Homicide in High Heels

by Gemma Halliday

  Faux Dad stopped at the second door on the right and did a small knock. "Lacey, doll? It's Fernando."

  No answer.

  "Are you decent?" he asked.

  Again, nothing.

  Faux Dad frowned. "That's odd. I know she's in there."

  "Maybe she can't hear you over the spray?" I offered.

  Faux Dad put his ear to the door. "No, the jets are off. Lacey, honey, everything okay in there?" he asked, knocking again. He tried the handle, but the door was locked.

  I could see the frown increasing.

  "Wait here," he instructed me. "I'm going to get the key from Marco. Be back in a jiffy."

  I did, standing awkwardly outside the door, checking my watch. As much as meeting Lacey sounded fun, I only had an hour before I had to relieve my cousin of the twins. I needed to get to Petra and that manicure, stat.

  Luckily Faux Dad was true to his word, and one jiffy later he was back, a small, brass key in hand. He did one more repeat of the knock-and-call before slipping it into the handle and turning the lock.

  "Lacey, love?" he asked, gingerly pushing the door open.

  Then he froze, and I heard him suck in a big breath of air.

  I craned to see around him, pushing my way into the small room.

  Then I did a repeat of his gasp.

  Lying on the floor of the tanning stall was a young woman with thick brunette hair wearing a pair of teeny tiny bikini bottoms and nothing else. Her skin was streaked in uneven brown and pale lines, her body twisted inward on itself at an awkward angle, and her eyes dilated, staring straight up at the ceiling in a glazed, unblinking stare that could only be achieved by one type of body.

  A dead one.

  Chapter Two

  There are some people who have all the luck. When I was eight years old it bugged me to no end that my arch nemesis, Melinda Masters, seemed to be one of those people. Not only did she always have her name picked from the second grade good-behavior ticket jar, she was always the rock-paper-scissor elected dodge ball team captain, and the "randomly chosen" line leader at recess. But as I've grown into adulthood, I have come to realize that I have a certain kind of luck all my own. Dead body luck.

  I'm ashamed to admit that Lacey was not the first dead body I had ever encountered. In fact, my friends have started to joke that I'm kind of a dead body magnet. Not that I actually cause anyone to die, but I seem to have an uncanny knack for finding the recently deceased. Some people would say it's a fortunate thing that my husband is a homicide detective.

  Those people have never faced the business end of my husband's Bad Cop glare.

  I sat in a plastic chair in the lobby of Fernando's, where the responding officers had corralled the entire staff as they scoured the salon with fingerprint dust, luminal spray, and a bunch of other chemicals that I feared would cause a fire bomb reaction when mixed with the dyes, straighteners, and other hair products already hanging heavily in the salon air.

  When Faux Dad and I had run from the back room and told Marco what we'd found, the ensuing screamfest had pretty much alerted the entire patronage of the salon that something was up. And as soon as they'd figured out just what that something was, they'd bolted, some still mid-color in their foil wraps. I feared there would be over-bleached hair-dos all over Beverly Hills this week.

  Faux Dad was pacing the lobby floor, muttering to himself and shaking his head. The three stylists on shift today where huddled together, whispering in hushed tones. My two favorite nail ladies were in the corner, talking in rapid Vietnamese. Marco sat on the plastic chair beside me, patting my shoulder, and murmuring, "there, there," at comforting intervals. And I was taking deep breaths, as if the act of pulling air in and out of my lungs could somehow erase what I'd just seen.

  Marco shook his head, clucking his tongue. "It's just tragic."

  "Did you know her?" I asked, trying to block the image of her crumpled body from my brain.

  Marco nodded. "Only in passing. She was a new client, but she came in regularly for tanning, nails, hair, the works."

  I glanced toward the back of the salon where crime scene techs were pulling bottles of every chemical under the sun out of the storeroom. It was sadly ironic that she'd put so much care into her appearance then had ended up a spray-streaked mess.

  "Uh-oh, here comes trouble," Marco mumbled.

  I looked up, and froze. Marco was right.

