by Laura Levine
My enthusiasm quickly plummeted, however, when we walked into the class and I saw a sea of gorgeous blondes with washboard abs.
And those were just the men.
Oh, foo. I had just entered one of L.A.’s many No-Fat zones.
I almost expected alarm bells to go off, alerting everyone to my presence.
(Cellulite in the house! Cellulite in the house!)
“Here you go,” Dickie said, leading me over to one of the bikes, a hulking machine that was a lot higher than I expected.
Somehow I managed to hoist myself astride—all in all, a most excruciating experience.
What sadist invented the bike seat anyway? That thing was so darn intrusive, it practically needed a condom.
“Okay, everybody,” I heard a deep voice growling. “Let’s do this.”
Up at the front of the class was our instructor, a guy so buff his muscles had muscles. I’m sure in another life he was either a gladiator or a Sherman Tank.
“It’s spin time!” he shouted.
And so began my stint in Spin Hell.
I struggled in vain to keep up with the others as their legs spun in a blur to the music blaring from two powerful speakers.
Yikes. It was like trekking up Mount Everest.
I huffed and puffed for what felt like hours but was in actuality only three and a half minutes. Just when I thought I could not cycle one more millimeter, our musclebound leader called out:
“Okay, let’s kick it up a notch!”
Kick it up a notch? Was he insane? One more notch and I’d be at St. John’s cardiac unit.
Cursing myself for ever agreeing to come to this stupid class, I glanced over at Dickie, who was staring wide-eyed at the carpet beneath my bike.
I followed his gaze and would have gasped if I’d had any breath left.
There, scattered beneath my bike, was a sea of brightly colored dots.
Gaak. My M&M’s!
As I discovered when the nightmarish session finally came to an end, I had a hole in the pocket of my sweatpants that had allowed those little rascals to escape. Now Dickie and all the other washboard abbers knew the truth about me, that I was a diet scofflaw who stocked her sweatpants with M&M’s.
Mortified, I got down on my knees to pick them up. Dickie knelt beside me to help.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I said, afraid to look him in the eye. “I skipped lunch and was absolutely starving. And then I found these in my glove compartment.”
Notice how I did not mention the chocolate-glazed donuts and Oreos I’d scarfed down before our rendezvous.
Working up my courage, I looked up and saw that Dickie was smiling his sweet-sexy smile.
“No need to be embarrassed,” he said. “As Hapi has taught me, I accept that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have.”
I could practically see Prozac upchucking a hairball at this latest affirmation. But I loved every syllable of it.
Especially when Dickie leaned in and kissed me on the nose, right there in front of all those fab-ab hotties.
Was he the best or what?
* * *
I floated out of spin class in a happy glow. Which lasted all of about seven seconds until Dickie said, “I can’t wait to do this again. Next time we’ll meet at the smoothie bar for lemongrass shakes. That should give you plenty of energy.”
Next time? Glug!
“Sounds great,” I managed to say, already working on the knee injury I planned to fake to get out of going.
No way was I showing up at another spin class. No, siree. From then on, I’d burn off my calories the old-fashioned way—by jogging to the freezer aisle for a pint of Chunky Monkey.
Chapter 21
That night I dreamed I was trapped on a spin class bike, being chased by a mob of giant M&M’s, cursing me for having scarfed down so many of their relatives.
Sweat gushed from my pores as I pedaled my heart out. But no matter how fast I pedaled, the bike refused to move. In no time, the M&M’s had me surrounded and were using me as a human bull’s-eye—pelting my chest with stinging darts.
It was then that I woke up and realized that the stinging in my chest was just Prozac, clawing me awake for her breakfast.
She’d been cold as ice when I came home from the spin class last night.
“Oh, Pro,” I’d moaned, my privates still aching from that torture chamber of a bike seat. “Every inch of me hurts.”
She’d barely glanced up from the hairball she’d just deposited on one of my cashmere sweaters.
