Trashy Chic

by Cathy Lubenski

  If Lester Lomax knew that Delia was pregnant, he might have dallied in a little blackmail. “Give me $XXXX or I’ll tell John Gardener that the baby is his,” he might’ve thundered at... Delia? R2? Bertie thought R2 more likely than Delia to lurk in a parking lot and shoot someone, but who knew? Delia wasn’t too bright; if she was willing to screw the gardener because her father-in-law told her to she might be willing to shoot someone.

  And if it wasn’t R2’s baby, was he really going to raise the gardener’s baby as his own? Surely John Gardener would find out sooner or later that Delia was pregnant and try to discover if he was the baby-daddy.

  Bertie couldn’t see a tie-in to the old man’s death, unless Delia’s “or so” was a lot longer than the month time-frame she’d set up. R1 would’ve loved to know that Delia was pregnant—he’d enjoy every second of making everyone’s life miserable.

  What it all came down to was... John Gardener now needed more Bellingham DNA. Not just the old man’s but Delia’s baby’s, too.

  Maybe he should just drain the whole family.

  ***

  A week later and Bertie was developing agorophobia. She’d become addicted to several soap operas, especially “Bawdy Parts,” a moving tale about a man and his first, second and third wives, their numerous offspring, and his successful business selling used coffins.

  She checked the Internet tabloid sites first thing every morning to see what celebrity was doing what to whom, how many DUI’s were racked (or wrecked) up overnight, who was going to rehab, and who was cashing in on pictures of their newborns.

  She lived on food she could get delivered to her apartment—pizza, Chinese takeout, and sushi. She gained weight.

  The police didn’t bother her that she was aware of. If they’d put a GPS locator on her car … HA! … the joke was on them cause she wasn’t using her car. She didn’t hear from Shawn or Madison or even her own lawyer. Kate and Dave wanted to take her to glamorous restaurants, a movie, walks in the park: anything to get her moving again, but she couldn’t. She might miss “Bawdy Parts” or “Dawg, the Bouncy Hunter,” another new fave.

  These days were the lowest point of her life.

  She was lying on her bed, still in the sweats she’d been wearing for the last three days, going over and over the Bellingham murder and how she’d gotten in this mess.

  She fell asleep and eventually into a dream.

  It was dark, except when the wind chased the black clouds away from the leering moon. The looming arch of a bridge stood guard over a river as it rushed by beneath it. The air was cold, and there was a feeling of that undefined danger that hovers over some dreams.

  A path ran along the river. Garbage lined both sides and every once in a while the wind would swoop up a piece of paper or a plastic bag and send it dancing off into nowhere. The sense of forboding was strong and Bertie wanted out of the dream, but couldn’t wake herself up. Under the bridge, flames flickered, making fire pictures on the concrete.

  There were people under the bridge, the homeless who had nowhere else to go on this frigid night, heavy with threatened snow. They wore rags and drank from bottles of hooch and slept on the ground or, if they were lucky, in cardboard boxes. It wasn’t the happy hobo camps of movies, it was a place where people died and where people wanted to die.

  An old woman sat in front of her cardboard home. Her face was buried in her dirty coat collar, and she clutched an almost empty can in her filthy hand. She’d just eaten some cat food and was nodding off with a full stomach.

  A man crawled over to her, nudged and said, “Eh, go to bed, will ya? If ya fall asleep out here, you’ll freeze to death.”

  The woman grunted a

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  The sight of her own face on the old woman’s tired and dirty body scared Bertie so bad, she rolled out of bed and onto an empty pizza box on the floor. She laid there in sauce and dried-out pepperoni, stunned from the fall and the dream.

  She stayed for a long time. Thinking.

  It was time to get up from the pizza box and the paralyzing depression she’d fallen into. She had to do something, anything. She had to clean herself up, clean up the pig sty that the apartment had become, do something about her future – look for a job, write some free-lance, cook burgers at Burger King, anything.

  She took a shower, put on clean sweats, and went back to bed, vowing to get up the next day and fix her life.

