by Laura Levine
“It wasn’t you, was it?” I joked.
But he didn’t crack a smile; he was still doing Eastwood.
“You can’t possibly think it’s Heidi, can you?” I asked. “She’s been begging me to stay on the case, not off.”
“Nope. It’s not the kid. Like I told you, we’ve had a tail on her for days. She didn’t come anywhere near here today. And we tested the wig in her closet. Didn’t match any of the hairs we found in SueEllen’s bathroom.”
Thank heavens. For the first time since we met, it looked like he thought Heidi might be innocent.
“I’m going to question some of the neighbors myself,” he said. “You sit tight.”
Which is exactly what I did. Me, and my third glass of chardonnay.
An hour later, the prints were dusted and the neighbors were questioned. Nobody saw anyone breaking into my building.
But one old man walking his dog did see a woman heading up the front path to my apartment. He didn’t pay much attention to her. All he could remember was that she was a blonde.
Officers Mason and Schmitt packed up their dusting kit, and headed back to the police station. I could tell they thought the whole thing had been a waste of time. But that didn’t stop them from bowing and scraping to Lt. Webb on their way out.
Webb stowed the hair dryer in one of those plastic evidence bags. Maybe some day it would be Exhibit “A” in the SueEllen Kingsley murder trial.
He looked at me with steely gray eyes.
“Take my advice, Jaine. Lay off the case. Whoever killed SueEllen won’t have any qualms about killing you.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time for me to mind my own business, and let the cops handle things. Finding that dryer in the tub had put the fear of God in me. But what if it was too late? What if I’d gone too far?
“What if the killer comes back tonight?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” Webb assured me. “That probably won’t happen.”
I didn’t like the way he said “probably.”
I spent the rest of the night barricaded in my bedroom with Prozac, who, as she always does in my times of need, demanded a belly rub. After which, she jumped off the bed and curled up on my dresser. I’d serviced her, and now she had no further use for me.
“One of these days,” I threatened, “I’m going to get a loveable poodle who’ll steal my heart and eat your cat food.”
She just yawned and licked her privates. Sometimes I think that cat has the cleanest genitalia in feline history.
Sleep was impossible. I tried watching TV, but that was a bust.
Have you ever noticed how every time you’re worried about something and you try and watch TV to escape, the thing you’re worried about inevitably shows up on the screen? Like if you’ve just had a pap smear, and you’re worried about the results, and then you turn on the TV, and there on the news is a story about a pap smear lab that got all the test results mixed up.
That night, I turned on the TV, hoping to find a nice escapist movie. Instead I found a Women in Jeopardy film festival. It seemed like everywhere I looked some beautiful but helpless woman was being stalked by a crazed killer. I gave up on the movies, and tried the shopping channel, but they were doing one of their Lethal Knives shows. Next, I switched to CSPAN, normally the epitome of bland, only to find a sociology professor talking about famous serial killers in history. With glorious technicolor pictures of their bloodied victims.
At last I found an infomercial for an acne medication. It wasn’t exactly riveting television, but at least nobody died a violent death.
Eventually—somewhere in the middle of an infomercial for a pot that cooked entire meals while its owners were out frolicking on the beach—Prozac crawled back in bed, and curled up against the crook of my neck. Only then was I able to drift off into a fitful sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
I woke up the next day, feeling like a used Q-Tip.
I briefly considered taking a shower, but I didn’t want to use the bathroom any longer than I absolutely had to. Which is why I wound up brushing my teeth at the kitchen sink.
I threw on a pair of my grungiest sweats and checked myself out in the mirror. I had bags under my eyes the size of carry-on luggage. And my hair, thanks to a sweaty night tossing and turning, had blossomed into a glorious bush of Brillo. All I needed was a supermarket cart filled with my worldly possessions, and I’d be sharing a doorway with my lactose-intolerant buddy in Ocean Park.
After feeding Prozac a gourmet breakfast of mackerel guts, I decided to drive out to the beach. Maybe a walk on the sand would clear my head.
