Dedicated to Rei Nakazawa, who helped
find the crucial clue
“Marla,” Jean Taulby began, with the sympathetic intensity that had made
her a household presence for two decades. She leaned
in, studiously ignoring the camera pointed her way.
For a fleeting moment, Marla Sterling imagined the newsmagazine icon
falling off her chair and onto that Botox-enhanced, saucy-but-stern face.
Although that moment, had it occurred, would not have been broadcast live,
Marla smiled in what the bimbette imagined to be an expression of cool grace.
“At a moment
like this,” Taulby continued, contemplatively, “as you look at all you’ve
managed to accomplish and amass in your 50 years on this planet…” Bitch,
Marla thought, smiling. It was a totally unnecessary piece of data, and
besides, Taulby herself hadn’t seen 50 since
Clinton
had groped his first intern. “…and as you consider the future, what
are your thoughts, your feelings?”
It was Marla’s third appearance on
Byline, and Taulby related to the Countess of Color like a sort of
sorority sister in crime. At the same time, as is the case with most sorority
sisters, it was clear the
Des Moines
weatherwoman-turned-tabloid trashwoman was reveling in her guest’s downfall.
“In short, if you could attribute your current circumstances to one miscalculation,
one personal weakness or flaw, what might that be?” Taulby inquired, brow
furrowing only enough not to spoil the line of her marble-smooth forehead.
Marla considered for a second, consulting the tastefully appointed file
case that was her mind and reviewing the last few tempestuous months.
“My innate sense of style,” she concluded, shooting one limp cuff of
her cotton prison blouse with elegant yet becomingly self-deprecating irony.
Six months earlier
As the
red fog cleared from Marla’s brain, it registered one surreal and inappropriate
observation.
What a
mess.
The latte’d
coffee, the sugar, the Half-and-Half, and, of course, the blood was forming
a swirling reservoir about the exquisitely carved legs of Teri’s teak kitchenette
table. Teri herself was the source of the scarlet gouts that clashed violently
with the banal pinks and grays (Marla had always thought, anyway) of her
kitchen. Her tangerine locks were streaked with arterial red, and one hand
stretched over the irrevocably stained linen of the tabletop, fingers curled
into claws futilely grasping for life.
Marla jumped
as the ornate grandfather clock in the main hallway chimed 11 times. She
had always hated the thing – heavy, baroque, and as ostentatiously feminine
as all of Teri’s furnishings – but it broke the spell, and the full import
of what she’d done suddenly came home. Marla dropped the murder weapon;
it landed with a thud just clear of the blood.
Any thought
of adequately cleaning up the scene, disposing of Teri’s body, was insane.
Teri had a maid service in twice weekly, and, if forced in a line-up, would
identify Mr. Clean as former wrestler and Gov. Ventura. Marla had seen
enough old mystery shows to know she’d attract undesirable attention if
she – a high-profile media personality – ran down to the Safeway at
11 p.m.
on a Wednesday night to buy Pine Sol and an O-Cedar mop.
Marla steeled
herself, and attacked the problem with the same analytical acumen she’d
applied to making over that NBA center’s crib on last Thursday’s show. Teri
had been violently bludgeoned, her head turned into a bowl of summer squash
(Marla had just done a New England Harvest Supper segment two days before,
and the image jabbed at her gut). A lone woman, enjoying a late-night cup
of coffee, attacked in her kitchen. Think.
A lover’s
spat ?, Marla considered. No, she reconsidered
– that was the spite talking, and besides, Boy-Toy might this moment be at
one of his second-tier celebrity parties with second-tier rap stars and
ex-celebrity husbands and Susan Lucci. An attempted frame might come back
around on her. No, it might be a cliché, but this was definitely a
robbery, one gone tragically awry. The class war in
America
, with Teri one more well-coiffured casualty
of some deprived street felon.
Marla reevaluated
the scene, her unerring eye catching the accessories, the accoutrement
that didn’t work. She gingerly removed her half-emptied coffee cup from
the spreading mess of high-fat creamer and brain splatters and used a napkin
to nudge blood over the clean ring it had left. Marla washed and wiped the
cup thoroughly, and, for good measure, placed it in the half-full dishwasher
(one appliance Teri had mastered). The bloodied napkin she flushed in the
hallway half-bath.
A half-dozen remnants of her presence were easily spotted and
eliminated, but the scenario before her still didn’t seem quite right.
Plus, there was the matter of an alibi, should anyone ever make the quantum
leap between this tableau of carnage and
America
’s Hostess Haute Supreme.
A late night cup of coffee. Didn’t seem like something one would
do alone. In fact, that had been the first warning signal for Marla – Teri
had a taste for sicky-sweet, high-proof nightcaps, and the fact that she’d
offered Marla coffee had indicated Teri had something serious in mind. Marla
now wondered dryly if Teri might still be alive had she opted first for the
“good news” part of Teri’s annoying “Good news or bad news first?” query.
It made
a lot more sense that Teri’s cushy domicile would be burglarized in the wee
hours, and Teri frequently arose at the ass-crack of dawn to get to the
studio. The spilled coffee would tell the story, help fix the time of the
murder. Hadn’t Marla heard on some Court TV documentary that the police could
only fix time of death within a period of a few hours? Marla spotted the
red digital readout on the expensive high-tech coffeemaker, and the last
element fell into place.
Assuming
Teri routinely made a full 10-cup pot – she brought her own brew to the
office in a brushed steel Scandinavian carafe, Marla filled the coffeemaker’s
own Pyrex carafe to just short of the nine-cup mark. The Queen of the Kitchen
quickly located a half-depleted bag of an organic, migrant labor-friendly
Kona blend, and dumped two scoops into an unbleached filter. Marla deftly
set the timer on the front of the coffeemaker.
