Parked on one side of the house was a sleek silver sports car. While I’m no car expert, even I knew enough about the ones favored by the rich and famous to recognize it as a Maserati. Sitting on the other side like a second bookend was a boat big enough to be called a yacht, its white fiberglass exterior gleaming in the bright June sun.
Like Ben Chandler, Donald Drayton was clearly enjoying great success in the business world.
Is there really so much money in pet supplies? I thought, wondering, at least for a moment, if I was a fool for not rushing to join Ben Chandler and Marcus Scruggs in their pursuit of animal-related commerce.
I rang the doorbell, expecting a maid to answer the door. I pictured some poor woman who was forced to wear a black dress and a white apron, just like a character out of a British period film. Instead, when the door finally opened, I found myself face-to-face with a teenage girl—although thanks to her rail-thin frame, hollow cheeks, and shabby clothes, she could have passed for the maid. Or the Little Match Girl, moonlighting as a housekeeper to make ends meet.
But the girl’s condescending gaze, which made me feel about as welcome as a Jehovah’s Witness, told me she was no housekeeper. So did the badly faded jeans that were practically sliding off her narrow hips. They had the Juicy Couture logo on the pocket, a distinctive curlicue that broadcast the fact that they retailed for about two hundred bucks. And this diva wore Prada, even though this particular shirt, which was plain black but probably cost more than a month’s rent at the cottage, didn’t fit any better than the overpriced jeans. Thanks to its deeply cut neckline, it kept slipping off, revealing a pair of bony shoulders.
Her dark brown hair, long and sleek, was cut blunt. Her eyes were ringed in black, making her look as if she hadn’t slept for days. Either that or she was a little-known member of the Addams Family, perhaps Morticia’s long-lost niece. A small nose ring festooned one nostril. Gold, of course.
She wasn’t alone. Unfortunately, her companion couldn’t seem to keep from howling as if it was a full moon and not the sun that at the moment was lighting up the sky. In fact, the beagle she was dragging around by the collar seemed to be half-beagle, half-hyena. It made Frederick and his on-camera antics look amateurish.
“I hope you’re not selling anything,” Morticia’s niece greeted me nastily. “We boil salespeople in oil.”
Nice girl, I thought.
“Actually, I’m paying a social call,” I told her, doing my best to remain polite. “I was wondering if Donald Drayton is home.”
At least that’s what I tried to say. Given the fact that the dog hadn’t stopped letting out one ear-piercing shriek after another, I wasn’t sure she’d heard a word.
“Maggie, shut up!” the girl screamed. Grimacing, she added, “This dog is so nutty. She’s always been like this, ever since she was a puppy. She does this every time somebody approaches the house. Even if it’s only one of us!”
I was tempted to suggest that the family invest in a few sessions with a good dog behaviorist. But this hardly seemed like the time or place.
“Look, come inside,” she said impatiently. “Once she gets used to you, she’ll quiet down.”
As soon as I stepped into the foyer of the palatial house, the beagle’s howling simmered down to a whine that was nominally less irritating. But then another high-pitched voice rang out from the back of the house.
“Nicole, I don’t want you having any friends over right now!” a woman screeched in a voice capable of shattering glass. “I told you this isn’t a good time! And will you shut that damn dog up?”
“It’s not for me!” Nicole yelled back. I suppose I should have been heartened by the fact that she didn’t address her mother any more politely than she talked to me.
“Then come back in here and finish eating!”
“I’m not hungry!”
“You’re never hungry! You’re practically a skeleton and you still won’t eat. I’m calling a doctor on Monday, Nicole. A psychiatrist! The one who was on Oprah last week!”
“She thinks I have food issues,” Nicole told me with a sneer. “If you ask me, she’s been watching too much Dr. Phil.” She rolled her eyes. Miraculously, all that caked eyeliner didn’t crack.
“Is your father home?” I asked.
