The Proof is in the Pudding (7 page)

When I opened the door to Liddy’s ring, I was astonished to see neither her ivory Range Rover nor Bill’s bronze Cadillac in front of my house. Instead, parked parallel to my front lawn, there was a black vehicle almost as long as a bus. Beside it stood a heavily built man in a boxy black suit, the jacket’s buttons straining against his girth. He wore his black chauffeur’s cap pulled down to a scant inch above his thick eyebrows.

“You hired a limousine?” I asked.

“It’s so we don’t have to stand in line at valet parking for an hour at the end of the night,” Bill said.

Long-limbed, lean, and energetic, Bill Marshall, Beverly Hills DDS, looked comfortable in his dinner jacket. At age forty-eight, he played basketball on Saturdays, and sometimes Liddy went to cheer him on. Afterwards, they’d have a “date night.” Liddy told me that since last September, when their twin sons went off to college in the east, she and Bill were living like newlyweds again. “It’s the first time in eighteen years that we can run around the house naked,” she’d said. “Thank God I haven’t deteriorated too much.”

And she hadn’t. Twenty-five years ago, Liddy had been crowned “Miss Nebraska.” Like so many blonde and blue-eyed American beauties before and since, Liddy packed her crown and sash and headed for Hollywood with dreams of stardom.

It only took a few months of her being pawed by casting directors and propositioned by agents and producers before Liddy realized that the life of an actress was not for her. The night she set eyes on a young man with shaggy blondish hair and what Liddy called an “adorable nose-and-a-half” she knew what kind of life she really wanted. Twenty-three years later, she was still happy about the choice she’d made.

As soon as Liddy came through the door, she instructed me take a few steps backward and do a full, slow turn in front of her.

Liddy clapped her hands enthusiastically. “You look gorgeous in that dress. It’s Jorge Allesandro, isn’t it?”

“How did you know?”

“I saw his trunk show at Neiman last month.”

“I wouldn’t have known Jorge Allesandro from Taco Bell if Phil Logan hadn’t drilled me on his name. In case someone in the media asks
who
I’m wearing.”

As usual, Liddy looked stunning. Her square-neck black silk gown with long sleeves was the perfect frame for her light hair and the teardrop diamond pendant that had been a twentieth-anniversary present from Bill.

“Where’s Eileen?” Liddy asked.

That startled me. “Is she still going with us?”

“Of course I am.”

I turned to see Eileen coming into the living room from the hallway. Her hair had been professionally arranged and her makeup was subtle but perfect.

“Why shouldn’t I go?” Her direct gaze at me communicated the request that I not answer that question.

Bill stared at Eileen. “Wow. When did funny-looking little Gigi grow up?”

Eileen laughed. “Several years ago, Uncle Bill. You just never see me in makeup, or wearing anything but running clothes.”

“I’m glad I’m not twenty anymore, Eileen,” Liddy said. “I wouldn’t want to compete with you for a man. And you’re wearing Jorge Allesandro, too. It’s gorgeous.” Liddy turned to me with a teasing twinkle in her eyes. “That fudge business of yours must be doing very well.”

“This dress is on loan.” Eileen glanced at me. She looked embarrassed, and I guessed that it was because she was wearing the blue jersey gown that she’d said would cling in all the wrong places on me. “Phil suggested I wear it,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t. It looks perfect on you,” I said, meaning it.

Turning to the Marshalls, but including Eileen, I said, “I have to be at the hotel half an hour before the doors to the ballroom open, to check in at the manager’s office and get my judging gear. I hate the thought of you three just standing around in the lobby, waiting.”

Bill draped one arm each around Liddy and Eileen. “Don’t worry about us. I’ll take the girls into the cocktail lounge for a drink and let all the other men envy me for being with two such beautiful women.” He nodded toward the front door. “You gals ready?”

“Just a minute.” I took Eileen’s hand. “Honey, come help me look for my evening bag. We’ll be right back.”

As soon as we were out of sight and beyond the hearing of Liddy and Bill, I said, “Are you sure you want to come tonight? Are you up to being in the same room with that rotten jerk?”

Eileen’s eyes glittered with anger. “I want him to see what he’s missing,” she said.

The Olympia Grand Hotel was located on Wilshire Boulevard, a few blocks east of Westwood Boulevard, at the western edge of a swath of elegant high-rise buildings that contained some of the most expensive condominiums in the world. Platinum Row, some called it. For the residents, those condos were mansions with a concierge, on-site plumbers, electricians, and maid service, and without the need of gardeners. Several of the buildings also included private chefs among the amenities.

The limousine Bill hired—I couldn’t bring myself to call it
our
limousine—turned into the lane leading to the hotel’s entrance. We were behind two other identical black vehicles.

The driver stopped and came around to open the rear door and to help us out. I saw that two more limousines had made the turn from Wilshire to the hotel’s entrance and were slowing to a stop behind us.

I asked Bill, “How are we going to find the car when the evening’s over?”

The driver gave a little salute with the fingers of one meaty hand. “I’ll find you. My name is Rudy.”

Bill thanked him, then steered his three female companions toward the entrance to the Olympia Grand Hotel and through the heavy glass and brass revolving doors. Exceptionally handsome doors, the entwined initials O and G were etched onto the glass panels in ornamental calligraphy.

