by Laura Levine
“And besides,” Lance said, “you’ve got nothing to worry about. I know who the killer is.”
“You do?”
“Sure, it’s Sven Gustafson.”
“Who the heck is Sven Gustafson?”
“I told you about him. He works with me at Neiman’s. Bebe used to be his customer until she dumped him for me. He’s resented her ever since. And he called in sick three days last week. Probably home plotting the murder. I’ve already reported him to the police hotline.”
“And what did they say?”
“That yes, they’d look into it and no, that they weren’t interested in Neiman’s half-yearly sale on Ferragamos.”
With that, he polished off my donut and headed for the door.
“Ciao for now, sweetheart. You know I love you to pieces!”
Needless to say, he was talking to Prozac.
Chapter 11
Haunted by the specter of my fingerprints on Bebe’s murder weapon, and afraid that any minute now I’d be hauled off to police headquarters in handcuffs, I decided to put on my detective shoes and do a little snooping.
(I don’t like to brag, but I’ve solved more than my fair share of homicides in my day, stirring sagas of murder, mayhem, and runaway calories you can read about in the titles listed at the front of this book.)
So when I saw an announcement of Bebe’s funeral in the paper, I made up my mind to be there.
The funeral was being held at Westwood Mortuary, cemetery to the stars, the final resting place of legends like Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, and Kirk Douglas. Also, not quite so legendary, Rodney Dangerfield, whose epitaph reads “There goes the neighborhood.”
Lance took time off from work to join me, unwilling to miss any celebrity sightings.
And indeed there were some A-listers in the crowd, along with a cadre of stick-thin socialites and two Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
(I only hoped The Housewives wouldn’t wind up bashing each other with Bebe’s funeral wreath.)
Among the celebs was Lacey Hunt, Bebe’s pilfered client, looking fresh-faced and rosy-cheeked in funereal black. She wore a sorrowful expression, eyes misted with tears, but somehow I got the feeling that I was watching a performance, something she’d learned in Acting 101. (Especially when I saw her taking sneak peeks at her cell phone.)
Miles was there, too, the bereaved husband, looking appropriately mournful, his beefy body crammed into his suit. And over at the edge of the crowd was Tatiana, Bebe’s former mentor and rival stylist, her jet-black hair cemented in place, bright red lipstick bleeding into her lip lines, wearing the same frayed outfit she’d worn the day she came storming into Bebe’s studio. I couldn’t help but notice a faint smile on those ruby lips as she sidled over to Lacey Hunt and whispered in her ear, no doubt eager to woo back her former client.
I remembered how furious she’d been the day she came barging into Bebe’s studio, threatening to get revenge on Bebe for poaching Lacey.
Now I wondered if she’d made good on her threat and strangled her detested rival.
I scanned the crowd for Heidi and Justin (especially Justin), but neither of them was there. Can’t say I blamed them; they’d probably had more than their fill of Bebe while she was alive.
The only employee who showed up was Anna, the seamstress, looking mousy as ever in an inexpensive black dress, her pale face partially obscured by a curtain of lanky brown hair. Frankly, I was surprised to see her, given how badly Bebe had treated her.
As the minister spun a fairy tale about what a warm, loving person Bebe had been, Lance recognized several of his customers among the mourners and began whispering a running commentary about their foot ailments:
“There’s Buffy Cohen. Bunions the size of golf balls.”
“Mitzi Doheny. Belongs in the Hammertoe Hall of Fame.”
“And Camilla Von Durst. All her millions, and she can’t get rid of her toenail fungus.”
Clearly I was not the only one who could hear Lance’s whispers.
At one point, the minister looked up from his pack of lies to shoot Lance a dirty look. Which silenced him, but only for a minute or so.
“Omigod,” he whispered as a slim, blond fashion plate of a guy came walking across the graveyard to join the mourners. “That’s Sven Gustafson! Bebe’s killer! Check out the sneaky look on his face.”
I checked out Sven’s face, bland and handsome, not the least bit sneaky.
It was hard to picture him as a killer, even harder when his only motive seemed to have been that Bebe dropped him as her shoe salesman.
“I can’t believe he had the nerve to show up,” Lance fumed. “Probably a ruse to throw the cops off his trail.”
I’m happy to report that, when the service was over, no funeral wreaths had been tossed by scene-stealing housewives. As the crowd started to disperse, Lance dashed over to schmooze with his customers while I made a much-needed trip to the chapel ladies’ room.
(I really must stop drinking so much coffee in the morning. But I need something to wash down my cinnamon raisin bagels, don’t I?)
The chapel was deserted when I got there, my footsteps echoing down the corridor.
I made use of the facilities, enjoying the luxury of washing my hands with lily-scented soap and drying them on a paper towel as thick as terry cloth. The rich sure knew how to pamper their mourners in style.
I was just about to leave when I heard someone talking in the deserted corridor. I recognized the voice. It was Miles.
“See, babe?” he was saying. “I told you everything would work out.”
Babe? Who was he calling babe?
“But we can’t be seen together for a while. The police will suspect us if they know about our affair.”
Holy moly. Miles was having an affair! Talk about your motives for murder.
