by Laura Levine
“Well,” I said, but before I could get to Syllable Two, there was a knock on my front door.
“Yoo hoo, Jaine! It’s me, Lance!”
Oh, jeez. The egomaniac had come to horn in on my interview.
With a sigh, I got up and opened the door to find him all spiffed up in jeans and a tight-fitting tee. He obviously never went to the gym; instead he sneaked back to his apartment to prep for the interview.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” he said, barging right in, “but when Jaine told me she was doing an interview with the L.A. Times, I knew I had to stop by. Prozac and I are incredibly close. I’m her godfather, you know.”
Really? That was news to me.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Jaine’s beloved neighbor, Lance Venable, V-E-N-A-B-L-E.
“Prozac, honeybunch,” he cooed, spotting her. “How’s my rescuing angel?”
Pro, the little traitor, purred at the sight of him, and leaped into his lap as he joined me on the sofa. Which was most galling, considering she’d been wriggling out of my grasp from the start of the interview.
“She really seems to like you,” Sarita said to Lance, as Prozac practically swooned in his arms.
“She does indeed. I guess you could say I’m her role model. Cats are very observant creatures,” he said, suddenly anointing himself a zoologist. “Prozac gets her fondness of food from Jaine, and her charitable instincts from me. I’m a longtime supporter of organizations that deliver food to the hungry.”
Yeah, right. If by “organizations that deliver food to the hungry” he meant Grubhub and DoorDash.
“And Prozac’s bravery in times of crisis?” Lance blathered on. “She gets that from me, too. Why, just last year, I rescued my uncle from drowning.”
“Really?” Sarita perked up, interested. “How?”
“Well, he’d had a tad too much to drink at Thanksgiving dinner and fell face down into the pumpkin soup. I was the one who grabbed him by his few remaining hairs and yanked him out of the soup tureen.”
Wow, somebody get this guy a Purple Heart.
Showing no shame, Lance continued to highjack the interview, horning in on every question Sarita lobbed my way. The way he was nattering on about Prozac, you’d think he’d given birth to her.
As I recall, my total contribution to the rest of the interview was, “I adopted her from a pet shelter.”
By this point, I was ready to throttle Lance, but at last Sarita said she was ready to take some pictures.
Lance was all set to pose with Prozac, but Sarita, bless her heart, told Lance she wanted only a picture of me and Prozac together.
Lance reluctantly handed Prozac to me, and needless to say, the minute she was in my lap, she started squirming to break free. I finally managed to get her to sit still with some kitty caviar treats (another gift from Trevor’s mom), and Sarita snapped several pictures with her cell phone.
“Thanks so much for your time,” she said when she was done, eagerly gathering her things, no doubt wishing she were reporting an actual story.
“A pleasure to meet you!” Lance called after her as she hustled out the door. “Remember that’s Venable. V-E-NA-B-L-E.”
* * *
The minute Sarita left, I whirled on Lance, furious.
“Lance V-E-N-A-B-L-E, I can’t believe you had the nerve to bust in here and hijack my interview!”
“Gosh, hon. I’m sorry. Was I talking too much?”
“Only nonstop, the Niagara Falls of chitchat.”
“I was just so excited about Prozac, I guess I got carried away. But you could’ve jumped in any time.”
“Are you kidding? I’d need a jackhammer to get a word in edgewise.”
“My bad,” he said, abashed. “I didn’t mean to steal your thunder.” He held out his arms for a hug. “Forgive me?”
In spite of myself, I could feel my anger melting. He looked as sorry as a puppy who’d just pooped on the carpet. And besides, all I really cared about was getting my picture in the paper.
“You’re forgiven,” I said sliding into his arms.
“By the way,” he said when we broke apart, “I haven’t forgotten about helping you solve Bebe’s murder. I’m more certain than ever that Sven Gustafson is the killer.”
Lance sure seemed eager to pin the murder on his handsome blond coworker.
