Pampered to Death

by Diana Orgain

  I laughed to see Paula scoop the little man up into her arms just in time to save Whiskers from being caught in by him. I’ll admit maybe adopting a kitten with all these little ones around was probably not the best idea, but Whiskers was just too much of an adorable furry baby for me to resist. Plus, Laurie was going to get to grow up with the cat, and that was appealing to me.

  I instinctively touched my stomach.

  Oh! Two babies and a kitten? What had I gotten myself into!

  I quickly removed my hand before Paula could see me doing the baby bump touch minus the baby bump. I hadn’t told Jim yet, so I wasn’t about to let Paula figure it out first.

  “Kitty, kitty!” Danny exclaimed as he pointed at the frightened little ball of fur darting under the couch.

  “Sorry,” Paula said. “I made the mistake of letting him pet her once, and now he can’t keep his hands off her.”

  “No big deal; she’s used to it,” I said. “Laurie pulls on her all the time. I’m tell her to be gentle, but she doesn’t understand.

  “Probably not,” Paula said, laughing. “How did your little errand go?”

  “I think I might have a new lead on the case,” I said proudly. I filled her in quickly on my new thought. “Do you know who the name of owner of the nail salon?”

  “No, but I can ask Sean,” Paula said.

  “Please! And let me know as soon as you have it. Otherwise, I’ll try and find it on my own.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “You all want to stay for dinner?” I asked. “I have a lasagna I’m going to pop in the oven.”

  “I’m going to take a rain check,” Paula said. “Going to get home to David. He’s picking up pizza.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  I helped Paula load her little ones up into the car before we said our goodbyes. I headed inside and popped the lasagna in the oven and played with Laurie in the floor for a bit. Jim would be home soon which was good because my house was starting to smell like Italy, and it was making me hungry.

  I realized then I should probably up my calorie intake a bit; between nursing one baby and being pregnant with another, I hadn’t realized how hungry I would get!

  Before Jim got home, I pulled out a pencil and paper to wrote up my to-do list for the following day.

  To Do:

  Call County Records for Nail Salon Owner’s Name

  Make appointment with Dr. Greene

  Clean out the litter box

  Call Kenny about babysitting this week

  Come up with killer way to tell Jim the good news!

  Chapter Eighteen

  The following day I awoke ready to take on the world and to attempt to pull the final pieces together to solve Kelly’s case, but Laurie was not having any of that nonsense.

  I woke up somewhat lazily, knowing I had the whole day ahead of me. Jim had left early to finalized a contract with a new client he’d been courting.

  They say hindsight is twenty -twenty, and looking back had I known what type of mood Laurie was going to be in I would have used those early hours to get some work done instead of slowly moving out of bed and taking time to make myself some coffee.

  Laurie woke up in a bad mood, but as the morning went on she became irritable. Turns out she had a pretty bad diaper rash that had gone unchecked, so I did the new mommy thing and panicked and called the pediatrician.

  The doctor told me to put diaper cream on her and to see how it was looking come that evening, and if all wasn’t clearing up to my liking we’d set up an appointment for her the next day.

  Well, my little angel was not so much of an angel that day.

  I felt like every time I put her down she would start screaming. She wouldn’t go down for any of her usual napping time, and even when she did she fussed and wiggled or would only go down for a few minutes. Not enough for me to do any actual research or make any phone calls regarding Kelly’s case.

  The true challenge of working from home came crashing down on me that day as I realized that there was just going to be some days where work came second.

  Even if that work was as important as solving a murder.

  I finally got her down for a late nap – one that lasted – and the most I managed to dig up was that a man named Hyo Kyu owned the salon according to the county records, but when I typed his name into some basic research engines I found an abundance of information on a bunch of men I was pretty sure was not who I was looking for.

  Hyo was a popular Asian name as was Kyu for a surname, so I was having a hard time properly identifying my nail salon owner. Plus, the women at the salon had told me a woman owned the nail salon, so I was getting conflicting information.

  Exhausted after spending the majority of the day wrestling with my cranky little girl, I took a nap.

  I had to. I really was getting to that point in Laurie’s life where I didn’t feel the need to do the whole “Sleep when baby sleeps” thing, but that day I needed it. I conked out for three hours.

  Three hours! I felt like I had wasted my entire day away sleeping.

  I’d done virtually nothing for the case, and you could forget about household chores. That went right out the window. And, I only woke up because Laurie had started crying.

  I scurried to her room, and she thankfully started to calm down after I picked her up. It was at this point that I did manage to somehow call Kenny to ask if him could watching Laurie this week. I’m surprised he agreed to do it with Laurie hollering at me in the background.

  By the time Jim got home, Laurie had caught a new wind of unadulterated fury. And, I couldn’t get her to settled down.

  Jim came home to the house in a mess, the kitty litter stinking up the hallway, and a screaming child. He could sense my frustration and sense of panic because he didn’t waste any time throwing down his workload to take the crying baby from me.

  I think I would have actually been okay to pass off a screaming child and to go soak in the bathtub for a little bit, but then Laurie just stopped.

  Stopped crying. Stopped fussing. Stopped being Ms. Grouchy all together.

