Lanyon, Josh - Adrien English 04 - Death of a Pirate King (19 page)

As far as I could tell that opinion was based on two things:
Kane’s affair with Nina Hawthorne -- Kirkland’s sympathies clearly lay with
Nina -- and the fact that Hawthorne’s death had left Paul Kane rich and in
control of Associated Talent.

Not exactly conclusive proof. I flipped through the extensive
photo section -- picture after picture of Paul Kane in the glowing picture of
health -- and little else -- selected from film and stage roles as well as a
number of candid shots. Fortune had favored him, no doubt about it. But it
hadn’t all been luck. He had worked his arse off to get where he was, and there
was plenty to admire in that.

After Hawthorne’s death and the disastrous relationship with
Nina, Kane grew less and less discreet about his sexuality -- and I thought I
began to better understand where Kirkland’s disapproval stemmed from. As she
elegantly phrased it, “If it moved, Paul screwed it.”

In a couple of magazine interviews Kane had admitted he was
bisexual and hinted that he had a taste for the kinkier side of romance. When
he was photographed at Cannes in a compromising position with a male companion,
his career had taken its first serious hit in over a decade. The experts at
Entertainment Weekly
and
Variety
had openly speculated that his
career was over, but then
The Last
Corsair
was released, and Kane ended up a bigger star than ever before.

It was late when I finished
Glorious Thing
, and I wasn’t sure if I really had a better
understanding of Paul Kane. I wasn’t sure if it mattered. I tossed the book
aside. It landed a few feet from the bed, cover facing up with Paul Kane
grinning that dashing pirate king smile at me. I turned out the bedside light,
pounded the pillows into shape.

The tune to Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirate King and Chorus”
was running through my mind.

Oh, better far to live and die

Under the brave black flag I fly,

Than play a sanctimonious part,

With a pirate head and a pirate heart.

Away to the cheating world go you,

Where pirates all are well-to-do;

But I’ll be true to the song I sing,

And live and die a Pirate King.

Somewhere in the alley below, a cat was yowling.

Chapter Sixteen

“I realize that duck confit never goes out of fashion,” my
mother said, discarding the elegant foldout brochure she had been browsing, “but
I was hoping for something with a little more…verve.”

Verve
. Yes, because
what’s the point of eating food that just tastes good? Not that duck confit
with pomegranate molasses on crispy rice paper exactly fell into my “just
tastes good” category. I’d have gone with crab puffs if it had been left to me.

But apparently Lisa was speaking Nina Hawthorne’s language.
“Of course,” Nina said, very businesslike. “I know the exact thing.” She opened
a binder stuffed with gorgeous photos of comestibles -- I mean, you couldn’t
call that stuff anything as plebeian as
food
.
“Grilled New Zealand lamb lollipops with a blueberry port wine sauce.”

“Oh my,” Lisa murmured, gazing at the sumptuous photograph.
She glanced sideways at me. “Adrien?”

Yep, she was enjoying this
way
too much.

“Lamb for an SPCA banquet?” I said doubtfully.

Lisa made a little exasperated sound. Another woman would
have smacked her forehead. “He does have a point,” she said regretfully.

Nina took it with good grace. She had taken everything with
good grace, and that can’t have been easy given Lisa’s peculiarly playful mood.
I studied Paul Kane’s former paramour unobtrusively. It was strange to meet
someone I had been studying as though she were on my final exam. Like meeting
someone in history. Like Betsy Ross, but with fewer stars and more stripes.

She was a bit younger than Kane, but her odometer showed the
wear and tear of those years of booze and pills and one-night stands. She was
very pale -- almost dry looking -- and her face was very lined. Her hair was in
the crew cut she had adopted a decade earlier, but she had let it go
prematurely silver. The result was striking. She was small and fine-boned --
and with that papery, delicate skin she reminded me of origami.

“What about crispy swordfish bites with a wasabi dipping
sauce?” she suggested, reaching for another binder.

Apparently she really wanted this SPCA gig.

“Your firm catered that party at Paul Kane’s, didn’t you?” I
said, having decided we’d had enough preliminaries to get her relaxed. “I recognize
the salmon canapés.”

