Beauty Expos Are Murder

by Libby Klein

  “Are you new here? Have you seen my luck with crime scenes? I’ve been home six months and I’m racking up bodies like a Viking on a rampage. People are going to be afraid to come near me.”

  We passed Maxine’s and all the lights were on. Tim and Gigi must have had a full house tonight.

  Amber noticed me looking. Probably because I twisted my neck around like an exorcism candidate. “How are you doing with that?”

  “With what?”

  “You know. You finally made a decision and it bit you on the . . .”

  I cut her off. “How do you know about that?”

  “It’s a small island. For what it’s worth, I like Gia better. And I’ve never seen any indication that he’s involved in anything criminal.”

  I felt like a two-hundred-pound gorilla had been lifted off my back. “It’s probably ridiculous that I would even think there’s Mob activity in Cape May, right?”

  Amber didn’t answer.

  “Right?”

  Amber gave me another long pause. “I’m just saying I don’t think Gia is involved in anything like that. If he is, he’s been very smart about staying under the radar.”

  Never mind. The gorilla’s back.

  We started passing low, aluminum industrial buildings and scrap yards. This was a part of town they don’t put on the vacation brochures. We pulled into a gravel parking lot surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence. There were several nondescript, gray-blue metal buildings with wide garages. A couple had very industrial-sounding names on them like Shotcrete and Keen Canning and Fishery. We pulled up to one that looked like a perfect place to cook meth.

  “Birkwell said the door was on the side, so I’m going to park around the back so we aren’t seen from the road.”

  I followed the roofline of the buildings and the electrical poles for cameras. “What about the security system?”

  Amber glanced up to where I was looking. “I don’t see anything obvious. The warehouse is listed as abandoned, so there probably isn’t anyone watching it from outside.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “ No.”

  We got out and scanned the parking lot. I pointed to a few beer bottles and empty cigarette packs and a yellow T-shirt or rag that had been ground into the mud. “It looks like the skateboard kids use the lot to party.”

  Amber stuck to the shadows and headed toward the door with the glowing blue marks. “Hopefully that’s a good sign that there isn’t a lot of traffic in or out.”

  We stood before a bare metal door with no signage. Only a nine-digit keypad. There were blue fingerprints and half a handprint near the keypad, and a smudge of faintly glowing blue halfway down the door. Amber put on a latex glove and handed one to me. She tried the knob and the door was locked.

  I looked closer at the keypad. “Wait. Shift this way and block that little bit of streetlight. I think the code is these four numbers. They’re the only ones with the blue glow to them.”

  Amber examined the buttons for a moment, then punched in 1-9-7-6. The lock released with a loud click.

  “How’d you figure that out?”

  “I pressed them in descending order of how strong they were glowing. If he used the same finger, he wiped a little bit off with each number.” She held the door open for me to go in.

  I felt like I was reliving my summer camp swim test. That did not go well, and I had similar expectations for this jump.

  Amber pressed me on the back. “Get in there before someone spots us.”

  “It’s dark.”

  She shoved a flashlight in my hand, pushed me through, and shut the door behind me. Well, I just hit the bottom of the pool. With a shaky hand, I turned on the beam and threw it around like I was hypnotizing a moth. Checking out this room would take all night at this rate. I took a breath and turned the flashlight off and waited for my eyes to adjust. Partial blue shoe prints tracked from the door to the middle of the room. I followed them to where a table was set up with boxes and canisters and changed back to the flashlight.

  Amber opened the door a crack. “Well? Did you find anything?”

  How could I describe what I was looking at? My hands were no longer shaking because my brain was working overtime. “You need to come see this.”

  The door closed and quick, irritated steps came toward me. “What?”

  I shone the flashlight on the worktable covered with boxes of low-quality cold cream from the discount store, professional-looking containers that said Shayla Rose Skin Care, six cases of premium-grade glow sticks, and Shayla Rose’s stolen, sample-size jars of Immortality. “Dear God, what have we walked into?”

  CHAPTER 37

  Neither of us spoke. I didn’t think Amber understood all the pieces we were looking at. I pointed at the broken containers of Shayla’s antiaging concentrate. “That’s why there are glowing prints everywhere. He must have broken a couple and tried to clean them up. He didn’t know it was going to glow in the dark.”

  Amber shook her head and poked her flashlight into the cold creams. “What exactly was he trying to do here?”

  “Do you know what’s been going on at Convention Hall with the death of the plastic surgeon?”

  Amber shook her head. “I’ve been focused on Temarius.”

  I explained to her who Dr. Rubin was and how I had found him dead in one of his new UV masks with glowing blue goo inside it. I pointed my flashlight to the glow sticks. “Someone, presumably Temarius, stole these from Congress Hall last week. Then these little black jars with the glowing blue goo in them were stolen from Convention Hall Wednesday night, also presumably by Temarius, considering all the evidence he tracked into his house and then here.”

  Amber sighed. “By Thursday morning he was dead in his apartment, and Thursday night I received a text from him to meet.”

  “Oh yeah. That checks out, by the way. Kim and I tested it.”

