The Celebutantes

by Antonio Pagliarulo

  Lex was unconsciously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She didn’t so much as blink.

  But she started when a sneeze echoed through the elevator. A loud, wet sneeze that had come from the housekeeping cart.

  Aaaahhhhhhh-choooooooooooooo!

  Park make a quick pretense of lifting her hand to her nose and shaking her head. If Ina turned around or stared at the doors to see who was behind her, she would see that little move and, with any luck, think nothing of the sneeze.

  Lex turned beet red.

  The elevator came to a stop with a loud ding and the doors opened. Ina stepped out onto the twelfth floor and made a sharp right.

  It wasn’t until the doors closed and the elevator started moving again that Park let out a mammoth sigh. “Holy shit!” she said. “I can’t believe it!”

  “Do you think she recognized us?” Lex asked worriedly.

  “I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell. What the hell is she doing here? Madison said she and Tallula checked out last night.”

  “And why did she get off at the twelfth floor?”

  Park fanned herself with her hand. “I have no idea. But that was too close. I totally thought she was going to turn around and say something. Did you see her getup?”

  “Awful!” Lex said. “That turban looked like a tablecloth.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Coco’s head popped out from the bottom of the cart again.

  “Get back in there and don’t move until I tell you to!” Lex snapped. “Got it?”

  Coco grunted. “It’s not easy being down here! And I’m totally freaked about being in these elevators again—they scare the hell out of me.”

  “Get in!” Lex hissed, shoving at Coco with her shin.

  Coco retreated into her little cubbyhole again just as the elevator stopped, dinged, and opened on the thirtieth floor. Lex and Park shoved the cart out into the hallway.

  Madison was waiting at the last elevator. Beside her was Brooklyn DiMarco, dressed in his simple uniform.

  “What the hell took you two so long?” Madison gave a worried look.

  “We just saw Ina Debrovitch in our elevator!” Lex said, a bit too loudly.

  Brooklyn waved his hands. “Shhhhhhhh! You’ve gotta keep it down, okay?”

  “Sorry.” Lex gave him a quick wink.

  Madison reached out and grabbed her arm; the movement was so sudden, the cap on her head tipped over onto her forehead. “Are you serious? What the hell is she doing here? Where is she now?”

  “Twelfth floor,” Park said. “She hung a right out of the elevator.”

  “The twelfth floor?” Brooklyn sounded skeptical. “You sure?”

  Park nodded. “Positive. Why?”

  “Most of the twelfth floor is undergoing renovation right now,” he said. “I don’t even think anyone’s down there.”

  “Someone has to be there,” Lex told him.

  Brooklyn turned his attention to the elevator that had just opened to his left. He motioned them inside.

  Madison and Lex took hold of the cart, pushing it into the elevator.

  It took less than thirty seconds to reach the forty-second-floor tower suites.

  Once they were standing in the long, lavish foyer that led to penthouse four, Madison tapped on the cart. “Come on, Coco. You can get out of there now.”

  With a long, weary sigh, Coco climbed out from her cubbyhole on all fours, moaning and stretching like a cat. Lex’s magic purse dropped to the floor.

  Lex bent down to pick it up. “Jeez, it really is tiny in there. Thank God you’re so small.”

  “Small or not, I feel like a pretzel,” Coco snapped. She shivered as she looked around at the all-too-familiar surroundings. “I hate being here. I never wanted to see this place again.”

  “Well, I need you to show me exactly what happened,” Park said gently. “So try to keep your head clear.” She turned around. “Hey, Brock. Bust open the door.”

  Brooklyn scanned the long hallway. It was clear. “Shit,” he whispered. “My dad finds out about this, I’ll get totally sacked.”

  “If anyone finds out, just blame us,” Park said calmly.

  Brooklyn smirked. “You girls must have really sweet lawyers.”

  “We do,” Madison said. “But we have even better publicists.”

  In one smooth gesture, Brooklyn slipped the key into place and turned the lock. He threw open the door and waved them all inside.

  It was dark in the suite. Slats of light filtered in through the windows, but shadows loomed in every corner. There was a scraping sound from one of the walls as Brooklyn searched for a switch; he found it a few seconds later and flipped it.