On my way out to the Corolla, I ran into Lance, who was walking up the path to his apartment. He was positively glowing, probably from a night of whoopsy doodle with Jim.
“You’ll never guess where I was all night,” he beamed.
“Chained to a bed, with velvet-lined handcuffs?”
“How’d you know?” He giggled. “Seriously, Jaine, it was heaven. I don’t think I’ve ever known what love was like until now. Sex, yes. But not love.”
Is there anything more nauseating than a friend in the first gooey stages of infatuation? I could practically feel my blood turn to sugar.
“That’s great, Lance.”
“Hey,” he said. “What happened to you? You look terrible.”
“Thanks for noticing.”
“No, really. What happened?
“Actually, I got a death threat last night.”
“Omigod. That’s awful. You know, Jim once got a death threat when a house he sold turned out to be riddled with mold.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, gotta run. See you later.”
He waved goodbye and sailed into his apartment, still basking in the afterglow of frantic sex.
After a quick pit stop for an Egg McMuffin, I took Santa Monica Boulevard out to the Coast Highway, then headed north to Will Rogers State Beach. It was an overcast day, gray and raw.
I parked my car in the public lot, and rummaged through my glove compartment for an old screwdriver I kept there in case of an auto emergency. I don’t know what I thought I was going to fix with a screwdriver, since I had trouble figuring out how to open the hood of my car, but I kept it there anyway.
Now I was glad I had it. Thinking it would make a good self-defense weapon in case the killer was following me, I put it in my pocket and headed out onto the sand.
The usual fitness freaks were there, doing their daily runs, working off every possible ounce of fat from their bodies.
I set out on a brisk walk. The cold air felt good against my face.
I’d gone to bed last night convinced that I should take Lt. Webb’s advice and lay off the case. But as I walked along the shoreline, the sand crunching beneath my feet, yesterday’s panic gradually turned to anger. Someone was trying to intimidate me. And I didn’t like it.
Then I thought of Daddy and his stubborn refusal to give up his ridiculous toupee. I guess I must have inherited his stubborn genes. Because I knew then and there that I wasn’t going to give in. I wasn’t going to go crawling back to my computer, my tail between my legs, and start churning out Toiletmasters brochures. No, I’d started this case, and I’d damn well finish it. The fact that I hadn’t the faintest clue who the killer was was a tad unsettling, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I was strong! I was invincible! I was—
Damn. I was covered with sand.
A Kamikaze runner with a dog the size of a Chrysler Cruiser had just zoomed past me, kicking up wet globs of sand onto my sweats.
“Get tendonitis!” I shouted after him.
I wiped myself off and continued walking.
I thought back to the hair dryer floating in my tub last night, and wondered who put it there.
The first person who sprung to mind was Brad. The very act of filling my tub with water and tossing in a hair dryer seemed like a prank, something a high school kid would do. But it couldn’t have been Brad. The neighbor across
the street said the person he saw was a blonde.
So I was back to the blondes. Had Larkspur realized that she’d made a slip when she told me about her sleep-inducing tea? Frightened that I’d go to the cops, did she sneak back to my apartment to leave me a little warning note? Or had Hal sent Denise to do the dirty deed? And of course, there was Ginny. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, it was possible she’d killed SueEllen to get her old boyfriend back, and then dropped the hair dryer in my tub when I was getting close to figuring out what she’d done.
Any one of them could have done it. And yet, I couldn’t let go of my Teenage Prank theory. And that’s when I remembered Brad’s girlfriend Amber, or—as I preferred to think of her—Bathtub Barbie.
Was she the one who strolled up my path last night? Had she been acting on Brad’s orders? Was Brad sitting out in the Ferrari waiting for her while she dropped the dryer in my tub?
Nah, I didn’t think so. Amber wasn’t the kind of girl to take chances for somebody else. The only person Amber would risk her neck for was Amber.
