Ms America and the Offing on Oahu (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 1)

by Dempsey, Diana

  “She’s really taken to muumuus since she’s been here,” Shanelle observes.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else the entire time.” I analyze Sally Anne’s black floral muumuu as my hand reaches for the coconut shrimp. My willpower here has gone to zilch.

  Apparently so has Sally Anne’s. I watch her finger go back up in the air.

  “How is a muumuu different from a caftan?” Shanelle wants to know.

  This is the sort of fashion question I love. “Isn’t a muumuu always short-sleeved? And I think they almost always have a flounce.”

  “I’ve never seen a caftan with a flounce,” my mother puts in.

  “Then what’s a tunic?” Shanelle asks.

  “It’s a butt-length caftan. Look.” We watch as the young male server who gave Sally Anne her two drinks huddles with the older bar manager. “I bet they’re going to cut Sally Anne off.”

  “They better. She’s inebriated,” my mother says.

  “This should be good.” I can’t tear my eyes from the scene. The server takes a deep breath and approaches Sally Anne. He bends down to speak quietly to her.

  “What?” she bellows. “I insist on speaking to your manager.” It takes Sally Anne three attempts to pronounce manager correctly. Eventually she gets her wish and the manager does walk over. I’d say he appears reluctant to do so.

  He has good instincts, because when he bends toward her, she slaps his face. The onlookers, of whom there are a goodly number, gasp.

  My mother’s next observation rings out over the hushed lounge. “She keeps this up, she’ll find herself in the hoosegow.”

  That provokes a twitter or two. But not from Sally Anne, whose tormentors now include a third male hotel staffer. The men raise her from the chaise, which would be a crane-worthy task even if she weren’t resisting, and begin to lead her away.

  But the drama is not yet over. Sally Anne is halfway across the lounge when she halts, jerks her fleshy right arm away from the young server, and points toward the lobby. “You!” she cries.

  Everyone in the lounge pivots to see the next object of her ire. It’s Rex Rexford, Tiffany’s pageant consultant, in blue madras walking shorts, a white linen campshirt, and brown leather sandals. His normally bouffant blond hair is slightly wilted, whether from humidity or grief over his deceased client, I cannot say. Like all of us, he seems mesmerized by Sally Anne’s quivering index finger.

  “Your client was a bitch!” Sally Anne screams. It comes out a little slurred but I think we all get the gist. “I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. Well, I speak the truth about everybody, dead or alive. And Tiffany Amber was a lying, scheming bitch, pure and simple. I’m glad she’s gone to the great beyond. So there!”

  Rex’s face blanches beneath his salon tan. I bet he regrets his innocent sunset amble across the lobby’s central courtyard. Even the macaw is upset. It’s shrieking loud enough to wake Tiffany, if she were in earshot.

  My mother, however, is silenced by this diatribe. We all watch mutely as Sally Anne totters away, not quite under her own power.

  “Wow.” Trixie joins us, breathless. She’s in turquoise cuff shorts and a cotton voile halter top. Her normally pale skin is a tad rosy, probably from the poolside sunbathing I cut short. “Can you believe that? Boy, Mrs. P, you really saw a show.”

  “We don’t have to pay to see the luau after this,” my mom says. “What’s that woman’s beef with the dead California contestant, anyway?”

  Trixie looks at me, obviously aghast. “You didn’t tell your mother the story? Mrs. P, it was the biggest scandal of the pageant before Tiffany Amber died. Two of the girls showed up on Oahu with the exact same gown, color and all, for the evening-gown competition. Can you believe that? And guess where they both bought their gowns? Crowning Glory.”

  My mother is enough of a pageant aficionado to understand immediately. “Did Sally Anne mess up the registration?”

  Every pageant shop worth its salt participates in the national registry, designed to prevent exactly this disaster. When a gown or swimsuit is purchased for competition, the seller inputs the style and color into the database for that pageant, so no other contestant makes the mistake of purchasing the same outfit.

  Trixie goes on. “Sally Anne claims that it was Tiffany Amber who messed up the registration, by changing the entries.”

