Death by Tiara

by Laura Levine

  The camera cut to Candace standing outside her front door, her arm bandaged, Eddie hovering protectively at her side.

  Standing across from them with a microphone was a baby-faced reporter who looked like he’d just come straight from his Junior Prom.

  “Can you tell us what happened, Ms. Burke?” he asked, eagerly.

  “I was coming home from the market,” she said, clearly shaken at the memory, “when someone jumped out from behind the bushes and lunged at me with a knife.”

  “Was it a man or a woman?” Baby Face wanted to know.

  “It was hard to tell in the dark. Whoever it was stabbed me in the arm”—here the camera zoomed in on her bandaged arm—“but I fought them off with pepper spray.”

  “She always carries it for protection,” Eddie piped up. “Some of those pageant moms can get a bit confrontational.”

  “I ran into the house and called 911,” Candace said, “but by the time the police showed up, my attacker was gone.”

  “Did you get a look at the assailant, Mr. Burke?”

  “No,” Eddie said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t home at the time of the attack.”

  “Do you have any idea who was behind the ski mask?” Baby Face asked, turning back to Candace.

  “I have a good idea who it was,” she said, “but upon the advice of my attorney, I can’t say anything further.”

  It looked like she still believed the culprit was Heather but wasn’t about to risk a defamation lawsuit.

  “All I can say is that I’m sick at the thought that someone out there wants to kill me.” At this, she began to blink back tears.

  “That’s enough for now,” Eddie said. “My wife’s had quite a stressful evening.”

  And indeed, a look of sheer panic shone in her eyes.

  Candace was afraid, all right. And she had good reason to be.

  Clearly whoever had tried to kill her at the pageant had just returned to finish the job.

  Chapter 19

  “Please don’t fire me, Mr. Turner!” Jolene was wailing. I’d driven out to Turner BMW the next morning and barged into Tex’s office, despite Jolene’s protests that he wasn’t there.

  He was there, all right, feet propped up on his desk, avidly watching something on his laptop screen.

  I figured it was porn.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t back up your alibi,” Jolene cried, “but Detective Austen said if I didn’t tell her the truth, I’d be arrested as an accessory to murder and spend the rest of my life in jail taking showers with a gal named Spike!”

  “Detective Austen, huh?” Tex asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “Yes, from the Alta Loco SVU! Isn’t that right, Detective?”

  Jolene turned to me, and I nodded weakly.

  “You mustn’t blame Jolene,” I said. “She really did try to protect you.”

  “Don’t worry, Jolene,” Tex assured her. “You’re not fired. You’re way too valuable for me to let go.” This uttered with his eyes firmly riveted on her boobs. “Go back to your desk, and try to calm down.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir!” she said, rushing out the door.

  Somehow Tex managed to tear his eyes from her chest and turned to me.

  “So you’re a police officer, huh?” he smirked. “Last time we spoke, you were a part-time, semi-professional private eye. That’s a mighty big career move in just two days. Mind if I see some ID?”

  I was trapped, and I knew it. No way was Tex about to be fooled by my USDA meat inspector badge.

  “Okay,” I confessed, “so I’m not a cop.”

  “No?” He grinned triumphantly. “Well, I think I’ll just call the police and have you arrested for impersonating an officer.”

  He reached across his desk for his phone.

  “While you’re doing that,” I said, whipping out my cell phone, “I think I’ll call your wife and tell her about your affairs with Candace and Bethenny.”

  Not surprisingly, he put down his phone.

  “Where on earth did you get the idea I’ve been fooling around with Candace and Bethenny?”

  “Oh, please, Tex. I saw you and Candace in the elevator at the Amada Inn. I could practically see the mattress burns on your back. And Bethenny told me all about your affair with her. I don’t know when you started boinking her, but if she was still a minor, you could be facing jail time.”

  “So what do you want?” he asked, glaring at me.

  Suddenly I was the one in the driver’s seat.

  “I want to know where you were the afternoon of the murder.”

  “I already told you. I was here in my office.”

  “Nowhere near the Amada Inn?”

