Death by Killer Mop Doll (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery)

by Lois Winston

  At least I no longer had to worry about Ricardo. He now resided at a federal facility. Permanently. No chance of parole, thanks to a trail of dead bodies three months earlier.

  “A life without romance isn’t worth living,” said Mama. “Which reminds me, how’s that sexy tenant of yours?”

  “Zack?” asked Nick, bounding into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and began to survey the contents. “He’s cool. Don’t you think he and Mom—”

  I cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “I thought you had a test to study for.” I yanked his head out of the fridge and closed the door.

  My sons shadowed Zachary Barnes like unweaned puppies. More often than not, I arrived home from work to find Zack sitting at my kitchen table, regaling Nick and Alex with his latest adventure. Lucky for me, the too-sexy-for-my-own-good photo journalist traveled frequently.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You’ll have to wait until dinner.”

  He glanced at the clock over the sink. “Jeez, Mom, it’s after seven. When are we going to eat?”

  I tossed the box of mac and cheese at him. “If you’re so hungry, you can help.”

  He tossed the box back. “Can’t. Have to study.” He snagged an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table and hustled out of the kitchen.

  “So what’s with you and Zack?” asked Mama as I filled a pot with water and placed it on the stove.

  When Mama first met Zack, she tossed her hair, batted her eyes, and preened in front of him like a svelte Miss Piggy trying to woo Kermit the Frog. When Zack didn’t take the bait, she decided I should have him. This all took place within days of both of us entering the ranks of widowhood.

  I handed her a half-empty bag of carrots and a vegetable peeler. “Nothing.”

  She raised an eyebrow as she began scraping carrots. “He’s a very handsome man, Anastasia. Unattached. Good job.”

  “Forget Zack. Let’s talk about you. Why are you home three days early?”

  Mama had a knack for marrying grasshoppers—men who lived life to the fullest without any regard for tomorrow. When they died, as each of them had, they left her with fond memories of a good time and little more than pocket change. So between husbands, she camped out at Chez Pollack. Although also a grasshopper, Seamus O’Keefe had had the foresight to purchase a small life insurance policy prior to his and Mama’s Irish sojourn—a life insurance policy Mama had discovered only by chance weeks after returning from Ireland. Behind my back she paid off twenty thousand dollars of my inherited debt, then treated herself to a post-Seamus first-class cruise with the remaining five thousand dollars.

  Mama waved a raggedly peeled carrot in the air. She was as useless in the kitchen as the rest of my brood. “The ship had some sort of mechanical problem in Antigua. Since there were severe storm warnings, Lou and I decided to fly home before the storm hit.”

  “And just who is this Lou?”

  A dreamy look settled over her face. The corners of her mouth turned upward into a beatific smile as she exhaled a long sigh. “Lou? He’s the answer to my prayers. And yours.”

  “Want to run that by me again?”

  Mama rose from the table and tossed the carrot scrapings into the sink. “Lou is Louis Beaumont, Anastasia.”

  I waited. And waited. I crossed my arms, tapped my foot, cocked my head, and waited some more. “And?”

  Mama’s eyes grew wide. “Surely you’ve heard of Louis Beaumont.”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “He produces You Heard It Here First with Vince and Monica.”

  That explained so much. I offered Mama a blank stare.

  “The morning talk show with Vince Alto and Monica Rivers? Surely you’ve watched it.”

  “Television?” I laughed. “Right. Every morning while I loll around at the spa. In the afternoon I sip champagne, eat bonbons, and watch the soaps.”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm, dear. It’s a popular show. Even if you haven’t watched it, I’d expect you to know about it.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, Mama, I’m a single parent. I’m juggling a full-time job, two teenage kids, a house, a parrot who thinks he’s the reincarnation of William Shakespeare, a semi-invalid mother-in-law, and her spawn of Satan dog.

  “And when I’m not dealing with all of that, I’m trying to figure out ways to earn extra income because I’m up to my patootie in debt. I’ve never heard of Louis Beaumont. And you’ve heard that here first.”

