Murder Blog Mysteries Boxed Collection

by Pamela Frost Dennis

  Translation: Maybe I’ll get a glass of wine and sit down.

  A local vineyard was hosting a wine and cheese pairing in the wine bar. The featured wine was Daou Celestus 2008, a blend of Syrah, Cabernet, and Petit Verdot.

  The vintner eloquently extolled its virtues. “Note the lush aromas of dark fruits, licorice, and lead pencil, accentuated by the French oak.” The skinny woman poked her long beak into her glass and sniffed.

  We all sniffed along with her. I got the fruit and maybe a hint of licorice, but try as I might, no lead pencil, thank goodness. After appreciating how the ruby wine sheeted and stained the glass, she finally let us taste it.

  “Are we all catching the smoky berry compote and candied violets?”

  All I knew was it smelled good, tasted yummy, and paired well with the blue cheese and walnuts. If it weren’t for Daisy and Tabitha, I never would have gone home again.

  2. Join a fitness club.

  Chapter Nine

  BETTER DEAD THAN WED

  THURSDAY • JUNE 27

  Posted by Katy McKenna

  My fitness plan for today was:

  1. Eat a power breakfast in the Forever Fit bistro.

  2. Get a massage or a facial—maybe both.

  3. Take a steam.

  4. Eat a light lunch.

  5. Watch a movie.

  6. Happy hour at the wine bar.

  “Yaaay.” Brittany, the counter clerk at Forever Fit, clapped happily, reminding me of Justin Fargate from the book club. “You came back.”

  You mean there are people who don’t? I glanced at the wall clock. 10:14. “How late do they serve breakfast in the bistro?”

  “10:30.” She slapped a three-page application on the counter.

  I flipped the pages. “All this for a free membership?”

  “Yes, because we don’t want you to sue us if you strain a muscle or something.”

  Like that’s going to happen. I checked the clock again. 10:16. I set my purse on the counter and filled out the application, then scribbled my initials on all the lines she pointed out. “Are we good?”

  “Almost,” she said with barely contained glee.

  What happy pill is this girl taking? I glanced at the clock. 10:22.

  “Now all I need is a bank account number for the records,” she said.

  I fished through my purse and ripped out my debit card. 10:23.

  Her lime-green nails tapped the numbers into the computer while my stomach rumbled. I was on a tight training schedule, and if I missed breakfast my whole day would be screwed up.

  “All done. Yaay.”

  10:25. I grabbed my purse and was sprinting across the lobby when Brittany called, “You forgot your debit card!”

  I spun around, tripped over my feet, and went down.

  In the infirmary, the first-aid tech iced my swelling left ankle, wrapped it in a bandage, advised me to see a doctor, and told me to do “Rice Therapy”: rest, ice, compress, elevate for the first forty-eight hours. She loaned me a crutch and I hobbled out to get an early lunch since I’d missed breakfast.

  On the way to the bistro, I passed the front desk and noticed Brittany hunched over the phone. I caught a snippet of her whispered conversation.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before we…” Her narrow shoulders quivered as if she were crying.

  I guess even Barbie dolls can have a bad day. I settled at a table in the bistro and propped my leg on a chair.

  “Katy!”

  I glanced around and saw book clubbers Nora and Debra waving. “Join us.”

  “Can’t.” I pointed at my ankle. “Come sit with me.”

  The ladies, attired in stylish workout ensembles, carried their coffees to my table and sat. “What happened?” asked Debra, giving me a quick once-over. Probably jealous of my comfy old sweats.

  “Took a tumble. No big thing.” Really didn’t want to tell them I tripped over myself. I shifted in my seat with a groan. “Anyone got an ibuprofen?”

  Nora rummaged in her purse and extracted a jeweled pillbox. “Let me get you a glass of water. Be right back.”

  “I had no idea you were a member here,” said Debra.

  “Just started the trial membership.”

  “You’re going to love it. When you’re better, you might want to try the boot camp class to get your metabolism jump-started.”

