In a joking tone, I said, “Meaning that I don’t have good taste?”

“Of course you do-in food and friends. But when it comes to clothes… I mean, you look nice in those sweaters and skirts and jackets you like to wear, but you’re not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion. Just put yourself in Phil’s hands. That’s settled. Now, what are you doing tonight? Are you seeing that gorgeous Italian?”

“Nicholas is Sicilian. No, he’s up in northern California. What I’m going to do when we hang up is make myself some scrambled eggs for supper, organize the rest of my week, then take a warm, foamy bath and collapse into bed.”

By the time I’d eaten, made out the marketing lists for the classes I would be teaching this weekend, and gone over the recipes I’d be making on camera for Thursday night’s weekly live broadcast of In the Kitchen with Della-rehearsing the movements and timing them in my head-it was nearly eleven o’clock.

As soon as I put aside my pen and pad to stretch the kinks out of my shoulders, Tuffy got up from where he’d been dozing by the back door and came over to stand beside me. He looked at me with eager expectation in his bright black eyes and wagged his hindquarters vigorously.

I scratched him below his ears. “Oh, Tuff, I would recognize you if you were in the middle of a million black poodles. And yes, I know what time it is.” I took his leash down from its peg on the wall and hooked it to his collar.

I gave Tuffy an especially long pre-bedtime walk through the neighborhood, both because I knew how much he enjoyed his explorations and because I needed a big dose of fresh, cool air. Now that I’d finished my work, my mind came back to concern about Eileen.

Tuffy and I had been strolling for more than half an hour, and were almost back to the house, when the cell phone in my pocket rang. I fished it out. “Hello.”

“Hi, Slugger.” It was Nicholas D’Martino.

“Is this an obscene phone call?”

“Absolutely.” And he proceeded to whisper a few sentences that started to make me jittery.

“Stop. That’s enough, unless you’re in your car on your way over here.”

He sighed. “I wish. But I’m still up in Carmel on the Lopez murder story. Did you know that you’re speaking to the world’s most intrepid reporter?”

“ Lois Lane? Gosh, your voice is deeper than I’d expected.”

“Do you want to hear about my triumph or not?”

“Of course I do.”

Nicholas was usually so cool when he talked about his work, but tonight I heard pride in his voice. “I broke the case. The local cops are mad as hell because I turned up evidence that they missed, but it enabled them to arrest the killer.”

“Congratulations. That’s wonderful. Tell me all.”

“You’ll read about it in tomorrow’s Chronicle. Front page, above the fold. I’ve got a few days of follow-up here, but I’ll be back Friday. You available that night for dinner and… whatever?”

I smiled, imagining the whatever. “I’m available. Your place or mine?”

“Mine. I’m going to make dinner for you. Actually, it’ll be takeout, but I’ll heat it up. Afterward, I’m planning to broaden your education.”

“Hmmmm. Sounds interesting.”

“Bring money,” he said.

Money? That jolted me out of my erotic fantasy. “What are you talking about?”

“Coins: nickels, dimes, quarters. I’m going to teach you to play gin rummy.”

“I already know how,” I said. “But do we have to play for money?”

“What do you want to play for?”

“How about… the winner has to make passionate love to the loser? Or vice versa.”

He laughed. “You make me want to come home right now, but I’ve got to be intrepid for a while longer.”

We were about to say good night when I thought of something to ask him. “Keith Ingram, the food critic? His column runs in the Chronicle. Do you know him?”

“Sure. We’re not close buddies, but we work out at the same gym. We’ve watched some fights together, and gone on a couple of the paper’s Super Bowl trips.”

“What kind of a person is Ingram?”

“He’s an okay guy. Pays the check when it’s his turn. Why?”

“It may be that Eileen has become involved with him.”

“Whoa!” Nicholas’s tone abruptly changed from casual to sharp. “No. Not good. Eileen’s a sweet kid. When it comes to women, Ingram is bad news. If she’s seeing him, talk her out of it before she gets hurt.”

Eileen hadn’t come home by the time I went to bed. I fell into a restless sleep, and a few minutes after two in the morning I woke up. The house was silent. I got out of bed and went down the hall to listen at Eileen’s closed door. I leaned in close and strained to hear, but I couldn’t detect any sound from within. Very gently, I turned the knob and peeked inside.

Her lights were off, but there was just enough illumination from the moonlight coming through the filmy curtains that I could see her bed had not been slept in.

Suddenly, the piercing trill of a ringing phone shattered the stillness in the house.

It was my bedroom phone.

I felt a lurch in my chest and my heart began to pound. Calls that come at two o’clock in the morning are not likely to bring good news. I hurried back down the hall to my own room and grabbed the receiver.

“ Aunt Del?” It was Eileen. She was sobbing. “I tried to drive, but the car… Oh, Aunt Del, can you come and pick me up?”

I forced myself to sound calm. “Honey, are you all right? Have you been in an accident?”

It took a few choked-back sobs before she was able to speak. “No accident. But the car won’t move, and I don’t have my wallet-oh, I’m such an idiot!” She began to cry again.

“Eileen, let’s calm down. Take some slow, deep breaths.” When I heard her doing it, I said, “That’s it. Good. Now tell me where you are.”

She did. I was surprised because it wasn’t an area of Los Angeles where any of her friends that I knew lived.

“Stay in the car with the doors locked,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

4

Eileen’s twelve-year-old red Volkswagen with the UCLA sticker was parked about a mile north of the Sunset Strip, on the 2100 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

Narrow, twisty Laurel Canyon is a rustic enclave of free spirits, many of them in the music business, but in recent years affluent professionals have joined the performing types by migrating to this woodsy oasis in the center of Los Angeles.

I was able to spot Eileen’s car only because she’d told me to look to the right when I got to the sign on my left that said Kirkwood. She had pulled up parallel to a small dry cleaner and laundry establishment, which was just a few yards below the Canyon Country Store, a popular landmark at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Kirkwood Drive.

As I turned right into a shallow parking area, my headlights swept Eileen’s car. I saw the outline of her head, bent over the steering wheel. She looked up, blinked in the glare, and gave a weak little wave.

I steered the Jeep to a stop just ahead of her car and got out. Simultaneously, Eileen emerged from her little VW and came toward me. In the spill from the nearby streetlight I saw that her long blonde hair, usually so carefully brushed, was a disheveled mess. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she had stopped crying.

“Tell me what’s happened.”

“The car died,” she said. “I don’t know what the matter is, and I couldn’t call Triple A because I forgot my purse back at… I ran out so fast that-oh, Aunt Del, I’ve been such a stupid idiot!”

I put my arms around her in a comforting hug, then stepped back so she’d have to look at me. “Let’s take care of the simple problem first,” I said. “What’s the matter with your car?”