Leaving
her shoes in the kitchen, (no blood, thank God -- they’d been a steal at
$430 on
Rodeo Drive
), Marla sprinted upstairs to Teri’s bedroom. Perfect: The semi-weekly
maid had been in that day, and the bed was as neat as a career Marine’s
bunk. Marla yanked the horridly floral spread down and began to undress.
She’d had David Caruso on two weeks ago, and she remembered his secondhand
expertise on fiber and other trace evidence.
Teri slept
in the raw, a confidence she’d shared freely with the younger stagehands,
and she and Marla attended the same gym, so Marla was reasonably certain
she could leave convincing anatomical ballistics marks on Teri’s silk sheets.
The nude Mistress of Makeovers spent the next 10 minutes simulating several
hours of tossing, turning, and unconscious rolling, pressing her form firmly
into the thick silk sheets.
Once redressed,
Marla examined the pillow and, satisfied, salvaged a few of Teri’s tangerine
hairs from a brush in the adjacent bathroom. She dropped them on the pillow,
surveyed the mussed bed and surrounding carpet, and, with a grimace, retrieved
the kimono she’d once helped Teri select on the Ginza (expensed as part
of a Sushi September segment Marla later had nixed after discovering firsthand
a rather severe allergy to fish and other marine species).
Marla sprinted
back downstairs, halting soberly in the kitchen doorway. She took a long
breath, heart pounding.
Now for
the really fun part, she moaned…
**
Sgt. Kramer
was the first to hear the backfire. Despite all of the State of
California
’s militantly green efforts to regulate the ravages of carbon dioxide,
nitrogen oxide, sulfur, and other greenhouse gases on the ozone layer,
there remained at least one vintage Peugeot that defied efforts to bring
said emissions under control. Kramer sighed and stuck his head into the hallway.
“Send the
lieutenant in pronto,” the sergeant called to the patrolman on the door.
He turned back to the kitchen, where one of the LAPD techs was taking a virtual
House Beautiful photo layout
of the vic and her now blood-soaked furniture.
The broken pane in the back door told the tale – there’d been three burglaries
in this cushy little neighborhood over the past two months, though none of
the previous crimes had entailed any violence.
“OK I start
on the scene?” the tech grunted.
“Let the
lieutenant have a look-see first, OK?” Kramer requested. The tech shrugged
and snapped a few more shots.
Columbo
entered, bleary-eyed, his hair a rat’s nest and his chin perpetually smudged
from a brief encounter with a razor. Kramer could see he was exhausted, though
the distinction between the detective’s current slovely, half-awake state
and his customary condition was a fine one.
“Sergeaaaahhh-gent,”
Columbo yawned, flashing a few childhood fillings. “Sorry, Sergeant – I
been havin’ an awful time trying to get to sleep the last few nights. I
think I got that thing, you know, where you can’t get any sleep.”
“Insomnia,”
Kramer provided patiently. “Look, we got a Teri Racine here – 48, producer
some cable TV show. You know a Marla Sterling?”
Columbo
stopped suddenly, just short of a puddle of Teri Racine’s coagulating blood.
He scratched his forehead in astonishment. “Do I know Marla Sterling?”
“Yeah.”
“Do I know
Marla Sterling? Sergeant, Marla Sterling’s the Queen of Color, the Princess
of Parties, the Duchess of Dips. Why, she’s
got a daytime show, a nighttime show, a radio show goes out all over the
country, three or four books out on decoratin’ your house, throwin’ fancy
parties, everythin’ you could imagine, Sergeant. Plus, they got all that
gardening and bath stuff at the Megalomart with her picture all over it.
An’ if that ain’t enough, she’s been on CNN all the time the last few weeks
over some kinda stock market thing. Marla Sterling’s one ver-ry famous
lady, Sergeant.”
“Sorry
I asked,” Kramer rumbled. “Marla Sterling’s her boss. We already notified
her – the victim, Racine, didn’t have any relatives except a couple ex-husbands.”
A muted
burst of applause caught Columbo’s attention. He glanced at a small color
TV tucked in among the kitchen cabinets.
“That was
on already,” Kramer explained.
“That’s
her,” Columbo announced, sidestepping the blood and gore and tapping the
screen. “That’s Marla Sterling.” As if acknowledging his recognition, the
smartly styled ash blonde in the scarlet blazer beamed graciously. The lieutenant
chuckled, shook his head, and caught sight of the back door. He eyed the
broken glass on the marble floor beneath the door, frowned, and glanced
over at Teri Racine’s lifeless form, slumped over the tabletop.
“Nobody
moved the victim?” Columbo demanded.
“Nobody
touched her – your orders,” Kramer nodded.
The lieutenant
turned back to the door, then toward
Racine
, then back to the door. “That’s verrrry strange, isn’t it, Sergeant?”
“I don’t
get you.”
Columbo
extended his arms, pointing simultaneously at the body and the door. “Well,
just look at this. The burglar breaks a window to get in, just shatters it.”
“What it
looks like…”
“But, Sergeant,
you gonna tell me the victim, Ms. Racine, you gonna tell me this guy breaks
in her back door and she just sits here, waits for him to come rob her.”
Kramer
arched an eyebrow and reexamined the scene. “She coulda been in shock.
Maybe he had a gun or something, and he ordered her to sit at the table
‘til he figured out what to do.”
“If he had a gun,” Columbo objected, “then why beat her to death? That
reminds me – where’s the murder weapon?”
Kramer shook his head. “No sign of one, Lieutenant. Killer musta taken
it with.”
“Very odd,” Columbo mumbled. “Very, very odd.”
He perked up, raising his nose to the air. He turned abruptly toward
the kitchen counter. “Who made the coffee? Smells real
good.”
“Victim made it,” the sergeant responded. “Checked the timer gizmo –
three. Must be an early riser.”
“You think anybody’d mind if I just drained off a cup?” Columbo asked
hopefully. “I really could use a little wake-up juice.”
“Crime scene,” Kramer reminded him.
“Yeah,” the lieutenant sighed. “I guess you’re right.” He wandered over
to the table, bending down beside
Racine
’s battered head. He froze. “Sergeant, you got a pen on you?”