Then I remembered what Eduardo said about having an affair with a teenager. What if he was telling the truth, and that young girl was Amber? Hadn’t I seen her flirting with him at Heidi’s birthday party?
And what if it hadn’t been Brad she’d been waiting for that night in the bathtub—but Eduardo? What if they were having an affair and SueEllen found out about it? Then, when SueEllen threatened to tell Amber’s mom, maybe Amber killed her to shut her up.
An interesting theory, all right. Now all I had to do was prove it.
I was feeling quite proud of my Sherlock Holmesian powers of deduction when I abruptly found myself ankle-deep in water. I’d been so busy playing detective, I hadn’t noticed a wave breaking high on the shore. My feet were soaked. I bet this kind of stuff never happened to Sherlock.
Luckily I was wearing a pair of ratty old tennis shoes. I plucked the seaweed from my sweatpants and straggled back up to the Corolla. Then I turned on the heater and headed south to Ocean Park. As long as I was at the beach, I might as well swing by Eduardo’s to see if I could find out if Amber was, indeed, his teenage lover.
I found a parking spot on Main Street, and made my way to Eduardo’s bungalow, my sneakers squishing with every step. I showed up just in time to see a woman in sexy capris and a tight spandex T-shirt walking inside. Her back was toward me, so I couldn’t see her face.
I could see her hair, though. It was sleek and shiny.
And blonde.
I watched the blonde disappear inside the bungalow, my heart racing. Something told me I had just stumbled onto SueEllen’s killer.
Much to my disappointment, it didn’t look like Amber. From what I’d seen of Amber in the bathtub, she wore a size 2, max. This gal had a bit more meat on her bones. Could it be Larkspur? Ginny? Denise? Could one of them have been partners with Eduardo in a plot to kill SueEllen?
Maybe it was some other blonde I didn’t even know about. The world seemed to be teeming with blondes who wanted SueEllen out of the way. Or maybe my heart was racing in vain. Maybe it was just one of Eduardo’s many lovers, come for a mid-morning tryst.
I had to find out.
Ringing the doorbell was out of the question. Eduardo was sure to turn me away. So I crept around the side of the house, my sneakers still squishing. I only hoped they couldn’t hear me inside.
I peered in the living room, but it was empty. So I continued on past a tiny den. Empty, too. Then, at the back of the house, much to my annoyance, I saw that the windows were set high up on the wall. Damn. I couldn’t even begin to see in. I looked around and saw some empty terra-cotta planters by the fence separating Eduardo’s property from his neighbor’s. I grabbed the largest of the lot and turned it upside down under the window. Then I stepped on it gingerly, hoping it would hold me. My thighs and I are happy to report that it did.
I looked inside the window into what was obviously Eduardo’s bedroom. A king-sized bed with black satin sheets dominated the room. And stretched out on those sheets, alone in the room, was the blonde. Probably waiting for Eduardo to gather his sex toys and ravish her.
At last, I could see her face. It wasn’t any of the usual suspects. Not Ginny. Not Larkspur. Not Denise. But there was something about her that looked familiar.
Then slowly, languorously, she reached up to her beautiful blond hair—and pulled it off. Good Lord, she was wearing a wig. And Good Lord, Part II—it wasn’t a She. It was a He. It was Eduardo! No wonder that face looked familiar.
He got up from the bed and started undressing. And I’m ashamed to say, I watched. I couldn’t help myself. He kicked off his high heels, then peeled off his capris and tank top. Underneath he was wearing a black lace bra and panty set, straight out of Victoria’s Secret Extra Naughty Department. Except for the bulge in his black lace panties, he made a damn convincing woman.
I watched as he reached into his bra and pulled out a pair of sweat socks. When he started to take off the panties, I called it a day and got down off the planter, stunned at what I’d just seen. Eduardo Jensen was a transvestite. That was the dirty secret SueEllen threatened to tell the world. Not that he was boffing a young girl, but that he was dressing like one.
And that’s why he killed her. He couldn’t let her destroy his reputation as a stud-about-town. So he put on his blond wig, sashayed down the hallway to her bathroom, and tossed a hair dryer in her tub.
