yet unknown, but my bet was that it had something to do with Yvette Dupree.)
Now here was my biggest leap, worthy of the Cirque du Soleil: Parker, a former British commando, shot at the window of Caffeine an’ Stuff to confuse the police. He probably didn’t mean to wound Roland Gray.
I believed Parker did this because it succeeded in complicating the investigation of Ingram’s murder. The police were forced to try to find a link between Ingram and Gray. When they weren’t able to find that link, Detective Hatch had tried to split the one case into two.
There was one problem with my new theory: How could I prove it?
Stirring the pudding to keep a skin from forming on the top, two ideas occurred to me. The first one involved a call to John O’Hara.
Again, he picked up on the first ring. I wondered if he was sitting in his car, or in a coffeehouse, miserable because he had nothing to do. Well, I was about to give him something to do.
“John, can you get in touch with your friend at Interpol again?”
“You mean now?”
“Yes.”
“I have his home number and his cell. Is it important?”
“It could be. I hope so. Would you ask him to check out a man named Willis T. Parker, a former British commando? He’s listed in the acknowledgments of Roland Gray’s first spy novel-something about helping Gray’s hero out of a tight spot. Now he works for Gray. Ask if he can find out if Parker knew Yvette Dupree, when she was Fabienne Talib.”
“What’s this about?”
“I finally have a theory of the case.” I told John what it was.
“Interesting, but you don’t have any evidence.” I heard the skepticism in John’s voice.
“Not yet, but don’t you think this is a path worth following? Are you or Hugh Weaver or Hatch on a more promising trail?”
“No. While I’m having your idea checked out, what are you doing?”
“I’m having tea at four o’clock this afternoon with Roland Gray.”
“No! I don’t want you near Will Parker.”
“John, I’ve told you not to talk to me like that. I’m not a three-year-old. I appreciate your concern, but I wouldn’t be going to see Roland except for the fact that Parker is thousands of miles away right now, back in London, visiting his mother who’s ill.”
John was silent for a moment. I pictured him with his lips clamped together.
“John, are you still there?”
He cleared his throat. “You’re having tea with Gray at four. That shouldn’t take more than an hour, hour and a half at most. I want-I’d
“I’ll do that.”
“In case I need to reach you first, keep your cell phone on.”
“I always do.” We said good-bye, with John promising to call his Interpol contact right away.
After ending the call, I poured the pudding into my white Wedgwood serving bowl and stretched plastic wrap across the top.
When I was ready to leave for Gray’s apartment, I put the gift bowl of chocolate fudge pudding into a cardboard box and set the box on the floor in front of the Jeep’s passenger seat.
Then I reached into the glove compartment and removed the small, handheld tape recorder I used for making notes about recipes or ideas for the TV show when something occurred to me while I was driving.
After checking that the batteries were working, I rewound it to the beginning of the tape and slipped the little machine into my purse. It was a bag made of loosely woven net, deliberately chosen in order to capture sound in the room.
44
Will Parker had described Roland Gray’s apartment building as “a bloody tall white building on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Garland Street,” with “Gates across the driveway. Gorgons at the doors. Security up the arse.”
The big white building with ornamental iron gates across the driveway was easy to spot. An elderly man in a guard’s uniform occupied the kiosk just outside the gates.
“My name is Della Carmichael. Mr. Gray is expecting me.”
The guard checked his clipboard, found my name, and nodded. “Do you know where it is?”
“No.”
“Apartment three twelve, third floor, in the back,” he said.
“Thank you. Where can I park?”
“Follow the driveway down into the garage. Use any space marked ‘visitor.’ Take the elevator up to the third floor and turn left.”
He pressed a button and the gates swung open.
As I drove past the front of the building, I didn’t see any “Gorgons” at the door. Nor did I see any as I steered the Jeep into the dim, subterranean parking garage. I’m not fond of poorly lighted garages. It would have been comforting to see a couple of those big guardians playing cards down here. Maybe they were on a break.
I found an empty “visitor” space near the elevator and parked. With the bowl of pudding cradled against my chest, I got out and locked the Jeep.
It took only a few seconds for the elevator to arrive at the garage level. As I was whisked upward, I was pleased that I didn’t feel any protest from my stomach. I didn’t really expect one because it was empty, except for a spoonful of pudding. The fact that I was hungry again was testimony that my distress of the morning was over.
The third floor hallway was well lighted and painted a soft shade of blue. Plexiglas-enclosed prints of beautiful birds in flight decorated the walls. Without traditional framing, it looked as though the birds were soaring through the sky.
At the door to apartment 312 I reached into my bag and turned on the recorder.
I’d no sooner touched my finger to the bell outside apartment 312 when the door opened.
Roland Gray, a welcoming expression on his face, greeted me warmly and stepped aside for me to come in. He was wearing a soft blue open-neck shirt, and a red cashmere cardigan. The only sign that he’d been shot four nights ago was the narrow strip of tape almost the color of his skin that ran across his forehead, just below his hairline.
I saw his nostrils twitch. Gesturing at the bowl I carried, he said, “I’m getting the scent of a heavenly something. What have you brought?”
“It’s a new kind of chocolate nut butter pudding I made this afternoon. My partner and I are considering selling containers of it in our retail store. You’re the one who got me interested in pudding, so I would appreciate your expert opinion.”
“It will be my pleasure.”
We were in a large, comfortable, no-particular-style living room with a dining area on one side. The room opened up onto a balcony enclosed by a waist-high ornamental iron railing. Several big terra-cotta tubs filled with bright red geraniums provided wonderful splashes of color against a sky that today was gray with smog.
Roland took the bowl of pudding from me and smiled with pleasure.
“Ahhhh, slightly tepid. Exactly how I like it, from a little warm to room temperature. Cold pudding I regard as a beastly perversion.”
Roland gestured toward the dining room table, which was already arranged with two sets of cups, saucers, and dessert plates, silverware, a teapot in a cozy, a platter of little pastries, and a basket of scones. The scones were surrounded by tiny pots of jam and a dish of whipped cream.
Still holding the bowl of pudding, Gray used one hand to pull out a chair in front of one of the two sets of cups and saucers and dessert plates. “Sit here,” he said.
