Lanyon, Josh - Adrien English 04 - Death of a Pirate King (16 page)

“I didn’t know whether to expect you or not,” I said, as he
turned to face me.

“I spoke to Peter,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Well, the good news was he didn’t apparently care where I’d
been, so I didn’t need to admit I’d been having drinks with my own ex-lover. I
dropped down on the chair next to the sofa. All at once I was very tired.
“Sure,” I said. “We could start with you explaining why you’re pen pals with a
kid who tried to kill me.”

He inhaled like I’d tackled him out of the blue. “Peter did
not try to kill you, Adrien. He is not a murderer -- and that’s not merely my
opinion. The jury agreed. He was swept along with something that got out of
control, that’s all. He’s young, he was naive. He was every bit as manipulated
as Angus. You’ve forgiven Angus, haven’t you?”

Had I? Yeah, apparently I had. I replied, “Angus never tried
to kill me.”

“He involved you in something that could have got you killed.
It’s the same thing, nearly.”

“No, Guy, actually it’s not.”

He didn’t bother to argue; his expression said it all.

I said, “Even if we put that aside for a minute, if you can’t
see how far out of line his coming here was…I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You’re completely overreacting.”

Now that was almost funny, considering that I’d been thinking
Guy had spent the last week overreacting about Jake. I said, “I disagree. I
think most people would disagree.”

“Most people.” He shook his head like that was unworthy of
me.

Maybe it was.

Reaching out, he absently picked up the crystal-encased gold
doubloon he’d bought me early in our relationship. He frowned at it as though
he’d suddenly spotted a flaw in the lustrous surface. He said, “I know Peter.”
He raised his eyes to meet mine. “I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you.”

“Yes. I recall.”

“He needs a friend right now. He needs help.”

I had this sudden Ebenezer Scrooge moment.
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouse
s
? Maybe Lisa was right. Maybe I had
grown hard, bitter. In any case, I seemed fresh out of the milk of human
kindness.

I said, “He showed up here deliberately, Guy. He was
challenging me, letting me know he was back, staking his claim.”

A look of distaste crossed Guy’s face.

I said, “Yeah, it is very high school. I agree. And we’re
both too old for this shit.”

“I think you may have misinterpreted --”

I laughed. Shook my head. “I didn’t misinterpret anything. He
wants you back, and he wanted me to know that. He believes you still have
feelings for him -- and I’m not so sure you don’t.”

“I told you at the start there was nothing…serious between
Peter and me. That is to say, I’m fond of him, I consider him a friend, and I want
to see to him through this…difficult time. He
needs
someone, Adrien.”

I
need someone, I
thought. But what I said was, “And you need to be needed?”

“Everyone needs to be needed,” Guy answered succinctly. “Even
you.” He replaced the pirate coin in its place on the bookshelf.

When I didn’t respond, he asked quietly, “Are you asking me
to choose between you?”

I’d been massaging my temples against what felt like a
looming headache. Migraine. Brain cloud. I looked up. “Wow. I guess I didn’t
realize it would be that tough a choice. No, I’m not asking you to choose.”

“What does that mean?”

I gave a helpless laugh. “Damned if I know. I think…we seem
to have reached impasse. I feel betrayed by your friendship with Verlane. I
realize that’s not logical. I realize that if I’d made the mistakes Verlane has
made, I’d want my friends to stand by me, hope that someone would help me when
the time came. I just…”

“What?”

I met his eyes. “I just need to come first for someone, Guy.”

He said, “Is it fair to ask for that when I don’t come first
for you?”

Fair question. I’m not sure why it felt like I had suddenly
run out of highway. I replied, “Probably not.”

Neither of us seemed to have anything to add.

At last he moved. “Maybe we both need some time.”

“Yes,” I said, and I rose, as though seeing a guest to the
door.

We went out on the landing, I followed him down the stairs;
saw him out the side door. He hesitated. I knew he was trying to decide if he
should offer to give his key back. I didn’t want him to, but I couldn’t seem to
make myself say anything.

He said, “I’ll call you.”

“I’ll be here,” I said.

