1 Cupcakes, Lies, and Dead Guys

by Pamela DuMond

  He blinked. “Ow, lady.”

  “Oops, sorry,” she said and flicked the Mag off.

  “You gotta be careful with that thing. You know certain peoples can get migraines from that thing.”

  “You’re right.” Annie shined the Mag into his eyes again. Flicked it off. Turned it on.

  The event organizer grabbed his head. “Lady!”

  “I just don’t have the hang of this thing.” She flicked the Mag on and off. “It’s dark out and I can’t really see.”

  Cars honked behind her in line.

  He hunched over and covered his eyes with his hands.

  “Uh-oh!” On and off with the Mini-Mag light. “I just had Lasix.” Annie grabbed his hand, stuck her keys in his palm, closed his fingers and slammed his hand back into his chest.

  “What’s your problem, lady?”

  “I don’t have a problem. I’m just a nobody bitch with an invitation who’s blocking your entrance. Be careful with my car. It’s a classic, you know.” She knew he wouldn’t get it, but didn’t care, because she did. She walked into the swanky house and the fancy party with a big smile on her face.

  The inside of the entryway and living room looked Cape Cod. The furnishings and linens were Ralph Lauren-like, all classic lines and textiles, but more expensive. Cordial bartenders manned bars set up along the walls. They poured cocktails as well as wine and champagne. Smiling waiters carried trays of hors d’oeuvres and offered them to the many cocktail-attired guests.

  The party crowd spilled from the living room through french doors that led to a lit back porch. The outdoor area featured chaise lounges and a gorgeous pool in the background. Twinkly italian lights trailed from the pergola and pillars. Nat King Cole and his daughter crooned honey-throated duets through invisible speakers on the upscale sound system.

  A waiter approached Annie. “Chocolate croissantlettes. Family Values brand, of course.”

  “Thank you.” She took a cocktail napkin and a croissantlette. Munched on it. Not bad.

  She spotted Mike. He was across the room talking to a pristine forty-something couple. He worked it. He was ‘on.’ That meant Mike flirted, was animated, funny, clever and smart. The couple bent over in laughter. The guy handed Mike his card. The woman winked at Mike, her manicured hand wrapped around the arm of her affluent husband as they walked off. When Mike was ‘on,’ he was a killer combo. Mc-Happy Meal Mike Piccolino. Maybe not Mc-Happy forever. Annie’s jury was still out.

  Another waiter approached Annie. He carried a tray stacked with a large stack of what looked like folded laundry. Huh? “Family Values recyclable grocery bag?” the waiter asked. “Completely organic cotton, farmed and harvested by Native Americans who didn’t get casino rights. The dyes are natural.”

  “Absolutely.” Annie took one. She looked up and saw Mike talking up an expensively attired coiffed older couple. He waved at her. She waved back. Mike leaned into the older couple and said something. The older couple turned, smiled, and waved at her as well. “Who are they?” Annie asked the waiter.

  “The Bauerfelds are hosting this party,” the waiter said. “It’s the launch for their Family Values Eco-Friendly, organic line of diet food.”

  “Thanks,” Annie said. She checked out the bag. It had sturdy fabric, decent stitching, could hold some groceries, maybe even baked goods. Yeah, all good. But why did the image printed in sepia on the bag look so familiar? She read the caption underneath, “Save the Endangered African Bifurcated Turtles.” Her face flushed blood red and she fanned it with the envelope she held.

  That was no endangered turtle. The image on the grocery bag was actually a photo of her Shrine pond water-soaked butt. She stared at it hoping this was a continuation of her bad run of luck and not her fifteen minutes of fame.

  She decided to wait for Mike to take a break from working the room. She took a seat in a plush chair in front of a coffee table in the corner of the living room. She opened the envelope with the collection of Derrick’s blackmail photos and flipped through them.

  They were a lovely compilation. Perhaps Martha Stewart would turn them into a room tableau, complete with wallpaper, curtains and bed linens featuring primarily naked copulating couples. Whoever took these photos must have been very proud, like a parent snapping too many pics of his newborn.

