Beauty In Death

by D E Dennis

  That sounded reasonable but...

  “How long have you and Beauty been ‘hanging out’?” Michael asked.

  “Like eight months.” Another shrug. “Not long.”

  “Right.” Monica took over. “And what about her blog? We know it wasn’t just about fashion. It was also an excuse to trash her unsuspecting classmates. Why didn’t you tell us about it? You made it seem like Beauty was getting mean comments for no reason, but the truth was she was dishing it out like she was at a buffet line.”

  Gabe rolled his eyes. “You mean The List? No one cared about that list. It was just a bunch of blurred-out faces and rumors no one could prove where true. You asked me who would want to hurt Beauty, and no one in their right mind would risk prison over the stupid blog of a college student.”

  Michael raised a brow at the growing hostility in his voice but didn’t comment on it. He let Monica continue the questioning.

  “But someone did care,” Monica said. “A representative of Mirror, Mirror contacted her about doing a piece. Maybe the attacker found out and couldn’t take it. It was bad enough being humiliated around campus, but now the blog would be featured in a national magazine. They went to the party to talk to Beauty and get their picture taken down. Beauty refuses, and they lose their head and push her down the stairs.”

  “Oh, please,” he snorted. “There was never going to be any piece.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what I just said.” Gabriel snatched up his backpack and stood. “I have to get to class. I hope you find the piece of garbage who did it, but I can’t help you. I don’t know anything else.”

  With that, he stomped off.

  Monica looked at Michael. “I don’t even need you to tell me that kid is hiding something.”

  “Definitely,” Michael agreed. “We didn’t know the right buttons to press, but we will next time.”

  “Now for Minnie Choi.”

  Michael checked his watch. “Shouldn’t be too long.”

  And it wasn’t. Gabriel was about twenty minutes late, but Minnie came right on time.

  She waved happily when she saw them, and they gave her a tentative wave back. He didn’t quite know what to make of her bright pink parasol, pink gloves, and short pink dress, but Monica covered her shock up better than he did.

  “Hello, Minnie,” Monica said as Minnie sat down. “You look nice. Did you make this outfit yourself?”

  She beamed. “Yes. You really like it?”

  Monica inclined her head. “I do. It looks cute on you.”

  Minnie looked so pleased with herself that Michael wondered if she remembered she was here to be questioned about her best friend being attacked.

  “So, Minnie,” Monica began. “We were hoping you could help us out. We took a look around Beauty’s blog and discovered it was more than you let on. Why didn’t you tell us about The List? Or did you also think it was no big deal making fun of people online?”

  Minnie’s smile dimmed. “No, I know it’s not nice. Believe me, I do. I’ve been on the list too.”

  Michael started. Wasn’t expecting to hear that.

  “I’m sorry,” Minnie continued. “I wasn’t trying to hide it. I just didn’t think it was relevant, because The List will be gone soon.”

  “Not relevant? Minnie, not only is it relevant, it’s motive.”

  She blinked, parasol slipping out of her hand. “Motive? Motive to do what?” She looked between them and her eyes bugged out when she realized what they were implying. “To push her down the stairs?!”

  Monica looked at her steadily, eyes hard. “She was your best friend, but she trashed you online, and you hide it from us. That doesn’t look good, Minnie.”

  “No, no, no.” Minnie waved her pink hands frantically. “It’s not like that. I wasn’t mad about it. It was just a stupid blog. When it happened, I told myself I would show Beauty up by getting far out of Castle Rock, design my own line, and get famous. That’s the only revenge I wanted.”

  “But it wasn’t staying confined to campus,” Monica argued. “You told us someone from Mirror, Mirror wanted to do a piece on her blog.”

  Minnie shook her head. “That’s what I was trying to say before. The rep wanted to do a piece, but they were only interested in Beauty’s actual fashion tips, not her smear campaign. She told me before the party started that she was taking down The List, so that they could move forward with the article. That’s why I didn’t bother to tell you about it. It didn’t matter anymore.”