  They were standing in the wide foyer. The sheer elegance of the furnishings was instantly evident, but as they tiptoed into the large living room, Madison, Park, and Lex recognized the telltale signs of police presence: the yellow tape scattered across the floor, the remnants of fingerprint powder. The suite, still in the stages of evidence collection, had not been cleaned by the maintenance staff.

  “Be careful where you walk,” Park warned everyone. “And don’t touch anything.”

  “Shit. The cops really tore this place apart,” Brooklyn whispered.

  Madison found herself marveling at the interior again. “I just love this old English décor. These antiques are incredible!”

  Park stared in the direction of the two closed doors at the far end of the room—the doors that led out onto the balcony. She circled the two sofas and the Queen Anne chairs. The seating area was a good distance away, but if her suspicions were correct, none of that would really matter. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.” She looked at Lex. “Did you bring the goods?”

  Lex nodded and opened the magic purse. She pulled out the pair of stunning Akiko Bergstrom heels Coco had worn the day before and held them out.

  “You didn’t even tell me why you needed those,” Coco suddenly said. “You’re not gonna make me put them on again, are you?”

  “Yep, I am.” Park took them from Lex and handed them over to Coco.

  With a grimace, Coco kicked off her flats and slipped into the pair of silver heels. “They are beautiful,” Coco mumbled thoughtfully. But her expression changed to a wince of pain the second the shoes were on her feet.

  “I hate to have to point this out to everyone,” Park said firmly. “But those shoes are not real.”

  “What?” Coco shrieked. Her face flushed.

  “They’re fakes,” Park continued. She pointed down at Coco’s feet. “Akiko Bergstrom heels are expensive and incredibly well made. But, I can tell you right now that the ones you’re wearing are fakes, Coco. The straps that go across the top of the foot—”

  “These have straps!” Coco cut in, clearly offended.

  “Yes, they do,” Park said. “But if you look at those straps, you’ll notice that they go from inside to outside, meaning that the clasp is outside of each shoe.”

  Coco grunted. “So?”

  “A signature of these shoes is the straps—on real pairs, they only go from outside to inside.” Park made a genuinely apologetic face. “That’s an absolute fact. I didn’t notice it yesterday at the luncheon because I really didn’t look at your feet. But when I saw that full-body shot of you in the paper this morning, it hit me. I’m sorry to have to tell you that those little numbers on your feet are fashion contraband.”

  Madison gasped. “At five thousand dollars a pair?”

  Lex, unable to accept the news, lost her balance and stumbled straight into Brooklyn’s arms. She was horrified, but the move had been purely strategic: she wanted those arms around her.

  “Hey!” Brooklyn said, holding her tightly. “Lex, are you okay?”

  “I’ll be…fine,” she said faintly. “I…I just need a minute.” With a sudden burst of energy, she spun around and, pressing herself hard against Brooklyn’s chest, wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Jeez,” he said. “That shoe thing i
s pretty bad, huh?”

  “It’s awful,” Lex whispered, purposefully letting her weight hang.

  Brooklyn scooped her up, holding her sideways like a newly married groom about to carry his bride into a honeymoon suite. “That feel better?” he asked, smirking.

  Lex smiled. “Much.” She kept her arms linked around his neck.

  “I can’t believe it!” Coco cried. “My mom said she got these directly from an exclusive boutique in Hong Kong!”

  “They’re obviously a copycat pair,” Madison said gravely. “That’s why they hurt so much. As soon as you get home, throw them out.”

  Park held up a hand. “Don’t throw them out yet—I have a feeling they’re going to come in handy as evidence. Lex, could you please lend me Brock for a minute? I need his…outstanding physique.”

  Brooklyn flushed as Lex hopped out of his arms.

  “Fine,” Lex whispered in Park’s ear. “But be quick—he’s on loan.”

  Park bit her tongue to keep from laughing. “Okay,” she said. “Coco, tell us exactly where you and Elijah were standing when you started arguing.”

  “Right there.” Coco pointed to the wide area between the sofas. “We started out by sharing…a little kiss on the couch. But then when he started getting rough, I pushed him away from me, and then we were standing up, facing each other.”