That’s what you get for leaving me alone while you go out gallivanting with The Affirmation Kid.
Clearly I had a long way to go in my efforts to win her over to Team Dickie.
Banishing all thoughts of Prozac—and my ghastly M&M’s fiasco—I showed up at La Belle Vie that morning eager to resume my investigation.
I definitely needed to chat with Raymond and Solange. Both of them had their salaries slashed under Tommy’s tyrannical rule and would have lost out on a hefty inheritance had he tied the knot with Daisy.
More than enough motive for murder, don’t you think?
After a morning toiling in the turquoise mines, I tracked down Solange in her room, taking her afternoon break.
“Come in,” she called out after I knocked on her door.
I walked in and blinked, more than a little taken aback. The place looked like a tornado had just whizzed through it—clothes, shoes, and grooming aids scattered everywhere.
Solange was lounging on her unmade bed, sheets tangled, in pajama shorts and tourniquet-tight tank top.
Her hair, normally coiled in a French twist, was loose and tousled, her long legs bare, not a speck of flab on her thighs. She looked up from the copy of Vogue she was reading, a half-eaten banana at her side.
“Excuse the mess,” she said, gesturing at the surrounding chaos. “What with all the cleaning I do around here, I don’t have the energy to keep my own room neat.”
I’ll say, I thought, spotting a dust bunny the size of Prozac.
“So what’s up?” she asked.
“Actually, I stopped by to talk about Tommy’s murder. The police think Kate is the killer, and I’m trying to help clear her name. Okay if we have a little chat?”
“Sure,” she said, patting the mattress next to her.
After clearing away the banana, two fashion magazines, and a curling iron, I joined her on her bed.
“You really think Kate is innocent?” Solange asked. “After all, Esme saw her heading for the gym right before Tommy was killed.”
“She did go to the gym but only to curse Tommy out. She swears he was alive when she left.”
“I guess that’s possible,” Solange said, plucking an emery board from the sheets.
“I don’t suppose you saw anyone going to the gym?” I asked as she began filing her nails.
“No, I was busy in the dining room polishing silver for the wedding brunch. Such a dirty job. My nails were an absolute wreck afterward.”
It was then that I glanced down and saw something very odd. Nestled between a comb and a jar of moisturizer were a pair of pink lace panties.
It wasn’t the panties that intrigued me—I could easily picture Solange strutting her stuff in them—but rather what I saw peeking out from under them: a business card embossed with the words
Tommy LaSalle
Executive Financial Planner
It was one of the cards Daisy had printed for Tommy when he was pretending to look for work.
“How interesting,” I said, lifting it out from under the panties. “May I ask what Tommy’s business card is doing in your bed?”
Solange groaned at the sight of it.
“It must’ve fallen out of his pocket when he came to see me.”
“He came to see you here? In your room?”
“He snuck in while Daisy was out having her hair done and Raymond was away at the market.”
“What did he want?”
“To blackmail me into having sex with him.”
“Blackmail?”
Why was I not surprised? Sounded like something right up Tommy’s crooked alley.
“What sort of hold did he have on you?”
After a beat of hesitation, Solange sighed deeply and said, “I may as well come clean with you. Sooner or later I’m going to have to tell Daisy the truth, too.”
“About what?”
“Remember that two hundred dollars Tommy claimed Kate stole from Daisy’s hollowed-out book?”
Indeed I did. It was what precipitated Kate’s angry outburst, which might one day be held against her in a court of law.
“Kate didn’t take that money. I did.”
She looked up from her emery board, sheepish.
“I couldn’t help myself. It was so tempting. You see, Daisy has a thing about being ready in case of a disaster. You know about her panic room, right?”
“No. What panic room?”
“Right next to the office. Lots of people in Bel Air have one. A place to hide during a home invasion. But to be extra-safe, Daisy also keeps wads of cash stashed throughout the house. I found a list of her hiding places one day while I was snooping in her lingerie drawer. And I’ve been siphoning off money ever since.”
