The Flaming Luau of Death (20 page)

The catering/event-planning business has been very, very good to Madeline Bean, but even so, it’s not as good as the real estate biz. So what would Maddie do to acquire a killer apartment in LA? Pump the elderly landlady for hints as to her favorite culinary treats—and then bribe her with her own inspired gourmet version? Yup. Indulge the old woman in reminiscences of her film days? Yup. Knock off the competition for a piece of prime real estate? Now wait a minute…

Madeline Bean finds big trouble at a certain historic penthouse. So what does a savvy, determined, crimesolving foodie do?

Please join Madeline Bean as she hits the ground running—boldly looking for a killer, craftily avoiding becoming the next victim, and

DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSHI

Available Winter 2006 in hardcover from William Morrow

A girl’s got to eat, after all…

T
he back streets of Hollywood. Not glittery. Not glamorous. Not at all. Not when you’re on the ground floor of some out-of-the-way historic old building at nighttime. Not when you’re supposed to be all alone and you distinctly hear the sound of stealthy footsteps.

Footsteps?

I stopped moving, stopped breathing. My eyes strained in the dim hallway. I listened, but my ears were now filled with the pounding of my heart. All else was silence. Adrenaline jolted me into a suspended state, hyper-alert to every tiny detail in the hall around me—the grime-muted picture of an orange grove hanging on the wall; the pattern of huge dark-green spiky plant leaves on the faded vintage wallpaper; the faint sound of wailing sirens filtering in from Selma Street—but I worked hard to resist the tug of panic.

I put a hand out to steady myself against the wall, tried to calm myself down to a state just north of cautious alarm. Think it through. Review the facts. There had been a noise. A definite shuffling noise. Had I really heard footsteps? Could it have been, instead, only the sounds of…what? Well, rats. It might have been rats scurrying away out of sight. But, come to think of it,
would that make my situation any less frightening?

“Mrs. Gillespie?” My voice sounded whiney and tentative. Ridiculous. “Hello?” I was satisfied to hear my register drop an octave, the volume increase to hearty. “Mrs. Gillespie, is that you?”

Silence. More silence.

Edith Gillespie had been quite clear. I was to come at eight and we would meet in her “penthouse” on the fourteenth floor. Mrs. Gillespie never came downstairs anymore, she assured me. She had given me the combination to the lock she kept on the building’s outer front door, and she had just a few minutes ago buzzed me in from the building’s tiny lobby through the inner security door that led into the main part of the building. And here, at the end of this long hallway I would find the service elevator. I had visited Mrs. Gillespie several times before, so I knew the routine.

But I had only ever been here at the Edithwood Palms during the daytime, when her young valet, Bo, had been around to let me in and walk me to the elevator. At night this old gem of a building was much different.

In the few minutes that passed, there had been no more shuffling noises. My pulse was beginning to get back to its normal steady rhythm but my senses were still on active alert, taking in every detail. Pale green paint flaked from the ceiling, lit only weakly by the occasional working wall fixture—but what magnificent lighting fixtures they were! Chrome-plated ziggurats with tool-cut piercings. Pure art deco gorgeousness. Still, from a practical perspective they were part of the problem. Without enough wattage, I could see only seven feet or so ahead of me. But at least I had come prepared.

So there I stood. Listening to nothing more than the muffled sound of sirens from the street outside. Holding
a powerful flashlight in one hand and a basket of freshly baked cherry tarts in the other. If only I’d been wearing a red-hooded cloak, you could make your little jokes with impunity.

I suppose I shouldn’t have come to the Edithwood Palms that night but I was desperate. I was engaged in a war and that meant pressing every advantage, didn’t it? I had had an impetuous impulse. Mrs. Gillespie had a sweet tooth and very little will power. This one secret could be my key to the kingdom!

I am a professional baker and all-around trained chef and, wonder of wonders, Mrs. Gillespie had found this fact most delightful. My name is Madeline Bean and I co-own a successful event-planning company called Mad Bean Events, but she had no interest in parties so wasn’t wowed by that little fact. No, it was baked goods that lit up her world. I had already scored big points by bringing her a fabulous key-lime pie (one of her favorite childhood memories) and a tin of home-baked apricot macaroons (her late husband’s favorite treats). As she sampled my high-calorie offerings, she let her guard down a little and reminisced about the good old days.

“Do you know what Mr. Berkeley called me?” Edith Gillespie had asked, selecting a perfect macaroon from the box of goodies I’d delivered.

“You mean Busby Berkeley, the great director?” Okay. I was laying it on thick. Forgive me. I wanted this damned apartment.

“Yes, Madeline, dear. The wonderful Mr. Berkeley. He had an eye for talent. A great, great eye. What a perfectionist he was! He called me ‘Gilly’. For Gillespie, you know. He said I had the perfect figure. Perfect, he said. For a dancer. All Mr. Berkeley’s girls were beautiful, you know. You’ve seen my work?”

“You appeared in the big Busby Berkeley musicals. How wonderful is that!” My partner Wes and I have a great fondness for the big splashy MGM musicals from the thirties and forties, so I’d seen a lot of Busby Berkeley movies. Naturally, I couldn’t be expected to remember one face out of a chorus of hundreds, even if I could guess what Edith had looked like as a young woman, but I nodded and smiled and Edith took another macaroon.

