Snarky Park

by Cathy Lubenski

  A smile started at the corners of Cully’s mouth and widened as he took in the scene. Bertie was encouraged. If he was engaged, he would take excellent pictures.

  “I’m heading this way,” she said to him, pointing in the general vicinity of a harried-looking woman with a blonde Afro who seemed to be in charge.

  “I’m going to wander, see what’s up,” he said and ambled in the opposite direction. Women of all ages parted before him as if he was Moses and they were Red Sea drips.

  The power of a good-looking guy in a roomful of women should never be underestimated. And the power of a good-looking guy carrying a camera and a press ID is awesome in a crowd of media-hungry socialites.

  The crowd did not part for Bertie, who was trying to push her way through without losing her temper. She was just ready to let loose with a powerful elbow jab when her target turned and let out a low-volume screech. “Bertie! Oh, my God, it’s you.”

  The action in the room slowed, then stopped. Even the dogs were looking at Bertie.

  The woman – a scarily preserved 60 going on 25 – threw herself at Bertie, wrapping her in long, silk-clad arms.

  “I’ve been wondering how you’re doing and where you ended up and here you are. Let me look at you. You look, uh … great! Come on, let’s find someplace to sit and talk.”

  Monica Griswold, a mover and shaker in L.A.’s design world, was acting as if she was Kate Winslet and Bertie was Leo DiCaprio glub-glubbing as the Titanic went down.

  Monica had been one of Bertie’s more important contacts in her previous job but they weren’t nearly as close as Monica’s reaction made it seem. In L.A., Monica was credited with the creation of the term Drama Queen. She was so over the top, a second top had to be erected for her spill-over.

  They did the obligatory air kiss and then Bertie followed her to a small table shoved to the side of the ballroom. Monica leaned forward to make herself heard.

  “I’m so pleased to see you, Bertie, really. I took it very hard that you’d been injured and then to be laid off on top of that! I wish you’d called me, I would’ve come to your side immediately.”

  Bertie flinched at the thought of Monica acting as her nursemaid; she would’ve needed psychiatric help on top of physical therapy. And probably a hearing aid. Monica talked in exclamation points and after awhile, it felt deafening.

  “I’m fine, as you can see. I’ve got a new job and almost good as new.”

  “So what’s your new job? I’m dying to hear. We miss you so much around the scene.”

  “I’m the social columnist for the Beacon-Banner.”

  “The Beacon-Banner! The Big Johnson’s rag? Oh, I guess I shouldn’t say that, should I? At least not to one of his employees. Ha ha ha.” Monica covered her mouth with a clawlike hand tipped with bright red nails long enough for a Chinese emperor.

  “It’s OK. I’m just glad to still be in journalism; newspapers aren’t exactly a growth industry these days.”

  The chaos surrounding the women was starting to coalesce around a single point at the front of the room where a woman in a lilac pant suit was clapping her hands for attention.

  Bertie goggled – it was the beautiful silver-haired woman she’d seen at the Johnson mansion. But it wasn’t her beauty that made her stand out in this crowd; it was the aura of calm control she emitted in the midst of the yapping women and hysterical dogs.

  “Monica, who is that woman?”

  Monica craned her neck – as taut as a teenager’s after several rounds of plastic surgery – and let out another shrieking laugh. “Bertie! You’re working for Dillard Johnson and you don’t know who that is? It’s Blythe Kees – his first wife.”

  “But I’ve seen her at Snarky Park, I mean Snarles Park. What’s she be doing there? She was even bossing Annabelle Johnson around.”

  Monica’s bright blue eyes, in their crow’s feet cradle, widened. “You wonderful naïve baby – where have you been? She lives at Snarles – no, what did you call it … Snarky? – Park. She never left. It was one of the terms of the divorce settlement. She got to stay with the kids, no matter who Big J dragged in after the divorce.”

  “Wow, talk about revenge of the first wife.”

  “Well, actually, it was her family’s mansion, Dillard married into it. Word was she was still in love with him when he divorced her, that’s why she let him stay. And she’s one of those dedicated mothers – you know, the whole Maria Shriver syndrome – who want their kids to grow up with a father, preferably their own.”

