Malice Masterpieces

by K'Anne Meinel

  She found an extra bedroom that he obviously used as an office. She was careful not to shine her flashlight against a window or to attract any attention. The state she saw the office in though gave her pause as she thought someone had been there before her to ransack the place it was so messy. Then she realized that this Richard was a slob and she wondered at the gossip she had heard, if he had been having an affair with a married woman, then it was also possible his other habits weren’t too good either. It took a little while, more than she was comfortable with to find a file marked with one word ‘Blondie’ to find what she was looking for. She glanced inside it once to confirm it was about her and then she tucked it into her shirt across her back, making sure nothing would fall out as she pulled up her sweat pants tightly by their string. She turned on his computer but couldn’t figure out his password. She rolled a set of magnets across all access points and the sides of the unit, it was a little noisy and she knew it didn’t always work but the magnets might screw up the data on the computer whatever it contained or at least corrupt it. She was nervous about the amount of time she had been here and she quickly headed out of the little office after turning off the computer again. She checked the other rooms, saw a picture of a little boy, must be his son, and another of a woman that made her eyes narrow, it wasn’t his ex-wife, that was for sure. She had her arm around another man and Alice realized she knew who this woman was.

  Starting to get a little jumpy, she had been in the condo too long she headed out, using the same door she had entered in to leave, locking it; she pulled it shut behind her quietly. In the shadow of the condo she removed her hat and gloves, stuffing them in her pockets as she again looked around for anyone. She saw someone way down the walk along the canal but they were far enough away that she felt confident jumping the fence and walking along before them. She walked briskly as though she was exercising doing that odd little walk that speed walkers do. She felt the file slipping into her pants further and worried about something slipping down her pants. She was ever so glad to find her Porsche where she had left it. As she took off her sweat jacket, actually sweating from her exertions, she noticed a red light out of the corner of her eye and looked up to see several police cars heading off down the street towards the cul-de-sac where Richard lived.

  She waited a moment and removed the file when she was inside the tinted windows of the Porsche. Starting its powerful engine she began to move off slowly, making sure to stay within the posted speed limit. That had been a little too close for comfort.

  Throwing the file on her own desk she headed to the shower to quickly clean up, stuffing her sweaty clothes in the hamper for wash day. As she was drying off she heard the doorbell and for a second her heart was in her throat. Dismissing the feeling she wrapped a towel around her hair and swung a robe around her naked body as the doorbell rang again, a little more insistently. Annoyed she pulled the door open. “Yes?” she said before she saw who it was.

  “Jeez, don’t you ask who it is before you answer the door?” a cute little blonde stood on her doorstep with a sassy little grin on her face.

  “I just got back into town and you’re already on my doorstep?” Alice answered as she let the blonde into her condo.

  “Oh, where were you?” the other blonde asked curiously.

  “Out,” Alice returned as she began to unwind the towel from her head and rub her hair dry. She started to walk up the stairs to the bathroom to hang the towel but turned as the other blonde followed her. “Was there something you wanted?” she asked a little coldly halting her in the middle of the steps. Her glance towards her office and the file on her desk was brief.

  “Can’t I come and see my little sister now and then and see how she is doing?” the sassy little grin was back.

  Alice sighed and shook her head. “No, you don’t happen to come and see me to see how I’m doing, ever,” she stressed the last word.

  The grin deepened. “You know me so well. So where ya been?” she asked returning to the earlier subject.

  “Miami, the Caymans, a few places,” Alice said airily knowing her sister would keep pursuing the subject like a hound dog on a scent. Her tenacity was a little annoying sometimes.

  “Wow and you didn’t think of taking your poor old sister?” the pout was there.

  Alice looked down from her spot on the second landing to her sister standing on the stairs. “You don’t look poor, I know for a fact you aren’t, and old, well, you’re only a few minutes older than me my dear old sister,” adding the last part sarcastically.

  The blonde on the steps looked down at her manicure and shrugged. “But I would have enjoyed a trip to the Cayman’s, even Miami has its vices,” she grinned again at the innuendo…they both had enjoyed the cop show ‘Miami Vice’ when it had been on years ago.

  “I went for personal reasons and to get away from things, why would I want my ‘old’ sister to tag along?”

  “Meet anyone interesting?” she asked slyly.

  Hmm, in a moment the thought of Sonja, Bev, and Richard flashed through her mind, “Interesting?” she considered for a fraction of an instant. “No, not really.”

  “That’s too bad,” her sister returned as she studied the identical face above her own.

  “Do you mind if I get dressed?”

  “Do you mind if I help myself?” Her sister indicated the kitchen

  “I don’t know what’s in there, I just got back today,” she called as she headed into the bathroom to leave her towel to dry. She hurried up the stairs to her bedroom to change into jeans and a blouse not bothering with underwear and going commando. She was just in time to see her sister walking into her office.

  “Hey, where you going?” she called as she came down the stairs to the second landing.

  Her sister turned around to look at her and shrugged; she had an apple in her hand and was chomping on the bite she had just taken. “Thought I’d see what you were working on lately.”

