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

by McBride, Susan

  As she rushed on, I hung my head, wishing we could do this afternoon over again, only with a different ending. Like with Kendall.

  “Tell Cissy I’ll be sensitive to her situation, being at the center of this whole mess, okay? I don’t want to take advantage of our friendship . . .”

  I imagined her frantically typing up a story with the headline:

  DEATH BY CHOCOLATE (REALLY)

  Or maybe:

  THE DALLAS DIE-IT CLUB

  Oy.

  “My photographer showed up late as usual, damn him, but this time it was a good thing . . . he snapped a few shots of them removing the body . . .”

  I dropped my forehead to the table, holding the phone loosely to my right ear, barely listening.

  Last night was bad enough, but this was worse than I could’ve dreamed.

  I still couldn’t believe Marilee Mabry was dead. No matter what I thought of her, it was strange to realize I’d never see her again. She was like a tornado, sucked up into the clouds, there one minute and gone the next. A force of nature silenced.

  Poor Kendall, I thought again. Poor confused and lonely girl.

  “Mother told the police about Justin,” I confessed, hoping she wouldn’t think I’d betrayed her. “She knew about him, Janet, everything. At least as much as your sources.”

  “Crap,” she murmured. “I was planning to do a sidebar about Marilee’s boy-toy and his prior relationships. I’d wanted it to be an exclusive.”

  “I’m sorry.” What else could I say?

  “Hey, it’s not your fault. And just because the cops know doesn’t mean our readership does. Oops, gotta go, but I’ll call you tomorrow and see what’s shaking. I’m thinking of taking a trip out to Gunner tomorrow. I’ve finally got a lead on the aunt Marilee supposedly lived with for a while when she was sixteen. There’s a woman named Doreen Haggerty in a nursing home there that has to be her. You want to keep me company?”

  “Ask me later, okay?”

  “Sure, Andy, sure. Hey, tell your mom I’m sorry about everything.”

  “Right.”

  When I hung up and put away the phone, Sandy was escorting the last of the police contingent to the front door.

  I followed in my mother’s footsteps and headed to the stillness of the sun porch.

  She reclined on the chaise, cradling a brandy snifter. From the few drops remaining, it appeared she’d made a good dent already.

  “Not quite happy hour, is it?” I said as I collapsed onto the cushioned sofa.

  “We’ve never had anyone pass away at a Diet Club meeting,” she murmured and rolled the remainder of the brandy around in the bulb of the glass. “Bunny Beeler did break out in hives once from eating a cookie made with peanut oil, but it wasn’t serious. Do you think there was something in the cake, Andrea? It couldn’t have been the coffee. We all drank from the same pot.”

  “Once they get the tests back, we’ll know for sure. If it was a natural death, then nobody’s at fault.”

  “But if it’s not?”

  “Then it’s homicide.”

  “Oh, God.” She brought the snifter to her lips and knocked back the liquor till she was on empty. Then she pressed the glass to her forehead. “I should never have let Marilee bring her crew into my home. It was a mistake, and I should have turned her down when she suggested the idea. What if someone poisoned her, Andrea? Dear Lord, I hope they don’t think I had anything to do with it.”

  I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but I’d never been less than brutally honest with her. Okay, maybe once in a while. But not over something as important as this. “They’ll probably suspect everyone close to Marilee, at first.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Cissy moaned. “I’m a Daughter of the Republic of Texas, a member in good standing of the Society of the Bluebonnet Ladies, and a direct descendent of Sam Houston himself. Could the police honestly believe I would have killed someone in my own home? On the very rug your dear daddy bought me at auction in London the year before his heart attack?”

  She looked distraught, too much so for me to poke fun at her. I didn’t feel so hot, either. “No one’s going to suspect you, Mother. You were one of the few people who didn’t have a beef with Marilee. You were probably her only real friend in this world.”