  In fact, her little face lit up when Jim took her and she cooed.

  What!

  It was probably the pregnancy hormones because rather than thinking it was cute that her daddy brightened her day, I lost my head.

  I started crying. And, yes, it was an ugly cry.

  It was a stressed out, hormonal, pregnant lady who’s food craving was going unsatisfied kind of cry. I plopped down on the couch in the living room as Jim attempted to collect himself from the surprise my outburst brought on.

  And then I declared loudly, “She loves you more than me now!”

  Looking back, I realize how ridiculous this was.

  It was like the time I was pregnant with Laurie and I’d really been craving deviled eggs. I’d wanted them so bad, and you know they take forever to make. I had boiled the eggs and mixed the boiled yoke with the mayonnaise and other special ingredients – but I had gotten impatient and hadn’t boiled them long enough, so the yoke didn’t cook properly. I’d popped the undercooked egg yolks in the microwave to try to salvage them, but they tasted disgusting.

  I’d cried for close to an hour over those ruined eggs, and I was close to that level of unsolicited hysteria as I sat there on the couch crying about Laurie smiling at her father.

  “Oh man, babe, what’s wrong?” Jim practically squealed as he sat down beside me with a now giggly baby in his lap. “Bad day?” he asked.

  He wasn’t used to be acting this way; I mean, he had gotten a few spouts of it during my first pregnancy, but at that point he had known I was pregnant and had been able to write it off as pregnancy hormones. This time I must have just seemed crazy to him.

  “She loves you more than me!” I whaled again as though my comment had any merit at all.

  Jim smiled at me with this sympathetic glare. “Kate, think about all the times she’s done that to me. She always wants her mommy, and you k
now that. She was just happy to see me. That’s okay, right?”

  I stood up and just stormed out.

  He was being sweet, but apparently, I didn’t want to deal with sweet Jim. I want to wallow in my hormone stew.

  As I stormed out, I shouted back at him that I didn’t think he was being funny. That I was so mad at him.

  “Mad at me?” he called back, his voice raised slightly this time.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see him put Laurie down on her little play mat and hand her a toy before he started to follow me.

  “What, you’re just going to leave her in the floor now?” I questioned as I rounded the hall to head to our bedroom. I was literally throwing a tantrum.

  “She obviously wants to spend time with you, and you’re just going to leave her in the living room?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” he snapped, this time he certainly was not holding back his frustration. “I just walked in the door, and you start yelling at me? You should be thankful I got Laurie calmed down – you were obviously overwhelmed!”

  Okay, that one really ticked me off.

  I slammed the bedroom door behind me and locked it.

  Yeah, really mature, I know.

  “Overwhelmed!” I shouted from behind the door. “What, now you think I can’t handle our baby?”

  “What? I never said that!” he called after me and then tried to open the door. Upon discovering that I had locked him out of our bedroom, he became just as loud and angry as me. “Are you kidding me? How old are you! Let me in!”

  “No!”

  “Oh my God, are you serious?” Jim asked. “You’re really this mad because our daughter was happy to see me? What, are you feeling some sort of inadequacy or something? Why not talk to me about it instead of acting like all irrational? You’re acting stupid!”

  Jim never resorted to insults, but I had obviously pushed his buttons. I kicked the door in frustration. “Of course, I’m being irrational! I’m pregnant!”

  Come up with killer way to tell Jim the good news!

  Not what I had in mind.

  He was quiet for a moment, and I wonder if he was still fuming.

  Nope.

  He started laughing.

  A part of that just made me angrier. He was laughing at me!

  He spoke in a calm tone now. “Baby, open the door, please,” he said.

  I slowly creaked the door open. My face was wet and splotchy, and I felt like an idiot. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”

  He came hurdling in through the doorway, and wrapped his arms around me. “Are you really pregnant, or are you just being mean?” he asked.

  I punched his arm. “I’m pregnant,” I said and then blushed. “The doctor at the hospital told me, and I wanted to tell you in a special way... ugh! I’m such an idiot!”

  “No, you’re not,” he said and kissed my forehead. “We all have rough days, Kate. I love you so much. You’re such a great mom to Laurie. I wish you had told me sooner.” He ran his fingers across my stomach and smiled. “Baby number two! Wow!”

  I kissed him, and the two of us hurried back to the living room where Laurie was still playing the floor. She was in a better mood, gripping the little rattle Jim had given her before chasing after me.

  We both wound up sitting on the floor by her, smiling.

  “You’re going to be a big sister, Laurie,” I sang to her, and Jim’s face glowed.

  “You know, we should really consider hiring a nanny or something,” Jim said. “Two kids and a PI business is a lot to handle. Plus, you leave the house a lot to interview suspects. You definitely aren’t going to want to drag two babies every time you leave the house.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “It’s already rough enough with just Laurie.”

  “So how is the case going? Find anything for Kelly’s case?” he asked as he played a gentle game of tug-a-war with Laurie and the rattle, making her giggle slightly.

  “It’s going, I suppose,” I said and sighed. “I found the name of the owner of the nail salon, but I’m getting some mixed signals. The owner according to county records is some man, but the employees said something about a woman owner.”