  “Well, you’d better make an effort to watch You Heard It Here First, dear, because you’re going to be a regular on the show.”

  Two

  I laughed until tears streamed down my cheeks and I couldn’t catch my breath.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Mama. She scowl-stared at me as if trying to determine whether I was making fun of her or had gone completely non compos mentis.

  “You are.” I swiped at my face and broke into another chortle-athon. I had little enough to laugh about these days, and besides, sometimes a girl just has to bow to the absurd and let it all hang out. “Come on, Mama. Be serious. Me on TV? Not unless You Heard It Here First is a reality show for middle-aged, pear-shaped, financially strapped single parents.”

  “I am being serious,” she said, hands planted on her hips. “Lou thinks it’s a marvelous idea. Just what the show needs, he said.”

  That sobered me up. I tossed the chicken casserole in the oven and turned to her. “Forgetting that I have absolutely no acting experience, what’s what the show needs?”

  “Fresh blood.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “So You Heard It Here First is a daytime Buffy rip-off ? And Vince and Monica are the resident vampires?”

  “I don’t know about anyone named Buffy,” said Mama. “The stars are Vince Alto and Monica Rivers. I told you that already. And they’re certainly not vampires.”

  “And now I’m one of the stars?”

  “Well, you and some of the others.”

  “What others?”

  “The other people from the magazine, of course.”

  “Of course.” Silly me. The sound of boiling water drew my attention back to the stove. I dumped the dry macaroni into the pot, gave it a stir, and lowered the flame. Then I turned my attention back to my mother. “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we, Mama?”

  “I don’t know why this is so difficult for you to grasp, dear. Lou wants to revamp his show. Ratings are down. I suggested he think about switching from the sordid gossipfest he’s got now to one of those makeover shows that are so popular.”

  I glanced at my body. As much as I could use a makeover, I wasn’t about to engage in one on national television. Even I wasn’t that hard up for money. Well, actually I was, but I still maintained some principles, and making a public laughingstock of myself wasn’t even at the bottom of my list of ways to earn extra cash to pay the bills. Queer Eye for the Frumpy Middle-Aged Widow? “No way. I’m not going to be a guinea pig for a group of fairy godfathers.”

  Mama’s scowl-stare returned, her perfectly arched eyebrows knitting together over the bridge of her nose. “What on earth are you talking about? I never said anything about anyone using you as a guinea pig.”

  “Then what?”

  “You’re not getting a makeover, dear; you’re giving them. You and the rest of the staff at American Woman.”

  American Woman was a second-rate monthly magazine sold on the racks at supermarket check-out lines. In my glamorously titled but poorly paid position, I created the various craft projects featured in each issue. “I’m the magazine’s crafts editor,” I reminded her. “I have nothing to do with fashion or beauty.”

  “I know that.”

  So why did I get the feeling I was reasoning with a rutabaga?

  She exhaled a long-suffering sigh, as if I were the rutabaga—and a mentally challenged one at that. Then she spoke in a carefully modulated tone, the kind one might use to explain something to a menta
lly challenged rutabaga. “The fashion and beauty editors will deal with personal styling. You and the decorating editor will deal with home projects.”

  Okay, so maybe I was the rutabaga after all, considering Mama was beginning to make sense. “What about Trimedia?” I asked. Trimedia was the conglomerate that owned American Woman, and a stingier group of pecuniary tightwads had never walked the face of the earth. My paycheck could attest to that. I couldn’t see them kicking in the moolah to support such a venture.

  Mama issued forth another exasperated sigh. “Don’t you know anything about the company you work for, dear?”

  I knew they had instituted a hostile takeover last year, wresting control of the family-owned company out of the hands of former publisher and now meaningless figurehead Hugo Alsopp-Reynolds. Once in control, the bean-counting suits had reduced our benefits and upped the employee contribution for what little remained. Then they moved us from our easy-to-commute-to Lower Manhattan offices to a cornfield in the middle of Morris County, New Jersey. I’d say I knew more than I wanted to know about Trimedia.

