The Corpse Wore Stilettos

by MJ O'Neill

  “It’s terrible what happened to those girls. And no one really seems to care. The last police report filed actually said the murders were due to a ‘cranky john.’ It’s disgusting.”

  “You’ve been doing your homework.”

  “I know what it’s like to have your life turned upside down in an instant. I’m lucky. We have resources. Those women had nothing and no one to fight for them.”

  “Then you should be careful, Stretch. If it wasn’t a ‘cranky john,’ you could push some wrong buttons. You’ve already been targeted with that anonymous tip.”

  “So you believe my story? I appreciate that you didn’t run it in the paper.”

  “You don’t strike me as that easily paid off.”

  “You’re awfully forthcoming with information to a virtual stranger.”

  “You’re mixed up with McPhee. You should know what you’re getting into. If someone had been more open with Gillian, maybe she wouldn’t be dead.” His eyes went cold for the first time since I’d met him. The talk of his friend’s murder had clearly upset him. “Besides, I’m hoping we won’t be strangers for long.”

  The server brought me a towel, and I returned to my cleanup.

  “Can you believe it? All this money and not a single bit of decent chocolate,” Grand said, joining the group. “They have some froufrou strawberry cream thing and something that tasted like pumpkins. Don’t they know it’s spring? Who has pumpkin in spring?” Her eyes sparkled when she noticed Fletcher. “Hey, handsome, are you following me?”

  “Hi, gorgeous. Love the feathers,” Fletcher said, putting her at ease about the gown. She smiled and stood a little taller on Claude’s arm.

  “Claude says they match my eyes.”

  “That Claude’s a lucky man. Now if you’ll excuse me, if I keep hanging out with you, beautiful, my date will get jealous,” he said and kissed Grand’s cheek. “Stretch, nice seeing you again.”

  Grand blushed. “What the hell happened to you? You look like someone peed on you.”

  “No one peed on me, but I do need to go to the bathroom. Can I trust you to stay out of trouble while I go clean up?”

  “Do Claude and I look like Bonnie and Clyde?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that. I’ll be right back. Behave.”

  I kept trying to pat the stain, but it seemed hopeless. I didn’t know how one small glass of champagne could do so much damage. The waiter directed me to the bathroom outside of the ballroom.

  Moving from the event to the quiet of the hotel lobby felt like going from the inside of a noisy blender to a library. I took a deep cleansing breath to steady myself. The last few days had felt like a whirlwind.

  The sound of raised voices jolted me out of my own thoughts. Across the lobby in front of the bathroom were two men in tuxedos. As I approached, I heard them arguing.

  “Even if I had it, which I don’t, giving it to you would be a death sentence.”

  From where I stood, I couldn’t quite make out the identities of the men, but I’d recognize that barking voice anywhere.

  “Dr. Jaffe? Is everything okay?” As I reached them, the men jerked up, both seeming to realize they weren’t in a private location. The man Dr. Jaffe had been arguing with did a quick scan of the lobby as if checking to see who else might have noticed them.

  “Waters. What are you doing here?” Dr. Jaffe pulled at his collar.

  “Katherine Waters?” At the mention of my name, the other man settled his gaze on me. He looked considerably older than Dr. Jaffe, distinguished, with salt-and-pepper hair. He wore an impeccably tailored tuxedo with diamond-studded cufflinks and a matching tie clip. Everything about him exuded wealth. “You must be Lauren’s daughter.”

  I always found it strange when people referred to my mother by her first name. He stretched out his hand for me to shake. “Charles Montgomery. I’m CEO of Teradyne Defense and an old friend of your parents.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Montgomery.” I returned his gesture. Even his handshake radiated perfection—not too hard, not too soft. Firm for the exactly correct two-second, two-pumps timing.

  “Katherine’s mother organized the event. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize the name, Jeffery.”

  I tried not to chuckle; I never would have pegged the taciturn Dr. Jaffe as a Jeffery, but standing in the shadow of Mr. Montgomery, he looked more like a scolded child than a cutthroat gambler who had potentially set me up. As he tugged again at his collar, Dr. Jaffe looked a little green.

