by Lotta Smith
“What?” Rowling asked, looking me in the eyes.
“Oh, no… nothing,” I mumbled, averting my gaze from his green eyes.
“Yes, you’re hiding something from me,” Rowling pressed on. “What’s that? Tell.”
“Come on, it’s just Giselle told me all the juicy details about your granddad being one of the most famous playboys in town back in the old days,” I confessed.
“That’s not all you were thinking,” my boss pointed out, chasing my eyes with his.
“Then I recalled the great selection of your dad’s mistresses… I mean, Miss Monday to Friday?”
“And?”
“And… I couldn’t help wondering how many mistresses you’ll have,” I confessed.
“Nice.” His perfectly shaped lips quirked up into a smile. “Mandy, can I consider that a proposal?”
“What proposal?”
“A marriage proposal.”
“What?” I gasped. “I mean… no.”
“What?” He narrowed his eyes. “No? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“You’re insane, Mandy. Any women would scream ‘Yes, yes, yeeees!’”
“Sorry, I’m not any women.” I shrugged.
“By the way, my old man broke up with Miss Tuesday, and he’s fooling around while the seat is still open. Imagine all the kinky activities he’s experimenting with.” He played with a lock of my hair as he spoke.
“Um…thanks for sharing, but that was too much information,” I said hurriedly, retrieving my hair from his fingers.
While my boss was bothering me with this super-shallow conversation, Miranda went on with her theory. “Of course, Wilfred, you were going after young women. It’s just normal for any man of a certain ages to chase young women’s behinds.”
“Does that mean your husband’s always chasing young women’s behinds?” Wilma-Diane chimed in.
“I’m not talking to you!” Miranda snapped, indicating that Wilfred’s wife’s words inflicted some damage to her ego. As Wilma-Diane grinned widely, Miranda cleared her throat, and she went on. “Now, Wilfred, you can come clean and unburden yourself. You were desperate to prevent Giselle from ditching you and naming me as the heir, weren’t you?”
“How many times do I have to say I didn’t kill my mother?” Wilfred rolled his eyes and let out a deep sigh. From the annoyance and exasperation in his voice, it didn’t take rocket science to assume he and Miranda had this conversation over and over.
Completely ignoring Miranda, Rowling went on interviewing Wilma-Diane, the wife of McCambridge Steel’s CEO, who was still smiling. “And what about you, ma’am?”
“I was in my bedroom, watching a Hawaii Five-0 rerun,” was her reply. She was in a stylish Chanel suit. Just like any other Upper East Side housewife, she was blonde and beautiful, but her atmosphere was more relaxed than a typical woman in this neighborhood—perhaps because she was less thin than the rest of her peers. Tilting her head to the side, she continued. “I remember catching some noise in the background, but as usual, Steve and the gang were involved in a shooting, so I assumed it was something happening on TV. Then Willow came to notify me about my mother-in-law’s fall. I was… surprised.”
“And hold your breath, she loathed Giselle as much as anyone else did.” Again, Miranda, who totally lacked diplomacy from her dictionary, butted in. “In-laws tend to disagree about everything, and her in-law was Giselle, my sister. Talk about a catastrophe!”
“Oh my goodness, you don’t get along with Harvey’s wife?” Wilma-Diane gasped like she was genuinely surprised.
“Leave my relationship with my son’s wife alone!” Miranda snapped.
Though I had never met Harvey or his wife, I commiserated with them. Miranda was such a pain in the behind. Then again, she probably had a point. Thanks to her delivery style, she sounded like she was just blubbering, but everyone at the McCambridge mansion had a motive to kill Giselle—no matter how over-the-top or trivial the reason was.
The ghost of Giselle let out a sigh. “Mandy, talking doesn’t highlight my killer. I have to listen to their footsteps.”
“Oh, I have a good idea,” I said abruptly, attracting skeptical glances from everyone, including the NYPD officers. Thanks to Captain DeLaurentis’s insistence to keep my international—I’m talking about the nation of the dead and that of the living—communication skill a secret, I couldn’t just suggest everyone go up the stairs and come down one by one so that Giselle could finger-point her killer.
“What are you talking about?” Wilma-Diane asked me politely.
