Trashy Chic

by Cathy Lubenski

  And she wanted to know what Gigi had wanted from her lo those many weeks ago and what the hell she was doing in a hotel not strictly located in Bel Air? For Bel Airheads, the world began and ended at the borders of their rich neighborhood—there was nothing beyond. But it was indicative of the mindset, if you lived in Bel Air and you stayed at a hotel, it was the Chadwick Arms.

  Gigi refused to give Bertie her room number, telling her to call first on a house phone.

  “A little paranoid, aren’t we?” Bertie thought. She headed out into rush hour traffic to find out why.

  GiGi looked less than her immaculate self when she let Bertie into the luxury suite. Her previous intimidating perfection was a little rough around the edges with bumps in her bubble hair and smudged eye makeup. After a mercifully brief round of air kisses, Gigi was ready for business.

  The TV was tuned to the news with the sound turned low and Gigi sat on a sofa where she could see the screen. She didn’t bother with small talk.

  “I’m sorry we were interrupted when we spoke before,” Gigi said, “but the offer I wanted to make at that time is even more pressing now. I’ve read your stories and I think you’re a very good writer and you’ve shown yourself to be a sympathetic soul. I’d like you to—oh, what’s the term?—ghost write a book about my life.”

  A book? Bertie was stunned. She wanted to write a book someday, but a ghost-written book about Gigi Bellingham wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.

  “I don’t know Gigi. I’m very flattered, but I have to make a living. I can’t quit my job to write a book. Do you have a contract with a publisher or an agent?”

  “No, not yet, but there are some developments that will make it even more interesting. May I speak frankly, off the record, of course?” She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Those people, the Bellinghams, are crazy, just crazy,” Gigi’s eyes welled up with tears. “I’ve been thrown out of the mansion. R2 has always hated me, and with his father gone he’s out of control.”

  Having seen the snarky way Gigi treated R2, Bertie really wasn’t surprised. She’d have done the same thing.

  “As Robert’s widow, I have a right to stay there. It may even be mine once I get my new lawyers working on the will.”

  “Was there a prenup?” Bertie asked.

  “No, that’s how much Robert loved me. He didn’t even ask me to sign a prenup. R2 knows that, that’s why he wants to get rid of me. I’m afraid of what he’ll do to me. I’m afraid of all of them. But they’ll think twice about killing me if I go public. If I tell everything, people will know. They’ll know, I tell you, they’ll know!” Gigi’s voice was rising and Bertie was afraid she’d have to play nursemaid to an hysterical socialite.

  Bertie was thinking frantically of something to say when the phone rang. Gigi jumped to answer it. Bertie was trying to hear what she was saying when Gigi ran over to the TV and turned it up, the phone still pressed to her ear.

  The woman anchor was in danger of cracking her mask of makeup with enthusiasm over the “Breaking News,” as the large type across her forehead announced.

  “This just in: Lawyers for the estate of Robert Bellingham I, the Bel Air multibillionaire murdered earlier this month, have announced that his marriage to the former Alberta Monsoon isn’t valid in the United States. The couple were married in a ceremony on a beach in the Bahamas almost nine years ago, and we’ve found out that this ceremony has no legal bearing in this country.

  “Ms. Monsoon, who was known as GiGi Bellingham in Bel Air and the Hamptons, has apparently been living as the common-law wife of the late Mr. Bellingham.”

  If the woman had been any happier at imparting the bad news, she’d have laid an egg right on screen.

  “The couple were regulars at charity events and Hollywood openings and Mrs. Bellingham, I mean Ms. Monsoon, has appeared on several best-dressed lists. No word on how this will affect any inheritance she might have expected to receive. We’ll be following this story as it develops.”

  Gigi, now sobbing, turned the sound back down and started screeching into the phone. “He pulled a Mick Jagger on me, the old bastard, and now the whole world knows. I told you three months ago I was afraid of this. Oh my God, what am I going to do, what am I going to do? You’re my lawyer, you’d better find some way to get my inheritance. I earned that money, I earned it.”

