Death of a Bachelorette

by Laura Levine

  But the vocabulary-challenged Brit seemed like the poster boy for bland behavior. Was it possible that Spencer had been telling the truth, after all—that Manny had forced him to choose Hope?

  I decided to pay Manny a visit and find out.

  Soon after his return from the airport, I strolled over to his office, where I found him snacking on a plate of his beloved pastrami. Several slices had been rolled up into meaty little tubes, each skewered with a toothpick, and Manny was busy chomping into one as I came into the room.

  “Delicious!” he cried, waving it in front of my face. “Hardly a speck of fat.”

  Indeed, it did look pretty darn tasty.

  Now a normal person would have offered me one of the skewers, but not Manny. He just kept on eating, in spite of the drool practically oozing out of my mouth.

  “This is just a snack,” he said. “I’m saving my appetite for the triple-decker pastrami sandwich I’m having Akela make me later on.”

  I guess he must have noticed the pastrami lust in my eyes, because then he said, “I’d offer you a slice, but I figure you’re probably still full after the tuna salad and Dove Bar you filched from my mini-fridge last night.”

  Ouch. Busted again.

  I blushed a deep crimson.

  “I told you, Jaine. I keep track of what’s in my mini-fridge at all times. And when I saw that missing Dove Bar, I figured it had to be you,” he said, staring most pointedly at my hips.

  The nerve of that man! Eyeing my hips when he was sporting a pot belly the size of a beer keg.

  “If you weren’t such a cheapskate and served your employees edible food, I wouldn’t have been so desperate for a Dove Bar!”

  Okay, so that’s what I should’ve said. The words that reluctantly tumbled from my cowardly lips were:

  “I’m so sorry, Manny.”

  “You should be, young lady. I was going to ask you to come back and work for me on The Real Mothers-in-Law of Miami Beach, but now that’s out of the question.”

  Good news indeed. Nevertheless, I tried to paste a disappointed look on my face.

  “I don’t blame you, Manny,” I said. “Not one bit.”

  “Well, now that I see you’re contrite, I might change my mind.”

  Yuck, no!

  “Listen, Manny,” I said quickly, before he could offer me the job. “There’s something important I need to ask you.”

  He looked up from his pastrami, curious.

  “Did you ever tell Spencer he had to choose Hope as the final bachelorette?”

  He blinked in surprise. “No. In fact, I was sure he was going to go after the big bucks and choose Dallas.”

  So I was right! Spencer had lied. Manny hadn’t made him choose Hope. My blackmail theory was alive and well!

  “Speaking of Hope,” Manny said, “I need you to go to her room and pack up her belongings to send to her parents.”

  “Absolutely. I’d be more than happy to do it.”

  And I meant it. I couldn’t wait to go through Hope’s things. Maybe somewhere among her possessions I’d find the blackmail threat I was desperately seeking.

  “That’s the attitude I like to see,” Manny beamed. “There just may be room for you on Mothers-in-Law, after all.”

  And before he could whip out a contract, I hustled upstairs to Hope’s room.

  * * *

  I found Hope’s suitcase on the top shelf of her closet—a hot pink number with bright yellow daisies. So typical of the perky bachelorette.

  And suddenly I felt a pang of pity. Hope may have been a calculating opportunist, but she certainly didn’t deserve to die. After all, if every calculating opportunist in Hollywood dropped dead tomorrow, there’d be nobody left to run the studios.

  I began emptying her drawers of her T-shirts and lace panties, all smelling faintly of jasmine. I marveled at her tiny shorts and halter tops, her size 2 sundresses with their teeny waists.

  As I packed, I searched her pockets, looking for a clue to her relationship with Spencer, but came up empty-handed.

  I emptied her night table drawer, hoping to find a diary with a full confession of her blackmail plot, but all I found was a dog-eared copy of Fifty Shades of Gray.

  Checking under her mattress was an equal waste of time.

  And then, in the bottom of her dresser, I found Hope’s purse—a pink and white gingham tote. Inside were several lipsticks, a comb, a hankie embroidered with the letter H, a tampon, her wallet, and her cell phone. I went through her wallet, but all it yielded was twenty-six dollars in cash, some credit cards, and a Sephora Beauty Insider Card.