  “I should have seen the resemblance right away. You’re as lovely as your mother. She’s managed to charm me into a sizable donation tonight.”

  “I would feel bad about you parting with your money if I didn’t know it benefited such a worthy cause.”

  “I see your resemblance to your mother doesn’t stop at good looks. How exactly do you and my godson know each other?”

  “We work together at the hospital,” Dr. Jaffe managed to squeak out.

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten that you were embarking on a new career, Katherine.” Mr. Montgomery made it sound so wonderful.

  “I’m still considering all my options.”

  “There’s our committed socialite.” Dr. Jaffe obviously didn’t mind being snarky in front of his godfather.

  “No reason to be harsh, Jeffery. Not everyone can match your level of obsession.” Mr. Montgomery’s tone had a bite to it, and he glared at his godson.

  I couldn’t help wondering whether Mr. Montgomery knew about Dr. Jaffe’s gambling problem.

  “Well, it’s been lovely meeting you, but we’ll let you get on your way.” Mr. Montgomery gestured to the ladies’ room then took my hand and shook it again. “Please give our regards to your mother on her fabulous event. Jeffery, shall we?”

  As they walked to the ballroom doors, I wondered exactly what Dr. Jaffe didn’t have but that could get him killed if he gave it to Mr. Montgomery. I also wondered whether it had anything to do with the missing body. Once safely out of sight in the bathroom, I pulled out my notebook and jotted down everything I’d learned from both Fletcher Reid and Dr. Jaffe.

  I cleaned up and headed to the ballroom. I started looking for Mom and Grand in the crowd when I realized the crowd had thinned, parting as I moved through. And then I saw why.

  On one side of the room stood Grand and Claude, a fake cigarette dangling from Grand’s mouth, her head slightly down, a wad of towels in her hands.

  On the other side stood Marge Van Hollister, a tall woman, much taller than Grand. Her silver-blue hair was styled in a 1950s bouffant, and tonight she wore a powder-blue matriarch gown with sequins that matched her hair. She looked like a tall disco ball—a disco ball covered in strawberry cream cake. My mother stood next to her, trying to clean her up.

  Some feuds were legendary—the Hatfields and the McCoys, the Capulets and the Montagues, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Moriarty. And Grand and Marge Van Hollister. Their feud had been going on for forty years, since they were classmates at the same prep school.

  As Mom headed toward us, Marge was muttering to whomever was near that this was what should be expected of criminals, and I saw the flashbulbs of cameras.

  “I think it’s safe to say we’ll make the papers tomorrow” was all Mom said.

  As we walked down the ramp to the car, I felt the chill of an icy glare. Someone was watching us.

  Chapter 11

  I stepped into the tiny kitchen, scooped up one of the packets of coffee I’d taken from the morgue, and put it into the secondhand coffeepot.

  “Katherine, can you please ask your grandmother not to slurp her milk so loudly?” Mom asked. She was six inches from Grand but refusing to speak to her, casting me in the role of Cold War emissary. When I didn’t respond, she continued to give Grand the eye.

  “Do you think it’s hard to find green skin dye that will leave a permanent stain?” Grand asked. She was too busy plotting revenge against Marge Van Hollister to notice that Mom was giving her
the silent treatment. Grand had started a new scrapbook, devoted to possible revenge plots against Marge. Options ran the gamut from dying Marge’s skin green the next time she went in for a facial to other possibilities that involved the purchase of small munitions. Each option had a color-coordinated scrapbook page, complete with coordinating stickers from a disaster-themed collection. She affixed the green gas bomb sticker next to an unflattering picture of Marge.

  While it would have been refreshing to have a morning off to catch my breath from all the investigating, I was thankful to have to go into work the day after the benefit. I didn’t think even Master Tahkaswami could unwind the tension in the household.

  I would have thought, though, that Mom would have been happy. At least we only made the front page of the society section and not the whole paper. Marge Van Hollister glared at me from her picture above the fold. Her mouth agape, she stood covered in strawberry cream cake, positioned in mid-launch of aiming a dish toward a woman with her back turned, instantly identifiable as Grand, her peacock feathers on prominent display.

