Murder Melts in Your Mouth (5 page)

Chapter Four

M
y father grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside the closet. “Thank heaven it's you!”

He pulled the door behind me with a slam, then groped for the light switch. When the bulb popped on overhead, I got the first good look at my father in two years. Through a cloud of marijuana smoke.

“Daddy!
What are you doing here?

“Shhhhh! They'll find me!”

For a man of sixty, he still cut a dashing figure—tallish and thinnish with perfect posture and a tennis player's tan. He wore his hair longer now—white and flowing over the faded collar of his Bermuda pink shirt. To hide a few wrinkles, he had knotted a jaunty silk ascot at his throat, and the insignia of a long-defunct yacht club glowed on the breast pocket of his threadbare blue blazer. Holding the joint elegantly between two long fingers, he looked like a slightly seedy gentleman who'd just walked away from the captain's table on a cruise ship.

I grabbed the joint from his grasp and threw it onto the floor. I crushed it with my sandal and frantically waved my hand to dissipate the pungent smoke. “What do you mean, they'll find you? The police? Oh, my God! Daddy—”

“Shh!” He put one forefinger to his lips and bugged out his eyes to command my silence. “Do you want me to get in trouble?”

“You're already in trouble,” I hissed. “I thought you could never set foot in the United States or the IRS would slap you into jail! And now you're smoking dope with the police just ten feet away?”

His eyebrows were already suspiciously high—perhaps the work of a South American cosmetic surgeon—but they lifted even farther. “Good heavens, Muffin, you haven't seen me in ages, and all you want to do is throw insults?”

“It's not an insult if it's true!”

“Is that all you can say to your father? I've missed you, Muffin!”

“Don't call me that. When you call us Muffin, it makes us think you can't remember our names.”

“Of course I remember your name. You're Eleanor, and you've always been my favorite. And don't you look beautiful!”

Still the handsome con man. Still the silver-tongued devil.

“Daddy,” I groaned. “Please tell me you didn't do something foolish here today.”

“Foolish? The police getting upset about a gentleman enjoying a little harmless smoke—that's what I call foolish!”

“Hoyt Cavendish is dead. He just fell off a balcony.”

“Yes, I know. Poor old Hoyt. He never did know which way was up.”

“Daddy!”

My father had inherited the Blackbird family fortune and managed to spend every penny—and more—in less time than a starlet could blow her millions on a shopping spree in Dubai. He had done it generously, of course. As a child, I often woke up to elaborate gifts on my bedspread. Toys from FAO Schwarz, rare books from shops in Paris, prayer flags from Kathmandu and beaded jewelry from Africa—I never knew what treasures he might bring home before he flitted off again. But by the time I finished college, all the money was gone.

He'd had every right to spend it, of course. But when the cash ran out, he'd committed the ultimate social faux pas of gouging his friends for more. On the brink of social exile, he threw one last party before fleeing the country with my mother. Since then, they had run up debt in luxury resorts all over the world, skipping out in the nick of time just as local gendarmes came knocking on their doors.

I said, “Don't make jokes about Hoyt. It's possible he was murdered.”

“Of course he was murdered. Why do you think I'm hiding in a broom closet? There's a stone-cold killer on the loose!”

I stared at my father. “Did you see something?”

“I saw plenty. And heard even more.”

“Then you've got to talk to the police! You could help figure out what happened. You could—”

Again, he motioned for me to keep my voice down. Then he whispered, “I'm not exactly in a position to assist the police, Nora.”

“What do you mean? If you—”

“I'd rather keep my presence a secret.”

“From whom?”

“Everyone. But especially from the police. I'm here on a mission, you see. An important government assignment. And Hoyt taking a swan dive from the balcony has thrown me a curveball, if I might mix my sports.”

“What are you talking about?” If my father had been recruited to be some kind of secret agent, the whole world was doomed.

“It's very complicated. But if all goes well, I'll buy freedom for your mother and me. There might even be a presidential pardon for both of us!”

I felt a thunk in my stomach. “Mama's here, too?”

“Not
here
here, but nearby. I'd tell you more, Muffin, but it's all very hush-hush.”

“How long have you been smoking that stuff, Daddy?”

He drew himself up tall and straight. “I use a medicinal amount of cannabis, young lady, not enough to cloud my judgment. I'm telling you the absolute truth. I'm here in Philadelphia at the behest of the Treasury Department. And maybe a few more federal agencies.”

I had no clue what he meant. But experience told me I should assume he wasn't entirely telling the truth.

“What's going on, Daddy? Does Lexie know you're here?”

“Not yet. I was waiting to be called to the inner sanctum to give my testimony when everything went haywire.”

“When Hoyt died, you mean?”

“Exactly. I'm here to shed light on a situation he caused.”

“Hoyt caused a situation? Was he in some kind of trouble?”

“Not anymore,” my father said. “Now that he's dead. But things may just have gotten more complicated for everyone else. Your friend Lexie most of all.”

“Daddy, you really need to come outside and talk to the police.”

“No, Muffin, not until I'm sure I won't end up in one of those country-club prisons where the inmates play shuffleboard all day. You know I have a low tolerance for shuffleboard. And prisons don't serve wine with dinner, if you can imagine such savagery.”

“But—”

He spun me around. “Run along, dear. Before the police cordon off the whole block, I need to make my escape.”

“Where will you go? How will you get out of here?”

“I know all the secret exits.” His eyes twinkled. “Don't forget, I used to borrow money from this establishment. Many's the time I needed to make a quick departure.”