Inside, the crowded lobby replicated a Hollywood set decorator’s idea of a pagan temple: high ceilings, soaring sconces wired for electricity but miming candlelight, and walls covered by vivid frescoes featuring Greek gods at play.

“This is very flattering lighting,” Liddy said. “I haven’t been here since Gene Long bought the hotel and redecorated it.”

I reached out for Liddy’s hand and pulled her beside me. “Do you mean Eugene Long, who has a fleet of oil tankers and an airline? Tina Long’s father owns this place?”

Liddy nodded. “The hotel is his hobby. I don’t know how he can pay attention to his businesses with the time he has to spend getting that dippy
celebutante
daughter of his out of trouble. I’m not surprised he’s got a reputation for getting plastered as soon as the sun goes down. If she were my daughter, I’d drink, too. Why are you interested in them?”

I was saved from having to think of an answer. Bill and Eileen had nearly reached the entrance to the lounge when he seemed to realize that Liddy wasn’t with them. He turned around and gestured for her to catch up.

“See you later,” I said, gently shooing her toward Bill and Eileen. I watched them disappear through the archway into the cocktail lounge, where a pianist was playing melodies from Broadway musicals.

Peering through the humanity parading across the lobby, I saw a notice board on an easel announcing that the Celebrity Cook-Off was going to be held in the Elysian Ballroom at seven PM. A few yards from where I stood there was a door with a brass sign identifying it as the “Manager’s Office.” According to Phil, that was where I was supposed to present myself to collect my judging cards and clipboard.

The only negative about this event was that I would have to see Keith Ingram. I didn’t want him to suspect that I knew what he had done to Eileen, so I would have to be polite to him. It was a revolting thought, but necessary until I figured out what to do.

Straightening my posture, I headed toward my destination through the crowd of strangers. Several of them glanced at me with that “Do I know you?” look in their eyes. I smiled back. Perhaps they’d seen the show, but didn’t recognize me all glammed up.

Reaching the entrance to the manager’s office, I was about to knock when the door opened and a man emerged. Slightly taller than medium height, slender but muscular, wavy hair the color of milk chocolate. Handsome. He looked like a combination of an athlete and a poet: Michel-angelo’s
David
in a dinner jacket.

But the sight of him made me want to retch—because I had nearly collided with Keith Ingram.

Staring at Ingram, I was furious at myself for thinking he was charming when I’d met him several months ago. It had been only a passing thought on my part, but Eileen must have found him fascinating. While he was interviewing us about our fudge business, I was too intent on trying to give him good material for his column to notice her reaction to him. Even if I had been that observant, I couldn’t have guessed how corrupt he was.

When I looked at Keith Ingram now, the image that flashed into my mind was the ugly, concealed picture of the “real” Dorian Gray. And I remembered the warning from
The Merchant of Venice
: “All that glisters is not gold . . . gilded tombs do
worms
infold.”

The worm said, “Hello, Della Carmichael.” Ingram’s voice was as smooth as maple syrup. “I hear we’re going to be judges together.”

“Hello.” My tone was blandly polite.

If he noticed my lack of warmth, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he smiled like a lying politician, and extended his hand in greeting. I pretended that I didn’t see it.

I was fighting the powerful urge to grab the clipboard he had tucked under one arm and bash him over the head with it. But I restrained myself. During twenty years as a policeman’s wife I’d perfected the art of hiding my feelings when it was necessary. Although Mack must have known how afraid I was every time he left the house to go on duty, I never let him see my fear. It remained unspoken between us, but each time he came home, I greeted him as happily as though he’d been gone for a year.

Ingram’s lips were moving. I realized he was talking to me and tuned back in to hear him ask, “Have you met our fellow judge yet? Yvette Dupree?”

“No.”

In a tone of contempt, he said, “The so-called Global Gourmet.”

“So-called?”

“Perhaps I should have said
self-styled
.” Ingram inclined his head toward me and lowered his voice. “Don’t let her accent fool you. She’s about as French Moroccan as Colonel Sanders was. My guess is she does most of her traveling on the Google Express.”

“I like her books. When my husband and I went to Italy, we found every restaurant she recommended exactly as she’d described it, even in the smallest towns.”

“Have you traveled much in Europe? Other than Italy? Through Asia? Or South America? India?”

“No.”

Ingram shrugged. “Ah, well, that explains it.” He lost interest in me and began scanning faces in the lobby.

Before I could think of a riposte—it was one of those frustrating moments with a boor when you think of some brilliant squelch only much later—he said, “See you inside.”

I watched Ingram swagger off in the direction of a sudden flurry of photographers’ lights flashing and shutters clicking. Through the entrance strolled the subjects of their frantic interest: California’s glamorous governor and his equally glamorous wife. I felt a wave of revulsion when the governor and his wife and Ingram greeted each other like old friends and posed together for the cameras, but then I gave the state’s First Couple the benefit of the doubt. Elected officials seldom knew everything about the people with whom they appeared in photos.

A short time later, equipped with my clipboard, a pen, and a packet of twenty judging cards each with a contestant’s name on it, I was in the main ballroom—called the Elysian Room—of the Olympia Grand Hotel. It had been decorated like Hollywood’s version of a scene out of
The Arabian Nights
. The ceiling was tented with lengths of silk, anchored by and billowing out from a dozen sparkling crystal chandeliers. At least twenty-four artificial palm trees were spaced against the outside perimeter, their green fronds casting shadows that resembled bony fingers against the ballroom’s cream-colored walls.