How to Host a Killer Party (15 page)

Before I could say
Been there, done that
, Berk popped his head in, his ubiquitous video camera at his side.

“A Cinderella story, out of nowhere,” Berkeley said, adding his own touch of drama. “Former psychology teacher- turned-master party planner gets the gig of a lifetime. . . .”

“More like
Caddyshack
, you mean, with a few editorial changes,” I said.

“Hey, it’s ‘the stuff that dreams are made of,’ ” Berk said, using a bad Bogart accent. Instead of a trench coat, however, he wore a tight green T-shirt that read “FX Crew—Shrek IV” and Lucky jeans. “And I’ll be your videographer! Maybe then Spaz will finally take me seriously.”

“What is going on in here?” It was Raj, trying to crowd into my increasingly crowded office. “I’m trying to work back there and am hearing all this commotion.”

“Presley’s going to do a murder mystery party for the governor!” Delicia said. “And we’re all going to help!”

I glared at her. Too late. Raj straightened his shoulders. “Actually, I have been studying the actors over at CeeGee and I think I would make a very good suspect in your murdering play.”

I checked my watch, hoping the others would get the hint. In case they didn’t, I said, “Well, if you’ll excuse me, guys, I’d better get back to work.” They reluctantly shuffled back to their offices, leaving me to the ever-growing pile on my desk. But instead of returning any calls, I pulled out a fresh who-what-when-where-how-why sheet and began to fill in the blanks with what I already knew about the governor’s event. I was halfway through when an apparition appeared at the door.

Brad Matthews, in his hazmat suit and mask, held tweezers at arm’s length, as if the small object being tweezed was highly toxic material.

Where had he come from?

I blinked. “What—?” I stopped.

Between the prongs of the tweezers was a wad of pink gum.

“You scared the hell out of me!” I said, slapping my chest.

“What are you doing, sneaking up like that?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. You looked pretty lost in thought.” Brad Matthews pulled off his mask, then raised the tweezers with the small wad higher. “This belong to you?”

I shook my head automatically, but felt my face flush as I said, “No.” I’d never survive a lie detector.

“You know what it is?”

I leaned in to peer at it. “Looks like gum,” I said.

He leaned in too. “And you smell like cinnamon.”

I pulled back. “I . . . It’s Delicia’s. . . .”
Lineup, here I come.

He raised an eyebrow.

“What I mean is, Delicia gave me a stick of her gum . . . but I don’t know how it ended up in your . . .” My voice trailed off.

Shit! When would I learn to think before I lied? “I mean, wherever it ended up.” I turned back to my work, hoping he’d disappear.

He didn’t. Instead he stepped into my office and closed the door.

Uh-oh.

“What are you doing?” I scanned the other offices looking for backup. No sign of immediate aid.

“We need to talk.” Brad sat in the unfolded chair opposite my desk and placed his face mask on his knee. The last time a guy said, “We need to talk,” he was breaking up with me. Too early for that.

Shaking the tweezers, he dropped the gum on my desk. “I could always have the police run the DNA on that.”

“Who do you think you
are
?” I demanded, turning from evasive to defensive.

“I told you, Brad Matthews.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Even through his uniform I could make out arms of steel. The room seemed dwarfed by his presence.

I thought of the gun in his pocket.

I felt for my purse under my desk. If I could reach my cell, I could call Raj surreptitiously, without arousing Brad’s suspicion—in case things got nasty. “No, I mean who
are
you? You’re not just a crime scene cleaner, are you? What were you doing at the mayor’s wedding? Why do you have the mayor’s phone number? And how come, all of a sudden, you start renting space in my office building?”

Moving my hand slowly so he wouldn’t notice, I eased out my cell.

He leaned back in the chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I’m a crime scene cleaner. I told you.” His eyes narrowed and his signature half smile appeared. “Why are you so suspicious?”

I got the feeling he was toying with me. Or was he flirting? It had been so long, I’d forgotten the signs. Glancing down, I keyed the phone icon, then thumbed down to Raj’s number and pressed it. “Look, Brad, I saw you talking to Detective Melvin. I want to know what you two were discussing.”

Brad shrugged. “He thinks you might know something about Ikea Takeda’s death.”

I punched SPEAKERPHONE. “But I
don’t
! I told him that. I don’t know anything I haven’t already—”

Brad raised his hand to calm me. “First of all, hang up the phone.”

I blinked, paused a minute, then lifted my iPhone from its hiding place and tapped END. I set the phone on my desk hoping Raj might call me back.

“Secondly, I’m pretty sure you didn’t kill Ikea that night.”

My mouth dropped open. “You believe me?” I closed it and sat back. “Why?”

“You were way too drunk to kill anybody. Except maybe yourself.”

I bit the inside of my lip. He was right. I could barely function by the time that party was over. Of course, maybe I’d had a blackout, killed Ikea, and just didn’t remember. That happened on the Lifetime channel a lot.

“Okay, so you know who
I
am—not a killer. Now what about you?”

He relaxed into the chair and sighed, as if he got that question a lot. “I clean up after dead people. Suicides, accidents, murders. And contaminations—distressed properties, biohazards, meth labs. Situations that most people don’t want to deal with. The stuff no one else wants to do, that makes them wanna hurl.”

I wanted to hurl just hearing about it. But like gawkers at the scene of an accident, even though I thought it was revolting, at the same it was riveting. “You help the police a lot?”

He nodded. “The cops, public service agencies, private sector. Twenty-four/seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

“So you basically clean up blood and stuff?”

“Pretty much,” he said, reaching over to a nearby shelf and pulling out another of my Nancy Drew-style cloche hats. He played with the felt, punching it in, smoothing it out, while he talked. “Blood is the toughest, once it dries. Sort of like Jell-O at first, then it turns hard, like icing.”