“What do you got?” Kramer asked, pulling a Bic from his shirt pocket.
Columbo waggled his fingers, and his underling handed it over. Whistling
“This Old Man” rustily, he gently pried back the collar of
Racine
’s kimono. “Sarge, look at this, will you?”
Kramer leaned in over Columbo’s shoulder. “What are we looking at, precisely?”
“See that
dried blood there, right above her shoulder blade? What’s that look like
to you?”
Kramer
squinted. “It’s like a pattern.”
“A weave,
Sergeant, a weave,” Columbo sang. “And you can even see a few fibers sticking
to the blood.” He straightened. “You know what I think, Sergeant? I think
this woman was put in this robe.”
“Kimono.”
“…this
kimono. I think the killer changed her clothes.”
“And why
would he do that?” Kramer inquired, starting to replace his pen but remembering
where it had been.
“I don’t
know, Sergeant. I don’t know… Hey, just a minute.”
Kramer looked on hopelessly as Columbo disappeared into the hall. The
sergeant waited for a minute, then another. Eventually, he stuck his head
into the hallway.
“Hey,”
Kramer called. The patrolman jumped. “Where’d he go?”
“Ah, who?”
the patrolman asked slowly.
“Lt. Columbo.
Where’d he go?”
“I, ah…”
the cop was rescued by the sound of Columbo’s footfalls on the carpeted
stairs. The lieutenant grasped the newel post, panting.
“She slept
in the bed, Sergeant,” Columbo gasped.
“Yeah?” Kramer waited.
“But, Sergeant,
the clock…” Columbo exhaled raggedly. “See, I was thinking maybe Ms. Racine
never even went to bed in the first place, so I went upstairs to take a
look. The bed was all rumpled – you could still see where she’d been laying,
and there was even a couple red hairs on the
pillow.
“But the
problem, Sergeant, the problem was the alarm clock. It was set for
five o’clock
.”
Kramer
inhaled slowly. “Maybe she got up at five.”
Columbo
shook his head vigorously. “No, I don’t think so.” He edged past the patrolman
and Kramer. “C’mon.”
Kramer
looked to the patrolman, who shrugged. The sergeant trailed the lieutenant.
Columbo
was waiting by the counter. He tapped the top of the coffeemaker. “See, Sergeant.
We got a coffeemaker like this at home, Mrs. Columbo and me. Well, not as
nice as this one. A Mr. Coffee, actually. But
they all work the same. See, you don’t want to leave the coffee on all day
by accident. Heck, that could start a fire or
something. So these gizmos, they got what they call an automatic shutoff.
After two hours, it shuts off by itself.
“So Ms.
Racine, she sets her alarm clock upstairs for five but her coffeemaker for
three. Now, why would she set her coffee so it would turn off the minute
she woke up? Wouldn’t she set the coffee for four or four-thirty or something,
so the coffee would be fresh and hot for a while?”
Kramer
was at a loss for a moment. “OK,” he finally recovered. “Maybe she got
up earlier than usual this morning, and set the clock back to the usual
time for tomorrow after, so she wouldn’t forget.”
Columbo
squinted at the ceiling and nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, yeah, that might
work. Or maybe she didn’t even make the bed yesterday. Maybe she never even
went to bed. See if she’s got a maid or something might know if the bed was
made yesterday.” He leaned back on the counter, yawning. Then his eyes widened,
and he leaned over the counter, placing his chin on the marble top. “What
have we here?”
“Now what?” Kramer asked with foreboding.
“Sergeant,
come over here,” Columbo murmured. “Look at this. What is that?”
Kramer
craned over Columbo’s shoulder. “I dunno. Looks like flour, maybe.”
Columbo
wet a forefinger, dipped it in the tiny pile of white powder next to the
marble backsplash, and tasted it. He made a face. “Naw, that ain’t flour.
Sergeant, you wanna get this analyzed at the lab?” Columbo lifted his chin
from the cold counter. “Sergeant?
Oh, Sergeant?”
“Right
here, Lieutenant,” Kramer breathed.
“While
you’re at it, see if you can’t get a few samples off the floor, too.”
“Blood? You don’t think it’s the victim’s?”
Columbo
shook his head. “No, sergeant. Not the blood.”
“Where
is she?” The woman’s voice, out in the hall, was insistent and agitated.
“I want to see her NOW.”
“Ma’am,
I don’t think you want to—” the patrolman sputtered.
“How dare
you presume to tell me what I want and do not want,” the woman snapped icily.
“I see the LAPD still needs a few gender sensitivity training sessions.
You must have a superior around here – I can imagine it wouldn’t be difficult
to find yours’…”
“Excuse
me, Sergeant,” Columbo mumbled anxiously, shoving past Kramer and the corpse.
He found the non-plussed patrolman attempting to bar entry by a slim, middle-aged
blonde just a bit too sharp in the chin and nose to qualify for a modeling
career. The lieutenant slapped his forehead. “Oh, my
gosh . You’re not…her?”
The woman
momentarily halted her barrage on the uniformed officer. “I very likely am.
And who might you be.”
“Lt. Columbo,
ma’am,” he flustered, stepping forward with outstretched hand. “I’m with
Homicide.”
Marla pulled
her exquisitely manicured and moisturized hand away, fingering the gold
pendant that hung in the V of her cream-colored blouse. “Where is she?”
Columbo
sobered, clasping his hands before him. “Ah, Ms. Racine,
your friend. Ma’am, I’d say I have to agree with the officer here.
I really don’t think you want to go in there. It’s, well, it’s a very disturbing
scene.
Lot
’s of blood and everything. And I’m not saying that ‘
cause you’re a woman or anything – I seen big guys, I mean really
big guys get a little green around the gills at murder scenes.”
“Nonsense,”
Marla ruled, and Columbo trailed her into the kitchen.
“Oh, my God.”
