The Good Girl's Guide to Murder: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

“You never learned how to look on the bright side, did you?”

  “I’m an attorney, Andy,” he said, as if I’d forgotten. “If I looked on the bright side, I’d be out of a job.”

  “Right.”

  I bent over the console for a kiss, and it was worth the glove box digging into my hip. Just a good old-fashioned lip-lock, nothing French. Perfect for ten o’clock in the morning.

  Reluctantly, I slid off the Acura’s leather seat and out the door, giving him a loose-fingered wave before he slowly drove off.

  When the little red car disappeared around the corner of the warehouse, I stood on the warming asphalt with the sun hot on my neck, and I stared at the rear exit door, propped open with a brick. I drew in a few calming breaths, before I tucked my hair firmly behind my ears and headed in.

  Goosebumps rose over my skin as I entered, and it wasn’t because of the air conditioning, humming from the vents. At least the electricity was running in this part of the building, a vast improvement over the last time I’d been here.

  Though now well lit, this was the path I’d taken last night after I’d discovered Kendall in her mother’s office. It seemed odd to retrace my steps and recall how frightened I’d been, fumbling in the darkness.

  It was reassuring to hear voices, to see office doors that stood wide open with lights on within and people at their desks.

  I wondered if Marilee had ordered her staff to come in this Saturday morning, to keep on top of things despite the mess on the sound stage. I’m sure she didn’t care if Twinkle Productions had to pay her staff and the repairmen overtime, so long as they returned the place to perfection as soon as possible. Marilee wasn’t exactly what I’d call patient. I figured it was a blessing that she planned to take her crew to film at Mother’s.

  Heads looked up as I passed, but no one smiled or waved.

  Usually when I’d scheduled appointments with Marilee, the folks I encountered looked preoccupied, or maybe harried was a better word.

  This morning, they just looked grim.

  Not exactly the kind of place I’d want to work, day in and day out, unless I was a masochist. Marilee was not my idea of a dream boss, and I couldn’t wait until she hired a permanent webmaster to take over my job.

  As I approached Marilee’s slightly ajar office door, I heard raised voices and hesitated in the hallway, not wanting to interrupt, particularly since I anticipated Lady Mabry’s mood would be foul. I wondered how many brown noses had already tried to tell her, “Nice party,” only for her to pop them in the kisser?

  Okay, an exaggeration. But Marilee did take failure personally—or rather, took it out on every person—and last night had been the Mother of All Bombs.

  I waited outside, not meaning to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing Marilee’s angry drawl raised in disagreement with the equally angry voice of a man. It didn’t take me long to figure out who the man was, not once he laid into her about Kendall.

  “She’s my daughter, too, for Christ’s sake,” he growled. “How dare you not call me from the hospital. I didn’t even know what had happened to her until I saw a piece on the news this morning where they mentioned her by name.”

  “She’s your daughter, too, huh?” Marilee snorted. “Is that why you dumped her on me after the divorce? Why you didn’t go for shared custody and never wanted her for more than a few days at Christmas? My God, Gil, I had to take you to court to get any kind of child support, and what I got barely paid for a bag of groceries.”

  “That’s not fair . . .”

  “You’re damned right it wasn’t fair. Nothing about our divorce was fair, not to me.”

  “You would’ve preferred we’d stayed married when we couldn’t stand to be together anymore, when we were fighting like cats and dogs over every little thing . . .”

  “You cheated on me, Gilbert. Don’t forget that. You cheated on me, and you cheated Kendall out of having a father . . .”

  “You nearly killed me, Mari,” Gil snarled back. “How the hell was I supposed to live with a woman who just about nagged me to death. Nothing I ever did was good enough for you. I could never do anything as perfectly as you, from the laundry, to raising our daughter, to the way I touched you in bed . . .”

  “Shut up . . . shut the hell up!”

  “I couldn’t imagine for the life of me why you were so adamant that Amber Lynn and I attend your party. It was for Kendall’s sake, you said, so she’d see the two of us on friendly footing, see us both as equals.” His laugh was harsh. “I thought that you’d actually gotten over us and were extending the olive branch. Now I know you only did it to embarrass Amber and myself . . . and Kendall. You are the most self-indulgent bitch, and someday you’re going to get exactly what’s coming to you . . .”

