by Laura Levine
I ate my chips in the Corolla while I checked my phone messages. Nick from Toiletmasters had called to tell me my speech “bowled them over,” and Kandi called to tell me that the bridesmaid dresses had come in. She gave me the address of a bridal salon in Beverly Hills and told me to hurry over as soon as possible for my fitting. The last thing I wanted to do was squeeze myself into that ghastly frill festival Kandi had shown me. But sooner or later, I’d have to do it. And as long as I was already in Beverly Hills, I might as well get it over with.
So, after licking the last of the all-natural yam chip grease from my fingers, I put the Corolla in gear and headed off to the Amy Lee Bridal Salon.
Amy Lee was a stunning fortysomething Asian woman. In marked contrast to the gossamer bridal dresses that surrounded her, she wore a simple but impeccably tailored suit. Her glossy black hair was cut in a chin-length bob, with a bold streak of gray in front.
I told her I was there for Kandi’s wedding. She looked me up and down appraisingly.
“Ms. Tobolowsky said you might present a challenge. And I can see she wasn’t exaggerating. I’m going to have to jam you into that dress with a crowbar.”
Okay, so she didn’t really make the crack about the crowbar. She just nodded and got the dress.
I was hoping it wouldn’t look quite as bad as it had in the ad Kandi had shown me. I hoped in vain. In person, the puffy sleeves were even puffier, the nipped-in waist was tourniquet tight, and the hips flared out like wings on a jumbo jet.
Somehow Amy managed to zip me into it.
I’d been afraid that I’d wind up looking like Cinderella on steroids. I was wrong. I looked like Cinderella’s ugly stepsister on steroids.
Amy didn’t even try to soothe me with lies.
“This happens all the time,” she said. “The bride is so in love with the dress she doesn’t realize it may not be flattering for her bridesmaids.”
Amy summoned a seamstress from the back of the store, an elderly Asian woman who let out a steady stream of “tsk-tsks” as she pinned the dress for alterations.
At last, the torture was over, and I got back into my own clothes.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked Amy. I shuddered to think I was actually going to have to pay to look this awful.
“Ms. Tobolowsky is taking care of it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly let her do that. It’s out of the question. How much do I owe you?” I repeated, whipping out my credit card.
“Seven hundred dollars.”
Seven hundred dollars??? On second thought, maybe I could let Kandi do it. After all, she had the money, and I didn’t. Besides, even if I wanted to, I don’t think my good pals at MasterCard would let the sale go through. I was perilously close to my credit limit as it was. A $700 charge would put me over the top, by about $699.
So I just smiled weakly and put my credit card away.
“I thought you might do that,” Amy said, with a knowing smile. “Your dress will be ready tomorrow.”
“Goody. I can’t wait.”
“Ms. Austen, let me tell you what I tell my other customers. I know you’re unhappy with the dress, but just think how lovely the bride will look in comparison to you. Look at it this way. Wearing this dress will be your gift to her.”
“Frankly,” I said, “I’d rather give stemware.”
I got home and plopped down on the sofa next to Prozac, who was hard at work licking her privates.
“Oh, Pro,” I moaned. “There ought to be a law against puffy sleeves.”
Prozac looked up from her genitals and sniffed.
Do I smell potato chips on your breath?
“Yes,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, “but they happen to be all-natural yam chips. Hardly any calories.”
Hah.
Was it my imagination, or was she actually smirking?
“Just because you’ve stuck to your diet for a few days doesn’t make you wondercat. Big deal. I’ve stuck to diets for weeks at a time.”
She looked up from her genitals and shot me a look.
“Okay, days at a time.”
She kept on staring.
“Okay, minutes at a time.”
By now her eyes were practically boring a hole in my forehead.
“Okay, so I’m an abject failure at dieting. Just quit staring at me like that, willya?”
With what I could swear was another smirk, she went back to licking her privates.
One of these days I’m going to get myself a big, slobbering, uncritical dog.
In the meanwhile, though, I had bigger fish to fry.