  To top it off, Maybell had been up half the night with a stomachache from licking strawberry cream from Grand’s peacock dress.

  “Katherine, can you please tell your grandmother—”

  Everyone jumped at the sound of the doorbell.

  “That’s probably a courier delivering papers expelling me from the Women’s League,” Mom said.

  “It can’t be my fireworks delivery. I just ordered them last night,” Grand said, looking up from her book.

  I opened the door to a large bouquet of red and hot-pink roses.

  “Delivery for Katherine Waters,” a kid said from behind the large display.

  I took the flowers from him. Grand gave him our leftover pizza as a tip.

  “Aren’t those lovely,” Mom said. “Do you have a new young man, Katherine? You and Fletcher Reid seemed awfully attractive together at the benefit.”

  “I am not attracted to Fletcher Reid.” I plucked the card from the overly large bouquet.

  Passionflowers for my passionflower. You looked beautiful amongst the gold of the casino, a jewel amongst jewels. As I promised, we’ll meet soon, my love.

  Victor

  I dropped the card as if it were on fire and tried to process getting flowers from a crazy body-snatching Russian. I shivered as I realized this meant he could have been watching me. If he was, at least I’d know who had been watching me at the benefit. The downside was that I also now knew that a crazy Russian named Victor knew where I lived.

  “Do we know a Victor, Katherine? Is that the senator’s son?”

  I took the flowers, dumped them into the trash can, then headed to work without a word. I needed to process the fact that I was possibly being stalked by a crazy body-snatching Russian.

  Thankfully, I could escape to the morgue. The day looked more promising with the party-planning meeting before me. Nothing perked up my spirits more than the opportunity to spend someone else’s money creating a happy experience for others. Plus, it would give DC and me another look at all of the suspects.

  While we were still waiting on final approval from the administration, word of our plan had spread through the hospital grapevine. Everyone seemed excited. With some pushing from some of the others, Dr. Hawthorne had tentatively agreed to let me hold a planning meeting. I would soon need to figure out what was making him so nervous about this whole thing if we were going to move forward.

  By the time I arrived, everyone was already sitting around the conference room table.

  With a cozy glow about him, Sam Allen Winston looked happy to be there. He’d obviously brought a paper and pen for writing notes, and it looked like he even had recipe cards. Not what I would have expected from a potential Russian-colluding serial killer.

  Dr. Jaffe sat with his arms crossed, looking disgruntled as usual. I was surprised he had even bothered to come. I’d convinced Dr. Hutchinson to volunteer Dr. Jaffe to help us. When I told him that getting Dr. Hawthorne to agree to county-funded autopsy requests might become easier if he pitched in, he offered Jaffe up in an instant. Jaffe made it abundantly clear to anyone who would listen that he thought the party would end in disaster and cause the morgue even more indignity.

  Henry and Meg sat next to him. They doodled together in Meg’s pad. DC had the two of them engaged in some chatter about the decline of bumblebees.

  “Oh yeah. Without the bee, we’re all doomed. Mass famine, crop failures of epic proportion.”

  “Good morning, everyone!” I took the handouts from my bag. “I’m thrilled you’ve all agreed to help with the planning and execution of the morgue makeover party. While planning can be difficult, it need not be boring.”

  “Well, thrilled for most of you, anyway,” DC snarked as he passed the handout to Dr. Jaffe. DC and Kimi were still having trouble. I doubted anyone else could tell, but I noticed his usually sunny disposition wasn’t shining quite as brightly today.

  “I’m not here to participate or have fun. My role on this committee is to ensure that nothing happens that would jeopardize the reputation of the morgue any further than it already has.” Jaffe set his planner aside without even looking at it.

  “You don’t have room to be accusing anyone of misconduct, do ya, Jaffe?” Sam glared at him from across the table.

  Dr. Jaffe twitched in his chair without responding.

  “Wow, there’s so much to do,” Meg said, looking at the list.

  “Yeah, but you’re great at this kind of stuff,” Henry said.

