Marry, Kiss, Kill

by Anne Flett-Giordano

  “I don’t mind, Larry,” Haven cooed. “I appreciate Detective Angellotti coming all the way out to see me.” She moistened her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.

  Her performance was so over the top, Tony couldn’t believe Larry was falling for it. Nola’s right, men are idiots, he thought as he answered Larry’s question. “I could have called, Mr. Wilson, but I thought I might have better luck sparking Mrs. Gillette’s memory in person.”

  “I wish I could be more help,” Haven said, shifting again on the sofa. “The only person I ever heard threaten Gus was that dried-up grizzle-chicken he was married to before me. She was always threatening to put his balls in a bagel slicer, cut off his dick, and feed it to her Asian fish . . . blah blah blah. Stupid cow.”

  “Her name’s Susan, Detective,” Larry interjected. “Maybe you’d have better luck driving out to Montecito and trying to spark something with her.” The inference couldn’t have been plainer if Larry had written it in his own musk.

  “If you do decide to see Susan, I should warn you, she bites,” Haven said, rolling up her sleeve to reveal one perfect, sun-kissed arm with two small scars the size of teeth marks.

  “She actually bit you?” Tony asked.

  “At a charity gala for the Global Hunger Project. There were dozens of witnesses.”

  Before Tony could ask for more details, there was an urgent banging on the French doors. A spooked gardener was standing outside the glass.

  “What is it, Rigoberto? What’s wrong?” Haven asked.

  “The pool!”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s el fuego! On fire!”

  Tony ran with Rigoberto to a cliff overlooking the ocean. Gus and Haven’s infinity pool hung right on the edge. Just as Rigoberto had reported, the pool was lit up. A thin film of flammable liquid had been sprayed over the water and set ablaze. Haven and Larry arrived while Tony was calling the fire department. They gaped in horror at the firefall spilling into infinity over the cliff. Rigoberto handed Haven a note he’d found stuffed under a hurricane lamp, and she read it aloud: “Life’s a bitch and then you will die, Bitch. ROTC70.”

  The skin under her spray tan turned two shades whiter than Larry’s professionally bleached teeth. It was the kind of moment that called for a music sting. Or at least for Larry to make some appropriately heroic speech to calm Haven’s fears. But without his writers, he appeared to be lost. Babbling a bland promise to “always be there for her,” he hopped in his Aston Martin and got the hell out of Dodge.

  Walking back to the house, Haven held Tony’s hand. No more tricks, no more guile. She was genuinely scared.

  Thirty-One

  The bartender at Long Boards sized Nola up in less time than was flattering.

  “Glass of white wine?”

  “Sex on the Beach with a foofoo umbrella, cayenne on the rim, and two cherries,” she said pertly.

  “Sorry, I had you all wrong.”

  “No, just playing. Foxen chardonnay. You were right on the money.”

  Long Boards was a popular bipolar eatery out on the wharf. Downstairs was an elegant restaurant, but behind the hostess stand, a set of marine-themed mosaic steps led up to a surf bar with an open-air deck, barrels full of peanuts, and sawdust on the floor. The food was great, and the drinks were better.

  The sun was getting low, and the last sailboats and kayaks were making their way back to the marina. The aquarium across the pier was closing its doors, meaning if Jillian had called it correctly, Ken should be dragging in any time now.

  Nola put her phone back to her ear, so Tony could finish filling her in on the latest doings chez Gillette.

  “Sorry, just had to order,” she said into the phone.

  “I heard. Should you be doing white wine on duty?”

  “It’s okay, I don’t inhale. So, where are you now?”

  “Still poolside with the fire department and the forensics monkeys.”

  “Pool fire. That’s one you don’t hear every day. Is Wilson still there?”

  “Nah, first hint of trouble he vanished like a magician’s quarter. But I gotta say, his sex-stained presence is making me start to wonder again if maybe you were right.”

  “Go on,” she coaxed, oozing mock self-satisfaction.

  “Maybe Haven murdered Gus and staged the suicide so she could go with the hotter, richer guy.”