  “She told you this before the party?” Monica said sharply. “Did she tell anyone else?”

  “That she was taking down The List? I don’t think so. I got the impression she had just made up her mind. We were in her room getting ready for the party. Out of nowhere, she looked up from her phone, said the article was going forward, and The List was coming down. After that, the party started, and she spent the whole time on her throne.”

  Monica bent down and rescued the parasol. “Thank you, Minnie. That’s all for now, but we’ll call you if we need anything else.”

  Minnie seemed startled by the sudden dismissal, but she waved goodbye and scurried off all the same.

  His sister swiveled around. “Michael, what does this mean? If the article was going ahead, why did Gabriel Silva just heavily imply that it wasn’t?”

  Michael’s head was spinning. “I have no idea, Mo.”

  “Also, if Beauty only had time to tell Minnie the news, do you think someone could have pushed her over The List not knowing it was coming down? What an awful trick of karma that would be.”

  Again, Michael had no answer for her. “I don’t know, but I have the same bad feeling about this that I do about Beauty’s fall. We’re missing something here... something big.”

  Monica blew out a breath. “Isn’t that how it always goes? The flash of insight always comes too late.”

  Michael bumped her shoulder. “Not this time. Come on, we have one more person to talk to.”

  “Emma French, last but not least.”

  Michael and Monica tossed theories back and forth while they waited, but when the clock struck noon, they stopped and sat up to look for her.

  They spotted her shuffling toward the fountain, head down, and Monica called her.

  “Emma. Over here.”

  She lifted her head and changed course to meet them. “You’re already here,” she stated, plopping down next to them. “Why did you want to see me?”

  “You’re Beauty’s friend, we were hoping you could help us fill in the blanks. The other night you said Beauty was ugly on the inside. Were you talking about the things she posted on her blog?”

  Emma glowered, gray eyes flashing. “The blog was just the tip of the iceberg. She treated everyone like garbage; the blog was just her way of spreading poison to more people.”

  Michael had to ask. “Why were you friends with her if you felt that way?”

  “Because,” she snapped. She crossed her arms, looking away. “Because she wasn’t always like that. We’ve been friends since we were little, and she used to be the sweetest person you ever met. She was my best friend, always stood up for me. But then we got older, and she started to live up to her name. ‘Beauty, you’re so gorgeous,’ ‘Beauty, you’re stunning,’ ‘Beauty, marry me.’ People fell all over themselves to inflate her ego, and it started going to her head.”

  Emma sighed, dropping her arms. “She never officially dumped me. She still invited me out and told everyone I was her best friend, but everything had changed. I could see it in her eyes sometimes... that she knew she was better than me.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma,” Michael said sincerely. “That must have been tough.”

  She just nodded and as Michael looked at her something tickled his memory.

  His eyes narrowed.

  Something familiar about—

  Michael’s ringtone blared in his pocket, jolting him out of his thoughts. He took the phone out and checked the scr
een. Charles Cadal.

  “Excuse me,” he told Emma and Monica. He stepped away and hit accept. “Hello, Mr. Cadal. What can I—”

  “Beauty! My Beauty!”

  Michael yanked the phone away from his ear. “Mrs. Cadal?” He tentatively brought the phone closer. “Mrs. Cadal, slow down. I can’t hear what—”

  “She’s dead! My baby is dead!”

  Then she dissolved into heart-wrenching sobs, and Michael could get no more out of her.

  “I’LL DROP YOU BACK at the office,” Michael said softly as they made the trek across campus back to his car.

  “Where are you going?” Monica said.

  “To the Cadals.”

  Monica placed her hand on his forearm. “We’re doing everything we can to find her attack— her killer. That is the best we can do for them.”

  “I know.” Michael patted her hand. “But I would still like to go and talk to them. Tell them I won’t give up until I figure out what happened.”