She leaned
back against the doorway, blood draining from her face as she took in the
gore and destruction. After an appearance on
Everybody Loves Raymond that had required 22 takes, Marla didn’t
delude herself about her thespian abilities. She knew she wouldn’t be able
to convincingly fake wailing and gnashing of teeth, so she’d come across
all bluff and bluster at the door so her half-natural response to Teri’s
battered corpse would sell.
Columbo
grasped her arm and pulled her back toward the hallway. “Ma’am, we better…”
“No,” Marla
gasped, pulling free. “I just didn’t expect anything this, this gruesome.
Just give me a moment.” The lieutenant protested as she stepped forward,
the toe of her undoubtedly costly suede pump sending sluggish ripples through
the mingled coffee and blood. Marla looked down, reeled against the table,
and then recoiled from the blood-soaked wood.
“Jeez,
ma’am, you got some, um, some stuff on your pants there,” Columbo moaned.
Marla glanced down at the dime-sized patch on her light brown slacks. “Sergeant,
you wanna see if you can find some soda in the refrigerator, something clear,
not a Cola. See, I saw somewhere where if you get to a bloodstain real quick
with some club soda, you can…”
“”Lieutenant,”
Marla sighed with the merest wisp of a smile. “I would imagine I know best
how to treat a bloodstain, don’t you?”
Columbo
grinned sheepishly. “Gee, yeah, I guess you would at that. My wife’s always
tellin’ me all those little tips you put out on the Internet, about getting
out stains and not burnin’ meat and things…”
“Lieutenant,
please. Can you tell who would have done such a ghastly thing to Teri?”
“Well,”
Columbo drawled as Sgt. Kramer and the department tech continued to pore
over the room, “there have been several break-ins in the neighborhood, and
Ms. Racine’s back door glass had been busted. We’ll be taking an inventory
for any stolen items, jewelry and such. Hey, maybe you could help us with
that.”
Maybe I
could, Marla mused. She’d selectively looted several of Teri’s pricier objects
as well as some cheap crap she figured some street thug wouldn’t know from
Cartier’s. All would be dumped in the Pacific in good time, or perhaps
dropped surreptitiously in some homeless person’s cardboard condo.
“Whatever I can do to assist you.And my apologies
to both you and the officer for my brusque behavior. When I got
the call at the show, I guess I kicked into some kind of automatic drive.”
Columbo
frowned and scratched his head. “Wait a minute. I just saw you on your show
a few minutes ago. You were even wearing the same outfit – a very smart outfit,
if you don’t mind me saying. How did you…?”
“We’re
live on tape with a studio audience. I know it sounds like an oxymoron,
but I didn’t get your message about Teri until we’d completed this morning’s
taping.”
“Ahhh,
that makes sense. And did you happen to talk to your friend this morning,
before she died?”
“It would
have to have been at that point, wouldn’t it, Lieutenant? No, although…”
Marla nibbled a sculpted nail.
“What,
ma’am?”
“Well,
I can’t say for sure it was Teri. You see, I’d had a full day yesterday
– the show, a commercial shoot for Megalomart, and a cocktail reception
for some network executives at
Century
City
. I was exhausted, so I dropped into bed about 10 and let the voicemail
handle my calls. This morning, when I checked my messages, there were three
hang-ups. You know, they didn’t leave any message. Teri hated voicemail,
was a real throwback that way, so I suppose they might have been hers’.”
Columbo
looked excited. “Ma’am, you didn’t erase those messages, did you?”
Marla smiled.
“I may know how to assemble a five-course dinner for kings, but technology
continues to elude me. Half the time, I let the messages pile up 20 deep
until my assistant can erase them for me.”
“Well,
this is great, ma’am, I mean it may be great,” Columbo enthused, rubbing
his hands together. “See, we can check the phone company records, and if
those calls were from your friend, then we can help narrow down the time
of death.”
“Well,
obviously, it was this morning,” Marla said, instantly regretting the observation.
“Yes, ma’am,”
Columbo said quietly, with an uncertainty that put her on guard.
“Lieutenant,”
Kramer suddenly said, urgently, saving Marla from formulating further dialogue.
“You’ll wanna see this.”
Columbo
turned toward the table, where the Latex-gloved tech was holding a cloth
napkin by one corner. Sitting on a clean swatch of tablecloth under the miniature
tent was a box. A velvet, rounded box. Marla’s heart jumped.
“Can we
open that?” Columbo asked, pulling a pair of reading glasses from his shirt.
Kramer
looked at the tech questioningly and nodded, and the tech eased the box
out with a pair of surgical clamps, carried it delicately to the counter,
and pried it gently open, as if seeking a pearl.
“Well,
I’ll be,” Columbo marveled. “I guess our burglar musta missed this little
prize.”
Marla gaped,
and then good breeding reminded her to close her mouth. Inside the forest
green jewelry box was the largest, gaudiest diamond ring she’d ever seen
outside a bad heist movie. Now she recalled her curiosity at the tented
napkin in the center of the table – the one Teri had steadfastly refused
to look at. For the second time in some 12 hours, she regretted not having
asked for the “good news” first.
**
GFL Productions housed 23 kitchens – 12 lab-like research/test kitchens;
the institutional network cafeteria kitchen; the glass-fronted galley of
La and nine sets for The Gourmet/Fine Living Channel’s in-house hosts, including
Marla Sterling, Jake the Bachelor Chef, Dr. Paprika, and the channel’s
undisputed king, Milo LaFontaine. Unlike Milo, with his house band, celebrity
guest tasters, and slavish yuppie audience (the mere addition of garlic
to a dish was enough to send this group into frenzied applause, while Milo’s
signature catch-phrase, “Baa-boom!” often drew a whooping ovation), Marla’s
late afternoon show was filmed in-studio and on location, sans audience.
Her kitchen was a countrified but feminine salute to
New England
flair.