  “Let’s pretend Brock is Elijah,” Park said. She went around to his side and moved him into position. Then she took Coco by the arm and placed her into position as well, so that they were facing each other. “Does that feel familiar?”

  Coco nodded. She heaved a sigh as tears sprang to her eyes.

  “No crying!” Madison warned. “There’s no time to fix your makeup.”

  Coco swallowed hard over the lump in her throat. “Okay.”

  “Now,” Park continued, “let’s just pretend that you wanted to shove Elijah clear across the room toward the balcony doors.”

  “But the balcony doors were closed,” Coco said.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Park waved her hands. “Let’s just pretend. Go ahead and start pushing at Brock. Pretend he’s Elijah. Go. Start pushing him.”

  “What are you doing?” Madison asked quietly.

  “Never mind,” Park said. “Coco, start pushing him. Shove him hard. As hard as you can. Brock is a little bigger than Elijah was, but not by much. It’ll still prove my point. Coco—shove him.”

  Taking a deep breath, Coco began batting her hands against Brooklyn’s chest and stomach. She looked like a mouse going up against a lion. She pushed him twice, then stopped.

  “Again,” Park instructed her. “Do it hard. Just like you would have when Elijah was getting rough with you. Defend yourself, Coco. You’re fighting for your own safety, right?”

  Coco repeated the shoving motion.

  “Harder!” Lex snapped. “That sleazy dweeb tried to hurt you.”

  “But this isn’t what happened!” Coco said desperately. “I didn’t shove Elijah like this.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to prove,” Park answered. “Just keep pushing.”

  Grunting, her forehead breaking out in a line of sweat, Coco began ramming her weight against Brooklyn with all her might, fingers splayed.

  Brooklyn didn’t seem to be feeling anything. His body inched back slowly, but Coco’s petite frame was nothing against his own.

  With a final, raging grunt, Coco shoved into him; as she did so, she stumbled back and to the right. The heel of her right shoe snapped off, and she went sailing toward the floor.

  Lex’s arms shot out and caught her.

  “Oh!” Coco said, slamming into Lex. “Oh my God!”

  Park bent down and picked up the broken heel. She held it up. “Now, an authentic Akiko Bergstrom heel would never snap under your weight,” she explained. “Those shoes are designed with a steel support that is actually anchored within the body of the shoe. These are fakes, but that’s not what’s important. If you had really shoved Elijah with all your weight—hard enough to send him over the balcony—this heel would’ve broken yesterday, not right now.”

  “That’s totally right!” Coco said, her eyes wide and suddenly hopeful. “Park, you proved it!” She kicked off both shoes and jumped back into her flats.

  “Wait a minute.” Madison stepped into the circle. She stared down, then back up. She shook her head pensively. “Okay, you proved a point here, Park. But it’s still pretty circumstantial. You think the cops are going to buy that?”

  “They’ll have to,” Park said. “When you come right down to it, it’s science. Coco’s way too small to have shoved Elijah off the balcony, but no one’s looking at that point because her phone was found here at the scene, and because she had Elijah’s necklace in her purse.”

  Madison squatted and picked up both shoes. She turned to Coco. “You told us that after the elevator spooked you, you got out on the twenty-ninth floor and started walking down the stairs.”

  “I did.” Coco nodded. “That’s what happened.”

  “But you tried to get out of the stairwell on floors thirteen and twelve—”

  “—and the doors were locked,” Coco said.

  Madison looked at Brooklyn. “Why would those doors be locked? Is that normal?”

  “No,” he replied. “Yesterday morning, the stairs between floors thirteen and twelve were painted. That’s why the doors were locked.”

  “Then that means…” Holding her breath, Madison turned both the shoes over slowly. And there, right against the black sole of the left shoe, was a gray smear.

  Tiny flecks of paint.

  “Ha!” Lex said. She went to Madison’s side. “Look at that! It’s staring us right in the face!”

  “It really is.” Madison’s voice was low, the shock on her face obvious but laced with excitement.

  “You’re right,” Brooklyn said. “The paint in the stairwell is gray. I bet that’s it, on the shoe.”

