Killer Blonde

by Laura Levine

Don’t you just hate it when you’re having a nice relaxing soak in the tub, and a murderer shows up?

  I don’t know about you, but I for one was in an advanced state of panic. All I could think of was that I’d be naked when the cops discovered my body. If only I’d gone to Weight Watchers! If only I’d joined a gym! If only I hadn’t turned on that damn radio! Then I would’ve heard Conchi coming and escaped through the bathroom window. These were the thoughts that raced through my mind as I stared into the barrel of Conchi’s gun.

  “Well, if it isn’t Miss Jaine,” she said. Her Spanish accent was gone, replaced by a Southern drawl.

  “Hey, Conchi,” I said, trying not to sound as terrified as I felt. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your Windex.”

  Conchi laughed. “That was a nice touch, wasn’t it? Made me look ever so much more servile. And by the way, it’s Carolee, not Conchi.”

  “I know.”

  “Too bad you found the picture. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to kill you.”

  “I think you should know,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering, “that my neighbor can hear everything that goes on in my apartment.

  “Lance!” I shouted. “Call the cops! Right now!”

  “Nice try, honey. I saw him leave five minutes ago. With a handsome redheaded guy.”

  Damn that Jim.

  I slumped back down into the tub.

  “So you figured out I’m SueEllen’s sister?”

  I nodded numbly.

  “And I saw Aunt Melanie’s letter on your coffee table, so you probably know about her will, too.”

  I nodded again.

  “Miserable bitch,” she said. “Always treated me like dirt, because I wasn’t pretty like SueEllen. I’m glad she’s suffering now. If anyone deserves stomach cancer, she does.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “Just barely. Any day now, she’s going to kick the bucket. And now that SueEllen isn’t around, I inherit everything. Three million dollars.” She grinned like a kid in a three-million-dollar candy store. “The old bat had to turn a hell of a lot of tricks for three million dollars.”

  I blinked in surprise. Aunt Melanie, turning tricks? What was she talking about?

  “I thought Melanie was a society lady.”

  Conchi had a hearty chuckle over that one.

  “Are you kidding? She ran the biggest whore-house south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

  So SueEllen had lied about that, too.

  “Aunt Melanie had the nerve to actually show me the will. She laughed when she told me she’d be leaving everything to SueEllen. Cheer up, she said. Who knows? Maybe SueEllen will die before I do. And then you’ll get everything.

  “Right then and there, I knew I had to get rid of SueEllen. So I bought myself a black wig, went to Berlitz and learned Spanish, and got myself a job working for Mr. and Mrs. Hal Kingsley.

  “Me llamo Conchi,” she said, in a mocking singsong Spanish.

  “And that’s not the only change I made. I don’t know if you noticed,” she said, preening, “but I’ve lost a lot of weight since that picture.”

  In fact, I had noticed.

  “Slimfast,” she said. “You should try it. On second thought,” she added, waving the gun, “I guess you won’t have time for that. Anyhow, SueEllen was so damn self-involved, she never even realized I was her own sister.”

  I could see how that could happen, how a new head of hair could totally change a person’s appearance. I remembered what my mother said about Daddy, how he looked like a different person with his toupee.

  “I wondered why you were always looking down at the ground,” I said. “I thought it was because you were frightened. But that wasn’t it. You just didn’t want anyone to recognize you.”

  “That’s right, honey. I kept a low profile. And then, when the moment was right, I took off my black wig and headed down the hallway to SueEllen’s bathroom. She recognized me then, all right. Almost didn’t have to toss that dryer into the tub. She practically had a heart attack right on the spot. She tried to get out of the tub, of course, but I’m a lot stronger than she was. It was easy to push her back in. She begged me not to kill her, told me she’d split Aunt Melanie’s money with me, but I believed that like I believe in the tooth fairy. I threw in the dryer and watched her fry.”

  I flinched at her choice of words.

  “So you were the blonde Heidi saw in the hallway.”

  “None other.”

  “And you planted a blond wig in her closet to incriminate her.”

