"It was Laforge," I said, turning back to Jeffries. "Wasn't it?"
"I already told you, I don't remember." His tone had grown irritated. He looked past me again, as if seeking guidance from Laforge. He wasn't going to get it. It was clear that all of Laforge's attention was focused on the yogurt bar, where Marco was now doing his own supermodel thing in blazing yellow booty shorts and an emerald green crop top. The hair was spiked, the eyeliner was thick, and the pink jellies had made a return appearance. I had to admit, he had a pretty smooth routine down as he moved along the yogurt bar. He somehow managed to get his breakfast together while at the same time doing the over-the-shoulder, hand to the waist, leg stretched to the side thing like a red carpet diva. He repeatedly glanced over at Laforge. Watching them, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Men will be boys.
I thought fast. The direct approach was getting me nowhere with Jeffries. Maybe it was time for the tactless approach. "Were you in a relationship with Jennifer?" I asked bluntly.
That got his attention. He dragged his gaze away from Laforge and widened his eyes in a pantomime of surprise. "What? No, of course not. Why would you even suggest such a thing?"
I lifted an eyebrow and said nothing.
"Okay." He held up his hands in surrender. "Alright. I admit it, I did try to hit on her. Who can blame me? The girl was gorgeous. But I'm sorry to say I didn't get anywhere. She just kept pointing to that damned promise ring, like it actually meant something." He shook his head. "Can you imagine?"
"She turned you down," I said.
His mouth twisted as if it pained him to admit it. "Yes, she turned me down. That has never happened before, believe me." He ran a hand over his hair, barely touching it, but I could still see the oily sheen left on his palm. Ick.
"Women don't turn me down," he added. "I'm Jay Jeffries."
That would be reason enough for me, but I opted for the kind route since I believed he was actually being honest with me for once. "I'm sure it's only because she was in a relationship already," I told him.
He snorted. "You think?"
I had no idea. "I'm sure of it," I told him.
"You know," he said, eyes straying to my ringed left hand, "being in a relationship doesn't have to mean you can't have any fun." He punctuated that statement with a wink.
"Oh, gee, would you look at the time? I've got a fitting…" I trailed off as I quickly got up from the table and made a beeline for the door. Without coffee. Apparently being totally squicked out had a great wake-up factor.
*
It turned out that Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt actually had been scheduled for a hula lesson at ten o'clock, but because an all-out search had to be undertaken to find a grass skirt of sufficient size to fit Mrs. Rosenblatt, they'd been offered a private lesson at a future date. Which fit right into their plan to go into town to find some anti-tiki potions to ward off the island's bad juju instead. Oh boy.
After they'd gone off on the hotel shuttle, I joined the pageant personnel gathered in the auditorium for a dress rehearsal of one of the dance numbers. Everyone, that is, except for Desi, who was nowhere in sight. I tried to ignore the apprehension that tingled up my spine at her absence. A contestant wouldn't miss a rehearsal unless it was for a very good reason. Or a very bad one. Desi was looking guiltier and guiltier by the second.
I took a seat a few rows back and watched Laforge stomp around, clearly in a snit about having to wait for Miss New Mexico. Or maybe because Marco had outdone him at the breakfast buffet fashion showdown. The contestants milled about near the stage, chatting in small groups while keeping anxious watch on Laforge.
"Ladies, your attention!" he called out after a reasonable three minute wait. "We're going to get started now. Places, please."
"But Desi isn't here," Whitney said.
"She knew the call time," he snapped. "Now, places, please."
The contestants scurried to take their assigned places. This dance number was designed to begin not on the stage but on the floor, moving down the aisles between seating sections, before each contestant ascended to the stage in turn for the big finale. It would be a real crowd pleaser, assuming Miss Arkansas didn't fall on her way up the steps.
"And, Jackie, music, if you would," Laforge called out.