  “She could have accomplished that with a divorce.” Nola reached for a bowl of peanuts on the bar. “Slip into this and take a twirl around the dressing room: I think Wilson bribed Gus to support his real estate deal, and Haven murdered him to keep the money for herself.”

  “Wilson’s rich. She marries him, she’s got all the money she wants,” Tony countered.

  “Maybe Wilson’s not the marrying kind,” she postulated. “Or maybe he’s already married. Whatever’s going on, you gotta figure a girl like Haven’s going to make sure she has something other than her perfect, heart-shaped ass to fall back on.” The amused bartender grinned as he placed her chardonnay on the bar in front of her. “Just office talk,” she whispered with a wink, before turning her attention back to Tony on the phone.

  “But why would a dying man need to take a bribe?” Tony asked. “Gus wasn’t taking meds or looking for a miracle cure. In a couple weeks it was going to be ‘Hasta la vista, baby.’ ”

  Tony was right. Nola’s Jiffy Pop brain hit the stove again. A thousand thought-explosions went off in her head. If Gus didn’t take the bribe, maybe he didn’t write the speech. Maybe Haven did. Wait! Back up the motive truck. Haven told Sebastian she didn’t know the password to Gus’s laptop. Wouldn’t she want him to find the speech if she’d written it? Unless . . . oh, crap, it was so obvious. Haven had played them. Give a man a fish, and he might get suspicious. Let him fish for himself. . .

  “Christ, Tony, we as good as authenticated it for her!” Nola cried into the phone.

  “What?” he replied, confused. “How many glasses of wine have you had?”

  “I’m not drinking, I’m thinking. Sorry, sometimes I forget I’m not doing it out loud . . . Gus’s speech wasn’t written by Gus. Here’s what I think happened. . . ”

  When she finished explaining her thought process, he had only one question.

  “If Haven took Wilson’s bribe to rewrite Gus’s speech, how come there’s no trace of communication between them? He didn’t come up on her cell records or the landline, and no burner turned up when our crime-scene guys searched the house.”

  “It was two a.m., and our guys were convinced it was a suicide. How hard do you think they looked?” Nola said, cracking open a peanut, her first meal since breakfast.

  “Fair play,” Tony conceded. “Plus, the sight of those kittens in that see-through nightie was more than a little distracting.”

  Nola paused with the peanut halfway to her mouth. “Uck, Tony. Her boobs were covered in blood.”

  “Were they? I barely remember that part,” he said, laughing.

  “Amazing,” she said. “Someday, I’m going to invent a silicone-implant sponge with a nipple on the tip. You know how much women would pay to see a man clean a bathroom?”

  “Are we done with this conversation?” Tony asked. “The firemen just put out the pool, and I need to ask the arson investigator about our flammable material.”

  Nola popped the peanut in her mouth. “Yeah. Just don’t leave without confiscating Gus’s laptop. We need Sebastian to go through it again.”

  “You got a legal precedent handy? I left mine in my other jeans.”

  “Oh, right. I don’t know. Tell Haven we’re looking for more hate mail from the kids who left her the death threat.”

  “Better tell a judge first. If we spook her, she might ‘accidentally’ destroy the hard drive while we’re waiting on a warrant. We can pick it up tomorrow when the house is empty.”

  “She’s leaving?”

  “Yeah. Personally, I think the R to the C brats blew their wad setting fire to the cem
ent pond, but she’s scared to death. She’s checking into the Biltmore tonight.”

  “I thought she was broke,” Nola said, cracking open another peanut. “Boy, those kittens are like bouncy ATM machines.”

  “Yep. Wilson makes the deposits, and she makes the withdrawals.”

  Before Nola could respond, she spotted a sallow, expressionless Ken Levine coming up the colorful tile steps. “I gotta go too. Levine just walked in looking like the weight somebody else lost.”

  “Poor guy’s had a rough day. Go get him, killer.”

  Nola slipped her phone into her purse and carried her chardonnay to the far end of the bar, where Ken was dumping his satchel full of aquarium notes on the sawdust floor.

