Ramirez shook his head. "I need a scorecard here."
"Wait," I told him. "That's not all. Then there's the boyfriend." I filled him in on Xander Newport, his shady arrival time, status as new ex-boyfriend, and now-you-see-it-now-you-don't grief.
When I was done, Ramirez remained quiet for a while, considering. I chewed on my lower lip and waited, knowing the cop in him was at work.
Finally, he said, "I'll go talk with the local police in the morning and see what they have so far. Hopefully an autopsy report will be in by now on the first victim. Maybe there will be something concrete in it linking the two homicides."
"That's a good idea," I agreed. It was energizing to have Ramirez in on the investigation. "I'll try again to talk to Donatella Curcio and see if I can fill in some blanks about why her coach would rat her out."
Ramirez shot me a look.
But this time I stood my ground. "Do you really expect me to sit back and do nothing just because the cavalry has arrived in town?"
He sighed. "I'd kinda hoped."
I grinned and gave him a peck on his stubbled cheek. "I'll be careful. I promise. I'm just going to have a little chat in broad daylight. Scout's honor."
"You were never a girl scout, were you?"
I shrugged. "I could have been."
His eyes narrowed at me, though his smile punctuated a dimple in his left cheek. "You know, part of me thinks I should just put you on the first plane home."
I smiled back. "What does the other part want?"
His eyes went warm and wicked. "The other part wants to make the most of an impromptu Hawaiian vacation." And he pulled me down alongside him, his arm heavy and reassuring around me. The lingering scent of his aftershave was a subtle, musky blend that seemed uniquely him. The blackness of his eyes and the darkness of his stubbled jaw line lent him a sort of dangerous look that was hard to resist.
"I like that part," I told him. "But we've been up here for an hour already."
"Am I on a timer?" he asked, nuzzling my hair. "Because I work well under pressure."
Didn't I know it. "My roommates will be back any second," I said reluctantly.
Ramirez drew back to look me in the eye. "That's a lot of pressure." He pushed himself upright with a groan and ran his hands through his hair. "Fine, I'll go bunk with Marco. Does he have any roommates?"
I laughed. "Not as far as I know."
"Then I'll see you in the morning." He bent over to give me a kiss. "Stay in your room." And another more lingering kiss punctuated with a sigh. "Can't we let your mom and Mrs. R room with Marco?"
"We could," I said, "but none of them would ever be the same again."
*
I slept better than I had in days, thanks in part to Mrs. Rosenblatt's use of her new breathing strips as well as the knowledge that I was no longer muddling through the investigation alone. It pained me to think of it as muddling, but to be honest, I wasn't making much headway. Hopefully Ramirez's participation would change all that.
By the time I woke up at eight the next morning, both Mrs. Rosenblatt and my mother were gone, with no sign of a note left behind. I didn't really mind. I was just happy that they seemed to be having a good time occupying themselves. I didn't dare think about what they were occupying themselves with.
I unplugged my cell phone from its charger and found Ramirez had left me a voicemail. He was also up and out early, on his way to the police department as planned, leaving me on my own for the time being. Since the contestants were busy with the preliminary swimsuit judging all morning, I wasn't scheduled for any fittings until later that afternoon. I decided to splurge and order a room service breakfast which I ate out on the balcony, basking in the morning sun. I could feel the tension of the past few days unwinding, and I knew that my husband was the reason. If I could have had Max and Livvie with me, too, it would have been the perfect setting.
Except, of course, that it wasn't the perfect setting. It was the place where two women had been killed, and others could very well be in danger. I looked out over the ocean, admiring the gradient shades of blue and turquoise while I thought. I still planned to find Don at some point, but it occurred to me that although Don's history with the pageant and Ashton Dempsey was significant, it was Whitney who had benefited the most from the deaths of both Jennifer and Desi. Following each murder, Whitney had been bumped from second place to first. Given her age, this pageant was in all probability Whitney's last, and last pageant meant last chance. Last chance meant desperation.
That seemed like reason enough to put Don temporarily on hold and talk to Whitney instead. I dressed quickly, pulled my hair into a French braid, and headed for her room. Hopefully I could catch her there, before she began her pageant activities for the day.
