Too Pretty to Die

by Susan McBride

  “Oh, Andrea, I can’t let the police do it, can I? It’s going to break her heart enough to hear it from me, and we’ve been friends for so many years.”

  She sat in profile, as if afraid to meet my eyes, but I could see her chin was trembling.

  I had to wonder how hard she must be fighting to maintain her decorum. Would she wait until I was gone, shut her door, and then cry in the shower so no one else could see her tears?

  It was hard for her, I knew, to show any kind of weakness. But she’d let me glimpse her vulnerability before, and I hadn’t freaked. I wished she’d let me see it now. It felt good sometimes to think I could be the strong one.

  Her fingers still clutched the photo album, and I put my hand over hers.

  “Do you want me to stay?” I asked her, part of me hoping she’d say yes, that she needed me.

  Though I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t take me up on my offer.

  She turned to me, and I noticed the tightness in her face softening. “Thank you, sweetie, but I’d like to do this alone. You go on home and spend time with Mr. Malone. He’s probably wide-awake and wondering where you are.”

  I couldn’t help feeling rejected, but I nodded anyway.

  She leaned near to embrace me, holding fast for a moment before releasing me. It was as close to a bear hug as I’d ever gotten, and I found myself wishing it had lasted a few seconds longer. Mother wasn’t very touchy-feely. Most of the hugs in my growing up had come from Daddy.

  Don’t get me wrong. I knew how much Cissy loved me. It was just a bit harder for her to show it sometimes. I’d gotten the impression from the rare stories I heard about her own mother—my grandmother, Leona Barrett Blevins, dead before I was born—that their relationship had been rather distant. My daddy, I believe, used the word “strained,” whispering to me once that Leona Blevins had been an old-fashioned and very pigheaded woman.

  Hmmm, sounded a lot like someone else I knew.

  Though I wouldn’t call my relationship with Cissy “strained,” we’d never been of like mind where much of anything was concerned: my becoming a debutante, for one, and my attending art school in Chicago rather than a Texas university (namely, SMU), for another. Still, we had managed to close the gap between us, the older we both got, despite being prone to colossal misunderstandings.

  So we weren’t the Brady Bunch? We could muddle through whatever life threw at us…and usually did.

  For a long while after she left the sitting room in a flurry of pale blue silk, disappearing into her bedroom and closing the door between us, I remained where I was, hands in my lap, breathing in the scent of her—the soapy clean of her morning bath mixed with an overlay of Joy perfume—and pondering what a powerful force our past had on our present.

  Like my bumping into Miranda last night—or, rather, her bumping into me—and how she’d managed to inject herself into my life again, turning my neat little corner of the world topsy-turvy in just the past twelve hours.

  Was that fate? Coincidence? Or a fistful of rotten luck?

  I leaned toward the latter.

  Regardless, my emotions had been on a roller-coaster ride, and I felt drained and exhausted.

  I lifted a hand from my lap, touching the photo album Mother had left behind on the cushion of the settee.

  But instead of thumbing through it, I picked it up and put it back in Cissy’s desk. I didn’t need another glimpse at my old memories.

  Trying to deal with much more recent ones was proving difficult enough.

  Chapter 6

  I hugged Sandy Beck and told her good-bye before crossing the foyer and leaving my mother’s house. Though I didn’t regret coming by to talk about Miranda, I felt no more at peace than when I’d arrived. I kept thinking of Cissy calling Debbie Santos to give her the bad news, and wondered if I should stay awhile despite Mother telling me to go home to Malone.

  Ignoring the tug of war inside me, I pulled the front door closed and stood on the stoop for a moment, blinking sunlight from my eyes.

  Which is when I heard the voice.

  “Hey, Kendricks! Great timing, girlfriend. Now get in the car!”

  I would’ve recognized that bossiness anywhere, even blindfolded.

  “C’mon, Andy,” Janet shouted at me out the rolled-down window of her silver VW. She had the motor running, and I wasn’t sure if she’d pulled into Mother’s driveway a minute before or if she’d followed me from Miranda’s and had been waiting there since I went in. Or maybe she was psychic.