  Setting aside the bone-dry snifter, she reached for the ends of the Hermès scarf looped gracefully around her neck, dabbing at the damp on her cheeks. “You know, Andrea, it’s not like I haven’t lost my share of friends. When you get to be my age, it’s something you expect, though you never grow accustomed to it. But Marilee was such a ball of fire. I can’t believe she’s really gone.” She pursed her lips, looking off for a moment, out the window at the rose gardens, now bathed in late afternoon light. “She was a survivor, a fighter, and so terribly driven. She may have upstaged Mrs. Perot at the Salvation Army luncheon, but she didn’t deserve this.”

  I pictured the worried faces lined up around the dining room table: Carson Caruthers and his kitchen crew, Renata Taylor and the other production assistants, the director with his arm in a sling, and a dozen others. I thought, too, of Gilbert and Amber Lynn, and I wondered how many of them felt that Marilee got exactly what she deserved.

  Something Beth Taylor had said about Kendall swam into my head.

  “She could’ve gone into sudden cardiac arrest. It would’ve looked exactly like a heart attack on autopsy, and no one would’ve been the wiser.”

  It would’ve looked like a heart attack.

  A natural death.

  No one the wiser.

  And I wondered if someone close to Marilee had hoped to get away with murder, by betting she, like Kendall, had the potentially fatal arrhythmia.

  Someone who stood to profit from Marilee’s death, particularly if he were romancing Marilee’s confused and emotionally needy daughter—perhaps mesmerizing the girl with talk of a future, of marriage.

  Someone like Justin Gable, perhaps?

  Mother had nearly demolished her second glass of brandy when my cell started ringing. I figured it was Malone, wondering what was going on, but it was Deputy Chief Dean, and she didn’t sound any too happy.

  “Ms. Kendricks, would you mind driving over to the Mabry residence,” she said, sounding a lot like my mother when she states a direct order in the guise of a question.

  “What’s wrong?” I scooted to the edge of the wicker seat, and Cissy’s tear-filled eyes peered at me over her snifter.

  “Kendall’s been asking for you. Said you’re the only one she can trust since you saved her life.” Deputy Dean cleared her throat. “Um, she refuses to believe her mother’s dead. Said she wants to talk to you. That she trusts you.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “I wouldn’t bother you, Ms. Kendricks, except she’s adamant, and Dr. Taylor thinks it best you come. Kendall’s refusing to allow the doctor to administer a sedative until she sees you.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  “There’s just one other thing.”

  I waited for her to finish.

  “You haven’t heard from Mr. Gable lately, have you?”

  “Justin? No.” It’s not as if we were pals or anything.

  Anna Dean hesitated. “The thing is, we can’t seem to locate him anywhere. Looks like he packed up in a hurry and took off for parts unknown.”

  Talk about a heart-stopper.

  Justin Gable was MIA?

  To quote the Farmer in the Dell when he stepped on a fresh cow patty:

  “Shit.”

  Chapter 22

  I left my mother in Sandy’s capable hands—after refusing to take her with me—and I headed over to Marilee’s address in Preston Hollow, only about a five- or ten-minute drive, depending on traffic.

  Then I hit the Mockingbird and Hillcrest intersection and saw a backup that looked like the lines at the emissions testing facility.

  I smacked a palm against the steering wheel in frustration, then rolled down my window and craned my ne
ck out to see the holdup. Squinting through the sun and inhaling exhaust, I finally spotted the accident smack in the middle of the cross streets.

  A bright yellow Hummer had apparently rear-ended a relic of a Chrysler, turning the Chrysler’s trunk into an accordion. No one seemed to be injured, though the driver of the rusty sedan apparently had a few words to share with the driver of the Hummer, choice words, if his hand gestures were any indication.

  At least the police were already on the scene with their flares and orange cones. They were doing what they could to restore order to the busy cross streets. I figured they’d have a lane open before the tow truck showed up. Or so I hoped.

  I ducked my head back inside the Jeep, rolled up the window, and grabbed my wildly colored M. Avery Designs handbag from the passenger seat. Snatching out my cell phone, I speed-dialed Brian Malone, since he’d told me he’d be working at home all day.

  Two rings trilled, then three, before someone picked up.

  “Hello?”

