Evening Bags and Executions(86)

Jeez, I really hope she meant that in a good way.

“A reliable, discreet security firm isn’t easy to come by,” Sheridan said.

Something shiny must have caught her attention because she wandered away, Muriel trailing after her.

Sheridan thought I owned a private detective firm? And I was working undercover?

Cool.

I headed across the grounds again consulting the event diagram so everyone would think I was working, but really the idea of a detective agency was playing around in my head—even though I was still having trouble coming to terms with the whole Belinda-ransom thing.

I wasn’t all that excited about this event-planning gig, and even though not long ago I’d decided to get my bachelor’s degree in procurement and become a corporate buyer, I’d been in my breakup fog at the time, so I wasn’t sure that counted.

I realized then that the murder of Lacy Hobbs was rambling around in my head. It took up more room in my mind than Sheridan’s party—which just shows how I was feeling about working at L.A. Affairs.

When I’d talked to Paige earlier she’d told me that Belinda had come up with the money to buy Lacy Cakes—which was immediately after the ransom was delivered. Darren had left town at the same time, supposedly.

I was pretty sure one of them had murdered Lacy. I didn’t like to think that anyone deserved to be murdered, but really, Lacy had been pretty awful to both of them for years—right up until the end, it seemed.

They both had motive—money. Lacy’s life insurance was surely substantial, plus the bakery was worth a fortune whether Darren sold it or Belinda kept it operating.

They both could have had the opportunity also, since there was no way, at this point, to be sure where either of them had been at the time of Lacy’s murder.

As for the murder weapon, coming up with a handgun wasn’t hard to do these days.

For a moment I considered calling Detective Madison with my suspicion, but I doubted he’d take me seriously. Shuman would have, but I hadn’t heard from him in a while. I thought about calling Jack, but I wasn’t exactly loving all his good advice lately.

I needed more evidence, I decided, as I stepped out of the way of a guy pushing a dolly stacked high with cases of wine. But I had no idea where to find Darren or Belinda at the moment. I didn’t see how I could come up with anything—not today, anyway, with this whole Beatles event going on.

The only option was to talk to Paige. She was here somewhere putting the finishing touches on the Yellow Submarine cake. I put in a call to her; it went straight to voicemail.

I wondered if, since they were buying Lacy Cakes together, Belinda might be on hand helping with the cake. I didn’t really expect her to be here since she was handling the business end of the bakery, and it would be unseemly to solicit orders at an event of this caliber. Jack had told me to stay away from her, but I called her cell phone, anyway. She didn’t answer.

At this point there was nothing I could do but perform some actual work for L.A. Affairs.

I hate it when that happens.





Luckily, everyone involved with the party preparations had done this before and knew what they were doing.

I caught up with Lyle, the guy who owned the construction company. He assured me that everything was under control and on schedule; ditto the sound and lighting guys, the landscapers and the caterers.

Just so I’d appear concerned and involved, I telephoned the guy who ran the security firm I’d hired for the event and asked for an update. He reported the number of uniformed personnel on duty, the number of plainclothes who would arrive later—then everything turned into blah, blah, blah, so I thanked him and hung up.

There really wasn’t all that much for me to do—unless I was missing something huge—so I basically just strolled around and chatted with people, texted friends, took a picture of myself in front of the huge aquarium and sent it to Marcie, and updated my Facebook page.

As I made my way past one of the bars, my cell phone rang. It was Bella.

“You’re not going to believe this!” she screamed. “You’re not going to believe it!”

Before I could answer, she went on.

“My hairstyles are on YouTube!” she said. “I videoed the show and posted it! I edited out the clothes because they were so damn ugly and just showed my hairstyles! I’ve gone viral! A half million hits—already!”

“Oh my God!”

“I got to go!” Bella said. “I got to call my nana!” How totally cool, I thought as I put my phone back in my pocket. Thank goodness something worthwhile had come out of that horrible fashion show.

Then I noticed that most everyone around me—people who were doing actual work—were giving me stink-eye. I decided it was a good time to find Paige.