“Well, Mrs. McCambridge”— I smiled, trying not to be too awkward—“it’s been a while since you gathered here and you’ve been standing all this time. On such occasions, some modest exercise is a perfect solution. Why don’t you go up the stairs a few steps and then come down, one by one, taking turns? That will boost your circulation, sending more oxygenated blood to the brain, and potentially refresh your memory.”
“Mandy, you don’t need to talk like a narrator from some infomercial,” Giselle pointed out.
Everyone fell silent, including Rowling, who raised an eyebrow at me. Miranda twitched a corner of her mouth, as if she were ready to make an acidulous comment or two.
“I see. Sounds good,” Wilma-Diane agreed and took several steps up on the stairs before Miranda said anything.
“Isn’t she sweet? Good thing she likes infomercials as much as cop shows. Now, Mandy, can you move a few steps toward the base of the stairs? Good. Thank you,” Giselle cooed as I stood at the base floor of the grand staircase.
Wilma-Diane was wearing Gianvito Rossi sandals with chunky heels.
Giselle closed her eyes and listened to her daughter-in-law strut the grand staircase. As soon as she opened her eyes, the ghost shook her head. “She’s not the killer.”
Wilfred was the next person to do the same routine. He was wearing wingtip shoes with stacked heels and leather soles. His footsteps sounded heavier and somewhat decisive.
“He’s not my killer, either. Let’s move on,” Giselle told me.
Whitney wore a pair of leather slippers on her bare feet, and her footsteps had a distinct noise caused by the sole of her feet brushing with the calfskin surface of the footwear.
Her two friends—Wendy Ruben and Stacy Wilcox, both wearing Tory Burch shoes—took turns walking up and down the stairs following Whitney. Wendy’s shoes were pointy-toe pumps with stiletto heels that clattered on every contact with the marble steps. Stacy’s were booties with chunky heels that made heavier clatters than Wendy’s.
“No. And no.” Giselle shook her head.
As for Wolfgang and Wyatt McCambridge, both boys were wearing designer sneakers that made squeaky sounds, and the butler, Marcus Warne-Smith, wore shiny, black, patent leather, lace-up Oxfords with stacked heels. From the sound of the footsteps, Giselle recognized none of them as her attacker.
Willow, the maid, was the last person to walk up and down the stairs. She was wearing a pair of wedge heels with soft leather soles that made light pitter-patter sounds.
“That’s the sound I heard! It’s her! Like I told you, she used to walk like an elephant, so I told Marcus to buy quiet shoes for her. It was on the third or fourth day she started wearing the quiet shoes. She is my killer!” Giselle gasped.
Perhaps, I should have given it more thought about the appropriateness of finger-pointing at the maid before announcing, “It’s her! She’s the killer!” And I said it loud and clear.
The moment I blubber-mouthed, I totally regretted it.
And it wasn’t because everyone at the grand foyer seemed to be baffled and became awkwardly silent. Miranda looked at me like she just found a new prey to target on and snapped, “What’s she talking about? Is she crazy?” Which perhaps I was.
Captain DeLaurentis’s quizzically raised eyebrows weren’t intimidating enough to make me put foot in my mouth.
“Run, Willow, run!” The moment Wyat
t, the youngest of the McCambridge kids, yelled, the maid started running.
And she was fast. Before she shot toward the door, she shoved me aside and ran like hell. As in literally.
Of course, DeLaurentis and the detectives were seasoned professionals and they had no intention of letting Willow get away. They caught her before she made it to the door. Willow fought like a mouse cornered by an evil cat—kicking and screaming, but it took little time for the uniforms to pin her down on the floor. Still, there was a tiny bit of a problem—Wyatt was seizing my body with one arm and strangling my throat with another. The baby of the McCambridges chose me as the hostage du jour.
“Let her go!” Wyatt demanded.
“Come on, Wyatt…. Taking a law enforcement officer is the worst idea. You know how Bonny and Clyde ended up, right?” I gasped, only to have him tighten his grip on my throat. Technically, I wasn’t an officer, but I didn’t care since Wyatt had no idea about my position anyway. “What about… Thelma… and Louise?” I muttered, wiggling my neck to the side in a desperate attempt to get more oxygen.
