by Laura Levine
“That’s right. White roses and peonies for the bridal bouquet, fresh as possible. And we need it here by eleven AM. . . . Great, thanks.”
She hung up with a sigh.
“Daisy’s getting the wrong flowers. She should’ve ordered lilies. Marrying Tommy will be like going to her own funeral.”
“Where is Tommy the Terrible, anyway?” I asked.
“Who knows? Probably trolling the escort services, looking for a date to bring to his wedding.”
We would have eagerly gone on trashing Tommy, but Kate’s phone rang just then and she was soon caught up finalizing the newlyweds’ honeymoon itinerary: Two weeks in Bali.
“How romantic!” Daisy had gushed at lunch the other day when she told us about their plans. “Tommy really needs a break!”
From what? Leafing through the Tiffany catalog?
Like Kate, I simply could not believe Daisy was foolish enough to marry this brazen nogoodnik. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I settled down at my desk to do battle with Clarissa Weatherly.
Before I could even open the Fifty Shades file, Tommy came bursting into the office, holding one of the tomes I’d seen in the library, a leather-bound copy of Oliver Twist.
“I always knew you were a lousy personal assistant,” he cried, storming over to Kate. “But now I know you’re a thief!”
He sprang open the copy of Oliver Twist, revealing—not a copy of the tale of a London street urchin—but a hollowed out box, one of those phony books people use to hide cash and valuables.
“There was two hundred dollars in here yesterday,” he said, glaring at Kate. “Now it’s gone. Of all the staff, you’re the only one who knows about Daisy’s secret hiding places. So you had to be the one who stole it.”
Kate’s jaw dropped in disbelief.
“Don’t be crazy. I didn’t take any money.”
Then her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.
“If you ask me, it was probably you. You’ve been robbing Daisy blind ever since you moved in.”
At which point, Daisy came bustling in to join us, still in her bathrobe.
“Good heavens! What’s going on in here?”
“Kate stole two hundred dollars from Oliver Twist,” Tommy said, holding out the hollowed book.
“I did not!” Kate fumed.
“She’s been taking advantage of you, Daisy,” Tommy said, doing his best impression of someone who actually cared about Daisy’s welfare.
“I’m not the one taking advantage of you, Daisy!” Kate cried. “Don’t you see that Tommy’s nothing but a gold digger? You can’t really believe he loves you. He’s going to take you for everything you’re worth. Get out while you still can.”
Daisy’s cherubic face turned stony.
“Pack your things, Kate. You’re fired.”
Kate gasped in disbelief. “You can’t mean that.”
“Indeed, I do. No one talks that way about my Tommy. I want you out of here by the time I get back from the spa.”
With that, she marched out of the office, arm in arm with her boy toy.
Kate raced out into the hallway after them, me hot on her heels.
“I’m going to get you for this, Tommy!” Kate shrieked. “Big time!”
By now, Esme and Solange had joined us in the hallway, come to see what the ruckus was all about.
“Daisy, dear. Is everything okay?” Esme asked, an eager glimmer in her eyes, undoubtedly hoping that the raised voices she’d heard had been a spat between Daisy and Tommy.
“Everything’s fine,” Daisy assured her. “I’ll be right down as soon as I finish dressing.”
Daisy started for the staircase, turning back to throw Tommy a kiss.
“Don’t stay too long in the tanning bed, darling. We’ll be getting more than enough sun in Bali.”
“I’ll keep it short,” he promised.
And off he sauntered to the gym, another victory under his belt.
* * *
“A fat lot of good you were!” Kate said to Voodoo Tommy, tossing him into the wastepaper basket.
Kate was busy clearing her desk, stowing her belongings in a carton she’d retrieved from the garage.
“That miserable sonofabitch framed me,” she fumed. “I’d never dream of stealing from Daisy.” Then she looked up at me, concerned. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Tommy probably took that cash and blamed me before Daisy could discover it was missing.”
My sentiments exactly.
“I can’t let Daisy fire you,” I said. “I’m going to tell her about Tommy making a pass at me. She needs to know the truth.”
“You’d do that for me?” Kate asked, her eyes welling with tears.
“Absolutely.”
“You might want to think twice about it. If she fired me, she’ll probably fire you, too. Tommy’s got her totally under his spell.”
She was right, of course. The minute I told Daisy about Tommy making a pass at me, I’d be right behind Kate walking out the door.
But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let Daisy go ahead with the wedding without speaking up. Just as I was gathering my courage to go through with my plan, a bone-chilling scream pierced the air.
I raced out into the hall and saw Daisy standing in the doorway of the gym, her body wracked with sobs.
“What’s wrong?” I cried, hurrying to her side.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she pointed inside the gym.
There was Tommy lying in his tanning bed, clad only in a pair of leopard-print thongs, goggles over his eyes, a tasteless snake tattoo on his upper thigh. And—the reason for Daisy’s sobs—the sharp blade of his Swiss Army Knife plunged deep into his neck.
