“What I just told you about all men being scum …?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“That’s just us regular guys. That one there … he’s in another category all together.”
Chapter 7
Savannah wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she arrived at Strauss Doll Works, Inc. But whatever image her imagination might have conjured up as the birthplace of all those beautiful dolls, it hadn’t been this.
She hadn’t thought she would find a Bavarian, storybook structure like the Strauss mansion in downtown Los Angeles. She had visited the neighborhood too many times to be that naïve. Nor had she believed it would look like a Santa’s workshop.
But somehow, she hadn’t anticipated a suite of offices on the thirty-second floor of a steel, glass, and concrete high-rise.
And as she stepped off the elevator and onto the plush, dove gray carpeting and walked toward the giant glass door with its gracefully etched “SDW” logo, it also occurred to her that doll making was a lucrative business. At least, for the Strauss family.
On the other side of the door was a posh reception area with white leather chairs and sleek chrome tables. On the walls hung beautiful black-and-white photos of children playing with some of the better-known Strauss dolls … including the famous “He-lene” doll, like the one Savannah owned.
She walked up to the receptionist, a sharply dressed young man in his twenties with a businesslike, barely civil half smile.
“Good afternoon,” he said with a sigh, glancing down at his watch. “May I help you?”
“I’m Savannah Reid, here to see Mrs. Strauss.”
“By ‘Mrs. Strauss,’ I assume you mean Helene?” he asked with a slightly elevated nose.
“Sorry. I keep forgetting. I’m just not accustomed to referring to my elders by their first names. Where I’m from, a youngun can get switched for that.”
“I see.”
She could tell he didn’t see. Had zero interest in seeing. But it didn’t bother her much.
“Will you please inform Helene that I’m here?”
He glanced down at an open, leather-bound scheduling book on the counter in front of him. “You have an appointment?”
“I spoke to her earlier on the phone. She said I should come here to talk to her in person.”
Once again, he glanced at his watch.
Her last thread of patience unraveled. “Look. I know it’s seven minutes to five and you’re, no doubt, poised to bolt through that door in six minutes. But I just drove like a bat outta hell all the way from San Carmelita, through LA traffic and smog, to get here before five, so that I could talk to Mrs Miss Helene. And unless you want me to start a big ruckus that’ll last at least an hour and a half, you’d better tell her I’m here. Make it snappy.”
Rolling his eyes like a petulant adolescent, he reached for the phone. He punched in a number and waited, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Yes, I’m sorry to bother you,” he said into the phone. “I know you’re getting ready to leave for the day”—He gave Savannah an annoyed look, which she returned with divi-dends—“there’s a Savannah Leed to see you.”
“Reid.”
“Excuse me. Reid.” He listened for a moment. Then he gave Savannah another quick look—one that held a smidgen of respect. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll bring her right back.”
He hung up. “This way, please, Ms. Reid. She’s in Ms. Fischer’s office. I’d be glad to take you there.”
As he escorted her down a long corridor, past what seemed like endless offices, he seemed nervous. All cockiness gone.
“Apparently, you’re a … um … friend of Helene’s,” he said.
“Apparently so,” she replied, wondering at this change in his behavior.
“She doesn’t come to the offices very often. In fact, I’ve been here three months, and today was the first time I’ve ever seen her.”
Savannah decided not to mention that, before today, she had never seen the lady either.
“She seems to be in a bad mood,” he continued. “I mean, not ‘bad,’ just, well, she got kind of mad that I said your name wrong.”
Savannah stopped in the middle of the hallway and laid one hand lightly on his arm. “Young man, I’m not going to make a big deal out of you getting my name wrong. In the overall scope of human events, that’s not a biggie.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“And I’m not going to mention to your boss that you acted like a jackass when you ‘greeted’ me at the desk. But you’ve got a job, and these days, a lot of folks don’t. You need to be a wee bit more grateful … and a sight better at it.”
He nodded sheepishly.
