Die Smiling

by Linda Ladd

  “I just knew him through Hilde. That was enough to know he was bad news, believe me. I heard he was mixed up somehow in the mob.”

  “Do you have any proof of that?”

  “No. Just an idle rumor, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Do you know when he last contacted Hilde Swensen?”

  Dixson shook his head. “She didn’t say much about him during the shoot.”

  “What did she talk about?”

  “She kept saying she couldn’t stop loving him, but that he cheated on her and she couldn’t forgive that. I told her to give herself time and she’d get over him and find somebody worthy of her.”

  It seemed to be that he was speaking about Hilde as if she were still alive, but I didn’t remark on it. “Do you know where I might find Mr. Vasquez?”

  “I’d say your best bet is his spa. He used to be down there twenty-four/seven, at least when he’s not out at the clubs trying to pick up somebody else’s wife.”

  “It’s clearly apparent that you don’t care for this man. Did the two of you have difficulties?”

  “We hate each other’s guts, if that’s what you call difficulties.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He despises me because Hilde counted me as her friend. He didn’t like her to have male friends, or female ones, either, as far as that goes. I hate him because he treats her like shit. Is that good enough?”

  “I’m asking you questions because I have to, Mr. Dixson. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable or makes you feel like I’m invading your privacy.”

  Dixson relaxed some, but only a little bit. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. This hit me pretty hard. It’s so sudden and nothing I ever expected. Like I said, Hilde and I are old friends.”

  “Did Hilde mention anything to you that you found odd or unlike her?”

  Dixson considered a moment as he poured himself another drink. He didn’t chug it this time, just sipped it, so I guess we were making progress there. “I remember her saying that she and Bri were getting along, said they weren’t on the outs, for a change. She told me it wouldn’t last, though, because Brianna had called up and jumped her ass again right before I showed up with my gear.”

  Black jumped on that. Butted in, couldn’t help himself, I guess. “Did Hilde indicate what Brianna was upset about?”

  I didn’t glare at him or order him from the room. He’d verbalized my next question, anyway.

  “Brianna was always on Hilde’s back big-time about partying so much. Apparently, Bri’s gotten to be a little prude since she moved up here and started dating that cop. Hilde didn’t like Bri being in that kind of relationship.”

  Aha. Now we were getting down to some shiny brass tacks. “Why was that?”

  “She didn’t like cops, any of them. She got busted in Miami a couple of times on drug possession. By undercover guys who came on to her in the clubs, but most of it was bogus. Her lawyer always managed to get her off.”

  “What else did Hilde say about Brianna’s relationship with the cop?”

  “She said Bri was playing him along, that he wasn’t her type at all and it wouldn’t last.”

  “What made Hilde think Bri was playing this guy?”

  “I don’t know that. Hilde didn’t elaborate. She just said Bri was using him and she couldn’t figure out why.”

  “It sounds like Hilde and Brianna were two very different women.”

  “Not so much, really, if you knew them like I do. My opinion? Bri’s just playing at being a normal kinda girl with an upstanding boyfriend, white picket fence, and rosy future. Hilde said she’d get tired of that kinda boredom sooner or later and head back down to Florida where her real friends were.”

  This was definitely not going down well with me. In fact, it was making me highly annoyed. I didn’t care for the idea of Brianna using Bud for any reason, much less to toy around with, and I didn’t like the idea of the two sisters being cut out of the same sleazy cloth. Then again, I wasn’t sure I believed everything Dixson was telling me. Something about the man bugged me. Actually, pretty much everything about him bugged me.

  “What kind of relationship do you have with Brianna, Mr. Dixson?”

  “I shot her portfolio three years ago, and it turned out great. She’s a lot better subject than Hilde is, calmer, you know, more patient with what I want her to do. Hilde gets a little drunk in our sittings and quits too soon. Bri’s a perfectionist and willing to do whatever it takes to get it right.”