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked, a million questions running through my head. Had she spoken to Deputy Dean? Did she know that Miranda was dead and that the police thought it was suicide? Did she have any inkling of my current status as “the last known human to have seen Miranda DuBois alive,” or was she still oblivious?

  Guess there was only one way to find out.

  But it meant taking a ride.

  “Please,” she begged before I could politely refuse. “I’ll bring you back as soon as possible, I promise,” she went on as I hesitated, glancing longingly at my Jeep and then back at the VW.

  Would she let me off the hook if I told her all I wanted was to get home to Malone and go back to bed for a while? Crawl under the covers and close my eyes, pretending to start the day over when I woke up again?

  “I really could use your help, Andy.” She even removed her 1940s style cat’s-eye sunglasses to look dolefully at me. Saying no would’ve been like kicking a puppy.

  Yeesh.

  She needed my help?

  Like I was much good at helping anyone, I mused, but shuffled over to the passenger door of her Jetta and climbed in.

  “Hang on tight,” she said, not even waiting until I’d fastened my seat belt before she shot off, racing down the curve of the drive and zipping onto Beverly Drive at a speed decidedly above the legal limit.

  She turned onto Preston Road, but still hadn’t indicated what our final destination was, and I had a feeling it wasn’t an early lunch at La Madeleine.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, feverishly hoping it was something silly. “Is there a fire at Jimmy Choo? Did a plague of locusts descend on the Junior League?”

  Or did it have to do with you-know-who?

  Sigh.

  I figured it wouldn’t be long before the whole world knew; and Janet was so well plugged in with so many sources, her learning about anything gossipworthy in this town was more a matter of when than if.

  “Miranda DuBois is dead,” she said, without so much as glancing in my direction. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

  And from her tone, I knew that she knew that I knew.

  If that made sense.

  “You saw me pulling out of her street earlier, didn’t you?” I asked, and she arched her slim red eyebrows.

  “Of course I saw you. And I know you saw me. But did you call and fill me in? Noooo,” she said, drawing out the word. “You’d already beat me to Miranda’s and talked to Deputy Chief Dean, who was kind enough to inform me you’d headed over to your mother’s.”

  Ah, so her pinning me down at Cissy’s wasn’t ESP.

  “I went to Miranda’s to check on her. Because I’d given her a ride home last night, and she wasn’t, um, thinking straight.” I picked my words carefully, not liking the way Janet had stated things, as if I’d done something intentionally deceptive. “I had no idea she would be…that she’d have…you know,” I finally got out, realizing it was harder to discuss than I’d imagined. I swallowed hard.

  “Poor girl,” Janet said, sounding as if she meant it. “She might not have been a rocket scientist, but she was all right.”

  “Did Anna Dean tell you anything…about how she died?” I asked, wondering if my friend, the Ace Society Reporter, had gotten more out of the deputy chief than the probable cause of death being suicide.

  Janet sighed. “Unfortunately, I got diddly squat. She wouldn’t give me anything quotable, just that Miranda was dead and her nei
ghbor discovered her at the crack of dawn. She said the cause of death is pending autopsy, but I got a sense she had it figured out already ’cuz she intimated they weren’t exactly combing the neighborhood for suspects.”

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed, not saying any more.

  If Deputy Dean wasn’t ready to inform the press that the police believed Miranda DuBois had shot herself with her own gun, then I wasn’t about to fuel the grapevine. So I didn’t mention any of the details of my conversation with the police officer, not about my probably being the last person to have seen her alive, nor about how I might have prevented Miranda’s dying altogether if I’d just been a little less eager to cuddle with Brian.

  Oy.

  Janet banged a hand against the steering wheel, and I jumped, knocking my skull against the window.

  “Dammit, Andy, I know it sounds cold as hell, but I can’t get maudlin about this. I’ve got a story to write, and the deputy chief barely said a bleeping word. I couldn’t even get any of the blue uniforms canvassing the neighborhood to spill off-the-record. All I managed were a few worthless quotes from a woman with an iPod and a dude walking his dog.” She moaned, and tears welled on her lashes. “I can’t let myself get scooped this time. I just can’t.”