  The voice that chirped those two syllables wasn’t Malone’s unless he’d gone soprano since I saw him that morning. “I’m sorry, I must’ve hit the wrong button. I was looking for Brian Malone.”

  “Oh, no, you’ve got the right number. He’s here, just buried in briefs.” I could hear the laughter in her voice, and I bristled. “Can I ask who this is, please?”

  Like she couldn’t tell from the Caller ID?

  “It’s Andy . . . Andy Kendricks,” I said impatiently and took a page from Carson Caruthers, asking, “Just who the hell are you?” But she wasn’t listening anymore, she was calling out to Brian in a too perky tone, “Bri . . . hey, Bri, it’s someone named Andy . . . a girl.”

  I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, gritting my teeth, not in the mood for anything even remotely like this. I needed support, and I wanted Malone to provide it. So who was the bimbo who’d picked up his phone?

  All I knew for sure was that it wasn’t me.

  Finally, Malone came on the line. “Hey, Andy, I was just . . .”

  “Buried in briefs, I know,” I tried not to snap. “I thought you were working.”

  “I am . . .”

  “So who’s that? Your answering service?”

  “Naw, it’s Allie Price. She’s an attorney at ARGH. We’re on a case together, Bishop v. Bishop? Remember? I told you about it. Two brothers who used to be in partnership, doing a little money laundering on the side, until one of them slept with the other’s wife and suddenly they’re at each other’s throats . . .”

  Take a breath, I told myself. Chill. Don’t say anything stupid that you’ll regret later when you’re not so shaken up.

  “She sounds blond.” I already pictured her looking very much like Reese Witherspoon. “She is, isn’t she?” It came out before I could stop it. So much for my good intentions.

  “Who? Allie?”

  No, Toad, the Wet Sprocket.

  “Yes, Allie”—for Pete’s sake—“unless there’s another woman in your apartment besides her.”

  “No, no, of course, there’s not . . . and, yeah, she’s blond, but what does that have to do with anything”—he hesitated, cleared his throat—“Whoa, Andy, you almost sound like you’re . . .”

  “Upset? Because I am upset,” I ran right over him before he could piss me off any more than I was by using the dreaded “j” word. “I just came from Mother’s, and it was no garden party, Bubba.”

  “Bubba?”

  “I said I’d call you if someone died at the Diet Club taping, right? Well, they did. Marilee Mabry. So if I seem worked up, that’s why, okay? I’m on my way over to see Kendall, because the police are there with her, breaking the news.”

  “Marilee Mabry is dead?”

  “Yeah, Bri,” I sneered, “she’s roadkill. And now I’m stuck in traffic on the way over, and Kendall won’t let Dr. Taylor sedate her until she hears the bad news from me, because she thinks they’re all lying . . . and, to top it off, Justin Gable is missing . . . which makes him look guilty as hell . . . for all we know, he could’ve murdered Marilee. But never mind.” I felt tears prick my eyes, and something caught in my throat. I had to swallow hard to get rid of it. “I won’t keep you another minute, since I’m sure you and your associate are chomping at the bit to get back to your briefs.”

  Malone started to stammer out a response, but I was finished.

  I hit the “end” button, switched the ringer off, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

  For crying out loud. What had I just done?

  Bad move. Really bad move, I decided, but it was too late to take any of it back, and I honestly didn’t care. A minor tiff with Malone meant little compared to what I was sure to find at Marilee’s house.

  I dropped my head and pressed the balls of my hands against my closed eyes to keep from crying. I had kept it in at Mother’s, for her sake as much as mine, and suddenly I felt the trembling begin.

  Don’t crumble now, Kendricks, I told myself. No wimping out, you hear? Kendall needs someone to lean on. And you’re it.

  Horns honked behind me, and I raised my chin to see the police waving traffic around the accident scene. From the persistent wonk-wonks, I realized the line of cars behind me wasn’t any too happy with my slow response.

  My hands shaking, I put the Jeep in gear and lurched ahead, sweating buckets despite the AC spewing cool air at me.