  Gigi slammed the phone down, and ran to the next room with a stunned Bertie following. “You knew about this?” she asked Gigi, who was throwing clothes into a Louis Vuitton suitcase.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I was afraid the old creep was planning to cut me out of his will, so I started snooping. I came across a different marriage license than the one I had, and I took it to a private investigator. He flew to the Bahamas and found out that there were some ‘irregularities’’ in the ceremony. It’s exactly what Mick Jagger did to Jerri Hall.”

  She turned from the suitcase to a dresser, aiming a very expensive bra at its open mouth. She missed, and the lingerie drooped forlornly from the chandelier.

  “Did you talk to your husband... Mr. Bellingham about it?” Bertie asked.

  “Yes, of course, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. I screamed at him but he’d just smirk.”

  Gigi could’ve channeled that intense fear and anger into murder, if she knew beforehand that she wasn’t legally married.

  “I’m so humiliated. I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I have to leave. I’m scared to death of those people. They’re capable of anything, of everything!”

  Bertie had never experienced this level of hysteria before. She made some “there, there” noises, but it did nothing to calm Gigi down. She was crying now, and Bertie could only understand a few words here and there: “Saggy old creep,” and “stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  As expensive clothing flew around the room, Bertie took charge and packed, while Gigi sat and sobbed. She tried to ask pertinent questions, but any mention of the Bellinghams or her plans was met with hysteria.

  With one hand, Bertie humped the Rhode Island-sized suitcase down the hallway, into the elevator and into the lobby where she waited with Gigi until a faded red car with a lot of miles on it picked her up. Bertie peered into the exterior, but only caught a glimpse of a bearded man in a baseball cap.

  The car’s beat-up exterior was an odd contrast to Gigi’s haute couture, but she swung into the passenger seat like it was a perfect fit. As the car pulled out, Gigi said, “Thank you, Bertie, my dear, but I don’t think I’m interested in a book about the Bellinghams at this moment.”

  Bertie stood there waving feebly until the car was out of sight. Just when she thought life around the Bellinghams couldn’t get any stranger... The plight of Gigi … no, Alberta … raised a lot of questions. She was going home to ponder them.

  She still carried her fear of Lester Lomax with her, so she made a wide circle around the bar and headed for the car in the parking lot. Shadows flickered at the edges of the hotel’s outdoor lights, but she hurried through the dark to her car, clicking open the doors and sliding inside in one move.

  She sighed in relief once the doors locked, but just then a figure loomed out of the darkness. It was a man lurching toward her car. “Oh, no,” she thought. “This can’t be happening, not again.”

  As Bertie fumbled to get the key in the ignition, the man flung himself against her window. She screamed, but before she could slam the gear shift into drive, the man slid down the side of the car and crumpled on the ground. The window was smeared with blood, fresh red blood that blurred Bertie’s vision and sent her to the edge of hysterics.

  She leaned on the car’s steering wheel, the blare of the horn competing with her screams.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  The sickly yellow haze of the sodium lights had retreated to the edges of the parking lot where Bertie was sitting on a low wall. The scary-fingered branches of a few nearby trees grabbed for her with their living shadows. Cherry- and lemo
n-colored lights from an ambulance flashed the dits and dots of an emergency, barely penetrating the glare of spotlights set up by the police. A slight mist in from the Pacific hovered above this cacophony of light like the ghost of Lester Lomax, whose body lay snuggled up against her car.

  A kind paramedic had draped a blanket over her shoulders, and she clutched it to her. She sat there, dazed, staring at Lomax’s blood creeping toward her. “That blood is black,” she thought. “Blood isn’t black, it’s red. Why is his blood black?”