“Stop it, Wyatt!” Giselle ordered in her signature commanding voice, but this meatheaded boy wouldn’t, and perhaps, couldn’t listen.
“Come on, baby! Don’t be stuuupid. You deserve better!” Jackie, who popped out of hiding, attempted to persuade Wyatt. “I’m telling you to let her go!” Jackie snapped and licked one of the boy’s ear. I wished that I had twisted my neck to the other side so that I didn’t catch this scene.
“Ewww…” I groaned. I was spooked, but by which of the events—the fact that I was being strangled to death, or witnessing a ghost of a drag queen licking the inside of my capturer’s ear—I didn’t know.
Wyatt released the arm grabbing my stomach, and I thought he was going to let me go. DeLaurentis and the NYPD seemed ready to rescue me, but pulling that arm out of the shirtsleeve was all he did. I had no idea about the purpose of his action, but anyway, he started pumping that arm as if he was channeling Tarzan. I found another reason to loathe men who show off their skin for no good reason.
“Detectives, get your filthy hands off her!” Wyatt commanded. “Otherwise, I’ll kill her. Don’t forget that I can kill a woman like her with a snap of my wrist! I’ve been practicing mixed martial arts for five years!”
As his shirtless arm tightened in a grip around my chest, I gagged, sensing the smell of his armpit. “Have you… ever… heard of… deodorant?”
“Shut up!” he snapped and tightened his grip around my throat even more.
Considering that there were so many NYPD officers, I expected to be rescued in seconds, but that didn’t happen. DeLaurentis was taking photos of me and my capturer using her phone, and Rowling was having a conversation with Wyatt’s parents.
“Hey, Wyatt, I know you’re a jock at school.” Rowling ambled toward us. “No, not just a jock, an idiot jock.”
“If I am an idiot, you’re no better than me!” Wyatt retorted. “It’s only up to me to let her live or die. Unless you let go of Willow, there’s no chance this woman here will live!”
As he tightened his grip on my neck, I felt really sick. Actually, the neck is the weakest spot in my body and I hadn’t worn turtleneck garments since I was sixteen. The last time I wore a turtleneck knit dress, I ended up vomiting in front of Bergdorf and Goodman, and I swore off any clothing that constricted my neck. Instinctively, I took a step back, trying to offset the pressure over my throat, and believe me, it was my best attempt not to puke all over the place. At that time, stomping on his left foot with my full weight, including the additional 10 pounds I had packed on lately, was a pure accident. And I was wearing a pair of three-inch kitten-heel pumps that sank into my capturer’s foot like sharp needles.
“What the… aaaahhhh!” Shrieking wildly, Wyatt’s grip on me loosened, finally letting go of my throat, but I didn’t have time to enjoy fresh air that didn’t smell like an armpit.
“Get off my foot!” Wyatt pushed me, which aggravated the situation.
“Oh…” I wobbled, losing my balance, and my heel sank deeper in his foot. In a vain attempt to restore my posture, I swung my arms, one of which happened to be holding a heavyweight Michael Kors tote, which knocked Wyatt square in the jaw.
The impact sent him collapsing on the floor.
“Mandy, sweetie, I’m sooo impressed,” Jackie said.
“I knew his bad manners were going to be trouble, but I didn’t know he was that stupid.” Giselle shook her head, watching me beating up her youngest grandson.
“Oohhh…” Wyatt groaned.
“That was an accident,” I said.
“Mandy, are you okay?” Rowling scurried toward me and asked.
“Well…” I looked around and noticed the way people at the scene stared at me. There was shock, awe, and fear. “It was an accident!” I insisted.
“I know.” Rowling nodded, gently stroking my hand. “But you need to step aside and get off his foot.”
I looked at Wyatt slumping over the marble floor, and then I looked into my boss’s deep green eyes. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Do I need a lawyer?”
“No, not yet.” He chuckled. “Look, Captain’s still looking in the other direction, which means none of this happened.”
“I’ll sue your ass off…,” Wyatt mumbled, still sprawled on the floor. “My parents know lawyers.”
