The Good Girl's Guide to Murder: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

  “Ah, gotcha.” There was a hint of Brooklyn in his accent, which you didn’t hear much in Dallas. He ran his fingers over his smooth pate, smearing a bit of flour on his skull. “I don’t understand this whole Diet Club thing. How’s it a diet club if all they do is eat desserts?”

  I grinned. “My mother and her friends were tired of everyone they knew being on Pritikin or Atkins, so they formed the Diet Club as revenge. It’s really an antidiet club, and there’s a waiting line a mile long to get in. Pretty much someone has to die to make room for a new member.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “If you make it exclusive, they will come,” I told him. “At least in the Park Cities.”

  “The Park Cities?”

  “Highland Park, where my mother lives, and University Park, where Southern Methodist University is located. Pretty much, that’s where the Old Money is.”

  “Ah, like Park Avenue in Manhattan.”

  “Exactly like that, Mr. Caruthers.”

  “Carson, please,” he said, smiling right back at me. He had such nice straight teeth, and I was a sucker for a good smile. “Mr. Caruthers is my old man, and he still lives in Flatbush.”

  “Okay, Carson.” I had to glance down, away from his thick-lashed blue eyes.

  A guy who could whip things up in the kitchen and not look half-bad without hair on his head made a dangerous combination. Just to have something to do, I fiddled with the rectangular silver links on the Escada bag.

  “Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about what you heard in there a few minutes ago,” he picked up the slack. “It’s not that I hate the Divine Ms. M, it’s just that she rubs me wrong. She tends to interfere with my creative process. I realize she’s the star of the show—hell, she is the show—but she’s really no more than an actress. You’ve been around long enough to know how things work, right? Everyone else does the crafts and the cooking and the gardening, and she just pretends in front of the camera.” He rubbed his palms on his chocolate-smeared apron. “You ever been to her house?” he asked.

  “No.” My mother had, but I’d never had a reason to go.

  He set his hands on his hips. “Behind this freaking enormous mansion, she’s got at least an acre of land. She’s got a pen for the geese, a hen house for chickens, incredible gardens, and even a man-made pond for her organic catfish that’s bigger than the Y’s swimming pool. But you think she gets her own hands dirty?” He shook his head. “No way. Just like here, she’s got people who take care of everything. Marilee’s forte is running things with her mouth, if you get my drift.” His own mouth screwed up, like he was chewing on the inside of his lip. Then he lifted his hands, gesturing surrender. “But who the hell am I to comment, right? I’m just a minion.”

  I remembered what Janet Graham had told me, that he was some big deal in New York until The Sweet Life had lured him here to take over as the food editor. I got the feeling he was second-guessing his decision.

  “I saw Marilee come down kind of hard on you last night before the party,” I told him, and his eyes rounded. “Is it tough for someone of your reputation to be working for a woman who’s so . . .”

  “Bitchy?” he finished for me and chuckled. “Hey, pardon my French.”

  “I was going to say ‘controlling.’”

  He shrugged. “Same difference. Technically, I don’t work for Marilee. Twinkle Productions hired me, not her. But she pretty much pushes the buttons. If she doesn’t like someone, pffft”—he jerked a thumb across his throat—“so I’m always on my toes, mostly trying to avoid her so we don’t come to blows. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not so well. But I keep tellin’ myself that this show is good exposure, and I’ve gotta put up with the woman, even when she’s yanking my short hairs.” A deep purple stain rose upward from his neck, as if the mere thought of Marilee getting on his nerves was enough to pump up his blood pressure.

  “Do you know Kendall well?”

  He squinted. “Marilee’s kid?”

  “You heard about what happened to her, I presume.”

  “She got hurt during the fire at the party?”

  “Um, sort of. She’s in the hospital,” I told him. “She had a bad reaction to something she ingested.”

  His eyes widened. “Ingested? As in something she ate? Not here? Please tell me it wasn’t something from the buffet?”

  Like the foie gras? I felt tempted to ask, but refrained.

