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

by McBride, Susan

  “So you want me to leave?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Even though you just got home?”

  “Don’t take this wrong, Malone, please.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “But consider that I just spent the better part of the afternoon stuck at Mother’s, watching a woman die and being questioned by the Highland Park police. As if that wasn’t enough, I went over to Marilee’s and sat with Kendall Mabry while she cried about being unloved and abandoned.”

  I barely got it out before I felt the prick of tears at my eyes and the tightness in my throat.

  “Whoa, Andy, are you all right?”

  I blinked away the threat of tears, forcing myself to smile. But even I could feel how shaky it was. “Just give me some time to myself, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “I do.”

  He stepped around the counter and gingerly took me in his arms, giving me a hug. I didn’t care that he smelled slightly ripe, and I hung onto him for a long moment, just standing quietly there with him. He planted a soft little kiss on my nose before he let loose. “Call if you need me? Any hour. I mean it.”

  I nodded.

  He paused and nodded in return, before he left. Grudgingly.

  When the door clicked shut, I turned to the sink, switched the cold water on, and hung my head over to cry. I let it all out, until my guts cramped up and my nose plugged up with snot. Then I rinsed my face in the faucet and dried off with a paper towel.

  I braced my hands on the edge of the stainless steel and took in a deep breath.

  Keep busy, I told myself. Being useful always made me feel better, less helpless.

  After I plugged my cell phone into the charger, I checked my voice mail messages on my land line, finding quite a few from Malone and several from someone at Twinkle Productions, telling me that further shooting on The Sweet Life had been suspended indefinitely—well, duh—and that they were faxing a press release to the media, a copy of which was attached in an MSWord document. They would appreciate my putting it up on the Web site for visitors to read. I was informed I could pick up a check at the studio on Monday for my most recent hours billed.

  Funny, but a paycheck was the last thing on my mind.

  I went to the computer and booted it up, strangely comforted by the gentle whir as the programs loaded. The touch of my fingers on the keyboard as I connected with the Web felt so damned normal that a sense of calm settled through me.

  After doing the last job I’d ever do for Marilee, I stayed online and surfed the Net, checking the local news links. Finding just about what I’d expected, plenty of coverage of Marilee’s sudden demise. So I switched my agenda and started Googling, thinking of what Kendall had said about doing research for her mother on the Web, looking up recipes and such.

  I did a search for “Justin Gable” instead.

  And I didn’t come up empty.

  I clicked through several pages that linked to society columns, even finding a few photographs with captions that described Justin as being “on the arm of” this woman or that and tracking down mentions of earlier liaisons, prior to his dallying with socialites in Houston and San Antonio. He’d been busy in Miami, too, I realized, and in Scottsdale before that.

  Leaning back into my chair, I stared at the enlarged black-and-white photograph on the computer screen, ignoring the grainy quality and focusing on Justin’s eyes. How cool he looked. Like he hadn’t a care in the world, and I guess he hadn’t. Certainly, not while he had Sugar Mamas to pay his bills and keep him in hot wheels and Armani. As long as he could do his thing without attracting the attention of the law, he obviously didn’t worry about sticking around anywhere for too long.

  What a piece of work, I thought, running a hand through my uncombed hair.

  If he’d done this . . . if he’d killed Marilee with an overdose of ma huang . . . if he’d nearly killed Kendall . . . I hoped the cops would find him fast. I hoped they’d lock him up and throw away the key. A human wrecking ball, that’s what he was, and I wanted him to rot in hell for the damage he’d caused.

  I rubbed my eyes, wrung out from the day’s events and from what little sleep I’d gotten the night before.

  The enlarged newspaper photo of Justin turned blurry with my exhaustion, so I shut off the computer and went to bed, despite the fact that the hands of the clock had yet to strike ten; thinking as I did that “tomorrow was another day,” as Scarlett O’Hara had opined after any number of messes.

  And thank God for that.

  Geese.

  A whole flock of them from the sounds of it, honking loudly, persistently, breaking into my deep and dreamless sleep and causing my eyes to slowly crack open.

  Honk, honk. Honk, honk.

