get me off the subject, Peter. Like I said, Wolf held my hand more than once, the least I can do now is try giving his relatives some closure.” She added, “Besides, getting a taste of the acting world might be interesting.”
“Is it a pro bono job?”
“I offered, but Megan’s folks, the Maguires, insisted on paying for my services.”
Peter raised an eyebrow and said, “You already talked to the victim’s parents?”
“When I got back to my office after lunch, Sergeant Wolf put through a three-way call to me and the Maguires in Portland.”
“Are you going to let Andi help you with the investigation?”
“Probably, unless she’s too busy studying for her semester finals.”
Regula had kept up her photo project while talking, and now she closed the album with a bang and said, “Done!”
Chapter 4
Antoinette LeJeune, known to her friends as Andi, was riding her Harley-Davidson from Santa Monica to R. A. Huber’s office in Pasadena. At three in the afternoon, traffic was already advancing toward a peak on this Friday at the end of March. Thankfully, as a motorcyclist, she could use the diamond lane. Plus, she had perfect weather for riding, with not a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the upper seventies. Andi would not have traded her Harley for any luxury car. No way!
After making the transition from the 405 North Freeway to the 118 East, traffic eased a tad and Andi let her mind roam. She thought of the different places she had called home in the last three and a half years. At eighteen, following the passing of her Daddy, she had ridden to California on his Harley. The bike was not her only inheritance. Daddy also left her three pieces: a hunting rifle which she sold to a pawn shop before hitting the road, a Derringer and a Stinger pen pistol, both still in her possession. Besides his individual savings, Daddy had set up a college fund for her, and the sale of his bar and property in New Orleans had brought her additional cash, which kept her above water so far.
In the first few months as a newcomer, she had stayed with her kinfolk, Auntie Sue and Uncle Earl, in Pasadena. Then she had briefly lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Century City, proudly calling it the very first place of her own. She smiled to herself as she thought back to her dog-walking days. Andi would never forget the day Mrs. Huber called her with a job offer as assistant sleuth, taking her up on a plea she had made on impulse several months before. She had been thrilled at the chance to prove herself as an undercover detective and rode up to the Big Bear area where she took residency at Optimum House.
After that initial job, she was a steady helper to her detective boss. In order to be closer to Pasadena City College and also R. A. Huber’s office, she soon moved back in with her kinfolk. Last fall, when she transferred to UCLA, she had accepted Mr. and Mrs. Huber’s offer of the guestroom at their house in Merida, and although her short stay with them had been fun, the commute to UCLA proved too much. So now she was back in West L.A., sharing an apartment with two other students. For a girl who lived with her Daddy in the same house in New Orleans from the day she was born and lost her momma until reaching the age of eighteen, she surely had gotten around lately!
Andi was riding along the 210 Freeway now and would shortly arrive at her destination. Busy with her studies, she had not seen her boss in over a month and was full of enthusiasm about getting briefed on Mrs. Huber’s new case. Until that very moment, she had not realized how much she missed her fearless, intelligent, athletic yet elegant employer with the salt-and-pepper hair and Swiss accent. They teased one another about their “non-existing” accents, neither admitting to having one. In the three years of working for Mrs. Huber, she had not only come to respect and admire her employer, but had grown fond of her.
As she approached the two-story office building in Pasadena and rode into the parking lot, Andi wondered what kind of new mystery her boss had for them to solve.
Chapter 5
R. A. Huber glanced up from her notes when Andi blew into her office like a whirlwind. The young woman crossed the room with a few long steps, placed her helmet at the opposite side of the desk from where Huber’s Staunton Rosewood chessboard was set up with the chessmen, and plopped into the client chair. Although Andi had intellectually grown in the last three years, she was hardly changed physically. Long-legged at 5’9” and weighing about 120 pounds, her wavy auburn hair cascaded down her shoulders in the same unruly way, and she still looked at the world with mischievous green eyes. As was typical for her, she was clad in jeans, a black leather jacket, and cowboy boots.
Andi said, “How you doin’, Mrs. Huber? I’m tickled pink about your lettin’ me help solve another case!”
“Studying seems to agree with you; you look great!”
“Thank you, ma’ am!”
Getting down to business Huber said, “Let me clue you in,” and told all she knew about the Megan Maguire killing, occasionally consulting her notes in order to go into more detail.
Andi listened carefully, and when her boss’s briefing came to a halt, asked, “So Megan’s folks are no longer here?”
“That’s right. They drove down to see their daughter perform, making a vacation trip out of the occasion. After the tragedy, they stayed in Southern California another ten days and then went home to Portland, taking their only child’s ashes along with them.”
Andi tried not to dwell on that sad picture and said, “I reckon the police checked where the orchid came from.”
“They certainly did, but it got them nowhere. The delivery person used a bogus florist name claiming he was from - -” she consulted her paperwork, “- - Champion Arrangements, dropping off flowers for Megan. It turns out that Champion Arrangements does not exist. The authorities investigated florists throughout Pasadena and beyond, but their inquiries dead-ended. Countless purchases of orchids were made all over Southern California on that Valentine’s Day weekend, so they could have been bought anywhere, and not just at a flower shop. Orchids are also available at supermarkets and places like Trader Joe’s around holidays, especially Valentine’s Day. For all we know, the villain could have grown them in his own backyard. And needless to say, the orchid deliverer was not identified.”
Huber absentmindedly lifted a white rook from its position on the chessboard, and twirling it around in her fingers, said, “According to the information given to Sergeant Wolf, the Cubbyhole was full to capacity the night of that performance; it was the play’s premiere. If the device was activated by a cell phone in the audience, conducting the investigation from that angle would be a waste of time.”
“I’ve lost you, boss.”
“The task to check out each and every person who sat in that theater would be impossible.”
“Gotcha!”
“And even if it was set off by a timer, there was nothing left of it to analyze.”
Andi said, “So are the police clueless as to suspects?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Their investigation is still on-going, but according to the Maguires, the police have not come up with any serious suspects yet.”
“It was murder, right?”
“Placing