  “Okay. I can go with you if you want?”

  Shaking his head, he sidled up to the driver’s side door and let himself in the car. When Monica was seated next to him, he said, “No, I can go alone. I think you should focus on your hacker friend and getting us into that laptop. Maybe you can also help Ella work through the list. Beauty died, and I hate that we have to tell her parents that we still have no viable suspects.”

  “We will have something to report soon, Michael. You can tell them that. They won’t have to wait long.”

  “I hope so.”

  AS PROMISED, MICHAEL dropped his sister back at Grimm Investigations. She walked inside determined to narrow down the list of suspects.

  As for Michael, he restarted the engine and drove to Fairy Tails, trying to figure out what to say, all the while knowing nothing would be enough.

  The guard let him through without hesitation. Michael climbed out of the car and rang the doorbell, letting the house key sit unused in his pocket. After a few minutes had passed, Michael pressed the bell again.

  The door swung open on an unfamiliar face, but by his formal attire, Michael assumed he must be a butler.

  “Hello, sir,” the man said. “I’m afraid the Cadals are not accepting visitors at this time.”

  Michael deflated. “Oh, I see. Well, can you tell them Michael Grimm would like to speak to them—”

  “Michael Grimm? Right this way, sir.”

  He blinked at the sudden switch in hospitality but didn’t question it. Michael followed the man through a familiar hallway, past a staircase that would now haunt him in his dreams, and into the living room he and his sister had been messing around in only the day before.

  Charles Cadal looked over his shoulder when he stepped in. Michael winced. The man looked a wreck. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes and pale as the imagined phantom they were chasing.

  “Thank you, Nico,” he said hoarsely, waving away the butler. He gestured at Michael. “Sit down.”

  Doing as ordered, Michael stepped around the couch and took a seat on the far end of the couch. He would have sat closer to Charles but spread out on the couch and taking up most of the space were dozens of tapes and DVDs.

  Charles glanced up from the tape in his hands. “Do you have children, Michael?”

  “No,” Michael replied. “But I would like them one day.”

  “There’s nothing like it.” He wasn’t speaking louder than a whisper, yet his raspy voice seemed to echo through the room. “They are these perfect, wonderful little things and everything they do fascinates. Seeing them walk is the best day of your life even though millions of people walk everywhere and all the time. All that matters is that your child is doing it. They are walking, they are talking, they are growing into the person you always knew they could be.”

  Charles abruptly stood. He went over to the player and pushed the tape inside. The television came on next.

  Michael watched silently as a grainy picture began to form. The camera wobbled, and then suddenly stilled and zoomed in on a pretty, young woman lying in a hospital bed. It took Michael a second to realize that woman was Claudia Cadal.

  Young Claudia looked tired, and her hair was going off in all directions, but she beamed at the camera as she held a small, wrapped bundle.

  Michael started when Charles suddenly spoke again.

  “My father was a hard man to love. I was a project or problem to solve, never just his son. But with Beauty, I was going to do it right this time,” he said. Charles sat down next to Michael. “I was going to be the father Beauty deserved.” Crumpling, he put his head in his hands and sobbed, tears and spittle flying onto his lap. “I f-failed! I failed my little girl again!”

  Michael didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say.

  So he just placed his hand on Charles’s shoulder, and let him cry.

  “THIS WAS HER FOURTH grade Christmas recital,” Charles said as he ripped open another case and shoved the tape inside. “She played ‘Jingle Bells’ on the piano and it was awful.” He spared a tiny chuckle. “But that was the year she dreamt of being a pianist and she refused to hear that she couldn’t.”

  Michael smiled. He hadn’t planned on spending the day watching old movies of Beauty Cadal, but Charles’s face had fallen when he hinted at leaving, so he decided to stay put. The man was grieving the loss of his only child. The least he could do was watch a few home videos with him.

  “Seems like Beauty had a lot of dreams,” Michael remarked, thinking of the piano phase, the chef phase, the model phase, and the engineer phase.

