The Koala of Death

by Betty Webb

  Once I’d locked Lucy and Baby Boy Anteater in their night quarters, I hauled my cell out of my cargo pants and punched in Caro’s number. It rang four times, then switched over to voice mail. As Caro’s voice began to explain that she was away from her phone, I disconnected. Knowing that she’d be furious for what I was about to do, I called her nearest neighbor, Mrs. Gwendolyn Wexford-Smythe.

  “Have you seen my mother today?” I asked Mrs. Wexford-Smythe, once her maid Yvette fetched her to the phone.

  “Shertainly nosh.” It was well known among Old Town denizens that Mrs. Wexford-Smythe often began drinking well before the sun moved past the yardarm.

  “Are you sure, ma’am? Not this morning, not this afternoon?”

  “Don’t keep trash of your musher’s wherea…wherea…where she ish.”

  “Could I speak to Yvette again, please?” The maid had once worked for Caro, and knew her habits well.

  “Shertainly.”

  A crash, probably of the phone being dropped or Mrs. Wexford-Smythe’s plump butt hitting the parquet, then Yvette came to the phone. “’ow can I help you, Meez Bentley?”

  In her thick French accent, Yvette related that she’d seen Caro’s Mercedes back out of the driveway and turn south toward Monterey around noon. “I was in front watereen ze potted plants. Zat’s when I saw ’er.”

  “Actually saw my mother or just her car?” After all, anyone could be driving it. A car thief, a serial killer…

  “I zee your maman, Meez Bentley.”

  “How’d she look?” Sick? On her way to the hospital, perhaps?

  “Like always, zee so hair so sleek, zee dress so debonair! Was zee Halston, I theenk. But zaire was one differeence. Zee was not carryeeng ze petit chien zees time.”

  Not carrying the dog? Thank God for small favors. Caro must have left the fierce little Chihuahua to guard the house. “Thank you, Yvette. I usually hear from my mother by this time of day, but perhaps I’m just overreacting and she’s merely out shopping again. Could you do me a favor and not mention this conversation? If she knew I called to check up on her, she’d have my scalp.”

  As Yvette promised to keep it on the down low, I heard Mrs. Wexford-Smythe bawling for her to hang up the damned phone and gesh her anuzer gin and tonk, so I said a quick goodby.

  My comments to Yvette notwithstanding, I felt uneasy. Shopping had never proven a barrier to Caro’s overprotective instincts, and many was the time she had called me from a fitting room. Once she even snapped a picture of the dress she was trying on and sent it to me via her picture phone for my opinion, which I gave. She bought the dress anyway.

  I’ve never finished my day with such dispatch. When I clocked out, I jumped in my pickup and headed for Old Town. The minute I pulled into Caro’s driveway, I saw that my fears were unfounded. Mother, in the midst of pulling shut the living room drapes, waved a cheery hello. I waved back, and as I approached the door, tried to dream up an excuse for my unannounced visit.

  She and her Chihuahua greeted me at the door. Mr. Trifle—excuse me—Feroz Guerrero—looked relaxed for a change. The formerly crotchety dog even wagged his tail at me, possibly remembering that I was the one who had accompanied him to his liberator, Speaks-to-Souls.

  Caro clapped her hands like an excited child. “I’ve bought the most wonderful dresses for you, Theodora! Shoes, too. And naughty lingerie.” Mother? Buying me naughty lingerie? What was going on?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the newspaper lying untouched on the hall table, which meant that she hadn’t yet read it. She probably hadn’t heard the news, either, since boutiques don’t keep television sets in their dressing rooms. I decided not to enlighten her. As someone once said, sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.

  “Did you say dresses, plural?” I asked. Actually, I was more interested in the lingerie. Joe loved naughty lingerie.

  Her eyes danced. “Come see!”

  A row of brightly-colored shopping bags, pastel-colored clothing spilling out of them, perched on the massive Victorian sofa. “Some haul! What brought all this on?”

  “I received the best news this morning!” She clapped her hands again. “Lorena Haskell Anders called me and actually got me out of bed, but when I heard what she had to say, I didn’t mind in the least. Oh, Theodora! Yesterday Isabel Van Stoeller, the woman Ford Bronson’s been dating? She eloped with an Argentine polo player! The man’s penniless, too.”