  “Only because you’re such an awesome partner,” Meg replied.

  Henry’s tan cheeks turned crimson.

  I stood at the head of the table and cleared my throat to deliver a speech I had given at countless sorority meetings. “The most important decision in any party-planning process isn’t about the food or the decorations or who to invite. The biggest decision is ‘why.’ Why are you giving a party at all? All of a party’s details flow from the answer to that one question of how to best connect your guest to your ‘why.’”

  “The why is because Dr. Hawthorne has lost his mind.” Dr. Jaffe pushed his chair slightly away from the table and crossed his arms.

  “If we hear one more negative word out of you, it might be your last.” Sam banged his fist on the table, and his face flushed red. This was more than his usual disdain for Dr. Jaffe. The happy glow Sam had entered the room with seemed to dim with each interaction with Jaffe, and Jaffe refused to even look at Sam. Dr. Jaffe looked like he might run out of the room. In my book, that gave Sam points, even if he was in cahoots with the Russians. When he realized we had all noticed his strong reaction, Sam relaxed and sat back in his chair. “My ‘why’ is to get a damn coffee maker that works out of this deal.”

  “That’s good, Sam.” I gave a small clap to show approval. “As we’re making over the morgue, it’s good to identify some of our priorities. But the ‘why’ for a party should also be tied to the message you want your guests to come away with.”

  “Like the divorce party my mom threw.” Meg sat up straighter in her chair. Her dress today featured black and white polka dots. “Her theme was a good end to a bad beginning, all designed around the featured drink, ‘Rum, Baby, Rum.’”

  “Exactly. I bet your mom’s party was a big hit.”

  “I, for one, would like our guests to get the message that morgue work is important,” DC said.

  “That’s true. I’d like my mother to know that I’m not wasting my talents,” Henry said.

  “Your mother wouldn’t know talent if it bit her,” Meg said.

  Henry beamed.

  “Without us, no one would know why someone died. That’s important,” Meg added.

  Henry nodded.

  “It’s a place people need, but no one likes to think about that.” Sam rubbed his goatee.

  When Jaffe grunted as if in agreement, I knew we were on to something. I went to the board, picked up the whiteboard marker, and
wrote, “Taking the Mystery Out of Your Neighborhood Morgue—The Last Place You’ll Ever Need.”

  “Great job,” I said. “I think we have our ‘why.’ So now all we have to figure out are fun ways to help our guests experience that.”

  “We did the autopsy of the actress Morgana Grable,” Meg said.

  “And the brewery kingpin, Adolph Miller,” DC added.

  “And Mario Granaldi,” Sam said.

  I didn’t recognize the name. Granaldi sounded Italian. The last thing I needed was for us to be celebrating mobsters. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t recognize the name. Everyone around the table looked at Sam with confusion.

  “You know, the famous chef,” he said.

  With a sense of relief, I wrote on the board the idea of the famous-autopsy montage. Meg and Henry agreed to be in charge of compiling and presenting the information.

  For the rest of the hour, we filled in the party-planning worksheet around the theme of celebrating the morgue’s work. The last task was to assign duties.

  Along with Meg, I took the job of handling the decorations. That would give us some bonding time. Maybe she knew Henry’s secret.

  “Uh, I’d be happy to help with the food,” Sam said, standing up.

  “Okay, but no rattlesnake,” DC said.

  Sam grinned, and Jaffe huffed.

  Thanks to the additional business Mom’s caterer had gotten from other guests at the benefit last night, she had agreed to cater the morgue event for free. I gave Sam her contact information. He also agreed to head up the construction crew for the morgue makeover.

  Surprisingly, Dr. Jaffe agreed to put together a tour of the morgue to help guests get a feel for what happened during an autopsy.

  I put DC in charge of the cake and the auction of all the leftovers in the evidence room. That would be one way we could raise money for the new spectrometer Dr. Hawthorne wanted.

  Now all that remained was the shopping.

  “BABE!” A RASPY WHISPER came from behind me as I stood at the morgue’s coffeepot, praying that coffee would drip from it eventually. Someone had taken the wrench.