Maxine opened the door to my knock, but it was a different Maxine than the polished beauty queen who'd been unable to keycard herself into her room the night before. This morning, she was wearing no makeup to conceal the dark shadows under her eyes. Her hair was pulled back into a scruffy ponytail. She was dressed in a pink cami and green shorts pajama set, with her feet stuffed into fuzzy white slippers. A hot pink bikini top dangled from her fingers, like I'd caught her about to dress for today's competition. Her eyes darted up and down the hallway before she pulled me into the room, sliding the deadbolt in place the second the door closed behind me.
"Are you alright?" I asked her, concerned.
"I didn't sleep a wink last night," she told me, although I'd already guessed that by her shadowed eyes. "I wanted to prop a chair against the door, but Whitney said to stop being ridiculous. Do you think it's ridiculous?"
I didn't think it was ridiculous at all. In fact, I might have done just that if I'd been a contestant. But I didn't want to add to her anxiety by admitting I thought that was a good idea. I also didn't want to lie to her by telling her she had nothing to worry about. So I said, "I don't think it's ridiculous to do whatever makes you feel safer." I glanced toward the bathroom. There was no sign of Whitney, and the door stood open.
"I don't know what happened." She sank down onto the bed. "I thought I was handling all of this okay. I mean, last night I came up here by myself and everything, right? But then all of a sudden, it just hit me, someone's killing off the contestants who do well in the pageant, and any of us could be next!" She looked up at me with horror in her eyes. "I could be next!"
I didn't have the heart to tell her she didn't have much to worry about in that department. I sat down beside her. "I think you're doing all that you can do. You're making sure your door is locked. You're not taking unnecessary chances. Just try not to be alone if that makes you uneasy." I glanced out the sliding doors. No Whitney on the balcony. "Whitney's at the auditorium already?"
Maxine shrugged. "Whitney was gone when I woke up. I didn't even hear her leave."
"I'm surprised to hear that," I said, "after she was out late last night."
"Oh, she always obeys curfew," Maxine said quickly. "She's really good about that."
"Does she go out at night a lot?" I asked, wondering how far I could push this before Maxine caught wind of my intent.
"Some. Not always with me, of course. She likes to go dancing." Another tiny shrug. "I'm not really a good dancer."
No revelation there. "Who does she go dancing with?"
"I don't really know," she said. "The other girls, maybe. I'm just her roomie. It's not like she tells me everything. I mean, considering we hardly know each other, that'd be kinda weird, don't you think?"
Weird, but helpful. I tried another tack. "How about two nights ago? Did she go out then?"
"Two nights ago?" Maxine rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, thinking. "No," she said, dragging the word out, "I don't think so."
I wasn't convinced. "How can you be sure?"
With one finger, she traced the faint paisley pattern on her shorts. "Well, I was sleeping, and I'm sure that Whitney was too."
I looked at her, not quite sure what to do with that.
"You're sure she was sleeping?" I repeated.
Maxine seemed surprised. "Well, sure. What with the curfew and all."
Right. I stood, turning toward the door. "Just be careful, okay?" I gave her a quick smile before I left, wishing I could have a do-over on the last ten minutes. Maxine's naïveté was charming on one level and dangerous on another. To her. Maybe her high level of anxiety was her best protection.
My cell phone alerted me to a text message as I was leaving Maxine's room. I took a look at the screen. Como mark zoom sap.
I paused and narrowed my eyes at it, hoping it would morph into something that made sense. No such luck. But I was pretty sure who had sent it. I dialed Mom's number.
"Good morning, dear! Did you sleep well?"
"Very well," I said.
"She slept very well," Mom repeated to someone.
I heard Mrs. Rosenblatt bellow in the background, "It's the breathing strips!"
I grimaced. "You and Mrs. Rosenblatt were out early today."
"Yes, we…uh…" I heard a fumbling sound as if she was covering her cell phone with her hand, and then I heard her yell, "I think she knows!" There was a voice in the background, and Mom yelled, "She knows!"