  “Izzy and a polo player?” I had to grin. The Van Stoellers were notorious snobs, and the elopement would put a crimp in their collective tails. Well, good for Izzy.

  As Caro began pulling clothes out of the bags, I caught a whisper of peau de soie here, a rustle of lace there. “She met him at a match in April and has been seeing him on the sly ever since. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Amusing, yes, but wonderful? “I’m missing something here.”

  She held a cloud blue sundress up to me, tucking it under my chin and draping it around my bosom, “That’s always been the problem with you, Theodora. You’re a bit dense. You never see the great shape of things, and therefore never plan ahead. Instead, you just stumble through life willy-nilly, letting this thing happen, then the next. Sometimes I despair of you, I really do.”

  The dress was pretty, but I peeled it away and dropped it back into the bag. God knows what animal stains were on my uniform. Come to think of it, her obliviousness to my condition added to the mystery. Caro liked to carp about how dirty my job was, but today she hadn’t even noticed.

  “Mother, what’s going on?”

  Her ebullient mood dimmed slightly. “I’ve told you a million times not to call me that.”

  Sigh. “Sorry, Caro. What’s going on?”

  Pushing the clothes aside, she took my grubby hands into her perfectly-manicured ones, and looked deeply into my eyes. “We must start our campaign immediately, Theodora. Once news of Isabel’s elopement spreads—and with Lorena working the phones it’ll spread fast—every debutante on the Coast will be making a beeline for him.”

  “Him?”

  “Ford Bronson, of course! With Isabel out of the picture, he’s available again!”

  I wanted to scream and run, but my marriage-minded mother held my hands too tightly. I was too appalled to make a sound anyway.

  “Here’s how we’re going to play it, Theodora. Unfortunately, your television segment was only yesterday and you’re not due at the station until next Tuesday, but I’ve taken care of the problem. Before I went shopping, I called Ford and said I wanted to meet with him tomorrow about my program idea, you know, the one about animal psychics. Being the lovely man he is, he agreed to see me at SoftSol headquarters. What he doesn’t know is that I’m bringing you, but not dressed the way he usually sees you, in that baggy zoo uniform or lugging along some smelly animal.

  She took a deep breath, then prattled on. “Definitely that blue linen sundress. So cunning. Since you wouldn’t let me take you to Dr. Markgraf for implants, you’re a little light in the bosom, but you have good shoulders and can carry it off anyway. Underneath, you’ll wear a sweet blue brassiere with lace straps that peek out in a ladylike way, because men like that sort of thing. I’ve also arranged for Miss Evelyn, you know, the brilliant cosmetician down in Carmel, to get here early and do something about your freckles. Mister Guy himself has promised to drive up to fix your hair, and…”

  Envisioning a battalion of makeover artists setting up shop in Caro’s house brought my voice back. “Excuse me for interrupting, but how in the world are you going to explain my presence at a meeting which is supposed to be about a proposed television program that I have nothing to do with?”

  “When Ford sees you, no explanation will be necessary.”

  Mother’s continued belief in my irresistible female charms was both touching and infuriating. Touching because regardless of her incessant money-grubbing, the woman loved me; infuriating because she refused to accept the fact that I loved Joe every bit as much as she loved
her disapproving daughter.

  “You’re forgetting something, Mother.”

  “Caro, Theodora. Caro.”

  “This little piggy ain’t going to no market, no, not ever again.”

  “There’s no such word as ‘ain’t’, dear. You also used a double negative. Triple, actually.”

  Another thing about my mother. She hears only what she wants to hear. “Then let me restate my feelings in a more grammatical fashion: I shall not do it. Or, as the hipsters say, hell to the no!”

  “You will.”

  “Nope. Nada. Non. Nyet.”

  She smiled. “Remember a few months back, when you bailed your friend out of jail?”

  “Yeeessss.”

  “Remember where the money came from?”