  “Get out!” Marilee shrilled at the top of her lungs. “Get the hell out! And, by the way, you owe me three hundred and fifty dollars for that bottle of champagne your trophy wife broke . . .”

  “That was my vintage Dom, wasn’t it? You stole it from the house before you moved out . . .”

  “Before you kicked me out . . .”

  “. . . so you owe me three hundred fifty dollars . . .”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  I glanced up the hallway, half-expecting to catch heads popping out of doorways, wondering what was going on. But I didn’t spot a one.

  Maybe they were used to Marilee shrieking like a banshee.

  The door flew open, and a body came barreling out. I didn’t have time to get out of the way, and Gil clipped my shoulder as he rushed by.

  He didn’t bother to say, “Sorry.”

  I rubbed my arm as he stalked off, gathering my courage before I turned back to Marilee’s now-opened door.

  Not knowing how else to announce myself, I knocked lightly on the jamb before ducking my head in and saying, “Yoo hoo? Marilee, it’s Andy Kendricks. Are you busy? I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to collect my purse.”

  When she didn’t answer, I dared to step in.

  I cleared my throat. “Marilee?” I tried again.

  I didn’t see her at first.

  She was huddled on the butter-cream-colored sofa, wearing slacks and a blouse that very nearly blended in. Her head hung down in her hands.

  “I don’t mean to intrude . . .”

  “It’s all right.” She sniffled, raising her chin and wiping the back of her hand across her cheeks. “That was just my ex-husband, making an ass of himself.” Her face showed strain in the lines at her mouth and the hard set of her jaw. “The only good thing that’s happened this morning is the fire inspector proclaiming the fire accidental and allowing us to start repairing the damage. I’ve got the men working on twenty-four-hour shifts so we don’t lose too much time. Thank God we’re taping at your mother’s this afternoon.” She paused. “What was it that you came here for, Andrea?”

  I’d been standing in the middle of the room, saying nothing, my hands clasped in front of me, afraid to interrupt or to speak until spoken to (blame it on being indoctrinated by Little Miss Manners all those years ago).

  “What did I come for?” Thank God, she was giving me an opening. “My purse,” I told her. “A pink Escada bag on a chunky silver chain? I dropped it last night when I”—how should I phrase it?—“stumbled upon Kendall.”

  “Ah, the purse, yes.” Marilee slowly rose from the sofa, smoothing her hands down the front of her silk pants. “I wondered who that belonged to. There was no ID in it, just a cell phone and a tube of lipstick. I nearly punched one of the numbers on speed dial to see who answered.”

  “Then you might’ve rung up Cissy,” I said.

  “Ah, dear, dear Cissy,” she murmured and went around the couch to a closet.

  She pulled open the louvered doors to reveal shelves of mannequin heads wearing ash-blond hair in a variety of ’dos. No wonder she never had a bad hair day. I glimpsed scarves and gloves of every hue as she reached in and eme
rged with my pink bag.

  “Here you go, honey.” After she closed the louvered doors, she crossed the room to give it back.

  I took it from her and, without thinking, unclasped it and checked inside.

  Yep, everything seemed intact, even the pair of quarters I’d thrown in just in case my cell phone did one of its dying acts.

  “Okay, well, thanks, Marilee. I’ll see you later at Mother’s,” I said and started to leave. Then I stopped. “I was wondering how Kendall was doing? Is she feeling better this morning?”

  Has she talked about what actually happened before she passed out? I wanted to ask, but didn’t.

  “I assume you’ve already been by the hospital,” I continued when Marilee didn’t immediately answer. She had her arms crossed and seemed to be staring off into space, or maybe she was listening to the distant noise of drills and hammers. “Kendall? How is she?” I gave it another shot.

  “Kendall? Oh, she’s fine, yes, thanks for asking.” She waved a hand. “I haven’t had time to go by the hospital yet. Too much going on here . . . too many things that require my attention, as you can well imagine.”

