by Laura Levine
“In fact, if you ask me, the killer might well be Lacey.”
“Lacey Hunt?” It was hard to picture the freckled-face young actress as a killer.
“Yes, Lacey. She felt terrible about leaving me. I could tell she didn’t really want to work with Bebe. You know what I think?” she said, licking the remaining shards of salt from her margarita glass. “I think Bebe was holding something over Lacey’s head, something damaging, and she was blackmailing her into becoming her client.”
Could Tatiana possibly be right? Was the budding young movie star Bebe’s killer? A very interesting theory, and one I definitely intended to pursue.
“I hate to rush you, sweetie,” Tatiana said, eyeing her now empty glass, “but I’ve got another client coming soon.”
“Right. Sure. I understand.”
She wasted no time hustling me out the door, and the last thing I heard as I headed down the front path was the faint whir of the blender.
Make way for Señor Cuervo.
* * *
It was after five when I left Tatiana, and I was dreading the thought of inching my way home in rush hour traffic. But then I remembered Felipe’s niece, Gloria, the lucky recipient of my CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirt.
Felipe had written down her address on a slip of paper that I’d shoved in my purse. I vaguely recalled it was somewhere out in the Valley. So I rooted around my tote and finally found it, stuck to a half-eaten Almond Joy.
It turned out Gloria lived in Reseda, just a short hop from Canoga Park, and after Google-mapping the directions, I set out to retrieve my treasured tee.
Soon I was pulling up in front of Gloria’s house—a modest bungalow a lot like Tatiana’s. Only hers had a fresh coat of paint and a well-tended front yard.
A Tinkerbell sprite answered the door, clad in bike shorts and sports bra. Not an ounce of fat anywhere.
I’d eaten pizzas heavier than her.
“Oh, hi,” she said with a bright smile. “Are you here about the room for rent?”
“No, afraid not.”
“Darn! People have been canceling out on me all day. If I don’t find a new roommate soon to help with the rent, I’m going to get evicted for sure.”
“So sorry about that,” I said, looking past her into her living room, an airy space furnished from the Ikea Dorm Room collection.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m Jaine Austen. Your Uncle Felipe told me he gave you my CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirt.”
“Jane Austen? That name sounds awfully familiar.”
“You’re probably thinking of the author.”
“What author?”
Obviously not an English major.
“She wrote Pride and Prejudice. Emma. Mansfield Park.”
“Was she just on Good Morning America, promoting her new book?”
“I doubt it. She’s been dead three hundred years.”
“Oh, well. The name still sounds familiar. I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
Time to stop this stroll down literary memory lane.
“As I was saying, your uncle told me he gave you my CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirt.”
“I love that tee!” she grinned. “It’s so cool. I’ve been wearing it as a sleep shirt.”
She was wearing my tee as a sleep shirt? The same tee that was a teensy bit tight around my hips?
Why did I suddenly feel like the Incredible Hulk?
“Come on in.” Gloria beckoned me inside. “I was just lifting weights.”
I followed her into her living room, where she picked up a pair of weights from her coffee table and began hoisting them over her head, her fat-free arms pumping like pistons.
“Weights are great for body sculpting. Do you ever use them?”
“All the time.”
Which was technically true, if by “weights” you mean pints of Chunky Monkey.
“Anyhow, I was wondering if I could have my T-shirt back. It’s got a lot of sentimental value.”
“I’d love to give it to you,” she said, arms still churning up and down, “but I can’t. Cindy stole it.”
“Cindy?”
“My ex-roommate. She nabbed it when she moved out. Along with my juicer and my yoga mat.”
Damn that Bebe for ripping it off my body in the first place. I sincerely hoped she was being forced to wear polyester pantsuits in hell.
“Can you give me Cindy’s new address?”
“I wish. If I knew where she lived, I could get my stuff back.”
“So you have no idea where I can find her?”