“He’s been acting really strange at Neiman’s lately, very antsy and nervous, and when I brought up the subject of Bebe’s death, he just muttered something under his breath and hurried off to the stock room.”
“Here’s a wild idea: Maybe he went to get a pair of shoes.”
“No, he’s the killer, all right. There’s only one tiny fly in the ointment.”
“Which is?”
“He claims he was on vacation in Oslo the night of the murder. ”
“A tiny fly? Sounds more like an airtight alibi to me.”
“Not necessarily, my dear Watson. It just so happens Sven has a twin brother, Lars.
“Lars could have easily flown to Oslo using Sven’s passport, while Sven stayed here in Los Angeles to kill Bebe. I told you how furious he was when Bebe dumped him as her shoe salesman.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a motive for murder to me.”
“Trust me, Jaine. I can read people like a book, and this guy has ‘guilty’ written all over him. I already phoned in an anonymous tip to the police, so they’re bound to arrest him any day now.”
Why did I get the feeling that Lance’s anonymous tip had been filed away in a handy trash can? Not for a minute did I believe Sven faked a trip to Oslo to kill Bebe.
“And I promise when I’m interviewed for solving the murder, I’ll let you do all the talking. Now I really must run to the gym,” he said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek.
“Bye, sweetpea!” he called out to Prozac before sailing out the door.
I looked over at Prozac, busy examining her genitals.
Now it was her turn in the hot seat.
“And you, you ungrateful wretch,” I said, glaring at her, “ignoring me while that reporter was here, wriggling out of my arms like you’d never even met me, like I haven’t been keeping you up to your eyeballs in minced mackerel guts and belly rubs all these years.”
She looked up from her privates, startled.
“Well, there’ll be no belly rubs in your future, young lady. Not from me. Not for a very long time.”
I guess she could see how ticked off I was because she instantly abandoned her gynecological exam and came scampering over to me, rubbing herself against my ankles, mewing plaintively, little Ms. Lovable.
“Forget it,” I said, walking away with a hardened heart.
She wasn’t going to worm her way back into my good graces that easily.
No, siree. No way. I was tough. I was firm. I was the strict disciplinarian she so rightly deserved.
You’ll be proud to know I waited a full twelve minutes before swooping her up in my arms for a belly rub.
Purring contentedly, she looked up at me with big green eyes that could mean only one thing:
I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings. Got any more caviar treats?
Chapter 20
“Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any!” Tatiana Rogers shrieked before hanging up on me.
I’d called Bebe’s tempestuous former boss and rival stylist to set up a visit, but I could see it wasn’t going to be easy.
It took three more phone calls before I finally convinced her I wasn’t a telemarketer.
“Then who are you?”
“Jaine Austen. We met at Bebe’s studio; I was there getting a makeover when you dropped in.” Notice how I diplomatically avoided any mention of her blazing meltdown. “Afterward, we had tea and brownies with Miles in the kitchen.”
“Right. I remember. Boy, you sure can pack away those brownies.”
Now I was the one who wanted to hang up on her. Instead, I forced a weak, “Haha. That’s me.”
>
“Miles says your fingerprints were found all over the murder weapon.”
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling. I’m hoping to clear my name, and I was wondering if I could stop by for a chat.”
“Why do you want to talk to me?” she asked warily.
“I’m trying to learn all I can about Bebe, any scrap of information that might lead me to the killer.”
Who might very well be you, I refrained from adding.
“I’ll be tied up with clients all morning,” she said. “You can stop by later this afternoon. I’ll text you my address.”
I thanked her and hung up, more than a tad ticked off.
Not at her brownie crack (although that was pretty darn annoying). No, the person I wanted to slap silly was Miles Braddock, running around telling practically everyone in Los Angeles County my fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon.
Clearly he was going out of his way to throw me under the bus. Perhaps because he was trying to deflect attention away from the real killer—Miles himself.
Time to pay another visit to the merry widower.
* * *
Casa Braddock looked the same as the day I first showed up, the front yard lush with flowers.
