Evening Bags and Executions(53)

Bellflower? What the heck was he doing in Bellflower? It was a city south of here and inland, maybe forty miles away. Of course, in L.A. forty miles translated to well over an hour’s drive—if you were lucky.

I grabbed a pen from my desk drawer.

“Give me the address,” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“No, no,” Shuman said. “Don’t come here. It’s too dangerous.”

My heart jumped. What the heck was Shuman up to? “I’ll meet you at—at—hang on,” he said.

He went quiet. The noise in the background—traffic, I think—died. I heard a thump, like a car door had closed.

“There’s a park. I forgot the name. It’s north off the 118 in Simi Valley,” Shuman said. “Can you find it? Can you meet me there?”

Okay, this was totally weird.

“Sure,” I said, jotting down the info. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll call you when I get close,” he told me.

“Are you okay—?”

Shuman hung up.

I didn’t like the sound of this. Shuman was majorly stressed out. Something was going on.

I’d never been to Bellflower. It was probably a nice place, but like all cities it surely had its share of criminal activity. Was that what Shuman was doing there? Investigating Amanda’s murder, even though the LAPD had put him on leave?

For a second I considered calling Detective Madison to see if I could find out anything, but as soon as the idea came into my head I pushed it out. Madison wouldn’t help—not me, anyway—and anything I said to him might make things worse for Shuman at the department.

Of course, I could be worrying for nothing. Maybe Shuman’s mom lived in Bellflower and he was just upset after visiting with her—which I totally understood. I’d have to wait to find out.

I’m not good at waiting.

I couldn’t picture sitting here in my office for the next hour or until I heard from Shuman. I gathered my things and left.





I pulled into the Best Western parking lot and spotted the Lacy Cakes delivery van nosed in outside room 112. Since I had some time to kill before Shuman would get here from Bellflower, I figured another chat with Darren about the future of the bakery couldn’t hurt—along with a few questions about Lacy’s murder.

I parked, got out and knocked. A minute later he opened the door.

Darren looked much as he had every other time I’d seen him, dressed in work pants and a work shirt. Today the back of his hair—what there was of it—stuck straight up, like he’d been napping. I wondered what he’d been doing with his days since he’d been in town.

“Haley, isn’t it?” he asked. I nodded and he stepped outside, which suited me fine because I didn’t really want to be alone inside the motel room with him.

“Your cake order,” he said and nodded. “Didn’t Paige call you?”

A knot the size of a Prada satchel jerked in my stomach.

I guess he read the this-cannot-possibly-be-happening expression on my face because he said, “She’s still doing your cake. I told her to call you just in case you heard what was going on.”

I was relieved—somewhat.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’m closing the bakery,” Darren said.

I can’t say I was surprised by his decision, considering everything.

“Paige must have been disappointed,” I said. “Belinda, too.”

“Those two,” Darren grumbled. “All this fuss over something that was never going to be theirs in the first place.”

He looked as if he had more to say and had been holding it in for a while. I kept quiet—which wasn’t easy for me, but that’s what we sort-of-kind-of private detectives do.

“I can’t run a business here from up north,” Darren said, sounding agitated. “It’s too far away to deal with problems. I can’t be running down here every time something comes up.”

“Like the break-in?” I asked.

He huffed irritably. “What if it happens again when the bakery is open for business? How much stuff could be taken? How much would that cost me?”

Belinda had told me Darren was a tightwad, and I couldn’t disagree since he was still driving the delivery van instead of renting a car. Plus there was that whole thing about him possibly dipping into the church collection plate.

“Must have been expensive to get the locks changed after the burglary,” I said.

“Damn right it was,” Darren said. “And I’d just shelled out money to have Paige make me a key.”

Hang on a second.

“You didn’t have Lacy’s keys?” I asked.