The Empress of Entertaining wanted a crisp contrast between her glitzy
syndicated morning chat-fest and her more sedate network offering. If she
couldn’t be the white Oprah or the straight Rosie -- possibilities growing
dimmer with each hourly news update of her entanglements with the Securities
Exchange Commission – then she could at least remain
America
’s reigning queen of taste and elegant living. Marla knew these were
values Joe and Jane Sixpack and the media alike disdained – she’d seen
the relentless parodies of the Hitlerian “Mistress Marla” on SNL, and had
been talked out of suing over a three-week series of
Doonesbury panels that had Saddam Hussein consulting Marla on “tips
for making that unfinished basement room more than merely a torture chamber
and nookie parlor.”
But Marla’s glacial smile frequently shared space at Barnes and Noble’s
with Queen Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Sen. Hillary, and the familiar mauve-and-gold
Sterling Collection label – bearing the unspoken promise of suburban refinement
at trailor park prices -- had more than tripled Megalomart’s soft goods
sales over the past two years. Marla knew that despite their democratic
spirit and rebellious slobbery, most Americans dreamed of living as untitled
royalty outside their nine-to-five daily drudgery.
She was their queen, and, whenever
Milo
was out of the building, ruler of GFL’s 14th floor. Marla
held the gilded platter before her, in the face of one of the production
assistants, as if the Hostess Supreme expected to see the peon’s head served
up on it.
“This is a quince-and-persimmon turnover, Dana, not a McDonald’s freakin’
fried apple pie.” Marla’s restrained voice was like silk washed in boric
acid. “First of all, I want a triangle the Yale mathematics department would
approve of. Sides A and B equal in length, and precisely identical corner
angles here and here. Buttery flakiness is the goal here – not NASCAR-caliber
lubrication. I can almost see clear through the phyllo to the fruit. Did
this pastry fall into an Alaskan oil slick before Hans threw it across the
room onto this plate? Which, by the way, bears enough
greasy fingerprints for an entire season of
CSI, CSI: Miami, and
whatever inane spinoffs Bruckheimer may dream up for next season. What
are we going to do with this, Dana?”
The assistant
accepted the platter, imagining Marla turning on a spit, marinated with
citrus and cilantro. “Re-shape, re-bake, and replate.”
“Remarkable,”
Marla said dryly, and spun on her Gucci heel into the corridor outside
Test Kitchen #7. Blake was leaning on the wall opposite, shaking his bald
head.
“Always
wondered what little Dana would taste like, infused with Venom a la
Sterling
and verbally parbroiled,” the native Texan mused.
“I should’ve
hired one of those gay personal assistants who know how to be oozingly
obsequious and who don’t harbor culinary fantasies about the female help.”
Blake came
off the wall. “Don’t you think maybe you shoulda called in sick today,
after what happened to Teri? We coulda plugged in a ‘Best of Marla’ or
even yesterday’s ep, and nobody woulda been the wiser.”
Marla tossed
him a reptilian glare. “Consolation of the bereaved isn’t your strong suit,
Blake. And counterproductive sentiment isn’t mine. I’ve lost one of my
oldest, dearest friends, and sitting on my deck in the Valley with a pitcher
of margaritas isn’t going to help things. Did you track those Victorian
fixtures?”
Blake sighed,
and fell into step with his taller, leaner employer. “They shipped them
to the
New York
offices. It’ll be at least a day, maybe two, Fed Ex Overnight.”
“Goddamit,”
Marla snapped. “Now I’ve got to come up with a new segment. We still got
those paper animals, that origami shit?”
“Yup.”
“OK. We’ll
slot the window treatments piece where the doorknobs would’ve been today,
and I’ll talk about cunning little folded rats tomorrow.”
“Origami
shit, check. Letterman wants to know if you’re open next Tuesday.”
“Screw
him. Let him rerun that clever little ‘Top 10 Marla Sterling’s Stock Tips’
piece he seemed to relish so much.”
“Self-fornication, check.”
The pair
stepped into an elevator just ahead of Jake Moulton, AKA
The Bachelor Chef. “Hey, Marla – sorry to hear about Teri,” the
beefy, unshaven, T-shirted King of the Weber said, squeezing her arm and
standing at least a half-inch inside her discomfort zone.
It wasn’t a “move” – Moulton’s interests generally lie in the twentysomething
arena, though Teri had made a drunken run at him during a cable convention
a few months earlier. But Marla stepped off an inch, anyway. Blake studied
the digital floor readout near the ceiling.
“You know, I don’t mean anything sexist here or anything, but it really
isn’t safe for a woman out there on her own,” Moulton continued as the doors
closed. “I know Teri was all antigun and shit, but that doesn’t mean you
can’t protect your ass, you know? My agent, he got me this sweet gig pitching
home security systems, high-tech crap? I bet I could hook you up, Marla.”
“No thanks,” Marla murmured.
“I mean, they’re real easy to operate – it’s like a keypad,
You could probably get one of those kids on your crew to come
over and help you figure out how to work the thing. Hell, I got my mom
up on the Internet over the weekend.”
Blake backed up a step and began checking his PDA. Marla turned to The
Bachelor Chef with a sweet, grandmotherly smile, and her mouth opened as
the elevator stopped with a chime and the doors slid open.
“Ms. Sterling!” Lt. Columbo clapped his hands. “This is a lucky coincidence.
I was just headin’ for Ms. Racine and your offices.”
“Later, Babe,” Moulton said, squeezing the High Priestess of Homemaking’s
elbow and edging past the rumpled cop. Columbo did a double-take, and glanced
at Moulton’s retreating back.
“Geez, that’s that guy, right? The bachelor guy, makes all the stuff
with beer and Cheese Whiz and stuff? He’s great – not like you, not classy
or nothing, but I made those pork chops soaked in Jack Daniels he made on
his show a few weeks ago, and, well, lemme tell you, it was the hit of my
niece’s cosmetology school graduation party.”
“Wish I’d been there,” Marla smiled as she brushed past him. Columbo
pursued her as she approached the suite she and Teri had shared with Blake.
