.”

“Well. I went to get a facial at Burke
Williams, and I just happened to run into Karen Black in the
Jacuzzi.”

“You’re kidding? Did she recognize you?”

“No. Because I looked like this.”

“Did you know beforehand that she would be
there? Maybe her sister told you something?”

“I can see why you’re a detective. You’re
good.”

“So, you
did
know she’d be
there.”

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you.”

“You’re getting too involved in this case,
Isabella.”

“I don’t think Karen killed her
husband.”

“Now, how in the world would you know
that?”

“She invited me to her house for
dinner.”

“Isabella!! Please tell me you didn’t
go.”

“I did.”

He stands up. “Isabella, I told you to stay
away. There are some scary people associated with that family. This
isn’t a game.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I have to leave,” he says abruptly.

“Wait. You haven’t heard the best part. I
looked at some of the pictures I had from the night of the murder.
I saw a picture of a hand holding a gun.”

“What?!”

“With cufflinks. Like Hamid was wearing at
Sarducci’s.”

“Where’s the picture?”

“It’s on my iPhone. Luckily, I remembered to
bring it with us.”

“Let me see.”

He looks at the picture and says, “Why are
you just now noticing it?”

“I didn’t see it until I brought the
pictures up on my computer screen.”

“I’ve just emailed it to myself. Do you have
any other pictures from that night? I think I’d better look at all
of them.”

“You can have them all.”

He emails himself all of them and says,
“Isabella. I’m very upset at you right now. You deliberately
ignored my warning. I’m trying to keep you safe. Please do not get
any more involved in this investigation. Leave it to the
professionals.”

“Okay.”

“I gotta go.”

“So soon?”

“We both need to get back to work.”

He walks away from her without looking back.
She feels like he’s just slapped her across the face and starts
crying. Her heart is broken like a teenager’s.

She walks back to work in a daze. One of the
homeless men shouts, “Hey! Marilyn! Lift up your dress.” She gives
him the finger and keeps walking. When the library’s director sees
her coming into the library through the back door, she says,
“Isabella? Are you wearing a wig?”

“No. I cut off all my hair.”

“Why?”

“For charity.”

“We’ll that’s a nice thing to do.”

If she only knew the real reason
,
Isabella thinks. She starts sobbing uncontrollably and hugs the
director. Her boss isn’t the “touchy-feely type” and disengages
herself from Isabella’s hug. She tells her, “Why don’t you go lie
down in the room of repose until you collect yourself?”

“I think I’d better.”

“Good girl,” the director says, and walks
away.

The room of repose (also called the chill
room) has a comfortable leather sofa. Isabella comes here from time
to time when the stress of her job starts getting to her. She lies
down and tries to collect her thoughts:
I’ve ruined
everything
, she lectures herself.
I’ll never see him again.
Why do I have to go overboard on everything? Why can’t I be normal
like everybody else?

Nicole knocks on the door and says,
“Isabella, are you in here?”

“Yes.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

Nicole sits down next to her and says, “What
happened with the detective?”

Isabella tells her that they got into a big
fight and she doesn’t think she’ll ever see him again.

Ever the optimist, Nicole tells her friend,
“You’ll be seeing him again. I just know it. He likes you. I can
tell these things.”

“Oh, you can read people’s minds now.”

“It’s just a sixth-sense I got.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Look at it this way,” her friend says.
“When all is said and done, you come out ahead.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you got a beautiful Missoni dress and
a gorgeous new hair style out of the deal.”

“Only you would look at it like that.”

“And that’s why you love me.”

“That is why I love you,” she says, sitting
up and giving her friend a hug.

Nicole says, “Now, get up and wipe the
mascara off your face. You look like a raccoon.”

“My tears must have smeared it.”

“You wouldn’t believe what you look like
right now,” he friend says. “Scary.”

“That bad, huh?”

“C’mon, Marilyn. Let’s show these people
that we librarians can be smokin’ hot.”

C
hapter Twenty-Five

Isabella spends the next two days in a deep
depression. Every time her phone rings, she thinks it’s the
detective. She has the urge to go to San Juan Capistrano again in
the hopes of seeing him at Sarducci’s, but knows better than that:
he’d just accuse her of stalking him. She’s never felt so obsessed
by a man and doesn’t like the feeling. Her concentration at work is
less than zero and she’s making too many mistakes. She has to
constantly tell herself,
Focus! Focus!
She tries to watch TV
and read the paper, but nothing sinks in.

When she comes home from work each night,
she mixes herself a glass of Slimfast for dinner. It’s all she can
keep in her stomach.
I don’t like myself when I’m in love. What
happened to the old Isabella? I think she disappeared with my old
hair style.

Whenever she’s in one of these moods, she
goes back to all her old bad habits. She buys a pack of cigarettes
and a six-pack of Sam Adams. When she gets home from the liquor
store, she pops open a bottle of beer, lights up a Marlboro, and
puts on one of her aunt’s records. Tonight, she listens to Elvis
Costello’s “Punch the Clock” album from 1983. She plays his song,
“Wish I’d never opened my mouth almighty,” over and over again.
After wasting an hour or so listening to records, she draws herself
a bath, lights some candles, and rests her head on the bath pillow.
She closes her eyes and thinks once again about the detective. In
her fantasy, she is wearing the white, Marilyn Monroe halter dress
and it is Don’s birthday party. She sings, “Happy Birthday, Mr.
Detective,” in her best imitation of the blonde bombshell who had
sung to President Kennedy. Don loves it. He’s with all of his
friends. All of them think, “What a lucky guy Don is to have such a
sexy girlfriend!”

*******

On her morning walk to work three days
later, she’s putting one foot in front of the other in her
zombie-like condition, when she hears the newspaper barker standing
in front of the courthouse shouting, “Mafia hit man charged in
mystery dinner murder. Read all about it.”