  “No, no, the doctors think she had too much of one of those herbal supplements she’s been taking”—at the behest of Justin Gable, Chinese herbalist and personal trainer. “Though maybe it was the champagne, that special vintage Marilee had been saving.” And had apparently swiped from her ex-husband. “Was that particular bottle stored in a public place? In the kitchen maybe, where anyone would have access to it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, there’s a wine refrigerator, and a humidity-controlled wine closet. Neither one is locked, if that’s what you’re asking. The Dom, it was a 1973, right?” He scrunched up his forehead. “Did the bottle go bad?”

  “Um, in a way,” I said. “But she’s all right. Kendall, I mean.”

  “Glad to hear it. She’s a little off, but she ain’t had it easy.” He glanced toward the kitchen, where voices and the clang of pots and pans kept floating out. “The girl hangs around a lot. She likes to tell people she’s Marilee’s assistant, but I think it’s in name only. Marilee can’t keep a real assistant to save her life. I’ve seen two, three of them come and go already, and I haven’t been here that long.”

  “So Kendall helps out?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘helps’ exactly. She comes into the kitchen sometimes, probably to get out of her mother’s hair. So I’ll let her run the mixer or stir batter, simple stuff like that. I feel sorry for her. She seems lonely, you know, despite that bad-ass attitude she wears like a badge.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “She’s way too skinny, too,” he said with a small laugh. “I told her no man likes a woman who’s a sack of bones. But she got me back for that. Told me she already had a boyfriend”—he raised his hands—“who knows, right? Said she was gonna get this guy to marry her one of these days.”

  Marry her?

  “Did she tell you his name?”

  Carson shook his head. “Nope, but she said it was serious, and she didn’t want her mom to know ’cuz dear Mummy wouldn’t be happy about it.”

  Serious? Unhappy Mummy?

  Was Kendall referring to herself and Justin?

  I couldn’t imagine what other man she’d be talking “relationship” about.

  Poor delusional child. Particularly since Marilee stood in the way of Kendall’s being with young Mr. Gable, publicly anyway.

  “Just out of curiosity, does Justin Gable spend much time on the set?” I asked.

  “Marilee’s sweet-meat?” His dimples came out in full force. “The buffed-up blond dude who doesn’t say much?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Why? You like him or something?”

  “More like or something.”

  Carson scratched his nose, adding a pinch of flour to his proboscis. “Guy comes into the kitchen whenever he feels like it, uses the fruit and yogurt to make up smoothies for himself and Kendall, sometimes Marilee. He adds all kinds of powders and shit, pardon my French. I did hear him tell Marilee once that she should do a segment on the show about holistic healing.”

  “What’d she tell him?”

  I got another shot of his even white teeth as his mouth split. “I think she gave him a pat on the head and told him to go wait for her in the yoga room, like a good puppy.”

  Oh, wow.

  I couldn’t imagine Justin liked getting brushed off like that.

  Would it have pissed him enough to slip ma huang in her champagne?

  “Carson!” someone yelled from the kitchen, and the bald man’s head turned.

  “Hold your pants on, would ya?” he shouted back before
looking back at me. “This place is like Grand Central Station, you know, so many people always coming and going. Even Marilee’s ex-husband wandered in.”

  “Gilbert Mabry was in the kitchen?”

  “He asked for a glass of water and took some headache powder. Then he wanted directions to Marilee’s office. He said he got lost.” Carson shook his head. “Guy had to be lost in space to ever hitch his wagon to the likes of her.” He jerked his chin at me. “You say you’re just temporary help? Consider yourself lucky. Being here is more penance than pleasure sometimes. You met Renata?”

  “No.”

  “You should,” he said. “You’d like her. She started working here when I did, about six weeks ago. She’s doing production work, has to put up with a lot of crap from Marilee. I hope she stays.” He brushed at the front of his apron.

  “Her name’s Renata?”

  “Yeah. Renata Taylor. She’s a pretty girl.” His cheeks flushed. “Got some gorgeous black hair and an attitude as cool as a summer melon.”

  Sounded to me like Carson Caruthers had a crush.