  The next morning, she cleaned, did laundry, made fresh coffee and sat down to cogitate. It took her awhile, but she finally had it—a way to stay occupied and potentially make some money. The Doll.

  People ate up stories of old Hollywood—who was screwing whom, the intrigues of dodging bad publicity, where the bodies were buried. She sat down at the computer and typed in the Doll’s name to get some history.

  Delores Schwartzbein … you had to love the movie history Web sites. Doll was born in Oklahoma City, Okla., Feb. 15, 1932. She was 78, not 80 or 82 as she’d said.

  She had a few bit parts that rated a mention, but no major roles. Bertie was amused at her credits: The “screaming woman” in “The Congressman’s Navel”—bet you couldn’t see that one on even the late, late, late show – and “the fourth maiden” in “Either Sire, Sir.”

  But some of the movies had fairly well-known leads—Troy Donahue, Burt Lancaster, Roddy McDowell, Victor Mature. And Doll had said she knew more stars, bigger names that she’d ever acted with. “Knew” as in the biblical sense. The Doll was going to be a gold mine.

  Bertie could sell the story or hold onto her notes and when she was reinstated at the paper, parlay it into a feature story, as long as she didn’t go through Nan and the Nanners.

  For the first time since Lester Lomax died all over her car, Bertie went to bed smiling. For one brief moment before falling asleep she thought, “The Doll is an even more unlikely suspect than Delia Bellingham. Does that make her a prime suspect?”

  The smile faded a bit the next morning. Doll didn’t answer her phone. Bertie wanted to arrange a meeting with her away from the apartment—she didn’t want to chance running into any of the Bellinghams. A nice coffee shop or restaurant would make her feel a lot safer.

  She continued to call, but there was no answer all day. Bertie was starting to get worried. The Doll was 78, 80, or 82 – all ages when an illness or fall could prove fatal. If she’d fallen and couldn’t get up, who would come to her rescue? Maybe R2, if he stopped, but Bertie had gotten the impression that his visits were infrequent. And counting on Bella wasn’t in the cards. She was too loony and Bertie was pretty sure Bella suffered from agoraphobia and didn’t leave her apartment much.

  Bertie waited until 6, then headed off. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something had happened to Doll. Just a quick in and out to see for herself that the old lady was all right, and to set up a time when they could talk away from the building.

  The apartment building loomed against the setting sun when Bertie made it to Doll’s neighborhood through rush hour traffic. She sat in her car for a few minutes, casing the joint. It looked quiet and relatively benign. There were no black Mercedes or pickup trucks (Gardener!) parked nearby and Bertie decided it was a go.

  Avoiding the cranky old elevator, just in case it opened onto Robert Bellingham, she took the stairs. Puffing, she made it to the third floor. “Moon Pie thighs,” she thought.

  She peeked out the door of the stairwell—all clear—before entering the hallway. She tiptoed to Doll’s door and rapped lightly. Nothing. Bertie looked anxiously down the hall to Bella’s apartment. Not a peep.

  Bertie rapped again. Nothing. She waited a minute, then put her ear to the door. Did she hear anything? Was that breathing? She decided to try one more time and then give it up. She’d just raised her hand to knock when the door of Bella’s apartment burst open with a bang and Bella, disheveled and wild-eyed, rushed into the hall.

  “Oh, thank God someone is here. I think Doll has had a heart attack. Pl
ease, please come help me. I think she might be dying.” Bella rushed back into her apartment leaving the door open.

  Bertie ran down the hall and into the apartment, almost carooming into a teetering pile of magazines.

  Bertie rushed into the room to find... nothing except the piles of junk that had been there the last time she’d visited. She was too far into the apartment to hear the click as Bella locked the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Bella slowly walked into the kitchen where Bertie stood gasping. “Where the hell is the Doll?”

  “Please don’t swear in my house,” Bella said politely.

  “Where’s Doll?” Bertie asked again, more deliberately.

