FIFTY-THREE

Jack was surprised at John’s reaction when he heard Elizabeth, Lou Lou, and Mary Lisa were all at the Goddard Bay Inn. He insisted on calling them and inviting them all to lunch.

“Elizabeth is something, isn’t she, Jack?” John asked as Jack pulled his truck into traffic.

Now this was interesting. Had he been blind down in Malibu? He looked at the contented look on his friend’s face, and smiled. “She is.”

“She told me they’d stop eating breakfast right away.” And he gave Jack a fatuous grin. Jack nearly jerked the wheel into an old Pontiac parked on the side of the street.

“Hey, careful, Jack. You really needed a break, I can see that, and so do I. So let’s try not to talk about business for a couple of hours, capisce?”

“Since when did you get a transfusion of Italian blood?”

John merely shook his head and looked happy.

A few minutes later, Jack pulled up in front of the circular entrance of the old gray stone edifice built long before either of them was born.

John said as he got out of the truck, “I’ve always been grateful this place is nearly completely hidden behind all these oak trees. You only have to see those seedy old chimneys poking up through the tops of the trees. They look like smudge pots, all sixteen of them.”

Jack waved one of the parking attendants over. “Keep an eye on this state-of-the-art machine.”

“Yes, sir, dude-Chief, sir.”

They walked across the formal lobby with its overstuffed dark furniture and huge palm trees, whose sweeping fronds looked big enough to swallow them, to the creaky elevator that belonged in a scary movie. They got off on the third and top floor, took a right down a long, dismal hallway with an ancient cabbage rose runner, and knocked on 333B.

Lou Lou answered the door. “Hi, guys. Have you figured out why room 333B is on the third floor?”

John said, “Hi, Lou Lou. Old Man Willis built this place and died two years ago when he was nearly ninety. They say he chose all the room numbers at random.”

“Oh, I see, the ‘consistency is the hobgoblin’ theory?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” John said. “Mr. Willis was, to put it kindly, the local eccentric who did as he pleased.”

“You mean he was crazy.”

“Nope, he was too rich to be crazy. Definitely eccentric.”

Jack kissed Lou Lou’s cheek.

“Come on in, guys,” she said. “Hey, Elizabeth, Mary Lisa, we got both the big guns here.”

Mary Lisa contented herself with a smile and said, “Hello, Jack.”

“Mary Lisa.”

Lou Lou looked from one to the other and knew the air was cracking hot between them. A chief of police-who knew? And, Lou Lou suspected, he would be good for her, maybe a husband kind of good. She smiled, waved the men to sit down on the big eggplant sofa, the cracks in the leather as old as they were.

Jack sniffed. “The room smells like vanilla.”

Mary Lisa laughed. “Yep, I stopped at Ernie’s little ripoff 24/7 and bought some on the way over. I hope it helps. Smelled musty before.”

John said, his voice all awkward angles, which made Jack jerk his head around and stare at him, “Elizabeth, it’s really good to see you again. I’m glad you came up with Mary Lisa and Lou Lou. Ah, I’m surprised you could get away.”

“It required lots of shuffling, begging, calling in markers, promising favors, but Mary Lisa said she needed me.”

Lou Lou said slowly, eyebrow arched at Elizabeth, “I think one of the reasons you wanted to come up was to see this district attorney here.”

Elizabeth met John’s eyes, smiled. “Maybe so.”

“Good,” John said.

“And how is the investigation going, John?” Elizabeth asked, more naturally now. “We decided we might as well give you a hand. Anything you need done, we’re available. I was born for excitement.”

“Where were you born?” John asked.

“Millicent, Texas, population six hundred and twenty-one. But in the past five years we’ve had a population explosion.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nodded. “We’re up to six hundred and forty-seven. A local-Neddy Opper-opened a new rib house off the highway, all down-home with long wood tables and lots of paper towels. I hear that people drive from miles around.”

Mary Lisa took Jack’s hand in hers. “Listen, Elizabeth is right. We’re here, let us help.”

“Why not?” John said. “It’s a deal. We don’t have to pay them, Jack.”

Jack closed his hand tightly around Mary Lisa’s. “John’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. He made me promise not to talk about any business here today. Besides, there’s nothing to be done. After lunch, why don’t you all go sightsee?”

“It’s the same ocean, Jack,” Lou Lou said. “When you’ve seen one wave, you’ve seen them all.”

“Are you going to arrest Olivia Hildebrand?” Elizabeth asked.

“As in take her to jail? No, but she’s at home, and I’ve posted two female deputies there to keep an eye on her. Her lawyer didn’t have a problem with that, thank heaven. Her doctor’s got her sedated so I don’t have to worry about her trying to take off. So is everyone ready for lunch?”

“Where are we going?” Elizabeth asked.

“Le Fleur de Beijing,” John said, “featuring real cloth napkins. And they’ve got mysterious foreign names for the food so you have to ask the waiter, giving him a chance to look at you like you’re an illiterate varmint and don’t belong in such a classy establishment. They’re the big deal here in Goddard Bay right now.”

“Now that’s what I’m looking for,” Lou Lou said. “Stuff like Japanese soba noodles in creamy mushroom sauce. Some people might blanche at that, but not me.”

Jack didn’t like French food, since it was usually big on presentation and microscopic on serving size. “I think I counted a total of eleven noodles on my plate the last time I was there,” he said.

“So get the octopus,” Lou Lou said. “That way you’ll be guaranteed eight legs.”

Ten minutes later, Lou Lou locked the suite door with a key the size of Burbank and hummed as they walked down the long hall toward the creaky elevator. As it lurched downward, Lou Lou patted the mirrored walls. “I love this thing.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were tightly closed. “Next time I’m taking the stairs.”

“The inspector said the stairs weren’t too bad,” John told her. “But that was last year.”

Halfway across the lobby, their path was blocked by the manager, Mr. Clement Rogers, who’d known Mary Lisa since her family had moved here over twenty years before.

He spoke directly to Jack. “Chief, Mrs. Willis saw you and District Attorney Goddard go up to the ladies’ suite a while ago. She instructed me to ask if there was any reason for concern.”

Mary Lisa lightly touched her fingers to Mr. Rogers’s arm. “It’s okay, Mr. Rogers. Please tell Mrs. Willis that I am personally keeping an eye on these two very respectable gentlemen. Assure her that I will not give them any beer.”

“We will drink the beer ourselves, Mr. Rogers, tonight,” Elizabeth said. “It was too early this morning for the gentlemen to imbibe anything more than your excellent coffee.”

“Besides, there are only three bottles in the bar,” Lou Lou said. “We want them ourselves.”

Mr. Rogers said, softening under Lou Lou’s brilliant smile, as did most people, “It’s Mrs. Willis’s favorite, miss, not that heavy hops-happy German stuff, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.” He shot a look at Jack and John.

“The gentlemen will not be returning with us, Mr. Rogers. Assure Mrs. Willis of that. We need our afternoon naps.”

“Thank you, Mary Lisa. Mrs. Willis loves your show, watches it every day, talks about what a believable bad girl your character is. She says you do ‘bad’ with a real flair.”

Two hours later, Jack and John followed the women back to the inn. Jack didn’t kiss Mary Lisa, not that he didn’t want to, but there were eyes everywhere, so he merely took her arm, leaned down, and whispered against her ear, “Believe me, there’s nothing you can do to help. I want you to keep out of trouble.”