Ahead, at the end of the hall, was a doorway with silver lettering that said, ADA FISCHER, PRESIDENT. Savannah pointed to it. “I think I can find my own way from here.”
As the receptionist trailed away, Savannah approached the office door and paused, ready to knock. But inside she could hear two women arguing, and she couldn’t resist hesitating just a moment to eavesdrop.
“If you keep this up, Aunt Helene, I’m going to have to put you away somewhere,” one woman said, “where people can keep an eye on you. We can’t have you running around delusional like this. You could hurt yourself.”
“I have no intention of hurting myself,” answered a strong, distinctive voice that Savannah instantly recognized as Helene’s. “If I hurt anybody around here, it’s going to be you! I came down here to warn you … do not mess with me!”
Savannah thought she’d better intervene, so she knocked softly on the door.
“Are you threatening me?” asked the first woman. “You better not be, because that sounds like a threat to me!”
Savannah knocked louder, and there was an instant hush inside the room.
“That’s her,” Helene said. “The woman I was telling you about. I’ve got somebody on my side now, missy. Somebody who believes me when I tell her I’m perfectly fine and not imagining anything!”
The door swung open, and Savannah found herself face-to-face with a very red-faced Helene. The quaint, Southern phrase, “she’s so mad, she’s spittin’ fire,” came to mind as she stared at her new friend.
“Helene,” she said, walking into the office and putting her hands on the woman’s shoulders, “you’ve gotta calm down there. Your blood pressure’s gotta be through the roof.”
“Don’t you worry about my blood pressure.” Helene brushed her hands away. “I’ve got entirely too many people worrying about things that aren’t any of their business!”
Savannah held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I understand.I don’t like it when people tell me what I should, or shouldn’t, be thinking or feeling. And I reckon you’re just the same.”
“Thank you. Now get her to understand that, and we’ll all be better off!”
Helene pointed to a woman standing behind an enormous desk, arms crossed over her chest, an ugly frown on her heavily made-up and obviously surgically enhanced face.
Without being told, Savannah was pretty darned sure this was the infamous and much-despised niece.
From her frosted and permed, big, blond hair to her hot pink lipstick, Cleopatra eyeliner, and aqua eye shadow, it was pretty obvious that Ada was stuck on a look that had worked for her twenty-plus years ago … and never would again. And the plastic surgeon’s efforts to erase every line, raise sagging eyebrows, and plump naturally thinning lips had stolen any hope of graceful aging without recapturing the bloom of youth.
As Savannah glanced over the woman’s expensive, designer suit, heels, and jewelry, she did a quick calculation and decided that Ada’s outfit cost more than most people’s cars.
But the elegance of the linen tweed ensemble and Rodeo Drive jewels was ruined by the too-tight fit of the suit and the plunging neckline of the sheer lace blouse she wore beneath it.
For a woman in her fifties, Ada had a nice figure—including a suspiciously perky bustline—but she just seemed to be trying t
oo hard.
Savannah thought of something her grandmother had always told her: “You don’t have to remind the world who you used to be. Just celebrate who you’ve become!”
Extending her hand, Savannah walked over to Ada. “I’m Savannah Reid. Glad to meet you.”
Ada glanced down at the outstretched hand but kept her arms crossed over her chest. She gave Savannah a look of such pure contempt that, for a moment, Savannah wondered if she had dirt on her hands or chocolate smeared across her face.
Either way, she felt a bit stupid, standing there with her hand out. So, she smiled … reached up and rubbed her nose with her extended middle finger.
She heard a chuckle and glanced at Helene, who was standing beside her—green eyes sparkling with mischief.
“My feelings exactly,” Helene said.
“What?” Ada looked from Savannah to her aunt, a look of total annoyance and confusion on her face.
“Nothing, my dear niece,” Helene said without a trace of familial affection. “Let’s just say, I invited Savannah here for a reason … which should be apparent to her right now.”
“Oh, I was perfectly prepared to take your word for it,” Savannah said, “but seeing is believing, for sure.”