I closed my eyes to concentrate on Marybeth’s murder, but suddenly all I could picture was fish frying. Yes, wouldn’t a nice big plate of fried shrimp be great right now? I could run out and get a Hungry Man Fried Shrimp TV Dinner. With French fries and extra tartar sauce. Yum.
What was wrong with me? I had to focus. I forced myself to go over the case. I’d interviewed all the club members and had pretty much gotten nowhere. The only thing I learned was that Colin was alone in the kitchen and owned a peanut cookbook. Not exactly evidence that would hold up in court.
I sure hoped the cops were making better progress than I was.
I needed to put on my thinking cap and see if I could come up with any other theories. So I did what I always do when I need to operate at top mental capacity. I made myself a strong cup of coffee, took out a legal pad, sharpened a batch of pencils—and spent the rest of the afternoon watching daytime TV.
What can I say? I needed the distraction. You know how it is. Sometimes when you’re driving yourself crazy trying to solve a problem, the answer comes to you when you walk away from it.
I was in the middle of watching a highly educational program on Pregnant Women Who Cheat on Their Married Lovers when the phone rang.
“Hey, Nancy Drew.” It was Pam. “How’s it going with The Case of the Dreadful Decorator?”
I told her what little I’d learned so far, including Colin admitting that he was alone in the kitchen on the night of the murder.
“Do you think Colin’s the killer?” she asked.
“So far, he’s my most promising suspect. What do you think?”
“I hate to say it, because I really like the guy. But I’ve always thought Colin had a—how can I put it?—a moral weak spot. Like this one time we ate lunch together, and when we were through, I saw him steal the waiter’s tip.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Really. I never forgot it.”
Yet another vote for Colin for killer.
“Too bad Marybeth didn’t leave him big bucks in her will,” I sighed. “It would’ve given him a much stronger motive to kill her.”
“Yeah. Getting turned down for a job isn’t exactly the most compelling motive in the world. If it was, I’d be on death row by now.”
“All she left him was the armoire. He really wanted her Porsche.”
“At least she won’t be driving it anymore,” she said. “It’s funny, if you’d asked me to guess how Marybeth was going to die, I would’ve given you odds it would’ve been in that car. Marybeth was an accident waiting to happen.
“Hey,” she said, interrupting herself, “do you suppose Colin was lying? Maybe Marybeth left him money after all, and he just didn’t tell you.”
“It would be a pretty silly lie, wouldn’t it? After all, I could easily find out the truth from Ashley or Marybeth’s attorney.”
“You’re right, of course. That’s why you’re the detective and I’m not.”
We spent a few more minutes gabbing, Pam filling me in on the details of an audition she’d gone on for a fast food commercial.
“They wanted somebody ordinary looking, thank heavens. Of course, in Hollywood, ordinary means really pretty instead of smashingly gorgeous, but I showed up anyway, and the casting director seemed to like me. So keep your fingers crossed. Toes, too.”
After promising to cross all my digits, I hung u
p and checked my watch. Only five P.M., but I was starving. I’d have a nice early dinner. I once read that eating dinner early was a favorite dieting technique of the celebrities. Never eat anything after six, the article said, and the pounds will practically fly off your body.
Yes, I’d run over to the supermarket and get myself a healthy salad at the salad bar. Just some greens, maybe a little chicken, a dribble of dressing, and scads of veggies. What a great idea. I was feeling thinner already.
I grabbed my car keys and drove over to the market, where I headed straight for the salad bar. I did not stop off at the cookie aisle, or the bakery section. True, I came perilously close to paying a visit to my friends Ben & Jerry in the freezer case, but I was strong. I walked resolutely past all those temptations. And when I got to the salad bar, I stayed strong and loaded up on the low-cal stuff. You’ll be happy to learn that I Just Said No to the croutons, gloppy ranch salad dressing and giant chunks of cheese that were calling my name.
