The Proof is in the Pudding (6 page)

Going to bed sounded like a good idea to me, but when I turned around I discovered that Emma, my little calico cat, had joined Tuffy and that both of them were staring at me. The message in their eyes was unmistakable: They wanted breakfast.

“Okay, guys,” I told them. “You win.”

After letting Tuffy out for a quick trip to the backyard—the prelude to our usual long morning walk—I fed the two of them. I was now too thoroughly awake to return to bed, so I took a shower and put on a fresh T-shirt and pair of sweatpants.

Lack of enough sleep tends to make me hungry. I tell myself that it’s my body compensating for loss of rest by craving food for energy. This morning I also told myself that cooking—working with my hands on an old, familiar dish like stuffed French toast—would clear my head to think about Eileen’s problem. The only thing about the situation that gave me any comfort at all was the fact that we had some time to come up with a solution. By his own stated timetable, Ingram wouldn’t be coming after Eileen for at least a month or two. Still, there was a huge threat hanging over Eileen’s head, and I wasn’t going to rest easy until it was removed.

As the coffee brewed and I was whipping up the milk, vanilla extract, and egg mixture, I thought about Ingram. I didn’t know enough about him yet to devise some counterthreat.

I was using my paring knife to carve one-inch-long openings in the bottom crust of French bread slices and scoop out a little of the insides when the doorbell rang again.

I turned off the heat under the pan in which two pats of butter were melting and hurried to the door.

This time when I glanced through the front window I saw Phil Logan pressing the bell. Over his other arm, he carried three long garment bags.

When I opened the door, Phil greeted me with a pleased expression and indicated the garment bags. “It’s hard to get sample gowns for somebody who isn’t a size two, but fortunately there’s this new Spanish designer who appreciates women with curves, so I got you a couple of . . .” He lifted his chin, and wrinkled his nose. “What’s that wonderful aroma—and do you have enough for me?”

“There’s plenty.”

I led Phil to my bedroom, where he hung the garment bags on the bathroom door, and followed me into the kitchen. Briefly, I considered asking Phil for information about Ingram, but I decided against that. Phil would want to know why, and I couldn’t tell him.

Unaware that I was worried about anything, Phil set the table for breakfast. He had eaten here many times over the months, and knew where the plates, napkins, and cutlery were. As soon as he’d completed that task, he joined me at the counter beside the stove.

“What are you making?”

“Stuffed French toast.”

“Stuffed? How can you stuff toast?”

“You can’t use an ordinary presliced loaf, but if you use French bread, it’s simple,” I said, demonstrating. “I just insert a spoonful of fruit preserves into the pockets I’ve cut in the bread slices, spread the filling around inside, and put the little rectangle of bottom crust I opened up back into place. That seals the preserves inside the bread. Then I dredge the bread in the egg and milk mixture, and put it into the heated skillet.”

As soon as I dropped the egg-coated bread slices into the pan, they began to sizzle in the butter. The heat released the delicious scent of vanilla extract and fruit preserves into the air.

“It only takes a few seconds on each side.”

I gently lifted the corner of one slice with my wide Ma-rio Batali spatula to check the underside. When it was just the right shade of golden brown, I said, “Perfect.” I turned the slices over to brown the other side.

Phil, unable to be inactive for more than a few seconds at a time, poured mugs of coffee for us and brought our plates over to the stove. I scooped the slices of French toast out of the skillet and transferred them to the plates.

“Just one more thing.” I picked up the little sifter I kept especially for powdered sugar and gave the slices a light dusting.

At the table with our plates and coffee, I watched Phil cut into his toast and smile with delight as the preserves oozed out. When he began to eat, his expression turned ecstatic, and he began making satisfied “Hmmm” noises. His reaction reminded me of that famous fake orgasm scene in
When Harry Met Sally
.

In a wry tone, I said, “I guess it’s as good for you as it is for me.”

He touched the napkin to his lips. “If I ever decide to get married again, I might give Nick D’Martino some competition.”

“Phil, I’m fifteen years older than you.”

“When a woman cooks this good, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Besides, since you won’t lie about your age, I’m promoting the idea that forty-seven is the new thirty-five. I got an article about that coming out in next month’s
Vanity Fair
. One of the dozen photos is a still from your show.”

Phil finished that first piece of toast, and the three more that I made for him. When he was full at last, he thanked me and got up from the table. “Let’s get to work. I have to see how you look in those dresses.”

Eileen came into my room while I was modeling them for Phil. She was a little pale, but her hair was brushed and she was dressed in a clean blue tracksuit.

“Hi, you two. What’s going on?” To someone who didn’t know her well, Eileen sounded normal, but I knew it was an act of will.

I said, “Phil borrowed three designer gowns for me to choose one to wear for . . .” I stopped, feeling awkward.

Eileen faked a smile. Her lips curved up, but the expression didn’t make it all the way to her eyes. “That’s okay,” she said. “I know it’s for the big gala tomorrow night.”

She studied the peach chiffon gown with the empire waist that I was wearing, and then the black silk and the blue jersey dresses on hangers.

“The one you’re wearing looks great,” she said. “But the asymmetrical neckline on the black dress isn’t going to be flattering. The blue jersey matches your eyes, but it’s going to cling in the wrong places.”

