At the Drop of a Hat Read online

  “For starters, why did no one inform me that you were going to talk to Mariska today?” he said. “We had an agreement.”

  “Oh, that was an accident,” I said. “Viv and I figured it out when we got to Mariska’s. I thought she had called you and she thought I had called you.”

  “But neither of you did,” Harrison said.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “But it was an honest mistake.”

  “All right, I’ll give you that but just this one time,” he said. “And only because nothing horrible happened to you. Did it not occur to you that the man in the towel, what was his name—Jarrett Reichs—could have been dangerous?”

  I gave him a rueful glance. “Well, there really wasn’t any need for a weapons check, if you get my meaning.”

  He ran a hand over his face. “Reichs could have come back with a knife or very bad friends. Think, Ginger, if he is Mariska’s lover and if what the housekeeper Jean said is accurate, he could very well have killed Russo to keep him from stealing Mariska away from him, especially if she’s his meal ticket.”

  I shivered. Okay, I hadn’t thought of that.

  “He’s an artist; maybe Andre knows him,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Harrison said. “But you don’t go near him.”

  I felt myself bristle. I really don’t like being bossed around.

  “Don’t have a wobbler,” Harrison said. “We had a pact. Remember? No one does anything without a partner.”

  I supposed I could have protested again that today was an accident, but given that Harrison hadn’t loomed over me or bellowed at me, I figured if he could let it go, so could I. Then I realized, much to my dismay, that I sort of missed his looming.

  I must have looked fretful, because Harrison took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Don’t worry, Ginger,” he said. “Alistair is the best defense attorney in town. If anyone can help Ariana, it’s him.”

  I squeezed his fingers back. It was a rare moment of connection between us, and it made me feel warm from the inside out. So, naturally, I had to ruin it.

  “I know, Harry,” I said. “I have complete confidence in Alistair.”

  “Harrison,” he corrected me. “I’m delighted that you have such faith in my friend.”

  His tone was sarcastic and I knew I deserved it. I actually felt bad about it, but I was trying to maintain a healthy boundary. I had a long way to go to make it a year without a boyfriend, and I couldn’t have Harry of the pretty green eyes messing that up for me.

  “I also have faith in Ariana,” I corrected him. “She’s innocent. I just know it.”

  Harrison said nothing but his eyes were kind. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. If she was innocent, why was Russo clutching a scrap of her blouse? If she was innocent, why was there a picture of her doing the nasty with Russo? I had no answers just a gut instinct. I hoped for all our sakes it was right.

  * * *

  The afternoon edition of the newspaper made my gut ache. There it was in all its black-and-white grainy glory, a picture of Ariana in bed with Anthony Russo. Page one. Despite the bad angle and lack of focus, it was obviously Ariana, wearing little more than a smile and a few black bars across her privates, courtesy of the censors. I felt a little queasy at the sight of it, but like everyone else in London, I read the accompanying article and my innards got more pinched and shriveled with each innuendo-laden word.

  Stephen had been arrested for punching out an overzealous reporter—boy, could I relate—but he was let out pending further investigation. I hoped it was the same troll who had been pestering me. I could only imagine what his mother, Trudy, was thinking, given how much she adored Ariana.

  Viv and I both called Harrison but we got no reply. I figured he was busy, trying to help Stephen. We left text messages but didn’t expect to hear back from him anytime soon.

  “This is a nightmare,” I said.

  “No doubt,” Viv said. “But it’s not over yet. Just because she slept with him doesn’t mean she killed him. Relationships are complicated, and people sometimes do things we don’t expect or understand.”

  I looked at her. Despite her three-hour nap, Viv was still pasty pale from our “tea” with Mariska Kravchuk. I supposed she could be feeling philosophical from our day’s adventure, or perhaps there was a deeper meaning to her words. I didn’t bother questioning her because I knew she wouldn’t say more. Very annoying.

  Instead, I wondered if Mariska had known the article was coming out today. Maybe she had cut her lover loose because she didn’t want to share what she’d been paid for the photograph.

  Perhaps the vodka and caviar with us had been her way of celebrating her ill-gotten gains and we’d just had the misfortune to be there to join her. Of course, the article in the paper did not name the source for the photo, but I knew it was Mariska and I planned to tell Inspectors Simms and Franks, if Alistair hadn’t already.

  I had no doubt that Harrison and Alistair were tracking down Jarrett Reichs. Being so close to Mariska, I imagined he had to have stories to tell, especially if she had dumped him. Another possibility would be to talk to Jean. I had a feeling she could talk more freely away from Mariska. I was tempted to try and get in touch with her, but Mariska would want to know why I was contacting her housekeeper, and it could get ugly if she thought I was trying to poach her, which if I made enough money, I absolutely would.

  Where did that leave us? There were other ex-girlfriends we could go see, but given that Mariska had been meeting with Russo, she seemed the likeliest suspect of them all.

  Compulsive cleaning is always an excellent way to manage a brain on overload, at least for me. While Fee and Viv worked on hats in the back, I cleaned the front of the shop in between customers. I was on my hands and knees cleaning out a low cupboard that was full of fascinators when Fee came up behind me.