  As I drove toward Douglas Street, I kept catching my eyes in the rearview, telling myself I could do this.

  Courage, I reminded myself, was my first—not my middle—name, at least according to Daddy.

  I would be strong if it killed me.

  After taking enough deep breaths to qualify for a Lamaze certificate, I felt calmer, saner, and as much in control as I was going to be under the circumstances. My mind kept running over everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, trying to figure ways that I might’ve changed the turn of events, to stop them from falling like dominoes until Marilee was dead, too preoccupied to notice the mansions I passed on the way to the wrought-iron gates that marked the entrance to Marilee’s property.

  If Ross Perot had been out on the sidewalk in an undershirt, walking his dog, it would hardly have registered.

  I sped up the length of pebbled driveway toward the sprawling house that resembled a Mediterranean villa only in some greedy builder’s mind. A tiled roof and a splashing fountain did not a villa make. It was a Dallas palace, pure and simple.

  I didn’t bother to aim for a shady spot, merely jerked the Jeep to a stop squarely beneath the merciless sun, right behind two squad cards from the Highland Park Police Department and a Mercedes S-series with vanity plates—DOC TEE—that had to belong to Beth Taylor.

  My eyes scanned the rest of the drive. The silver BMW Roadster wasn’t visible. I don’t know why I’d expected to see it, since Justin had taken off.

  Snatching my keys from the ignition and grabbing my purse and cell from the passenger seat, I left the Jeep to boil and strode through a smaller set of iron gates to the enormous carved front doors. I pushed my finger on the bell once, then again, until I heard the click of the lock.

  One side of the arched pair of doors pulled inward, and I found myself nose to nose with the deputy chief. Her slim brow wrinkled beneath her no-nonsense salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Hit traffic?” she asked, which sounded nicer than “took you long enough to show up.”

  “Accident at Mockingbird and Hillcrest.”

  “Oh, yeah, heard that one radioed in after we got here.” She gestured for me to enter, and I stepped past her into Marilee’s home, the first time I’d set foot in the residence.

  “How’s Kendall?” I asked as she shut the huge door behind me.

  “She’s in denial, won’t even speak to us.”

  My chest ached, knowing that, no matter how much Kendall had fought with her mother, she would miss Marilee like hell. As much as Cissy drove me insane, I couldn’t imagine the day when s
he would no longer be around.

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs. Dr. Taylor’s with her.” She grabbed my arm as I started for the stairwell. “First, Ms. Kendricks, would you mind coming with me. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

  Though I desperately wanted to see Kendall, I didn’t argue. She had a gun and a badge, and I had neither. My mother hadn’t raised a fool, that’s for sure.

  So I followed Anna Dean into an enormous living room area with high ceilings painted with frescoes and expansive paned windows that looked out onto Marilee’s kingdom. Just an acre, Carson had told me, but it reminded me of visiting Colonial Williamsburg when I was a kid.

  “Impressive, huh?” Deputy Dean said.

  “Yeah, very.” I would never have expected to find such an extensive backyard farm in such a posh section of North Dallas. Though I’d seen photographs of Marilee’s spread on the Web site for The Sweet Life, it was pretty amazing to finally view it with my own eyes.

  She’d gotten permits from the city to raise geese for pâté, chickens for eggs, honeybees, and even organic catfish in a pond that sparkled beneath the late day sun. What had Carson said? That the pond was as big as the pool at the Y. I realized now that he hadn’t exaggerated. There were rows, too, of organic vegetables. Plenty of them. I recalled from the Web site that, among other things, Marilee grew potatoes, French beans, tomatoes, Japanese eggplant, arugula, Thai basil, and cucumbers.

  Quite a spread, I mused, for a woman who never had a hair out of place or a chip in her manicure, despite dipping her fingers into plenty of pies. Which reminded me of another comment Carson had made, that Marilee had done little of the work herself on her backyard farm, like on the set, always leaving the dirty work to someone else.

  “Did she give her staff the day off?” I asked, because I hadn’t detected anyone else around, except a few blue uniforms.