“No-o-o,” Nicole replied in the same petulant tone. “He’s probably out making money. Oh, right, it’s Saturday. So he’s probably out playing golf with a bunch of stuffy old businessmen who can help him make money.” Gesturing toward the back of the house, she added, “But my wicked stepmother’s here if you want to talk to her.”
Ah, I thought. A stepmother. That helped explain why I felt as if I’d walked into an updated version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with an all-female cast.
“Actually,” I said, “it’s your dad I wanted to—”
“Who is it, Nicole?” the shrill voice demanded.
“It’s some lady who wants to talk to you!” Nicole yelled back.
No wonder Maggie howls every time somebody comes to the door, I thought grimly.
Before I had a chance to attempt to explain once again that it wasn’t her stepmother I came to see, I heard loud heels rapping sharply against the floor of what had to be a very long hallway. Finally, a woman emerged into the front hallway from what I assumed was the kitchen.
However, what she’d been doing in a kitchen was beyond me. She was dressed as if she was going to the opera, not whipping up a batch of brownies. Not when chocolate was guaranteed to leave unsightly stains on a clingy white minidress.
The woman didn’t appear to be much older than Nicole. Twenty-five, maybe, only a decade or so older than her stepdaughter. And like her stepdaughter, she was bone thin. I wondered if that eating disorder specialist she was planning to call offered a family rate. But there was one thing about her that didn’t fit the rest of her frame: her large, balloonlike breasts, which took center stage thanks to her dangerously low neckline. I suspected that, like the dress and high heels, they were something she’d paid a lot for.
Her hair, meanwhile, looked as if it had been styled in a cotton candy machine. Fortunately, it wasn’t pink. It was pale yellow, as if the spun sugar was pineapple flavor. Or maybe lemon. Her heavily made-up eyes were also an unusual color, an unnatural shade of turquoise that could only be achieved with tinted contact lenses.
Still, her startling hair and colorful eyes paled beside her eyebrows. The originals appeared to have been shaved off, or perhaps she’d gotten too close to the gas while preheating the oven for those brownies. Either she or someone who didn’t like her very much had drawn substitute eyebrows with what appeared to be a Sharpie. The two dramatic arches made her look perpetually surprised. She, too, had clearly spent a long time smearing various powders and creams all over her eyelids. I got the feeling extreme eye makeup, like whining and howling, ran in the family.
As she crossed the room toward us, her dangerously high heels struck the wooden floor even more loudly. But my ears weren’t the only sensory organs that were suffering. So was my nose, which suddenly had to cope with way too much perfume.
Her approach also motivated Maggie to launch into another round of howls.
“Nicole, take that beast outside right now!” she screeched. Turning to me, she said in a voice that wasn’t much friendlier, “What is it you want?”
“My name is Jessica Popper,” I said as calmly as I could, given the fact that I felt as if I was standing in the center of a three-ring circus. “I went to school with Ben Chandler and Erin Walsh. I wanted to personally extend my sympathy to your husband, since he and Ben are business partners.”
“Oh. Is that all.” Donald Drayton’s wife looked taken aback, probably because I was actually doing something thoughtful.
“Donny’s not here,” she told me in a voice as sharp as her high heels. “I’m his wife. Darla Drayton.” She spoke hesitantly, as if she was carefully considering each piece of information she offered before revealing it.
Darla simply stared at me for at least five seconds. “You could have just called, you know,” she finally said. “Or sent a note.”
“Yes, but I wanted to extend my sympathies in person,” I replied. “Erin’s death is such a tragedy. One that affects all of us who knew her and cared about her.”
“Thank you.” Darla said simply. Just saying those two words seemed like an effort. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m sure you understand that I have other business to attend to. This is an extremely busy time. Difficult too.”
“Of course. I’ll let myself out.”