When I’d stuffed more greens into my container than I’d eaten in the last five years, I trotted over to the checkout counter, feeling quite proud of myself. I thought back to my lunch with Sam and Andrew, and how unappetizing the idea of a salad had seemed to me then. Now it seemed like the only sensible thing to be eating.
Maybe I’d finally reached the stage in life where dieting would be doable. Indeed, I’d probably reached a certain level of maturity necessary to start a healthy eating regimen and stick with it.
I paid for my salad and headed out the door, barely glancing at the Reese’s Pieces at the checkout counter.
It looked like Prozac wasn’t the only one with willpower in our family.
Back home, I tossed some Healthy Halibut Guts into Prozac’s dinner bowl. She proceeded to peck at it daintily, like a supermodel on a dinner date.
Instead of wolfing down my meal standing up over the kitchen counter as I usually do, I decided to eat my diet dinner in style, another diet tip I remembered reading. Eat your food slowly at the dinner table with a beautiful place setting. You’ll eat less and feel fuller.
So, clearing away a pile of unpaid bills, I put a pretty rattan placemat on my dining table, poured myself a teensy glass of chardonnay, and laid out my salad on a festive Christmas dinner plate my mom had sent me from the shopping channel. (Service for four, only $69.95 plus shipping and handling.)
Then I put a Tony Bennett CD on my stereo and sat down to eat. Or, shall I say, dine.
I took my first bite, chewing slowly, savoring all the natural tastes of the vegetables. How wonderful it was, I told myself, to be eating food that wasn’t drenched in ketchup and salt.
I savored each and every bite of that meal. Okay, I savored the first three bites. After that, I couldn’t help myself. I was starving. I tore into those vegetables like Bugs Bunny in a carrot patch. Before I knew it, I’d eaten every last morsel of the salad and was scooping the dressing off the plate with my finger.
By now Prozac had finished most of her halibut and was back on the living room sofa, taking an after-dinner pass at her genitals.
I eyed her leftover halibut hungrily. Actually, it didn’t look all that bad. Hadn’t I always been curious about how cat food tasted?
Don’t get upset. Of course, I didn’t eat it. What sort of desperado do you think I am? I would never sink so low, for heaven’s sake. Besides, Prozac was watching and I knew I’d never get away with it.
I walked over to where she was lying on the couch, looking perfectly content.
“How the hell do you do it, Pro? How do you stay on that godawful diet of yours?”
She looked up at me and yawned.
Nothing to it. For thinner hips, just zip your lips.
“You’re really beginning to get on my nerves. You know that, don’t you?”
I headed to the bedroom to distract myself with some television.
But wouldn’t you know, everywhere I looked I saw food. Lucy was eating that big plate of spaghetti in the booth next to Bill Holden, Emeril was cooking scampi swimming in garlic butter, and every station seemed to be playing the same commercial for the all-you-can-eat chicken parmigiana dinner at the Olive Garden restaurant.
I couldn’t take it any more. I grabbed a sweater and headed for the door.
“I’m going out for a walk,” I announced to Prozac.
You can’t fool me. You’re going for ice cream.
“You are so wrong,” I insisted.
And she was. I did not go out for ice cream. Absolutely not.
I went out for Reese’s Pieces.
I was sitting in my car, digging into my Reese’s Pieces, when my mind drifted back to my conversation with Pam.
I suddenly had the feeling that she’d said something important, that she’d given me a valuable clue. But for the life of me, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Exactly what had she said? Just that Marybeth was a terrible driver and that Colin had stolen a tip at a restaurant.
Of course, by now you’ve probably already figured it out. But I didn’t. Not right then, anyway.
I headed home and hurried to the bathroom to brush my teeth so Prozac wouldn’t smell the chocolate on my breath.
And that’s when it hit me, while I was brushing my teeth. Something that Pam said came bubbling up to my consciousness: Marybeth was an accident waiting to happen.
I raced to the phone with toothpaste still in my mouth.
“Pam,” I said, when I got her on the line, “it’s me, Jaine.”