  Alice laughed convincingly. “You know I don’t keep any details out where people could find them, most of it I keep in my head.” She tapped on her blonde head for emphasis.

  The other blonde shrugged her elegant little shoulders and turned around to head back down the stairs to the living room. “Why do you still have the drapes closed?” she asked as she headed to open them.

  “Because, like I said, I just got home today. Don’t open them,” she stopped her from pressing the button that would have opened both sets; “Its night and I don’t want people looking in.”

  “You’re such a prude,” her sister returned. “You have such a great view and you don’t even utilize it.”

  Alice sighed; dealing with her twin sometimes was a pain in the ass. “It’s night, they can see right in to the place if the lights are on, I have them open during the day,” she explained patiently. She sat down on her couch, pulling her feet up to sit with her legs Indian style on the couch. “So what have you been up to?”

  Her sister sat down across from her taking a small bite of the apple she was holding as she gestured. “Nothing much, I got bored, so I thought I’d see what you were up to.”

  Alice nearly winced as she watched juice from the apple fly around in the air, she restrained herself but barely. “Yeah, I was bored too so that’s why I went out of town, why don’t you go somewhere, do something?” she suggested.

  “Yeah, I probably should,” she answered as she took another bite and began to chomp.

  Alice rolled her eyes at the indelicacy of her sister. “I don’t mean to be rude but it has been a long day and I’m kind of tired.”

  Her sister looked at her with a sardonic look in her eye, “I’ve seen you go thirty-six hours without dropping, why so tired tonight?”

  Well, I flew in from Miami today, killed a guy, checked out his house; “It’s been a little long of a day, you know how a flight can take it out of you,” she answered with a yawn for emphasis.

  Her sister nodded knowingly as she made to get up. �
�We should go shopping tomorrow.”

  Alice got up as well to see her out. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan, call me and we will set it up.”

  “Beverly Center here we come.” Her sister smiled showing bits of apple in her pearly white teeth.

  Alice grinned, her sister while her twin, was absolutely nothing like her.

  Once the door was closed and locked for the night, Alice watched on a closed circuit television in her office as the nearly identical Porsche to her own drove away from the curb. She picked up the file on her desk.

  Opening it she realized the first items in it were a set of press releases, the next a series of photos that had her sitting up and pulling a magnifying glass from her desk drawer to look at. There were a few reports too that had her starting to smile and then sit back in anger shaking her head. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day…

  “So I told the bitch that she needed to upgrade her computer or get a better boyfriend, because one or the other was going down wrong on her and it wasn’t good for her either way…” Constance was telling her about a friend as they shopped in an exclusive store.

  “Clever.” Alice grinned at the pun.

  “She had no idea what hit her.” Constance turned to a mannequin and asked Alice, “What do you think of that?”

  “I think if you want to be a be-bopper you would so be in with that.” She indicated the youthful display.

  Constance started to laugh. “Trust you to get to the heart of it.” They walked away from the teen display to a more ‘adult’ section of the store.

  Alice had a good time with her sister, she was decent company, and slowly she led her conversation around to why she had consented to going shopping with her. Not that they didn’t do it fairly often, but Alice did have more things to do than shop with her sister. Nothing had been on the news, yet. “So, I heard through the rumor mill about Senator Edwards…” she left off with a grin.

  Constance’s head came up and it almost gave her whiplash. “How the hell did you hear about him?”

  Alice laughed. “How do you think?”

  “Are you having me followed?” Constance asked in alarm.

  “Of course not!” Alice returned in appropriate chagrin. “You know how these things are, word gets around!”

  Constance shook her head. “There is no way this ‘got around’ how the hell did you find out?”

  Alice tread carefully she had made a stab in the dark about Senator Edwards, no one but she and a dead guy knew about the file she now had. “Constance, let’s just say I’m taking care of business, why don’t you tell me your side of things? Hmmm?”

  Constance looked terribly defeated and Alice was surprised, from a guessing game to seeing her sister look alarmed and now down, this was not a good sign. She wanted to get to the bottom of things before they got any messier than they had. Killing a cop, even an ex-cop was not her style, even if he had deserved it, but had he?

  Constance sighed deeply and led Alice over to a bench and looked around carefully to see if anyone was nearby and could be hearing what she had to share with her sister. “I met Ken at one of those high faluting parties where they invite anyone with money. He assumed I had a lot and then I realized he thought I was you, you know many people still make that mistake?”

  Alice nodded, anyone who saw them side by side would see the differences but if they hadn’t met them really or didn’t know them well they could still assume one was the other.

  “I didn’t correct him; after all he was calling me Ms. Weaver which is still legally my name…”

  “Oh this month?” Alice couldn’t help but put in and then smirked at the look her sister gave her.

  “It’s not my fault I can’t find a man that can keep up with me,” Constance whined mockingly.

  Alice laughed. “Yeah, those sixty something year olds and older are a little hard on the ticker when it comes to long lasting love.”

  Constance laughed. “It’s a gift,” she said sardonically.

  “Ok, back to your point…you met Ken…” she prodded.

