Killer Blonde

by Laura Levine

  Incidentally, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what you wrote the other day, and I’ve decided to give up wearing a toupee. It’s really not worth the bother.

  Instead, I’ve ordered a fabulous product I saw on an infomercial. It’s like Christmas tree flocking. Only you spray it on your bald spot, and voila—it looks just like hair. I haven’t told your mother about it. I think I’ll surprise her with it on the cruise.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I woke up the next morning to the sweet sounds of Prozac howling for her breakfast. And considering that I hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, I was a tad hungry myself. In fact, I came this close to nibbling on Prozac’s Fancy Fish Entrails. But you’ll be happy to know I did the sensible thing and ate some martini olives instead.

  Then I threw on my jeans and a sweatshirt and drove over to Junior’s Deli, where I treated myself to bacon and eggs, french fries, and a toasted English muffin with strawberry jam.

  Okay, two English muffins. With extra jam. I was famished.

  I was just tucking into the first half of my second muffin when I looked up and saw an old man at the next table reading the morning paper. I could see the headline clearly: Local Artist Arrested in Kingsley Murder.

  “Hey, I broke that case!” I wanted to shout. But instead, I just asked the waitress for some more strawberry jam.

  After breakfast, topped off by a free candy-striped mint from the cashier, I got in the Corolla and headed off to buy a new hair dryer. I was getting tired of looking like I’d just stuck my finger in a light socket.

  Having nabbed a good fourteen hours of shut-eye, you would think I’d had enough sleep to last me for a week, but strangely enough, when I got home, I was still tired. Which is why I got back in my robe, and spent the rest of the morning curled up in bed watching an old Marx Brothers movie on TV. If you ask me, Groucho Marx was a comic genius. Although Prozac insists that Harpo was the funny one.

  I finally managed to pry myself out of bed and check my e-mail. I deleted the generous offers to add inches to my penis, and read about my parents’ disastrous adventures at Cousin Cindy’s wedding. I think the surgeon general should make Daddy wear a warning label: Living with me can be dangerous to your mental health. Between Daddy’s toupee and all the wigs I’d been encountering lately, it seemed like my life had been taken over by hairpieces.

  I was just about to climb back in bed and watch a lady on HGTV make lamp shades out of leftover wallpaper, when I remembered that I’d unplugged the phone last night. No wonder it had been so quiet all morning. No sooner had I plugged it back in than it rang.

  It was Lt. Webb.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’ve been calling all morning.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I just wanted to thank you again for all your help in this case.”

  I was glad he was big enough to admit I’d played a part solving the crime. In fact, he went on for quite some time about how grateful he was until finally he said he had to get off the phone and tend to some important police business. Probably making sure they didn’t forget the goat cheese on his goat cheese and cilantro pizza.

  The minute I hung up, the phone rang again.

  “Are you okay? I’ve been calling all morning.”

  This time it was Heidi.

  I assured her that I was fine.

  “Can you come over? Daddy has something he wants to give you.”

  My heart did a somersault. Was it possible that Hal was going to write me another check? After all, Hal Kingsley was a very rich man and I had just saved his daughter from a nasty criminal trial. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars I’d saved him in legal fees. Yes, I bet he was going to write me another check. Oh, wow. This was all too wonderful. At last I could afford that Jaguar I’d always dreamed of.

  Now don’t get me wrong. My only reason for getting involved in this case was to help Heidi. I’d never even thought about getting paid for it. But I certainly wasn’t going to turn down a zero-laden check if it was offered to me.

  I assured Heidi I’d be over ASAP, and hurried to the bedroom to choose an appropriate check-cashing outfit (jeans, silk blouse, and Ann Taylor blazer). Then I sped off to Casa Kingsley, visions of Jaguars dancing in my head.

  Conchi greeted me at the door, and in a surprising burst of emotion, she put down her Windex bottle and threw her arms around me.

  “Oh, Miss Jaine,” she said. “Thank you so much for saving Miss Heidi.”