And he smiled as though we both knew that wasn’t true.

* * * * *

“Morning,” I called as the glass door swung open with a
cheerful jangle of bells.

“I will never understand men. Why can’t they just
say
what they want?” Natalie deposited
the large pink box of pastries on the counter with strudel-smooshing force.

I glanced up from the register. “What’s that mean?”

“That!” She jabbed her finger at my nose. “That look. That’s
exactly what I mean. It’s like you think it’s a trick question.”

“It
is
a trick
question,” I said, “because if we just tell you what we want, you won’t like
the answer. And then it will be loud and messy and take up a lot of time we don’t
have.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Lisa asked you to talk to me about
Warren, didn’t she?”

“God, no.” I opened the pastry box. “Is it somebody’s
birthday?” Hopefully not hers -- or anyone else’s I was now related to.

She said huffily, “I thought I would like a doughnut this
morning.”

I blinked. “There must be twenty-four doughnuts here.”

“Twenty-eight. You get two free ones with each dozen. Have
one. Anyway, they’re not all doughnuts.”

“I see that.” There was quite a nice selection of baked
goods. I took a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. “I thought carbs were out
this month?”

“I don’t give a damn about carbs,” Natalie said viciously,
and I raised my eyebrows, before returning hastily to counting out the
register.

We always do a brisk business on Saturdays, and that day was
no exception. In between helping customers -- which she did charmingly --
Natalie brooded and somehow managed to eat four doughnuts, two cheese Danishes,
a cinnamon pecan roll, and a bear claw.

“I’d offer to take you to lunch,” I said when twelve o’clock
rolled around, “but I’m afraid you’ll explode.”

“We can’t close the store anyway,” she said. She fastened me
with a darkling eye -- well, as darkling as a blue-eyed blonde who looks like a
Ralph Lauren model can get. “This is why we need some help in here, especially
since you’re busy out sleuthing half the time.”

“We’re going to get some help,” I promised. “And it’s not
like I’m going to continue sleuthing --”

“So you
are
on a
case!” she said triumphantly. “I knew the minute I heard about that murder at
Paul Kane’s mansion. I
knew
it.”

I’d been so busy brooding over Guy and the situation with
Peter Verlane I’d walked right into that one. I said, “You make it sound more
organized than it is. I just agreed to ask a few people some questions, that’s
all.”

“I’ll tell you right now, the wife did it,” Natalie said.

“That seems to be the consensus of opinion. Why do you think
she did it?”

“Well, for starters, did you
see
him? He was old enough to be her father. And he looked like a
frog.”

“Yeah, but love is blind,” I said.

“No, it’s not!” she scoffed. “Not for girls like her.”

Now this was interesting. The feminine perspective. “What do
you mean, girls like her?”

She made an exasperated little clucking sound. “Adrien. She
is a
total
bimbo.”

“Hey, bimbos have feelings too,” I said. “Look at Anna Nicole
Smith.”

She just shook her head.

“Okay,” I said, “but Anna Nicole Smith didn’t knock her
elderly husband off. So why take that risk -- especially when the wife is
always the immediate suspect?”

“Maybe she couldn’t wait.”

“Why wouldn’t she be able to wait?”

Natalie shrugged. I thought it was an interesting point,
though. What if there was some time factor involved? Like…what if Ally’s lover
had given her some kind of ultimatum? Or what if she was pregnant again? Or
what if Porter -- as Paul Kane had hinted -- was planning to change his will?

I said, “But why do it in such a public way? Why not just
arrange a quiet little accident?”

“Maybe she didn’t know how. Or maybe she thought someone else
would be blamed.”

I stared at her. She had something there, but I couldn’t
quite put my finger on what it was. Would Ally have any reason to believe
someone else would be suspected before her in her husband’s death?

Natalie said, “That detective in charge of the case: is he
your
Jake?”

My mouth dried. The words felt arid and dusty as I forced
them out. “Who told you his name?” Like I had to ask.

“Lisa pointed him out on television the other night, and I
recognized him as one of the cops who was in here the other day.”