  My mom looks confused. I take the story over. “Tiffany bought her gown at Crowning Glory, too, and Sally Anne says that when Tiffany was at the store, Sally Anne happened to be inputting data, and Tiffany expressed curiosity about how she did it, and then when Sally Anne went to wrap Tiffany’s items, Tiffany changed the entries.”

  Shanelle and I glance at one another. We both know Tiffany had expertise with computers. And I believe she was both competitive and malevolent enough to have done exactly that of which she was accused.

  Shanelle pipes up. “Then Sally Anne had to scramble to get new gowns to Oahu in time. Both girls wanted new gowns because they both felt tainted.”

  “I would have felt that way,” Trixie says.

  “And I bet,” I say, “that Sally Anne had to eat the cost.” Those gowns can be terribly expensive, too. I know.

  “It’s a huge blow to Crowning Glory,” Shanelle adds. “Because now every contestant will wonder whether she can trust Sally Anne not to bollix up the registration.”

  “You should have heard the screaming fights those two had!” Trixie slaps her thigh. “Right here, in this very lobby.”

  “And there’s no love lost between Sally Anne and Rex Rexford, either,” I point out. “Even before this whole thing with Tiffany, the two of them were rivals, because they both do pageant consulting.”

  “I think Rex’s girls do better than Sally Anne’s,” Shanelle says.

  My mom pipes up. “That would only make Sally Anne hate him more.”

  So, so true. As the last drops of my daiquiri slide down my throat, I wonder if Sally Anne’s anger morphed into revenge.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shortly before 0600 hours, I’m out of bed. I will admit that I am feeling the effects of last night’s daiquiri. That may be because it was followed up by a second.

  By ten after the hour, I’m in my early morning snooping outfit, which you’ll recall is comprised of a Juicy Couture tracksuit and floral Keds. This time I’ve eschewed my lime green velour for my black. It makes me feel more spy-like. Part of me also hopes that if I run into Detective Momoa, which I most sincerely hope does not occur, he won’t immediately recognize me.

  I know. I may be awake but I’m so dreaming.

  I don’t bother being quiet because Shanelle knows what I’m up to in this wee hour adventure. She’s dozing, every once in a while emitting a light snort.

  Careful to check the corridor before I step outside with Tiffany’s box, I exit the room. I am so ready to be rid of this thing. Today my desire to unload it is as strong as my compulsion was yesterday to get my hands on it.

  I encounter no one on my way down to the lobby and no one as I make my way to the service elevator. Before long I find myself once again on the basement level.

  I listen. Save for the droning of the generators, it’s quiet. I set down the box and do a jaunt to the mail room to see if the door is open and the room is unoccupied. I score on both counts.

  This is my moment.

  Despite the encumbrance of the box, I break speed records getting back to the mail room. I throw some boxes aside to put Tiffany’s on the bottom of the stack. Her two suitcases are no longer in evidence. All I can do is pray that somehow that nice man didn’t notice that her box was missing and, if he did, that he didn’t report it.

  I restack the boxes. All systems are go. I enjoy a blissfully uneventful return to my room. Shanelle is still snoozing, which somehow I find amazing. Doesn’t she pick up my agitation from my early morning mission? She snorts, rolls over. Apparently not.

  I kick off my Keds and lie on top of my
bed. After a while I begin to calm down. So much so that I actually fall back asleep. I am awakened some time later by the sound of a blow dryer. I conclude that Shanelle has embarked on her a.m. beauty ministrations.

  She emerges from the bathroom wearing her fuzzy hotel robe. This morning she’s straightening her hair, which is a process I don’t envy. “Oh good, you’re up.” She goes to the TV and switches it on, then pulls the iron and ironing board out of the closet. “You put the box back in the mail room?”

  “It’s back there.”

  “Good. I’m hungry again, believe it or not. You want to do the breakfast buffet with me?”

  Despite the fact that we both pigged out at dinner, I’m hungry, too. Maybe law-breaking requires extra calories, like pregnancy. “I’m game.” I get myself vertical and head for the shower.

  “I’ve got my flat iron heating up in there,” Shanelle calls. “Don’t burn yourself.”