  She’d been forgotten by the scurrying people who were pursuing eventual justice for the corpse. Bertie wished someone would come and tell her why the blood was black and not red. She didn’t know any of the people in the parking lot and couldn’t call anyone. Her cell phone was still in her car where she’d left it in her panic to get out, get out, get out and get away from the bloody scarecrow sliding down her car door.

  Her eyes focused on a middle-aged man whose kind face looked as rumpled as his suit. He shambled across the parking lot, and stopped in front of her.

  “I’m Detective Hausen, Harry Hausen. How are you? I understand you found the body.”

  Bertie grasped his jacket sleeve. “Why is the blood black? Blood isn’t black, it’s red.”

  He moved her hand from his sleeve and into his big warm mitt of a hand. “It really isn’t black. The lights make it look that way. It’s red.”

  She immediately relaxed. “Thank you. I’ve been sitting here wondering about it. I couldn’t think of why it was black.”

  He threw a shrewd look at her and waved over a uniformed cop. “How about getting her a cup of coffee or hot chocolate from the hotel?” he said. “I think she might be in shock.”

  After a few sips of steaming hot chocolate, Bertie felt a little better.

  “Now,” the detective said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was visiting a hotel guest and when I came out, I walked to my car, got in, and saw this bloody zombie come out of nowhere and fling himself on my car. I started screaming and leaned on the horn. I didn’t … I couldn’t … wait for anyone to show up, so I climbed over the gear shift and got out the other side and then stood there and screamed. By that time there were people all over the place. Someone must’ve called the police.”

  “Who were you visiting?”

  “I was talking to Gigi Bellingham in Room 207, but as far as I know, she checked out.”

  “And why were you visiting her? Are you friends?”

  “She called me and asked me to come over.” Bertie realized she was starting to sound defensive.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “We talked about a book she wanted me to write. Then she suddenly decided she had to leave and I helped her pack, then walked her out to the front door. A beat-up red car picked her up and that was the last I saw of her. Then I left and went to my car.”

  “Did anyone see you leave?”

  “There were people in the lobby, but no one walked out with me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Is this Gigi Bellingham the same Gigi Bellingham who was married, I guess, to Robert Bellingham, the man who was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” He stood there and stared silently at her.

  Bertie could feel herself being goaded into speech by his silence. To distract herself she looked around and saw, to her shock, John Gardener, standing at the periphery of the parking lot talking to a plain clothes detective. He was wearing what seemed to be his uniform, black T-shirt and dark jeans. He was gesturing toward her, a slight smile on his face. After the detective turned away from him, Gardener waved at her behind his back.

  “Can you add anything else?” Detective Hausen asked. “How about times?”

  “Yes, I can tell you the times,” Bertie said, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the detective who was heading their way. He leaned over and whispered in Hausen’s ear, then moved back a step. Hausen’s face changed from kind to crafty. Was the man channeling Columbo?

  “Did you recognize the deceased, ma’am?”

  Bertie panicked. She couldn’t remember how she’d known it was Lester Lomax. Someone must’ve mentioned his name during the electric storm of activity after she’d started screaming.

  “No, sir, not the way he looked when he hit my car. I don’t think anyone would’ve recognized him with blood all over his face. Do you know who shot him?” Bertie decided to turn the interview around and ask a few questions.

  Hausen looked sharply at her. “Shot him? No, we don’t know who shot him. How did you know he was shot?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but that’s the obvious assumption when someone falls dead over your car. Maybe someone told me that; I don’t really remember now.”

  “Did you know he was dead when he hit your car?”

  “Of course not. Not even a doctor can tell if someone is dead just by looking at them. I guess I should have checked for a pulse, but... why are you treating me like this?”

  “I understand that you and the deceased not only knew each other but had an antagonistic relationship. Is that true?”

  Bertie understood now. Gardener had told the detective an embroidered story about Lomax following her to the car the only other time she’d been at the Chadwick Arms as revenge for the barf bullets she’d fired at him.

  “Is that blood on your shoes, ma’am?”