  “You don’t understand, do you?” Bella asked. She walked to the refrigerator and opened the freezer.

  “Oh my GOD!” Bertie screamed. “You cut her up and put her in the freezer.” She averted her face; she didn’t want to see Doll’s round blue eyes staring out at her.

  Bella reached in and slowly drew something out. Bertie peeked between the fingers covering her eyes. It was a long icicle, its point gleaming in the kitchen light.

  “Whatever happened to that story you were going to write about me – ME, not my father. I finally perfected the icicle that stays an icicle even in the sun; formulated not to melt for 24 hours. You could write a story about that.”

  “What have you done with Doll?” Bertie asked slowly, enunciating each word carefully and clearly. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. How should I know? I’m not her keeper,” Bella said.

  Bertie was having a hard time wrapping her mind around what was happening but as Bella’s face changed from its dull, doughy expression to a dull, doughy evil expression she started to get it.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” Bertie asked.

  “Yes, I did it,” Bella said, bitterness turning her voice hard. “I did it all. I came up with the ideas, I came up with the formulas, the plans, the drawings, the prototypes made out of junk because my father wouldn’t buy the right equipment even though I was making him a fortune. A FORTUNE,” she shrieked, and kicked over a rusted bicycle frame.

  “So that’s why you killed him?”

  “No, not really.” Bella’s voice had returned to normal, as if she was talking about what to have for dinner. “I killed him because he was mean to me. He said mean things that made people laugh at me. He made fun of the way I looked; he said the dresses I wore were muu-muus and that made me a muu-muu cow.” She had tears in her eyes. The sudden mood switches were frightening Bertie more than her usual dead expression.

  “He was mean,” Bella repeated. “HE WAS MEAN,” she screamed.

  Bertie thought that as a motive for murdering your father, it was as good as any.

  “So I killed him, and now I’m going to kill you.” Bella started toward Bertie, the icicle a glittering dagger in her raised hand. Bertie’s heart was pounding so hard, she could see the front of her T-shirt fluttering. She had no plan, no idea how to deal with a mad woman who was going to stab her with an icicle.

  And, for God’s sake, an icicle? It reminded her of the old “Twilight Zone” episode where the woman killed her husband with a frozen roast.

  “You are NOT going to kill me with an icicle,” Bertie said firmly.

  Bella stopped, looking confused. “I’m not?”

  “No, I refuse to be killed in such a trite way. It’s so ‘50s... too black-and-white TV. You kill me, throw the icicle away and eventually it melts and there’s no evidence, right? What’s wrong with you? Do you want to be known as the Cliche Killer? C’mon!” Bertie was almost babbling with fear.

  “Besides, you have to tell me all about it before you kill me. That’s the way it’s done in all the books and TV shows and movies ever made.”

  She was playing for time—Bella’s sturdy bulk was blocking the door out of the kitchen and this dark gloomy cave of an apartment was Bella’s domain—she knew all the paths through the junk.

  Bella’s head lowered. She looked at the icicle in her hand.

  “It’s a good idea, though, isn’t it? An icicle that doesn’t melt.” She tapped it on the sink. “See, it doesn’t break either, until the chemical process starts that allows it to melt.”

  Bertie made a move toward the door to the living room and then freedom, but Bella raised her hand again and took a step closer.

  “OK, OK,” Bertie said, placating her, taking a step back. “Tell me about it—tell me how you killed your father. How did you get out of here without the Doll seeing or hearing you?”

  Bella laughed—a ghastly sound that frightened Bertie more than the icicle dagger.

  “People see what they expect to see. Doll expected anyone dressed in white to be delivering food to me. I just dressed in a white uniform and walked out. I saw Doll peeking out of her door and I turned my head.”

  “But she didn’t hear footsteps to your door,” Bertie said.

  “Didn’t she? I went outside into the hallway, stomped a little and knocked on my own door. As far as Doll knew, I’d just arrived and already handed over the tray.”

  Clever.

  “But how did you kill your dad—what about him?”