  It’s when we both have our laptops booted up, and the TV’s on, and the iron, and Shanelle’s flat iron, and the AC’s on full blast, and we’re both blow-drying our hair, that we hear a whiz and a pop and just like that, our electricity goes bye-bye.

  “Darn.” I look at my half-dried hair. Time for another damp chignon. I begin to loop my hair around my hand. “I’ll go downstairs and alert housekeeping.”

  “We could just call.”

  “Remember we tried that when my blow dryer died? They don’t pick up.” This appears to be one area in which the Royal Hibiscus is a tad lax.

  I’m in the lobby heading for the concierge, who clearly helps with all matters large and small, when I run into the young man who escorted me in the private elevator to Sebastian Cantwell’s penthouse suite the morning after the finale. “Hi, Neil,” I say. Not only do I remember his name but that he grew up in Michigan and a love of surfing brought him to Hawaii. I note that his pale skin has not taken well to the tropical sun.

  “Hey, congrats!” His eyes light up. “Saw you won the pageant. Awesome.”

  “Thank you.” Hearing that is not getting old. “You know, maybe you can help me. My roommate and I got an electrical short in our room and I know from before that it might take Housekeeping kind of a while to get to it.”

  “Hear you. Power’s crucial.” He winks at me. “Just lay your room number on me and I’m there.”

  In short order Shanelle and I have forgotten about the short and are on our way to the buffet, served at the lower-level restaurant that fronts the ocean, directly below the lobby lounge area. It’s quite the spread every morning, and I usually have only my breakfast drink concoction and don’t partake, but some mornings it gets me. We pull plates and begin loading.

  “The only other time I was in Hawaii,” I tell Shanelle, “when Jason and I went to Maui, I realized I ate bacon four meals in a row. At the breakfast buffet, like this, then in a BLT at lunch, spaghetti carbonara at dinner, and again the next morning in the buffet.”

  “And in the middle of all that you had to get into your bikini.” She’s a sausage girl, I can tell from her plate.

  “I was younger then.”

  We see a few contestants clearing out from Trixie’s table and take their places. I think Trixie might hold court in this location about two hours every morning, not eating so much as chatting. It’s the Miss Congeniality thing.

  “Your mom’s fun,” Trixie tells me.

  “She’s certainly”—I struggle to find an appropriate adjective—“outspoken.”

  Shanelle pops some kiwi into her mouth. It’s not all fat on her plate. “She’s going with you to the mani/pedi place later, right?”

  I chipped the polish on my big toe. The imperfection is driving me crazy. “She wants a manicure. And she doesn’t want to pay the hotel salon prices.”

  “It’s like 75 dollars for a pedicure here,” Trixie says.

  “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Shanelle singsongs. She looks at me. “You could do it yourself, you know.”

  “I always mess up the polish.” This should be part of my beauty queen skill set, but sadly it is not.

  Trixie moves over to sit next to me. “So I’m dying to know what happened yesterday!” she whispers. “I couldn’t ask last night with your mom around. What did you do after you left me at the pool?”

  “You don’t have to whisper.” I point my empty fork at Shanelle. “She knows all about it. In fact, she was an accomplice.”

  Trixie looks impressed. In low tones Shanelle and I report on my mail room escapade and what we learned from Tiffany’s laptop. Trixie is as mystified by the currency trading as we are. “That girl had secrets. I bet that’s what got her killed.”

  I freeze, my fork suspended in midair. Some distance away but in my line of sight is the hostess desk. And who do I see standing there but Detectives Momoa and Jenkins.

  Trixie follows my gaze. “The policemen are back. I wonder what part of the investigation they’re conducting now.”

  Pushing past them, none too gently, is Ms. Arizona Misty Delgado. She ignores the hostess and breaks into the buffet line, grabbing a plate out of turn and causing a minor commotion. Two older women ahead of her turn around to see what’s up and she snaps at them. “What the hell are you looking at?” They raise their brows at each other and pivot back around.

  “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the lanai this morning,” Shanelle says.

  I watch Momoa, whose beady eyes are trained on Misty. “I wonder if she’s in a lousy mood because she just got interrogated by the cops.” I’ve never been that keen on Misty but in this case I feel her pain.