I’d bet my Joan & David suede boots that the hairs from his wig would match the hairs found at the murder scene. I had to call Lt. Webb right away. But what if Eduardo destroyed the wig before the cops could confiscate it? What if he’d worn it this morning one last time, for old time’s sake, and was planning to toss it in his trash compactor? I couldn’t take any chances. I’d have to get it myself. I’d simply break into the house, grab the wig and—
“What the hell are you doing here?”
It was Eduardo, in shorts and a tank top, all traces of his make up washed away.
He was smiling, an icy smile that turned my palms slick with sweat.
“Oh, hi, Eduardo.” My voice was a frightened squeak. “I came back to buy one of your paintings. I talked it over with my fiancé, and we thought the one with the dead fetus would look great over our fireplace.”
I took a step backwards, but he grabbed my arm. He was much stronger than he looked.
“Nice try,” he said, still smiling that icy smile, “but I don’t believe you.”
“No, really. I rang the bell but I guess it isn’t working. I figured you were in your studio so I came around the side of the house.”
He looked down at the planter, then up at the window.
“You saw me, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He tightened his painful grip on my arm.
“I guess you must know my little secret.”
“What little secret? I came here to buy a painting.”
“Okay then, why don’t we go out to the studio?” he said, dragging me towards his garage.
Oh, God. I thought of all those awful paintings, the dead fetuses, the disemboweled corpses. This was a sick man.
“We’ve got a problem here,” he said, yanking me along, “and we’ve got to solve it. I can’t have you telling the world the truth about me, can I?”
I started to scream, but he clamped his hand over my mouth. I could smell faint traces of perfume on his wrist.
Why hadn’t I listened to Lt. Webb? Why hadn’t I given up on this ridiculous investigation and minded my own business? I could’ve killed myself for being such a jerk, only I had a feeling Eduardo was about to do it for me.
“What’s going on here?”
I looked up and saw two cops coming towards us.
Reluctantly, Eduardo let go of me.
“Thank God you’ve come!” I said, practically hurling myself into their arms.
For those of you keeping track of the many police
officers who seemed to be cropping up in my life, these two were named Washington and Ramirez. Ramirez was a tough looking Hispanic guy, and Washington was an even tougher looking black woman. She made Officer Schmitt look like Calista Flockheart.
“Am I glad to see you,” Eduardo said, his icy smile turning cordial. “This woman was trying to break into my house.”
“That’s what we thought,” Ramirez said. “The lady next door reported a burglary in progress. Said someone was trying to climb in the back window.”
Great. Just great. Where was this lady yesterday while someone was climbing in my window?
“That’s right,” Eduardo said. “I apprehended her, and I was just about to call 911.”
“That’s not true!” I cried. “He was just about to kill me, that’s what he was about to do. This man is a killer!”
“Don’t be absurd,” Eduardo said, doing a great job of looking outraged.
“It’s true! He killed SueEllen Kingsley. He’s the blonde Heidi saw in the hallway. He’s the one who dropped the hair dryer in SueEllen’s tub. And last night he dropped one in my tub. And just now, he was going to take me into his studio with all those ghastly pictures and kill me. You wouldn’t believe the awful pictures he’s got in there. Really. Why anyone would pay good money for those monstrosities, I’ll never know—”
Why was I rambling like this? I sounded like a nutcase.
I guess that’s what the cops thought, because the next thing I knew I was standing up against the wall with my legs spread. Then Officer Washington started frisking me, touching me in places that only The Blob and my gynecologist had gone before.
I craned my neck to make eye contact with Ramirez. Maybe he’d be more sympathetic.
“I swear, officer. I’m not a burglar.”
“That’s not what the lady next door says. She saw you trying to break in this window.”
“I wasn’t breaking in, I was looking in. There’s a big difference. And okay, maybe I was thinking of breaking in, but only because I didn’t want him destroying evidence!”