  She flipped through the possible future Derrick Fuller coffee table sex book. Thought an appropriate title would be, “I Promise: I’ll F*** You Up.” The first chapter would be Derrick and her husband Mike in a lustful embrace. Even if it was faked, it was still yuck. No wonder her marriage was on a friggin’ pebble beach spiked with broken glass. She scrutinized the photo and noticed a tiny mark on Mike’s forearm. That had to be their almost identical blue heart-shaped prison tats. She remembered because that was the moment she gave him her heart, agreed to marry him and move to Los Angeles.

  Yet four plus years later she was between life with Mike and life without him. Her consolation prize was that she was at some stupid cocktail party holding a grocery bag with a picture of her butt on it. Oh joy.

  After the photos of Derrick and Mike came the racy pics of Derrick and Sienna. Poor Sienna, and even worse for her dad, Bill. The next series featured Derrick and Franco Fennedy in hugs and intimate embraces. Thank God Franco had regained consciousness. Due to his temporary amnesia from his trauma, Franco had no recollection of who pounded on his head. Next were the images of Derrick and Robbie and Robert Schuchiani horizontal, vertical and every angle in between that showed plenty of skin. Thankfully Lewis had come to his senses. Lucky for Lewis that loyal Hailey was his fiancée and Robbie was his loving mother/father combo.

  Something in the photo montage caught Annie’s eye. She almost discovered the clue when Mike’s phone call interrupted her back at her apartment hours earlier. She picked up a photo of Sienna and Derrick. Examined it. And saw a tiny mark visible on the inside of Sienna’s forearm.

  It looked like a small blue heart.

  Mike grabbed Annie’s hand. “What you looking at, babe?”

  “Nothing.” Annie flipped the stack of photos over and stuck them in her legal pad. She felt awkward as he held her hand. Her hand wasn’t sure if it wanted Mike to touch it, let alone hold it. But Annie shared marriage vows with Mike and meant every word she said. Midwestern girls were not quitters. She wasn’t about to be a wuss during tough times.

  “Annie.” Mike kissed her hand. “You’re here. You know a lot of girls wouldn’t…”

  “Wouldn’t show. I know the drill.”

  “We concentrated on our careers. Let some time slide. If I get this gig, or even if I don’t, we’re totally back on track. I promise you.” Mike leaned in closer. Fiddled with her hair. That used to feel sexy. Now it felt weird. And those dreadful words, “I promise you…” festered in Annie’s ears and burrowed through her brain.

  A slick hot couple that resembled Posh and Becks (Gosh, maybe they were Posh and Becks?) waved at Mike from across the room and motioned him over. Mike lit up like he’d spotted a buy one, get one free on Hair Dye for Manly Men at the pharmacy. “Just a couple of minutes, Annie. They’re awesome connections for my career. I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Do you want me to…?”

  “Got it covered, babe.” He kissed her quickly on her little heart tat on the inside of her forearm. He strode toward the impossibly beautiful trendy couple. She watched as they hugged him, and air kissed. The Bauerfelds drifted over. Bob Bauerfeld whispered into Mike’s ear. They nodded, smiled and shook hands. Mike’s face lit up like a fat birthday candle. Annie assumed he got the big job.

  She looked at her tat that Mike just kissed and felt sick. She licked her finger and rubbed his kiss off her arm. That damn tat had gotten her in so much trouble.

  Something clicked and the last puzzle piece fell into place.

  She pulled the stack of photos out from her legal pad and flipped through them again. Her husband Mike, small heart tattoo on the inside of his
forearm in his embrace with Derrick Fuller. Sienna Saffron, small heart-shaped tattoo on the inside of her forearm as she performed you-know-what on Derrick Fuller. Franco Fennedy’s beautiful young face stared up at Derrick while they embraced, with the bus station sign in the background. A small heart-shaped tat visible on Franco’s inner arm. Roberta Scuchiani, her wrap dress half on, half off, kissing Derrick Fuller. Her arm around his neck, a small heart-shaped tattoo visible on her inner arm.

  Everyone’s photo batch had a pic with the same heart-shaped prison tat on his or her inner arm. When you’re from Wisconsin, if it walks like a deer, smells like a deer and it’s hunting season, then you’ve got a zealous hunter in camouflage splashed with a little dear urine peering through a shotgun scope aimed at Bambi’s father.