  “I’ll check it out.” Is that her subtle way of saying I’m fat?

  Nora set a goblet of strawberry-infused water in front of me, and I swallowed two pills. “Will you be able to drive? If not, I’d be happy to run you home.”

  “My car’s an automatic. And it’s the left ankle, so I’ll be fine.” I grin-grimaced reassuringly, trying to get comfortable in my chair.

  “Would you like me to take a look at it?” asked Debra.

  “No. Seriously, I’m all right. Hey—no pain, no gain.”

  Brittany passed by our table looking like her puppy had died. Debra held out a hand to stop her. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  Nora pulled out a chair and patted the seat. “Sit. Maybe we can help.”

  “No one can help me.” She sat, swiping at her tears. “My life is ruined. My parents will never forgive me.”

  Debra handed her a napkin. “What could be so bad that they wouldn’t forgive a sweet girl like you?”

  “It’s okay, honey,” said Nora. “You can talk to us.”

  I picked up my purse from the floor. “Since we’ve only just met, maybe I should go so you can talk.”

  Brittany looked across the table at me with a woebegone face. “No. It’s okay. You seem really nice.” She turned her focus to Debra. “You know I’ve been saving myself for marriage, Dr. Williams. That’s how I was raised.” She showed us her silver “true love waits” ring on her left hand.

  “Brittany’s father is the minister at Ocean View Church in Cala Grande,” Nora told me. “That’s where I go. Lovely man. So inspirational.” She pushed back the long strands of blond hair stuck to Brittany’s wet cheeks. “Tell us what’s wrong, honey.”

  “I broke the vow. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. I went to a party and got a little wasted. No. Make that totally trashed.” She shredded the napkin, rolling the scraps into tiny balls. “There was this guy there that I’ve liked for a really long time, but we’ve never hooked up or anything, and anyways, he kissed me, and…” She dropped her gaze to her lap and whispered, “We wound up having sex.”

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Nineteen. I’m the youngest of four sisters,” said Brittany, “and not one of them broke the vow. I’m the only one not married yet.”

  “Brittany, it’s okay,” I said, feeling motherly. “This isn’t the end of the world. Really. These things happen. This doesn’t make you a terrible person. Just human.” I doubt she’s the only one in her family who’s broken the vow.

  “No one ever needs to know.” Debra patted the girl’s shoulder. “Do you care about him?”

  “I did. I really did.” Brittany choked back a sob and cleared her throat. “I really thought he was the one. You know, like we were falling in love and would get married.” She paused, mouth quivering again. “But he never returned any of my texts, so I finally realized he didn’t feel the same way. It hurt, but that’s not what I’m really upset about now.”

  She faltered, barely holding her emotions in check. “He just called and… and told me he’s… HIV positive. Oh God, he literally laughed about it.”

  “Are you absolutely sure that’s what he said, Brittany?” asked Debra.

  The girl nodded as fresh tears erupted.

  “But that doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get it.” I glanced at Debra and Nora. “Right?”

  “Of course not. And if it’s been less than seventy-two hours since this happened, you may be able to take medication that could protect you from getting infected.” Debra took Brittany’s hand. “Honey, when did this happen?”

  She covered her face with bot
h hands, whispering, “Last Saturday night.”

  Debra removed her glasses and wiped them with the hem of her shirt, thinking a moment. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.” She put her glasses on and cupped Brittany’s chin, lifting her face to eye level. “We have to wait at least two weeks from the time of exposure before an HIV test can provide accurate results. Then we’ll get some bloodwork done. Once we do that, we can have those results back within half an hour. If we get a positive for HIV—”

  Brittany moaned. “Am I going to die?”

  Debra scooted her chair closer to Brittany and put her arms around the girl’s slender shoulders, pulling her close. “Oh no, sweetheart. In the remote chance that you test positive, I’ll refer you to an infectious disease specialist to handle your case. We can’t cure HIV, but we can control it with antiretroviral drugs. I promise you, you can live a relatively normal life with HIV these days. Look at Magic Johnson.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A famous athlete who contracted it in the early nineties. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know if you have it.”

