Page 9 of Murder on Charity Lane

“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, “but I’ll check and text Ocean.”

Mrs. B rattled off her number, then said, “Oh, I must fly! For some reason, Ocean gets cranky if I make her wait. She doesn’t mind if it’s a minute or two but after half an hour she starts chewing nails and spitting horseshoes.”

“Baffling,” CJ agreed, as Mrs. B wafted from the locker room.

She considered running outside to say hello—that’s where she’d first spotted Ocean after all, during pickup after swim. She looked a mess though, and didn’t want to be struck by passing horseshoes, so she went to the mirror instead. She applied elaborate eyeliner and fuchsia lipstick. They were the only things that kept her from looking middle-aged in her dumb navy blue outfits. Also, she knew they pissed off Karina as much as they amused Frank, and what was life without a little pettiness?

Twenty minutes later, she parked in her usual spot outside Frank’s mansion on Charity Lane. Hope Ranch, Charity Lane. Some developer had really enjoyed themselves. At least there wasn’t Do-Gooder Drive or Saintly Street.

She let herself through the side door, then sorted the mail at the kitchen desk. Largely into recycling, because after a ten-year battle she’d finally established most of Frank’s accounts online. She checked in with the gardeners and confirmed an appointment with the cardiologist, then slunk around the house until she spotted Frank in his office in the west wing.

She smiled, but didn’t disturb him.

Instead she continued past, then checked the clock on the double Viking range, which squatted like a spaceship in the otherwise-retro kitchen. Frank had bought the mansion in the late 1970s and to his wife’s dismay he hadn’t done much updating. Even his music production gear never advanced past the 1990s: He still adored his Roland synth and Cheetah sampler, unless it was the other way around. CJ never could remember.

She shifted Karina’s unused, two-thousand-dollar health-shake mixer aside to reveal the ornate brass Italian espresso maker, then put her college-era barista training to the test. Soon steam hissed over Frank’s double cappuccino, a treat that neither she nor Frank mentioned to Karina.

Frank didn’t have many pleasures left.

At ten-thirty on the dot, she poured the espresso over the foam in the navy and gold Wedgwood cup and headed for Frank’s office. He’d insisted that it wasn’t her job to wait on him, but she insisted that it was her pleasure. The old man had put up a good fight, but she’d won that one.

The curtains were closed and Frank lounged on a leather couch listening to Stevie Wonder on his old turntable. His eyes half-closed, his skinny frame a little tense. For the past few years, he never seemed completely comfortable, like his body didn’t know how to fully relax anymore. And he’d been shutting himself in and listening to vinyl more often recently: Bach and Mozart and the disco and funk bands he’d produced in the 1970s and 80s.

As she set his saucer on the coffee table, he focused on her and sang along with the record: “You are the apple of my eye…”

She gave him a look. “I’m glad we’re not listening to Sir Mix-a-Lot this morning.”

Frank’s laugh turned into a coughing fit, which made her nervous until he caught his breath. He was declining again, and she didn’t think he had one more rebound in him. At least his mind was still sharp. Sharpish. And he enjoyed his caffeine in the morning, and his two or three cocktails in the evening. CJ had come to work for him back when he’d been a spry sixty-seven. She’d graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in sociology, so she had found herself burned out on food-service work when she had met Frank at a long-closed French bistro that served perfect quiche and baguettes.

When she’d handed Frank his third glass of wine, he’d handed her his card. “Come work for me. I’ll pay you better than this.”

At the time, she hadn’t realized how sketchy the offer had sounded. Especially after he offered an impressive salary and a free place to live in one of the most beautiful corners of the world, a mansion in Hope Ranch perched over the ocean cliffs.

In retrospect, in a shocking violation of every story about an old music producer and an innocent young girl, he’d treated her like family from day one. And she’d returned the favor. She’d coordinated his spending with his accountant, arranged regular medical care, updated his haircut, and organized his vinyl records so logically that he’d almost fired her. She’d even encouraged him to donate a fat sum to World of Goods after a big tsunami. As a tax incentive, she’d said, though they’d both known he’d needed to feel like he was still contributing to the world despite retirement. And part of that, she realized years later, was helping her. She didn’t have parents worth the name, so he’d become a rock in her life. Whatever happened, she knew he’d support her. She’d never had that before.

Then Karina entered the picture and changed things.

After Frank caught his breath, he said, “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“At least you’ll die with a smile on your face,” she told him.

“That’s the dream.” He sipped his coffee. “Go out on a high note.”

She talked him through his day as she tidied the room then parted the drapes. “Oh, Sunny’s here. On the patio with Karina.”

“I should count my blessings he ever leaves,” Frank grumbled. “That freeloader.”

“Yeah, you hate him hanging around.”

Sunny’s real name was Jonathan Wheeler, and he was Frank’s oldest friend. They’d grown up together in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles, then both retired rich in Santa Barbara. CJ didn’t quite understand what Sunny did for a living. He invested, he said, but he never explained in what, and Frank just said that Sunny made money make money.

She was browsing through the events page of the Independent, trying to convince Frank to visit the gorgeous grounds and cactus gardens of Lotusland by listing the less attractive options first, when the office door opened.

“Are you holed up in here again?” Karina asked, stepping inside wearing a shapeless white linen dress.

CJ appreciated that Karina was an unlikely wife for a retired music mogul. No fake boobs or Pilates body. She looked like a normal, attractive woman in her early sixties with no desire for nips or tucks, despite years of sun worshiping. CJ admired that. If only Karina didn’t have such a terrible personality.

Yet Frank loved her. CJ watched his eyes soften as she entered the room and swung the heavy velvet drapes open.