  “Hi. Nola MacIntire. Buy you a drink?”

  Ken’s tired eyes gave her the once-over.

  “Thanks, but my girlfriend’s meeting me here.”

  “Not an issue,” Nola said, flashing her badge. “I’m not a cougar, I’m a cop. I need to know where you got the information for the article you wrote today.”

  Ken scowled down at his satchel full of aquarium notes. “Why? Did a sea urchin knife a tourist?”

  “Yeah, luckily we’ve got a starfish witness. Are we done playing now? ‘Cause we both know the story I mean.”

  “Sorry, I don’t give up names.”

  “Well, maybe we should talk about that.”

  “Or you could just blow me.”

  “In a tub of champagne?”

  “What?”

  “Look, don’t give me that ‘good reporters don’t give up their sources’ bullshit, because I’m not talking to a good reporter, I’m talking to you. Your pals aren’t just playing Robin Hood anymore; they’re starting to pile up felonies. If you cooperate with me now, you’ll be saving yourself a whole lot of grief in the future.”

  “Yeah, I’ve still got nothing to say to you, and my girlfriend just walked in, so either arrest me for contempt of cop or get bent.”

  Curious, Nola turned to see what combination of alluring feminine attributes had stolen Ken from Nancy. The sultry brunette ascending the mosaic steps had lanky arms with thin wrists and Ana Khouri gold cuffs that spoke volumes.

  Hello, Wonder Woman, Nola thought, as she stared into the face of the girl who had murdered her blouse. It was a sophisticated face: narrow and elegant, with straight hair brushed back from the forehead and dark brown eyes that were looking a little surprised at the moment.

  Thirty-Two

  Monica instantly recognized the cop she’d Super Soaked at the commission meeting, but it was too late to turn back. The tall blonde was standing at the bar with Ken, and they were both staring straight at her. There was nothing to do but continue walking over like everything was copacetic. Maybe it was. Ken had no idea she’d played Wonder Woman that morning, and all the cop had seen was a costumed girl in a mask. Momentary flash of fear abated, Monica assumed a breezy air of detachment as she walked to the bar to join them.

  “Hey, Ken,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning her attention to the cop. “Hi. Monica Crawford. Am I interrupting something?”

  “Actually, I was just leaving.” Nola slipped a ten under her full glass of wine and walked out.

  “Who was that?” Monica asked casually.

  “Police,” Ken said. “She wanted my source for the story that blew up in my fucking face this morning.”

  “Yeah, sorry, that was très brutal.”

  “Monica, you gotta tell me who gave you that flash drive.”

  “Ken, we agreed I’d let you write the story, but I wouldn’t tell you where I got the information.”

  “I agreed because you told me it was a hundred-percent reliable. Now that I’ve been royally fucked, the least you can do is tell me the name of the jerk who bent me over.”

  “Look, we all thought the information was solid. I have to show some loyalty.”

  “Jesus, you’re my girlfriend. How ’bout showing some loyalty to me?”

  “You know, you’ve got to stop calling me your girlfriend. I’m really not.”

  “What? What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “We just had a little fun. That’s all.”

  Ken’s face was turning the color of the giant lobster he’d just left at the aquarium. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’ve decided not to fuck you anymore. Pass me her glass. No use letting good wine go to waste.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” he said, loudly enough to draw a warning look from the bartender.

  “It’s nothing personal.” She tossed the words off lightly. “I just met someone else.”

  “You met someone? What the hell are you talking about?! My career’s turned to shit because of you, now you hit me with this! Jesus, who is this guy? Have you fucked him already?”

  “Well, obviously,” Monica said.

  “Fuck, fuck, lying bitch, fucking cunt!”

  “Right back at ya. Let’s not forget you were hooking up with me weeks before you dumped your crybaby girlfriend. We’re both a couple of twats — get over it, hypocrite.”

  “At least I felt a little bad about it. You just announce it like some Resident Evil avatar.”