  Too many things that required her attention . . . as opposed to her sick daughter, I was tempted to mention but bit my tongue just in time.

  “I did call the nurses’ station on her floor, and they assured me she was doing much better. She’s doing well on her medication and her heart rhythm is back to normal. She was having a can of Ensure for breakfast, I believe.”

  “Good. I’m glad she’s better.”

  “Yes, we’re very relieved. I think Justin was up all night, pacing the floor, worried sick about Kendall. He took off early this morning. He said something about going to the hospital to check on her.”

  “Justin went to Medical City by himself?” For crying out loud. I just hoped that Nurse Alice had talked to Dr. Taylor about restricting Kendall’s visitors and had kept Justin out of the girl’s room. I still wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t some kind of threat to her, to her emotional stability at the very least.

  “Yes, he went alone.” She rubbed her arms and sighed. “He’s such a sweet man, and he cares so much for both Kendall and myself. You can’t imagine how far he’d go in order to take care of us. He’s so devoted.”

  Oh, yeah? I can do more than imagine. I saw for myself how much he cared for Kendall, right on that sofa.

  I had something to ask her, and I wasn’t sure how to put it. So I figured I’d blunder dead ahead. “Um, Marilee? I was wondering about something. I looked up long QT syndrome on the Web last night, and it’s often passed down from a parent to a child. So if Kendall has been diagnosed with it, there’s the possibility that either you or your ex-husband has the mutated gene as well . . . and the arrhythmia that goes with it. Have you ever had an ECG to check?”

  “Please, Andrea, don’t worry about me.” She placed a hand on her chest. “I am fine, really. I’ve had checkups for insurance purposes for the past several years, and the physician for Twinkle Productions just gave me a clean bill of health. So let’s blame this one on Gil, shall we?” Her jaw tensed. “He is responsible for so much of Kendall’s pain as it is.”

  The phone rang, screaming like a child for attention, and Marilee hustled over to her desk to pick it up. “Why, hello, Mr. Mayor.” Her drawl turned so molasses sweet that it’s a wonder she didn’t go into sugar shock. She perched a hip on the edge of her desk and twirled the cord around her finger. “Yes, yes, I’m fine, just fine, and we’re already at work rebuilding the set. Things should be back to normal in a few days’ time. No, no, the fire department didn’t fine us, though you’re a doll to offer to intercede . . . hold on a sec.” She put a hand over the mouthpiece and glanced at me, as if finally remembering I was there.

  “Listen, hon, would you do me a big favor and scoot into the kitchen to see how Carson’s coming with the desserts for the Diet Club. Tell him we’re going to have to start packing up and heading to your mother’s house within the hour.”

  “Sure, I’ll tell Carson,” I said.

  “You’re a life saver.” She shot me a prom queen smile before turning back to her phone call.

  Not that I wanted to hang around the place, but I was curious as to what the damage really looked like in broad daylight. I’d only seen the set in the dark. Actually, I’d mostly seen rubber boots sloshing through several inches of water on the floor as the nice fireman had caveman-carried me to safety.

  Anyway, Marilee had basically given me a hall pass to roam around, so I figured I’d use it.

  As I wove through the tunnel of hallways, moving from the back of the building toward the front, the cacophony of power tools grew louder until I felt a permanent buzzing fill the back of my ears.

  Yellow tape blocked my path out into the studio set, though I wouldn’t have wanted to go farther anyway. Klieg-type lighting had been brought in with thick orange and black cables running to a humming generator. Men in plaid with hard hats and tool belts swarmed like bees, crawling up ladders, sawing plywood in half, using nail guns, and wet-dry vacuums, cleaning and replacing and restoring what the fire and the sprinklers had wrecked.

  Dangling the purse from my wrist, I put my hands over my ears and stood to watch for a moment, impressed by all that testosterone in action. Several of the fellows nodded in my direction, and a wiry fellow with a long gray ponytail streaming from beneath his yellow hardhat graced me with a clear view of his butt crack as he squatted to check out an electrical circuit.

  Oh, I’d say I saw a quarter-moon, maybe a half-moon. A little early in the day for a lunar sighting, but it gave me something to honestly grin about for the first time in twenty-four hours.