  Ramirez walked through the glass front doors, gaze cool and assessing, posture stiff and intimidating, jaw set in a tight line. His eyes scanned the assembled group, and even before they honed in on me, I could feel him seeking me out. He knew Fernando's was my stepfather's place. He'd probably had the entire car ride over to seethe about the fact that I was once again at his crime scene.

  I thought about ducking behind Marco, but the fact that he underweighed me by about twenty pounds wasn't going to afford me much shelter from the brewing husband storm.

  Instead I took a deep breath, reminded myself that luck—whether it's over being a second grade line leader or finding dead people—is never a person's fault, and stood to face the music.

  Ramirez's eyes hit me immediately.

  "Hi, honey," I said, bravely marching up to him on legs that felt like Jell-O.

  "Hi." It was his deadpan cop voice, one that gave zero hint of emotion.

  I cleared my throat. "So, we've had a little incident," I told him, doing my best to downplay the obvious.

  His expression didn't change, but I'd swear I saw amusement flit across his eyes. "'Little' incident?"

  I nodded. "In the back. Tanning accident."

  His eyes cut to the crime scene techs. "Hmph," he grunted.

  "You can take my statement now, or I can give it to Charlie," I said, gesturing to one of the uniforms. "Blake's already taken my fingerprints," I waved to the CSU guy near the reception desk, "and Alex took a hair sample."

  Ramirez paused. "Wow. You really know the drill. It's like you've done this before."

  "Ha, ha. Very funny."

  "Oh, I'm not laughing," he said, back to the deadpan. "In fact, I don't see anything remotely funny about my wife being in the same vicinity as a dead body. Again."

  I swallowed hard. "Hey, it's not as if I wanted to see her like that, you know."

  He paused, his eyes softened a touch, and he cocked his head at me. "I know. You okay?"

  I felt tears back up behind my eyes as the image of Lacey's crumpled body came flooding back to me. But I bravely sniffed them back, nodding vigorously to convince myself as much as my husband. "Yep. I'm fine."

  He shot me a look. "Really?"

  "No. But I will be."

  He reached a hand out and gave me a little squeeze on the shoulder. "Tell me what happened," he said.

  I took a deep breath and did, giving him the sparse details I had.

  "Did you know Lacey?" he asked when I'd finished.

  I shook my head. "No. But she's the one Faux Dad got our baseball tickets from. She was dating Bucky Davis."

  That got his attention, both of his eyebrows heading north. "That should make things interesting with the press. Okay, you wait here. I'm going to go talk to the responding officer."

  I nodded, happy to be out of Bad Cop's clutches with only the minimum of interrogation.

  I watched as he spoke to a guy in uniform, then made the rounds, talking to various CSU, slipping into the back to see the victim, then slowly making his way back out to the lobby to see me.

  "So?" I asked. "What killed her?"

  He paused, his eyes going over the assembled group of Fernando's employees as he answered. "We're not sure. We're waiting for the ME to arrive and weigh in."

  I bit my lip. "But if you had to guess…natural causes?" I asked hopefully.

  Ramirez sighed. "I wish. But if I had to guess? No. The body didn't show any obvious signs that would point to a natural cause. She also didn't display any signs of outward trauma."

  I felt a frown pull between my brows. "W
hich means?"

  "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say death was due to some kind of poisonous substance."

  I glanced up at the CSU taking bottles from the supply closet and realized that they were all jugs of tanning solution.

  "Oh, no," I said. "Don't tell me it was something in the tanning spray?"

  "We'll know more when CSU gets their collections back to the lab," he said, dodging a direct answer.

  But the unreadable Cop Face he'd so neatly slid into place again told me he already had his own suspicion.

  Death by tanning. I suddenly felt infinitely glad I'd decided to go with the "pale is the new tan" motto this summer.

  "Oh, Jack, thank God you're here," Faux Dad said, rushing up to us. Completely obliviously to Bad Cop mode, he threw his arms around my husband's neck, giving him a big bear hug.

  Ramirez lifted one eyebrow at me and awkwardly patted Faux Dad on the back. "Uh, hi, Ral—er, Fernando."

  "This is a tragedy," Faux Dad said, breaking the embrace. "A travesty. A horror! How could this have happened in my salon?"