Nina stared at me. Her eyes reminded me of Jake’s: that tawny
color that looks almost amber in certain light. Lynx eyes, I thought.

“Yes,” she said briefly, dampeningly, and offered another
binder to Lisa.

And, astonishingly, Lisa leaped to the rescue, taking the
binder and exclaiming, “Oh, I saw that on the news! How
dreadful
for you! The man was
poisoned
.”

“It was not the food,” Nina said quickly.

“No, they think it must have been something in his drink,” I
said.

Her eyes flicked to mine again. “Yes. I heard that also.”

“I was sitting right next to him when he collapsed,” I
confided.

Lisa turned and gave me a long look -- which I ignored.

“That must have been terrible,” Nina said politely. Hard to
believe she had once been in love with Porter -- but then she had been in love
a lot back then.

“He was a big Hollywood producer,” I said. “Maybe you even
catered one of his parties.”

“Porter didn’t give parties,” Nina said. Meeting my gaze, she
said, “I knew him, yes. He was a friend of my family’s.”

“Was he the kind of person who gets murdered?” Lisa asked
innocently.

Nina turned the lynx’s gaze on her. I could see various
unkind comments going through her mind, but what she said was, “No. I can’t
imagine anyone wanting to kill Porter. He was…” She shrugged. “He was an
inoffensive old sot, really.”

I said, “Maybe the intent was to kill someone else and they
poisoned Porter Jones by mistake?”

Her laugh was jarring. “That would make more sense. I imagine
half the people at that party had reason to want Paul dead.”

“I don’t really know him that well,” I said. “His production
company optioned one of my books.”

“Congratulations,” she said politely. “Just watch the fine
print on anything he asks you to sign.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Bitter experience,” she agreed. To Lisa she said, “Might I
suggest our cornmeal-crusted calamari with a hot cherry pepper aioli?”

“Oh,
yummy
,” Lisa
murmured.

I left them to it, concurring when requested, watching Nina
while they pored over the books. I didn’t place much significance on her
curtness. I’d have been pretty curt too if someone had treated the death of
someone I knew as a tourist attraction. She didn’t seem particularly guilty,
not that I would necessarily recognize guilt. I might mistake it for offense or
wariness. But one thing did stand out: regardless of what Paul Kane thought,
Nina Hawthorne still hated his guts.

* * * * *

After Nina gathered up her binders and departed, Lisa and I
had lunch.

“You didn’t want to observe her in action for any event,”
Lisa said, serving me a slice of spinach quiche warm from the oven -- Marie
Callender’s oven, that is.

“Er…no,” I admitted.

“You’re investigating that man’s murder, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t really use the word
investigating
,” I said, avoiding her eye. I picked up my fork. “I’m
asking a few questions at the request of Paul Kane, that’s all.”

“This is the case that Jake is working on.” It was not a
question.

I answered, “He’s a police lieutenant. I think he keeps tabs
on a lot of cases.”

Lisa sighed.

I waited for her to say more, but to my relief she actually
let it go. I smiled at her. “Thanks, by the way. You were great with her.”

She preened a little. “I was, wasn’t I?”

We finished lunch and I split for the bookstore so Natalie
could have the rest of the day off.

“The cat was in here again,” she informed me accusingly, as I
glanced through the morning’s receipts.

“Was he? Did you recommend Lilian Jackson Braun? She should
be right up his alley.” I glanced up. “No pun intended.”

She was not amused. Glaring at me, she said, “I cannot
believe
how hard-hearted you are.”

“Believe it,” I said. I checked my watch. “Aren’t you
supposed to be meeting Warren in twenty minutes?”

She went.

I spent the rest of the afternoon refreshing my knowledge of
what booksellers actually did -- sleuthing turned out not to be part of the job
description -- and trying to decide if it was worth calling Jake over anything
I’d discovered talking to Nina Hawthorne.

Since I’d already decided I wasn’t going to pursue the
investigation, it shouldn’t have been much of a decision, but reading the
biography on Paul Kane the night before had unwillingly revived my interest in
the case.

Or maybe I was just grasping for something -- anything -- to
take my mind off my own problems.