  She nodded. “An hour later I found his body. So how are they connected?”

  I examined the table and asked myself what would Aunt Ginny do with all this. “What if someone was making a knockoff face cream to copycat Shayla Rose’s new bioluminescent, antiaging concentrate? They stole her samples for what? To break down the formula?”

  Amber looked dubious. “Do you see a laboratory in here?”

  “No, but I see enough evidence that someone with no idea what they were doing thought they could use the chemicals in glow sticks to mimic the luciferin in the jellyfish to make dollar-store face cream glow.”

  Amber considered my proposal and nodded. “Or. What if there is no knockoff? What if this is where Shayla Rose makes her face cream? Maybe the whole bio-anti-whatever-you-said is fake. Those containers sure look professional.”

  “Those are her colors, but I don’t think she ever intended for her cream to glow in the dark.”

  Amber strangled a chuckle. “I don’t see how Temarius would be involved in this. He just got into mechanic school. And he was trying so hard to get his life together to make his grandmother proud of him. I can’t see him masterminding a scheme to make fake wrinkle cream. And then do what with it?”

  “Sell it on Amazon or eBay. Shayla told me the market is flooded with counterfeit products that might as well be mayonnaise.”

  Amber’s face scrunched up on one side. “The timing of this is all wrong. Why would he do this now?”

  I knew Temarius wasn’t working alone, but I’d struggled with fears that Amber might be making me her scapegoat, so I’d kept silent. It was time for me to take a leap of faith and trust her. “Listen, there are a couple of things I haven’t told you.”

  Amber’s expression fell from confusion to frustration; even in the ghostly glow of the flashlights, I could see she was hurt. “This is going to piss me off, isn’t it?”

  “I found something in Temarius’s couch. A cell phone. With only one unnamed contact. I think it’s a burner. Whatever he was mixed up in, he wasn’t working alone. And I spoke with some of his frien
ds at the Teen Center. They said he was involved in something he didn’t want to be a part of, but someone had leverage over him. He said he lost something important and he was going down hard because of it.”

  Amber’s jaw dropped and she blinked a few times. “Oh my god, are you seriously just telling me all this now? Whoever was pushing Temarius to commit these crimes most likely killed him. He didn’t have an accomplice; he had a handler. Why would you keep that from me?” Her expression changed to shock and she gasped. “Wait . . . you thought I was the handler.”

  “Well, I couldn’t be sure yet.”

  Amber started to pace. “I don’t believe it. Even when you were the prime suspect in a murder investigation, I still treated you with respect.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. . . .”

  She turned around fast. “I did! And I knew you were sneaking around, interviewing suspects to try to clear your name and I turned a blind eye.”

  “You did threaten to put me in jail a lot.”

  She threw her arms out. “For your own protection!”

  “Uh . . . The word ‘obstruction’ was used many times.”

  “Because that’s what it’s called! I still gave you more than a little leeway. I even saved your life.”

  “The biddies were already . . . you know. That’s not important.”

  Amber rattled off a few choice swear words, then stopped in front of me. “I came to you to help me clear my name.”

  I spoke to her like I was trying to calm a wounded possum because her eyes and her ponytail were both looking a little wild. “Okay, now, see . . . that’s a good thing. So, let’s do that. Let’s just forget that I accused you of setting me up and move on from here. Maybe go get a smoothie sometime.”

  Amber held up a hand in my direction. “Baby steps.”

  “So, what do we need to do next?”

  Amber took a beat to calm herself down. “We need to look into this Shayla Rose because I’m not convinced she isn’t behind her own fake production. What I don’t know is, what’s her connection to Temarius?”

  “I think we need to find out who owns this warehouse. Whoever that is, cop or criminal, they were handling Temarius, and I think they killed him when he became a liability.”

  Amber gave me a nod. “But why frame me?”

  “That’s the big question. Why you specifically? Who knew that Temarius was your CI and would want to take you down? Who knew they could get you to his apartment at the right time and place?”

  The door flew open, followed by a loud bang. An impossibly white light pierced the room and I was blinded. The ringing in my ears was louder than anything I’d ever heard, and someone tackled me. I was dizzy and felt like I might vomit, but I just lay there praying it would be over soon. When the ringing died down to just excruciatingly annoying, I heard a man yell, “Hands behind your back. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

  My hands were jerked together and zip tied. I knew Amber was getting the same treatment just a few feet away.

  We were dragged outside and I was shoved down into the back of a police cruiser. The door was slammed shut, hitting me on the cheek. That would leave a bruise to match my hip. My pupils were starting to dilate again and I could just make out the flashing blue lights.

  “Sit tight. We’ll be at the station for processing in no time.” It was a woman’s voice. It came out garbled and faint, and I didn’t recognize her.

  “What was that?” I realized too late I was yelling.

  “Small flash-bang. The nausea will pass soon.”

  I looked out the window into the other cruiser. The suit was standing outside Amber’s window talking on a cell phone, looking smug. Amber and I made eye contact just before the sirens blared and we pulled away.