  When I didn’t answer her, Mama continued. “Trimedia owns the network that produces You Heard It Here First. Lou already pitched the idea while we were on the cruise, and they love it. They’re going to hold a press conference at the end of the week. At a cocktail party.” Tapping her lips with the opalescent pink nail of her index finger, she graced my bleach-stained jeans and faded New York Mets sweatshirt with a critical once-over. “You do have something nice to wear, don’t you, dear?”

  _____

  An hour and a half later, I was back in the basement, tossing the rewashed whites into the dryer. Before pushing the start button, I offered up a prayer to the gods of household appliances that my sixteen-year-old Kenmore would live through yet another load. It had recently begun making ominous noises. I wondered if I should also burn some incense or set up a little shrine to further appease the laundry gods. Couldn’t hurt. I needed all the help I could get. I didn’t have money for a repair bill, let alone a new dryer. And I certainly didn’t have the time to hang wet laundry on a clothesline.

  I searched around for the makings of a shrine. No incense, but I did have a half-melted, strawberry-scented candle and a bottle of Mr. Clean. The muscle-bound bald guy looked enough like a Buddha to pass as a laundry god. I draped the bottle with a strand of Mardi Gras beads, lit the candle, and offered up a prayer. Then I turned my attention to the half-finished craft project spread out on the card table in the middle of the room.

  Because staff meetings, photo shoots, and mounds of paperwork often gobbled up my day, I did much of my designing at home in the evenings and on weekends. Up until three months ago, I worked out of a comfortable home studio housed in the apartment above our detached garage. Now Zachary Barnes occupied the apartment, and I worked beneath the spastic flickers of a fluorescent strip light, shivering in the cold basement with my craft supplies spread atop an abandoned ping-pong table wedged between the hot water heater and the washing machine. One stumble to the left were assorted tools and a plethora of sports equipment. To the right were cartons of Christmas decorations and shelves of cleaning supplies.

  Did I mention I’ve got the luck of an excommunicated leprechaun?

  Even though it was the first week of May, the makings of a Halloween centerpiece, faux fall foliage and resin pumpkins, covered my work space. A monthly magazine’s biological clock runs five to six months ahead of the calendar. Come October, I’d be knee-deep in fuzzy Easter bunnies and cellophane grass.

  As I worked, I mulled over Mama’s bombshell announcements. I’m not sure which bothered me more—yet another stepfather in a continuing parade of short-term stepfathers, or the fact that I would soon be wielding my glue gun in front of a few million television viewers.

  The first disturbed me; the second terrified me, thanks to my one and only on-air experience. As a very young child, I had wet my pants on Bozo the Clown.

  Don’t ask.

  Besides, I didn’t need any additional responsibilities to cram into my already over-extended life. During the past three months I had come to the conclusion that juggling family, career, and homemaking duties as a single parent ranks up there with having a root canal, an ingrown toenail, and a colonoscopy—all on the same day.

  However, Mama had said the television show was the answer to my prayers. Lately those prayers had centered around learning I was the long-lost sister of Bill Gates or daughter of Warren Buffett.

  Apparently God saw otherwise. I’d settle for an extra weekly paycheck, despite the additional work.

  “I need a wife,” I groused, gluing a silk burnt sienna oak leaf into position.

  “Heaven witness,” squawked Ralph. “I have been a true and humble wife. Henry the Eighth. Act Two, Scene Four.”

  I glanced to my left to find him perched on a shelf above the washing machine, between a box of Tide and a package of Ty-D-Bowl. “No offense, but parrots don’t count.” Ralph might have an uncanny knack for uttering circumstance-appropriate quotes from the Bard, but like the rest of my household, he was useless when it came to domestic assistance.

  _____

  At work the next day, I found myself the center of attention—anything but a common occurrence except for that one occasion three months ago when I was the suspect of a murder investigation.

  A hierarchy existed at American Woman. Fashion and beauty reigned, garnering the most number of pages per issue. Crafts maintained Bottom Feeder status. Ad space—or more accurately, lack of it—determined my monthly page allotment. Ads equaled revenue. An issue with lots of crafts projects meant the sales force hadn’t done a very good job that month. Thus, the bean counting shirts who resided upstairs were exceedingly unhappy when I wound up with more than a page or two of editorial content per issue.