  “Yeeessss.” It came from the secret account my father had set up for me in the same offshore bank as Caro’s. I used it only for emergencies—other people’s emergencies, not mine, because we’re talking dirty money here. As Joe so frequently reminded me, someone in the Bentley family should at least attempt to live a law-abiding life.

  Now that she had my complete attention, Caro brought out the big guns. “I can block your account access, Theodora.”

  “Big deal.” I wasn’t certain she could, but even if she was right, I didn’t care.

  “You’ll think it’s a very big deal when something ghastly happens to one of your friends and you’re unable to help.”

  The woman knew me well. I tried for one final reprieve. “If Mrs. Anders’ information is correct, Izzy just eloped last night. Don’t you think Ford might still be a little, well, upset?”

  “Men recover from these things quickly.”

  Talk about a one-track mind. “Oh, all right. What time do you need me here? I do have a job, you know.”

  She sniffed, whether as an editorial comment or at my gamey odor, I couldn’t tell. “There’s no hiding what you do for a living, is there, dear? But since you are kind enough to ask, our appointment with Ford is for ten, so be here at six.” Squinting her eyes, she looked me up and down. “Miss Evelyn and Mister Guy have a lot of work to do.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I’ve had better evenings. At first, Zorah was annoyed when I called her from the Merilee and told her that I couldn’t make it to the zoo until early afternoon, when I’d also deliver the two tabbies she’d so generously agreed to take. She brightened somewhat when I promised to hit up Ford Bronson for a donation to Bowling for Rhinos.

  Not realizing that she echoed my mother, she said, “He’s a billionaire, girlfriend, so work him hard.”

  “I will.”

  “Aren’t you seeing Aster Edwina tomorrow evening, too?”

  I reassured her that I was.

  Now Zorah echoed Buster. “Do what you have to do. Our donations are running 20 percent down from last year, and we’ve only got four days to go. If it doesn’t work out with Bronson, Aster Ewina’s our last chance.”

  “Well, there is Caro.” I told Zorah I planned to talk to my mother about Bowling for Rhinos on the way to the television station. In order to ensure my good behavior, she would possibly cough up plenty herself. If—and it was a mighty big if—she hadn’t yet heard about Heck’s murder. Then all bets—and donations—would be off. I could only hope that in my mother’s frenzy to snag me a rich husband, she’d not notice anything else.

  “Your mother’s always come through for us, and we’re very grateful, Teddy, but it’s Bronson and Aster Edwina who have the really big bucks.”

  After Zorah rang off, I was tempted to call Joe, but what would I tell him? That Caro was about to dangle her daughter in front of yet another billionaire, and that for reasons of my own, I was forced to play the game? Better to go to sleep without the comfort of hearing his voice. Steeped in the bitter brine of self-pity, I checked on my menagerie.

  Miss Priss was sulking in the aft bedroom, but Roger and Ebert, Zorah’s designated tabbies, were playing with a catnip mouse in the salon while Kennedy and Rockefeller watched. Toby, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Kitty, kitty,” I called, as I wandered through the Merilee, looking under this, on top of that. “Toby? Toby? Wherefore art thou, Toby?”

  I finally found the part-Siamese in the forward area, curled up next to DJ Bonz. The dog was licking him. The little cat was purring.

  “Well, aren’t you the proud papa!” I told Bonz.

  Wagging his tail, he looked up at me for a moment, then resumed licking his cat.

  Confident there was peace in the valley, I joined the disgusted Miss Priss in the aft bedroom and read a few chapters of a Jack Hanna book. It had a picture of a koala on the cover. If I hadn’t known better, I’d swear it was Wanchu.

  ***

  The next morning found me at my mother’s house in Old Town, being preened and primped. When Miss Evelyn and Mister Guy finished their work, Caro paid them a small fortune and they departed smiling, unaware that a naked Aztec warrior followed them to the door. As Caro slipped the blue sundress over my shoulders and Feroz Guerrero returned to stand sentry next to her left ankle, I went for the kill.

  “How much do you plan to donate to Bowling for Rhinos this year?”

  “Is it that time again already?”

  “We bowl Saturday.”

