Killer in High Heels

by Gemma Halliday

  “You’re the boss,” Ramirez responded, then I heard the sweet sound of the window being rolled back up.

  I let out a long breath as Ramirez helped me back up onto the seat.

  “Those are some claws you’ve got.” He rubbed his leg where I could see the distinct impression of my fingernails in his slacks.

  “Sorry,” I said, still shaking a monster case of the heebie jeebies off me.

  “No problem. Just promise me you’ll file those things down before our next ‘normal conversation.’”

  And with that, he opened the door and gave me a little push out of the car, punctuated by a swat on the bottom, before shutting the door again behind me.

  Sadly, it was the most action I’d gotten in months.

  I straightened up and smoothed out my blouse, wiping the carpet lint off my skirt as I scurried across the dirt road lest Monaldo catch a memory-jogging glimpse of me.

  The painted ladies were still chatting graveside with the reverend, most still leaking from the eyes, though I noticed as they lifted their veils, they’d invested wisely in waterproof mascara. I spotted Marco standing under a tree chatting up Madonna from the club—resplendent in knee-length black lace, leather ankle boots, jelly bracelets up both arms, and crimped hair that added a full six inches to “her” height. (Sigh. Part of me, the part that barely makes the height requirements on the Six Flags rides, still yearned for the bighair days of the eighties.) Dana was off to the side of the group, chatting with the Crew Cut bouncer from the club. Okay, maybe “chatting” wasn’t the right word. Shamelessly flirting might better describe the poutylipped, jutty-chest thing she was doing. After his noninterest the other night, I’d say Dana was on a mission to prove the powers of a 36 double D aerobics queen.

  Off to the side of the cemetery were a few mourners in pairs, talking quietly, consoling each other, some stopping to smell the fragrant bouquets of flowers flanking the grave site. I watched as one mourner leaned down to sniff a gardenia, her hat tilting ever so slightly forward on her head to reveal a hint of red hair beneath.

  I froze. Larry.

  My instinct was to sprint the short distance between us, but I didn’t want to scare him off. I already knew he could outrun me. Instead, I casually strolled across the lawn, adrenaline pumping through my veins with every step. I clenched my teeth together to keep from calling out his name as the closer I got the more sure I was it was him. The same tall frame, same slightly paunchy middle, and the same impossible shade of red hair, just barely visible beneath the long opaque veil covering his face.

  I was a mere three steps away when a light flashed from the trees to my right. Larry saw it too, quickly straightening up like a deer in the headlights. The flash went off again.

  Larry looked up, our eyes connecting for one brief second before he took off like a shot, disappearing behind a stone mausoleum.

  “Wait!” I called, dashing after him. I rounded the stone building and saw a flash of black take the corner, flying through a grove of trees down to the road where the line of waiting cars sat. “Please!” I pleaded. I hated how desperate I sounded. I tried to tell myself it was for Larry’s safety but part of me just wished my father would quit darting in the opposite direction whenever he saw me. It was enough to give a girl a complex.

  Instead of following him into the grove of trees, I cut across the lawn, taking a more direct route to the cars. I was almost to the road when another flash of light went off, this time so close it momentarily blinded me.

  “Uhn.” I did a perfect ten-point face plant into the grass, my torso skidding like I was on a Slip ‘n’ Slide as my hands splayed out in front of me.

  I heard a car engine turn over and regained my fuzzy vision just in time to see a beat-up Volvo pulling down the road.

  Damn! I pounded one fist on the ground.

  Then I saw that flash of light behind me again. I twisted around on the ground and looked up to find a pair of blue eyes smirking at me.

  Felix.

  “A bit out of shape, aren’t we, love?” he asked. He was dressed in the same rumpled khaki, today paired with a blue striped button-down, open at the neck as he casually leaned against a tree, his camera dangling from one hand. Though, I was satisfied to see, his blue eyes were rimmed in purple today, a white bandage taped across his nose.