  After a few minutes, I’d had my fill of men wielding power tools, and I took a back route to the test kitchen, where the actual food was prepared for Marilee’s show.

  Until I’d spent time here, I hadn’t realized that Marilee had next to nothing to do with the actual cooking, baking, or craft projects that appeared on the episodes of The Sweet Life. Now I knew firsthand that people like Carson did the real work, and Marilee took the credit.

  There were dozens of staff whose sole purpose it was just to figure out how to make puppets out of fabric remnants or how to turn burned-out light bulbs into Christmas ornaments by adding bric-a-brac and glitter.

  Marilee merely had to stand in front of the cameras with the pieces of a project laid out before her—and a finished piece hidden behind the counter on a shelf—chatting casually in her down-home drawl about how she’d had to figure out this simple idea of using old dishtowels to create stuffed animals for children when she couldn’t afford to buy toys for her baby daughter all those years ago.

  And the viewers bought it all, ate it up, if the ratings were any indication.

  Ah, the magic of television, I mused, as I crossed beneath the open archway that led from the hall into the kitchen. Nothing was ever as it seemed.

  I stopped in the doorway, looking around for Carson’s bald head, surprised to see so many bodies running about. I’d thought maybe everything but the offices would be shut down until the studio kitchen was repaired, but apparently life—and electricity—went on in the test kitchen as well.

  In some ways, the setting seemed a mirror image of the tableau I’d viewed with the workmen. A handful of people purposefully moved around the stainless-steel island and between the stainless-steel appliances. Mixers whirred, food processors spun, oven timers dinged. And an apron-wearing Carson Caruthers reigned above all, shouting instructions, pausing to stir a pot, stopping a mixer to check the consistency of batter. His placid-looking face seemed at ease, despite the hustle and bustle.

  “Come on, gang, chop-chop,” he rallied the troops, clapping flour-whitened hands.

  “Get those rum balls out of the fridge, Debbie, please.”

  “But Marilee said she wanted them to chill at least two hours,” a ponytailed worker bee spoke up, before Carson shut her down with a growl.

/>   “I don’t give a damn what Marilee said, you got that?” His placid expression turned fierce, caterpillar eyebrows scrunching together, creasing his hairless brow. “She may sign our paychecks, but the woman doesn’t know what’s best for my chocolate rum balls or anyone else’s balls, for that matter. Did she graduate from the Cordon Bleu? Ha! I’ll bet she couldn’t bake her way out of a box of Betty Crocker. Did she study pastry and chocolate-making in Italy with the famed Luca Mannori?” He wagged a finger. “No, no, no, I think not. So if anyone brings up her name again in my kitchen, they’re going to be sorry,” he promised and drew a floury finger line across his throat. “Sliced and diced, and set to stew in the crock pot.”

  “Um, then I guess I’m the first ingredient,” I said and took a step farther into the room, hugging my pink evening bag to my belly as all eyes fell upon me, and not in a friendly way. “Because that person I’m not supposed to mention under penalty of death wanted me to remind you that you’d better have things packed up and ready to drive down to Highland Park within the hour.”

  “Is that so?” Carson squinted at me, wrinkled up his nose, and asked, “And, to quote the venerable Roger Daltrey, who the hell are you?”

  Chapter 18

  Once we got formalities out of the way—and got ourselves out of the way of the kitchen crew—Carson’s face relaxed, and I decided he wasn’t half bad looking. He reminded me of Kojak in disguise as a chef, a tough guy in an apron.

  “I’ve seen you around the last couple of weeks, haven’t I?” He crossed well-muscled arms and leaned against the wall in the rear hallway, nodding as he checked me out. “Usually you’re with Marilee, so I wasn’t sure if you were cozy with her. And I only came down from New York a few months ago, so I’m still learning how things work around here. Who I can trust.”

  “My mother is a good friend of Marilee, but I’m just an innocent bystander,” I assured him.

  “Your mother?”

  “Cissy Kendricks. The show is taping at her house this afternoon. She’s one of the founding mothers of the Dallas Diet Club.”