I watched as the girls broke into motion, their symmetry clearly broken by Desi's absence as they shimmied and high-kicked their way toward the stage stairs. Whitney navigated the steps flawlessly, not breaking rhythm, and on the other side of the stage, Maxine missed only one or two beats before beginning her jazz walk toward center stage. Except she hadn't taken more than two steps when she pitched forward and fell flat on her face.
And let out a bloodcurdling scream that had Laforge waving his arms and yelling, "Stop the music!" He stormed toward the stage. "What in the name of—" He stopped midsentence, and even from the audience I could see his complexion go white.
I jumped out of my seat for a better look, and I felt the blood rush out of my own face.
This time Maxine hadn't fallen over her own feet.
She'd fallen over Desi, lying dead on the stage.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Within a half hour, the auditorium was a churning sea of police officers and crime scene techs, each following their own specific choreography. The pageant personnel were corralled into the rear seating area, far from the stage, and one by one called to the front to give statements and hair samples. I waited my turn, trying not to look at Desi's crumpled form up on the stage, a pool of blood beside her head as she lay just inside the wings where she'd been shadowed until Maxine's unfortunate discovery. My mind whirled with the new and horrifying possibility that Jennifer had never been a specific target at all. Was someone out to get the pageant girls in general? As far as I knew, Jennifer and Desi's only link beyond the pageant itself was that they'd met with someone on the beach and, shortly after, been found murdered. But who would possibly want to kill beauty queens?
I let my gaze slide over the group and fall on Whitney, sitting silently beside her roommate, Maxine. Both looked pale and unnerved. Whether or not that reaction was genuine, I couldn't say, since this turn of events held a silver lining for Miss Delaware. After all, now that Desi was out of the picture, Whitney would vault right back to the front-runner position. I wondered if she had known of the judges' directive to pad Desi's scores. Did this competition mean enough to Whitney to kill off her competition one by one?
Laforge left his seat to follow Detective Whatshisname to the front of the auditorium, and my eyes followed them. It was easier to believe that Laforge would harbor a grudge about possibly being edged out and seek revenge of some sort against the Hawaiian Paradise organization. It was clear he had a mean streak. But did he have a homicidal one?
I settled back, chewing on my lip while watching Laforge talk to the police detective. His arms were crossed in a defensive posture, but he looked unsettled, and he ran the backs of his hands across his eyes a few times as he spoke. I was no body language expert, but he seemed genuinely upset to me. Whether that was because of Desi's murder or because his last chance pageant was evaporating in front of him was another question.
Then it occurred to me. Maybe I'd been looking in the wrong direction. Maybe it was someone not involved in the competition at all, but someone who felt strongly enough against pageants and beauty queens in general that they might try to do away with the whole affair by eliminating its participants. A crazy idea, but was it any crazier than standing outside in a Fashion Kills T-shirt looking to douse people with a bucket of red paint like our friendly neighborhood protester, Don? It seemed worthwhile to do some checking into her background, and I decided with the pageant once again looking like it was on hold, now might be the perfect time.
"Maddison Springer." Detective Whatshisname stood at the end of my row, notebook in hand, Bic at the ready. "Follow me, please."
I left my seat and followed a respectful distance behind, even though I'll admit I was curious to see wh
at he'd written in his notebook after speaking to the others. While a crime scene tech went about taking my hair sample, the detective assessed me with tired eyes. The lines on his face seemed more pronounced, as if etched more deeply by worry. I was sure the two dead beauty queens were weighing as heavily on him as on the rest of us.
"Tell me what you know about the deceased," he said.
"She's Desi—Desiree DeMarco," I said. "Miss New Mexico. But you already knew that, right?"
He didn't say anything. He just looked at me in that inscrutable way that cops had. I'd seen that look from Ramirez more times than I cared to remember.
"She was Jennifer's roommate," I added. "Miss Montana. The first…" My voice trailed off.
"Victim," the detective finished for me.
I nodded, careful to avoid the natural inclination to glance at Desi's lifeless body.