  "That's what I'm here to find out," Ramirez assured him. "Can I ask you a few questions about the victim?"

  Faux Dad paled. "Victim. Does that mean…?"

  Ramirez cleared his throat. "At the moment, we're treating this as a homicide investigation."

  Faux Dad put one hand on his heart, the other on my shoulder, swaying slightly on his feet. "Oh, no. Oh, heavens. Oh, this can't be. This is Beverly Hills," he said, shaking his head. "This sort of thing just does not happen here."

  "What can you tell me about Lacey…" Ramirez looked down, checking his notes.

  "Desta," Faux Dad supplied. "Lacey Desta. She was a new customer, but a good one. Came in every Monday for her tan, every Saturday for her mani-pedi, and every other Tuesday to touch up her highlights. Waxing on Friday and facials on Thursday."

  I felt my own eyebrows rise. I knew as well as anyone what went into a high-maintenance beauty regimen, but Lacey sounded like she took it to the extreme. Even I went two weeks between pedicures.

  "Did she always come in alone?" Ramirez asked.

  Faux Dad nodded. "Yes, as far as I saw."

  "Did she have any family, friends, anyone close to her that you know of?"

  He shook his head. "She mentioned some family back east, but I didn't get the feeling they were close. She really just talked about Bucky. She was dating that ballplayer," Faux Dad explained.

  "Right. I'm familiar with Davis," Ramirez answered. "What about your staff?"

  "What about them?" Faux Dad responded, shooting a nervous glance to the crew still assembled in the lobby.

  "Which one added the solution to Lacey's tanning booth?"

  I watched Faux Dad's Adam's apple bob up and down as he wiped his palms against the legs of his white trousers. "I did," he squeaked out. "Why? Was there something wrong with it?"

  But instead of answering, Ramirez fired another question at him. "Who had access to the solution prior to its use?"

  "Well," Faux Dad glanced behind him again. "Anyone, I suppose. I mean, the storage cupboards aren't locked."

  "What time did you add the solution to Lacey's booth?"

  Faux Dad licked his lips. "Around 10:00. I knew Lacey was scheduled at 11:30, but I had another client coming in for a cut and color at 10:30, so I wanted to get the booth ready early."

  "So, between 10:00 and 11:30, the booth was not monitored?"

  Faux Dad nodded. "That's right." He paused. "You think someone tampered with the spray?"

  "We're just trying to establish a timeline at the moment," Ramirez said.

  I resisted the urge to translate into real person speak for Faux Dad that, yes, someone did tamper and, yes, you were the last person to put fingerprints on the murder weapon. Mostly because I wasn't sure I could catch him if he fainted.

  "Who knew Lacey would be in today?" Ramirez went on.

  Faux Dad wrinkled his forehead in concentration. "Well, I…I don't know. I mean, it was written on the schedule."

  "And the schedule is?"

  "At the reception desk."

  "Marco's desk?" Ramirez asked.

  "Yes," Faux Dad agreed. "But anyone can see it. It's not like it's hidden."

  "Was Marco away from his desk at any time this morning?"

  "I…uh…I don't know," Faux Dad sputtered.

  "It's okay," I reassured him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  Ramirez must have realized that his Bad Cop routine was making Faux Dad sweat, because he quickly eased off. "I'll ask Marco about his movements," he said. "And I'd like to get a list of all the other stylists and staff you have. We're going to need to get statements from everyone."

  Faux Dad nodded, his face about three shades paler than when I'd entered the salon this morning. "Of course."

  "Ramirez!" one of the guys in uniform shouted, hailing him to the back room again.

  He nodded an exit to Faux Dad and me and went off into cop mode again.

  "That's it," Faux Dad said, watching him go. "I'm ruined. Word will get out that you tan at Fernando's and end up dead. I'll be finished in this town."

  "Don't worry," I told him, patting his shoulder again. "Ramirez is great at his job. He'll find whoever did this. Everything will be back to normal around here in no time."

  Unfortunately, it was a statement I only half believed. Crime scene veteran that I was becoming, I knew that "normal" was a relative term after a murder had occurred.

