“It’s a disgusting piece of trash,” Helene said as she sat at her desk, thumbing through a stack of mail. “Ada knew I’d hate it; that’s why she didn’t show it to me until the last minute … thought I couldn’t stop it once she had it in production. Well, she’s in for a big surprise.”
Savannah turned the doll over and over in her hand. Other than the fact that its figure was unrealistically tall and thin, it was a pretty doll with a sweeter than usual face.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” she said, “why do you hate it so much? I mean, I know the thing about not setting an artificial standard for little girls, but …”
“Take off its clothes,” Helene told her.
Savannah sat in a side chair next to the desk and removed the doll’s dress. On the doll’s back, she saw two small buttons … one at its waist, another just above it.
“The doll’s name,” Helene said, “is Spa Helene. Instead of a house or a condo, she comes with a ‘spa,’ where a male doll, a plastic surgeon, can fix all her so-called imperfections.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Exactly.” Helene shook her head. “Push the top button on her back.”
“I’m afraid to.”
“You should be afraid. Do it.”
Savannah pushed the top button and felt a creepy movement inside the doll. A second later, the doll’s bust pushed forward, going from what might have been a B cup to proportions those hookers on Sunset Boulevard would have envied.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said.
“Push the bottom one.”
Reluctantly, Savannah did, and there was a similar vibration, which resulted in the doll’s somewhat flat buttocks transforming into a remarkably rounded rear.
“This is a joke, right?” Savannah said. “A toy to sell in an adult porn store, or—”
“I only wish it were. And that’s not all.” Helene left her desk and walked over to a carved wooden cupboard. She opened the door, revealing a small refrigerator filled with bottles of water, juices, and fresh fruit. She took out a water bottle and took it back to her desk.
“Give me that thing,” she said, pointing to the doll.
Savannah handed it to her.
Helene opened a desk drawer, rummaged around, and brought out a cotton swab.
“It comes with something Ada calls a beauty wand, made to look like some sort of surgical tool. The child wets the end of the tool”—she opened the bottle and dipped the cotton swab in-side—“and swipes it across the doll’s face like this.”
Savannah bent over the desk and watched closely.
As Helene wetted first one eye, then the other, the brown irises turned bright blue. She dampened the pink lips, and they instantly became bright red and at least twice as thick. The cheeks looked like someone had just applied a handful of blush with a trowel.
The transformation was complete. “Spa Helene” had gone from the girl next door to full-fledged tramp. What more could a child want?
“Does Ada really think a toy like this will sell?” Savannah asked. “What mother would buy such a thing for her daughter?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. The kid throws a fit for it in the aisle of the toy store, and mommy caves. Happens every day.”
Helene tossed the doll back into the garbage can, along with the cotton swab. “My niece has some serious body-image issues, and it’s clouding—no, destroying—her business judgment. I made a terrible mistake, appointing her president of this company. She’s just so different from the person she used to be.”
“What changed her?” Savannah asked, settling back into her chair.
“Five years ago, out of the blue, her husband of twenty years ran off with a much younger woman. She loved him dearly. It was such a blow to her self-esteem, I don’t think she’ll ever get over it.”
“That’s why all the hair and makeup and clothes that aren’t—”
“Age appropriate?”
“Something like that.”
“Yes. When he left her, she lost weight, started working out compulsively at the gym, bleached her hair, and had a ton of plastic surgery to enhance this and take away that.” Helene sighed and shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for self-improvement, making the best of what you’ve got, all that. But Ada was a beautiful woman before … and now, I don’t even recognize the person she’s become, inside or out. She was truly dear to me. I miss her.”
In the heavy silence that followed, Savannah thought long and hard about what she was going to say. She didn’t want to alarm the woman, but …
“Helene,” she said, as gently as she could, “I know there’s been bad blood between you and Ada. I have to ask you: Do you think your niece could do you harm?”
“If you’d asked me that question five years ago, I would have thought you were crazy. I never believed that little girl I watched grow up, who loved me and I loved her, would ever be a threat to me. I’d have told you that I would die for her and her for me.”
Helene stood and walked over to the picture of the child with the doll on the wall. She looked up at it a long time.
Finally, she turned to Savannah with tears in her eyes. “Everything changes, Savannah,” she said. “People, places, circumstances … everything changes with time. Often in ways you can’t even imagine.”
She walked back to the desk and slumped into her chair, suddenly looking her age … and maybe a few years more.
She added, “I think the hardest thing in life is to acknowledge those changes and not become bitter when they happen.”
Savannah sensed Helene was speaking of more than a niece’s betrayal, but she decided not to pry.
“You ask me if my niece could do me harm, but what you mean is, do I think she’s capable of murdering me. Right?”
Savannah nodded.
Helene took a tissue from inside her desk, dabbed at her eyes, then tossed it in the trash with the discarded doll. “That’s another of life’s hard lessons I’ve learned, Savannah. Human beings are capable of anything.”