Time to cancel those wedding bells.
Chapter 16
“Oh, Lord!” Daisy moaned. “I can’t bear to look at him.”
She pulled the door to the gym shut just as Esme came swooping down the hallway, followed by a wide-eyed Solange.
“Daisy, darling!” Esme cried. “What on earth is going on?”
“Tommy’s dead,” Daisy said between sobs.
“Someone stabbed him in the neck with his Swiss Army Knife,” I pointed out, for anyone interested in the gory details.
Solange opened the door a crack and peeked inside, gasping at the sight of her former boss.
“Wow,” she said, pulling the door shut again. “I just ironed those thongs yesterday.”
Esme, who had no interest in looking at Tommy’s corpse, managed to work up a few tsks for the occasion. But I could see her heart wasn’t in it.
“There, there.” She clutched Daisy to her flat chest. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Oh, Esme!” Daisy cried, eyes red-rimmed with tears. “Thank heavens you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Whaddya know? It looked like Esme was back in the saddle, once again Daisy’s BFF. And in spite of her clucks of pity, something told me she couldn’t have been happier to be rid of Tommy.
By now, I’d called 911 and soon the place was swarming with police, who ordered us to remain at La Belle Vie until we’d been questioned.
The detective on the case, Lieutenant Al Buono, was a squat guy with a military buzz cut, his lips apparently incapable of smiling. After setting up headquarters in the dining room, he summoned Daisy for questioning.
“I’ll go with you, hon,” Esme offered, “for moral support.”
“Afraid not,” said one of the detective’s underlings, a string bean of a man who, for the purposes of this story, shall be known as Barney Fife. “Detective Buono needs to speak with Ms. Kincaid alone.”
Once Daisy was led away, Esme returned to the living room while Solange sought refuge in her bedroom.
Raymond, I noticed, was nowhere to be seen.
Kate and I waited our turn to be questioned in our office, fortified by a carton of fudge ripple sprinkled with M&M’s.
(Oh, don’t go shaking your head. Like you’ve never thought of trying it.)
Kate was spooning the stuff into her mouth, near frantic with fear.
“It can’t look good,” she said between swallows. “My having that big fight with Tommy right before he got killed.”
“Try not to worry, hon. Everybody hated the guy. The police will have suspects up their ying-yang.”
“But I’m the only one who threated to get him—big time. I’m no homicide expert, but I can see how that might be construed as a death threat.”
She had a point. I have to confess that if I were in her shoes, I’d be a tad hysterical. A feeling that was reinforced when Barney Fife showed up at our office to summon Kate to the hot seat.
“Hold on a sec,” Barney said as Kate got up to join him. “What’s this?”
He pointed to Voodoo Tommy in the trash can, studded with straight pins.
“Um . . . er . . . a doll?” Kate replied, beads of sweat popping on her brow.
Whipping on a pair of rubber gloves, the cop removed Voodoo Tommy from the trash.
“It’s got pins all over it. And the victim’s name on its chest. What is this thing, anyway? A voodoo doll?”
“Kinda sorta,” Kate admitted.
“And who does it belong to?”
“That would be me,” Kate squeaked, her voice oozing panic.
“Is that so?” he said, with a withering look.
Yikes. I could practically hear a jail cell door clanging shut behind her.
“Follow me,” Barney said, after plopping the doll into a plastic bag.
And Kate set off behind him, Dead Chocoholic Walking.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, a stricken Kate came staggering back to the office, convinced she was going to be arrested for Tommy’s murder. Not only had the cops found Voodoo Tommy, but apparently Esme claimed she saw Kate going into the gym around the time of the murder.
“Did you?” I asked, jolted by this latest newsflash.
“Yes,” Kate confessed. “After I picked up my moving carton from the garage, I was still so furious with Tommy, I marched over to the gym and told him to go to hell. But he was alive when I got there. I swear I didn’t kill him.”
And I believed her.
I mean, nobody who eats M&M’s with fudge ripple could possibly be a killer.
That’s my scientific opinion, anyway.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL!
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Rodin Reincarnated
If I thought Daddy’s new haircut was impossible to live with, things are even worse now that he’s discovered sculpting. Ever since we started our class, Daddy’s convinced he’s Rodin reincarnated, certain he’s going to take the art world by storm.
He’s become positively insufferable, running around Tampa Vistas, collaring anyone who can stand the stink of his hair, yakking about the joys of sculpting, tossing out words like “armature” and “vitrification”—which I’m sure he filched from an online sculpting glossary.
Meanwhile, his Statue of Liberty is a lumpy mess.
XOXO,
Mom
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Natural Born Sculptor
Dearest Lambchop—I’m proud to report I’m making great progress on my Statue of Liberty. What an amazing likeness it bears to the real thing.
I guess I’m just a natural-born sculptor. The clay seems to spring to life at the touch of my fingers. Truly magical to behold!
And to think I almost didn’t take the class. What a loss that would have been to the art world.