“You could try the Sugar Shack. A dive bar down in Redondo Beach. Cindy used to Jello-wrestle there every other Sunday. Maybe you could catch her there.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said. “Now I’d better get home and feed my cat. If I’m late with her dinner, there’s hell to pay.”
“Your cat? Now I know why the name Jaine Austen sounds so familiar. I just read about you online. Your cat saved a toddler’s life!”
With that, she put down her weights and grabbed her iPad from the coffee table, then tapped the screen until she found what she was looking for.
“Here it is! From the Los Angeles Times.”
Omigosh. Sarita’s article was out!
I snatched the tablet from Gloria, eager to check out my photo, confident that my tush would be nowhere in sight.
I scrolled down past the blather about Pro until I finally came to the picture.
Oh, groan. Double groan.
True, there was no sign of my tush, but Sarita had zoomed in on Prozac, cropping practically all of me out of the picture—all of me, except for my thighs, which looked like two redwoods stranded on a sofa cushion.
First my tush. Now my thighs! What was next? My tummy? My muffin top? Spinach on my teeth?
“Your cat’s adorable,” Gloria was saying, breaking into my mental hissy fit.
And it was true. Prozac, the little devil, a cat who couldn’t have cared less about saving a toddler’s life, looked terrific.
While I, a woman who selflessly and almost single-handedly has kept Ben & Jerry’s in business for years, got nothing but unflattering body parts in cyberspace.
I thanked Gloria for her time and stomped back to my Corolla, cursing the injustice of it all.
But then, sitting in my car, I had an epiphany. Maybe my body parts orbiting in cyberspace was the universe’s way of telling me it was time to drop a few pounds.
Maybe this was a good thing, after all.
And so I vowed then and there to go on a diet.
Which I’d start the minute I finished that half-eaten Almond Joy.
Chapter 21
I was slathering strawberry jam on my cinnamon raisin bagel the next morning, my new diet having lasted all of twelve hours (eight of which I’d spent sleeping).
I guess I was absent the day they handed out willpower.
But I didn’t feel too guilty.
I read somewhere that dieting isn’t good for you, that gaining and losing weight causes all sorts of problems. So I was actually doing the healthy thing, I told myself, as I slathered another glob of jam on my bagel.
Settling down on my sofa with my bagel and a cup of coffee, I eyed the Los Angeles Times on my coffee table, still in its plastic wrapper.
If I’d been smart, I would’ve tossed it straight into the trash, but like a fool, I opened it and cringed to see my mega-thighs splashed all over the front of the Metro section.
If anything, they looked even bigger than they had yesterday. Heck, if they were any bigger, they’d need their own special section.
Disgusted, I tossed the paper on the floor.
Prozac, who has an uncanny ability to sense anything to do with herself, jumped down from where she’d been draped on my armchair and pranced over to look at it.
Her tail thumped in approval.
My, one of us is certainly photogenic, aren’t I?
I was seriously considering
writing an angry Letter to the Editor with a blistering critique of their photo-cropping techniques when my phone rang.
It was Lance.
“Exciting news, hon! I’ve got proof positive that Sven is the killer!”
“What proof?”
“I can’t talk now. Meet me for lunch, one o’clock at Neiman’s café, and I will reveal all.”
“Do we have to eat at Neiman’s? Can’t we go someplace where the prices are in the single digits?”
“No,” he decreed. “And by the way, I saw the story about Prozac in the paper today.”
“Well? What did you think?”
“I ordered you a Thighmaster.”
“Thanks tons,” I snarled.
“No need to thank me, honey. You can pay me back later.”
And before I could object, he’d hung up.
How aggravating. The last thing I needed was a stupid Thighmaster. I already had two others he’d given me stashed in my hall closet.
So I did what I often do in times of stress.
I took several deep breaths, sent out positive thoughts to the universe, and nuked myself another bagel.
* * *
The café at Neiman Marcus was crowded with Botoxed fashionistas, shoving food around their plates, careful to keep their forks from making contact with their lips.