  “It was nothing,” I said, breathing in her pungent perfume of sweat and Ammonia-D.

  Eventually she released me and led me to the living room, where Heidi was sitting at the bay window, reading a book, just like the day I first saw her.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Jaine!”

  She put down the book and hurried to my side. What a difference from the day we met. It wasn’t just the weight she’d lost. She was happy now. I could see it in her eyes.

  “Oh, Jaine,” she said, hugging me. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be in jail right now. How can I ever thank you?”

  “Just seeing you happy is all the thanks I need.”

  And I meant it. At that moment, Hal’s check was the furthest thing from my mind. I really liked this kid, and I was glad I’d been able to help her.

  At which point, Grandma Kosciusko came bustling in the room.

  “Jaine, darling!” she said, joining the hugfest.

  After numerous thank yous and aw shucks, it was nothings, we finally broke apart.

  “Let’s not waste any more time,” Grandma K said. “Hal’s waiting for you in his study. He has something he wants to give you.”

  Okay, this was it. I felt like a lottery winner come to pick up my winnings. Grandma K led me to Hal’s study. She said she and Heidi would wait for me in the den while I had my chat with her son.

  Hal sat behind a fabulous antique desk in his wood-paneled study. The air was thick with the smell of expensive leather.

  “Jaine,” he said, looking up at me over his $500 reading glasses. “It’s so good to see you. I want you to know how grateful we all are for the part you played in exonerating my daughter.”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” I lied.

  “And as a gesture of our appreciation, I’ve got a little gift for you.”

  “You didn’t have to,” I said, wondering if I should order the Jaguar in hunter green or black.

  “There it is.”

  He pointed to a couple of shopping bags propped up against the wall.

  Huh? What happened to my check, the one with all the zeroes?

  “My daughter tells me how much you like shoes. Apparently you two went shoe shopping one day.”

  I nodded numbly.

  “Anyhow, we were cleaning out SueEllen’s closet, and we thought you might like hers. Heidi says you and SueEllen are the same size.”

  Oh, great. Just what I wanted. A dead woman’s shoes.

  “And there’s one other thing I’d like to give you.”

  Good old Hal. It looked like he was going to come through for me, after all. Maybe I’d get a moonroof on the Jaguar. And a five-disk CD changer.

  “You know that liposuction you wanted?” Hal beamed. “It’s on the house.”

  Funny. I used to say I’d give all the money in the world for thin thighs. But now that they were a possibility, I realized I’d rather have all the money in the world.

  “That’s great,” I said, wondering how much it would cost to buy new floor mats for the Corolla. “Just great.”

  I save the guy hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and he gives me used shoes and a liposuction. I guess that’s how the rich stay rich.

  I picked up my shoes and took them to the den where Heidi and Grandma K were waiting for me with cookies and cocoa. I kept up my grateful act, pretending to be excited about the shoes. But I didn’t really mind. (Not much, anyway.) Like I said, I was just glad that everything had worked out so well for Heidi.
We chatted a bit about where Heidi was going to apply to college. Somewhere back East, she said, so she could be near Grandma Kosciusko. It was clear that these two really loved each other. It was about time Heidi had someone in her life who did.

  I kissed them both goodbye, promising to keep in touch, then headed out to the Corolla.

  “Looks like I won’t be trading you in, after all,” I said, tossing the shoes in the backseat.

  I was just about to get in when Brad came charging up the driveway in his Ferrari. Why did he always seem to be showing up just as I was leaving? Maybe he planned it that way.

  “Hi, Judy,” he said, with a nasty little smile.

  “Hi, Brat.”

  His smile went bye-bye.

  “It’s Brad,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  “No,” I said. “It’s brat. Spoiled brat.”

  Yes, I really did say that. And it felt great.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “So what do you think?” I asked Prozac, model-ing a pair of $1,300 Manolo Blahnik sandals.

  Prozac looked up from where she was napping on the sofa, and shot me an irritated look.

  Do you realize how much poached salmon you could buy me with thirteen hundred dollars?