Another flood of dread nearly overcame me. “Daddy—”

“Shh. I'll find a way to keep in touch.”

“You're leaving the country again?”

“Not if I can help it.” He winked. “Your mother wants to see her hairdresser. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to have good hair in Argentina?”

He pushed me out into the hallway before I could ask more questions. And I had plenty of questions. What the hell was he doing back in Philadelphia? And with the help of the Treasury Department? The whole story was beyond belief. And if I knew my father at all, he was plotting something that would likely end in disaster.

I spun around to yank open the closet door and confront him one more time, but the plainclothes police detective hailed me from the lobby.

“Hey,” she said. “You. Come here and give me your name.”

I leaned on the closet door. “Me?”

She gave me a hard look. “Yes, you.” She made a hook of her forefinger and beckoned me closer.

I obeyed. She wore a gun on her hip and didn't look as if she'd hesitate to use it.

Her name tag was nothing but consonants. I squinted and tried to imagine how to pronounce her name. “Wylcnck.” She wore a tan polyester business suit, unbuttoned to show a flesh-colored T-shirt. On her belt hung a city police detective's shield. Tendrils of her hair had escaped the plastic clip at the back of her head. Her makeup consisted of a brownish lipstick she had partially chewed off.

She gave me a disapproving up-and-down look and said, “Are you some kind of candy striper in that getup?”

“No, I—”

“Never mind. Stay here with this lady for a minute, will you? I'm no damn nanny.”

Sprawled out on the couch beside her lay an elderly woman in a suit and pearls, holding a wet paper towel against her forehead. I recognized Elena Zanzibar by the electric pink powder generously spread on her cheeks. She moaned softly from beneath the paper towel.

“Mrs. Zanzibar?” I knelt down on the carpet and grabbed Elena's hand. “It's Nora Blackbird. Are you—should I call a doctor?”

“Nora? Nora, is that you?” Elena gripped me hard. “Don't leave me alone, dear child. I feel so faint!”

I looked up at the police detective. “I'll take care of her.”

Wylcnck nodded shortly and strode away, leaving me alone with the hyperventilating cosmetics queen.

I had known Elena Zanzibar before she'd become one of America's great contributors to the world of beauty. Decades ago, Elena made her fortune by rolling a small inheritance—her father's share of a South African diamond mine—into the production of an eyebrow wax. The wax caught on with her friends and quickly spread to Hollywood. Soon Elena began dabbling in other beauty products and even more lucrative fragrances, and a cosmetics empire was born.

A friend of my late grandmother, she had once brought her powders and potions to my family's estate and practiced various techniques on my sisters and me while we were still in primary school. Years later, her business took off, and she became a tycoon. Today, however, she appeared old and collapsed with shock.

I patted her hand. Wylcnck's footsteps faded away.

Abruptly, Elena snatched the paper towel off her face and threw it on the floor. She sat up on the couch. “I thought that woman would never leave!”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course I'm all right!”

Sixty-something Elena Zanzibar, in a hot fuchsia suit with black piping and a triple strand of pearls around her neck, wore her hair in a Texas-sized pompadour. Numerous diamond rings sparkled on all of her plump fingers. Her papery eyelids were weighted down with false eyelashes. Her makeup was as colorful as if it had come from a child's paint box.

She said, “It's bad enough getting stuck with a police officer, but I'm always offended by people who obviously don't take proper care of their skin. And she must have chosen her lipstick in the dark!”

Elena's cosmetics, called simply Zanzibar, were sold in upscale department stores all over the world. Elena herself was past the age of wearing her own products, but that didn't stop her from slathering them on as if preparing for a Technicolor close-up.

“I must look like a fright.” Elena had noticed my startled expression. “But tell me what's going on. What are the police saying? What happened to Hoyt?”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Zanzibar, but Mr. Cavendish—he didn't survive.”

Her breath caught in a sob, and her made-up eyes began to swim with tears. She groped into a pocket and came up with a handkerchief that was spotted with the colors of a rainbow. “Dear me,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I said, trying to soothe her.

“It can't be true!”

“I'm very sorry.”

Her mascara began to track down her cheeks. “Hoyt should have known I'd solve any financial problems he had. Surely he—he understood how generous I could be!”

“Hush,” I said. “You'll make yourself sick, Mrs. Zanzibar.”

She hiccoughed. “What are friends for?” she implored. “I could have given him millions!”

“Can I call someone for you?” I feared she might give herself a stroke. “A relative, perhaps?”

“Where are my ladies?”

“Your ladies?”

“Yes, my fans. The ladies who follow me wherever I go. They're such dears. I couldn't get along without them. I gather strength, just knowing they're nearby!”

Suddenly I realized who the mob of women downstairs had been. Elena Zanzibar hardly set foot out of her house without a crowd of adoring fans. For years, a cadre of elderly women took the Zanzibar skin care system so seriously that they seemed to have pledged an undying worship for Elena herself. They followed her everywhere, even chasing her distinctive pastel Mercedes in traffic.

A few cynics believed she issued her schedule a week in advance of any public appearance to guarantee a good crowd.

I said, “I believe they're all downstairs. They're perfectly safe.”

“Oh, I'm so relieved! But they must be worried about me.”

“Would you like me to find one of them? Perhaps if one of your friends came up here to—”

“No, no, I'll just hop downstairs myself in a few minutes, as soon as I can manage. Are you sure—I mean, is Hoyt really…?”

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