  “I see.” But I didn’t see, and I had a hunch nudity was somehow involved in whatever it took to get it right. “Would you mind giving me a brief rundown of your whereabouts for the last two days, Mr. Dixson?”

  The guy startled me by suddenly jumping up, rocketing his chair back against the wall. He glared at me, fists on his hips. Talk about a hair trigger. And I thought I was bad. “Hell, yes, I mind,” he said. “I don’t like being accused of murdering a friend.”

  Black stood up, too, all six three of him. Polite, I guess. Or maybe not, judging by the way he was clenching his jaw. He said, deadly calm, “The detective’s not accusing you of anything, Dixson.”

  Did I mention that Black was unnecessarily protective? And his cultured veneer was deceptive. Once I’d seen him so enraged that he’d nearly drowned somebody with his bare hands, and not so long ago, either. Of course, that somebody had been trying to kill us both, but that’s beside the point. I can take care of myself. He knows that; he just forgets sometimes.

  I was serene. I kept my seat. “Sit down, Dixson, and don’t do something stupid.”

  Dixson tried to stare me down, but didn’t get far with that, so he decided to sit. Black remained standing so he could look imposing, which he accomplished admirably. I took notes as if nothing had almost happened.

  “All right. Is there anything you’d like for me to know, Mr. Dixson? Something you feel might be helpful to my investigation?”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I wouldn’t touch a hair on Hilde’s head.” A small sob escaped him, but he stifled the emotion, looking embarrassed by the show of vulnerability. It looked fake, too, so he tried something else. “For God’s sake, I loved her like a sister, I loved her face, her smile, her laugh, everything about her. I would never in my life ever think of hurting her.”

  Now he sounded like he was rehearsing a lame Bold and the Beautiful soap script, but I nodded as if his protestation had come off legit. “All right. Who do you think might have?”

  “Might have what?”

  I looked at him to see if he was kidding me. He wasn’t, so I filled in the blanks. “Might have killed her.”

  “I think Brianna might have.”

  Black said, “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it, Dr. Black? Maybe you’d change your mind if you knew them better.”

  These guys just didn’t know how to be civil. “Where were you yesterday, Mr. Dixson?”

  “Right here most of the day, working. I dropped in out at Cedar Bend part of the afternoon, too, just to see how things were going. Three to four, or so, I guess it was.”

  “Would you mind giving me a list of witnesses who might be able to verify your presence there, sir?”

  “The pageant coordinator can, for one. Patricia Cardamon, I think she said her name was. She spoke to me at length about where and how she wanted me to shoot the runway. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Some of the contestants and carpenters probably saw me speaking with her, but I don’t know their names. And several tourist groups came in yesterday for portraits, but I can’t tell you their names, either. They paid in cash, so I don’t have a record.”

  “What about last night and the night before?”

  “I was here both nights. That’s when I process film in my darkroom.”

  “You did that all night on both nights?”

  “Until I went to bed. I live upstairs over my studio.”

  “Alone?”

>   “Yes. I live alone.”

  “Okay, thank you, Mr. Dixson, I guess that’ll do it for now. I might have more questions for you later.”

  “Any time, Detective. I have nothing to hide.” He glanced at Black, who still didn’t look particularly happy. “I apologize for getting angry and yelling at you. I guess I’m still a bit stunned by all this. That’s the truth, I swear it.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable, Mr. Dixson. No offense taken. You’re not the first person who’s been offended when I questioned them.” I smiled so he’d believe it and shot a significant look at Black, so he’d remember that he’d been pretty irked by some questions I asked him once upon a time.

  Outside, Black and I stopped for a moment and allowed our eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight. Dixson definitely kept his studio a little on the dark side. Black slid on his shades. I squinted up at him. “If you can’t behave, I’m not bringing you along next time.”

  “I don’t like guys threatening you.”

  “I don’t either. That’s when I take it down a notch, one way or another. If I need you to beat anybody up for me, I’ll let you know.”

  Black laughed. “Same back to you.”