  I buried my head in the pillow, wishing someone would please run the damned things over so I could sink back into peaceful oblivion. Hardly a fitting thought for someone who’d once been a goose liberator, but I was bone-tired and in no mood to celebrate nature.

  Honk, honk. Honk, honk.

  For Pete’s sake.

  My eyelids flapped up, and I pushed the sheet down, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. Grabbing my glasses from the nightstand, I banged my thigh on the footboard as I stumbled around my double bed and headed toward the window. When I peered through the shutters, I saw no geese on my small patch of lawn. No birds at all making that horrible racket.

  Just Janet Graham in her gray VW Jetta, parked directly in front of my condo. She caught me spying and waved through the front windshield, gesturing for me to hurry up, laying on the horn again for good measure.

  Honk, honk!

  Could she be drunk? But it was only—I checked the alarm clock—half past seven. Or was she trying to annoy me and wake up the whole frigging neighborhood?

  I’d fallen asleep in my T-shirt and panties, so I quickly pulled on a pair of shorts and ran outside, braless (as if anyone would notice). She rolled down her window as I approached.

  “Morning, sunshine,” she said and smiled, pushing her cat’s-eye shades up onto her forehead. Her bright orange hair was pulled back from her face in two tiny, spiky pigtails.

  “It barely qualifies as morning,” I grumbled, glancing back at my condo building to see Charlie Tompkins watching from his next-door window and Penny George from upstairs, peeking from between her drapes. “You’ve just about woken up everyone on the block.”

  “Well, I thought you’d be waiting for me, sugar. Didn’t you get my message on your cell phone?”

  “What message?” I hadn’t checked the voice mail on my cell since I’d turned it off on the way to Marilee’s house the day before.

  “About going to Gunner with me this morning. Well, don’t worry. We’ll still make it by the time the nursing home allows visitors. But you’d better go change.” She wrinkled her nose. “Your hair’s a rat’s nest, and where are your shoes?” she asked, checking out my attire disapprovingly before lowering her sunglasses down to her nose again. “You’re not even wearing a bra . . . or should I say, a Band-Aid.” I crossed my arms as her eyes went to my barely there chest.

  “Very funny.” I grunted, which only seemed to make her grin go wider.

  “I think you’d better go back inside and try again, girlfriend. I’ll wait out here.”

  “Wait for what?” Did she actually think I was going anywhere? The sun hadn’t even risen over the rooftops. I could still get in a few more hours of shut-eye.

  “C’mon, please, don’t tell me you’re changing your mind? You promised to go with me, to check on Marilee’s old aunt, remember?”

  Okay, I do recall her telling me she thought she’d tracked down Doreen Haggerty, but I definitely don’t recall promising to take a trip out to Gunner with her. Especially not at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  “It’s an hour there and an hour back, maybe an hour or so to talk to her, so you’ll be back by lunch,” Janet said, giving me the full court press.

 
“But I have to be at Mother’s . . .”

  “For what?” Her plucked brows arched above the rims of her Donna Karan shades. “Is something going on that I should know about?”

  “No, no.” At least, not that I was aware of. “It’s just that”—I paused to consider how much to say. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Janet, but I didn’t figure it was wise to share with a reporter—any reporter—that Kendall Mabry was staying at Cissy’s house. Part of me felt that Kendall’s life was still in danger as long as Justin was on the loose. So the fewer who knew the girl was there, the better.

  “It’s just what?”

  I did the simplest thing to evade her questions. I caved. “All right, all right. I’ll come with you. But give me ten minutes to dress and call my mother. Unless you want to sit out with your AC running, you’re welcome to come in.”

  “I’ve got the new Wilco and plenty of gas, so I’ll just leave my seat belt on and see you in ten minutes, or else I’ll start honking again,” she said, wiggling her fingers at me—her nails cranberry to match her silk top—and her window rolled up with a whir.

  I nearly tapped on the glass to remind her that carbon dioxide emissions from a stationary vehicle doubled that of a moving one, as if the ozone layer wasn’t thinning fast enough, rather like Matt Lauer’s hair. But I knew she wouldn’t care.