  “There’s more.” Brittany averted her gaze, then continued in a rush. “He also said I’m like the forty-fourth virgin he’s… he’s, you know. Since his diagnosis. He said when he hits a hundred, he’s going to post our photos on Facebook and Instagram.”

  “Oh, Brittany. This is beyond belief,” said Nora. “What a dreadful monster.”

  “He’s got selfies of everyone, including me.” She gazed, unfocused into the distance. “I thought he was a nice boy. I can’t believe I wanted to marry him.”

  “What’s this monster’s name?” I was ready to go track him down and strangle him.

  She wiped the snot from under her nose with the back of her hand and reached for another napkin to shred. “Jeremy Baylor.”

  “Jeremy Baylor?” Nora exclaimed, leaning forward. “Jeremy goes to our church. He’s always seemed like a decent kid. Comes from a good family. This will destroy his parents.” She reached across the table, stilling Brittany’s restless fingers. “Honey. You have to report this to the police.”

  Chapter Ten

  BETTER DEAD THAN WED

  SATURDAY • JUNE 29

  Posted by Katy McKenna

  The book club gathered today on the sprawling redwood deck at Melanie Ramos’s hacienda-style ranch house in the rolling oak-studded countryside. Crows squawked to each other from the trees and the aroma of dried lavender on the hillside infused the warm air.

  I was sitting with my sore ankle propped on a chair, eyeballing a particularly nasty-looking chunky dip when Justin caught my eye.

  “It ain’t pretty, but you know you want it.”

  I dipped a Ritz into the mess and took a little bite of heaven. “Oh my God! What is this stuff?” I immediately double-dipped and shoved the cheesy-gooey-gloppy mess into my mouth. I dunked another cracker in and attempted to scoop the whole bowl into my mouth.

  “Crack dip,” he chuckled evilly, scrubbing his hands.

  “Looks like you’ve corrupted another one,” laughed Chris. “I used to be as skinny as a supermodel before crack dip came into my life, thanks to Justin.”

  Two words that do not go together. Supermodel and Chris. Could that happen to me? My dismay must have shown on my face.

  “I’m kidding you,” said Chris. “Man, are you easy.”

  I was double-fisting the dip when the glass slider leading into the house opened and a huge black Labradoodle scooted out and started making the rounds, begging for treats.

  “Cassie!” yelled Melanie. “Why’d you let Tootsie out?”

  A freckled little moppet about eight or nine years old stuck her head out the door. “She’s really bugging me, Mom.”

  I was about to plunge a baby carrot into the dip when Tootsie knocked the plastic bowl off the table and started slobbering up the mess. “And now she’s really bugging us!” Melanie scooped up the bowl and took it and the dog back into the house.

  I refilled my wineglass and glumly chomped on the naked carrot stick. Melanie returned and the conversation shifted to the sudden death of her brother-in-law, Travis.

  “Maybe there is a God after all.” Chloe nibbled a crunchy bruschetta. “Talk about divine intervention.”

  “I seriously doubt this is God’s work.” Debra stopped to clear her throat. “Sorry. Allergies. But it is nice when the Grim Reaper gets the timing right.”

  “Sooner or later, we all gotta check out,” said Chris. “I was in the ER when this guy was brought in, and I gotta tell you, he was packing a gut that was begging for a heart attack.”

  Melanie set down her wineglass, and Justin reached across the table to refill it. “I don’t think I can talk about that awful person anymore.” She lifted her glass. “So we’ll toast to the bum instead.” We raised our glasses and she continued. “Travis, wherever you are…” She glanced down. “As if we don’t already know. Thank you for finally doing something right in your life and dropping dead. Amen.”

  Debra burst into a ragged coughing fit, and we all fluttered around her, offering water or slams on her back, but she waved us away. “It’s just allergies.”

  When she settled down, Nora said, “This is just between us, right? Katy and Debra were with me when I heard this.”

  After she’d shared Brittany’s awful HIV dilemma, Justin said, “He’s got to be stopped.”

