Murder Melts in Your Mouth

by Nancy Martin

  “Mrs. Zanzibar?” I knelt down on the carpet and grabbed Elena’s hand. “It’s Nora Blackbird. Are you—should I call a doctor?”

  “Nora? Nora, is that you?” Elena gripped me hard. “Don’t leave me alone, dear child. I feel so faint!”

  I looked up at the police detective. “I’ll take care of her.”

  Wylcnck nodded shortly and strode away, leaving me alone with the hyperventilating cosmetics queen.

  I had known Elena Zanzibar before she’d become one of America’s great contributors to the world of beauty. Decades ago, Elena made her fortune by rolling a small inheritance—her father’s share of a South African diamond mine—into the production of an eyebrow wax. The wax caught on with her friends and quickly spread to Hollywood. Soon Elena began dabbling in other beauty products and even more lucrative fragrances, and a cosmetics empire was born.

  A friend of my late grandmother, she had once brought her powders and potions to my family’s estate and practiced various techniques on my sisters and me while we were still in primary school. Years later, her business took off, and she became a tycoon. Today, however, she appeared old and collapsed with shock.

  I patted her hand. Wylcnck’s footsteps faded away.

  Abruptly, Elena snatched the paper towel off her face and threw it on the floor. She sat up on the couch. “I thought that woman would never leave!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right!”

  Sixty-something Elena Zanzibar, in a hot fuchsia suit with black piping and a triple strand of pearls around her neck, wore her hair in a Texas-sized pompadour. Numerous diamond rings sparkled on all of her plump fingers. Her papery eyelids were weighted down with false eyelashes. Her makeup was as colorful as if it had come from a child’s paint box.

  She said, “It’s bad enough getting stuck with a police officer, but I’m always offended by people who obviously don’t take proper care of their skin. And she must have chosen her lipstick in the dark!”

  Elena’s cosmetics, called simply Zanzibar, were sold in upscale department stores all over the world. Elena herself was past the age of wearing her own products, but that didn’t stop her from slathering them on as if preparing for a Technicolor close-up.

  “I must look like a fright.” Elena had noticed my startled expression. “But tell me what’s going on. What are the police saying? What happened to Hoyt?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Zanzibar, but Mr. Cavendish—he didn’t survive.”

  Her breath caught in a sob, and her made-up eyes began to swim with tears. She groped into a pocket and came up with a handkerchief that was spotted with the colors of a rainbow. “Dear me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to soothe her.

  “It can’t be true!”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  Her mascara began to track down her cheeks. “Hoyt should have known I’d solve any financial problems he had. Surely he—he understood how generous I could be!”

  “Hush,” I said. “You’ll make yourself sick, Mrs. Zanzibar.”

  She hiccoughed. “What are friends for?” she implored. “I could have given him millions!”

  “Can I call someone for you?” I feared she might give herself a stroke. “A relative, perhaps?”

  “Where are my ladies?”

  “Your ladies?”

  “Yes, my fans. The ladies who follow me wherever I go. They’re such dears. I couldn’t get along without them. I gather strength, just knowing they’re nearby!”

  Suddenly I realized who the mob of women downstairs had been. Elena Zanzibar hardly set foot out of her house without a crowd of adoring fans. For years, a cadre of elderly women took the Zanzibar skin care system so seriously that they seemed to have pledged an undying worship for Elena herself. They followed her everywhere, even chasing her distinctive pastel Mercedes in traffic.

  A few cynics believed she issued her schedule a week in advance of any public appearance to guarantee a good crowd.

  I said, “I believe they’re all downstairs. They’re perfectly safe.”

  “Oh, I’m so relieved! But they must be worried about me.”

  “Would you like me to find one of them? Perhaps if one of your friends came up here to—”

  “No, no, I’ll just hop downstairs myself in a few minutes, as soon as I can manage. Are you sure—I mean, is Hoyt really…?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  She took an unsteady breath, but fought down the urge to weep. A proud aristocrat, she took command of her feelings. “You’re very pretty these days, Nora. You look so much like your grandmother.”