  So I hurried back into the condo and spent five minutes doing a quickie sponge bath and applying plenty of Secret antiperspirant. I put in my contacts and brushed my chin-length hair before pulling it back with a twisty. Despite the heat, I tugged on jeans to avoid being mistaken for a cactus since I had no time to shave my legs.

  With five minutes to spare, I phoned Mother’s house. Before the initial ring had even completed its trill, I heard a click as the phone was picked up and a voice I barely recognized barked, “For heaven’s sake, stop harassin’ us!”

  “Mother, it’s me.”

  Cissy didn’t have Caller ID. She didn’t like technology. Had never learned how to program a VCR even before she’d replaced it with a DVD.

  “Andrea.” She sighed. “Thank God.”

  With those two words alone, my blood pressure edged upward. “What’s wrong? Is Kendall okay?”

  “Yes, yes, she’s fine. Still sleeping, and I’m hoping she’ll stay out like a light until Beth drops by to check on her in a few hours.”

  My eyelid twitched. “So what’s the problem?”

  “I’ve had to call the police once already . . .”

  “The police?” My heart made a beeline for my esophagus. “What happened? Is anyone hurt?”

  “Well, not yet. Though I’m tempted to take the hose to the lot of them.”

  “The lot of whom?”

  “The television crews, darlin’. They’re all over my front lawn and blocking the driveway. Well, anyway, they were before the police shooed them off the property, though those nasty buggers keep tryin’ to inch their way back up. It’s like a circus out there. And my phone has been ringing off the hook, everyone askin’ about Marilee dying on my carpet. How on earth do they get access to unlisted numbers? I do declare. There’s no such thing as privacy.”

  “The media?” That was her big problem? “Are you serious?”

  “Don’t use that tone with me, Andrea, like I’m overreacting. It’s downright irritating, and not just for me. They’re blocking Beverly with their trucks. The neighbors aren’t the least bit happy about that. Oh, Lord, is that Entertainment Tonight? I think I see Mary Hart. . . .”

  It was all I could do not to laugh, purely with relief. I felt reassured that trucks with cameramen and reporters were hanging around outside my mother’s house. If Justin somehow learned Kendall was staying there, he surely wouldn’t have the nerve to show his face and risk appearing on the news. The police would be all over him faster than Britney Spears could disrobe.

  “You’re coming over, aren’t you?” Cissy asked.

  “I’ll be there sometime around noon, okay? I have to go somewhere with Janet first.”

  “With Janet Graham? Where?”

  “To Gunner.”

  “Where on earth is Gunner?”

  “It’s a speck on the map between here and Tyler, about an hour’s drive. I’ll be back before noon,” I said. “I promise.”

  “What’s in Gunner, might I ask?”

  “Marilee’s aunt.”

  “Marilee’s aunt?” she repeated.

  “I’ll explain when I see you.”

  Honk, honk.

  Janet laid on the horn again, and I glanced at the kitchen clock. I’d run over my ten-minute time limit.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “What about Kendall?”

  “Keep an eye on her, please, and don’t let her leave the house. If she needs me, have her call me on my cell phone, and tell her I meant every word I said.”

  Honk, honk.

  “Andrea . . .”

  “Bye, Mother.”

  I hung up, snatched my cell from the charger (making sure it was turned on), shoved it inside my purse, and hurried out the door.

  Fifteen minutes later, securely belted into Janet’s car, I braced my hands against the dash as she sped east on Highway 20. Wilco blasted from the stereo speakers, and she sang along at the top of her lungs, making me wish I’d worn earplugs. Alicia Keys she was not (she was more like Way-Off Keys).

  At least I didn’t have to worry about small talk, I thought, as I risked peeling my palms off the dashboard and resting them in my lap. I watched the endless stream of scrubby trees and billboards rush by, before my eyelids drooped.

  Janet screeched something about a casino queen being mean, before I tuned her out and drifted off.

  The next thing I knew, her fingers were poking me in the ribs. “Wake up, sleepy. C’mon, we’re here. Doreen awaits.”