  “Carson!” The cry came louder this time.

  Carson turned and yelled back, “Coming!”

  “You’ve got to go,” I said, a master of the obvious. “Guess I’ll see you down at Mother’s.”

  He stuck out a hand, and I shook it. He held on a little longer than was necessary. “I’ll be there with the chocolate,” he told me.

  “Just don’t spit in any of the desserts, okay? Especially if my mother and her friends will be eating them,” I said as I wormed free of his grasp.

  “Spit in them?” he repeated as I started walking off, up the hallway. “Pardon my French, but what the hell’s that supposed to mean.”

  “The goose liver,” I called over my shoulder. “I was manning the web cams at the party.”

  “Web cams at the party? Oh, shit,” I heard him say, obviously catching on. Bright boy.

  Grinning, I took a corner fast, without paying attention.

  And ran smack into another body, hurrying along as fast as I was.

  “Oomph,” we expelled simultaneously, the impact knocking us each back a few steps. Papers fluttered from my co-bumper’s arms, drifting drunkenly to the floor and settling in a cloud atop the Berber.

  It took a few seconds to shake it off and then I bent to help her out. “Oh, geez, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  “I didn’t see you either . . . damn, look at this mess.”

  A curtain of dark hair hid her bowed head as she crouched down, quickly picking up pages scattered between our feet. I squatted, too, doing my best to help her get them off the carpet and back into her arms.

  Glancing at the sheets as I rounded some of them up, I saw topics for future episodes of The Sweet Life, call sheets for the crew, and what looked like insurance papers. I thought I glimpsed the name “M. Mabry” on them, but it was such a quick peek, I wasn’t sure.

  “Thanks,” she snatched what I’d gathered from my hands, shifting the papers into some semblance of order as she rose from the floor.

  I followed suit, standing up and finally getting a good look at her.

  Loose black curls cascaded from a center part, tumbling past her shoulders. She had smooth café au lait skin, and I envied her for it, being pretty colorless myself despite a smattering of freckles. Her hazel eyes quickly assessed me, and she smiled, accentuating the mole in the crease of her cheek.

  There was something familiar, too, about the shape of her eyes, the set of the mouth, and I recalled meeting her before, albeit informally.

  “You must be Renata,” I said, figuring she had to be the woman Carson had mentioned (and who’d made him blush). “You’re a production assistant, right? Actually, I believe we’ve bumped into one another before.”

  “Last night at the party, right?”

  “I mistook you for Marilee’s daughter,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Her mouth tightened, eyes incredulous, and I sensed that she was another of Marilee’s staff who felt ambiguous about the “Divine Ms. M,” as Carson had dubbed her.

  “I’m Andy Kendricks. I’ve been doing web design work for Marilee for a couple weeks, but I’m only temporary.”

  “Kendricks?” she repeated, and her frown softened into a look of surprise. “As in Cissy Kendricks on Beverly Drive?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  Her face broke into a full-fledged grin. She shifted the mess of papers into the crook of her left arm, extending her right. “Yep, I’m Renata Taylor,” she said, and I shook her proffered hand. “Your mother’s my new neighbor.”

  “Your neighbor?” I couldn’t imagine the woman could afford to live in Highland Park, particularly on Beverly Drive, earning a production assistant’s wages.

  “I’m living with my folks until I have time to find digs of my own.” She shrugged. “They have plenty of room besides.”

  “Taylor? As in Dr. Taylor? Your mom’s a doctor at Medical City, right?”

  “Beth Taylor, yes,” she said. “My dad’s an investment manager at Bank of America.”

  “So you’re from somewhere in East Texas?”

  “Somewhere about says it.” One of those silent, awkward moments passed before she shuffled the papers in her arms so she could look at her watch. “Oh, hell, I’ve gotta run. We’re taping a segment outside the studio at . . .”

  “My mother’s house,” I cut her off. “I’ll see you there.”

  Renata scooted off, and I ambled up the hallway toward the rear exit to fetch my Jeep, my brain reaching for something that had been bothering me since I heard the girl’s name.