Love’n cuddles from,
DaddyO
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Dead on the Spot!
Oh, my goodness! You’ll never guess what just happened! Daddy and I were out on the patio having lunch when a housefly started buzzing around Daddy’s hair. Daddy tried to swat it away, but he needn’t have bothered. The poor critter took one whiff of Big Al’s Hair Wax and dropped dead on the spot!
I tell you, your father is a menace to all creatures great and small!
XOXO,
Mom
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: I Finally Did It!
I finally did it, sweetheart! After seeing that poor housefly plummet to his death, I screwed up my courage and threw away Big Al’s Hair Wax in Edna Lindstrom’s garbage can. Then I washed out the jar and filled it with another styling wax I bought at CVS.
Daddy will probably never know the difference, as he can’t seem to smell anything these days.
XOXO,
Mom
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Perfidy!
You’re not going to believe this, Lambchop, but your sweet, sainted mother actually threw away Big Al’s Hair Wax and tried to pawn off an inferior substitute.
But she couldn’t fool me. After several hours searching, I finally found Big Al’s magical elixir in a baggie in Edna Lindstrom’s trash, where your mom had diabolically tossed it.
I’m still stung by her betrayal.
Your grievously wounded,
DaddyO
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Darn it All!
Daddy found Big Al’s Hair Wax in Edna’s garbage.
Darn it all. I knew I should have brought it to a hazardous waste dump.
XOXO,
Mom
Chapter 17
The next morning I was on the sofa, scarfing down a cinnamon raisin bagel and reading about Tommy’s murder in the Los Angeles Times—in an article headlined SLEAZY GIGOLO FOUND DEAD IN TANNING BED.
Okay, so it was MAN FOUND DEAD IN TANNING BED.
Daisy’s attorney was quoted as saying, “Ms. Kincaid is bereft at the loss of her beloved fiancé.”
“Everyone else is pleased as punch!” were the words she did not add.
Prozac sat curled up across from me on my armchair, belching minced mackerel fumes and studiously ignoring me.
I’d been spending quite a bit of time at Dickie’s condo, which irked her no end. It was no use telling her that Dickie and I would happily spend more time at my place if only she hadn’t turned my apartment into a war zone.
“Come here, sweetpea,” I cajoled, “and let me rub you behind your ears.”
She graced me with her most withering stink eye.
Not in the mood. Go scratch Dickie’s ears.
With a sigh, I returned to the story of Tommy’s murder, relieved to see there was no mention of Kate as the cops’ prime suspect.
But I feared that’s what she was.
Soon after Kate had returned from her interview, I was summoned for a little chat with Lieutenant Buono. He sat at the head of the dining room table, ramrod stiff, his lips a thin grim line.
When asked about Voodoo Tommy, I tried to assure the dour detective that it was all just a joke, that Kate never expressed any desire to kill Tommy.
“Except,” he noted, “when she threatened to get him ‘big time.’ ”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” I offered lamely.
“Any idea who else might have wanted him dead?” he asked.
“It’s a long list.”
I did not go into specifics, unwilling to throw anyone under the bus. The cops would dig up all the facts soon enough. But my head was swimming with suspects. Tommy had aced the household staff out of their inheritances and pushed Clayton and Esme out of Daisy’s life.
“So many people hated Tommy,” I said.
“But only one of them, according to the testimony of Esme Larkin, was seen heading to the gym at the time of the murder,” Lieutenant Buono pointed out. “Your friend Kate.”
Darn that blabbermouth Esme.
After a few more perfunctory questions, the dour detective set me free, and I headed back to th
e office, convinced that Kate was his prime suspect.
As it turned out that next morning, I was right.
Just as I was polishing off my cinnamon raisin bagel, I got a call from Kate. If anything, she was even more frantic than she’d been yesterday.
“Last night the police brought me in for more questioning. They kept me there for hours, asking me the same questions over and over again. Finally, when I asked for an attorney, they got me a court-appointed dufus who doesn’t know a tort from a tortilla. I just know I’m going to be arrested!” she wailed.
“Hang in there, honey. Let me see what I can do to help.”
“How can you help?” she asked.
I filled her in on my adventures as a part-time, semiprofessional PI, stirring sagas you can read about in the titles at the front of this book.
“You?” she asked. “A private eye???”
I get that reaction a lot.
When I assured her that I had indeed solved my fair share of murders, she was giddy with relief.
“I just know you’re going to get me out of this mess!”
She hung up in a flurry of ‘thank yous,’ and I wondered if maybe I’d oversold myself just a tad.
Now I really had to get her off the hook.
The pressure was on.
* * *
I was fortifying myself with another CRB and reading about Mom’s foiled attempt to get rid of Big Al’s Hair Wax when Lance came knocking at my door.
Like Prozac, he was ticked off about all the time I’d been spending with Dickie.
“Hello, Jaine,” he said, more than a hint of frost in his voice. “Long time, no see.”