  “Maybe the man’s wife?” Jim suggested.

  “Makes sense. I just have to find out more about this mystery owner,” I said. I kissed Jim before I rose from the floor to pull start dinner, a silent way of thanking him for putting up with my craziness that evening. While dinner was cooking in the oven, I revaluated my list of to-do’s.

  To Do:

  Call County Records for Nail Salon Owner’s Name

  Make appointment with Dr. Greene

  Clean out the litter box

  Call Kenny about babysitting this week

  Come up with killer way to tell Jim the good news -U. R. stupid

  Get in contact with nail salon owner

  Solve this murder

  Start shopping for nannies

  Chapter Ninetten

  The next morning, I awoke to four missed calls from Jane North.

  I cringed.

  She’s probably getting impatient with me.

  I dialing her, and it turned out I was wrong. She had information; information she wanted to share with me first before she turned it over to the McNearny.

  She told me in a frantic voice to hurry over the spa. So, I got Laurie up and dressed, gave her a bottle and we headed out the door.

  Fortunately, Laurie was in a wonderful mood that morning. She kept cooing at me in the little mirror I have above her seat so that I can see her when I drive. There was this big smile on her face, and I realized the diaper rash had cleared and she was feeling better.

  After the day I’d had yesterday, I wasn’t in the mood for another fussy Laurie – especially not after my ridiculous breakdown I had in front of Jim.

  Nope, my little girl was ready to take on the world with me that morning.

  “I love you,” I said as I glanced up in my rearview mirror at her, and she giggled and acted all bashful. So precious!

  “Laurie, say Mama!”

  She tooted. Close enough.

  I laughed at my little girl as we pulled into the parking lot at the spa. I plopped Laurie down in her oversized stroller and pushed her in through the front door.

  Wow.

  Paula and Sean had done a lot since I was there last, and the place was looking amazing.

  I was impressed. The walls had been painted, and some new furniture placed in the lobby, a new light fixture and a few other subtle touches that turned the lobby into a place of absolute zen.

  Jane met me out front, and she looked both frustrated and incredibly satisfied the same time. “I have some evidence,” she told me and then paused for a moment to coo over Laurie and the giant bow I had in her hair that day.

  I followed Jane to her back office and sat down in front of her desk as she worked to pull up something on her computer.

  “What do you got for me, Jane?” I asked.

  “Remember how I said the cameras weren’t working?” she said and grinned.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I was wrong. The camera in the hall was the only one turned on; I thought all of them were down for maintenance, but this one was still working properly,” she said and spun the monitor around so that I could see. “We have the culprit on camera.”

  “What!” I said with a smile.

  “Can’t see her face, though,” Jane said and frowned. “But you can see her uniform.”

  I watched the video with a keen eye, and she was right. The video was blurry, and the culprit did a good job at hiding her face. But, you could tell it was a woman... and she was wearing one of the nail salon workers uniforms. I watched at the woman slipped into the storage closet and replaced the box of Stevia with a another box. The she snuck out and down the hall – headed back toward the salon.

  “Whoa,” I said. “So the sweetener was swapped. Is the box still in the storage cabinet?”
<
br />   Jane shook her head. “No. I checked. But really anyone could have been poisoned.”

  “Anyone who takes Stevia with their coffee...” I said, and something nagged at me, but I couldn’t place the thought.

  “A lot of people,” Jane said. “I do.”

  “That’s some pretty solid evidence, and if you look at the time on the video... Merida would have been in the hot tub with us at that time,” I said.

  “McNearny has the wrong girl. I’m going to send this to him so he’ll let the poor woman out of jail,” Jane said. She smirked.

  “You love that he’s wrong,” I said.

  She covered her mouth, embarrassed that I caught her guilty pleasure.

  I waved a hand at her. “Don’t worry. So do I!”

  She nodded. “Well, we still have some work to do, because there are nearly thirty women working in that salon next door.”

  “You and your employees led me to believe they were all pretty happy about the merger,” I said. “But, clearly they are not.”

  “They’re hours are being cut right now,” Jane said. “I didn’t think that would be enough to harbor so much resentment they would try to kill someone to make me look bad! For all we know this girl on the video was just the legs – it could be a number of them over there who conspired to do this!”

  “Were your cameras in the room by the hot tubs working the day my mother was hurt?” I asked.

  “Down for construction,” Jane said. “But, believe me, they’re all up and running now after everything that’s happened. Those tubs of carbon monoxide they had hooked up to the steamer were huge, though. Would have been tough for that little woman in the video to move them on her own.”

  “You think we’re dealing with more than one person, then?” I asked.

  “I’m almost certain,” Jane said.

  “The owner? Do you know her name?” I asked.

  “Um... no, actually. Not the new one,” Jane said.

  “New owner?” I asked.

  “Hyo Kyu used to own the place,” Jane explained. “But, he died a couple of years ago, and the place went to someone in his family. My negotiations were with the managers who spoke with me on behalf of the new owner. The new owner is never there the way Hyo was. I think she’s was ill...You think the owner could be the one trying to ruin me?”