  Humming a tune from My Fair Lady, she zipped the sundress up the back. “A perfect fit! Theodora, I know you’ll think it’s just a mother talking here, but you look absolutely gorgeous. Pure, but with a hint of spice. Ford would have to be blind not to snap you up.”

  She stepped back, searched through her Coach handbag, took out a decorative glass vial, and spritzed me with a cloud of Annick Goutal’s Eau d’Hadrien. The perfume smelled as expensive as it was.

  “I was thinking maybe five thousand.”

  “Five thousand what?” She stepped forward again and tugged at the hem, straightening it.

  “Dollars. For the rhinos. You spend that much a month on clothes. And perfume.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do.”

  A frown. “It’s been a bad year for my portfolio, Theodora.”

  “That’s why I’m only asking for five.”

  “Five hundred, then.”

  I reached around and started to unzip the dress.

  “All right! Five thousand!”

  I held out my hand. “Check, please.”

  Grumbling, she took her checkbook out of her handbag and began writing. “You promise to be charming to Ford Bronson?”

  “I’ll be the epitome of charm.” Until her check cleared the bank. Then I’d revert to my usual charmless self.

  ***

  We arrived early at the corporate headquarters of SoftSol, the software company Ford Bronson had founded in the late 80s. A fifteen-story glass and steel cube, its entrance plaza sprinkled with several Henry Moore sculptures, it outshone any other building in San Sebastian’s new business district.

  Bronson’s top floor office, once a phalanx of security guards allowed us to reach it, was glorious, too. Paneled and bookcased in Brazilian rosewood—which the ecology-minded billionaire was quick to explain had been reclaimed from some other billionaire’s demolished mansion—the plush carpeting was so deep that Caro and I sank in it up to our ankles. But none of that matched the large array of photographs lining the walls, which showed Bronson with various movie stars, Nobel Prize winners, U.S. senators, and three presidents, including his golf buddy. Crowning them all was a reprint of the famous AP photo that caught him as he was testifying before Congress about the sharp rise in software piracy. He looked more statesmanlike than they did, with his chiseled chin, flinty eyes, and authoritative nose. No Quasimodo, he.

  The whole high-toned office/handsome-available-billionaire setup was so impressive I feared that at any moment Caro might fall on her knees and plead for Bronson to please, please, please take her recalcitrant daughter off her hands.

  However, the woman proved herself a trouper. As soon as we sat down, she launched i
nto a rehearsed spiel about her television show, making a strong case that San Sebastian’s very own Speaks-to-Souls should be the subject of the premiere episode. Her passion for the project was so intense that I began to wonder if using me as marriage bait was nothing more than an add-on to her visit. The idea made me relax enough to have some fun. On the drive over, she’d ordered me to flirt, a skill I’d never mastered. But thinking that I might later try some of the more successful moves on Joe, I decided to get in some practice.

  When Caro began describing Mr. Trifle/Feroz Guerrero’s temperament turnaround, I cocked my head and simpered.

  Bronson smiled, whether at me or at Caro’s recital, I couldn’t tell.

  When Caro, who had done her homework, quoted the large audience share of Meerkat Manor, the popular Animal Planet series, I batted my mascaraed eyelashes.

  Another smile from Bronson.

  Caro finished her pitch with “And I’m certain you’ll agree that programs about the Other Side do every bit as well as animal programs, so why not combine the two?” I tried to toss my red locks, but unfortunately, Mr. Guy had sprayed them so heavily they couldn’t move.

  With yet another smile on his lips, Bronson dropped his intense study of my simpers to focus on my mother. “Well, you’ve certainly presented a very attractive package, Mrs. Petersen, and I’ll definitely give it some thought.”

  Mrs. Petersen? Who was Mrs…? Oh, right. Caro’s last husband’s name was Petersen.

  After expressing her gratitude, Caro stood to leave.

  That’s when I made my Bowling for Rhinos pitch. After all, I didn’t want the visit to be wasted.

  Ten minutes later we were climbing back into Caro’s cavernous Mercedes. Judging from her tone, she was not happy. “For God’s sake, Theodora, that was crass!”

  “Crass, perhaps, but I kept my promise to be charming.” I tucked the check for ten thousand dollars into the Versace handbag she’d loaned me.