Phil made a circle with his right thumb and forefinger. “You’ve got a good eye. The peach chiffon gets my vote, too.”

The sudden ringing of the phone caused Eileen to flinch. Her composure slipped for just a moment. I wanted to whisper a word of comfort to her, but I couldn’t do that in front of Phil.

When I answered, I heard Car Guy’s voice. He got right to the point.

“The red VW—it belongs to the cutie who lives with you, right?”

“Yes, it’s Eileen O’Hara’s. Do you know what’s wrong with it?”

“Just a loose wire to the distributor cap. No big deal. It’s ready to go. If she picks it up herself, I’ll give her the company discount.”

“Careful. Her father’s with the LAPD.”

“Don’t worry—I did my time. If she threw herself at me, I wouldn’t catch her. Seriously, I’m not going to charge for a loose wire. I found the problem in about five seconds.”

“You’re a nice man, Car.”

“Yeah, well, keep that to yourself,” he said gruffly.

I relayed the repair information to Eileen.

She took the receiver and thanked Car warmly, then looked at me and asked, “Can you drive me over there?”

“I’ll take you,” Phil said. He was putting the two rejected gowns back into their garment bags. “I’ve got to go out to the studio anyway.”

“That’s great,” Eileen said. “Thanks.”

While I was in the bathroom, carefully stepping out of the borrowed designer gown, Eileen knocked on the door. “Aunt Del?”

“You can come in.”

She opened the door only enough to say, “After I get my car, I’m going to our store to do the inventory.”

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“Not great, but I’ll keep busy.” She paused, looked at the floor, and then looked up at me. “Have you thought of some way to stop Keith?”

“Not yet, but there
is
a solution and we’ll find it. Please believe that.”

“I’ll try.” There was a note of childlike disappointment in her voice; one of her three parent figures—me—had just let her down. I felt terrible.

Changing the subject, I asked, “Will you be home for dinner?”

She shook her head. “Daddy’s working, and Mother was going to be alone, so I’m meeting her for an early bite.”

Dressed in my own clothes again, I came out of the bathroom. “Where’s Phil?”

“Waiting for me in his car.”

“Eileen, we
are
going to solve your problem. In the meantime, promise me you’re not going to do anything foolish.”

“You mean more foolish than what I’ve already done?” Her voice had a bitter edge. “I don’t think I could.”

We heard the discordant
bleep-bleep
we recognized as the horn in Phil Logan’s Mercedes.

“The Publicity Man Honk-eth. I gotta run.” She gave my hand a quick grasp, and then she was gone.

I was left alone to worry about her, and to wonder how in the world I was going to protect her from Keith Ingram.

If the girl in this fix had been anyone except his own daughter, I would go to John O’Hara for help. But John was the last person on earth in whom I dared confide now. As controlled as he was professionally, Mack had described him to me once as a sleeping volcano.

Years ago, John had broken both the arms of a hospital orderly when he’d caught the man trying to molest Shannon, during one of the times she’d been confined to a psychiatric facility. I couldn’t predict what he might do in defense of his daughter.

I decided that I had to confide in Nicholas D’Martino and ask him for help. As a crime reporter, he was a skilled investigator. Maybe he could discover something Ingram was hiding—a powerful counterthreat that would force him to give us the video of Eileen.

If there wasn’t anything to use against Ingram, perhaps Nicholas and I could come up with another plan. But he wouldn’t be back in Los Angeles until Friday, and I didn’t know how long I could keep Eileen from doing something reckless.

Friday seemed a long way off.

Eileen came home Tuesday night some time after I’d gone to bed. Wednesday morning she was gone before I got up, but she left a note saying that she was going to Della’s Sweet Dreams, our retail fudge and brownie business on Hollywood Boulevard.

She called at ten thirty to give me a positive report about our on-site sales.

“The walk-in business has doubled in the last two weeks,” she said. “I think we should stay open two hours longer, for the people who want to pick up dessert on their way home from work. And I think we should hire a second counter clerk.”

“Go ahead. You and Walter interview the applicants.”

Walter Hovey was our factory manager, a retired actor with the silver-haired looks and cultured bearing of an ambassador to the Court of St. James. We’d had the good luck to inherit him when Mickey Jordan bought the building and equipment of the bakery Walter had been working for.

Eileen asked, “Do you want to interview the ones we like best?”

“No. I trust your judgment. What about circulating the word at UCLA and USC? This might be a good job for a student.”

“I’m on it. I’ll see if I can find one who doesn’t like sweets so he or she won’t eat up our profits.”

I laughed. She said good-bye and disconnected before I had a chance to wish her luck in finding the right person.

Her little joke told me that she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. That was a good sign, but I was a little worried about her emotional state. Someone who didn’t know Eileen as well as I did would have thought that she just sounded excited, but I could tell that the level was a little too high to be normal. It concerned me, but I told myself to be glad that she was keeping busy.

The plan for Wednesday evening was that Liddy and Bill Marshall would pick me up and that we would drive in their car to the Olympia Grand Hotel. Shannon had called earlier to say that she and John would meet us at the gala.