  Bertie looked down. Yes, it was. She must’ve walked through Lomax’s blood at some point, but she didn’t know when. Hausen handed her a pair of the blue, elastic-topped booties to wear after she’d handed her shoes over to him.

  When she looked up again, she saw Madison striding across the parking lot to where she sat. He was wearing his tweed jacket and had his police badge pinned to the lapel. When he walked, his jacket swayed open enough to show the shoulder holster looped around his shoulder. He looked like he was ready to take charge of the situation, and she felt relief wash over her.

  She stood and smiled hopefully at him, but he motioned for the older man to step away from her so that they could talk. He talked for several minutes while the older man listened stoically, saying nothing. Finally, Hausen nodded and Madison came back to her.

  She smiled at him, but he didn’t respond, just gestured her down onto her stone wall seat.

  “Bertie, I’m not handling this case and because we have a, I guess you’d call it a relationship, so I’m not involving myself in it at all. But I can tell you that you need to get advice, professional legal advice before things go any further. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She was stunned by his words. “I think so. I think I know what you’re saying, but I didn’t have anything to do with this, you know that, right? I told them why I was here, and that Lomax came out of nowhere as I was leaving. Don’t they believe me?”

  Madison looked gravely at her, then moved away and motioned Hausen back.

  “I’d like you to come down to police headquarters for questioning, ma’am,” the older man said.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, not at this time, but we need you to answer some questions.”

  “And then I can go, right? I didn’t do anything except get in my car, that’s all.”

  Two uniformed policemen appeared out of the shadows and flanked her. They didn’t touch her, but moved her toward a squad car without a word.

  She turned and looked back at Madison.

  “Help,” she whispered before a policeman placed his hand on her head and eased her into the car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Bertie remembered the next few hours in flashes, as if they’d been illuminated by a revolving strobe light. She’d been escorted to an interrogation room—a bare baby-diarrhea-yellow cube, forbidding, stinking of stale smoke and fear sweat. There was a stain on the concrete floor that Bertie couldn’t look away from. She didn’t know what it was and was afraid to find out.

  The metal chair she sat in was bolted to the floor and had
a formidable pair of steel bracelets attached to it. She hoped she wasn’t going to be fastened up; the chill of claustrophobia swept over her.

  Hausen and another detective, JanRay Washington, sat at the table in front of her.Washington’s dark skin glowed chocolate brown in the fluorescents. He wore a spicy cologne that mingled badly with the room’s odors.

  Did she want coffee?

  No, thank you.

  How about a soda?

  No, I’m fine.

  She should let them know if she was cold or had to go to the bathroom.

  Then Hausen started, easily enough at the beginning, asking her the same questions he’d asked her at the parking lot. She answered truthfully, looking him in the eye. She understood the wisdom of Mad’s advice—get a lawyer—but she felt that if she could just explain what happened, she wouldn’t need one.

  It was the curse of the law-abiding citizen, which Bertie considered herself, to think that the truth would set her free.

  They smiled at her and nodded as she talked. But as time went on, the questions had a harder edge. Occasionally JanRay would chime in.

  “Did you arrange to meet Lomax at the hotel?”

  “We know you and Lomax met at the hotel before, were you having an affair?”

  “What was your relationship with Robert Bellingham?”

  “Did you and Lomax plan to kill Bellingham or was it an accident?”

  “Do you carry a knife with you?”

  A knife? Bertie couldn’t figure out why they were asking her about a knife. “No, I don’t carry a knife. I have a can of Mace in my purse, but sometimes I get it mixed it up with the hairspray can so it’s not very dangerous. Why are you asking me about a knife?”

  “How do you think Lomax was killed?” Hausen asked.

  “He was shot. Wait, are you saying he was stabbed? See, that proves I didn’t kill him. I thought he was shot.”

  “You could’ve said he killed with kindness to cover up killing with a knife. Anyone can say anything.”