  “I—thank you.”

  “Although maybe you should consider a frosted lipstick. Don’t you love a frosted mouth in hot weather? Aren’t you working for a newspaper these days?” Tears trembled on her false eyelashes.

  “Yes, I took over Kitty Keough’s social column for the Intelligencer. I report on charity events, mostly.”

  “Why, yes, I saw you at that measles gala last April. Why don’t you come to lunch someday, dear? I could use the publicity. I’m launching a new spa line this week.”

  “Well—”

  “At lunch tomorrow, Hoyt and I were going to announce our—dear me,” she said, tearing up again. “I’m not making much sense, am I? Could you get me a glass of water, dear?”

  “Certainly. Will you be all right if I leave you alone?”

  “Of course,” she said, abruptly calm again. “A sip of water will put me right.”

  As accustomed as I was to handling the eccentric women in my own unpredictable family, I wondered fleetingly if Elena was trying to pull a fast one. But I dutifully dashed down the hallway to the bathroom once again and ran a splash of water into a cut-crystal glass.

  When I returned, however, Elena Zanzibar was nowhere to be seen.

  Detective Wylcnck was herding the staff of the Paine Investment Group into the boardroom. The detective stopped each individual at the door and jotted his or her name in a black notebook. She caught sight of me as I tried to slip past her.

  “You again.” She pointed her pen at me. “Do you work here? Or are you a customer?”

  “Neither, actually. I’m a friend of Miss Paine.”

  Her glare intensified. “So this is a social call?”

  “Sort of. Look, I seem to have lost Mrs. Zanzibar.”

  Wylcnck snapped her notebook shut. “Where’d the old broad go? Oh, hell, why do I get stuck with all old ladies who think they’re above the law? She’s probably waiting for an elevator. Stay here. Don’t move.”

  The detective hurried off in the direction of the elevators.

  As soon as she was out of sight, I disobeyed. I rushed back to the closet and yanked open the door, hoping to help my father make his getaway.

  But the closet was empty.

  Where in the world had he gotten to? And how?

  Chapter Five

  By the time the police got fed up and dismissed me, my editor had left the Intelligencer offices for an appointment to get his annual colonoscopy. So I sat at my desk for a few minutes to pull myself together.

  The whole afternoon seemed a blur of one awful encounter after another. And the mental image of Hoyt’s lifeless body on the city sidewalk was going to give me many sleepless nights. I flipped on my computer to check my e-mail, but the words danced in front of me without meaning. Except the terse message from my editor telling me to phone him first thing in the morning.

  I guessed my job was still in jeopardy.

  But I couldn’t think. Couldn’t work. I kept flashing back to the grisly scene on the sidewalk. And Lexie’s cold and shaken anger. Elena’s ditzy confusion. Brandi’s twisted vocabulary. I tried to sort all the snail mail invitations that had been delivered to the office, but I was too distracted to make many decisions. I placed two phone calls to respond to the most pressing invitations and used the computer to e-mail several more RSVPs. One invitation came with a box of c
ookies. I sampled one, then put the box in the break room to share with my colleagues. Unable to concentrate properly, I finally stuffed the rest of the envelopes into my handbag and called my driver for a ride home.

  My original employment contract—dictated by an old family friend who owned the newspaper—allowed me the services of a town car with driver. In the first few weeks on the job, I took it for granted that other reporters enjoyed the same luxury, but I was quickly hooted at. Now I used the car very rarely. I figured I was due a quiet ride home tonight.

  Reed Shakespeare, part-time student and part-time driver, preferred to keep his own counsel. Early in our relationship, I’d tried to draw him out, but he made his preference for silence known. I still thought he didn’t like driving around a gussied-up white woman who went to a lot of fancy parties. But I’d also come to realize he was simply shy.

  In the backseat of the town car, I remembered Tierney Cavendish racing down the stairs of the Paine Building. I was certain he hadn’t managed to reach his father in time for a final good-bye. Then, oddly enough, I wondered if Tierney had been in the room when Hoyt went off the balcony.