  “I bought it at one of those kiosks in the mall. Hated to do it to the kid, but I needed somebody to be arrested for the murder. I figured Hal would manage to get her off somehow.”

  Ironic, isn’t it? All along, I’d been focusing on that blond wig, when it was a black one I should have been looking for.

  “Now all I have to do is give my notice to the Kingsleys and head back home to collect my three million.”

  “You splitting it with your boyfriend, the gardener? The one who gave you your alibi?”

  “No way, Jose. Any day now, he’s going to meet with a fatal accident. Just like you.”

  “What are you going to do? Drop another hair dryer in my tub?”

  “Nah. The radio will do.”

  Damn that infernal radio.

  She started towards it, her gun aimed at my chest.

  Just then I caught a glimpse of Prozac, still perched on the toilet bowl. Sensing impending danger, her eyes were wide, her ears erect. Realizing no doubt that this strange woman in our bathroom was about to do me harm, the brave little soul put her tail between her legs and whizzed out of there like greased lightning.

  Conchi whirled around in surprise. She had no idea the cat had even been there. I took advantage of the moment to pull the rug out from under her. Literally. I grabbed the bathmat Conchi was standing on, and yanked it with all my might, sending her sprawling to the ground.

  As she fell, she hit her head on the toilet bowl. It looked like she was unconscious, but I wasn’t going to stick around to make sure. Instead I grabbed her gun and dashed out into the living room to call the cops. But before I could finish dialing 911, Conchi came lunging out of the bathroom, not the least bit unconscious, after all. With a running leap, she tackled me from behind, sending the gun flying across the room.

  Oh, God. What was I going to do now? I tried to remember what Kandi had said about subduing an attacker. Gouge out their groin, and kick them in the eye? No, no. It was gouge out their eye, and kick them in the groin.

  I tried the groin thing, but it didn’t seem to make an impression. Before I knew it she was on top of me, her hands around my neck, trying to strangle me. And all I could think of was that scene in Dial M for Murder when the killer is trying to strangle Grace Kelly, and she grabs a pair of sewing scissors and stabs him in the back. Why, oh, why hadn’t I ever taken up sewing?

  Frantically, I groped around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. At last my fingers found one of SueEllen’s shoes—a cork-soled wedgie. I grabbed it and, with all the strength I could muster, I whacked Conchi over the head.

  You’ll be happy to know it was a very effective blunt instrument. Conchi instantly went limp. But just to be safe, I conked her again. This time I was pretty sure she was unconscious. But I’d seen too many movies where, just when you think the bad guy is dead, he springs back to life with renewed vigor and attacks the good guy. Which is why I promptly proceeded to bind her hands and legs with several pairs of my control top pantyhose.

  Still not taking any chances, I sat on her chest while I called the police. I told them someone had just tried to kill me, and they said they’d be right over.

  So there I was—sitting on Conchi’s chest, waiting for the cops to show up, still clutching the wedgie in case she regained consciousness—when I heard someone call my name.

  “Jaine?”

  I looked up, and saw Morris Pechter staring in through the open wi
ndow. Oh, no! Tonight was the night we were supposed to have dinner. I’d forgotten all about it.

  And now he was staring at me, wide-eyed, as I sat naked astride a bound-up Conchi, surrounded by a sea of slutty high heeled shoes.

  What would my students at the Shalom Retirement Home say when they heard about this? Their esteemed teacher, a dominatrix with a shoe fetish!

  Morris just stood there, gulping. After a moment, he regained his powers of speech.

  “I don’t know what sick game you’re playing,” he said.

  And then he grinned sheepishly.

  “But whatever it is, can I play, too?”

  Damn. Another Mr. Right bites the dust.

  Epilogue

  Needless to say, Conchi was carted off to jail and Eduardo was released. As it turned out, getting arrested was the best thing that could have happened to Eduardo. Thanks to all the sympathetic coverage he got in the media, his paintings are more popular than ever. In fact, his latest monstrosity (“Mother Teresa in a Wonderbra”) just sold for $200,000.