  “Yeah, he was like oh Mr. Charming and on and on. Since wifey was there I figured what the hell, she must know the score, she’s that Senator too, you know the big news, Mr. and Mrs. Senator?”

  Alice nodded, she knew more about this than Constance knew and wouldn’t let on, she wanted details though, and why had she had to kill this cop?

  “Well that all started things, one thing led to another and I thought I’d try something other than the geriatric generation.”

  That was what this was all about? An affair? Shyte, shyte, shyte, why couldn’t her sister stay playing in the pool, one not owned by Mrs. Senator? Alice wasn’t pleased, it made sense now. Mrs. Charming had set the ex-cop on her because she thought that Alice was Constance! She smiled sweetly. “What happened?”

  “Well, he wasn’t great in the sheets if you know what I mean, hell a few of the men of the geriatric set could have taught him a thing or two…” she went to go on but Alice was getting impatient and held up her hand.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” She was bored with hearing about good old fashioned hetero sex from her sister. “Mr. Charming was a dud, but what happened?”

  “Well, I think wifey caught on because he started acting a little weird, I don’t know, but we haven’t seen much of each other lately,” she sighed dramatically, “And his gifts haven’t been quite as stunning as they were at first.”

  Alice looked at her sister and her eyes narrowed slightly, selling yourself for gifts that you could sell later was a form of prostitution that she just wouldn’t lower herself to. “You know, you have enough money that you don’t need those ‘gifts’” she told her, she knew how much money her sister had, she invested it for her!

  “Oh, I don’t do that anymore, but they should show their appreciation now and then shouldn’t they?” she said airily.

  Alice knew her sister wasn’t the bubble headed bleach blonde that people stereotyped out here in Southern California. She was crafty, she was intelligent, she could do anything she put her mind to, but when she talked like this, like she deserved gifts from her gentlemen callers it really drove Alice crazy. “What planet are you from? They don’t have to give you anything but their time, besides don’t you feel like their whore if they pay you for their affections?”

  “That’s mean Alice!” she said with a whine. “I don’t get paid for going out with them, if they want to give me a gift now and then that’s our business.”

  Alice mentally rolled her eyes and sighed, there was no convincing her sister that she wasn’t entitled to these gifts; they had had this conversation many times before. “So, when am I going to meet this Mr. Charming?” she asked to change the subject.

  “Meet him?” her sister faltered, Alice rarely met her boyfriends, only her husbands and not always then…

  Alice shrugged as though she didn’t care one way or the other, “Well, if he’s becoming laggard in his affections and he met both of us, you know how men think…” she let the innuendo hang out there.

  Constance grasped it immediately. Many men over the years when they found out she was a twin had asked to meet Alice thinking that if one twin was fun, two would be fantastic, they made assumptions that were never proven. Alice and she were as different as night and day, she for instance liked the company of men. Rich, old, and generous men…. “Well, there is a fundraiser I’m invited to on Friday if you’d like to go with me,” she told her sister.

  Alice smiled, “Maybe we should shop for something to wear….”

  Alice did her homework. Senator Ken Edwards and his wife Senator Cecilia Edwards were national news. The fact that they were both senators and had a successful marriage too made for interesting news, calling him Mr. Charming wasn’t so far beyond what he was, he oozed charm and his wife and he looked like a beautiful couple. Alice knew that looks could be deceiving. Theirs was a marriage made in Washington, not heaven. It was all for political gain and power. That power m
eant a lot of money and they both worshipped at the Federal Reserve. The more she looked into them the more she realized that Mrs. Charming must have thought that Alice was Constance and that she needed investigating, that was why the ex-cop was on her tail. She wondered why his death hadn’t made the papers yet and then thought perhaps that Mr. and Mrs. Charming Senators might have something to do with it. Perhaps Mrs. Edwards wasn’t so pure and charming; maybe she had been bopping with the cop…she thought about the picture she has seen of Cecilia Edwards with Richard Haggard, that certainly wasn’t a ‘fan’ shot.

  As she dressed for the fundraiser she looked at her invitation that Constance had managed to obtain for her. It was embossed and expensive looking. They would save a hell of a lot of money if they didn’t print to impress. Her phone rang. “Hello?” she said seeing that her sister was calling.

  “Do you want to go in one car or two?” Constance asked.

  “Let’s take two, that way, if either of us gets lucky, the other isn’t trapped,” she joked, but it was a double edged joke. Lucky could have a myriad of meanings.

  Constance laughed delightedly. “Okay, but let’s enter together, sound cool?” she sounded so high school, excited at the prospect of them looking similar. Their dresses that they had found in the high end boutique were very similar but not identical. Alice wouldn’t allow that, she found it so…gay.

  “I’m leaving in fifteen, where do you want to meet,” Alice told her.

  They made arrangements to meet on a corner that had a gas station before driving up to the Beverly Hills Hotel where the banquet was being held. Alice followed Constance’s Porsche under the portico and the valet’s ran out to take their keys. Alice smiled as she saw the confusion on the two men’s faces as nearly identical blondes got out of nearly identical Porsche’s. Constance looked over at Alice and smiled delightedly, she had been the one all through school who loved trying to trick people with their nearly identical looks.