  “But Brittany doesn’t want her family to know,” said Nora.

  “At the rate this guy’s going, it won’t be long before he’s reached his goal, you know,” said Sam. “Then everyone’ll know. The whole thing’ll go viral.”

  “This is all a little hard to believe,” said Melanie. “What I mean is, and don’t get mad at me, but is there any chance that Brittany has made all this up? You have to admit the whole thing sounds pretty bizarre. Especially about targeting virgins.”

  “It’s a fair question, Mel, considering how absurd this all is. But I believe her,” said Debra. “I’ve been her GP since she graduated from her pediatrician and have always known her to be a very honest, upbeat, grounded girl.”

  “Well, I believe it,” said Justin. “Did you see on the news about the fraternity back east that was suspended because they had a Facebook page where they were posting photos of sleeping or drunk girls in various stages of undress and in sexually compromising positions? Without the girls’ knowledge or consent, of course. There were comments like, ‘I banged her, LOL.’”

  “Remember the big story last year about the prep school where for years the senior boys had been taking freshman girls to a secret hideout and coercing them to have sex? Like it’s some kind of badge of honor for the boy,” said Debra.

  “God, when did people become so incredibly heartless?” asked Chloe.

  “My mom says it started with the Internet.” Heather tipped back a few swallows of sparkling water, then belched and patted her tummy. “Excuse me, but we needed that.”

  Melanie stood to adjust the red umbrella shading our table. “So if he really is doing this, who’s to say he’ll stop at a hundred?”

  “The minute he posts it, his sex life is over. No girl in her right mind will go near him,” said Justin. “But he needs to be stopped before he infects any more girls.”

  “And before he posts their photos, or every one of those girls will be ruined,” said Nora. “Can you imagine what the media would do to them? And their families?”

  “But it’s really not up to us, is it?” said Chloe. “I mean, what can we do? Brittany is the victim here. She’s the one who has to report him.”

  “From what she said to us at the fitness center, she doesn’t have the courage to do anything,” I said. “She’s just a kid who feels utterly helpless and hopeless.”

  “And when you’re young and you feel like there’s no hope…” Chris raised her plaid flannel sleeves to reveal faint white scars on both wrists. “Sometimes you do really stupid things.”

 
; We were stunned into silence.

  “I was bullied from the time I was in third grade. Mom kept telling me it would get better when I got into middle school. She always said I would grow into pretty, that it just takes time.”

  “Middle school age is the worst. The kids can be so heartless,” I said.

  Chris bristled. “No offense, Katy, but good grief. You look like friggin’ Anne Hathaway. What would you know?”

  “Not then she didn’t,” said Sam. “She was the tallest kid in the school. Skinny, boney, gawky, pimply, buck-toothed…”

  All eyes swung to me.

  “…bug-eyed, dorky, shy…”

  “Jeez. Why’d you hang out with me?” I said, feeling like a big creep with a terminal case of cooties.

  “We were two of a kind, except I was short and chubby. But even though we were fringe-kids, we had each other, and thank God we weren’t bullied. Growing up is hard enough to do. I can’t imagine going through that.”

  “And I couldn’t imagine there would ever be a time it would stop. I thought this was the only answer.” Chris pulled down her sleeves. “One good thing came of it, however. No one bullied me anymore. Instead I became invisible. And then in my senior year, the ROTC came to my school and that’s when my life changed. Suddenly I had a dream, a place where I would belong. A future.”

  “You joined the army?” I asked the obvious.

  She nodded. “Got my education, then fulfilled my commitment. Did two tours in Iraq and three more in Afghanistan in battalion aid stations in the combat zones.”

  “I’d say you more than fulfilled your commitment.” My assessment of Chris had ratcheted up several notches.

  “But I never did grow into pretty. Mom was wrong about that.” She laughed. “But you two definitely did.” Her eyes swept the group. “You all did.”

  “You should see Katy and me first thing in the morning.” Sam waved her hands in denial. “Not a pretty sight.”