Ada stepped behind her desk and pulled her purse from the bottom drawer. “If you two,” she said, “want to have this private little conversation, I suggest you take it out of my office. I’m leaving for the day. Unlike you, Aunt Helene, I have a life. I have something to do and someone to do it with.”
Helene snickered. “If you call that harebrained, pinhead gigolo ‘someone’ …”
“I don’t keep Vern around for his wit,” Ada said with a toss of her head and massive hair.
Savannah was sure Ada thought the movement sexy. Savannah wondered if she had a good chiropractor. If she did that frequently, she would need one.
“Nobody’s sure why you keep Vern around,” Helene told her niece. “But it’s obvious why he stays.”
“Vern loves me.”
“Vern loves anything in a skirt with a checkbook.”
“You’re just jealous!”
Helene’s green eyes flashed. “Of your little boy toy? In case you’ve forgotten, I could have had Vern. I didn’t want him. I don’t need a piece of fluff like that to convince myself that I’m still twenty-five.”
Ada rushed around the desk and, for a moment, Savannah thought she was going to have to get between the two women to protect her friend. But Ada stopped short, a few feet from He-lene. “Get out of my office! Now!”
“We were just leaving.” Helene walked over to a display shelf, where a number of dolls stood. She snatched one of them and headed for the door.
“Hey!” Ada headed after her. “Put that back!”
“I will not!” Helene hugged the doll to her chest. “This monstrosity is not going into our line!”
“I’ve spent a fortune developing that doll, and it’s debuting at IDEX, no matter what you do!”
“We’ll see about that.” Helene grabbed Savannah by the elbow and shoved her toward the door. “Come on, Savannah. We’re out of here.”
As Helene shoved her out of the office, Savannah collided head-on with an Armani suit.
For a moment, she was nose-to-nose and chest-to-chest with a fellow she could only describe as “handsome in a local-channel-weatherman sort of way.”
From his too-orange fake-bake tan to his recently installed hair plugs, he seemed the perfect male counterpart to Ada Fischer … other than the fact that he was about twenty years her junior. Like her, no expense had been spared in the pursuit of personal enhancement, but the investment had paid disappointing dividends.
“Excuse me,” she said, as she backed away, removing her ample bosom from the vicinity of his suit lapels.
“No problem,” he replied, looking her up and down with thinly veiled lechery. “And who are you?”
“Nobody you’d be interested in, Vern,” Helene said, pulling Savannah on down the hall. “She doesn’t have a Fortune 500 company or a fat trust fund.”
Instantly, Ada appeared in the office doorway. She grabbed Vern by the arm, yanked him inside, and slammed the door.
“That was Vern, the cheap gigolo,” Helene said as she and Savannah walked away.
“Yes, I gathered,” Savannah replied. “But judging from the suit, gold watch, and diamond pinky ring, I don’t know if I’d call him ‘cheap.’ He looks like an expensive pastime to me.”
“Cheap as in tasteless, flashy, raunchy, and trashy. He’s an overdressed pig. A waste of a beautiful suit.”
Savannah grinned down at the feisty lady at her side … so much like her own grandmother. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel about him, Helene?”
“I’ve hated Vern Oldham since the moment I first laid eyes on him. And he’s hated me since the moment I gave him a fat lip and flattened his balls.”
“You flattened his—”
“Yes, and if he ever tried to climb into bed with me again, I’d do it a second time … and he’d need more than an ice pack to set things right.”
Visions swirled, unbidden, through Savannah’s head. Strange, awful images: Vern crawling into bed with a woman old enough to be his grandmother, Helene delivering a crushing blow to his nether regions, Vern clutching an ice pack to his—
She shook her head, trying to clear her brain. After watching Jesse Murphy dance around with a roll of toilet paper between his legs, she’d seen, and imagined, enough male groin injuries to last her for a while. She didn’t need Vern and his ice bag in her brain, too.
“So, are you disappointed in me?” Helene grinned, her eyes twinkling. “Kneeing a guy in the crotch like that … maybe I’m not the great lady you thought I was.”