  Annie looked at her tat, looked at Mike and her mouth fell open. She’d figured out the puzzle. She knew only three people who had blue-heart prison tats on their inner arms. Those people were she, Mike and Julia. Oh yeah, the pictures were photoshopped. Just not the glossies of Mike and Derrick. The racy photos of Mike and Derrick delivered to her on Valentine’s Day were the real deal. She was the ruse. She had always been the ruse.

  She grabbed the photos, stuffed them into her new recyclable bag and pushed herself off the comfy chair.

  Mike looked back at Annie, smiled and gave her thumbs up.

  She responded with the universal sign for slashing one’s throat with one’s hand, and strode toward the front door.

  Mike said an über-quick goodbye to Posh, Becks and the Bauerfelds. He pushed his way firmly but politely through the crowd toward Annie and said, “Don’t leave.”

  “I’m done,” she said.

  “Not now, Annie. I got the job. All our work paid off. Don’t go.”

  She turned and looked at Mike Piccolino. So handsome, funny, and charismatic. But still a loser.

  “It was only about my career. That meant taking care of us, our future. Our family,” Mike said. “It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.” He pushed through the crowd toward her.

  Annie wriggled around the waiters and guests, away from Mike, headed toward the mansion’s front door. She saw Derrick standing next to the door, wringing his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” Derrick said.

  “I know.”

  “I hoped it wasn’t true.”

  “Me, too.”

  Annie remembered her conversation with Dr. Stern, Derrick’s dermatologist. She looked back at Mike. “I want to see your tattoo.”

  Mike paused. “Babe. Not now,” he said. “We’ll discuss that in private.”

  “I want to see your blue heart prison tattoo. The one you got before you proposed marriage to me.” She stuck out her stiff upper lip. The room became icy cold and she felt like she was snowmobiling in minus forty degrees. “I want to see it.”

  Mike wouldn’t meet her look. “I said that’s private.”

  “You lasered it off, right? Another way to be more commercial.”

  Mike wouldn’t reply.

  “I’m not a character in a play or a commercial, Mike. I’m not perfect. I’m not politically correct. My current version of learning meditation is self-medication. Sometimes I run over, maim or kill things. I loved you, Mike Piccolino, and I promised you my heart for a lifetime. But I won’t stay in a relationship where I am lied to and disrespected. My promises to you end now. I. Am. Done.”

  “No, you’re not,” Mike said. The Bauerfelds were staring at them, at their new poster boy for family values. He raised his voice. “You’re a good girl, Annie. You’re my wife. You value family, children, healthy food and what’s great for the environment.”

  “Oh, fuck off,” Annie said and squeezed out the doorway.

  Family Values Fun-Pack

  Description: Organic Croissantlettes. Sweet batter baked into a light as air crust filled with dark yummy chocolate.

  Appropriate Occasions: Parties that launch a new line of organic and eco-friendly goods. Putting oddly shaped puzzle pieces together. Going the extra mile for your marriage.

  Best Served With: Reuseable organic cotton and naturally dyed grocery sacks. An unexpected opportunity for revenge. Discovering one’s truth. And finding the courage to speak it.

  Twenty-one

  Killer Devil’s Food Cupcakes

  It was daylight in Annie’s apartment. She lay on her couch, eased Teddy off her head and placed him on the floor. She’d survived her first official night of being single, again. Jeez, was she turning into Elizabeth Taylor? But how to get rid of Derrick, who now leaned his face and entire front of his body against the outside of her living room window, and in a pathetic gesture, cried, ground his hips against her window and knocked?

  “Let me in. I’m sorry. Please, let me in,” he whined and drooled a little.

  “No. Bad ghosts who slept with one’s soon-to-be-ex-husband stay outside. Go away.”

  She grabbed Detective Raphael’s card from her kitchen counter, picked up her phone and dialed. He picked up.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “You said I could call you if I need to talk.”

  “I’ll be over in forty-five.”

  Annie and Rafe walked past scores of sail and motorboats anchored in the slips in Marina Del Rey, California. Blue skies shone over ocean water that lapped against the boats anchored to the docks. They watched the seagulls compete with each other for the occasional tossed hot dog bun or sliver of a fish in the marina waters. It was a stunningly beautiful beach afternoon.

  Detective Rafe looked at Annie in her long black skirt and a yoga top with a Packers sweatshirt draped over her shoulders. “Why do I suddenly have this overwhelming desire to play football?” He asked.