  So that’s what this was all about? I thought as I rubbed the sore spot on my head.

  Getting a story?

  What happened to compassion at the loss of a fellow Hockadaisy? Or at the very least, mourning a woman who’d climbed the ladder at Channel 5 to become one of the city’s most recognized talking heads? That meant something, right? It begat a little respect.

  “But Janet, you’re not the crime reporter for the PCP,” I reminded her. “You pen features on Pretty Parties and charity balls. You don’t write—” I caught myself, having nearly said, about suicide, before I finished, “—obituaries.”

  I saw her bite her lip, gnawing for a good, long minute before she answered with, “Well, it’s all connected, right? I mean, Miranda crashing the Pretty Party at Delaney’s last night and nearly shooting Dr. Madhavi’s head off—”

  Nearly?

  For Pete’s sake, Miranda had missed Sonja Madhavi by more than a foot.

  “—and Miranda turning up dead the next morning. It’s like crime and fashion coming together with a bang. I’m the only one who could do the story justice. Besides”—she squirmed—“I knew her. Maybe not well, but well enough to make it personal. Don’t you think we owe it to Miranda to get as many facts as we can? I’m sure she’d appreciate having the truth out there, right, Andy?”

  The truth will set you free.

  Miranda’s words again came back to haunt me. I only wished I knew what she’d meant beyond the obvious. Because I was sure she’d meant something, and I’d wager it had nothing to do with being written up in the PCP posthumously.

  “So you want to do this story for Miranda’s sake?” I said, decidedly skeptical.

  Janet sniffled, jerking up her chin. “Yes. I do.” Then she added quietly, “And for my own.”

  Her forehead was creased with worry, and she wouldn’t peel her eyes off the road long enough to glance at me. There was way more to this than what I saw on the surface, but Janet obviously wasn’t ready to share with me yet.

  Like a good friend, I would wait awhile before I pried.

  “So where are we going?” I asked, because I knew I wouldn’t get far by grilling Janet if she wasn’t willing to talk. I had a sense, though, of precisely where we were headed, because the route seemed all too familiar from my days growing up in Highland Park and being dragged on shopping trips with Cissy when I would’ve rather stayed home with my paints and easel. “Are you taking me to North Park?”

  North Park Center aka “the mall,” at least that’s what I used to call it.

  “Yes.” She kept her eyes focused ahead with such intensity, I would’ve guessed she had cataracts and could barely see the road. Only she didn’t. Janet’s sight was 20/20.

  Even when she wore her “smart girl” glasses, it was just for show (or, more likely, to imitate her idol, Katie Couric).

  Barely a beat had passed before I spotted the huge fortress of the shopping center and read the Barneys and Neiman Marcus signs looming over the gray of the parking lot.

  She jerked the car to a stop in an empty space and turned off the engine, finally looking at me again, her eyes hyperwide with excitement. “Look, Andy, here’s the plan. I want to be the first to get Dr. Sonja’s reaction to how these tragic events have unfolded, namely, Miranda’s attempted plugging of the good doctor and this morning’s news that Miranda has passed. Since The Pretty Place opens at nine, it’s imperative I be on hand just as soon as the doors open.”

  Ah, The Pretty Place. Where North Park shoppers could drop in for a quickie Botox injection or glycolic peel before hitting the shops and giving their Platinum AmEx cards a real workout.

  The way things were going, pretty soon Taco Bell would start offering customers free liposuction with every bag of chimichangas.

  “Do you have an appointment?” I asked her.

  Janet blushed. Which was odd.

  “Uh-huh,” she murmured. “I scheduled online. There were a couple openings for this morning.”

  “So you’re meeting with Dr. Sonja under false pretenses so you can do an ambush interview. Is that it?” I said, not liking how that sounded but knowing I couldn’t stop Janet with a bulldozer if she’d set her mind to it. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”

  If Janet wanted to gild her story with a tawdry lily à la the National Enquirer that was her prerogative. But I wasn’t quite sure how her interviewing Dr. Sonja Madhavi required a flunky.