  “What did you find there?” she asked. She reached over me and lifted up one of the frothy confections to study it more closely. It was essentially a hair clip with purple feathers and a black poof of organza with purple crystals glued into a diamond shape in the center of the black fabric. It was very art deco.

  “Oh, wow, these are the hats made by my predecessor,” Fee said.

  “There was an apprentice before you?” I asked. I hadn’t even known about Fee until I’d gotten here.

  “Yes, her name was Mara,” Fee said. “She was the one who talked me into applying for the apprenticeship here, since she was leaving to move to Paris.”

  “How long did she apprentice here?” I asked.

  Fee scooped up the three other hats I’d found tucked in the back of the lower cupboard and took them over to the main counter to look at them more closely.

  “Just a semester,” Fee said. “But she said that she learned so much from Viv that it was the best hat-making experience she’d gotten, including school. Naturally, I applied right away.”

  I stood staring at Fee, watching her blow the stray corkscrew curl out of her eye, as a thought formed slowly in the back of my mind, shifting on its feet until it could step into the front of my brain.

  And then, just like that, I knew that the person to talk to about Anthony Russo was the woman who’d had Ariana’s job before her. Whoever had been Russo’s assistant would know who he had angered to the point of wanting him dead.

  I left Fee with the hats and grabbed my computer tablet from the back room. Russo was an entertainment lawyer and in a weird way a sort of celebrity himself. It shouldn’t be that hard to track down old articles that might mention who his assistant was.

  An hour later I was still slogging through old news bits, looking for a name. Finally, the name “Naomi Ames” popped up in an article about Russo being arrested for trashing a hotel room with the rock band that was his client.

  It said he was bailed out of jail by his assistant, Naomi Ames
. There was no additional mention of her but I hoped it would be enough. I did a quick search on “Naomi Ames” but found nothing. There was, however, Naomi A. Hutchins listed. I called the number. I had no idea what I was going to say because it seemed highly unlikely that she was the one I was looking for.

  “Hello,” a woman answered. She had a soft voice with a refined accent.

  “Hi, this is Scarlett Parker, I was calling to speak with Naomi Ames.”

  “Speaking,” the voice answered. “Although it’s Naomi Hutchins now.”

  I sucked in a breath. Could this be her?

  “Mrs. Hutchins, did you once work for Anthony Russo?” I asked.

  “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was no longer soft but rather had grown so cold it could have blown in from the Arctic.

  “Scarlett Parker,” I said.

  “I got that the first time,” she said. “What I want to know is how did you get this number, and why are you calling me?”

  “I looked you up on the computer,” I said. “And I’m calling because my friend Ariana Jackson has been implicated in the murder of Anthony Russo, and I don’t think she did it.”

  “You’re not a reporter?” she asked. She sounded wary.

  “Hell, no,” I said. “I was the one who found Ariana with her boss’s body. I don’t think she’s guilty but the evidence suggests otherwise.”

  “And you think I can help how?”

  “Tell me about Russo,” I said. “What sort of man was he? Who would want him dead?”

  “You’re not asking for much,” she said. Her sarcasm was not lost on me. “The list of people wanting him dead is only slighter shorter than the list of people he shafted.”

  I heard a child crying in the background.

  “Hold on,” Naomi said. I heard her speaking softly on the other end. The crying stopped and then there was the sound of furniture being moved.

  “All right then,” Naomi returned. “My toddler is coloring now, so I have a minute or two. I have to say between keeping up with this one and the bun in my oven, I had no idea a body could get this tired.”

  I made sympathetic noises, but truly, I couldn’t imagine it. Not even a little.

  “When you said Russo shafted people, what did you mean?” I asked.

  “Oh, all sorts of things,” she said. “He used to have me bill people for phone calls he never made, motions he never filed; truly, he was an amoral bastard.”

  “Did any of his clients ever catch on?” I asked.

  “A few,” she said. “But whenever he got caught, he refunded the money and claimed it was a clerical error, blaming it on me in other words. I tell you, I couldn’t wait to leave.”

  “Do you think he did the same thing to Ariana?” I asked.

  “I’m sure of it,” she said. “She called me a few times after she first started. I told her to get out of there, but she said she couldn’t.”

  “Did she tell you why?” I asked.

  “No,” Naomi said. “I just assumed she needed the work.”

  I paced the shop, looking out the window to watch people walking up and down Portobello Road. A young couple was holding hands, laughing with each other, and I felt a pang of sadness. That should be Ariana out there, laughing with Stephen as they looked forward to their wedding.

  “Why was he bilking his clients?” I asked. “Was he that desperate for money?”

  “Gambling debts,” she said. “He was a compulsive gambler. He bet on everything. He even lost his Jaguar once over the color of a woman’s panties.”

  I was silent for a moment. I mean, there was no way I could unhear what she had just said. Not knowing what to say, I scanned my brain but came up with nothing.

  I needn’t have worried. Naomi had warmed up to her subject and started telling me all sorts of sordid details about Anthony Russo that quite frankly I could have lived without knowing.

  “He was hooked on prescription meds,” she said. “That was problematic with his drinking.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Also, he did enjoy shagging his clients, and it didn’t really matter to him if they were married or not,” she said.