  Annie smiled. “Did you read the new will?”

  “Offered by Lewis Schuchiani and duly taken into evidence,” Rafe said.

  “I keep thinking it had to be Tawny who killed Derrick, but there’s this part of me that feels it’s someone else.”

  Rafe stopped walking and regarded her. “Besides being deleted from the suspect list, why do you care?”

  Annie watched Derrick chasing the seagulls. He sprinted toward them and flapped his arms. They ran in front of him. “Take me with you,” he yelled. “I want to fly, freebird!” He burst into the guitar riff on the Skynard song. The birds freaked and flew off, cawing.

  “I can’t tell you that, yet.” Annie smiled.

  “When can you tell me?”

  “Did you read the new will?”

  “Yesterday. Your forty-eight hours are almost up, Duchess Stoneycliff.”

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Annie said.

  They both smiled.

  “I’m getting divorced, you know. For real this time.”

  “Detective Pardue will have to drop his pants at the dry cleaner after he hears the news.”

  Annie slugged Rafe on his arm and giggled.

  Hours later, it was time for the pre-game coverage interview/showdown with Tawny Fuller, Derrick’s ‘grieving spouse’, also Annie’s primo suspect in Derrick Fuller’s murder.

  Annie showed up at Inhale Spa at five p.m. The spa had soft lighting, a large trickling fountain, and lots of zen touches: Buddha statues, Feng-Shui books, Asian symbols on clothing made with bark and silk. It featured a cozy retail section filled with cool, pricey yoga clothes, funky expensive jewelry, meditation CDs, DVDs and natural skin products. Annie was tempted to explore the spa’s retail nirvana, but knew it was more important to pace herself. She needed time to relax and mentally practice her deceptive, but honesty-provoking, interrogation techniques.

  She wanted Tawny Fuller to confess to Derrick’s murder. After all, who else could it be? Who else could have blackmailed Lewis Schuchiani into hiding Derrick’s new will? Who else stood to benefit from killing Franco, Derrick’s only son, his flesh and blood? Thank God, Franco was out of the hospital and recuperating in his politically connected mother’s compound. Who
ever attempted to kill the hot blondie would now have to get through twenty-five bodyguards and his insanely angry, powerful mother in order to try again. Wasn’t going to happen.

  Conveniently, Tawny had an alibi for the time that Franco was attacked. She recorded a set of inspirational, upbeat I Promise You sermons for her new congregation at a small studio. A video leaked to YouTube showed Tawny delivering her first sermon, topless. The fun was interrupted when Madison ran into the booth, and threw a blanket on top of her. He lectured Tawny that she might be taken more seriously if she wore robes. She countered that the DVD sermons would sell more if she showed her boobies. Obviously, both parties had valid points.

  When Annie checked in, four young, beautiful, waifish greeters manned the spa’s front desk, decorated with delicate orchids. The thinnest girl greeter, dressed in something that looked recyclable, actually looked at her. “Can I help you?” Thinnest asked in a volume that hovered a decibel over a whisper.

  Annie leaned over the counter toward Thinnest in an attempt to be helpful. The poor thing was probably missing a vocal cord. “Hello. My name is… Crystal Light. I’m a reporter for Towering Cathedral Publications and I’m here to meet the Reverend Tawny Fuller at six thirty p.m. I arrived a little early.”

  “Oh yes. Let me check that, Ms. Light.” Thinnest punched some buttons on a computer and pulled up a calendar with notations. “It says here, Ms. Light, you are a special guest of Reverend Fuller and are to receive a pass to the spa’s healing waters.”

  Annie’s eyes glazed over. “Oh. My. God.” She had been good, kind and helped Derrick. Been to hell and back with Mike. Her shoulder and neck muscles had turned to concrete when she discovered she was in peri-menopause, thought her husband was a cheat, filed for separation, moved, lost her business, was framed for a murder, haunted by a dick, and yes, eventually realized her husband really was a no-good cheat. Her blood pressure had spiked. Scabs from the swan and duck incident still peppered her legs. A deep ache throbbed in her ankle that had been sprained. Her boobs had been squashed, her heart broken, her ovaries laughed at, and she probably had Giardia and parasites from the Shrine’s pond water.