  “How awkward is that, though, with Annabelle the ‘lady of the house’.”

  “Darling, rich people are different than you and me. Supposedly he told her he still loved her, he just wanted a young beautiful trophy wife like all the other rich guys. Can you believe it? Ha ha ha.”

  “But she’s beautiful. All that gorgeous silver hair.”

  “Unreal, isn’t it? She started going gray early and just went with it. As if I’d ever do that.” Monica tossed her head and a swathe artificially blonde hair cascaded artfully through the air.

  “What about Annabelle Johnson? How did she feel about moving in with the first missus?”

  “Have you ever talked to Annabelle? Not many planets in that solar system! She was about 22 when they married and, honestly, between you and me, I think she was just like another one of the kids to Blythe. Blythe bosses her around like she’s a 13-year-old.”

  “And Annabelle is OK with that?”

  “She’s one of those young girls who want to be someone, she doesn’t care how. Move over Paris Hilton. And Blythe helps her with events like this. Blythe did most of the heavy mental lifting, if you catch my drift. Well, helllloooo, who’s that?”

  Monica’s swiveled as a tall, blonde man strode past their table.

  It was Cully.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dogs in diamonds, dogs in silk, dogs with painted toe nails, dog sneakers and boots – there was even a doggie swimsuit division - the parade of pampered canines seemed endless. The dogs were accompanied by humans, mostly women, dressed in matching outfits and jewelry’

  Annabelle Johnson presided over the runway, clutching her French bulldog, Miss Bling. They were dressed in Gucci, with Miss Bling in emerald green pantaloons and matching jacket with diamond buttons and matching diamond collar and Annabelle in an emerald green pantsuit ditto the buttons and collar necklace. Both wore a sash across their chests that read Miss Bling.

  Miss Bling was also wearing an almost human look of embarrassment. Whether because of its name – a standout even among the Twinkies, Pookies, and Baby Dolls – or because of its haute couture costume. The dog was called a bulldog, but with its adorable face and stand-up ears it’s a distant cousin to the grumpy looking, so-ugly-it’s-cute vision the name usually calls up.

  “I was Miss Bling two years in a row in the Blingitude Competition in Maui. You’ve heard of it, right?” Annabelle had asked Bertie as she was doing her obligatory pre-show interview with the hostess.

  “Oh, of course,” Bertie lied, “who hasn’t?”

  Annabelle’s smile was smug. “I finally bowed out to let someone else have a chance at the crown. Didn’t I, Miss Bling?” her voice fluted into a high soprano. Miss Bling – the dog – just looked bored.

  Bertie actually felt sorry for her. The dog, not Annabelle. Bertie wanted to grab the animal from Annabelle’s arms, rip the silly clothing off her and let her run free.

  Cully sidled up to Bertie and took her arm, leading her to an empty hallway. “Um, Bert …”

  Bertie’s nerves started to sing at the serious tone of his voice. “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong,” he protested, but shifted his weight from one to the other, his discomfort obvious.

  “Well, then, what? Spit it out, I’ve got to get back in there.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but Miss Bling is really a Mr. Bling. She’s a he dog. It’s going to be obvious in the pic
tures, if you know what I mean. What do you want me to do?”

  Bertie leaned her forehead against the cool wall of the hallway and closed her eyes. She sighed, then stood straight, ready to do battle against the forces of social-climbing matrons again.

  “We have to have a picture of Annabelle and the dog, just make sure Bling’s junk isn’t showing, can you do that? If Annabelle wants to pretend her dog is a female … well, I don’t know, just don’t let that dog’s package in the picture, OK?”

  “OK, you’re the boss.” He smiled at her and turned back into the room again. Bertie shook her head. “And people think being a reporter is so glamorous,” she said out loud and entered the room.

  She pasted a smile on her face and took a stroll through the room, stopping to talk to human models and give the doggie models a pat on the head. She could track Cully around the room by the flash of his camera. He seemed on his best behavior, although Bertie felt slightly alarmed when she spotted him talking and laughing with Blythe Kees.