  “Absolutely not. And even if I was having an affair with Candace, why would I want to kill her?”

  “To shut her up. According to Bethenny, Candace was threatening to tell your wife about your affair.”

  “Bethenny certainly is the little chatterbox, isn’t she? Now I’m sorry I gave her such a good deal on her Beemer.”

  “Bethenny told me your wife’s money is what’s keeping Turner BMW afloat, and that you can’t afford to lose her. So I’m wondering if you stopped by Candace’s office to bludgeon her to death and killed the wrong pageant blonde by mistake.”

  “Interesting theory, but it’s simply not true. I was here the entire afternoon, spying on my salesmen.”

  “Spying on your salesmen?”

  “I have hidden cameras in all the sales cubicles.”

  With that, he swiveled his laptop so I could see the screen. Grainy images of Tex’s minions in their cubicles flashed in constant rotation.

  “A bit voyeuristic,” Tex said, “but a very effective management tool.”

  He snapped the lid of his laptop shut and looked me straight in the eye.

  “I didn’t try to kill Candace,” he said. “I may not have any witnesses to back up my alibi, but that’s the truth.”

  Call me crazy, but in that moment, it seemed as if he was on the level. But then again, he was a car salesman. So who knew?

  “If you ask me,” he said, “you should be questioning Eddie. Talk about your long-suffering husbands. He’s always resented Candace. Living in her shadow. Working as her gofer.

  “And let’s just say for a minute that Candace and I had been having an affair,” he added with a sly smile. “What if Eddie found about it? Maybe he was so angry at this final humiliation, he went berserk and tried to kill her. Makes sense to me.”

  Me, too.

  A whole lot of sense, indeed.

  Eager to point the finger of suspicion at someone else, Tex gave me Candace and Eddie’s address and phone number. For a guy who claimed he wasn’t boffing Candace, he sure knew a lot about her.

  Soon I was tootling over to Casa Burke, which I found on a leafy street not far from Turner BMW. Most convenient for an impromptu lovers’ tryst, n’est-ce pas?

  After parking my car down the street from their house (no sense announcing my arrival), I called the number Tex had given me.

  The phone rang for quite a while before Eddie finally picked up. Putting on my best Law & Order voice, I said, “This is Captain Roth from the sheriff’s department, calling for Candace Burke.”

  Then I held my breath, hoping Eddie would buy my Officer of the Law impersonation.

  Thank heavens he did.

  “I’m afraid she’s not here right now. Can I ask what it’s regarding?”

  “Just a follow-up on her attack the other night. I’ll call back later.”

  Before he could ask any more questions, I hung up.

  All systems were go. The coast was clear. Now that I knew Eddie was alone, it was time to move in for the kill.

  Getting out of the Corolla, I made my way to the Burkes’ house—a pristine white Cape Cod surrounded by a velvety lawn, with lush hydrangea bushes lining the path to the front door.

  Like Candace herself, the place was groomed to perfection.

  I rang the bell, hoping Eddie hadn
’t been lying and that Candace wouldn’t open the door and ask me what the hell I was doing there. I couldn’t very well tell her I suspected her hubby of trying to knock her off.

  After a few seconds, Eddie came to the door, unshaven and haggard. Clearly the attempts on Candace’s life had taken their toll on him. Either because he loved Candace dearly, or because he’d tried to kill her twice and failed both times.

  “Listen,” he said wearily, “if you’re from the press, I’ve said all I’ve got to say. Please leave me alone.”

  With that, he started to slam the door in my face.

  “No, wait! I’m not a reporter. I’m Jaine Austen. We met this weekend at the pageant.”

  He squinted at me, trying to remember.

  At last the dawn came.

  “You’re the one with the crazy cat who pranced on stage in the middle of the Cleopatra act.”

  I braced myself, waiting for him to start chewing me out. But instead he broke out in a wan smile.

  “Most entertaining moment of the whole damn day, if you ask me.”

  What a darling man! He couldn’t possibly be a killer, could he?