  I wiped drool from my chin and gingerly raised my head from where I’d wedged it between the window and the seatback. Wincing, I did a neck roll, bones and cartilage crunching as I worked out the kinks. As I unfastened my safety belt, I squinted out the windshield to find the VW parked in front of a whitewashed one-story building.

  A square wooden sign surrounded by wilted petunias read:

  PECAN GROVE RETIREMENT HOME.

  As I dragged myself from the Jetta, I surveyed our surroundings but there was no pecan grove in sight, only a faded square of asphalt that served as the parking lot and a gray haze of exhaust from cars on the highway rushing by.

  Well, it sounded nice.

  After an hour of riding in an air-conditioned box, I welcomed the warm breath of outdoors. Besides, it wasn’t much past eight, so it couldn’t have been more than eighty-five degrees, ninety tops.

  A few chickadees hopped around the ground nearby, poking at a flattened box of popcorn. Planters potted with red geraniums added color to the front porch, where a pair of gentleman in white undershirts played checkers.

  “Morning, ladies,” the pair of them said, tipping imaginary hats at us as we ascended the wheelchair ramp, and Janet reciprocated their greetings.

  When I opened my mouth, all that emerged was a yawn.

  So much for all the gold stars I’d earned in my junior etiquette classes (but then I’d been five-years old at the time and got regular afternoon naps).

  Once inside the front doors, Janet marched straight to the front desk, manned by a dark-skinned woman in white with her hair wound atop her head in the shape of a torpedo. She peered at Janet over a pair of spectacles perched low on her nose.

  “Doreen Haggerty?” she was saying when I got near enough to hear. “Oh, you’re the writer who called up yesterday asking about her. Just a sec, hon, all right?” She picked up a handset and tapped a number into her phone. “Angelina, do you know if Doreen’s done with breakfast yet? She is? I’ll send her visitors back. Thanks, hon.”

  I saw her nametag read: EDNA DUPOIS.

  She hung up the phone and touched the gravity-defying beehive of brown spinning high abo
ve her broad forehead. It was mighty impressive, though I resisted the urge to comment on it. Sometimes those kind of things can backfire.

  “Go on around the corner,” she said, looking at Janet, “up the hallway and take a right at the last door before the rec room, all right?”

  “Thank you, Nurse Dupois,” Janet chirped, friendly as could be, earning a “you’re very welcome, hon,” from Miss Edna herself.

  I yawned again and felt my ears pop.

  “This way, sleepy.” Janet tugged on my hand, propelling me forward, which was a good thing since I’d already forgotten the instructions Edna had given us.

  It was a widely known fact that I was directionally dysfunctional. My mother could find her way from Corpus Christi to Wichita Falls without a map. If I tried the same thing, I’d end up in the Gulf of Mexico, having taken a U-turn at Padre. As my daddy used to say, my mental knapsack was missing its compass.

  After she’d dragged me through one hallway after another, Janet released me in front of an opened door, through which the strains of a televised Sunday service emanated. A voice cried out for us to repent, and Janet hesitated, tugging at the hem of her skirt to make sure it covered her thighs before she knocked on the doorjamb.

  “Miss Doreen?” she said, stepping inside the room, and I followed so closely behind that I nearly tripped over her heels when she stopped, grabbed my arm, and pointed.

  A tiny birdlike woman reclined in a La-Z-Boy chair, the thin frizz of her head tipped back on a pillow, her eyes closed, and mouth wide open. While the TV preacher called for her to “lift up her voice and shout ‘hallelujah,’” she snored instead, a noise not unlike the whistle of a teakettle.

  “Miss Doreen?” Janet said again and bravely walked over to the television set and turned it down. Perhaps it was the softening of the preacher’s voice, but the snoring abruptly stopped, and the tiny woman shot straight up, her bulbous eyes blinking.

  “Who’s there?” she asked in a shaky East Texas twang and reached to the tray table beside her, clutching at a pair of glasses that she promptly stuck on her face. The frames were black and round, and the lenses magnified her eyes about fifty times over. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve sworn she was Mr. Magoo in the flesh. “Do I know you?”