By the time Savannah had driven through the Los Angeles late-rush-hour traffic and arrived back in quiet, seaside San Carmelita, it was past dinner time, and her presupper dropsies were in full control. There was nothing quite like low blood sugar and drivers cutting you off, and then flipping you off, to make a girl want to draw her weapon and shoot out a few tires.
She debated about swinging into a fast-food joint, getting something from the window, and eating off her lap. But after a hard day, she had a yen for her own good home cooking.
Other than the problems in the Strauss family, there was nothing wrong with her world that some chicken and dumplings couldn’t fix.
If only she’d thought to poke a few of those chocolate chip cookies in her purse before setting out for the big city.
Another reason to head home and cook a meal was the prospect of luring Dirk to her house for the evening. Not that Dirk required “luring” by any stretch of the imagination. She was convinced he could smell her cooking anywhere in town, because he invariably showed up just as she was setting the table.
The first few years of their friendship, she had complained about that. But along the way, she had admitted—at least to her-self—that she would much prefer to sit down to a table with him than to eat in front of the TV with her two cats.
Diamante and Cleopatra were better conversationalists, but … being cats … they were finicky. And it was much more fun to cook for someone like Dirk, who was wildly in love with everything you put on his plate.
As she sat, waiting for a particularly slow light to cycle, she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She punched in his number and put it on speaker.
“Hey, you,” he said, sounding a bit more chipper than usual … or, at least, less grumpy.
“Hey, yourself. Wanna come over for dinner tonight?”
“Yeah, sure. But I’m hungry now.”
“So, come over now. I’m five minutes from the house.” Clic
k.
He was on his way.
She grinned and hung up. That’s what she liked … a guy who played hard to get.
Savannah sat in her cozy chair, holding an equally cozy dish of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream with a hearty helping of hot fudge on top.
Her cats sat on either sides of her house slippers on the footstool, covetously eyeing every bite she took.
Sprawled on her sofa, his feet propped on her coffee table, Dirk had his own bowl. But his was Cherry Garcia—also with hot fudge. They could never agree on a single flavor, and that was a good thing, because neither was likely to share a pint without significant bloodshed.
“I appreciate you running those checks for me,” she said, digging out a particularly large chocolate chunk with her spoon.
“No problem.” He scooped up a ridiculously big spoonful, and she gave him the same sort of disapproving look as when he was eating ribs and got barbecue sauce on the backs of his fists.
He took a smaller portion and said, “Are you going to tell Waldo’s grandma on him?”
“She’s not his grandmother. She’s his great-aunt. And I have a feeling she already knows he has a record. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who bailed him out and paid for his lawyers.”
“I’ve known women like that. They overlook all sorts of things they shouldn’t when it comes to the men in their lives.”
“Like putting their feet on their coffee tables?”
“I took my shoes off first.”
“And leaving the toilet lid up?”
“I’m getting better at that.”
“After me yelling at you a hundred times.”
“It’s a long, slow learning curve.”
Savannah dipped her pinky into the melted ice cream and let Cleo lick it off her fingertip. She had to do the same with her ring finger immediately for Diamante or risk a fur-flying cat fight.
“Speaking of women who tolerate more than they should, can you believe Tammy and that new guy of hers?” she said.
“I didn’t like the way he was putting her down.”
“I didn’t like the way she was tolerating him putting her down.”
He shrugged. “Tammy’s a gentler soul than you are. You would have ripped his head off and handed it to him.”
“Actually, I had a fantasy along those lines, only involving a sword.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye on her.”
Savannah thought of the glow she’d seen in Tammy’s eyes as she’d gazed up at her new beau. She thought of other women—her friends, her sisters, herself—who had made bad purchases at the registers of the romance department.
“It won’t do any good,” she told him. “I know the look. No matter what we do or say, she’s a goner.”
“Guys aren’t the only ones with a long, slow learning curve?”
“Nope. Women, too. We all have to love one or two bad guys sometime during our lives so that we can appreciate that good one when he comes along.”
He gave her a quick, sideways glance, then concentrated on his ice cream. “And you’re still waiting, I guess? For that good one, I mean….”
“The one who looks like Tom Selleck, sings like Elvis, cooks like Emeril, and who can do body work on my Mustang and build an addition onto the back of my house?”
His smile sagged. “Yeah. That dude.”
“Naw. I’m not waiting for him. I’d settle for a guy who puts the toilet seat down and keeps his feet off my coffee table.”
He sighed, rolled his eyes, and lowered his feet to the floor. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
Chapter 9
The next morning, Savannah decided to have a visit with Emma. The granddaughter was, after all, her client, not He-lene. And Savannah believed a good private investigator kept her employer well-informed. Well-informed, satisfied clients were more likely to write checks. Checks could be cashed. Electric bills could be paid.
It was a nice system.
So, when Tammy phoned and asked if she could take the morning off, Savannah did the daily paperwork herself and made a few calls, including one to Emma, asking if she could drop by for an investigator-to-client chat.
With any luck, she could pick up that all-important retainer check while she was at it.
Emma’s tiny beach cottage was three houses from the ocean on one of the many narrow streets in the area of San Carmelita called The Lanes.