  And Daddy? He had been close by, too.

  My stomach rolled over at that thought.

  By the time we reached Blackbird Farm, I had a thumping headache.

  Despite the blissful cool of the car’s air-conditioning, I felt sticky when I got out of the car. I thanked Reed and I went into the house hoping to draw myself a bubble bath to help forget about the day’s trauma.

  Instead, I found my teenage nephew Rawlins sitting at the kitchen table and feeding his baby brother a bottle of formula. The two of them were a sight for sore eyes.

  Rawlins frowned at the screen of my laptop computer. The teenager had gotten a buzz haircut and wore a clean T-shirt advertising the ice-cream parlor where he worked for the summer. In an obvious effort to join the working world, he’d even removed his eyebrow stud and nose ring. Only one hoop earring remained from his once extensive collection of body piercings.

  I ran my hand across the boot camp coiffure. “Semper Fi, Rawlins.”

  “Hey, Aunt Nora. Sorry, but I can’t fix your computer. It’s really fried this time.”

  I dropped my handbag onto a chair. “Just like the rest of my life.”

  He grinned. “I guess you don’t want to hear the plumber quit, too, then?”

  I groaned at the news. “No, thanks. Did your mom call you? She was discharged from the hospital and went straight to the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Nope, she didn’t call.” Rawlins seemed unfazed by the lack of communication in his family. “But that’s cool. Who’s she staying with?”

  Although Rawlins appeared to accept the possibility that his mother wasn’t alone that evening, it didn’t feel right to speculate on Libby’s latest conquest with any of her children.

  In all honesty, I said, “I haven’t a clue.”

  Rawlins leaned closer to me and sniffed. “What’s that smell? If I didn’t know better, Aunt Nora, I’d say you were smoking a fat one today.”

  I flushed, remembering my father. “I did no such thing. And how do you know what marijuana smells like?”

  He laughed. “I’m in high school, that’s why.”

  From under the kitchen table came Toby, the Brittany spaniel we had inherited a couple of months back. The shy dog had attached himself to my sister Emma, but in her absence, he greeted me with a wagging tail and a cold nose on my kneecap. I fondled his silky ears and found myself thankful not to be alone this evening. Hoyt Cavendish’s death, Libby’s brush with mortality, Emma’s hormonal news bulletin, my father’s inopportune homecoming—all at a time when I was feeling emotionally delicate—it was too much to bear in an empty house.

  “You okay, Aunt Nora?”

  “I feel better every minute.” I smiled at my nephews. “Thanks for trying to fix my laptop, Rawlins. Where’s the rest of the crew? Did you get any dinner?”

  “I got takeout for everybody from Boston Market. You’d be proud—we even had green beans. There’s an extra meat loaf dinner in the fridge, if you want it.” My nephew hooked his head in the direction of the living room. “Lucy’s sacked out on the sofa with her imaginary friend. And the twins are out in the barn doing their homework.”

  “Homework? In July?”

  His twin brothers, fourteen-year-old Harcourt and Hilton, were a pair of budding psychopaths whose activities in my barn were probably better left uninvestigated. But with his free hand, Rawlins tossed me a printed brochure.

  I read the large print on the brochure’s colorful cover. “An online mortuary school?”

  “The twins got their first assignment this morning.”

  “Heaven help us,” I said, meaning it.

  “They haven’t enrolled yet. They’re supposed to complete some kind of aptitude test first.”

  “If anyone has an aptitude for death, it’s your brothers. No offense.”

  “Hey,” Rawlins said with a shrug, “if they’re interested in embalming, I’m just glad they’re seeking professional guidance.”

  I read aloud from the brochure. “Our graduates learn to think outside the box.”

  Rawlins laughed. “Who writes that stuff?”

  “Good grief!”

  “Let’s hope the curriculum is better than the PR.”

  I gave him a long look over the top of the brochure. “You’re very forgiving of the twins, Rawlins. Weren’t you the one they wanted to practice on when they weaseled their way into that phlebotomy course?”