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
“It’s just toothpaste in my mouth. Look, I need to ask you something. I know Marybeth was a terrible driver, but was she ever actually in an auto accident?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“Try to remember.”
“Well, now that you mention it, when I first joined the PMS Club, Ashley was driving Marybeth to all the meetings. Do you think it’s possible she’d had her license revoked?”
“Yes,” I said, “I think it’s very possible.”
I got off the phone and hurried to my computer, where I logged onto the L.A. Times archives. What did Doris say her husband’s name was? Glen. That was it. Glen Jenkins.
I typed in his name. Seconds later, a story popped on the screen about a terrible car crash on the San Diego Freeway. Tied up traffic for three hours. Several people were injured, one of them seriously, a Mr. Glen Jenkins.
The driver of the vehicle that caused the accident: Marybeth Olson.
So. Marybeth was the one who’d put Glen Jenkins in a wheelchair.
I whistled softly. It looked like Doris had just taken the lead away from Colin in my Murder Suspect Sweepstakes.
Chapter 17
When Doris answered the door the next day, she knew the jig was up. She had the same look in her eyes The Blob had when I caught him watching football in my Victoria’s Secret teddy. But unlike The Blob, Doris wasn’t the least bit flustered.
“Hello, Jaine,” she said, gazing at me with steady gray eyes.
I handed her the printout I’d made of the Times article.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Sure.” Cool as a cucumber. “Come on in.”
This time she didn’t try to hustle me to the kitchen. She led me straight to the living room. We sat opposite each other on matching chenille sofas, under the portrait of Doris and Glen holding hands in happier days.
“So you know the truth,” she said. “Funny, it’s actually a relief. It’s been hell keeping it bottled up inside me for so long.”
She put her feet up on the coffee table, and I was surprised to see that she was wearing pink bunny slippers. No-nonsense Doris in bunny slippers? I guess you never know what people are going to wear in the privacy of their own homes, a lesson I should’ve learned after that episode with The Blob and my teddy.
She glanced down at the Times article, and her eyes grew hard.
“That bitch walked away from the accident without a scratch. And poor
Glen never walked again. We never heard a word from her. No apology. No flowers. Not even a crummy get-well card. For two years, I watched my husband die, day by day, all because of Marybeth.”
She picked up the printout and crumpled it into a tight ball.
“After Glen died, I hired a private eye to track her down. I joined her gym and ingratiated myself with her friends. Eventually they asked me to join the PMS Club. I wasn’t planning to kill her. Not at first, anyway. In the beginning, I just wanted to see what kind of person could walk away from a tragedy like that without a second thought. I thought that maybe once I got to know her she wouldn’t be so bad, that I’d discover something about her that would explain her actions.”
She shook her head, waving away that notion.
“But I hated her from the minute I met her. She was everything I feared she’d be, and worse. And so I knew I had to kill her.”
Omigosh. She was confessing. Right here and now. The case was over. All I had to do was get her to sign a confession, and I could start working at Union National with the adorable Andrew Ferguson!
“I was going to drain the brake fluid from Marybeth’s Porsche. Have her die in an auto accident. It would be poetic justice.”
She smiled grimly.
If I ever wrote a memoir, I knew what the title of this chapter would be: The Killer Wore Bunny Slippers!
“But each time I tried to do it,” she said, “I lost my nerve. It’s not easy draining brake fluid from a car without attracting attention.”
“So then you decided to poison her with peanut oil?”
“No,” she said. “Then I got lucky. Somebody else killed her for me.” She gave her bunny slippers a happy wiggle. “All’s well that ends well, eh?”
“So you didn’t put the peanut oil in the guacamole?”
“Nope,” she said, her eyes glinting steely gray. “Wasn’t me.”
With that, she picked up the crumpled Times story and tossed it into the fireplace.
So much for her confession. I thanked Doris for her time and left her alone with her memories of Glen.
As I walked out to my Corolla I couldn’t help wondering: If Doris had lied so convincingly about being divorced, who’s to say she wasn’t lying about the murder?