“But why? I thought Daisy was paying you and Raymond a very generous salary.”
“Not generous enough to pay for all this.”
She gestured to the sea of clothing strewn about the room, and for the first time, I realized it was pretty pricey stuff.
Picking up a blouse from the floor, I checked the label: Dolce and Gabbana.
“They’re all designer labels,” she said. “Top of the line. My name is Solange,” she added with a wry smile, “and I’m a shopaholic. Tommy caught me stealing and threatened to report me to the police unless I slept with him. Tommy only accused Kate because he wanted an excuse to fire her.”
“So did you sleep with him?”
“No, I told him I was coming down with a cold and got rid of him. But I knew sooner or later he’d be back. Thank God he died when he did.”
The minute the words were out of her mouth, I could tell she regretted them.
“But I swear,” she insisted, her eyes wide with what may or may not have been innocence, “I didn’t kill him. You’ve got to believe me.”
As far as I was concerned, the jury was still out on that one.
Tommy had been threatening to send our gal Solange to jail. Seemed liked a very good reason to trot over to the gym and whack him in the jugular with a Swiss Army Knife.
Chapter 22
After extracting a solemn vow from Solange to never again raid Daisy’s cash reserves, I headed off to the kitchen for a tête-à-tête with Raymond.
I found him at the kitchen island, chopping vegetables with impressive speed.
“Hey, Raymond. What’re you making?”
“Tarte au poulet. A French chicken pot pie. Comfort food for Daisy. It was one of my signature dishes when I was executive chef at Christophe.”
“Sounds yummy!”
“I’ll save you some,” he said with a wink.
Someday, if I ever get really rich, I’m going to buy myself a Raymond.
I was lost in a reverie of creamy chicken and chopped veggies nestled in a flaky pastry crust when Raymond said, “Can I help you?”
Oh, right. The murder. When it comes to flaky pastry crusts, I get easily distracted.
“Just stopped by for a snack,” I said, grabbing an orange from a bowl on the island, reluctant to come right out and ask this talented kitchen whiz if he’d bumped off his boss from hell. Not while he was wielding a knife, anyway.
“I can’t get over Tommy’s murder,” I said, as casually as possible. “I know everyone hated him. But still . . .”
“If you ask me, Kate did us all a favor. I’m prepared to kick in big bucks for her defense fund.”
“I don’t think Kate’s the killer. She swore to me she didn’t do it, and I believe her.”
“Well, then, who did?” he asked.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Did you see anything out of the ordinary the morning of the murder?”
“No,” he said, with a shake of his ponytail. “I wasn’t even here.”
Thinking back to that morning, I realized I hadn’t seen him anywhere.
“I was at Home Depot picking out a coffee table with Andre.”
“Andre?”
“My brother. He does odd jobs for Daisy around the house. Carpentry. Minor plumbing repairs. He’s got taste up his wazoo, and he wanted my help picking out something nice. By the time I got back, Tommy was already dead.”
“Any idea who could have done it? Other than Kate?”
“Let me see,” he said, putting down his knife to think it over. “Clayton was out of town, so that lets him out. I was at Home Depot. And Solange couldn’t possibly have done it.”
Oh, yes, she could, were the words I was tactful enough not to utter.
“Maybe it was Esme,” Raymond suggested. “She sure hated Tommy. One day she came storming into the kitchen for some aspirin, muttering about what a miserable SOB he was. Maybe she was the one who took him out.
“And of course,” he added with a sly smile, “there’s always you.”
“Me? Why would I want to kill Tommy?”
“Who knows? Maybe he was bad-mouthing your book to Daisy, trying to get her to pull the plug on the project.”
Oh, Lord. I only hoped the cops weren’t thinking along those lines.
“Don’t get your panties in an uproar,” he said, seeing the look of alarm on my face. “All I know is I’m thrilled to be rid of the blackmailing bastard.”