“Oh, yeah? Are you sure? Captain DeLaurentis, do you mind if I borrow your phone?” Rowling turned to the captain, who responded, “No, go ahead,” and delivered her phone to him. Rowling thanked the captain and went on. “Look at the photos the captain took. This is you, taking my assistant hostage. The next photo is you, taking off your shirt for no good reason and making my assistant sick. And this is you, knocked down by your hostage who decided to strike back. Mandy, strike a fighting pose by the sissy boy and say cheese. This will make a killer selfie. The Internet will rave about you.”
“Don’t forget to attach the caption: A brave woman who beat the crap out of a martial arts boy in self-defense. Make sure you capitalize ‘self-defense.’” Standing by a still-slacking Wyatt, I pumped my fists.
“Stop it already!” Wyatt jumped up and tried to snatch the phone from Rowling without success. “Ouch!” he groaned as he got swatted off by my employer like a fly.
“Now, get up.” Grabbing Wyatt’s arms, Rowling made my capturer stand up. “Don’t get me wrong, but I’m helping you only because of the security contract between the McCambridges and USCAB. As a USCAB stakeholder, I can’t have my assistant accidentally killing you. Got it?”
“Got it.” Wyatt slumped his shoulders.
“What about ‘Thank you for saving me, Agent Rowling?’” Rowling went on with an ear-to-ear smile on his face.
“Th-th-thank you for saving me, Agent Rowling,” Wyatt said through his gritted teeth.
“You’re welcome. By the way, you’re damn lucky to still be breathing considering she’s killed three people just by touching them.” Rowling winked and Wyatt blanched.
“I didn’t!” I snapped.
“By the way, Willow.” Completely ignoring my protest, Rowling turned to the maid who had an expression of resigned calmness. “Why did you attempt to run away when you didn’t kill her?”
“What?” All the eyebrows except for those of Rowling’s shot north in surprise, but Wyatt was by far the most flabbergasted person.
“What? Then what was I doing for the past few minutes?”
“Making a complete fool of yourself, perhaps?” Rowling suggested.
“Agent Rowling,” Captain DeLaurentis said, “You owe me an explanation.”
“Okay, here’s the thing. As we know, the victim didn’t name the killer to Mr. Warne-Smith. If Willow here’s the one who pushed her, Madame Giselle should have told him so, especially considering that they had alone time after the maid was sent away to inform Mr. and Mrs. McCambridge about the incident.”
“You don’t need to retell us about the cas
e we already know.” DeLaurentis frowned. “The victim was pushed from behind, and she didn’t see the attacker’s face.”
“Right.” Rowling turned to the McCambridges flocking together. “By the way, did Madame Giselle have any problems with olfactory sense?”
“No.” Wilfred shook his head. “Actually, she had the sharpest nose in the family.”
“Despite her old age, she was always the first to fuss about the aroma—regardless of good ones and bad ones.” Whitney shrugged.
“Thank you. With this information, we can assume the victim could have noticed Willow, even without looking,” Rowling said, “because she has this distinct aroma of cigarettes and cheap perfume.”
DeLaurentis approached Willow. “Ah-ha! You’re right. She stinks.”
Willow fumbled with her hands uncomfortably.
“So why did you try to run away?” Rowling pressed on.
“Well.” The maid opened her mouth and started talking. “Actually, I wasn’t in the kitchen when Madam McCambridge fell down the stairs. I was already up on the terrace upstairs, except I wasn’t watering the plants. I was sneaking cigarettes out on the terrace, like I always did. I only bumped into Madame Giselle sprawled over the stairs when I came down. At first, I thought she was ill, but then I saw blood oozing from her head, and I panicked. The next thing I knew, I tripped over a step, and I was on my butt.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell the truth at the time?” the butler said grudgingly.
“I told the police that I was working in the kitchen during the first interview, and I just couldn’t say I was smoking, totally ditching my work.” Willow pouted. “Besides, I couldn’t change my statement because I didn’t want to be a suspect.”
“Hmm, is that the reason why you fled?” Rowling asked.
“And Wyatt told me to run, too.”
“Ooookay.” Rolling his eyes, Rowling turned to Wyatt. “You thought Willow was the killer because you saw her in the upstairs, right?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry about withholding this information. My apologies,” Wyatt replied, slumping his shoulders. I noticed a huge change with the way he spoke. “I saw her coming into Wolffy’s room.”