  After I'd given an official statement to Charlie and another uniformed officer (who I didn't know—he must have been new), I rushed to my cousin's house where I gave her all the gory deets on the case while making profuse apologies for being late. She made the appropriate "ohmigod" sounds, and then I took the twins home and called my best friend, Dana.

  Dana was an actress and, unfortunately, currently on location in San Francisco, shooting a scene for the cable drama Lady Justice, and didn't pick up. I left her a quick voicemail telling her to call me back ASAP.

  Then I put Dora the Explorer on TV (for the twins) and pulled up the L.A. Informer's celebrity news website (for me), following the latest posts and tweets as news of Lacey's death broke all over the tabloid universe. Speculation was rampant, but the facts were sparse, limited to those I'd already learned from Ramirez. I noticed that someone had leaked the method of death despite the absence of an ME's report, the case already being referred to in the press as the "Tanning Salon Murder."

  I hated to admit it, but as much as I'd tried to reassure Faux Dad earlier, I had to agree with him. This murder had the potential to be death to his salon.

  * * *

  The next morning Ramirez was predictably gone before dawn. I was awakened by my human alarm clocks an hour later. Their dual cries, clamoring for their morning bottles, broke through the baby monitor static on my nightstand as soon as the sun peeked through the yellow curtains in their nursery. I stumbled to do their bidding, feeding, changing, and cleaning Livvie and Max. Then I plopped them into their walkers with a handful of cheerios each and I shuffled into the kitchen to get some much needed caffeine while they watched Elmo. God bless that furry little monster. He was the only way I was ever able to get a full cup of coffee in the morning.

  Half an hour later I had showered, dressed, and even managed to apply a little mascara and lip gloss before Sesame Street ended.

  The twins were just starting to fuss when the doorbell rang.

  "Knock, knock," Marco said, not waiting for me to answer before poking his head into the house.

  "Come on in," I told him, waving him into the living room as I surfed the on-demand channels for another episode of toddler faves.

  As he stepped through the doorway, I noticed that today he was adorned in a pair of hot pink biker shorts, matching jellies sandals, and a black tank top with mesh down the sides. He'd topped it off with a neon green ascot with tiny hot-pink Chihuahua's on it. The outfit was so loud I almost didn't notice the petite, Asian w
oman who slipped into the house behind him.

  "Hey, you got a pretty nice place here," she said, eyeing her surroundings. "It's small but homey. Cozy. You know, kinda like one of those sitcom sets but without all the expensive furniture and nice artwork and stuff."

  Ling was 4'11", eighty pounds, and had the kind of smooth complexion and glossy hair that made it totally impossible to tell her age. She worked at the Glitter Galaxy, a strip club out in Industry, which meant her fashion sense tended toward the short, low cut, or pasted on. At first I'd felt sorry for her and her limited career options. Then I'd learned she made six figures a year dancing and felt sorry I didn't have the rhythm to join her.

  "Um, thanks," I said, choosing to take Ling's words as a compliment.

  "So how are my favorite almost-one-year-olds?" Marco ask, doing little air kisses at Livvie and Max. They both greeted him with squeals of delight and outstretched chubby arms. Auntie Marco had been gun-shy about the idea of "short, sticky people" at first, but as the twins had gotten older, and less likely to spit up on his designer clothing, they'd bonded like glue.

  "They're good," I answered for them. "You want coffee?"

  "Black, lots of sugar," Marco said nodding.

  "Ditto," Ling added, leaning down to shake a rattle at Max.

  "You're not working at Fernando's today?" I asked Marco, ducking into the kitchen and grabbing two mugs.

  Marco shook his head as I returned. "Nope. It's closed up tight. The police had crime scene tape all over the doors."

  I cringed, feeling a pang of sympathy again for Faux Dad.

  "Which is why we're here…" Marco trailed off, shooting a meaningful look at Ling. She nodded and winked back at him.

  A "hair-brained scheme" alarm immediately started going off in my brain, an uneasy feeling in my stomach mixing uncomfortably with the strong coffee.

  "What is why you're here?" I prompted.