Festival of Deaths by Jane Haddam

“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I have a good time when you take me out. Don’t stop.”
    Itzaak thought he was as likely to stop taking Carmencita out as a crack addict was likely to stop doing dope, but that didn’t seem to be a very delicate way to put it, so he didn’t. He took his feet off his desk and leaned forward over the blotter. It was something to do.
    “So,” he said. “What about Maria? Has nobody seen her at all?”
    “Not since we all left here this afternoon,” Carmencita said. “I rode down with her in the elevator.”
    “And?”
    Carmencita shrugged. “And nothing. We talked about this sale they’re having at Macy’s. Bathrobes and bath towels and things like that.”
    “She didn’t say where she was going for the evening?”
    “She wasn’t going anywhere for the evening,” Carmencita said. “She said she was going straight home and going to bed. She had to meet the Siamese twins here at three A.M. ”
    “It seems like an odd time for anybody to be coming into the airport.”
    “It was. It was one of those chartered flights that cost a dollar ninety eight. I guess they aren’t rich Siamese transvestites. Either that, or DeAnna was having one of her moods. Maria must have turned the ringers off on her phone and then slept through her alarm.”
    “Maybe you should go up there and get her,” Itzaak said.
    Carmencita nodded. “I suggested that myself, but DeAnna sent Prescott Holloway. I’m supposed to be soothing the savage breasts of the husbands before showtime. Except now they’re all in with the lawyers and nobody wants me around. You want another Danish?”
    “No thank you,” Itzaak said. “I’m not so happy with you soothing the savages, as you put it. They sound violent.”
    “They’re very sweet, really. They’re just terribly hurt. I mean, most of them didn’t even know their wives wanted—what their wives say they want. The women just went off and joined this support group and now here they all are about to go into worldwide syndication and it’s humiliating. It’s not embarrassing for the wives, you know, because the wives will be able to look important at cocktail parties for months after we air. But for the husbands…”
    “I am sure you would never do such a thing to your husband,” Itzaak said.
    “I am sure that if I was a boss, I would never do something like this to my assistant,” Carmencita said. “Oh, well. There’s nothing but to see it out and hope for the best. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to sit with you to watch the taping.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because even if Maria is found, we’re going to need two people to handle the guests. We can’t herd them all together in a group. They fight.”
    Itzaak shook his head. “They’re going to fight when they get home.”
    “They’re going to get divorced ,” Carmencita told him, “but that’s not my responsibility. I just have to make sure they get through the next three hours. Are we going out to breakfast after this is done?”
    “We always go out to breakfast. I never want to miss going out to breakfast with you.”
    “Good.” Carmencita hopped down off the desk, looked into the pastry bag again, and came up with a third cheese Danish. Itzaak was charmed. Three. Three. This was no hard-bitten American career woman with her mind on her diet. This was a lovely, life-celebrating creature who would one day be a marvelous cook.
    “I think I’ll go see if the lawyers are done with my gentlemen,” Carmencita said. “Max is in with the ladies. They’re behaving predictably. See you later?”
    “See you later,” Itzaak said.
    “I’m really glad you’re here. If it wasn’t for you, I think I’d lose my mind.”
    Itzaak almost told her that she ought to lose her mind, she’d fit in a lot better on The Lotte Goldman Show. It was the kind of joke he knew he was supposed to tell and was so very bad at. She was gone anyway, out the door, down the hall, her