  “Maybe they grilled her,” Trixie says. “Because of her being Tiffany’s roommate and all. Ex roommate.”

  Shanelle spears a piece of sausage. “So they know there was bad blood there. ‘Course, there was bad blood between Tiffany and almost everybody she had any dealings with.”

  Except maybe Keola Kalakaua. His reaction to her death seemed pure grief.

  Misty continues to behave like a buffet bully, darting in front of people to take what she wants without waiting. I wince when she slams a man’s hand in the cover of a warming dish. He yelps but she sails right on.

  Trixie shakes her head. “This is not going to convince the policemen that Misty’s a nice person.”

  “Ain’t no cop dumb enough to buy that charade anyhow,” Shanelle observes.

  “There’s Magnolia,” I point out, “behind Misty. Oh, dear.”

  Magnolia has decked herself out in yet another unfortunate ensemble. High-waisted short shorts, in hot pink no less. Her flesh is crammed inside the fabric with disastrous results. Every inch of her panty line is excruciatingly apparent. One finds oneself mesmerized by her buttocks, which I can say with confidence are not the feature she should be accentuating.

  Shanelle pipes up. “That girl needs a thong something fierce.”

  “At least her camisole sort of fits,” Trixie says.

  I shake my head. Poor Magnolia. She labors under the delusion of so many women that if her clothes aren’t tight enough to restrict blood flow, she won’t look good.

  All of a sudden Misty steps backward and spins around, right into Magnolia’s plate. As if it’s on tiny little wheels, Magnolia’s Spanish omelet slides off her plate smack dab onto the pristine white skirt of Misty’s sundress. It hangs on for a moment, then spills to the terrace floor, leaving an impressive splotch of egg and oil in its wake.

  Like Mount Kilauea on the Big Island, Misty erupts. “Can’t you do an effing thing right, you fat idiot? Not the videotaping, not anything! When I asked if you got the videotape you needed, I didn’t mean of me, you moron!”

  “Shut your mouth, you bitch!” Magnolia screams. We all watch as Magnolia pushes Misty’s plate into her, causing Misty’s eggs benedict to assume the center-skirt position briefly before tumbling to the terrace floor. Now the two crumpled egg dishes lay side by side, except for the bit that’s landed on Misty’s beaded sandal. Magnolia bursts into tears and runs f
rom the scene, pushing past Detective Momoa, who hasn’t budged this entire time.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s getting the impression that pageant people are a trifle moody.

  Trixie squeals and grabs my arm. “Can you believe that? Misty Delgado was about to eat eggs benedict! Do you have any idea how many calories are in hollandaise sauce? Like thousands!”

  I try to gather my thoughts. “What I can’t believe is what Misty said to Magnolia. Misty made it sound like it was Magnolia who shot the videotape of her and Dirk Ventura that showed up on YouTube.”

  “But why would Magnolia shoot that tape?” Trixie seems deeply perplexed. I think she’s still reeling from the high calorie count of Ms. Arizona’s would-be breakfast.

  “If Sebastian Cantwell knew, he would fire her for sure.” My mind races. “She must’ve been trying to blackball Misty for some reason. She had to know Misty would never win once that video appeared.”

  “You know what’s even weirder?” Shanelle leans her elbows on the table. “That part where Misty said something about asking Magnolia way back when if she got the videotape she needed. How do you explain that?”

  I can’t. But I can see clearly before me the next phase of my investigation.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I’m back in my room, alone. Shanelle has gone to the hotel fitness center to work off her sausage. As for me, I’m working on a game plan. Eventually I pick up the phone and dial Magnolia’s room. She picks up. I greet her and say who’s calling.

  She produces her usual charm-filled reaction. “Great. Another contestant. What the hell do you want?”

  I restrain myself from pointing out that She Who Wears the Tiara is no longer just ‘another contestant.’ “I wanted to know how you are. I saw what happened a while ago at the buffet.”

  “You and half the hotel.”

  “I was wondering if maybe you wanted somebody to talk to.” I’m trying this tack since it sort of worked with King Keola. “I know Misty can be hard to deal with.”

  “And the rest of you pampered-ass beauty queens aren’t?”