But somehow the flowers seemed brighter, more vivid, now that Bebe was gone. Even the birds seemed to be chirping a happier tune.
There was no answer when I rang the bell, so I decided to go around the side of the house to the backyard, just in case Miles was lounging at the pool, checking out vacation destinations for a romantic getaway with Anna.
The pool was deserted when I got there, and I was just about to turn around and go back to my Corolla when I noticed the French doors to Bebe’s studio were open.
Maybe Miles was there, gathering Bebe’s wooden hangers for a bonfire.
So I wandered over to the studio—only to get the shock of my life when I looked in and saw Miles slumped over Bebe’s desk.
Oh, hell. It was déjà vu all over again! Was I about to discover yet another dead body?
I tiptoed closer to Miles, already cringing at the thought of being questioned by Detective Washington.
Then suddenly Miles snorted awake, startled at the sight of me.
“Hi, Miles,” I said, flooded with relief. “Sorry I woke you.”
“That’s okay.”
He quickly slammed shut a large, ledger-sized checkbook on the desk in front of him.
But not quickly enough to keep me from seeing a check made out to Beverly Hills Maserati.
Somebody was on a buying spree now that his wife was dead.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, a flicker of impatience in his eyes.
“Actually, I need to talk to you about Bebe’s murder.”
“What about it?”
“I happened to stop by the El Dorado Cigar Lounge the other night, and your friend Eddie confirmed what you told me. He said you were there until ten PM the night of the murder.”
“Sounds like you were checking up on me.”
“Kinda sorta,” I admitted.
“Do you really think I killed Bebe?”
“Anything’s possible.”
Not the answer he wanted to hear.
“If Eddie told you I was there all night,” he said, shooting me a death ray glare, “why are you here? What else do you need to know?”
Okay, time for me to unleash the lie I’d dreamed up on the drive over.
“Eddie may not have seen you leave the lounge, but I was talking to another patron who was there that night, and he told me he saw you walking out the door well before ten o’clock.”
Yes, this was a whopper of the highest order. As you well know (if you were paying attention and not checking your pockets for stray M&M’s), I’d spoken to no such person. But I was a desperado.
And guess what? It worked.
“Okay,” he snapped. “So I left the lounge. I went to visit Bebe’s sister, Anna.”
“Really?” I asked, all wide-eyed, as if I hadn’t seen them smooching at Bebe’s funeral.
“Yes, we’ve grown quite close over the years.”
I’ll say, I thought, remembering how they were practically welded together in the chapel hallway.
“I trust you won’t be telling anyone about this,” he said, getting up from the desk and walking over to me. “For your sake, as well as mine.”
Gulp. He was a lot taller than I remembered. And bulkier, too. Up to then, Miles had seemed like a lumbering teddy bear of a guy. But that teddy bear had just morphed into a grizzly.
I was beginning to feel a wee bit terrified.
“We wouldn’t want anything to happen to those pretty curls of yours, would we?” Now he was at my side, running the tips of his fingers along my hair.
“Nope, we definitely don’t want that,” I stammered.
And with that, I raced out of the studio and back to my Corolla as fast as my trembling legs could carry me.
I knew a threat when I heard one, and I’d darn well just heard one.
* * *
With every beat of my wildly thumping heart, I grew more convinced that Miles was the killer. I could almost see his beefy hands tightening the noose around Bebe’s neck.
But I couldn’t rule out Tatiana. Not yet, anyway.
After a pit stop at Mickey D’s for a calming Quarter Pounder, I headed out to the San Fernando Valley to Tatiana’s rustic bungalow in Canoga Park.
And by “rustic” I mean thisclose to being condemned.
With peeling paint, rotting shingles, and settling cracks the size of the San Andreas fault, it looked like the only thing keeping the place together were termites holding hands.
I knocked on the front door, hoping it wouldn’t fall off its hinges.
Inside I could hear the sound of shuffling footsteps, and soon the door swung open, revealing Tatiana in a stained kimono, gray roots sprouting in her jet-black hair.