  She edged her way through the crowd in their direction, but by the time she reached the spot Cully was gone and Blythe Kees was standing alone, looking a little lost. When she saw Bertie, she came toward her, hands outstretched in greeting and face lighting up in a smile that lifted her face from beautiful to stunning.

  “Bertie? Hello, I’m Blythe Kees. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

  Bertie almost looked around to make sure she was the one on the receiving end of the greeting. “Hello, so glad to meet you … uh, um…” Oh, hell, what was she supposed to call her? Nobody had briefed on a situation like this.

  “Please call me Blythe.” Again, she smiled and Bertie was floored that anyone would leave this gorgeous, warm sophisticated woman for a twit like Annabelle. There must be something seriously wrong with Dillard Johnson.

  “Thank you, Blythe. How are you?”

  “Well, this isn’t exactly my kind of event, but I’m glad it’s up and running. Annabelle and I put in a lot of work and I truly believe in the cause.”

  “May I quote you?” Bertie was already writing.

  “Oh, lord, no! Please, no. I’m the behind-the-scenes person.”

  Blythe Kees smiled and Bertie found herself smiling back.

  “After my divorce from Dillard, there was quite a bit of gossip about our living arrangements and it’s so wonderful to just be … well, me, and not a story.”

  Bertie liked her. How she came to be married to Dillard Johnson –who so far had proven to be less than an optimal human being – was a mystery.

  The show went well, a tribute to Blythe Kees’ organizational skills. Only one dog peed and it was unfortunately on its owner’s leg, but it was a lovely show.

  A crunchtail party – part brunch, part cocktail – followed the show. Bertie stayed for a short while but was exiting early to file her story when she was stopped in her tracks by Annabelle.

  “Berbie, can you do me a favor? I’m visiting my mother in Tulsa this week and I need you to watch Miss Bling for me. Please? I won’t trust her with just anyone.”

  Annabelle thrust the little dog into her arms and fled before Bertie could find the right words, one of which was no.

  ***

  Bertie drove with the dog to the Beacon-Banner building to file her story. “Let someone, just one person, say no dogs are allowed. I want someone to say something to me,” Bertie said to Miss Bling, who was sleeping on the front seat of the car. No one stopped her or even looked at her strangely until she ran into Tiffany coming out of the third floor bathroom.

  “So the bitch stuck you with the bitch?” Tiffany said, snickering. Her hair was pink and green and she was wearing – Bertie couldn’t believe it – a dog collar with spikes.

  “Miss Bling isn’t a bitch,” Bertie said.

  “Oh, but Annabelle is?”

  Bertie had been so indoctrinated by Tiffany’s paranoia that she immediately looked around for a camera.

  “I really like Annabelle,” she said loudly and carefully. “She’s a nice person. And I’m happy to take care of her dog.”

  “Don’t worry, this part of the building is clear,” Tiffany said. She looked amused.

  Bertie started walking slowly toward her desk, letting Miss Bling stop to sniff every two or three paces. She kept thinking, “Pee, Bling, pee.”

  Out loud, she asked Tiffany, “So what do you know about Annabelle? I got the impression she was dingy but not really a bitch.”

  “Well…” Tiffany said, lowering her voice despite her all-clear declaration. “I don’t know how true this is, but I heard that she might be bonking Rowley Poke. Before he died, of course. “

  “Rowley Poke? But he was kind of old and … icky.”

  “I know. But, and it’s a big but, he was going to run for the Senate. Our Miss Annabelle feels that she could really shine on a national stage.”

  Bertie started to laugh, then tried to suck it back in, resulting in a strange, strangling sort of noise. “Mrs. Senator Annabelle? Oh, lord, this is the future of the country?” She laughed again, out loud this time. “Hey, wait, she was going to dump Mr. Money Daddy Dillard for a chance as a senator’s wife?”

  “Don’t underestimate Annabelle,” Tiffany said darkly. “I think she sees herself as a star on the world stage. I mean, didn’t some model marry the president of Italy or something?”

  “Yeah, Carla Bruni. So, we could have First Lady Bling? Wow, can’t wait for that one.” Bertie reached down and scratched the other Miss Bling’s ears. The dog almost purred with pleasure.