  “Yeah, it’s a classic case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Monica shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s something my shrink is always saying to me.”

  “Yeah? Okay. Fine.” Ken glared at her with smoldering contempt before playing the only revenge card he had left. “I guess now I can go ahead and tell the police that it was you who brought me the story.”

  “Go ahead.” She laughed. “I’ll just say you’re lying to try and save your career and get back at me for breaking up with you.”

  Ken kicked his satchel, and his notes went flying. “Fuck!”

  The bartender held up two fingers, meaning “three and you’re out on your ass.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” Monica said, sipping Nola’s wine. “You really should be thanking me. Who do you think talked my mom out of firing you?”

  Thirty-Three

  Haven couldn’t wrap her mind around it. A death threat, just when things were going so well. Gus was dead, and no one could prove she’d murdered him. She had a sexy new married man in her life, and she’d secured a pristine beach for developers who were cutting her in on the profits.

  It was so unfair. What have I done to deserve this? she thought as she lay on the Armani chaise in the solarium, waiting for her Xanax to kick in. It was taking forever, and she really needed to pack.

  After Larry did his scared-rabbit run, she’d called him in his car and shamed him into paying for her to have an open-ended stay at the Biltmore Hotel. She’d be a prisoner at the fashionable resort until the cops arrested the lunatics who were threatening her life. She thought of her favorite movie heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, trapped at Tara, forced to pick cotton and make dresses out of drapes. Now she’d be trapped too. Holed up in a private bungalow, forced to live on room service and pay-per-view. There were tennis courts and a state-of-the-art spa, but what about her spinning classes? Oh well, she’d think about that tomorrow.

  Tomorrow . . . First thing in the morning she’d have her sister’s husband wire Larry’s hundred-thousand-dollar check to the Caymans. For now, it was up in her bedroom, safely tucked into her latest copy of Vogue. A hundred thousand. It was all she’d have to live on till the development started paying dividends. It wasn’t nearly enough. As the Xanax started to take hold, she remembered how Scarlett had squeezed every penny out of the tattered remains of Tara. The banks had paperwork for all the art, the jewelry, and most of the furniture at the estate, but there were plenty of small things she might be able to slip out and sell. As long as the cops and the fire department were still fanned out over the grounds searching for clues, she was safe enough inside to turn the whole house upside down. With the steely determination of her
favorite movie heroine, she rolled up her eleven-hundred-dollar Michael Kors peasant sleeves and went to work.

  She struck pay dirt in the library, where Gus had an extensive collection of signed first editions. If she used Larry’s money and her sister’s name to buy unsigned firsts, she could trace the signatures inside and the banks would never know the difference. Later, she could sell the originals at a tidy profit. Death threats aside, things were looking up. Another bit of good news was finding a signed copy of Gone with the Wind. Her favorite movie had started as a book. Who knew?

  She was gathering up a first batch of books when she realized that in her excitement over her plan, she’d lost track of time. The pink and orange sunset over the ocean was melting into pools of dark, and the cops and firemen were packing up to leave. Afraid to spend one moment alone in the house once they’d gone, she hurried upstairs to pack.

  Patrol car doors were closing outside as she squeezed her favorite Giambattista Valli cocktail dress into her already overstuffed Louis Vuitton garment bag and made a run for her Mercedes SL. Lights, discreetly hidden in the boxed hedges, cast an eerie green glow along the driveway as she followed the parade of police vehicles off the estate. Outside the gates, she sped ahead of the procession, anxious to reach the Biltmore, unaware that in her haste to pack she’d left behind one very important item.

  The sound of metal on metal clanged in the darkness as the line of police cars disappeared down the road, and the big iron gates of the estate swung shut.

  Alone under a stand of eucalyptus trees, a shadowy figure crouched, listening, waiting to make sure the house was really empty and no one would be coming back. Emerging from the trees, Angry Susan approached the code box on the gate. 40-23-40 — Gus hadn’t even bothered to change the combination. Jessica Rabbit’s body stats still worked. The metal gates creaked and started to swing open again. Susan was in.