  I smiled and watched a couple of tourists across the street picking through a rack of Lake of the Ozarks souvenir T-shirts while their children rode go-carts. “What was your take on Dixson?”

  “I think he’s probably been in love with Hilde as long as he can remember and that he’s jealous of anybody remotely important in her life, including, and especially, Brianna.”

  “My, you sound like a shrink used to summing up aberrant personalities in a nutshell.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Pretty much the same, but it’s interesting to hear that Brianna and Hilde weren’t exactly Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Tell you something else, too, I’m more than interested in what this Vasquez guy has to say about the Swensen sisters.”

  “Me, too. Maybe we ought to surprise him down at South Beach and see how he reacts to news of Hilde’s death.”

  “You’re reading my mind.”

  “Wish I could. It would make things so much easier.”

  Black’s cell phone chirped insistently and he retrieved it and took a look at caller ID. “It’s the Lodge.” He answered, listened, frowned, and I waited for him to hang up and give me the bad news. “The press is out at Cedar Bend, full force and demanding me to talk to them. I’ve gotta go back. How much you think Charlie’s going to allow me to give them?”

  “Not much, if I had to guess.”

  “Well, ask him as soon as you can and let me know. I’m heading back there right now. You coming with me?”

  “No, drop me off at the station so I can talk to Charlie.”

  We got in the Humvee, both of us dreading what awaited us in the next hour or so. Even if Charlie was in a godawful mood when I ran the case for him, I still had the better end of the stick. Nothing sucks as much as facing the preening media morons and having to answer their stupid questions.

  Sisterly Love

  After they’d scared Sissy with the Freddy Krueger costume, nearly all their quests were revenge missions against Sissy. It was wonderful for the older one to have a crew of loyal allies to help her, and she felt good inside, powerful enough to make Sissy suffer for the first time in her life. Sissy still had trouble sleeping at nights, and the older one was glad she did. She felt utter gratitude for the boy, and his ingenious plans to hurt Sissy and make her feel threatened. The older one felt so much appreciation for him, in fact, that she began to let him kiss her and touch her, and she began to like it, and him, and the times when she was alone in the Winnebago with him.

  Once when they were planning their next mission, one of the twins spoke up and said, “You know what I wanna do for my mission, Dungeon Master?”

  “What’s that, Princess Leia?”

  “I wanna make Sissy lose the Fourth of July pageant so I can win it. I want you to think up a plan that’ll make her lose.”

  “And I wanna win the one after that, too, when it’s my turn to compete,” said her twin sister.

  They all watched the boy as he stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of where they sat at the dining table. He always did his best thinking when he walked around the room, and he was so brilliant that he always came up with good plans. This time, though, he left the Winnebago without a word and went inside the house, so they drank their sodas and watched a Leave It to Beaver rerun on the television set until he came back.

  “Okay, guys, I got it. And there’s no way they can catch us.”

  The older one smiled and thought how wonderful it would be for Sissy to actually lose a contest and not have a new crown to add to her collection. It would kill her! Momma would probably faint dead away!

  “Tell me, quick,” she said to the boy.

  “Abracadabra, and here it is,” he said, whisking a small round jar out of the back pocket of his Levi’s.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It’s a chemical mom uses on patients that peels the top layer of their skin off. We can sneak it into something Sissy uses on her face, and she’ll look ugly the day of the pageant.”

  “What exactly does it do?”

  “Like I said, it’ll make her skin peel off, like she’s got a bad sunburn, or it could make her face break out in pimples. I heard Mom say that happened sometimes. You know, as a side effect.”

  “Pimples! Oh, that’d be great,” cried one of the twins.

  They all laughed together because Sissy had the most beautiful skin in the world.

  “Yes, she’d hate that, and so would Momma.”

  “Okay, raise your hand if you wanna do it.”

  The three girls raised their hands, and the boy grinned in triumph. “Okay, it’s a go.” He turned to the older one. “But you’ll have to mix it in with something Sissy uses on her face, and you’ll have to do it the night before the Fourth of July pageant.”