I made a face. Now I wouldn’t be able to eat a frosted cake without thinking of dried blood.

He replaced the hat, trading it for an oversized magnifying glass. He held it up to his face, enlarging his brown eyes, and looked at me as if I were a bug under a microscope. An interesting bug.

“Brains are worse. They dry like cement, solidify like superglue. I have to use putty knives and steel brushes, then steam them with injection machines that melt them, then suck them up into a chemical treatment tank.”

I nearly gagged. He was twisting the putty knife—on purpose? I imagined he found it entertaining to gross me out. I snatched the magnifying glass from his hands and set it on my desk like a teacher confiscating a toy from a mischievous student. I tried to distract him from the gruesome topic with another question.

“Is it dangerous—cleaning up crime scenes?”

“The meth labs are. And the hantavirus-infested homes. That’s when I have to use really strong solvents. And wear a full-face filter respirator—a mask—and my white jumpsuit. It’s nonporous and disposable.”

“So they’re the worst?” I asked, half curious and half wishing I weren’t so curious.

“No, decomps are. Places where there’s body decomposition.” He glanced around my office as if looking for a body. A decomposing one. “And kitty houses.”

“Kitty houses?” I thought of my three cats. Did I have a “kitty house”?

“Slang for places filled with decaying animals, feces, garbage, stuff like that.”

I grimaced. “Gross. How did you get into this type of work? I mean, it’s not your everyday kind of business.” Oh my God. Was I starting to flirt again?

Reaching for a small box from another shelf, Brad said, “You’re right—the death business isn’t for everyone. Most guys burn out after a few months.” He opened the box and laughed. Must have been the fake teeth inside.

Speaking of which, he had lots of nice white teeth. And a nice laugh. With tiny laugh lines around the mouth and eyes.

Good heavens, what was wrong with me?

“Truthfully,” he continued, returning the box to the shelf, “I got interested in this when I saw
Pulp Fiction
. Remember the guy they wasted in the car? They called in the Wolf—Harvey Keitel—to clean up the mess. That’s when I decided to become a crime scene cleaner. Thought it would be cool.”

I laughed. “I guess that’s one way to choose a career. You got lucky though. You seem to love your job. Which, in this case, is kinda creepy.”

He scrunched his nose. “I don’t love everything about it—especially the maggots. Those little buggers are smart and strong, and they don’t die easily. Plus they make these weird chattering sounds. Sometimes I dream about them. God, I really hate ’em.” He pulled out the box with the fake teeth again, held them up, and made them chatter.

I snatched the teeth from his hands and set them next to the magnifying glass. “So you can deal with the worst of life, so to speak—death—and yet you can’t stand a few tiny little bugs.”

He shrugged. “I’m a janitor, not an entomologist.”

“A janitor with connections to the police,” I said.

“Yeah. And that detective—Melvin? He thinks you’re somehow tied to those two dead women—more than you’re letting on.” He leaned forward and tried to pick up the magnifying glass again.

I slapped his hand. “No shit, Sherlock.”

He sat back, rubbed his chin, then said. “I think I can help you—if you’re willing to share.”

I frowned. “Share what?”

“Information.”

I took this in for a moment, studying Brad’s eyes as he scanned the shelf for something else to play with. They were dark, deep set, fringed with lashes a little longer than average.

“How do you know I have any information worth sharing?”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Parker. I’m a crime scene cleaner. I see things other people miss.”

“All right. First question: How do you know the mayor?” I asked.

He shrugged. “He comes to some of the crimes scenes—depending on who died.”

“Like who?”

“Anyone who has a name. He likes to show the citizens of San Francisco that he’s a hands-on kind of mayor.”

“Like who?” I pressed.

He took a Sherlock Holmes-style deerstalker hat, put it on, and shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to say. My services are discreet and confidential.”

“You’re kidding. You’re not like a doctor or lawyer or priest, right? You shouldn’t have any kind of confidentiality issues.”

“Listen, if someone asks me not to discuss a scene, I respect their wishes.” Another trip to the shelf and he was sporting Sherlock’s pipe.

“You look ridiculous. And you still haven’t told me why the mayor’s phone number was on your desk.”

He looked at me. “How did you know . . .”

“I figured—”

“I knew it! You were in my office!”

I plucked the pipe from his lips. “Is this how you share information?”

“Okay, okay. I answered your first question. Now it’s my turn. What do you know about the deaths of Ikea Takeda and Andi Sax?”

“
Nothing! Nada! Niente!
Jeez!”

“Look, Parker,” he said, removing the hat. “Maybe you don’t realize it yet, but whoever broke into the building may think you know something—and that could be dangerous for you.”

A shiver ran down my back.

“Let’s start with the evidence you pocketed at the scene this morning,” he said.

Shit. This guy didn’t miss a thing. My eyes darted to the gold, book-shaped earring that lay on my desk, nearly obscured by papers.

Brad reached out an open palm.

I sighed, then handed over Ikea’s earring.

“You know, it’s a felony to remove evidence from a crime scene,” he said as he studied the deceased’s jewelry.

“It was in the cache!” I said, a little too loudly.

“Don’t suppose we can check it for fingerprints now that you’ve obviously handled it.”

We?
Who did he mean by “we”?

I squirmed in my chair. “I was going to give it to Detective Melvin,” I protested. “The next time I saw him. He wouldn’t have found it in the cache anyway. Besides, the cops aren’t doing anything to help me, so I’m trying to save myself from relocating to the city jail—or San Quentin.” Thank goodness Alcatraz was closed to criminals—and innocent victims.