  It wasn’t until I stepped outside into the god-awful heat that it hit me.

  First year Latin. Mrs. Bishop.

  Renata.

  It meant “rebirth.”

  Deep, I mused.

  My father had insisted on naming me Andrea because it meant “courageous” in Greek, or at least that’s the spiel he’d given me when I was a little girl. Sometimes I wondered if he’d made it up, like a bedtime story, so I’d feel special (it had worked).

  Though, deep in my heart, I wanted to believe it was true, and I hoped I could somehow live up to it.

  Chapter 19

  I had some time to kill before I headed to Mother’s, so I decided to stop by Medical City and check on Kendall for myself.

  It wasn’t far from Cissy’s house, anyway, and it made me nervous to think that Justin had gone to the hospital alone. What if he’d gotten into her room, despite my warnings to Nurse Alice? What if he’d tried to scare her into keeping quiet about what really happened before she collapsed? Whatever that was.

  Another thing bothered me, too.

  The fact that Marilee hadn’t even visited her daughter today—had merely called the nurses’ station for an update—galled me. I figured that Kendall could use a friendly face, and I was pretty sure mine was as friendly as it got.

  As I headed south from Addison, my radio off, I found myself wondering how much Kendall actually recalled about last night. The shock of the high-dose ephedra on her heart could have affected her memory, right? There was a good chance we’d never know if Justin gave her the herb or if she administered it to herself before she got sick and blacked out on the bathroom floor.

  Though I felt surer than ever that he was the one who’d pushed past me in the darkened hall as I’d left Marilee’s office to search for help.

  Because of the smell.

  Almonds.

  I’d noticed Justin’s scent when he’d stepped around me, desperate to make a quick escape after I’d caught him with Kendall on Marilee’s sofa.

  I breathed in the very same smell in the hallway after the lights went out. It had to have been Justin.

  Which led to yet another question. If he had been with Kendall when she collapsed, why hadn’t he done anything to help?

  Because he was afraid?

  Or because he was responsible?

  My mother�
�s honey-smooth drawl invaded my head, and I recalled something she’d said at the hospital.

  “He went out for air again, did you see? Which is the same reason he told Marilee he’d left the party. Either he’s sufferin’ from a severe lack of oxygen, or he feels guilty about somethin’, and you know I’m right. Did you see how reluctant he was to tell the doctor what herbs he’d given that poor girl? And if she’d died, no one would’ve been the wiser.”

  Her words had seemed crazy when she’d uttered them, but I found they made more sense, the more I mulled over them.

  I hated to sound judgmental—and hated even more to side with my mother—but Justin hadn’t exactly won me over.

  It amazed me to think that he had both Mabry women so snookered.

  I turned up the AC and pushed down harder on the gas pedal.

  Within thirty minutes, I’d reached Medical City from Addison, taking the long way and avoiding Central Expressway. I hated highways and suicide lanes that threw you into traffic without a running start.

  It was eleven and already hot enough to toast a bagel on the asphalt. Even the covered parking lot felt sticky when I parked the Jeep and got out, heading for the sliding glass doors that led inside.

  An older couple sat in the waiting room, perched side by side on the blue vinyl couch where Marilee and Justin had huddled the night before. The television played on, the sound still too low to hear.

  Nurse Alice was nowhere to be seen when I reached Kendall’s floor. In fact, the nurses’ station was unmanned at the moment, and I walked straight past, heading for Kendall’s door.

  I pushed it open and peered inside, prepared to find her sleeping.

  What I found instead was an empty room and a bed that had been stripped.

  No IV on a pole. No monitors that blinked and beeped.

  Where the hell was she?

  My heart dribbled like a basketball as I rushed out of the room, looking around for anyone in scrubs and finally spotting a dark-skinned woman in green emerging from a room up the hall.

  I ran up to her. “Kendall Mabry,” I breathed in a rush. “She isn’t in her bed. She can’t have checked out already, could she?”

  “Hold on a minute, hon,” she said. “Come on with me to the desk and we’ll see what’s what.”