  Finally, I picked up her cell phone. Like her luggage, its case was decorated with bright yellow daisies.

  I was staring at the daisies when suddenly I flashed back to my first day with Spencer, sitting at the pool, going over his lines. He’d just gotten off the phone with his mummy when his phone had pinged with a text. One look at it, and he’d gone ashen with fear. He’d looked over at the cast and crew. And there was Hope in one of her perky sundresses, waving and grinning at Spencer. Could she possibly have been acknowledging a text she’d just sent him?

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  I looked over and saw Polly standing in the doorway.

  “Manny said you were packing Hope’s things, and he asked me to give you a hand.”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, “but I think Spencer’s the one who killed Hope.”

  “Spencer?” Polly shook her head in disbelief. “No way. He’s too dumb to kill anyone and get away with it.”

  I quickly filled her in on what I’d learned so far, about Spencer’s tryst with Dallas and how he lied about Manny forcing him to choose Hope. I told her about that day at the pool when he’d gotten the alarming text and how Hope had been waving to him when he got it, with a smug smile on her face.

  “So you think she was blackmailing him?”

  “I’d bet my bottom Pop-Tart. I just need to get into her phone and check her texts.”

  “Okay,” Polly grinned. “Let’s give it a shot. I never really believed Kirk was the killer. He was much too sweet a guy to ever hurt anyone.”

  “First thing we need to do is crack Hope’s passcode,” I said, turning on the phone.

  We tried the obvious combinations: 1234. Her birthday and her street address. (Both of which we’d picked up from her driver’s license.) But none of it worked.

  Then Polly had an idea.

  “I bet I know what it is,” she said. Quickly she typed in the numbers for “Hope” (4673), and the main screen opened up.

  “Bingo!” she cried. “I knew the little egomaniac would choose her own name.”

  We scanned her texts, searching for something to or from Spencer. But we came up with zero. Zip. Nada.

  Then we checked her photos. Same thing. Just lots of selfies of Hope and her smug smile.

  “So much for my blackmail theory,” I sighed.

  “Oh, well,” Polly said. “At least we tried.”

  “I bet Spencer already got to the phone and deleted every incriminating text and photo.”

  And then, as I idly scrolled through Hope’s pictures, I saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks. It was the picture Hope had taken the day of Dallas’s picnic scene with Spencer, when they’d found Dallas’s missing hair extensions in the picnic basket. I remembered how, after Dallas had marched over and deleted the picture, Hope had shown me how to retrieve recently deleted photos.

  Maybe there was an incriminating picture in the phone, after all.

  Quickly I went back to the main screen and clicked on PHOTO ALBUMS. Then I saw the magical words, RECENTLY DELETED PHOTOS.

  One click, and I hit the jackpot.

  There it was: A photo of Spencer, wearing nothing but a smile and a dog collar, holding a can of Reddi-wip. In the corner of the picture, a woman’s leg appeared in fishnet stockings and stiletto heels.

  “Omigod!” I gasped. “Look at this!”
/>   I showed the picture to Polly.

  “It looks like Spencer Dalworth’s not exactly the country bumpkin he seems to me.”

  “No, indeed,” said Polly, her eyes wide as saucers. “He’s been a very naughty boy.”

  “If a picture like that were ever leaked to the press, it would be a crushing blow to his noble family name.”

  “Mummy would have a cow!” Polly agreed. “And heaven knows what hell she’d put him through.”

  “So I was right all along!” I beamed. “Hope was blackmailing Spencer. And Spencer killed her to shut her up. He undoubtedly snuck off to the prop shed the morning of the murder and snipped the cords on Hope’s chute. Somehow he managed to plant the wire cutter in Dallas’s room and delete the incriminating photo from Hope’s phone. But he didn’t realize the photo was still stored there.

  “Maybe Kirk saw him sneaking over to the prop shed and was threatening to go to the police. So Spencer forced a fatal dose of sleeping pills down Kirk’s throat and tapped out a convenient note on his laptop.”