  “You!” I said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “I should have known.” I stood up, trying in vain to wipe the grass off of me. I had a nice green skid mark down the front of my once-white shirt and a deep scratch punctuated the leather skirt, spanning from my hips all the way down to the hem.

  “You all right, love?” Felix asked. Though I noticed he didn’t stop clicking that damn camera.

  “I’m fine,” I said, blinking away the little points of light dancing across my vision. “No thanks to you.”

  “Now, now. Don’t blame it all on me. You’re the one tottering about in those ridiculous shoes.”

  I sucked in a shocked breath. “Ridiculous? I’ll have you know these are Roberto Cavalli, Italian calfskin pumps worth more than your monthly salary, pal. These are not ridiculous. They’re fabulous,” I said, with as much dignity as a woman in a ruined skirt and a grass-stained blouse could muster.

  His eyes roved down to my feet. “They don’t look very fabulous to me.”

  I looked down. He was right. One sad little heel was jutting out at an unhealthy angle. “Noooo!” I wailed. This day just kept getting better and better. I stood up and took my shoe off, inspecting the damage. There was a slim possibility it could be repaired by a professional, but it would require major surgery.

  I was just contemplating whether my MasterCard had enough room on it for a replacement pair when Felix took a picture of the poor damaged victim.

  “No pictures of my shoes!” I yelled.

  “Shhhh,” Felix said, putting a finger to his lips. “Your boyfriend might hear us.” He gestured to “Bruno,” now lounging against the side of the Lincoln.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I argued. Which was, sadly, only too true. We couldn’t even have a conversation together, let alone a relationship.

  “No? Because I could have sworn I saw you two making a little time in the back of that Lincoln there.”

  Damn. This guy didn’t miss a thing.

  “We weren’t making time. We were…” Arguing about reporters? Discussing an ongoing investigation? “I mean, he was…” Undercover? Ordering me back home? “Well, I was kind of…” Hiding from a mobster with my head in his lap?

  Felix raised one eyebrow. “Indeed.”

  “Look, it’s not important.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. He’s nobody.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Nobody.”

  “You routinely hop into the backseat with nobodies?” he asked.

  “No! Look, maybe I kind of know him, but not like that. Not like you’re thinking. He’s not…and we’re not…and there’s nothing going on. I mean, we haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything in months. So long that I’m three weeks overdue with Joanie Loves Chachi and at this rate Blockbuster’s going to make me pay for a new one.”

  Felix raised the other eyebrow. “Indeed.” Then he snapped another picture of me.

  “I swear to god if you take one more picture of me, I’m going to kill you.”

  He grinned, showing off his slightly crooked teeth. “Can I quote you on that, love?”

  I felt my left eye starting to twitch. I took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then counted to ten again. I was pretty sure that strangling him with his own camera strap would be bad funeral etiquette.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” I asked instead.

  Felix shrugged. “Paying my respects.”

  “You didn’t even know Hank!”

  “Did you?” he asked, leaning in.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Oh no. No. You’re not getting a story out of me, pal.”

  “Too late.” He grinned. Then
shot another picture.

  “Stop that!” I yelled, waving away the little flying specks of light. “I’m going to go blind.”

  He cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes as he stared at me. “You’ve got a little something…” He trailed off, pointing to his upper lip.

  “Yes, I know! I’m growing a mustache. Okay? So freaking what? You want to make a story out of that? Oh I know, how about calling me the hairy yeti woman of Los Angeles, that oughta sell copies for you. Hey, maybe you’ll even be up for a Pulitzer. Go ahead, take a picture of me with my big fat hairy lip. I dare you.”

  Felix’s lips quivered, threatening to explode into full-blown laughter any second.

  “Uh, actually, I think it’s grass.”

  “Huh?” I put my hand to my lip. Sure enough, I came away with three little blades of green grass. Mental forehead smack.

  “Oh.”

  The laughter broke free, and Felix shook with it, his entire body spasming as he clicked away, taking a series of pictures he’d have to caption, “Woman dies of embarrassment—police investigating the role of lip hair in her untimely demise.”