Guy had not called. I wondered just how much support from his
friends Peter Verlane required? But I knew -- or at least, I thought I knew --
that Guy’s withdrawal probably had more to do with me than Verlane.

Luckily the afternoon was busy, and I hadn’t time to brood.
By the time I pulled the ornate security gate closed and locked the front door,
I was beat. I’d have liked nothing more than to get takeout from someplace and
watch one of my favorite flicks from my collection of pirate movies, but I
remembered that Partners in Crime was meeting that night.

I went back downstairs and assembled the chairs in a circle,
set up the coffee machine, and hunted up extra red pencils. I finished off the
orange-pineapple juice while I glanced through the newspaper.

Porter Jones’s murder was already off the front page, which
probably said more about his noncelebrity status than the effort LAPD was
making to solve the case. There didn’t appear to be much headway in the
investigation since Jake and I had last spoken on Friday night.

Friday night. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

* * * * *

Detective Paul Chan, Jake’s former partner in homicide
investigation, was the first of the Partners in Crime group to arrive.

Chan was middle-aged and putting on weight. He smelled of
cigarettes as he set down a couple of packages of Oreo cookies on the counter,
and I deduced his latest effort to quit smoking had crashed and burned.

“I’m thinking of self-publishing,” he informed me.

Two packages of Oreos? What was Chan thinking? Golden Oreos
did not count as a second selection. I could hear the womenfolk bitching now.
And he hadn’t brought any cream or milk. I’d have to supply that again -- along
with the sugar and paper plates and cups and napkins. Did these people think I
was made of money?

I said, “Ah. Did you hear back from --?”

“I’ve heard back from everyone in New York publishing,” he
said. “What it gets down to is nobody’s interested in a book about what real
police work is like.”

Well, no. Because it was apparently dull as ditchwater. At
least the way Chan wrote it. I said, “Well, self-publishing is one option. Or
you could try rewriting --”

But he was already on another track. “I saw Jake the other
day.” His brown eyes met mine. “He said he’d talked to you.”

I didn’t quite understand his intent expression. “Yeah,” I
said vaguely.

“He said you were on the scene when that Laurel Canyon
homicide went down.”

“I’m lucky that way,” I said.

“So are you two square again?”

I halted, mid-ripping open the cookies, and stared at him.
“Well, he’s pretty square,” I said. “I’m just a rectangular guy.” With latent
triangular tendencies.

Chan said painstakingly, “I mean…are you two okay again?”
Adding quickly and uncomfortably, “Friends?”

For an instant I didn’t have an answer. My mind was totally
blown by the news that Jake had apparently confided -- no, that couldn’t be
right. Jake had apparently been bothered enough by our falling-out that he’d
let Chan see it. And Chan must have deduced…or Jake must have said…

Chan must have noticed and maybe drawn some weird conclusion.

Because…

Because anything else was…not even in the realm of
possibility, right?

So why was I standing there feeling sort of warm and…utterly
idiotic? Because Jake had apparently been sorry enough to lose my friendship
that he’d let his partner know? Pathetic was what this was.

But I said gruffly, “Yeah, we’re okay.”

“That’s good,” Chan said, more uncomfortable by the minute.
“So what do you think of Alonzo?”

“I think he’s a freaking moron.”

“He’s not a moron,” Chan said soberly. “He’s a little rough
around the edges, but he’s got good instincts.”

“I don’t know about that. He was sizing me up for a pair of
bracelets not too long ago. I may still be high on his hit parade for all I
know.”

Chan said easily, “He probably just sensed you were hiding
something.”

I stared at him, but he didn’t seem to realize what he’d just
admitted to knowing.

“Anyway,” he said, flipping through the copies of his story,
“Jake’s staying involved on this one. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

I said slowly, “Do you think Jake would try to influence the
outcome of an investigation to protect a friend?”

Chan stared at me. “You mean if the friend was guilty?”

“I’m just talking theoretical.”

“You know better than that,” he said scornfully, and went
back to sorting through his papers.

I wanted to ask him if he had any ideas about the case, but
Jean and Ted Finch arrived at that moment.