"What do I know, Mom?" I asked patiently.
"Sorry, what? Oh, I wasn't referring…hold on, dear." More fumbling and a sharp "No, I will not do that!" and she came back. "Did you get my text? Come to Marco's room ASAP?"
Como mark zoom sap meant come to Marco's room ASAP? I shook my head, thinking she really had to take advantage of her opposable thumbs and retire the voice-to-text feature on her phone. It wasn't doing her any favors.
"Are you busy, dear? Can you come over right away?"
I could, but I wasn't sure I wanted to. If the three of them had put their heads together, it couldn't be good. Plus, I now realized where all the shopping bags had gone. "I'm sort of busy," I told her. I planned to track down Don before Ramirez got back from the police station. And maybe I could find Whitney somewhere downstairs.
"Of course. I understand," Mom said, in a long-suffering tone that told me she didn't understand at all. "If you're too busy to spare a few minutes for your mother—"
I rolled my eyes. "I'll be right there." I didn't have the strength to carry that kind of guilt around all day.
It only took a few minutes before I was knocking on Marco's door. There was a pungent odor seeping out of his room that made my nose wrinkle. I heard rustling sounds, and then the door opened, and Marco pulled me inside. The heavy drapes were tightly closed, leaving the room in near darkness, but the flickering light from dozens of burning candles planted on every surface was bright enough to see that they were all wearing some sort of native getup that included grass skirts and bare feet. Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt wore theirs over their street clothes, but Marco had gone the extra mile, painting indecipherable figures on his chest and stomach in something that looked like blue Sidewalk Chalk. He also had a strange feathered headdress and wore a corded necklace that might or might not have featured a chicken bone as a pendant. He'd amped up the eyeliner to complete the effect. I stifled a laugh.
He motioned with one arm. "Come in, come in. We've been waiting for you."
I thought maybe I'd heard that line in a few horror movies, right before things started going south for the heroine. I could feel my eyes widen as they adjusted to the dimness, and I was able to see that the furniture had been pushed aside and an army of small black tiki idols arranged in a circular pattern on the floor, their jeweled eyes gleaming in the candlelight.
Oh boy.
I took shallow breaths but I couldn't keep the acrid scent out of my nostrils. My eyes were watering. On the plus side, my sinuses were completely clear. "What's going on here? What's that smell?"
"It's incense," Mom said cheerfully. "Welcome to your juju cleansing, dear!"
Mrs. Rosenblatt stepped forward, the rustle of her plus-sized grass skirt sounding like a hurricane blowing through the palm trees. "Here. Hold this." She thrust something into my hand.
I glanced down to see a tiny alligator head and immediately dropped it on the carpet. That's what they'd gone shopping for? No wonder they hadn't wanted me rooting through the bags. Eww! I wanted no part of this. Plus I was about thirty seconds from passing out from the stench.
"You shouldn't have done that," Mrs. Rosenblatt said sternly. "That's for protection."
"Don't worry, dear, it's not real," Mom added. "We couldn't find a real alligator head. So we bought a toy alligator and lopped him in two. But you can hold this instead." She handed me a little cloth bag tied with ribbon. Judging from its earthy scent, there were some kinds of potent herbs inside. "It's a mojo bag," she explained. "You keep it with you at all times."
I tried to give it back. "I really don't—"
"No, no, you mustn't let anyone else touch it!" She scurried backward, out of my reach and grazed a tiki idol with her foot. It rocked and fell over, its faux emerald eyes glittering up at us in accusation.
"That could be a problem," Mrs. Rosenblatt said, looking at it.
"No problem," Marco said. He seemed unusually happy. Maybe he'd inhaled too much incense. "I'll just stand the little guy back—ow!"
"Told you," Mrs. Rosenblatt said.
"The chicken bone jabbed me in the throat," Marco said, rubbing just above his collarbone.
I rolled my eyes.
"Shall we begin?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked. "Betty, do you have the pre-sacrificed chicken ready?"
My mouth fell open. "The what?"
"Well, we weren't going to sacrifice one ourselves," Mrs. Rosenblatt said with great patience. "That would be strange."