  “She does,” Charles said fondly. “She wanted to be an actress for a while. I even cast her in a few small roles in my films, but that wasn’t what called to her either. She always kept coming back to fashion. She wanted to have her own company, her own line.” He sniffled. “My daughter had big dreams.”

  Michael sensed the tears returning, so he tried to distract him. “Beauty was in Kingdom Films,” he repeated. “That’s awesome. Which ones? Maybe I’ve seen them.”

  Scrubbing his face, Charles cleared his throat. “Have you seen His Bite is Worse than His Bark? The zombie dog movie? She was in that one and the two sequels.”

  “I have heard of them, but no,” Michael said. “I haven’t seen those movies, but I will now.”

  Charles perked up. “I have them all on DVD. We could watch them now.”

  “Great,” Michael said, fighting to keep the smile on his face. “Let’s do it.”

  There was a simple reason why Michael had never seen any of those films, and it was because he hated horror movies with a passion.

  Michael sighed and leaned back to get comfortable. Maybe Charles wouldn’t notice him watching the whole movie from between his fingers.

  Charles queued up the DVD. “I always thought it was a shame that Beauty gave up acting. She has such a presence—”

  “Ma’am, I really must insist—”

  Charles and Michael turned to the door at the sounds of raised voices on the other side.

  “It’s quite alright, darling,” a familiar voice said. “Charles and Claudia will want to see me. They need their friends during this time.”

  Malia Diragoni burst into the living room, the butler trailing helplessly behind her. Michael looked her up and down.

  She’s a big fan of black and purple.

  Purple heels, black pants, purple top, and the same black headwrap she always wore.

  “Darling,” she cried. She rushed Charles and threw her arms around him. “I know what you’re going through, and I want you to know I’m here for you. Both of you. Just tell me what you need.”

  “Thank you.” Charles stepped out of the hug instead of returning it. “I appreciate that.”

  “Where is Claudia?”

  “She is upstairs in bed. She wanted to be alone.”

  “Well, that just won’t do. The last thing she needs is to be alone. Now you just sit, and I’ll make you both a nice hot cup of tea.”
/>   “You don’t have to—”

  But she was already marching out the door.

  Charles turned on Nico, glowering. “I told you no visitors,” he said coldly.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Nico replied with a bow. “She was most insistent.”

  “Next time don’t answer the door!”

  Nico took his dressing down in stride. “Yes, sir.” He backed out of the room and closed the door with a soft click.

  Charles sat at the same moment Michael rose.

  “Where are you going?” Charles asked.

  “You have guests,” he said. “I should give you some privacy.”

  “Don’t worry about that. It’s just Malia.” He grabbed Michael’s hand and dragged him back down. “You haven’t even seen Beauty’s movies yet.”

  Accepting his fate, Michael kept his groan to himself and settled in to watch. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  Chapter Four

  Michael was accosted the second he stepped into his office the next morning.

  “Michael Cornelius Grimm,” Monica said as she took his hand and pulled him inside. “Why are you not answering your phone?!”

  “Easy with the middle name,” he griped, freeing himself. “I was at the Cadals’ all day yesterday. My phone died about halfway through, and when I finally got home, after midnight I should add, I crashed.” He lifted his brow. “Why? Do you have something?”

  She grinned. “We have something, bro. A little thing we like to call: suspects.”

  His keys slipped out of his hands and clattered to the floor. “Who?”

  “I’ll show you.” Monica flapped a hand at Ella and she popped out of her seat. “In the breakroom.”

  Michael’s jacket joined his keys on the floor and he hurried into the next room, grabbing a seat in front of the board.

  There was a blanket over the whiteboard and Ella and Monica gathered next to it looking pretty proud of themselves.

  Monica made a show of clearing her throat. “First, you should know my friend got into the computer, the blog, Beauty’s emails, everything, and the picture gets even clearer.”