He jotted something in his notebook. "How was Miss DeMarco doing in the competition?"
I considered how to answer that. "I'm not a judge," I said carefully, "but I'd heard rumors that she was doing well." Or would have been, as soon as the padded scores were registered.
"Just like Miss Oliver," he said, but it wasn't a question so I didn't reply. "Did you happen to hear any other rumors?"
I shook my head.
He flipped back through his notes. "And if I remember right, your room is on the twelfth floor, the same floor as the contestants. Did you see or hear anything there you think might be pertinent?"
My first impulse was to say no, since all I saw was Desi's back as she got into the elevator. After all, for all I knew, she might have been going down to the bar for a drink or to the lobby to pick up a message. But in hindsight, I knew better. I knew she'd been going to her mysterious meeting on the beach. So while I wasn't ready to admit to lurking in the bushes in an unsuccessful attempt to eavesdrop, my conscience wouldn't allow me to withhold any more than that.
"I heard a door close," I told him, "and when I got up to look, I saw Desi getting into the elevator at the end of the hall."
"Was she alone?"
"As far as I could tell," I said. "I didn't see anyone else."
"And what time was this?"
"Just past midnight. I was just going to sleep, and the sound woke me up." I shrugged. "They're heavy doors."
He studied me for a moment. "Can you think of anything else you want to tell me?"
The thought crossed my mind to suggest he look into the source of Protestor Don's hostility, but it didn't feel right to drag her into the investigation without real cause. Not when I could drag her into it myself. "Not right now," I hedged. "Is it okay if I go back to my room?"
He closed his notebook with a nod. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you to watch your back."
He sure didn't. After two murders in the span of a week, I planned to watch my back and everyone else's too.
*
I meant to go up to my room, but along the way I ran into Dana and Marco sitting in the lobby having cocktails under the shade of the towering palm trees, the fronds dappled with sunlight. Because the contestants had only been rehearsing rather than competing in a scored activity, the judges hadn't been present when Desi had been found. But from the way Dana's hands were shaking, I could tell she'd been in the lobby long enough to see the army of police officers swarm the hotel. If I knew Marco, he was trying to distract her from the grim reality, but I didn't think he was having much luck. He seemed grateful when I sat down.
I filled them in on what had happened.
"This is beyond awful." Dana stared into her drink. "I can't believe this is happening."
"Did you talk to the police?" Marco asked me.
I nodded. "I didn't have much to tell them. But I do have an idea." I shared my plan to talk to Don the protester.
"Dahling, I'm in," Marco said, fanning himself with his hand. "All this R&R is making my brain as sharp as a cotton ball. I need to put myself to good use."
"I saw you putting yourself to good use this morning," I told him. "At the yogurt bar."
"Oh, that." He flapped his hand. "It was all in good fun. I was fabs though, wasn't I?" He sipped from his drink, batting his impossibly long lashes at me over the rim of the glass.
"I just can't believe it," Dana said. "First Jennifer and now Desi? What's going on around here? Do you really think this Don person could have something to do with it?"
I shrugged. "It's a place to look. I can't stand the thought of doing nothing. Any ideas where to start?"
"We could check the peaceful protest permits that have been issued recently," Dana suggested. "I'm sure they're available to the public."
"We could do that," Marco agreed. "Or we could do this." He put down his cocktail and made a beeline for the front desk. Dana and I exchanged glances and followed him. "I'd like to speak to the manager, please," he told the desk clerk.
The chubby clerk seemed dismayed by the request, as if he'd personally breached the hotel's code of conduct. "Is there anything I can help you with, sir?"
"Let's see," Marco said. "Are you familiar with the tragically ungroomed person who stands on your grounds every day protesting from sunrise to sunset?"
The clerk nodded immediately. "That's Don."
"Right. Don." Marco glanced back at us. We nodded, too, as if this was something new to us. "And Don's last name would be…?" Marco's eyebrows arched in anticipation.
"Oh. Um…" The clerk frowned, thought a moment, turned, and called out, "James, do you know Don's last name?"