  Hal never did marry Ginny. Or Larkspur. Or Denise. Instead, he tied the knot with a twenty-two-year-old aerobics instructor at his gym. Heidi tells me she’s a bit of a birdbrain, but much nicer than SueEllen. She loves to hang out at the mall with Heidi, and has bought her some really nice outfits.

  Heidi’s applied to Columbia University in New York, so she can be near Grandma Kosciusko. Meanwhile, she and I get together for lunch on Saturdays. Afterwards we go to the Museum of TV and Radio. Heidi’s given up watching Bachelor Father. Perhaps in anticipation of her future adventures as a single gal in New York, her sitcom of choice nowadays is That Girl.

  After getting drunk one night at a Sunset Strip club, Brad Kingsley totalled his Ferrari. I’m happy to report that he walked away with only a few scratches. I’m even happier to report that Hal refused to buy him another Ferrari. Nowadays Brad is tooling around town in a Corolla, just like mine. Talk about your poetic justice.

  Oh, yes. And three days after the accident, Amber left him for a USC senior with a Maserati.

  As for Hal’s ex-lovers, Larkspur O’Leary is still pounding the cellulite out of rich ladies’ thighs. Ginny is dating a guy she met in the men’s department at Bloomie’s. And the last I heard, Denise quit her job in Hal’s office and is now working for a cosmetic dentist in Van Nuys, not too far from the Van Nuys jail.

  And speaking of the Van Nuys jail, I’ve got great news about Desiree the Hooker. Her dream of becoming a professional psychic came true. Not long ago she sent me a discount coupon for a palm reading at her new salon. And I’m actually thinking of going. Remember how she told me I’d soon be hearing from a long-lost sister? Well, she was right. I did hear from a long-lost sister. Not mine, of course, but SueEllen’s. So maybe she’s good at this psychic stuff, after all.

  Kandi’s relationship with Stanislau didn’t last very long; apparently Romanian food gave her indigestion. And poor Lance. After six months of frantic dating, his boyfriend Jim went back to his wife.

  In the Some Things Never Change Department, Mom is still stockpiling fake diamonds in the unlikely event of a world cubic zirconia shortage. Daddy is still screwing up the punch lines to his jokes. And Mr. Goldman still insists that Queen Elizabeth had a nose job.

  Morris never told Mrs. Pechter about finding me naked on top of Conchi. He didn’t have to. One of the cops leaked the story to the L.A. Times. So all of Greater Los Angeles read about that little escapade. I was just glad there were no accompanying pictures.

  Everyone considers me a hero, though. Except for Prozac, of course, who still considers me her maid. Which reminds me, I’ve got to go and open a can of Fancy Fish Guts. Talk to you later.

  Please turn the page for an

  exciting sneak peek of

  Laura Levine’s next

  Jaine Austen mystery

  SHOES TO DIE FOR

  coming in hardcover in June 2005!

  Chapter One

  There are two kinds of people in L.A. Those who do lunch. And those who eat lunch. Those who do lunch talk to their agents and order things like ahi tuna and Chinese chicken salad. Those who eat lunch talk to a clown and order extra ketchup for their fries.

  I am definitely one of the eat-lunchers, as anyone can tell from the impressive collection of fast food wrappers in my garbage can.

  But on the day my story begins, I had broken ranks with my fellow slobs and was heading across town to do lunch with my neighbor Lance. It was warm and hazy, and as I drove east toward La Brea Avenue I could almost make out the Hollywood sign behind a curtain of smog.

  La Brea Avenue is a hotbed of hipness in mid-town Los Angeles. A onetime industrial street, it’s now dotted with boutiques and restaurants so cool they don’t bother with signs out front. And it was to one of those restaurants, a place called Café Ennui, that I was headed. Only I was having a hell of a time finding it.

  I’d driven up and down the stretch between Wilshire and Melrose at least three times and was about to give up when I saw a funky restaurant with a fifties diner table in the window. This must be it, I thought, as I parked my Corolla a few doors down. By now I was a good fifteen minutes late. I dashed into the restaurant, only to find that Lance wasn’t there. I figured he was tied up with a demanding customer. Lance is a salesman at Neiman Marcus, in the designer shoe department. Or as Lance likes to say, “I work in high heels.”