Oh, that would be strange.
Mom turned her back, and I heard the crinkling of a plastic bag. When she turned around, she was holding a roasted Cornish game hen. "It's the best I could do," she said apologetically. "I got it at the supermarket. I couldn't find a Boston Market."
"It'll have to do," Mrs. Rosenblatt said in an aggrieved tone. "Set it in place."
Mom stepped carefully among the tikis on the floor, giving the emerald-eyed one a baleful look and a wide berth, and set the Cornish game hen in the center.
"Now we all join hands," Mrs. Rosenblatt instructed.
"What, with all this Cornish hen grease on me?" Mom shook her head. "I'd better go wash up. You never know when salmonella may become a problem. Does anyone have any sanitizer that I can—?"
"Go use the bathroom soap, Betty," Mrs. Rosenblatt said wearily.
Mom hurried off into the bathroom. We stood and listened to the water running and the slippery squishing sounds of hand washing and Mom humming Black Magic Woman, and then she was back, salmonella-free.
"Now we all join hands," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "And all means all."
"Let me, let me," Mom implored her. She sounded like an excited six-year-old at Christmas. I didn't have the heart to dampen her enthusiasm, so I clasped hands with Marco on my left and Mom on my right.
"Do you remember the words?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked her.
"Of course I remember the words," Mom said. "This isn't rocket science, Dorothy." She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Marco and Mrs. Rosenblatt closed their eyes, too. I didn't dare close my eyes on this bunch.
Then Mom began chanting, too low at first to be understood, then louder and louder. "Laissez les bons temps rouler! Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
Mrs. Rosenblatt's eyes snapped open. "Betty."
"Laissez les—"
"Betty!"
My mom's eyes flew open. "What? Did it work?"
Mrs. Rosenblatt shook her head. "You got the words wrong! You said you remembered the words!"
My mom blinked. "What'd I say?"
"You said, 'Let the good times roll,'" Mrs. Rosenblatt told her.
"Oh, dahlings, I'm all about that," Marco said with a delighted smile. "I think she got the words just right. Ow!" He whipped his head around to look behind him. "My grass skirt just pinched me in m
y—"
"Okay," I said, dropping both hands and backing out of the circle of craziness. Tears were running down my cheeks from the incense. Or maybe suppressed laughter. "I'll leave you all to figure this out, and I'll be back later, alright? I just want to take care of something first." And I turned and bolted.
The last thing I heard as the door slammed shut behind me was, "Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"What is that smell?" Ramirez asked a couple of hours later. We were at the Lost Aloha Shack, grabbing a quick bite to eat. Ramirez had a burger with the works while I'd gone with a simple tropical fruit salad. Truth was, I couldn't taste my food anyway. The odor of incense and candles was still clinging to the inside of my nose and, apparently, the outside of my body. We had a ring of empty tables around us, but probably that was just coincidence.
I opted for the casual approach in my answer. "It's incense. From the juju cleansing."
Ramirez froze mid-bite. "Come again?"
I popped a piece of papaya into my mouth. Nope, no taste. "Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt thought my juju needed a good cleansing, and they convinced Marco to help. Although I doubt it took much convincing. He seemed pretty happy about the whole thing." I still hadn't figured out where he'd gotten the feathered headdress and the chicken bone necklace.
"Your juju," Ramirez repeated.
"Yeah, it's a whole thing." I shrugged. "Something to do with pre-sacrificed chickens and alligator—"
Ramirez held up his hand. "Stop right there. If I hear any more, I might have to arrest someone."
"Suit yourself." I tried a juicy piece of mango. Tasted like a lot of nothing. I sure hoped that was a short-term side effect. "Speaking of arresting someone, did you find out anything useful this morning?"
Surfer Dirk threaded his way among the tables in our direction, balancing a serving tray at shoulder level and moving in time to music that only he could hear. "Hey, chica, what's going on? The pageant dudes must be keeping you busy. Haven't seen you here lately." He lowered the tray and leaned in toward me. "I heard about Miss New Mexico. Major bummer, huh?"
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