  “Don’t call him ‘my dad.’ Dad implies a relationship and there was none. He was my father.”

  “OK, your father,” Bertie said.

  “Better,” Bella started to relax, leaning against the filthy sink, the icicle sagging a little. Bertie tensed, looking for a chance.

  “I waited for a night when I knew Bobby was taking that bitch GiGi to some ball or something. As soon as they got there the bitch dumped him and started chasing men. I was invited to those things, you know. But I was never allowed to go in case I embarrassed my father.” She started picking her yellow teeth with the point of the icicle.

  “But sooner or later you had to know the police were going to find out that your brother had an opportunity to leave without Gigi knowing. Were you trying to frame him?”

  “NO,” Bella screeched and started forward again. “Don’t you ever say that. Bobby and I were all we had after my mother died. My father tried to make it look like Bobby killed her, but she committed suicide to get away from him. He just couldn’t let people know how desperate she was. But it backfired. The cops started investigating and he had to pay them off. After awhile no one even cared about her and how she died except for Bobby and me. And no one cared about us except US.”

  Bella’s breath was coming as long, gasping pants. She slowly raised the icicle above her head again.

  The look on her face was one Bertie had seen before. Bella wasn’t there—she was listening to the strange music that only she could hear. She started toward Bertie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  “Bella!” Bertie said sharply and she woke up from her trance.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Bella asked.

  Bertie took another small step back, trying to keep the same distance between the two of them. She stepped on a small mound of rugs and almost went down. Her heart jackhammered in her chest. She was sure that Bella would jump on her and stab her till she was dead or until she developed frost bite.

  “You were telling me about killing your father?” Bertie felt as if she was in some mad fairy tale where killing your father was part of the happily-ever-after ending. Bella blinked the last of the trance away, dropping her hand to her side again.

  “Oh, yes... I remember. I waited till I knew that Bobby and the bitch were gone to the charity ball and I snuck in the house and turned the thermostat up. I knew my father would come looking for someone to help him figure out how to turn it down. When he came into the foyer, I hit him on the head, but I made sure he saw me first. I wanted him to know who killed him—poor moony Bella. Then I left, but I left the door open. The heat was on high, but the front door was open. It was hot, then it was cold. That really messes up the temperature of the body and it’s hard to tell when the crime occurred.”

  “Hey, t
hat’s smart,” Bertie said.

  “I didn’t think it up, you fool,” Bella snarled. “Don’t you watch any true crime shows on TV?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. But go on, tell me more.” Bertie realized her time was running out. How much more was there to tell? She started swaying a little. On every third sway, she took a minuscule step toward the door. If she could keep Bella distracted by the swaying, she might get close enough to make a break for it.

  “Well,” Bella said, “there’s always another murder in books and on TV and actually, I was going to kill you, just to confuse the police.”

  “Me?” Bertie squeaked.

  “Yes, you were the most unlikely person, you see.”

  Bertie couldn’t believe she’d almost died because of the most unlikely person theory.

  “But you were too hard to get to,” Bella continued. “You were at work or home every time I tried. You don’t have much of a social life, do you?”

  Bertie blushed. “Well, I’m sort-of between boyfriends,” she said, then stopped. Why the hell was she explaining her dating history to this lumpy nut?

  “So you killed Lester instead? You stabbed him with the icicle, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes, and it worked perfectly, too. All my products work perfectly. Lester was always out, whoring around, drinking. He was quite easy to catch by surprise. That expensive suit covered a very flabby body.”

  “But what did you use on your father?” Bertie asked, swaying another baby step toward the door.

  “I’ll show you,” Bella said, returning to the freezer. Bertie was ready to make a run for it, but Bella turned too quickly. “Come see,” she said. Bertie hesitated.

  “Oh, come on,” Bella urged. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Bertie felt hysterical laughter bubbling up, but pushed it down. She inched closer, taking her another foot closer to the door to freedom. She looked into the freezer and saw the same bottles of water she’d seen the first time she was there.