Lance sat across from me, bursting to tell me his news, but I made him wait while I surveyed the menu, a spartan affair consisting mainly of salads and veggie bowls. The most edible thing I could find was a tuna melt.
“What does it come with?” I asked our actor-waiter when he came to take our order.
“Just the plate,” he smirked before sprinting off to the kitchen.
I certainly hoped he wasn’t expecting a big tip.
“Okay, so what’s up?” I asked Lance when we were alone. “Where’s your proof that Sven is the killer?”
“Right in here!”
With that, he took a hanky from his pocket and reached into a Neiman Marcus shopping bag.
“Ta da!” he exclaimed, pulling out a paper coffee cup, holding it gingerly with his hanky.
“A coffee cup? That’s it?”
“Not just any coffee cup. Sven’s coffee cup. I followed him into the break room this morning and fished it out of the trash after he tossed it there.”
“So the guy drinks coffee. How does that prove he killed Bebe?”
“His DNA, silly. It’s all over the cup. I’m going to take it to the police and have them match it up with DNA found at the crime scene. And voilà! Case solved! I’ll be hailed as a civic hero!”
I was having a hard time believing Lance would be hailed as anything other than a nutcase since, last I heard, Sven was in Oslo the night of the murder. Not for a minute did I believe Lance’s cockamamie Twin Accomplice theory.
Our chow showed up then, just in the nick of time, giving me something to do while Lance blathered on about his life as a civic hero.
He was in the middle of a mind-numbing debate with himself, deciding what to wear for his first TV interview (a toss-up between Armani and Hugo Boss) when suddenly he froze.
“Omigosh,” he cried. “There he is!”
“Who? Armani? Hugo Boss?”
“No, Sven.”
I turned to see the same handsome blond guy I’d seen at Bebe’s funeral. He stood in the café entrance, glowering, his eyes scanning the room.
Then he spotted Lance and came storming over to our table.
Gulping in dismay, Lance quickly stashed his Neiman Marcus shopping bag out of sight.
“Hey, bro,” Lance said, all smiles, the portrait of a phony in action. “How’s it going? I’d like you to meet my dear friend, Jaine Austen. Her cat saved a toddler’s life.”
But Sven didn’t care about me or my toddler-saving cat, glaring at Lance with ice in his Nordic veins.
“What the hell were you doing taking my coffee cup out of the trash?”
“Oh, that!” Lance said, with what was meant to be a jolly laugh but came out more like an asthmatic wheeze. “It’s for an art project I’m making—a coffee cup collage! I’m so into collages these days. Last week, I made one of plastic sporks. It’s all part of my Paper or Plastic collection.”
As with my toddler-saving cat, Sven appeared to have no interest in Lance’s artistic endeavors.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sneaking around, following me.”
“Who, me?” Lance cried, his eyes wide with fake innocence. “I haven’t been following you.”
“Are you kidding? You’ve been like a piece of toilet paper stuck to my shoe. And I’m damn sick of it.”
I could practically feel the rage radiating from his designer suit.
“Stay away from me,” he said, pulling Lance out of his seat by his tie, “or I’ll be reporting you to Human Resources. And stay away from Marjorie Hoffstatter, too,” he added as he shoved Lance back down. “She’s my client, and I don’t want you poaching her like you did with Bebe Braddock.”
Then he turned on his heels and stalked out of the café.
“See?” Lance said. “I told you he was a loose cannon.”
I had to admit Sven seemed more than a tad explosive.
Could Lance possibly be right? Was Sven the killer? Had he been furious with Bebe for dumping him, a fury that ballooned into first-degree murder?
Just something to ponder as I picked the potato chunks out of Lance’s veggie bowl.
* * *
After lunch, Lance went to his locker to stow Sven’s purloined DNA, while I took the elevator down to the main level. Over in the shoe department, I saw Sven sliding designer pumps on a perfectly coiffed one-percenter, who beamed in the warmth of his smile.