I’d already seen enough. Donald Drayton had not only found a way to make a lot of money during his lifetime; he’d used it to acquire the classic trophy wife. Like the overpowering fountain on the front lawn, the Maserati, and the yacht, Darla was one more accessory that showed the rest of the world that he was a true champion in the game of Whoever Has the Most Toys Wins.
As I stepped out the front door, relieved to be inhaling fresh air again instead of choking on perfume, I found Nicole sitting on the grass, her face buried in the soft fur of Maggie’s neck. She glanced up when she heard me, looking surprised at having been found out. A little embarrassed too.
“Sorry,” Nicole said, looking up at me and blinking.
“About what?” I asked.
“That my stepmother is such a loser.”
For the first time, I saw that beneath the eye makeup and nose piercing, there was a little girl who was as unhappy and unsure of herself as any other fifteen-year-old stuck in a bad living situation.
“You know,” I told her, gesturing toward the beagle wrapped in her arms, “you might find it worthwhile to consult with a professional dog trainer. It’s not my area of expertise, but I’m pretty sure there are some simple behavioral modification techniques that would help break Maggie of her bad habits.”
“Really?” The girl brightened. “That would help make life at least a little more peaceful around here.”
I reached into my purse. “Here’s my card. Give me a call. In the meantime, I’ll ask around and see if I can get you the name of somebody who’s good.”
“Thanks.” Nicole still looked surprised as she stuck my card into the back pocket of her jeans, the one with the swirling yellow logo. I suspected that what had caught her off guard was the fact that somebody—a grown-up no less—was being nice to her.
I really did intend to find Nicole a professional who could help make living with Maggie a little easier. It occurred to me that Marcus might know somebody. For all I knew, there was even a behaviorist in that snazzy new practice of his.
But there was another reason I wanted to talk to Nicole again—alone. A reason that was much more important than a beagle with bad habits.
And that was the wealth that Donald Drayton and his business partner, Ben Chandler, seemed to be enjoying. Not only its magnitude, but also the fact that it seemed to have come to both of them fairly recently, perhaps even since they had struck up a partnership.
Questions about all the money that was suddenly floating around nagged at me. And I had a hunch that Donald Drayton’s disgruntled daughter might be just the person to help me answer them.
Chapter 10
“An American monkey after getting drunk on brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.”
—Charles Darwin
I waited until Sunday morning to ask Nick about the favor that had been pressing on my mind for days. Even though we’d talked about him helping me investigate Erin’s murder, the subject was still hot enough that I knew I had to handle it with oven mitts.
In fact, I took that quite literally. I made a batch of blueberry muffins and served them still warm from the oven for breakfast, hoping that loading him with tasty carbs would buy me a little extra goodwill.
“Nick, do you remember the other night?” I asked as he popped a good third of a muffin into his mouth. “The first night we spent here at Betty and Winston’s house?”
“I certainly do,” he said with a leer. “In fact, if you’d like to try an instant replay—”
“I was thinking about what you said, not what you did,” I corrected him. “You agreed to help me investigate Erin’s murder, remember?”
I hoped he would have forgotten that he never actually made a commitment to helping me. It was more like he’d stopped protesting when I made that suggestion, thanks to a little distraction.
No such luck.
Warily, he said, “Jess, I thought I made it pretty clear that I’m not crazy about you getting involved in another murder investigation. It’s simply too dangerous.”
Now there was a point that was hard to deny. “Would you feel better if I promised not to get myself into any compromising positions?”
“You mean that you’d stick to behind-the-scenes stuff? Doing research, brainstorming with Erin’s sister . . . that kind of thing? Maybe talking to a few people who might know something?” He paused to take a deep breath. “I guess what I mean is, would you avoid putting yourself into any situation in which you might get hurt . . . or worse?”
“I suppose I could do that,” I assured him, thinking, At least as much as possible.
Besides, I reminded myself, words like dangerous and unsafe are open to interpretation, aren’t they?
“In that case, I suppose I could help out a little,” he finally agreed.