  CHAPTER 38

  Amber and I were split up for booking. This may have been her first time on this side of the process, but I was familiar with the drill. First Miranda rights, then fingerprinting, then mug shot. Today’s police photographer thought he was a comedian. He snickered at my frizzy, wind-whipped hair, blotchy skin, and three-day-bender tank top, and asked if I’d like copies for scrapbooking. “Sure. And maybe an eight by ten.”

  I was handed off to Officer Consuelos. He took one look at me and made a quick call home on his cell phone to say he would be late. “What happened?”

  I tried to discreetly shift my underwear back in place through my yoga pants. “Amber said no one would see me but her.”

  “What were you two doing breaking into private property?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You’re only going to hurt yourself if you cover for her.” He lowered his voice. “You tripped a silent alarm while trespassing on private property. If the owner presses charges, there will be additional fines and possibly jail time.”

  “I don’t think the owner will do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think the owner will want this to go away very quietly.”

  He gave me a deep sigh and pulled out the perfunctory paperwork. Most of the perp questions, like name, age, and address, he already knew, so he filled them in while I looked around in utter disbelief that I was arrested yet again. If Amber had only given me that fifteen-minute warning, at least I’d be wearing a bra. I caught sight of a folder marked Dr. Lance Rubin on top of his desk.

  “What’s going on with that investigation?”

  He kept his head down but scanned the station to see who was around. “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Well, I may have some information to trade.”

  He gave me a questioning eyebrow raise and I returned a cocky one. Officer Consuelos slid the folder my way and knocked it open with his pinkie. Then he bent down to tie his shoe.

  Inside were copies of the death threats that Dr. Rubin had received. They were pasted together from magazine clippings. “You’re a butcher and you deserve to die.” “Your death will be slow and painful.” “I will make sure you’re scared for life.”

  “Well, I know who sent these.”

  He sat up quickly. “Who?”

  “These are from Agnes Pfeister-Pinze. She called Dr. Rubin a butcher during his keynote speech right before she attacked him. Plus, see how she misspells ‘scarred’ as ‘scared’? She spelled it like that on her protest sign too. She’s been sending these threats for a year. She obviously has no intention of following through on them. Besides, if she really meant to kill him, he’d have been dead a long time ago. She got close enough to shock him with her pink-lady Taser before Convention security grabbed her. I think she really wanted to take him to court to humiliate him.”

  Officer Consuelos gave me an appraising nod. He pulled something small and red from the back of the stack and unfolded it. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “Someone left these stickers all over the Expo. Fraudster’s a website dedicated to negative reviews about plastic surgery in general, but most of the information is about Dr. Lance Rubin and the several open malpractice suits against him. I understand most of those lawsuits are anonymous.”

  “Do you know who’s behind the Fraudster organization?”

  “No idea.”

  Officer Consuelos pulled out a thick packet titled Cyber Forensics. “This is the investigative report on the Fraudster website and negative reviews left on four different surgical review forums. Dr. Rubin ordered the digital investigation late last February. One of his nurses just got the report last night and faxed it over. Almost all these reviews came from the same IP address and it’s registered to Fraudster.org out of New York City.”

  I discreetly thumbed through the pages. The report was at least a LifeSavers width thick. “These were all left by the same person?”

  “The same IP address.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Not if different people hop onto the same shared Wi-Fi, like at a library or a coffee shop. Of course, the address registered to this IP looks like it’s in an upscale residential neighborh
ood in Manhattan. Do you have any ideas on this one?”

  I checked the dates of the report. The last entry was from a week ago. “I might. See if you can get an update of postings over the last couple of days from the cyberse-curity company.”

  He gathered up the papers and closed the file. “Done. And don’t take long. The coroner is waiting on one more report before she rules Dr. Rubin’s death a homicide, and the longer it takes to start the investigation the more time the murderer has to destroy evidence.”

  “Okay. Now I want something.”

  He nodded.

  “Who reported the trespassing?”

  He typed some info into the computer. His eyebrows scrunched together and he opened a new screen and typed something else. He glanced at me, then picked up his desk phone. “Gloria, did that ten-thirty-one in the Crest come through Dispatch? Thanks.” Officer Consuelos made a face and hung up.

  “Well?”

  “Apparently, there’s no record of the call.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means it came from inside the station. Maybe someone got an anonymous tip on their cell.” He saw someone approaching from behind me and his jaw tightened.

  “Officer Ben, can I have a moment with the lady, please?” It was the suit I’d seen at both of Amber’s crime scenes. He was a few inches shorter than me, but his dark hair and blue eyes were striking. I bet those supermodel eyelashes got him a lot of praise. He was very good-looking, even for someone so grim.

  “Yes, of course sir.” Officer Consuelos excused himself but passed me a silent warning over the man’s head before disappearing.

  The man took a small knife from his pants pocket and cut through my zip-ties. He returned the knife to his pocket, then sat on the edge of the desk opposite me and gave me a charming smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Poppy Blossom McAllister. One seven two–three nine—”

  He chuckled and held up his hand. “It’s just an introduction, Poppy—may I call you Poppy? I’m Kieran Dunn with Internal Affairs. Do you know why I’m here?”

  “You’re investigating Officer Fenton.”