I opened the door a crack, hoping to see the object of his affections.
And sure enough, I did.
There in the hallway, Miles was kissing shy little Anna, the seamstress! Only she didn’t look the least bit shy now, her lips locked on Miles.
In the wake of Bebe’s death, these two were happy campers.
Very happy campers, indeed.
I stared at them, mesmerized, not sure if I was watching an adulterous couple—or an adulterous couple of killers.
Chapter 12
After witnessing that steamy smoochfest between Miles and Anna, I made up my mind to have a chat with the grieving widower.
So the next day, armed with the ultimate comfort food—some creamy macaroni and cheese I’d picked up at the supermarket—I showed up at Casa Bebe under the guise of paying a condolence call.
As I made my way up the path to the front door, past the battalion of security signs warning of hidden cameras and armed guard responses, I was struck by a glorious thought: surely one of the many security cameras had captured a picture of the killer. Murder solved, just like that!
Unless, of course, the killer had managed to disarm the cameras. Someone who had access to the security system, someone who actually lived in the house with Bebe—namely, Miles.
When I rang the bell, he came to the door, looking pretty darn chipper for a guy who’d just lost his wife—standing tall, eyes bright, a smile on his lips. Then, just a beat too late, he lost the smile and tried his best to look like a husband in mourning.
“Hey, Jaine.”
Not exactly thrilled to see me. But that didn’t stop me from turning on the charm.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to talk to you at the funeral, so I came to pay my respects.”
“Thanks,” he said, showing no signs of inviting me in.
“I brought you macaroni and cheese,” I offered, hoping this would soften him up.
It did not.
“Great,” he said, grabbing it and starting to close the door.
But he wasn’t about to get rid of me. Not that easily.
“It’s the least I could do,” I said, skittering
past him into the house. “After all, you were so kind to me that day I first came to see Bebe, feeding me tea and brownies. It was very sweet of you.”
And it was. But I couldn’t concentrate on his good side, not when I was trying to convict him of murder.
“I can’t stay long,” I said, making a beeline for the living room, where I plopped myself firmly down onto a massive white sofa.
Reluctantly, Miles joined me, taking a seat in a nearby armchair.
Across from us, over a gray slate fireplace, was a framed poster of Bebe, a larger version of the one I’d seen in Heidi’s office.
“Such a tragedy about Bebe,” I murmured.
“Indeed,” he nodded stiffly.
“I guess the police already know who the killer is.”
“Last I heard, they thought it was you.”
“Wait, no! It wasn’t me, I swear. I just came by for a fitting and happened to be the one who found her body. What about all your security cameras? Don’t they show footage of the killer?”
He took a break from his grieving widower act to laugh out loud.
“Hah. There are no cameras. Bebe was way too cheap to spring for a security system. All she bought were the signs.”
“No cameras?”
“Nope. Not a one.”
Which meant I was still alive and well on the cops’ suspect list.
“Can I get you a plate for that?” Miles asked.
I looked down and saw that, in my state of mini-panic, I’d opened the container of mac and cheese and was digging into it with a plastic take-out fork.
Gaak! How embarrassing.
“I’m so sorry!” I cried. “This is for you, not me.”
“Go for it,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve got plenty of food.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” I said, snapping the lid back on the container.
“So how are you holding up?” I asked, with my best condolence call smile.
“It’s been tough,” he replied, with his best grieving widower sigh. “Bebe and I were together since high school.”
He picked up a photo from an end table and handed it to me.
I gazed down at Miles, looking impossibly young and buff in a football uniform, his arm slung around a teenage Bebe, reed thin in a cheerleader’s outfit, smiling a gap-toothed smile that had long since been corrected by cosmetic dentistry.
“I fell for Bebe the first time I saw her,” Miles said, “walking across campus like a model in a fashion magazine. She made all the other girls look like country bumpkins. I knew right away she was someone special.”
From the wistful look in in his eyes, I could tell this was no act. He’d really been in love with that long ago version of Bebe.
“I was the famous one back then, playing varsity football, with an athletic scholarship to UCLA. I planned on going pro, but that went south when I busted my knee in my senior year.”
He shook his head, still pained at the memory.
“It all worked out in the end, though,” he said, snapping out of his reverie. “I wound up working with Bebe in the fashion industry, which has been very rewarding.”
Oh, please. Not for one minute did I believe that working for Bebe as her lackey had been the least bit rewarding. Stripped of his dignity, toting clothes to and from the dry cleaners, he must’ve hated every bit of it.
Add the fact that he had a girlfriend on the side and probably stood to inherit a bundle, he had more than enough motive to kill Bebe.
Miles may have put on a few pounds since his glory days, but as an ex-footballer, he certainly had the strength to wring that wire hanger around Bebe’s neck.
“If only I’d been home that night,” he was saying, “I might’ve seen the killer and stopped him.
“Or her,” he added, shooting me a look much like the one lobbed at me by Detective Denzel Washington.
“But unfortunately, I was at my cigar lounge.”
“Cigar lounge?”
“Bebe never let me smoke cigars in the house. She hated the smell. So I went to the El Dorado Cigar Lounge in Brentwood. I was there all night watching the Laker’s game.”