  “So what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Actually, Heather Van Sant has hired me to investigate the murder at the pageant. I know Candace suspects Heather of trying to kill her, but I don’t believe Heather’s guilty. And I’m trying to clear her name.”

  “You’re a private eye?” he asked, blinking in disbelief.

  “Part-time, semi-professional,” I said briskly, eager to cut off any chatter about my credentials. “Mind if I come in?”

  “Now’s not a great time,” he said. “I’m awfully tired.”

  “Please,” I begged. “Just a few minutes. It could save an innocent woman from going to jail.”

  I shot him the look Prozac uses on me when she’s angling for a belly rub, all soft and gooey and Damsel in Distress.

  “Oh, okay,” he conceded. “But just a few minutes.”

  I followed him inside, past a living room decorated in peaches and pale green (a perfect setting for Candace’s cool good looks), into a wood-paneled den.

  Unlike the light and bright living room, the den was clearly Eddie’s domain. Dark and gloomy, the room reeked of cigarettes. Piles of papers were scattered on a scarred wooden desk, while an ancient TV sat hulking across from a cracked leather sofa and rumpsprung oatmeal recliner.

  All very Early Archie Bunker.

  The walls were lined with show-biz head shots and publicity stills of Candace and Eddie in their bygone days as aspiring actors. Among the photos was a community theater poster of Candace as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. And another of Eddie as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

  “Have a seat,” Eddie said, gesturing to the sofa.

  I sat down, and as I did, tufts of stuffing came popping out from the cracks in the leather. Surreptitiously I tried to shove them back in.

  But Eddie didn’t even notice. He was staring at the photos on the wall, lost in his memories.

  “Those were good times,” he said, pointing with pride to a head shot of a much younger version of himself, beaming out at the world with an unlined face and a headful of long-gone hair.

  “That’s me when I was opening for Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme in Vegas. Best six weeks of my life,” he said, gazing at the photo with longing.

  “Candy and I both started out trying to make it big in show biz. Candy got a couple of commercials and I got some stand-up gigs. But neither one of us really took off,” he said, plopping down on the recliner. “So Candy started this pageant thing, and I went along for the ride. It’s been fun for her.”

  “And you?”

  “Not so much. But it’s the only game in town,” he shrugged. “So what can I do?”

  Kill your wife for the insurance money? I asked myself, wondering if indeed the Burkes had life insurance policies.

  “Steve Lawrence said I was the funniest comic he’d ever worked with,” Eddie said, his eyes growing misty at the memory.

  Either Steve was an awfully kind fellow or he’d worked with some pretty lousy comics.

  “If you’d like,” he said, “I can show you my press clippings.”

  Yuck, no!

  “Better yet, I think I’ve got a tape of my act somewhere!”

  I’d rather suck sofa stuffing!

  “Sounds great, Eddie. But I really need to talk to you about the murder before Candace comes home. I know how much she dislikes Heather, and I want to get an unbiased account of what happened from you.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about Candace. She’s at her hypnotherapist’s. She’ll be gone for at least an hour.”

  “But I promised I wouldn’t take up much of your time.”

  “This won’t take long. And you’ll love it. Trust me. It’s hilarious.”

  If you learn nothing else from this little story, class, learn this: Never trust a comic who tells you he’s hilarious.

  Before I knew it, Eddie was shoving a tape in a beat-up VCR. And for the next twenty minutes, I sat there with a smile plastered on my face, forcing myself to chuckle at jokes that had been around since Henny Youngman was in diapers, praying Candace wouldn’t come walking in the front door.

  At last the routine ground to a halt.

  “Wonderful!” I exclaimed, frightened my face had frozen into a permanent grin. “But now, about the unfortunate incident at the Amada Inn . . . ?”

  “Oh, right,” he said, reluctantly returning to reality.

  “Did you happen to see anyone near Candace’s office at the time of the murder?”

  “No, I was in my room rehearsing my material for the crowning ceremony.”

  So much for an airtight alibi. For all I knew, he was tiptoeing down the hallway to bludgeon his wife to death with a tiara.