  “I could put it in her Oil of Olay. Momma always makes her rub it on at night. Or, we could use the foundation. She wears a lot of that when she goes on stage.”

  “Probably the night stuff would work better. Then she’d wake up the next morning and look in the mirror, and Pow! Ugly Sissy!”

  They all hooted with laughter, and the older one took the jar of cream and put in her pocket. She felt the power rising up inside her, and it felt good, really, really good, and she couldn’t wait for the day to come when she could see Sissy look hideous with her skin all peeling off.

  She said, “I’ll accept this quest and maim the cruel princess, and our own lovely Princess Leia will wear the crown.”

  The boy’s little sisters jumped up and down with excitement, and the boy and the older one smiled at each other because Sissy was going down this time and they would get to watch.

  The quest proceeded as planned, with no problems. The older one secretly mixed a little of the peeling chemical in Sissy’s Oil of Olay the day before the pageant, and then she acted so sweet, so cooperative, so subservient to Sissy and Momma, that no one even suspected that she was getting ready to do such a terrible thing to Sissy. It was perfect. The boy was perfect, and the best friend the older one had ever had. He would be her best friend for the rest of her life. She would do anything for him, anything he asked. For the first time in her life, she was happy inside her soul.

  She woke early and tiptoed across the room to see the results of their quest. She stared down at Sissy, at first dismayed at the red, blotchy patches peeling skin off her little sister’s porcelain complexion. For a moment, she felt appalled by what she’d done and then she remembered all the lies Sissy had told about her, all the beatings she’d caused for her, and her guilt quickly evaporated. She climbed back in bed, pulled the covers up, and waited calmly for the fireworks to begin.

  It didn’t take long. Momma came up early, around seven, to wake Sissy so she could wash and roll her hair. This time it was Momma who
let out the high-pitched shriek of horror, loud enough to nearly break everybody’s eardrums. The older one sat up in bed and pretended to be half asleep when she mumbled about what was going on. She was becoming a pretty good actress now that she’d been playing the game. The boy and the twins would be very proud of her. If only they could see how innocent she looked!

  Momma was bawling and screaming for Stepdaddy, and he thundered up the steps and ran into the room. He ground to an abrupt halt beside the bed and said in disbelief, “Oh, my God, what happened to her face?”

  The older one kept saying, “What’s going on? What’s the matter?” until Momma turned to her and snapped, “Shut up. Sissy’s sick.”

  They left Bubby for the older one to take care of and rushed Sissy to the emergency room. That’s when the older one exchanged the jar of Oil of Olay in the bathroom for a new one the boy had bought at Wal-Mart. She took out just the same amount that was depleted from the other jar, then took the poisoned jar outside behind the barn and buried it in a six-inch-deep hole. The boy and his sisters were waiting there for her, and she told them excitedly that the quest was a complete success.

  “A new princess will be crowned,” she said and hugged the beaming little girl.

  When Momma and Sissy returned from the hospital, Sissy was crying her eyes out because she looked so terrible. The older one frowned and put a sympathetic furrow in her forehead when Sissy complained that it burned and hurt really bad. The doctor didn’t know what caused it, but thought it might be an allergic reaction to something she’d eaten or applied to her face, and Momma gathered up all the cosmetics and face creams and put them in a bag to be analyzed. The older one laughed and laughed inside and was so happy. Momma wasn’t so smart, after all, not nearly as smart as the boy. There was no limit to what they could do to Sissy and Momma in the coming days. Oh, yes, the future was bright now.

  Then the unexpected happened. Around noon, Momma came up to the bedroom where the older one was reading Romeo and Juliet and said, “Well, I tell you one thing. I’m not about to waste that fifty-dollar entry fee. You’ve been looking a little better lately. Get up and wash your hair. You’re going to go on in Sissy’s place. You’ll just compete in the older division.”