  She told a long story that involved a married woman, an irate husband, a bet for twenty thousand dollars on a horse race and Russo being found on the front steps of his house overdosing on pain pills for which he did not have a prescription. By the time she’d finished her story, I was convinced that someone had probably offed Russo to do the world a favor. Unfortunately, that brought Ariana and all of her substantial reasons to do him in to mind.

  “Naomi,” I interrupted her, stopping her from telling another story. “Who do you think killed Russo?”

  She puffed out a breath and I knew she’d been giving the matter considerable thought.

  “Assuming it’s not Ariana,” she said, “and I really don’t think it’s her, despite the unfortunate story in the paper.”

  “Unfortunate” being the nice term for a royal shredding in the press.

  “Bruno O’Malley seems the most likely suspect to me,” she said. “Despite the drama and chaos and lack of ethics, the only time I was actually scared on the job was when O’Malley showed up to collect payment from Russo, who didn’t have it.”

  “He frightened you?” I asked.

  “I really thought O’Malley was going to kill him,” she said.

  “Have you told the police this?” I asked.

  “They haven’t contacted me,” she said. “You’re the first.”

  “Well, if they do contact you, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that I had talked to you,” I said. “They might construe it as me being . . .”

  “Interfering?” Naomi supplied.

  “I was thinking meddlesome,” I said. “But same difference.”

  Naomi laughed and then I heard her toddler squawk about something.

  “My adult time is over,” Naomi said.

  “Thanks for talking to me,” I said.

  “No problem,” she said. “Feel free to call again if you think of anything else. And when you talk to Ariana, please give her my best.”

  “I will,” I said. “I most definitely will.”

  I ended the call and strode back to the counter. Fee had taken the hats I’d found into the back room, and the shop was quiet. I continued my cleaning. It’s good for what ails you.

  Bruno O’Malley. His name kept coming up. Both Mariska and Naomi had mentioned him as being a threat to Russo. There had to be a reason. I was still chewing on this when Fee left for the night and Viv came out front to help me lock up the shop.

  As I was turning the dead bolt on the front door, two faces appeared in the window and I started. Recognition hit right away, and I pushed the door open for my favorite neighbors, Nick and Andre.

  “Dinner, my treat,” Nick said. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”

  I looked at Viv. “Do you think you’re capable of holding down any food?”

  “Are you sick?” Andre asked. “Is it contagious?”

  “Only if it’s possible to be a carrier for a hangover,” I said. Viv gave me a dark look, and I laughed.

  “Our Viv pissed in the middle of the day?” Nick asked. “Do tell.”

  “Over dinner,” I said. The caviar had been hours ago, and I was starving.

  “I don’t know if I can eat,” Viv said.

  Nick eyed Viv’s pallor. “Come on, love, a good meter of pizza at Portobello Ristorante will set you right.”

  “And they have wine,” Andre offered with a wicked wink.

  Viv groaned but we grabbed our coats and followed the boys out the door, locking it behind us.

  On the walk over, I told them all about our visit with Mariska and then showed them the article in the paper. Andre gave a low whistle, and even Nick looked seriou
s for a moment.

  As we sat at a cozy table for four, Nick looked at me and asked, “Are you quite certain that she’s innocent?”

  “Yes,” Viv and I said together.

  Nick and Andre exchanged a look.

  “Let’s order first,” Andre said. “I’m going to need sustenance for the rest of this conversation.”

  We started with the antipasto to be followed by the Pizza Saltimbocca. Viv had a sparkling water while I nursed my glass of red wine.

  Nick and Andre peppered us with questions throughout the meal, and the more we discussed the situation, the more I was convinced that Ariana was innocent.

  I took a bite of my rolled pizza stuffed with pancetta and mozzarella and let myself enjoy the comfort of a crunchy crust filled with all that yummy goodness.

  “What we need to do”—I paused to swallow before continuing—“is to find a way to interview Bruno O’Malley. If Russo owed him money and couldn’t pay, then it stands to reason that he might have had reason to throw Russo off the roof.”

  “I can make that happen,” Nick said.

  Viv’s head snapped up and we both looked at Nick.

  “How?” Viv asked.

  “I’ll use my connections,” Nick said with a careless shrug.

  “You most certainly will not,” Andre said. “Bruno O’Malley is a criminal and not a petty little thief criminal but a thug who would think nothing of twisting your body into a pretzel if you cross him.”

  Nick waved an unconcerned hand at Andre. “His bad reputation is overstated, besides off-course bookmakers aren’t illegal in the UK. They’re regulated. I wonder if I could meet him tonight.”

  Nick pulled out his phone and began to text someone.

  “This is utter madness,” Andre cried.

  “Hush, it’s no such thing,” Nick said. He pressed his lower lip with his index finger. “I should dress the part, don’t you think? Is a fedora too much?”

  “Yes,” I said at the same time Viv said, “No.”

  I gave her an exasperated look. “He is going to meet a bookie. He is not advertising the shop.”

  She gave me a sulky look, probably more due to her state of under-the-weatherness than my comments about the fedora.