In her hand, she held a filled-to-the-brim margarita glass.
“Jaine, dear. How nice to see you again!”
From the potent blast of tequila on her breath, I was guessing one of the “clients” she’d been entertaining earlier that day was Jose Cuervo.
“Come on in!” she said, beaming me a smile, so much friendlier than she’d been on the phone that morning. Maybe she thought I’d actually killed Bebe and was bubbling over with gratitude.
I stepped into her living room, a tiny box of a space crammed with once-expensive silk-upholstered furniture, now dotted with stains and worn thin at the armrests.
Taking up an entire wall was a clothes rack, whose garments, I couldn’t help but notice, were all hanging on wire hangers.
“Welcome to my L.A. studio,” she said with a flourish, the contents of her margarita sloshing over the rim of the glass. “It’s my pied-à-terre when I’m here in town. My other home is in Montecito.”
Oh, please. Did she honestly expect me to believe she had a place in Montecito, a city so expensive you needed a cosigner to check out at the local market?
“Care for a margarita?”
She nodded in the direction of her kitchen, where I saw a blender full of the stuff.
“I’m fine,” I said, perching my fanny on her fraying sofa.
“Guess what I found in my samples!” She flitted over to the clothing rack. “A fabulous Michael Kors cocktail dress.”
She held out a leopard-print number with a plunging neckline and a peplum at the waist.
“Isn’t it perfect?”
Only if you were a hooker soliciting johns on Sunset Boulevard.
“Very nice,” I said with a weak smile, pretty sure I’d seen something very much like it on clearance at T. J. Maxx.
“I thought of you the minute I saw it,” Tatiana cooed. “It’s only been worn once, and I’m prepared to let it go for just five thousand dollars!”
Was she kidding? If I had five grand to spare, I’d have hired myself a defense attorney instead of running around town trying
to clear my name.
“Sorry, but that’s way too expensive for me.”
“How about two thousand?” she asked with a desperate smile. “One thou? . . . Okay, five hundred, and it’s yours.”
“Honestly, Tatiana. I don’t have that kind of money.”
And with that, her smile vanished, along with much of her margarita.
“Okay,” she said, sprawling out across from me on the sofa, her kimono opening perilously close to her G-spot. “What do you want to know?”
“Like I said on the phone, I’m looking for any info you can give me about Bebe, her friends, her life, her background.”
“Friends?” She laughed bitterly. “Bebe had no friends. The woman was toxic. And all I know about Bebe’s background is that story she was constantly telling about her parents showing up in this country with only the clothes on their back and their valuables hidden in her mom’s coat. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she made the whole thing up to add some spice to her bio. For all I know, she was born in Topeka and was president of her 4-H club.”
She paused in her tirade to guzzle down the rest of her margarita.
“Bebe could be a real charmer when she wanted. She sure had me snowed. I thought I’d found the perfect assistant, until she upped and walked away with half my client list.”
She shook her head, still stung by the memory.
“After all I did for her, all the gifts I lavished on her. Hermès scarves. Burberry coats. And that fabulous Birkin handbag! ”
I remembered the red leather purse I’d seen in Bebe’s studio.
“That thing’s gotta be worth a fortune today.”
“It must have been quite a blow when she left you,” I said, in my best empathetic therapist voice. “I could see how angry you were that day you showed up to confront her. I remember your saying something about how someday Bebe would get what she deserved.”
With that, Tatiana snapped out of her margarita haze, her eyes suddenly narrowed and alert.
“If you think I had anything to do with Bebe’s murder, think again, honey. I was home all night, watching Project Runway reruns.”
“Gosh, no,” I lied. “I didn’t suspect you at all.”
“When I made that crack about Bebe getting what she deserved, I only meant I wanted to see her business go up in flames. I was furious with her for stealing Lacey Hunt out from under me. But kill her? Never! If I killed everyone who’s screwed me in this town, I would’ve been behind bars years ago.