  Before I could make any more of a fool of myself in front of the press, I turned and hobbled over to where Marco was chatting up his Material Girl.

  “I have to go,” I whispered. “Now!”

  I waited while Marco and Madonna exchanged phone numbers, hugs, jelly bracelets, and a series of air kisses, then dragged him and Dana back to the Mustang where we all piled in. (Me behind the wheel this time as I still had an indentation of cardboard Elvis’s microphone on my tush.) I pulled the car back onto the main road and out to the 15. True to my word, we were leaving Vegas. But…I had one quick little stop to make first. The Regis Salon. I had a four-thirty lip waxing and after the embarrassing monologue I’d given Tabloid Boy about my yeti lip, there was no way I was going to miss it this time. I glanced down at my watch. 4:22. I eased the gas pedal just a little farther down, zipping by a sports car in the left lane.

  “Slow down,” Marco whined. “Dahling, this car is a classic. She’s not a dragster.”

  I ignored him, passing a pickup on the right. It may be a classic, but I was on a mission.

  “Seriously, Maddie, slow down. Elvis keeps falling in my lap,” Dana whined from the backseat.

  Nothing doing. We were two exits from the Strip with a minute and a half to spare. I could make it this time. The next time Ramirez pulled one of his surprise lip-locks, I was going to be smooth as a baby’s behind.

  Then the unthinkable happened. Blue lights flashed in my rearview mirror.

  Marco turned around. “Uh oh.”

  “Uh oh” was right. I spun my head around. “Shit!” A police car was glued to my bumper. He turned on his siren and motioned for me to pull over.

  “I told you to slow down,” Macro said.

  I gave him the death look as I eased the car over to the right shoulder.

  The police car parked behind me. I looked at my watch. 4:29. Shit, shit, shit!

  The highway patrolman motioned for Marco to roll down the passenger-side window. He was in his late thirties with a pronounced midsection and wore mirrored aviator glasses and a little brown Magnum P.I. mustache. He placed his hands on his hips and popped a piece of gum between his teeth. “License and registration, ma’am.”

  Marco opened the glove box and fished around for the registration while I searched my purse for my driver’s license.

  “I’m sorry, was I going too fast?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him.

  “License and registration,” he repeated. Clearly he was not into the flirtatious blonde routine. Damn. In L.A. that shtick killed.

  Marco finally found the registration and handed it over to the officer. I was still searching.

  “Look, maybe I was going just a teeny tiny bit too fast, but I had a really, really good reason. See, I’m late for an appointment and I can’t miss it this time.”

  I looked up. No sympathy at all.

  “I mean, it’s very important,” I said, still rummaging through my purse as I pleaded my case. “I have a waxing I’m late for. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had one, but they’re essential to preventing a mustache.”

  Officer Magnum twitched his upper lip and did a little grunt.

  “Oh! I mean, not that some people might not want a mustache. Mustaches can be wonderful. You for instance look stunning in one. Very hip. Right, Marco?”

  Marco nodded. “Right.”

  “See, on you it looks fantastic. But on a woman, well, not the same effect. Women have to wax. Take your mother, for instance. I’m sure she waxes all the time.”

  He clenched his jaw and gave me a hard stare.

  “Not, of course, that your mother needs to wax. I mean, I’m sure she’s not at all hairy. She’s probably a very hairless woman in fact. I mean, not totally hairless because then she’d be bald which wouldn’t be very attractive either. Which I’m sure your mother is. Attractive that is, not bald.”

  Officer Magnum took off his mirrored glasses and narrowed his eyes at me. “Li-cense and reg-is-tra-tion,” he said, sharply enunciating each syllable.

  “Right.” I dumped the contents of my purse onto my lap. Bingo. My license fell out and I handed it to him.

  “Hairless mother?” Dana asked, poking me from behind as the officer walked back to his car with my ID.

  “What?” I shrugged. “I was nervous.”

  Marco just shook his head at me.