  And when the bean counters were unhappy, they made life miserable for the rest of us. Consequently, even though I had nothing to do with generating sales, I wasn’t the most popular person around American Woman.

  However, when I entered the break room and dropped Mama’s bombshell news, I became Miss Popularity. Everyone demanded details. “That’s all I know,” I told them after providing the information I’d garnered from Mama. “I guess we’ll have to wait until the press conference tomorrow.”

  “I wonder if Naomi knows more,” said Cloris, munching on a chocolate glazed donut with pink sprinkles. Cloris McWerther was the magazine’s food editor, a few rungs above me in Bottom Feeder Land, and my closest friend at work—even though she possessed a metabolism that enabled her to inhale calories, yet maintain a size 2 figure. I, on the other hand, merely had to glance at a chocolate glazed donut with pink sprinkles to blow up another dress size.

  Normally, I’d hate someone like Cloris, but she had also played Doctor Watson to my Sherlock Holmes a few months ago when Ricardo the Loan Shark tried to frame me for murder, so I forgave her that enviable metabolism of hers.

  “Know what?” asked Naomi. Our editorial director entered the break room and helped herself to a cup of java. With her aristocratic features, the elegant Naomi Dreyfus reminded me of Grace Kelly. She wore her silver hair pulled back into a tight chignon and always looked like she had stepped off the pages of Vogue, circa 1955.

  Kim O’Hara, Naomi’s half-Chinese, half-Irish, ever-present assistant, stood several paces behind her boss. As usual, Kim clutched a phone between her cheek and shoulder while jotting notes on a pad balanced atop a stack of file folders. Every once in a while she offered an “uh-huh” as she jotted another detail from the caller.

  “About all of us doing a television show,” said Jeanie Sims, our decorating editor.

  Naomi frowned. Mutual animosity existed between her and upper management. Some of it, no doubt, stemmed from her long-time relationship with Hugo. Except for a brief period when Hugo fell under the spell of former fashion editor Marlys Vandenburg, he and Naomi had been an item for years. They got back together after Ricardo dispatched Marly
s to the great catwalk in the sky. The rest of the hostility between Naomi and the guys upstairs dealt with her ongoing battle over control of editorial content. “No one has said anything to me about a TV show,” she said.

  I told her what I knew.

  She turned to Kim, who had ended her call and was now helping herself to a cup of coffee. “You hear anything?” In order for Naomi to control her blood pressure and keep ulcers at bay, she used Kim whenever possible to run interference for her against the tightwad suits.

  Kim shook her head, her blunt cut sweeping across her face like a silky auburn curtain. “Not a word. You want me to talk to some of the girls upstairs?”

  “See what you can find out,” said Naomi.

  Kim grabbed her files, her phone, and her coffee and headed for the elevator.

  “I hope it’s true,” said Tessa Lisbon, Marlys’s replacement. She bent her knees to check her perfectly applied make-up in the reflection from the toaster oven on the Formica counter. As fashion editors went, Tessa was not much of an improvement over the self-absorbed Marlys, a prima donna personality seeming to be a pre-requisite for fashion editors. “I’d kill to be a big-name TV star,” she added.

  “That’s probably the only way you’d gain a name for yourself on that show,” said Cloris.

  “What do you mean?” asked Tessa. She removed a lipstick from her pocket and began repairs to a collagen-enhanced pout that already looked perfectly painted to me.

  “I caught it once when I had the flu and was channel surfing,” said Cloris. “Once was enough. They really scrape the bottom of the tabloid barrel.”

  “How so?” asked Janice Kerr, our health editor.

  “Mama did say it was one of those sleazy gossip shows,” I said.

  “We’re not talking Regis and Kelly here, ladies,” continued Cloris, reaching for another donut. “Even the show’s hosts are washed-up B-listers. The day I watched, one guest was a Hollywood has-been who’d recently completed a few hundred hours of community service.”