  I’d just spent the past hour trying on SueEllen’s shoes. I tried on skinny slingbacks, strappy thongs, cork-soled wedgies straight out of a porno movie, and a pair of pointy black leather pumps that laced half-way up my calves, for the ever popular ballerina-dominatrix look.

  Now I was prancing around in the $1,300 sandals. Yes, that’s right. I almost fainted when I saw the price tag on the box. I’ve had cars that cost less than those shoes.

  And at five hundred dollars a pop, the others weren’t exactly bargains, either. True, they were beautiful. But there was no way I was going to keep them. What was I going to wear them with? My Old Navy sweats? And where was I going to wear them? Dinner and dancing at the Jack in the Box?

  I made up my mind to sell them on eBay. There were at least a dozen pairs of shoes, and if I could get two or three hundred dollars a pair, that would add up to a couple of thousand dollars. Yes, I’d get rid of them all. Except maybe the slingbacks. They’d look great with my sexy little black dress. Not that I actually owned a sexy little black dress. But I planned on buying one just as soon as I lost a dress size or three.

  I tried on the slingbacks one more time. They really were fabulous. From the ankle down I was the spitting image of Sarah Jessica Parker.

  It was at that moment that Prozac decided one of the shoe boxes was her mortal enemy. She lunged at it with the same ferocity she usually saves for my pantyhose. You’ve seen those nature films on the Discovery Channel where lions attack poor little gazelles? Well, Prozac went at that shoebox like a lioness on speed. I quickly grabbed it from her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I admonished her.

  She shot me a dirty look, and jumped back on the sofa to resume her nap.

  I was looking at the shoebox to see how badly she’d damaged it, when I noticed what looked like a photo peeking out from the tissue paper at the bottom of the box. I reached in and pulled it out. It was a faded picture of two tow-headed girls standing barefoot in front of a rundown house. The girls, in their late teens, were dressed for a special occasion, in cheap frilly dresses.

  One of the girls was ordinary, short and squat, with a square face and limp hair. The other—in spite of her cheap dress and bare feet—was a knockout. Tall and willowy, with a beaming Prom Queen smile, she looked boldly into the camera. I’d know that face anywhere. It was SueEllen, the high school version. I flipped the picture over. On the back it said SueEllen and Carolee. Graduation Day.

  I wondered who Carolee was. Probably a friend. Or a relative. Whoever she was, she was totally eclipsed by SueEllen’s radiance.

  I took a closer look at the house behind them. It was straight out of Tobacco Road, with a sagging front porch and termite-eaten shutters. I remembered what SueEllen had said about growing up in genteel poverty. What a crock. From the looks of that house and the dress she was wearing, SueEllen was no Southern belle. She was plain old trailer trash.

  How ironic, I thought, that Hal and SueEllen wound up together. Hal with his phony Anglo name, and SueEllen with her fictional landed gentry ancestors. I could just picture them in the early days of their courtship, pretending to be something they weren’t. Each of them falling in love with someone who didn’t exist.

  I pulled out the rest of the tissue paper in the shoebox, wondering if anything else had been buried there. Indeed there was—a letter, addressed to SueEllen in a shaky hand. But this was no memento from the past. It was postmarked from Georgia, just a few months ago. I debated the ethics of reading it for a whole nanosecond, then dived right in.

  SueEllen, honey—Hope you are well and happy. Wish I could say the same for myself. The cancer is spreading, and the pain is something awful. I’ll be glad when it’s over. And that’s why I’m writing to you. You’ve always been my favorite niece, so much more fun than your sister Carolee. And so I’m leaving all my money to you. Close to three million dollars, after taxes. I just wanted you to know, in case Carolee tries to pull any funny business. I wouldn’t put it past her. Lots of love, pussycat, from your Aunt Melanie.

  So SueEllen really did have a rich Aunt Melanie. That part of her past was true. But she’d lied about being an only child. She had a sister named Carolee. No wonder she kept it a secret. A sister with a hillbilly accent and dirt between her toes would be an ugly blot on the genteel portrait of her past that SueEllen had so carefully painted.