  Park smiled broadly. “I think the DA will agree that this proves you were in the stairwell when you said you were—and that if you had used all the weight and force needed to shove Elijah off that balcony, your shoe would’ve broken, and if it had broken, the cops would have seen that yesterday.”

  A tear streaked down Coco’s face. She looked dazed and overwhelmed and starry-eyed, as if she had just witnessed a premonition of the Marc Jacobs spring collection.

  Madison handed the shoes over to Lex, who wrapped them carefully in a scarf and dropped them back into the magic purse.

  “Pretty amazing,” Park said. “But at the same time, pretty scary.”

  “Why scary?” Lex asked.

  “Because it’s obvious that the real killer is still out there,” Madison answered. “The case is anything but solved.”

  Lex swung the purse over her shoulder. “The only other person who could’ve done it is Ina. Poppy’s as small as Coco and a million years older—how could she have pushed him? Ina was here at the right time. Taking a shower with or without her hearing aid, but whatever. Maybe she broke her own hearing aid in order to make it look like she couldn’t have heard anything.”

  “Ina’s already showing signs of her own guilt,” Madison said. “She’s probably planning to leave the country any day now. And we just saw her very obviously in a disguise right here in the hotel where the crime took place. And isn’t it a fact that most criminals come back to the scene of the crime?”

  “It is,” Park said. “Most killers feel a need to revisit a crime scene because it gives them a sense of power, and because most people are killed by friends, relatives, or familiar faces, revisiting the crime scene reinforces a feeling of intimacy, of closeness. It’s totally bizarre.”

  Lex shivered. “Oh, God. That’s so creepy.”

  Park started pacing the floor as she reviewed the facts in her head. It was obvious from her expression that something valuable had clicked into place. “You know, the fact that Ina came to the hotel tonight might seem circumstantial, but i
t’s actually the strongest piece of evidence against her. She didn’t only revisit the place where Elijah died—she went out of the way and disguised herself to do it. That’s a clear indication of a psychopathic personality. It fits right in there with victimology and with the psychology of criminal behavior. It’s just the kind of thing that leads to recidivism.” She paused and looked up.

  Everyone was staring at her silently.

  “Huh?” Lex said.

  Park shook her head. “The point I’m trying to make is that Ina exposed a lot about herself by coming here tonight. The only problem is that we don’t know her motive. And we don’t know her well enough to even begin guessing it.” She turned and started walking across the suite, through the living and dining areas and past the kitchen.

  “Hey,” Lex called out. “Wait up!”

  They trailed Park until she reached the third bedroom. “This must’ve been Ina’s,” she said. The door was open. The room was large and ornately furnished; the bed was made up and everything looked like it was in place.

  “And there’s the door to the bathroom,” Lex pointed out. She, Madison, and Park stepped over the threshold and onto the immaculate tile floor.

  “So this is where Ina claims she was when it all happened,” Madison said. She nodded. “It’s pretty far away from the balcony. No wonder the police believed her. She wouldn’t have ever been able to hear anything in the shower.”

  “Especially without her hearing aid,” Lex said.

  “But that’s the old story,” Park reminded them. “If Tallula left the suite, then only Ina and Elijah were here, and if she killed him, she couldn’t have been in here.”

  “And how the hell do we prove that?” Lex asked. She clenched her hands in frustration. Not seeing anything, she walked back out to the bedroom area and quickly began opening and closing the bureau and nightstand drawers. Open, shut. Open, slam.

  “What are you doing?” Madison asked, walking around the queen-sized bed.

  “Looking for something. Looking for anything,” Lex replied.

  Madison shot a glance at Coco and Brooklyn, who were standing on the threshold like helpless statues. “This will only take a sec,” she said, trying to sound offhanded. She didn’t know what she was supposed to be looking for, but she started searching the perimeter of the room, glancing behind the bed, around the bed, under the bed. It was when she was on her knees with the comforter draped over her shoulders that she spotted something half hidden in the shadows just beside the headboard: a small, circular thing that, when she grabbed it, reminded her of a cosmetics jar. She held it in the palm of her right hand as she stood up, bringing it out fully into the light.