I opened my mouth, and then shut it. Jake had to know he was
fighting a rearguard action. And I was through lying to my own friends and
family. “Yeah,” I said. “We used to be friends. A long time ago. He’s married
now.”

“Bastard,” she said.

I shook my head. “Not really. He never lied to me. I just
didn’t ask the questions I didn’t want to know the answers to.”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t always known this was the truth, but
as I it said aloud, I absorbed that I was finally able to accept it without
being angry at myself or Jake.

Natalie went to lunch, came back, and I spent my break
surfing the Web finding out what I could on Langley Hawthorne. It was mostly a
tangent. I started out doing some more searching into Nina’s background, but a
couple of references to Hawthorne’s accidental death diverted my attention.

There wasn’t as much information as I would have expected.
Despite his wealth and his interest in movies and moviemaking, Hawthorne had
kept a low profile. His relationship with his daughter was apparently always a
stormy one, but he had doted on her. When he died, she inherited the bulk of
his fortune.

That wasn’t particularly noteworthy; what caught my attention
was the manner of his death. He’d fallen off his yacht and drowned off Catalina
Island. Hawthorne and a handful of close friends had been drinking heavily that
evening -- which was apparently not unusual -- and the Los Angeles Coroner’s
Office had ruled the death an accident.

Even more intriguing was the lineup of guests on that fateful
night. In addition to Al January and Paul Kane, Porter Jones and the first Mrs.
Jones had been present -- as had Nina. This would have been after Nina’s affair
with Porter had ended. Or, more exactly, after her father had insisted Porter
break it off with her. To my way of thinking, at best that would have been one
very awkward get-together.

I considered it for a bit, then I phoned Lisa.

After we got past the pleasantries and unpleasantries --
Darling, I didn’t realize it was
still
a secret
-- I said, “Lisa, at lunch the
other day, you said something about hiring a caterer for this SPCA banquet.
Have you already done that?”

“You mean at the lunch we
didn’t
have the other day?”

“That’s the one. Have you already hired a caterer?”

“We’re moving the venue to the Bonaventure.”

I said, “Would you do me a favor and see if you can set up an
interview with Nina Hawthorne? She owns Truly Scrumptious Catering.”

“But we don’t need a caterer, Adrien. The hotel will take
care of all that.”

“I know, but could you pretend that you’re holding it
wherever you talked about before?”

“I suppose so. Why?” She sounded mildly suspicious.

“I’d like to sit in on the interview.”

Silence.

“Why?” she said, and it was her no-fooling voice.

“I’d like to see what she’s like.”

She said tentatively, “Are you thinking of hiring her for
some event?”

Oh God. Did she think Guy and I were about to tie the knot?

I said, “Sort of. I’d just like to get a feel for her and her
company.”

“All right, darling,” Lisa said, highly amused. “I’ll set
something up, and you can tell me what it’s all about later.”

I hung up, and Natalie tapped on my office door.

“Paul Kane called while you were on the phone.”

I sighed. “Thanks.”

I called Kane back and got his PA. After a brief wait, she
put me through to Kane.

He greeted me in that mellifluous voice, “I was beginning to
wonder if you were ducking my calls.”

I remembered that he had called the previous afternoon, and
I’d never got back to him. Granted, I’d been a little preoccupied with the
detonation of my personal life, but it did seem a little blasé now that I
thought about it -- especially when I believed it possible he was the intended
victim of last weekend’s poisoning. Was I unconsciously hoping someone would
take Paul out?

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been a little busy. In fact, there’s
something I wanted to discuss with you.”

Amused, he said, “This sounds ominous.”

I said, “Has it crossed your mind that you might have been
the target last Sunday?”

It was so abruptly quiet, I wondered if we had lost the
connection. He burst out laughing, and I had to hold the handset away from my
ear.

“Bloody brilliant! You truly had me for half a mo.”

“Yeah, but I’m not kidding,” I persisted. “I’ve been doing
some digging, and I couldn’t help but notice Nina Hawthorne catered your
party.”

“Lose a lot of clients to poison, does she?” He was finding
it all terribly humorous, pip-pip.

“I don’t suppose all her clients share the history with her
you do,” I said.