  I took a seat at the table in the window and glanced around the restaurant. The place was an eclectic mix of funky tables and chairs. I was surprised to see I was the only customer.

  A skinny guy with a shaved head stood behind a counter and shot me an icy stare. Not exactly service with a smile. I waved him over. Reluctantly, he got off his stool and started across the room.

  “Hi,” I chirped, trying my best to ignore his look of disdain. “Do you think I could see a menu?”

  “Sweetie,” he snipped, “this isn’t a restaurant.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No, it’s a furniture store.”

  I looked around and for the first time noticed price tags dangling from the tables and chairs.

  “This isn’t Café Ennui?”

  “Nooo, it’s not,” he said slowly, as if talking to a three-year-old.

  “Then I guess you won’t be getting a tip,” I said, with a feeble smile.

  He was not amused.

  “Café Ennui is over there.”

  He pointed a bony finger across the street to a storefront with blackened windows. No wonder I’d missed it. The place looked like it had gone out of business decades ago.

  I slid out of my chair and, under the withering glare of my petulant furniture salesman, dashed across the street.

  As it turns out, Café Ennui was anything but abandoned. Behind the blackened windows sat a gaggle of people who looked like they’d just stepped out of a Banana Republic ad, sipping mineral water and nibbling on various forms of lettuce. The average waistline hovered somewhere in the low twenties.

  I looked around and spotted Lance. It was hard to miss him, with his headful of tight blond curls and lime green T-shirt. I hustled over to where he sat at a tiny table for two.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said, plopping down into an uncomfortable metal chair, “but I couldn’t find the place. Do you realize the sign out front is the size of a postage stamp?”

  “I know. They try to keep it exclusive. Even their phone number is unlisted.”

  Welcome to LaLa Land, where colonic irrigation parlors take out full-page ads in the Yellow Pages, but restaurants are unlisted.

  Lance shot me a disapproving look.

  “Jaine, honey. Do you realize you’re the only person in the restaurant wearing elastic-waist pants?”

  He was right, of course. The place was filled with perfect bodies in low-rider jeans and tank tops, slender midriffs exposed. And those were just the guys.

  “So what?” I said, reaching for the menu. “Am I going to be arrested
by the pants police?”

  He shook his head and sighed.

  I sighed, too, when I checked out the menu. What a disaster. All I saw was arugula and radicchio and baby vegetables. Not a calorie in sight. The most interesting thing on the menu was an old coffee stain.

  Just when I was wondering if I could possibly convince Lance to ditch this place for a restaurant that served actual food, a sultry waitress with huge eyes and tiny boobs slithered up to us.

  “What can I get you today?” she asked, with a brittle smile.

  “How about something from McDonalds?”

  No, I didn’t really say that. What I said was: “Got any burgers?”

  “We’ve got the ahi tuna burger with carmelized fennel.”

  “Sounds mighty tempting, but I’ll pass.”

  There was no way out of it. I’d have to order a salad.

  “I’ll have the turkey cobb.”

  “Free-range turkey or regular?” asked Ms. Sultry.

  “Regular’s okay.”

  “What kind of dressing? Raspberry vinaigrette, balsamic vinaigrette, or kiwi vinaigrette?”

  “Surprise me,” I said, throwing caution to the wind.

  Ms. Sultry, who looked like her last lunch had been a line of cocaine, took Lance’s order and slinked away.

  “Really, Jaine,” Lance said, eyeing my Dukakis for President T-shirt. “You’re so hopelessly out of date. Don’t you want to be hip?”

  “I’ll settle for hippy.”

  “Oh, c’mon. You’re not nearly the chubbette you think you are.”

  “In a town where a six is considered a plus size, I’m a chubbette.”

  “You happen to be a very attractive woman. All you need is a little fashion advice.” Then, as if he’d just thought of it, he said, “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. How about I give you a fashion makeover?”

  And then it dawned on me. I knew what this was all about.

  “You’re looking for a project, aren’t you? You’re bored and lonely and between boyfriends, and you want something to do.”

  “That’s not true!”