  I looked down at my watch, watching the digital numbers tick by. 4:32. 4:33. “Come on, come on, come on,” I chanted. If he would just write me the dang ticket already, there was still a chance I could make it to the salon before the next appointment.

  Finally Officer Magnum got out of his squad car again. He put his shades back on and made purposeful strides to the driver’s side window, one hand on his utility belt.

  “Ma’am, I need you to get out of the car.”

  Marco and I looked at each other. Huh?

  “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “Ma’am, please step out of the vehicle.” His hand hovered over his revolver.

  “Look, I’m sorry for the crack about your mother. I’m sure she’s a very lovely person. Really. Just the appropriate amount of hair.”

  “Ma’am, please don’t make me ask you again.”

  “Maddie,” Marco whispered. “I think he’s serious. You better do it.”

  I bit my lip, feeling my heart sink down to the tip of my toes as I realized I might never see the end of this upper lip dust. I slowly opened the driver’s side door and stepped out.

  “Look, officer, I’m sure that whatever this is about—”

  But before I could finish, Officer Magnum had my arms twisted behind my back and was clicking a pair of handcuffs on my wrists.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey!” Marco and Dana echoed in unison from the car.

  “What’s going on here?” Dana demanded.

  “Madison Springer,” the officer recited as he clicked the second cuff on my wrist. “You’re under arrest.”

  “Under arrest! For speeding?” I asked, my voice going into mezzo-soprano range.

  Officer Magnum spun me around to face him, his mirrored glasses reflecting the look of fear and confusion on my face.

  “No. You’re under arrest,” he repeated, “for the murder of Bob Hostetler.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  In a place where both laying down your life savings on twenty-two black and selling your body at the rate of thirty bucks an hour are legal, you have to do something pretty bad to end up in the Clark County lockup. Which didn’t make me feel terribly comfortable around my cellmates. (My cellmates! Ugh! A phrase I could have happily gone my whole life without using.)

  A homeless lady wearing a head full of dreads (and not the sexy Lenny Kravitz kind but the matted-with-gobs-of-who-knows-what kind) sat on a sparse wooden bench in the corner talking to herself. Next to her was a 200-pound b
lack woman who looked like she’d gone three rounds with Oscar de la Hoya, and lost. If she were the one in prison, I shuddered to think what the other guy looked like. She was wearing a red pleather miniskirt and stained white bra. Nothing else. I tried not to stare as I sat down on the opposite side of the holding cell, next to a thin woman in a Motorhead T-shirt who was scratching at the imaginary bugs on her arms.

  After Officer Magnum had handcuffed me and shoved me into the back of his squad car (with a “Watch your head, ma’am,” the sole response to my frantic questions of, “What the hell do you mean, murder?”), I was transported to the Clark County holding, where I was fingerprinted (and now had black smudges on my blouse next to the grass stains), photographed, then searched from head to toe by a woman who was the spitting image of Jim Belushi (talk about someone in need of a waxing). Then they’d taken my purse, cell phone and, worst of all, my shoes, citing that the heels were high enough to qualify as weapons. Instead, they gave me these little blue paper booties to stick over my feet before shuffling me off to my cell.

  All in all, it qualified as the most embarrassing incident of my entire life, even winning out over the junior high school Valentine’s dance where I shared my first French kiss with Benny Winetraub. During which our braces got stuck together, resulting in a metal liplock that lasted until the principal called Benny’s orthodontist to cut us apart. On a scale of one to ten, the Benny incident ranked a nine for most embarrassing moment ever.

  Being booked for murder was a thirty-five.

  “Springer!” Mizz Belushi called.

  “Yes!” I jumped up so quickly my itchy friend yelped.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Oh, thank god,” I said as she unlocked the door and led me out. “See, I told you this was all just a big mistake.”

  She smirked. “Hmph. We’ll see about that.”

  Then, much to my disappointment, instead of leading me back down the hall to the room where I’d abandoned my pumps, she walked me through a series of doors into a tiny room with peeling gray paint and buzzing fluorescent overhead lights. It held one long table, four metal chairs, and a huge mirror covering the length of one wall.