  “Besides, Poke had money, too. Maybe not quite as much as the Big J, but he had some bucks,” Tiffany said.

  “Wait a minute. How does an activist get a lot of money? Activism isn’t usually a big bucks career. Did Poke have family money?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So we’ve got a lot of sexual traffic going on here, but no one has said anything about Dillard Johnson. Who is he screwing?”

  Tiffany stopped and stared at Bertie. “You know,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him fooling around with anyone. That’s funny, I never thought of that before. Obviously, he must have had sex with the first Mrs. Johnson because they have kids, and I’m assuming he’s banging Ding-Dong Annabelle, but I’ve never heard about him messing around with anyone.” She stopped again, her Goth make-up giving the puzzled look on her face a slightly evil cast.

  Cully walked past, his duties as a freelance photographer finished. Bertie introduced him to Tiffany, who gave him a long leisurely up-and-down look.

  “You ready to go, Bert? I’ll take the dog out for a walk if you’re not.”

  “Sure, I’m almost done.”

  “You work fast, Bertie,” Tiffany said. “You’re already hooked up with the new guy?”

  “I’m just giving him a ride, that’s all,” Bertie said, not anxious for her colleagues to know too much about her private life. “He’s a nice guy.”

  “If you don’t have anything going with him, do you mind if I give it a shot?”

  Bertie looked at her pink and green striped hair and dog collar. She smiled.

  “No, go right ahead.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bertie stared at the screen of her laptop and sighed. She wrote for a living, she didn’t want to come home and write there, too, but if she was going to use the Poke murder as a springboard to another job, she’d have to keep notes. And a good magazine, like Vanity Fair or The New Yorker, would want atmosphere, details, and impressions of people that went beyond what they were wearing. Fortunately, the hillbilly voice in her head seemed to have died with the shock of Rowley Poke’s murder, so her memories weren’t tainted with that stupid country bumpkin going “A-yuck, a-yuck, golleee” as she typed.

  She and Cully had gone separate ways after coming back to the apartment. He was working on the photos for his book in the garage, Bling – they’d decided to drop the Miss before the dog became too confused about its sexuality
– shadowing his every move, and here she sat in the empty living room, watching dust motes fall through the dying sunlight coming through the sliding doors to the backyard. It was so quiet, the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall sounded thunderous.

  Is Annabelle J. a beautiful woman with empty space between her ears and murder in her heart?

  Dillard Johnson, the Big J, likes to humiliate women (herself) by putting them in sexually embarrassing situations. Is he a turkey or does he murder with turkeys?

  “Oh, hell,” she said out loud. The sound of her own voice startled her and she jumped up, leaving her notes untyped. Maybe if she talked to someone about recent events, she’d have a better grasp of what she wanted to write.

  She walked out the sliding glass doors, across the backyard to the side door of the garage and knocked. Cully had posted signs that read: “KNOCK first, this means you, Bertie.”

  She tapped, then tapped again. Nothing. She waited a few seconds more, then knocked. Nothing. She pounded hard on the door and then gave a little scream when it swung open suddenly, outlining Cully as a shadow in the pitch black of the garage. Bling stood beside him, a soft growl in the back of his throat.

  “Cheeze, Cully, give me a heart attack! What the hell are you doing in there in the He-Man Women-Hater’s Club?” She raised her hand to her heart and leaned against the side of the garage.

  He laughed at her melodramatics and she caught her breath at the sight of his Thor-like blonde good looks. She never failed to marvel that he came from a little Italian woman and a ruddy, red-headed Irish mill hunk.

  “I’m working, woman!” he said, grabbing her around the waist and swinging her around the yard in an exaggerated waltz. “What do you want?”

  They’d ended up under the branches of the lone tree in the yard, the fading sunlight creating interesting shadows on their faces. His tall body loomed over her, an intense look of concentration suddenly turning his lean-cheeked face serious.

  Bertie held her breath. She knew she could take this encounter in two ways: One that would probably lead to her bed, and another that would end up with them talking over the murder and its suspects. What did she want?