“Just wanted to let you know we’re checking some leads in your friend’s
murder,” he said. “That’s what we’re calling it now, by the way.”
“I thought murder was what we always called it when someone is brutally
killed,” Marla commented casually as she checked an appointment book on Blake’s
marble desktop.
“Well, yessss,” Columbo drawled, momentarily nonplussed. “That’s true,
and in fact, when somebody’s killed in the commission of a felony, technically,
that’s a murder, a felony murder. But, no, ma’am, what I think we got here
is a homicide, clear and simple.”
“Homicide?”
Marla looked up, arching a perfectly tweezed brow. “Whoever would want
to kill Teri?”
“Well, I know she was your best friend, ma’am…”
Marla held up a finger. “I wasn’t being maudlin or naïve, Lieutenant.
Teri may have been my best friend, but to risk sounding insensitive, she
very frankly wasn’t one to inspire strong emotions in others, like homicidal
rage.”
Columbo nodded, then stopped.
“Why do you say homicidal rage, ma’am?”
Marla bit the tip of her tongue to prevent a stammer from escaping. “What
do you mean?”
“Why do you think Ms. Racine was killed in a homicidal rage, instead
of, say, in cold blood.”
“Well, the bloodshed, the severity of the beating she took,” Marla countered,
defensively. “I don’t know – I’m not a homicide detective – but it just
seemed obvious.”
Columbo scratched his forehead. “Yeah, I suppose it would. I wonder,
ma’am, if you could do me a favor?”
She consulted her tennis watch. “I suppose I could.”
“Great. I wonder if you might help me look through Ms. Racine’s office
for a moment. You might know where she keeps a few things.” Columbo’s eyes
grew wide with concern. “Unless, of course, it might be a little too soon…”
“Nonsense,” Marla sighed, marching to her former producer/partner’s office.
Columbo glanced around at the colorful drapes, the thick rug,
the Scandinavian furnishings. “Wow, this is very, ah, very…”
“Conspicuous?” Marla supplied. “There is a theory in workplace décor
that less frequently can prove more. That subtle style can project a quiet
efficiency and excellence – a nuance in style that suggests a nuanced personality.
Teri didn’t subscribe to that theory. She leaned more toward the Austin
Powers School of Decorating.”
“And it really works,” Columbo marveled. He searched for a starting point,
and then spotted a framed color photo on the wall above one of the white
guest chairs. “Say, look at that. That’s you, isn’t it, ma’am?
With Ms. Racine?”
“Yes,” Marla answered, rooted near the door. She knew the picture: She
and Teri grinning and gripping the Golden Ladle Award the San Francisco
Restaurateur’s Society had given them for excellence in catering. Two weeks
later, Teri and the gilded spoon had blown town, along with Sterling Service
and her man of the month.
“Wow, you were sure a looker back then,” Columbo observed, peering at
the photo. He turned, blushing. “I mean, you still are, ma’am. Attractive,
I mean. In fact, more attractive, in a more mature way…”
“Please, Lieutenant; I’m likely to swoon any second. What, precisely,
are you looking for?”
“Hard to say, ma’am – hard to say,” Columbo murmured, pawing away at
Teri’s expansive and geometrically chaotic desk. “Maybe something that
might give us some kinda clue about that ring we found this morning.”
“Yes,” Marla said. “The mysterious ring. How
do you think the killer missed that?”
Columbo halted his search of Teri’s underworked desk and perched a buttock
on its edge. “Well, actually, that’s one reason I don’t think this was
a simple burglary. I mean, we had that thing appraised, and it easily costs
$15,000.”
Marla looked at the floor in mock thought. “Of course, who’d think to
look on a kitchen table for such an extravagant item?” She looked up. “What
if our thief left the ring on the table by accident after he killed Teri?
Perhaps the shock of what he’d done…”
“But why under a napkin?” Columbo interrupted. “You see what I mean?
There was a dry spot under that cloth napkin we found the ring under. That
means the ring was there before Ms. Racine was killed – probably before
the burglary? Now, you gotta admit that ain’t a very secure place to hide
your jewelry.”
“I’ll stipulate that,” Marla said.
“But,” Columbo started, waggling a finger, “but what if Ms. Racine was
only hiding that ring temporarily? What if she wanted to surprise somebody
with it?”
“Lieutenant, you’d have had to know Teri to realize how absurd that would
be. Teri was one of the most frugal women I’d ever met. When we had a catering
business together back in college, she’d collect all the unused napkins
and place settings, one by one, from each table, to recycle. As you said,
I was her closest friend, and her Christmas gift to me was a middle-of-the-line
VCR-DVD combo with the rebate coupon clear cut off the box.”
“Oh, I don’t mean she wanted to surprise somebody by giving them that
ring. It’s a more romantic kinda gift and, well, I assume Ms. Racine wasn’t,
well, you know…”
“Oh, no,” Marla caught on, smirking despite herself. “Teri definitely
leaned toward the male of the species. Leaned toward,
on, and frequently over.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Columbo chuckled, face reddening. “No, what I meant to
suggest was that maybe she wanted to surprise somebody by showing them
what somebody had given her. I mean, that was a fairly impressive ring,
wasn’t it?”
“Reasonably so,” Marla assented. “A very expensive
bauble. It wasn’t an engagement ring, but it would seem to represent
strong feelings. Or at least it would be aimed at eliciting strong feelings.”
“Ma’am?”
“Let me be charitable in saying my friend was impressionable when it
came to men, and the bigger the bauble, the greater the impression it made
on her. But go on – you were deducing, I believe.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah.
Where was I? Lemme show you something.” Columbo removed an old-fashioned
white handkerchief from a pants pocket, searched Teri Racine’s desk, and
finally selected the half-sized mock Emmy she used as a paperweight. The
policeman draped the handkerchief over the statuette. “This is how the ring
box was hidden on Ms. Racine’s table. Now, why would she hide this valuable
ring this way? If she was showing it to a neighbor or a coworker, wouldn’t
she just take it out of her safe – I’m assuming here,
cause she did have a safe in the back of her bedroom closet –
and just put it out on the table? This is more like, how would I put it?