If I hadn’t just seen his roiling fury at the café, I’d never guess he had an angry bone in his body.
I started for the exit, but not without a pit stop at the Jo Malone perfume counter.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried her stuff, but Jo Malone makes the most heavenly scents this side of the Garden of Eden. My favorite is Nectarine Blossom and Honey, and whenever I’m at Neiman’s, I stop by for a free tester spritz.
I was mid-spritz, sniffing the heady aroma of sweet nectarines, when I happened to glance across the aisle at a scarf display. Standing there, admiring the scarves, was a cute young thing wearing a floppy hat and oversized sunglasses. The wide brim of her hat covered much of her face, but at this angle I could see a sprinkling of freckles across her tiny nose.
Something about that freckled face looked familiar.
Just as I was trying to figure out where I’d seen her before, she took the scarf she’d been admiring and—much to my amazement—slipped it in her tote.
Yikes! I’d just witnessed a shoplifter in action!
I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but the saleswoman at the scarf counter was oblivious, helping another customer.
Mesmerized, I watched as the freckled-faced shoplifter sauntered over to the costume jewelry counter and nabbed a faux pearl bracelet, sliding it into her tote with the sleight of hand of a trained magician.
As she did, I noticed a fringe of red bangs poking out from under the brim of her hat.
Then it all came together: The freckles. The tiny nose. The red hair.
I remembered where I’d seen them before—in Bebe’s studio. If I wasn’t mistaken, the cutie with the sticky fingers was none other than Bebe’s client, Lacey Hunt.
Tatiana said she suspected Bebe had blackmailed the rising young movie star into becoming her client. Maybe Bebe knew about Lacey’s shoplifting antics and was indeed blackmailing her. Maybe she was demanding more than just her patronage; maybe she was demanding money on the side.
And maybe Lacey, desperate to get out from under Bebe’s oppressive thumb, was the one who wrung that wire around Bebe’s neck.
“Is there something I can show you?”
I turned to see an eager saleslady at my side.
�
��No thanks. I’ve seen more than enough already.”
Chapter 22
I headed out to the Neiman Marcus parking lot, my brain awash in images of Lacey Hunt stashing bibelots in her tote. I was so lost in my thoughts that it wasn’t until I reached for my keys that I realized my car door was already open.
But that couldn’t be. I was certain I’d locked it.
Damn it all. Someone had broken into my car!
What if they stole my auto registration? Or my radio? Or my emergency stash of M&M’s?
But it was worse than that. Much worse.
When I got in the car, I saw something that made me break out in a cold sweat.
There, hanging from my rearview mirror, was a wire hanger—twisted into a noose!
It looked like I’d just received a death threat from the killer.
With trembling hands, I took it down and tossed it onto the passenger seat. My hands were still shaking as I put my key in the ignition.
Then, out of nowhere, I heard the roar of an engine and looked up to see a low-slung foreign sports car zooming toward the exit.
I suddenly flashed back to my last encounter with Miles Braddock in Bebe’s studio—and the check I’d seen made out to Beverly Hills Maserati.
Was that Miles behind the wheel?
I had to find out. Wasting no time, I took off after him.
There was a short line of cars at the exit, and as I rolled up behind the exotic sports car, I saw that it was indeed a Maserati. The driver behind the wheel was a big guy—just like Miles. Then the driver’s side window rolled down, and a beefy arm flicked off the ash from a cigar.
That clinched it. It was Miles, all right. He put that noose in my car. And I wasn’t about to let him get away.
Luckily, there was plenty of traffic in Beverly Hills. Otherwise my pokey Corolla could never have kept up with him. But thanks to the cars glutting the streets, I was able to follow Miles as he wended his way toward Westwood, periodically flicking cigar ash from his window.
Finally he pulled up in front of an upscale sports club, where he got out and handed his keys to one of the white-uniformed valets. I couldn’t quite make out his face. But I’d recognize that muscle-gone-to-pot build anywhere.