“Fabulous!” I exclaimed. “And it just so happens that I already have an assignment for you. Not only does it fit the description of being totally danger-free, it’s also a perfect match for your unique qualifications.”
“I can’t wait to hear what it is,” he said dryly.
I decided to ignore his lack of enthusiasm. After all, I knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Okay, here’s the situation,” I told him. “Ben Chandler, Erin’s husband, has a business partner named Donald Drayton. He’s apparently been very successful at whatever it is he does.”
“Wait a minute,” Nick interjected. “If this Donald guy is Ben’s business partner, doesn’t that mean you already know what he does?”
I grimaced. “Let’s just say that while Ben is quite successful, no doubt because of the venture the two of them undertook together, his pal Donald is big-time successful. We’re talking a Maserati, a yacht, and a huge ugly house outfitted with every gaudy design element you can imagine.”
I decided not to mention that the symbols of Donald Drayton’s success included a classic trophy wife. While my take on Darla Drayton was that she fit nicely into that category, I still felt I should give Donny and Darla the benefit of the doubt. After all, when you came right down to it, who knew what really drew two people together?
Nick had pulled out a pen and was jotting down the names and details I mentioned in the date book he always carried around in his shirt pocket.
“And what’s the nature of this business venture of theirs?” he asked.
“A chain of pet shops. Embarrassingly enough, they’re named the Pet Empawrium. That’s E-M-P-A—”
“I got it,” Nick interrupted.
“There are eleven stores,” I continued, “five of them on Long Island.”
“Pet stores, huh?” Nick thought for a few seconds. “That doesn’t exactly strike me as the road to riches. At least not at the level you’re describing.”
“Me either. Which is why I’m curious about what else Donald Drayton might be into. And given your background as a private investigator, that seems like exactly the type of information you’d be great at tracking down for me.”
“That does sound like something right up my alley.” Frowning, he asked, “But what if it does turn out that this guy is into something sleazy? What do you think that might have to do with Erin’s murder?”
; “Frankly, I have no idea,” I admitted.
“So Donald Drayton isn’t a suspect?”
“Not at this point. But by finding out more about him, I’ll be finding out more about Ben.”
“I see. So Erin’s husband is a suspect.”
I shrugged. “The spouse always is. You know that as well as I do.”
Nick shut his date book and stuck it back in his pocket. “I’ll work on it as soon as I can. But for now, I think we should get back to our earlier discussion. I believe we were talking about an instant replay of Friday night—”
When the annoying trill of a cell phone kept him from finishing his sentence, he groaned.
“Whose is it this time, yours or mine?” he asked.
“Mine. Sorry.” I grabbed my pocketbook and pulled out my cell phone.
Caller ID told me it was Suzanne. I answered anyway.
“Good morning, Suzanne,” I began, subtly trying to make the point that Sunday morning is unofficially private time in households throughout the land. “Nick and I are kind of in the middle of something. Would you mind if I called you ba—”
“Jessie, I think I’m in love!” Suzanne cried.
“That’s great,” I replied, wondering which part of Nick and I are kind of in the middle of something she didn’t understand. “But right now, I’m afraid I—”
“I’m talking about Kieran, of course. The man is absolutely amazing.”
Just for a moment, her dreamy voice took me back to our college days. That is, the days when she and I were still both teenagers and fully believed that there really was such a thing as Mr. Right.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” she went on dreamily. “That the incredible attraction between us is just physical. That it’s simply the fact that he’s a total hunk—and that the sex is beyond fabulous—that’s got me in such a state.”
More information than I need! a voice in my head shrieked.
“But honestly, Jessie, that’s only the beginning,” Suzanne continued. “Kieran is smart, funny, affectionate . . . and he does the sweetest things. Like right after our first date last night, he took out a felt-tip pen and wrote my phone number on the back of his hand, just to make sure he’d always have it with him. Isn’t that cute?”
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