  “Can you think of anyone who would want to see Candace dead?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I honestly can’t. I know Candace can be tough on the outside, but underneath, she has a heart of gold. She’s a kind, caring, philanthropic woman. Everyone who really knows her loves her.”

  Spoken with all the warmth and emotion of a robot on downers.

  If this was the best he could do as an actor, no wonder he never made it in show biz.

  Somehow I had to jolt him out of his pre-written script.

  So I took a deep breath and blurted out, “Did you know your wife was having an affair with Tex Turner?”

  His face crumpled.

  “Yes, I know,” he said with a resigned sigh. “It wasn’t her first, and it won’t be her last. But I didn’t try to kill her in a fit of passion if that’s what you’re thinking. If I was going to do that, I would’ve done it years ago.”

  The stiffness had left his voice; the robot was gone.

  At last, he seemed to be speaking the truth.

  I thanked him for his time and got up to go. By now I was pretty much convinced he wasn’t the killer, and I was just about to cross him off my suspect list when my purse brushed against the mountain of papers on Eddie’s desk, sending them cascading to the floor.

  “I’m so sorry!” I said. “How clumsy of me.”

  Then suddenly I noticed something buried underneath the pile of paperwork—a black ski mask.

  Right away I flashed back to Candace’s attacker, the one who jumped out at her from the bushes and came charging at her with a knife. According to Candace, he’d been wearing a ski mask.

  Good heavens. Could Eddie have been her assailant?

  “My ski mask!” Eddie cried. “I’ve been looking all over for this. It’s a souvenir of my one and only TV role, as Mobster Number Three in a very bad cop show.

  “C’mere,” he said, taking me by the elbow and leading me over to a photo on the wall—a still shot of three hoodlums in a dark alley.

  “That’s me!” He pointed to one of the hoodlums, a stocky guy dressed in black and wearing a ski mask.

  “I th
ought I’d lost this baby,” he said, dusting off the mask. “I’ve really got to clean my desk more often.”

  As we bent down to pick up the scattered paper, I was beginning to wonder if Eddie was a lot better an actor than I’d thought. Was that ski mask of his just a souvenir? Or had he reprised his role as Mobster Number Three and slipped it on to stab his cheating wife to death?

  We’d just finished piling the papers back on Eddie’s desk when I heard someone coming in the front door.

  “I’m back!” Candace called out.

  Frankly, I was relieved to hear her, glad I was no longer alone with her possible killer.

  But when she walked into the den, I barely recognized her. Her face was blotchy; her hair no longer shiny and sculpted, but hanging limp on her shoulders. Dressed in sloppy sweats, she was a ghost of her former self.

  “How’d the hypnotherapy go?” Eddie asked.

  “Hypnotherapy?” Candace blinked, dazed. “It went okay, I guess. The doctor said he put me under, but I swear I was awake the whole time. If I don’t sleep tonight, I’m going back on Valium.”

  “Candace hasn’t been sleeping well,” Eddie explained. “She keeps blaming herself for Amy’s death.”

  “Of course I blame myself for her death. If I hadn’t spilled that Coke on Amy’s blazer, she wouldn’t have been wearing mine, and the killer never would have mistaken her for me.

  “What’s she doing here?” she then asked, nodding in my direction.

  “Jaine came to ask some questions about the murder.”

  Candace turned to me with weary eyes.

  “What’re you—some sort of PI?”

  “Unbelievable, right?” Eddie piped up.

  “A lot more believable than your crummy toupee,” were the words I yearned to utter.

  “But I heard you were a songwriter,” Candace said.

  “I write all sorts of things. I do advertising, resumes, industrial films—”

  “Yeah, right. Skip the sales pitch. Why are you so interested in the murder?”

  “Heather Van Sant has hired me to help clear her name. She insists she never tried to kill you. And I believe her.”

  “You know what?” Candace said, slumping down onto the rumpsprung sofa. “You could be right. At first I was sure Heather was the killer. But now, I don’t know. Anyone could have done it. Someone out there is trying to kill me and I have no idea who it is.”