– like a presentation, ma’am.”
With a flourish, Columbo whipped the handkerchief from the pseudo-award.
“Ta-da! See what I mean? Like Ms. Racine
wanted to impress somebody with this ring. Now, I’m not a woman…”
“God was no doubt kind.”
“Huh? Oh, I get you,” Columbo chuckled, shaking his head. “You oughtta
see my second cousin – she’s had three electrolysis operations, and still…
But you don’t wanna hear about that. My point is, this kinda dramatic presentation,
showing off a beautiful piece of jewelry like this,
that seems like something a woman would do for a woman, a close woman
friend, maybe.”
Marla nodded slowly. “You have a keen understanding of the female mind,
Columbo. Are you fumbling toward some kind of allegation or something?”
Columbo blinked, then held up both palms.
“Oh, gee, ma’am, I didn’t mean…I mean, gosh, I’m just trying to work all
this out in my mind. I certainly didn’t mean to imply…”
“Because,” the Princess of the Place Setting interjected, “I can think
of at least two other scenarios that might explain why we found that ring
under the napkin.”
“Can you, ma’am? Cause it’s a real puzzler for me?”
Ziploc bags are no doubt a “puzzler” for you, Marla reflected.
“All right. Scenario One: Teri’s amour du jour stops by to present
a token of his undying passion. Of course, like most men in love, he wants
to make a melodramatic show of his romanticism, so when Teri isn’t looking,
he slips the ring under her napkin, so when she picks it up, she’ll discover
his love bauble.”
Columbo pursed his lips, brows knitted in thought. Then his shaggy head
moved from side to side. “Nooo, I don’t think so, ma’am. See, the napkin
was in front of the seat opposite Ms. Racine.”
“Don’t nit-pick, Lieutenant,” Marla snapped. She composed herself with
a smile. “Perhaps Teri’s lover planned to unveil the ring himself. My point
is, what if Teri rejected his token, rebuffed his passion. I daresay hell
may have no more fury than a woman scorned, but the male of the species
tends to be more, ah, demonstrative in the way he expresses his scorn.”
“Definitely, ma’am,” the cop nodded vigorously. “But do you think this
man would leave a $15,000 ring behind? Not to mention it would be a highly
incriminating piece of evidence.”
“Who knows what goes through someone’s mind in the heat of murder, Lieutenant?
But if you don’t like that scenario, how about
this? It’s also part of the feminine mystique – at least, one
form of feminine mystique – that expensive jewelry has a mesmerizing effect
on women. Particularly an impressionable woman like
Teri. I can imagine her taking that ring out of her safe just to
sit and gaze at it at the breakfast table. She’s lost in her trance when
she hears a window break at the back door. Realizing she’s being burglarized,
Teri quickly throws a napkin over the ring box, in the hopes her robber
won’t see it.”
Columbo already was frowning. “Gee, I dunno, ma’am… If somebody, maybe
even somebody dangerous, was breaking into your house, wouldn’t you grab
the ring and run out the front door, lock yourself in the bedroom and call
911, something besides just sitting at the table and waiting to be robbed?
Besides, I just don’t buy this burglary theory.”
“You have a very convoluted mind, Lieutenant,” Marla said tersely.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Columbo smiled gratefully. “Well, I got some leads
to follow up on, so I guess I’d better take off. Oh,
and Ms. Sterling?”
Marla tensed. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Could you ask the cleaning crew to leave this office alone for a couple
of days? I’ll call when it’s all clear.”
“I’ll talk to Building Maintenance immediately.”
“I’d sure appreciate it, ma’am. Good day.”
Marla watched the wrinkled raincoat disappear into the suite,
then walked over to the portrait of herself and Teri taken during
their younger, happier days. Did that little Cro Magnon – no, make that
Neanderthal – suspect something? How could he possibly have fixed on her?
On the surface of it, there was no obvious motive for her to kill Teri,
particularly not that viciously…
“Ms. Sterling?” Marla jumped, and she pivoted to find Columbo standing
in the doorway, a woman’s jacket in his hand. “Geez, I’m sorry if I scared
you, Ms. Sterling. Is this Ms. Racine’s jacket? I found it in the closet
over there.”
“Yes,” Marla said through her teeth. “Teri tended to be more casual around
the office, but she’d wear it on the set and to meetings.”
Columbo’s hand disappeared into the fabric of the navy women’s blazer.
“See, you can learn a lot about a person by goin’ through their pockets.
Little notes, business cards, candy. I got like a whole library in my coat
here. Maybe we can get some idea who gave Ms. Racine that ring. Heeere
we go…”
The policemen displayed a sheaf of multicolored sticky notes. When Marla
refused to move, he ambled over and dropped the stack on the desk. “Okaaayy…
‘MS B-Nob Brtwd.’ Ma’am?”
Marla sighed. “I had a book signing three nights ago at a Barnes and
Noble in Brentwood. Teri was frequently absent-minded. She wrote those
notes to remind herself of events and ideas.”
“‘T-M CBk.’”
“Teri thought I should do a Tex-Mex cookbook – kind of haute cuisine
meets hot tamales. I vetoed the idea.”
“Mmm…This one’s kind of mangled.” Columbo smoothed the crumpled sky-blue
note with his palm. “ ‘Coho.’
‘Coho.’ Now, what’s that mean?”
“Salmon.”
Columbo and Marla turned toward the doorway, where Blake stood with
his arms crossed. “Twenty pounds of Grade A
Coho salmon, for next week’s ‘Saltless in Seattle’ segment. Low sodium seafood
recipes, Lieutenant. I didn’t come up with the title, by the way.”