Savannah returned the smile. “Quite the contrary. You’ve risen a few notches in my estimation. I’d have done the very same, and so would anybody I’m related to.”
“Sounds like you come from a family of great ladies yourself.”
“Well, feisty females, to be sure.” She laced her arm through Helene’s. “You see,” she said, “I’m from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. And down there, we handle things a mite different when a guy messes with one of our womenfolk.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, ma’am. We don’t abide such nonsense. If that polecat Vern ever tries anything ungentlemanly like that again with you, you just let me know, and I’ll shoot him between the eyes … or any other place of your choosing.”
“Can I watch?”
“You can hold him down while I do it.”
“That’s a deal.”
Chapter 8
Helene led Savannah to the opposite end of the suite and a door that bore gold letters, identifying it as the office of “He-lene Strauss, CEO.”
When they went inside, Savannah’s spirit took a deep breath and her imagination took flight.
This was what a doll maker’s studio should look like … at least in her estimation.
Unlike Ada’s cold, sterile space with its bare, stark white walls and glass and steel furniture, this room had warm, creamy tones that complemented the wood furnishings. A large desk with ornately carved, filigree scrollwork dominated the center of the room. And, like the great room of the Strauss mansion, wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with beautiful dolls.
To the right, floor-to-ceiling windows provided a sweeping view of the City of Angels. But it wasn’t the panorama of Los Angeles that caught Savannah’s eye. It was the large picture on the back wall, behind the desk.
Unlike the black-and-white photos hanging in the reception area, this one had, obviously, not been taken by a professional. The others had been crisp, artistically shot pictures of children in contemporary clothing in modern settings. But the photograph that dominated the wall in Helene’s office was an enlargement of what must have been a very old snapshot, taken many, many years ago.
In the faded, grainy picture, a young girl, maybe six or seven years old, st
ood on the sidewalk of a quaint, European town. With its half-timbered buildings and steeply pitched roofs, the village reminded Savannah of the Strauss mansion. The child was dressed in a simple, plain dress that seemed a couple of sizes too big for her. A large hair ribbon did little to hold her long ringlets back. They spilled around her sweet, baby face, making her look like a cherub in a Victorian painting.
In her arms, she clutched a doll that bore a striking resemblance to Savannah’s Helene doll.
“Is that you?” Savannah asked Helene.
Helene glanced up at the picture for a moment. And in that instant, Savannah saw a look of deep pain and sadness cross her face.
“No,” she said simply.
Helene walked over to the desk and, as she sat down, tossed the doll she had brought from Ada’s office into a nearby waste can.
“That piece of garbage,” she mumbled. “I’d rather be dead than have my company supply something like that to children.” She grinned perversely. “Better yet, I’d rather see Ada dead.”
“Now, now …” Savannah shook her head. “Don’t go saying things you don’t mean.”
When Helene didn’t reply, but gave her an even, unblinking stare, Savannah added, “And if you do mean it, that’s all the more reason to keep it to yourself. I don’t want you confessing to any murders that haven’t been committed yet.”
“Speaking as a former police officer?” Helene said.
“Yes, but I’ll tell you a little secret: There’s no such thing as a former police officer. Once a cop, always a cop.”
Curious, Savannah walked over to the waste can and looked down at the doll inside. “May I?” she asked.
Helene shrugged. “Go ahead … as long as you put it back where you found it.”
Savannah leaned down and picked the doll out of the can and looked her over.
She was a fashion doll, about fourteen inches tall, with long blond hair, big brown eyes, and a mini-dress and strappy stilettos. While Savannah recognized the outfit as the sort that a lot of hookers wore on Sunset Boulevard, the doll wasn’t really any more objectionable than a lot of dolls she had seen recently on toy-store shelves. And even though she usually chose more innocent-looking baby dolls for her nieces, she didn’t quite understand Helene’s strong reaction to this prototype.
A Decadent Way to Die: A Savannah Reid Mystery Page 7