Another clerk appeared from the office area, a lanky twenty-something with a Beatles mop of black hair. "Don from Housekeeping?"
"Don with the signs," the clerk said.
"And the unplucked eyebrows," Marco added.
"And the bad attitude," I put in.
"Oh." James nodded. "That's Don Curcio. I think she lives over in Honolulu. Did she harass you or do something to damage your property? Because I can have Security remove her from the grounds."
Having seen her in action, I figured she'd probably harassed everybody, but I didn't want to cause her any undeserved trouble.
"I'm not sure," Marco said. "The stain may come out. In the meantime, I know a complimentary pitcher of daiquiris will soothe my hurt feelings."
Dana and I exchanged a glance, and barely contained eye-rolls.
"Of course, sir. I'll arrange that for you right away." The clerk snatched up a pen. "Your room number?"
Marco turned to Dana and me. "Ladies, where shall we take this little adventure?"
"My room," I said immediately, and gave the clerk the room number.
"I'll have a pitcher sent right up," the clerk assured us. "I'm terribly sorry for the…" He hesitated, probably because he didn't know what he was terribly sorry for.
Marco stepped smoothly into the hesitation. "As long as it doesn't happen again. You've been very helpful." He turned to Dana and me. "Ladies? Shall we head on up to the room?"
"Very nice," I told him on the way to the elevator. "And completely shameless."
"Thank you," he said with a smile.
*
"I don't believe it," Marco said a little while later.
"I never would have thought it," Dana said.
"I didn't see that coming," I said.
We were in my room, sharing the pitcher of banana daiquiris that the front desk had sent up, staring at a photo of Donatella Curcio we'd found in an Internet search. Not Don, the fashion train wreck, but Donatella, the former beauty queen. Which was surprising in itself. More surprising was that she had actually been gorgeous once upon a time, right down to the shining hair and Vaseline'd smile.
Marco snatched the tablet from me and gaped at it. "This cannot be her," he said. "Look at that hair. Those eyes." He blinked at it. "Those eyebrows. There are two."
Dana looked at her own tablet, where she'd pulled up some biographical information. "This says she competed in a half dozen national pageants, although she never won any of them."
/>
"Always the bridesmaid," I mused.
Marco nodded. "I know that might do it for me. I don't handle rejection well." He looked at Don's picture again. "Wonder what the winners looked like."
Dana read further. "Get this. She actually competed in the Miss Hawaiian Paradise competition two years ago!"
Marco squealed. "She did all that damage to herself in only two years?"
"Two years?" I repeated. Jennifer and Desi had each been competing for more than two years. The pageant universe was a small one. They'd probably known Don in her former life, possibly even competed against her. Maybe even beat her. And from what I'd seen so far, Don wouldn't take that gracefully.
"Who won that year?" Marco asked.
Dana's eyes scanned the page. "Huh."
"'Huh' what?" I asked.
"Well, it looks like Don might have had a chance of winning this one. If," she added, "she hadn't been disqualified."
I leaned over her shoulder. "Why? What happened?"
"She was disqualified for trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage." Dana looked up from the screen. The corner of her mouth twitched. "Seems she was known among insiders as the Cupcake Peddler."
That didn't sound so bad. I could think of worse things than cupcakes. "What does that mean?"
This time Dana did smile. "It means she made daily trips to the bakery and plied all her competitors with cupcakes in the hopes they'd gain enough weight to make her look good."
"Oh, that's dirty," Marco said. "But delicious. Were they red velvet?"
Dana rolled her eyes. "It doesn't say."
"Does it say double fudge chocolate?" he asked.
She gave him a look.
He shrugged. "Just asking. I know if I was going to fatten up the competition, I'd go with double fudge chocolate."
"That's hardly the crime of the century," I cut in.
"But still against the rules," Dana pointed out.
"And it did get her disqualified," Marco added. "Voila, a grudge is born."
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