Years ago, The Lanes had been plagued by criminal activity, mostly drug related, and as a cop, Savannah had chased many a fleet-footed perp between these tiny houses that sat only a few feet apart.
But now, the beach-front area had become gentrified. And the town’s miscreants could no longer afford to live in the tiny cracker-box houses with their nautical-themed decorations of boat oars, ships’ wheels, fishermen’s nets, and the occasional dinghy in the postage stamp–sized front yard.
Emma’s house was nicer than her neighbors’. Recently painted a cheerful, pale yellow with white trim, the place appeared well-loved. On either side of the door, container gardens bloomed with orange and red nasturtiums, reminding Savannah of He-lene’s estate.
Emma’s sporty little BMW was parked out front on a thin strip of sand between the street and the cottage. Next to the car sat an enormous black van that dwarfed the car and the bungalow. Without a doubt, it was the focal point of the entire block.
Its sides were painted with a giant logo of a skull with red, glowing eyes and nails protruding from it like the bristles of a highly annoyed porcupine. And above the skull, in ornate letters, dripping with blood, were the words, “Poison Nails.”
“Lovely,” Savannah muttered as she tried to squeeze her Mustang into a spot between the BMW and the van. “You must be the hit of the neighborhood with a monstrosity like that.”
As Savannah got out of her car and walked up to the cottage, she heard some frenetic, metallic screeching that, at first, she thought was some sort of machinery in its death throes.
The last time she had heard something like that, her Mustang’s engine had just thrown a rod on the Ventura Highway.
The racket seemed to be coming from a small shed beside the house.
Then she heard a man’s voice shrieking something that sounded like, “Death and blood! Thrash and die!” And she realized it was music. Sort of.
“Great,” she mumbled, walking up to the front door. “A catchy little tune like that … It’ll be stuck in my head all day long.”
She knocked on the door and, a moment later, it was opened by a far more casual version of Emma than Savannah had seen the day before.
Wearing a tank top, a pair of baggy men’s boxer shorts, and hot pink flip-flops, Emma looked like most of the other residents of The Lanes—relaxed and ready for a day of doing absolutely nothing.
Savannah decided she wanted to be a Lanes resident when she grew up someday.
“Good morning, Savannah,” Emma said, throwing the door wide open. “Come on in.”
“And a good morning to you, too.”
Savannah walked inside the tiny house with a living room that was approximately the size of her own bathroom.
One glance around told her that the place had once been decorated with careful consideration and good taste. Like the exterior, yellow and white were the principal tones on the walls and country cottage furniture. The sofa was upholstered in a cheerful lemon and cream French toile, accented by sapphire throw pillows.
A collection of antique cobalt blue bottles sat on shelves in the windows, sparkling in the morning light.
And several bright, colorful, abstract watercolors hung on the walls. Savannah recalled what Helene had said about Emma being a talented artist, and she suspected they were hers.
But like the space in front of Emma’s house, this area had also been invaded by an alien presence.
When Emma invited Savannah to take a seat on the sofa, she could hardly walk across the floor without tripping over the jumble of musical equip
ment. Black electronic boxes—small, large, and enormous—connected by what seemed like miles of tangled cords occupied nearly every inch of spare space in the small room.
“Sorry about the mess,” Emma said as Savannah nearly sat on a microphone shaped like a penis with pointed studs protruding from the top.
Gingerly holding it with two fingers, Savannah moved the mic to a nearby chair. “A girl wouldn’t wanna park herself on something like that,” she said. “She’d wind up sitting on a heating pad for the rest of the day.”
“Like I told you at Oma’s, my boyfriend, Kyd, is in a band,” Emma said, plopping down on the other end of the sofa. “You probably heard him practicing when you walked up.”
Savannah listened for a moment to the screeching and shouting, which could still be heard all too clearly. “Uh … yes. And I’m still enjoying it, even in here,” she said. “I saw his van outside. Poison Nails, huh? Creative name. Did he think of that himself?”
“Yes.” She shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but …”
“Hey, art comes in all forms. Expression of the human spirit and all that.”
A particularly loud screech set Savannah’s teeth on edge and made her think of the time Dirk had accidentally stepped on Cleopatra’s tail, hard enough to warrant a visit to the vet.
She wondered what aspect of Kyd’s spirit that particular riff expressed. Would it qualify as pure demon possession or just a case of bad taste?
“I came to talk to you about your grandmother,” Savannah said. “And to tell you what I’ve uncovered so far.”
“Actually, Oma Helene called me this morning, right after you did. She told me that you found sleeping medication in her cocoa.”
“Yes, the police lab processed it yesterday and confirmed my worst suspicions.”
“The police are involved now?”
Savannah nodded. “I invited a friend of mine to your grandmother’s property to have a look and give me his impressions. He’s a detective in the San Carmelita Police Department. I was his partner for a long time, back when I was a cop. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s a gifted investigator.”
A Decadent Way to Die: A Savannah Reid Mystery Page 8