With that, he picked up his knife and resumed eviscerating his veggies.
Whoa, Nelly. Did you hear what I heard? Raymond had just called Tommy a blackmailing bastard. How did he know Tommy was into blackmail? Had Solange told him about Tommy’s trip to her bedroom? Or had Raymond come home early from the market and seen Tommy sneak into her room? Had he stood outside, listening to Tommy trying to coerce his beloved into sex?
Filled to the gills with pay cuts and Tater Tots, had Raymond reached a boiling point and gotten rid of his detested boss for good?
One thing was for sure, I thought, as I watched him hack away at those veggies.
He certainly had the knife skills for the job.
Chapter 23
I trotted back to my office with my Dove Bar—you didn’t really think I picked up an orange, did you?—eager to check out Raymond’s alibi.
Raymond claimed he’d been with his brother, Andre, Daisy’s handyman, the morning of the murder.
But I wasn’t about to take his word for it.
Scrolling down Daisy’s contact list, I found Andre’s address and later that afternoon set out to question him.
It took me close to an hour on the 405 freeway (where every hour is rush hour) to get to Andre’s digs in Hawthorne, a working class city far from the rarefied hills of Bel Air.
Andre’s place was the eyesore of the block—a postage stamp of a house with peeling paint, grassless front yard, and burglary bars on the windows.
It made Esme’s cottage look like Versailles.
I knocked on the door and heard shuffling footsteps inside. Then the door swung open, revealing a scruffy thirtysomething guy with greasy hair down to his I PEE IN POOLS T-shirt.
He blinked at me, glassy-eyed.
“Whaddaya want?” was his gracious greeting.
“I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time to talk to you about Tommy LaSalle’s murder.”
“Nope,” he said, slamming the door in my face.
This happens to me a lot. And I was prepared. Time for Plan B.
Reaching into my purse, I pulled out my trusty USDA meat inspector’s badge I’d picked up years ago at a flea market. I can’t tell you how many times it’s come in handy when questioning a reluct
ant witness. Especially one as spaced out as Andre.
Once again I knocked on his door.
“Go away!” he shouted.
Yeah, right. As if that was going to happen.
“LAPD!” I called out.
“Fooey!” I heard him say as he shuffled back to the door.
(You know by now that “fooey” wasn’t the “F” word he really used, right?)
“You a cop?” he asked when he yanked open the door.
“Lieutenant Mildred Pierce,” I said, paying homage to one of my all-time favorite movies.
I flashed him my badge, and he glanced at it briefly, not bothering to read the words. Most people don’t.
As he waved me inside, I was hit with the overwhelming smell of marijuana. Five deep breaths and I’d be high as a kite.
I followed him past a musty foyer into an even mustier living room, where a TV was blasting an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.
“I just love that dude,” Andre said, nodding at the animated sponge.
Of course he did. The two shared the same IQ.
Looking around, I saw the room was furnished with pieces straight from the Abandoned in an Alley collection—pea green and yellow plaid sofa and matching armchair, both covered with a colorful assortment of stains.
But all that I was interested in was Andre’s coffee table. And there it was, right in front of the sofa: a battered piece of wood etched with cigarette burns. No way had he just bought this thing at Home Depot.
Snoring at its base was a mammoth mountain of a dog.
“That’s Rufus,” Andre said, following my gaze.
Rufus looked up and yawned a yawn the size of a sinkhole, baring a set of mighty scary looking teeth.
“Don’t worry,” Andre assured me. “He doesn’t bite. Except for that one time. And that Girl Scout was asking for it.”
He plopped onto the sofa, sending up a small cloud of dust. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the armchair.
I sat down gingerly, careful to avoid an ominous brown stain at the edge.
“Wanna brownie?” he asked, pointing to a plate of misshapen brownies on the coffee table. Like the rest of the house, they reeked of marijuana.