  Janet unhitched her seat belt and did a half turn toward me, wedging an elbow against the steering wheel. She didn’t look comfortable in the least, and the way she flattened her gaze on me as if intending to hypnotize didn’t exactly make me feel at ease, either.

  “Okay, Tonto,” she started in, “here’s your part, and don’t screw it up, all right? Because one shot is all we’ve got.”

  Nice how she emphasized we like we were a team. Maybe she forgot I wasn’t on the Press’s payroll.

  Then again, I didn’t imagine they came any more melodramatic than Ms. Janet Rutledge Graham. Colorful was her style—and I didn’t just mean her hair—and was part of what kept her from being an Average Josephine.

  Still, I could tell she was serious, so I didn’t crack a smile. Not that I’d wanted to. I hadn’t felt much like smiling since I’d approached Miranda’s duplex that morning and encountered the stretch of yellow crime scene tape across the grass.

  Janet clasped her hands together. “If you can just keep Dr. Sonja’s boyfriend busy while I talk to her alone, I’d be ever so grateful.”

  Dr. Sonja’s boyfriend?

  I stared at her blankly.

  “Lance Zarimba,” Janet said. “He’s her aesthetician. He was with her last night at Delaney’s. The blond guy with the ’stache?”

  The one who’d calmed Dr. Miniskirt down when she’d been near-hysterical after Miranda’s potshot over her head at the Picasso?

  “Oh, yeah, I remember him.”

  Janet did a little gaze-aversion again, which made my shoulders stiffen. “Well, I might’ve made you an appointment with him at nine o’clock, too, so he’ll be distracted while I’m in with Dr. Madhavi. You don’t mind, Andy, do you? It’s just for fifteen minutes tops, and I put it on my business card so it’s my treat. You can have him unplug your zits.” She cocked her head, squinting at me. “That’s not such a bad idea, is it?”

  I had an appointment with an aesthetician to get my pores sucked out? Just so Janet could snag a few moments alone to grill Dr. Sonja?

  Excuse me?

  That’s not such a bad idea, is it?

  Another dig at my appearance?

  Wasn’t it just last night that Janet was harping on the wrinkle between my eyebrows, and now she was pointing the finger at
my pores?

  And she called herself my friend?

  Should I mention that her bright orange-red hair looked a wee on the frizzy side this morning? And she still had a chunk of sleep stuck in the corner of her left eye?

  Yeesh.

  Suddenly self-conscious, I pulled down the visor flap and checked out my skin in the mirror.

  “Stop it,” Janet said, and slapped the visor back up again. “Let’s get going. The Pretty Place should be opening in, like, two more minutes, and I don’t want to be late.”

  Reluctantly, I emerged from the car and followed Janet across the parking lot.

  She’d anchored the VW outside Barneys, but the department store didn’t open until 10:00 a.m., so we took the mall doors in, bypassing chichi shops like Ferragamo, Michael Kors, and Carolina Herrera to get to the corner nook where The Pretty Place was situated.

  A couple of the restaurants were open for the breakfast crowd, and a handful of mall walkers were making the rounds in crushed velvet sweatsuits, pausing now and then to gaze into a window display.

  A few had even stopped in front of Dr. Sonja’s “Botox in the Box” establishment and were running fingers down a posted menu of services, then glancing at a conveniently hung mirror just beside it and tugging at their faces.

  Why did the cynical part of me suspect it was a fun house mirror, which made everyone’s reflection distorted?

  Janet nudged me forward, toward the entrance to The Pretty Place, which had glass walls and doors so we could see one of Dr. Sonja’s underlings doing a fast tidying-up of shelves and counters lined with Dr. Sonja’s personal line of cosmetics, powders, and potions before she opened up.

  Until she let us in, we were left to stand outside the clear box, staring at the blown-up photos of perfectly sculpted parts of the female anatomy: flat belly, tight thighs, lean arms, unlined eyes, and plump glossy lips.

  I wondered if the women who booked appointments for treatments really believed that Dr. Sonja could make cottage cheese vanish or turn a saggy stomach into six-pack abs in one visit.