  Had Hal ever found out the truth about SueEllen, I wondered, or did he still think she’d grown up sipping juleps among the magnolia blossoms? Should I let him know about the picture, and spoil his illusions? Yet somehow I didn’t think Hal had many illusions about SueEllen. I was pretty sure he’d stopped loving her a long time ago. He’d probably toss the picture in the trash without a second thought.

  But then again, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he cared for her more than I thought. Maybe he’d want to have this keepsake from her past. And surely I had to tell him about the letter. What if he was next in line to cash in on that three million dollars?

  I tried calling him, but he wasn’t in. Conchi told me that he’d taken the kids for dinner at the In ‘N Out Burger.

  “The In ‘N Out Burger? SueEllen’s probably rolling over in her grave.”

  “Sí, I know,” Conchi chuckled.

  I told her to tell Hal I’d found the picture of SueEllen and her sister, and to please call me when he got in.

  Then I hung up and looked around the living room. Shoeboxes were scattered everywhere, like Christmas morning at Imelda Marcos’s house. Oh, well. I’d clean up later. Right now, all I wanted was a nice relaxing soak in the tub. It felt like ages since I’d had one.

  I started the water running, and tossed in a handful of strawberry-scented bath salts. Then I turned on the radio to a soothing classical music station, and headed for the kitchen to pour myself a tall cool glass of chardonnay.

  I was on my way back to the bathroom when I saw the picture of SueEllen on the coffee table. I decided to bring it in the tub with me. Something about SueEllen in her redneck years fascinated me. By the time I got back to the bathroom, the tub was filled with a lovely mountain of strawberry-scented bubbles. I slipped out of my clothes, and eased myself into the steamy water. Then I took a sip of my wine and sighed with pleasure.

  “Who needs a man,” I asked Prozac, who was perched on top of the toilet tank, “when you’ve got a hot bath and a cold chardonnay?”

  Certainly not me, she seemed to be saying, licking her privates with gusto.

  Then I reached for the picture of SueEllen. God, she was a knockout. Even in that crappy dress and bad haircut. She was one of those irritating women who go straight from adorable child to spectacular adult, totally bypassing any awkward stages. Unlike her sister. Poor Carolee. With her squat body,
and plain features, she certainly was the loser in that gene pool.

  Yet there was something about her face that looked familiar. Where had I seen it before? While SueEllen smiled boldly at the camera, Carolee looked at the ground with downcast eyes. They were like two characters from a fairy tale. SueEllen, the princess. Carolee, the lowly servant girl. And that’s when it hit me. I knew who that face belonged to. The servant who was always looking down at the ground, afraid to make eye contact. It was Conchi, with blond hair. Yes, the resemblance was undeniable.

  Conchi was SueEllen’s sister Carolee. The same Carolee who’d just been aced out of Aunt Melanie’s will. What had Aunt Melanie written in her letter? That she was afraid Carolee might try to pull some “funny business.” What if Aunt Melanie was right, and the funny business was murder?

  What if Aunt Melanie had left all her money to SueEllen, but SueEllen wasn’t around to collect it? If Carolee was next in line as beneficiary, she would have had the perfect motive for murder.

  I sat up abruptly in the tub, and took another slug of my chardonnay. Maybe the cops had arrested the wrong person. Maybe Eduardo was innocent. Maybe he hadn’t been trying to kill me. Maybe he was just some crazy transvestite who’d tried to scare me into keeping his secret.

  Suddenly the chardonnay turned to bile in my throat. I remembered the phone call I’d made just a little while ago. I’d told Conchi about the picture. Surely she’d figure out that I might recognize her. If she really did kill SueEllen, then she wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. I had to call Lt. Webb right away. And then I had to grab Prozac and get the hell out of my apartment.

  But it was too late.

  Because just then I looked up and saw Conchi standing in the doorway, a gun in her hand. No longer a dark-haired Latina, but a blonde.

  “You really should keep your windows locked,” she said, aiming the gun straight at my heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Five