  “I’m a fast runner. Anyway, their assignment is to find some animal bones to work with, so they’re digging out in the barn.”

  “There aren’t any bones in the barn.”

  “I think they’re looking for dead mice or something. Then they boil off the skin and—”

  “Mice, I have,” I said dolefully. “Plenty of mice. Just don’t tell me what happens to them.”

  He pointed at the kitchen counter. “The plumber left you a Dear John letter.”

  “I suppose that’s better than a bill.” Before I dared to read the plumber’s note, I found a bottle of Excedrin and popped two tablets.

  “He forgot his wrench, though, so maybe he’ll be back.”

  “I doubt it.”

  I ran a glass of tap water and sipped it as I picked up the piece of paper left on the counter beside an industrial-sized wrench. The plumber gently informed me that the leak under the kitchen sink was only the tip of a very large iceberg. It was more than he could fix, and he suggested I contact a company that specialized in expensive historic restorations—a company that had already given me estimates big enough to revitalize New Orleans.

  I sighed. My household emergencies were always more than I could fix. Some of them—like the leaking gutter over the library—were never going to be repaired unless an incredibly wealthy software magnate chose Blackbird Farm as the recipient of his endless financial support.

  Rawlins watched my face. “The plumber seemed real sorry.”

  I tossed the note onto the table and affected nonchalance. “I have that effect on repairmen.”

  Baby Maximus finished off his bottle and gave it a barefoot kick. “Da!”

  Rawlins obligingly heaved the pudgy infant onto his shoulder.

  I said, “Your mom says she’s trying to improve your baby brother’s chances of getting into the Ivy League.”

  “Yeah, she told me. I’m supposed to chant the periodic table to him. Trouble is, I never learned the periodic table myself. C’est la vie, huh?”

  There had been a time when Rawlins suffered from all the worst characteristics of teenagers. For a long time, he’d been sullen and uncommunicative and entirely lacking in humor. But he’d grown up lately, and I was happy to see him so relaxed and confident. Of all my immediate family members, he was the closest to an adult, and I was going to miss him terribly next year when he went off to college.

  Rawlins handed over a sticky plastic gizmo. “H
ere’s his binky. Don’t let it out of your sight or he has a tantrum.”

  “But your mother said—”

  “Yeah, I know what she says. But she lets him have it all the time. She wants somebody else to train him not to need it.”

  I washed the plastic pacifier with soap and hot water at the sink. “Are you going to stay in tonight? Or do you have a date?”

  Rawlins might have blushed as he patted Maximus on his back. “Well, I thought I’d cruise back into town. You know, to see if anyone wants to hang out.”

  I reached for the baby and gathered him up in my arms. Max was a hot, sticky bundle, and his shock of black hair was plastered to his head. He yawned in my face and let out a soft burp.

  “How’s Shawna?” I asked.

  At the mention of his girlfriend, Rawlins pretended an intense interest in the empty formula bottle. “She’s—you know, getting ready to go to school.”

  “Will you keep seeing her once she gets to college? Or are you two going to give each other a little space?”

  Rawlins shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Rawlins had been seeing an older woman—a girl who planned to go to college in a few weeks, leaving my nephew behind to finish his last year of high school unencumbered.

  He stretched his arms over his head and put a spin of manly stoicism on the situation. “I’m kinda hooking up with this new girl. Regan. She works at the ice-cream shop.”

  “Oh, really? Is she nice?”

  He shrugged again. “She’s okay. But she calls me on my cell phone all the time. Even when we’re at work. She sends me text messages when we’re standing, like, ten feet apart.”

  “What does she text about?”

  Another shrug. “Nothing much. She wants to know where I am every minute. I mean, is it a crime to want to take a leak undisturbed once in a while?”

  Sorry I’d brought up a sore subject, I said, “Well, come back here tonight, okay? I don’t want to lie awake wondering if you’ve driven yourself over a cliff. When’s your curfew?”

  “Mom doesn’t care when I get home.”

  I poked his shoulder. “I doubt that. How about midnight?”