Darn it all. It looked like he had an alibi.
I desperately needed some time alone to dig for dirt on this guy.
“Gosh,” I said, “I hate to ask in your time of mourning, but I don’t suppose I could have the makeover outfits Bebe chose for me? They were so gorgeous.”
“No problem. I’m going to be liquidating all the stuff in the studio anyway.”
So much for his avid devotion to the fashion industry.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
The minute he left, I got up and started snooping.
I didn’t know what I expected to discover, but it never hurt to look.
Right away, I hit the jackpot when I opened an end table drawer and found a picture of Anna tucked in a travel brochure for Bali—perhaps a “We Got Away with Murder” vacation for the lovebirds once the investigation wrapped up and some innocent person—namely moi—was festering behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit.
I was so upset at the thought of me sharing a jail cell with a gal named Duke, I could hardly swallow my mac and cheese.
(What can I say? Snooping makes me hungry.)
Then I wandered over to the fireplace, where Bebe still lived in her poster, forever stylish behind the glass of the frame.
In the sunlight streaming in from the room’s large picture windows, I noticed what looked like small circles dotting the glass. How odd. Then I realized they were the same kind of circles left by the suction darts Heidi and I had been hurling at Bebe’s poster that day in her office.
Had Miles been taking shots at his wife when she wasn’t around? And then, not content with lashing out at her image, had he taken out his wrath in real life?
I was mulling over this thought and polishing off the last of the mac and cheese when Miles returned with two dresses, a pair of slacks, and that blue cashmere sweater I’d been lusting after.
All of which were on wire hangers.
A declaration of freedom if I ever saw one.
And once more I wondered if Miles had used what was left of his athletic prowess to wring the life out of his bitch of a wife.
Chapter 13
There may be some chocolate-flavored cereal lovers out there who are right now asking themselves: “Whatever happened to Jaine’s CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirt? And why the heck isn’t she trying to find it?”
Let me assure you I had not forgotten about my beloved tee. In fact, as soon as Justin texted me Felipe the gardener’s contact info, I’d lined up an appointment to see him and was scheduled to show up at his house in East L.A. that very night.
In the meanwhile, however, I still had to deal with the repercussions from Prozac’s video.
Trevor’s mom, Trudy (by now, we were on a first name basis), had been on a buying spree, bombarding Pro with a boatload of gifts—including a plush canopy bed that Pro was using as a litter box, and a towering cat tree from which my fractious furball dive-bombed my head every time I walked by.
Trudy also sent over a yummy looking Thank You cake, which I naturally assumed was for me, until I saw the Kitty Katz Bakery label on the box. Turns out it was made out of tuna, and actually, it wasn’t that bad.
(Okay, so I had a taste. Sue me.)
Yes, Pro was becoming quite the little celebrity, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when that afternoon I got a call from a Los Angeles Times reporter, requesting an interview.
I would have turned her down flat had she not mentioned that the paper wanted to run a picture of me and Prozac along with the interview. Which meant I’d get a chance to counteract the image of my giant tush in cyberspace. I’d wear a spiffy new outfit, maybe my new blue cashmere sweater, and be photographed with my tush facing away—far away—from the camera.
Not ten minutes after agreeing to do the interview, I got another call—this time fr
om a gal named Matilda at a pet charity called Paws Across America, inviting Prozac to be the guest of honor at their annual gala dinner.
The interview was one thing, but no way was Prozac about to get any more adulation for a heroic deed she never performed.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Matilda, “but we won’t be able to attend.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. We’ve invited your local councilman to give Prozac a kibble key to the city.”
“It sounds lovely, but I’m afraid not.”
“And it’s a really special event, a steak dinner at the Beverly Hilton.”
Whoa, Nelly!
“Steak dinner, huh?”
“Prime sirloin.”
“Um. Let me check my calendar.” I held the phone for a few beats pretending to check my fictional calendar. “Yes, I think we can make it after all.”
And so I had agreed to not one, but two events honoring a cat who was in fact at that very moment pooping in her canopy bed.
* * *
After a mind-numbing slog on the 10 freeway, nearby snails giggling as they whizzed past me, I finally showed up at Felipe’s home in East L.A.
In the light of the setting sun, I saw a neat, well-kept bungalow, with clusters of yellow roses peeking through a white picket fence, the path to his house lined with bright pink impatiens and velvety pansies.
Clearly the home of a gardener.
Felipe came to the door, a fiftysomething man with a thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair. Over jeans and a white T-shirt, he wore a distinctly un-macho floral apron.
My first impression of him was pretty fuzzy, however, distracted as I was by the smell of something yummy cooking in his kitchen.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
Feed me! was what I felt like saying, salivating at the heavenly aroma.
But I wrenched myself back to the reason for my visit.
“I’m Jaine Austen. We met at Bebe Braddock’s house. I was there to get a makeover.”
“Right. The lady with the CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirt.”
“Justin told me you were holding it for me.”
“Yes, I was.”
Was? Past tense? Don’t tell me he’d let my precious tee slip through his fingers!