“Wonderful, yes,” Edith said, but then her expression changed. “Poor Mr. Berkeley. His life took such a tragic turn.”

It did? I didn’t really know much about him. Just that he had an amazing gift for choreographing long lines of dancing girls.

“Tragic?”

“Oh yes. All that booze, for one thing. That wasn’t good for him.”

I supposed not, but urged Mrs. Gillespie to go ahead and have another macaroon.

“My dear Madeline, the poor man would sit in his daily bath and simply guzzle martinis.”

I looked duly shocked.

“It was a shame. He never recovered from his dear mother’s death,” she explained, “He had been devoted to her. Simply devoted.” Mrs. G had a chatty way with her, never bothering to fill in all the details, leaving many tantalizing threads unpulled. But she had such first-hand knowledge of all the movie stars of the past, I loved hearing the insider gossip, even if we were dishing about a man who had been dead and gone for over thirty years.

“Was Mr. Gillespie in the movies, too?” I asked her.

This new topic allowed her to dip once more into the box of macaroons.

“Oh, goodness no,” she said, and I thought I could detect
a few dimples joining the rather deep creases already in place in her still-lovely face as she smiled at me. “My Walter was a man of business. His family had money, you see. They never approved when Walter decided to marry a chorus girl from the pictures. Oh, there was a great big fuss over that, I’ll tell you. But Walter knew what he wanted and he wanted me.”

As she talked about the past, I stole a few glances around her apartment on the top floor of the Edithwood Palms. It took up the entire floor and measured over six thousand square feet. It had very high walls, maybe twelve feet, which curved up to the ceiling, and all the doorways were long and arched. This was the only floor in the entire structure with windows and they were glorious, tall and wide with arches that matched the other arched features of the interior. Each magnificent window was surrounded by carved wood frames done in gold leaf. Her late husband, Mr. Gillespie, must have been a darn good businessman.

“When Walter came courting me,” she was saying, “he always brought me something sweet! Chocolate or marzipan. Simply decadent! And my favorite of all were cherry tarts. We both loved those.”

Aha! I made a mental note to stop by the farmer’s market on my way home and pick up a few pints of fresh cherries. Of course, I tucked this exciting tidbit from Mrs. G’s culinary past away. I had to use what little advantage I had, didn’t I, if I was to secure the apartment of my dreams?

The problem was, others were after the penthouse. They wanted it badly. Well, so did I.

I moved my flashlight so I could see a little further down the hallway. The building was fourteen stories high, but all the bottom floors had no windows. This
might make perfect sense for a grain silo. Or an insane asylum. Or a storage warehouse, which was the purpose for which this building had been built eighty years ago.

I hadn’t heard any more footsteps or sounds of any kind so I stepped up the pace and jogged up the hall. About thirty feet from where I had stopped, the hall dead ended at a pair of elevators. Service elevators. Of course, the old Edithwood Palms had at one time had working elevators off of the lobby, but Mrs. Gillespie had the working mechanism for them shut down years ago since she never used them. Instead, what few visitors she had these days were obliged to find their way to the back of the building and use the service elevators. I pushed the call button and looked up at the car signal display, noting both elevators seemed to be resting on floor fourteen.

Only one of the pair of elevators faced the interior of the building. The other one was huge and opened to the exterior. It was used as a loading dock to bring large items up to the higher floors. The Edithwood Palms had been built to house storage lockers, large rooms which were leased over the years to individuals who needed extra room to hold their belongings. Only the top floor had ever been residential, the home to the proprietor, Walter Henning Gillespie and his wife.

I waited for the elevator to descend, feeling exposed and alone.

From the street again I heard muffled sirens. This section of Hollywood was like chipped china. But of such a dear old pattern I forgave it its flaws.

The elevator appeared to be stalled on fourteen. I couldn’t stand still, couldn’t wait any longer.

Instead, I pushed open the door to the service stairs. Fourteen stories. It would be good for me.

I began to climb and felt some relief. I would be upstairs in no time. It occurred to me that I might have to negotiate with Mrs. Gillespie to allow me to repair the guest elevator at the front of the building. At first, I’d found the entire scheme charming—Mrs. G told me I could park my car as she has always done. Right up on the fourteenth floor! She doesn’t drive herself now, of course, but she has her valet drive her old car. He pulls it right into the large service elevator that opens on the loading dock in the back alley. He rides up to the fourteenth floor and then locks the elevator there until he’s ready to go out again. On those occasions when Mrs. G wants to be taken on an outing, she has only to walk up to the elevator and enter her car.

I was up to the eighth floor and had begun to slow down. I had always thought I’d been in pretty good shape. Maybe I needed to reevaluate.

As I drew up to the twelfth floor I stopped at the landing. I was breathing hard. I admit it. I had definitely got to do something about working out. I got a lot of exercise running my parties, always on my feet, always running around, but I realize that twenty-nine years old isn’t sixteen anymore. I would have to face this reality. I was slowing down. Damn it. I huffed. Actually huffed. Only twelve stories. I was pathetic.