“Ah,” Columbo nodded. “Catchy. Well, I guess that didn’t tell us anything,
huh? I’ll just say goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye, then,” Marla chirped.
The lieutenant waved cheerfully as he headed past Blake. Then he froze
and turned. “Uh, just one more thing, ma’am.
Do you remember I mentioned that white dust we found on the counter in
Ms. Racine’s kitchen?”
“Vividly,” Marla said tonelessly, shrugging slightly at Blake. She’d
kicked herself for missing that bit of evidence, but she was ready.
“I had it analyzed, down at the lab. It was plaster, ma’am – plaster
dust.”
“Astounding.”
Columbo nodded, grinning. “Now we just gotta figure out why it was there.
Well, you folks have a nice afternoon.”
Blake stood silently while his employer lowered herself carefully into
Teri’s leather chair. She regarded the stoic Texan for an equally tacit
moment before speaking.
“Saltless in Seattle,” she murmured. “I don’t recall that in the program
notes.”
“You want to cancel the segment?” he asked casually.
“No,” Marla smiled slightly. “It sounds interesting. In fact, didn’t
that Seattle radio shrink’s agent make a pitch to you for a guest spot?”
“Frasier Crane,” Blake supplied. “Amateur gourmand and wine connoisseur,
matter of fact. It would get that piranha Bebe off our ass, I suppose.”
“And see if he’ll prepare the salmon,” Marla added. “Unless you want
to see me swell up, turn purple, and my windpipe close.”
“Always watching out for you, Babe,” Blake saluted. He vanished without
another word, and Marla sat, wondering.
**
“Columbo, you no good son-of-a-bitch!”
The lieutenant
turned abruptly toward the source of the affectionate epithet – a small,
blunt-featured fireplug of a man with curly black hair. Milo LaFountaine,
who most closely resembled the Third Mobster in any given
Sopranos episode, sprinted down the hallway toward Columbo, the tails
of his unbuttoned chef’s tunic flapping aside staffers and guests.
“Milo,”
Columbo said warmly, pumping the renowned gourmet’s thick paw. “I’ll be a
son-of-a-gun. How you doing?”
“Any better,
they’d haveta shoot me with a rhinoceros dart,” Milo rumbled. “Hey, you
ain’t been around the restaurant for months – you too busy chasin’ down
the bad guys?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. How’s your pop?”
“Still
drops down to the station house every day, gives the young guys hell,”
Milo said. “You know, he asked about you the other day, how the ‘Whiz Kid
of the Bronx Division’ was gettin’ along. I had to remind him
neither me or you’re spring chickens any more.”
“Ahhh,”
Columbo dismissed. “I seen you on the tube just last night, runnin’ around
and flirtin’ with that girl in the audience like you were 20 or something.
And how many of those restaurants you got now.”
“Thirty-five
-- just opened one in Tokyo,” Milo grinned. “Hey, we ain’t taping for another
four hours – visit for awhile.”
“Geez,
I’d love to, Milo, but I got this big murder case I’m in the middle of,”
Columbo sighed. “Teri Racine? You know her?”
Milo turned
somber. “Nice gal. Little ditsy, kinda full of herself,
but a nice enough gal. C’mon, we’ll talk about your case and I’ll
fix you one of my international gourmet specialties.”
**
“International
gourmet specialty,” Columbo grinned euphorically as Milo set the steaming
bowl of chili with beans, onions, and cheese before him. “I think you were
pulling my leg.”
“Hey,”
Milo protested as crew members flowed around the pair’s table at center
stage of the Milo Live set. “You
think it’s easy to duplicate Barney’s famous Chili Con Carne Con Columbo?”
The homicide
detective peered into the rich rust-red concoction. “You didn’t put
nothing strange in here, did you? No ostrich meat or truffles
or cilantro or nothing?”
“I even
recreated the famous puddle of grease on top,” Milo said. “The American Heart
Association’s gonna take my certification away.”
Columbo
happily dug in. “You know this Marla Sterling, do you?”
“America’s
Happy Homemaker? Oh, you bet. She ducks in a doorway every time I come
down the hall. You’d think she hadn’t grown up in Flatbush.”
“You’re
kiddin’ me? She sounds all, I don’t know, all classy. Like somebody on a
yacht or something.”
“Aaah,
don’t let her fool ya,” Milo laughed. “She’s just another New Yawk girl
with a few electrocution lessons. She came out here in the ‘80s to go to
school, and that’s where she and Teri got together. They started up a catering
business, got pretty famous up north, I hear.”
“That how
Ms. Sterling got started on this homemaking thing?” Columbo asked through
a mouth full of meat and beans.
“Teri and
Marla were tight since their early twenties, at Berkley,” Milo explained.
“They were hotel/restaurant students together, and they started
their our own catering service. Teri had the culinary touch, Marla
the eye for color, panache, all that style crap. The
San Francisco Chronicle did a big spread on ‘em, and they graduated
from servin’ Nouveau Kosher at Bay Area bar mitzvahs and veal cordon bleu
at political fundraisers to doing a city councilman’s daughter’s wedding
and a governor’s reception.
“That’s
where I understand all hell broke loose between the two of ‘em. They were
about ready to lay out a big spread for the governor and some Japanese VIPs,
and Teri breaks it to Marla she wants out. Seems she met some beefcake at
the councilman’s shindig, and the two of ‘em decided to go do Europe. Accordin’
to the legend, Marla tried to drown her in a tureen full a’ gazpacho. Good
thing it wasn’t a hot soup, right?
“‘Course, with Teri outta the equation, all there was was gold parchment
menus and radish rosettes and no coq au vin, which ain’t very fillin’.
Marla went back to school, and Teri got left high and dry in Paris three
months later when the boyfriend got busted with three kilos of Coke. Flash
ahead 10 years. Marla’s managed to build up a pretty hoity decorating business
in L.A., makin’ a name for herself, and Teri’s
all cozy with some cable network program chief. They run into each other
at some party or somethin’, and it’s all hugs and