  “My gosh, Jaine,” Polly gasped. “It all makes sense. Spencer’s the killer.”

  “I’ve got to tell Tonga,” I said. “C’mon, let’s go down to police headquarters.”

  “But don’t you have to be at that tribal ceremony?”

  Oh, crud. The ceremony. I’d forgotten all about it. I checked my watch and saw that that it was starting in less than a half hour.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll take the phone with me and show it to him there.”

  Polly came with me to Sauna Central to help me pick out an outfit to wear to Konga’s big do.

  “Guess what, Pro?” I cried, as we came bursting into the room. “We found Hope’s killer!”

  Prozac looked up at me, irritated, from where she was perched on the bed.

  Do you mind? I was in the middle of a very important gynecological exam.

  I leaped into the shower while Polly picked through my closet to find an outfit suitable for mixing and mingling in Paratitan society. Fifteen minutes later, I was clad in capris and a black tee, my hair frizzy from the shower, Konga’s tooth necklace stinking up my neck. I didn’t even bother with makeup. No need getting Konga all hot and bothered.

  Bidding adieu to Prozac and locking the door securely behind us, Polly and I made our way downstairs and over to the garage to get one of the production company Jeeps. We were just about to climb in when we heard a giant bellow coming from the mansion.

  And then, like a beer-bellied tornado, Manny came stomping out the front door with Prozac in his arms.

  Storming over to us, his face an alarming shade of red, he shouted:

  “This little monster just attacked my triple-decker pastrami sandwich!”

  Indeed, a chunk of pastrami was lodged in her whiskers.

  Prozac preened proudly.

  It was dee-lish.

  Good lord. Another escape from Sauna Central! And we’d just locked her in. How the heck was she doing it?

  “I’m so sorry, Manny,” I said.

  “Take her with you!” he said, shoving her in my arms. “I won’t have this feline garbage disposal roaming around unsupervised while you’re gone.”

  And off he stomped back to the mansion.

  Polly and I got in the Jeep, Prozac purring contentedly in my arms.

  Oh, goodie. A road trip.

  “Do you mind awfully watching her while I’m at the ceremony?” I asked Polly.

  “Not a problem, hon. Any cat who can aggravate Manny is A-OK in my book.”

  Prozac looked up and preened.

  At last! Someone who appreciates my talents!

  “And you won’t mind waiting till the ceremony is over, just to make sure Suma doesn’t impale me with her spear?”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured me. “I’ll be here for you.”

  Which was all very well and good, but I didn’t see how Polly, a gal only slightly bigger than Hope, would be able to quell the mighty wrath of Suma.

  And so I set off for the ceremony with Prozac in my lap, thrilled the murder was solved, and praying that I’d live to tell about it.

  Chapter 31

  When I hustled into Konga’s village that night, I felt like I’d stepped straight into a National Geographic centerfold.

  Native tribesmen in loincloths and spears, their faces painted with red and yellow stripes, stood in a circle around a giant fire pit under glowing tiki torches. Seated among them were Konga’s wives, all of them wearing floral sarongs and sour expressions.

  And roasting in the fire pit was the ugliest fish I’d ever seen. The thing was as big as a satellite dish, with ghastly tentacles splayed out on the grill. And what a stink! I’d been in gas station restrooms that smelled better than that fish.

  Konga sat on what looked like a throne at the far end of the circle, his three hairs and six teeth polished to perfection, a giant tassel loincloth hanging from his gut. He waved at the sight of me, flashing me all six of his teeth. I was just grateful that’s all he flashed.

  Next to Konga stood a large man with what looked like a ginormous hypodermic needle. I figured it was one of those flavor injectors chefs use to shoot marinades into their food.

  I was standing there, trying to spot Tonga in the crowd, when suddenly Suma appeared at my side, clad in a copious muumuu and bristling with annoyance.

  “You’re late,” she hissed.

  “So sorry. A little mishap with my cat.”

  “We don’t have time to talk. You’ve got to change into your outfit.”

  “Change? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “You can’t possibly wear this tonight,” she said, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  Then she hustled me over to a nearby hut, a one-room shack not much bigger than a closet where a hammock, a tiny wooden table, and rickety dinette chair jostled for space. Spread out on the hammock was a white silk version of Suma’s muumuu, trimmed with what looked like animal bones.

  I just hoped no one from PETA was on the guest list.

  “You’ll wear this,” she said, holding it up. “Now quick. Get dressed.”

  I clambered out of my capris and tee and stood there awkwardly as Suma surveyed my body in my panties and bra.

  “Hard work will get rid of thigh flab in no time,” she said.

  Thigh flab? Look who was talking! The woman had enough blubber on her thighs to feed the state of Alaska.

  Gulping back my annoyance, I slipped into my animal-boned muumuu which, I’m happy to report, was too big.

  (The last time I got to say that, I was seven.)

  Then Suma spun me around to inspect me.

  “How’s my hair?” I asked, regretting that I hadn’t bothered to blow it out.

  “Awful, but we’ve got no time to fix it now. No one has ever been late for a Male ‘Ana ceremony before.”

  “What exactly is a Male ‘Ana ceremony?”

  “A wedding.”

  “How nice. Who’s getting married?”

  “You are.”

  Omigod. She had to be kidding.

  “In the Paratitan culture, when the king offers you his tooth necklace, he’s asking you to be his bride.”

  I fingered Konga’s decayed teeth hanging from my neck.

  “When you accepted Konga’s necklace, you gave your consent to marry him.”

  “Hell, no, I didn’t! I had no idea it was an engagement present.”

  “I never dreamed he’d actually go ahead and marry you,” Suma said with a rueful sigh. “He’s always giving away the necklace and then changing his mind and asking for it back. Frankly, he’s what you Americans would call a ‘nutcase.’

  “But,” she added, with a possessive glint in her eye, “he’s my nutcase, and I don’t like sharing. I used all my feminine wiles to talk him out of marrying you, but nothing worked.”

  Feminine wiles?

  With her linebacker shoulders and unmistakable mustache, the only male I saw
her working her wiles on was Sasquatch.

  “I tried to warn you. I sent Tai to the mansion last night to explain everything and tell you not to come tonight.”

  Oh, crud. So that’s what Tai had been trying to tell me on the verandah. If only I’d stuck around to listen!

  “Now it’s too late,” she snapped.

  With that, she picked up a giant broach of brightly colored feathers and pinned it to my bosom.

  “These,” she explained, as she clamped the feathers in place, “are the Paratitan holy matrimonial feathers. They’ve been in our tribe for generations.

  “Hurry!” she said. “You’re about to become Konga’s Wife Number Twelve. And,” she added, with unmistakable malice in her eyes, “I’m about to make your life a living hell.”

  “But honestly,” I protested, “I don’t want to marry Konga.”

  “Well, you’re going to, like it or not. Konga cannot lose face in front of his tribe.”

  With her linebacker grip, she grabbed me by the elbow and yanked me out the door and into the waiting crowd.

  Konga beamed at the sight of me in my wedding gown, the ceremonial wedding feathers plastered on my chest.

  The others chanted to a native drumbeat as I walked around the fire pit toward my future hubby, who waited for me with a leering grin and an unsettling rustle of the tassels on his loincloth.

  I considered making a break for it and running off, but I didn’t have the courage—not with all those guys standing there, brandishing spears.

  I could feel the other wives’ eyes boring into me as I made my way toward Konga. Together with Suma, they would indeed make my life a living hell.

  I cursed the day I set foot on this stupid island.

  By now I’d reached my fiancé. He welcomed me with open (and ever so hairy) arms.

  His gap-toothed grin, along with the smell of the stinkfish grilling on the fire pit, filled me with waves of nausea.

  Konga, apparently acting as both groom and minister, began to yammer:

  “Jaine, my beloved, my most groovy bride-to-be, you are about to enter the blessed state of matrimony, where you will promise to love, honor, and obey me; wash my fish and my feet; cook my meals; and perform your wifely duties in the matrimonial bed.”