Less than an hour later I’m standing at Paloma’s front door, still in my sweat-stained running clothes, pleading my case to the housekeeper. “Please tell Señora that I think I finally figured out what happened to her daughter. Will you ask her to please, please see me?”
The housekeeper looks dubious. She waves Rachel in. “I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Please. I am begging.”
“I’ll beg, too,” Rachel assures me and sprints away to parts unknown.
The housekeeper closes the door in my face. I stay put. Five minutes later she reappears. I crane my neck to see if Paloma is behind her. No such luck. “She wants to know if you can prove it is Don Hector,” the housekeeper says.
If I respond truthfully, Paloma will send me away again. “I must look at Peppi’s things to find proof of what I think I’ve figured out. I’d like to examine her phone, her laptop, and the notebook she kept in her handbag. Even if Señora is not willing to see me, will she let me see those items? I know the police have returned them.”
She sighs. “Wait here.” Another five minutes pass. Then, “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
I could scream. Rachel reappears shaking her head. “No way, Mom. Doña Paloma is in a really bad state.” She lowers her voice. “You know it happened a week ago exactly.”
“Of course I know! And now I feel like I might finally have a handle on what happened! Please!”
But the housekeeper is immovable. “I’ll keep trying with Doña Paloma,” Rachel reassures me. “Are you really sure you’ve figured it out?”
“I’m pretty sure. For the first time I have a theory that totally adds up. I really think I could find proof if I could just examine Peppi’s things.”
“But the police examined her stuff and they still don’t know who killed her.”
“Because they didn’t know what to look for!”
Rachel nods. “I believe you, mom. Today’s Friday so you’ve got to do the personal interviews, right?”
“Then the preliminary swimsuit and evening gown competitions.” I don’t know how I’m going to focus on those when all I want to do is rummage through Peppi’s personal belongings.
“You won’t have any free time again until tonight. Late.” Rachel lurches forward and grabs me in a hug. “Don’t worry, Mom. Go do what you gotta do and I’ll keep trying with Doña Paloma.”
My daughter disappears. The housekeeper and I stare at each other. “Is it true, all those things you said?” she asks me.
“Absolutely true.”
“Then I’ll try with Señora, too,” she whispers, and gives me a thumb’s up.
Back in the Durango, I call Detective Dez. Since he doesn’t pick up I’m forced to leave a voicemail. “I believe I’ve figured out who killed Peppi Lopez and why. But I need proof and I bet it’s on her laptop. Or maybe in her notebook because I know she was in the habit of jotting down notes. Anyway, her mother won’t give me access. Will you get those items back? We can help each other, Detective. You get your hands on Peppi’s personal items and I’ll tell you what you need to know to solve this crime.”
Then I put in a call to Mario. “I think I figured out who killed Peppi,” I tell him, and explain. Then, “I could really use your help. If you could do two things for me—”
“Name them.”
Sometimes that’s all a beauty queen needs: a friend who works for the FBI.
I race back to the hotel. I have 67 four-minute interviews to conduct, as do Shanelle and Lasalo. I’ll do the math for you. It’ll take more than six hours.
I shower and change into what I think of as my Jackie O suit: it’s bright pink with three-quarter-length sleeves, a collar, and a slim knee-length skirt. I wore it for my preliminary interviews when I competed on Oahu for the Ms. America crown, then again at my press conference after I was awarded the title. Like me, the contestants should dress as if they were interviewing for a job, wearing nothing too flashy. No beads, no sequins, no eye-catching jewelry, no over-the-top makeup.
I end up spending most of the day in a small conference room in the hotel. Two notable things happen. Detective Dez does not call back. And Mariela is so personable and gracious in her interview that she lands in my top ten.
That’s a third of her preliminary score. Let’s see how she does in swimsuit and evening gown.
In the late afternoon Shanelle and I are in the auditorium watching Trixie lead the rehearsal for the opening number—much more effectively than the former choreographer did, by the way—and I’m attempting to revive myself with the second cappuccino of the day. I get a text from Jason. “Whoa,” I say a few seconds later.
Shanelle leans over to peer at my phone, too. “Whoa,” she repeats. “This may not be PC to point out but your husband is hot!”
We both stare at the photo Jason texted me. It’s a “test shot” taken by the calendar people. He’s standing in front of a race car wearing jeans and an unbuttoned shirt that reveals his new set of 6-pack abs. It’s sunny and he’s squinting. He’s not smiling at all, which creates even more of a bad-boy impression.
I stare at the photo. It’s my husband but sort of not my husband. “He says the cameraman joked that he wouldn’t only be in the calendar, he’d land on the cover.”
“I’m not sure the cameraman was joking,” Shanelle says.
I’m not, either. I don’t know how I feel about that but I need to keep an open mind. I’m putting away my phone when I spy Consuela barreling across the auditorium in my direction. I lean toward Shanelle. “What do you want to bet Hector told Consuela his ‘little secret’?”
“One guess how that conversation went,” she whispers back.
Consuela plops down next to me. She’s so upset she’s shaking. “Hector never would have gotten into that if it weren’t for you!”
“That’s preposterous! He told me he’s been doing it since he was thirteen.”
“I don’t believe it! He had the nerve to say I should try a bee-venom facial mask to combat my fine lines. If it’s good enough for that Camilla who’s married to Prince Charles, it’s good enough for you, he says. As if I have fine lines!” She slaps her thigh. “And as if I want to trade beauty secrets with my lover!”
I can’t help but giggle. She gives me the sort of look that could kill. A few days ago it might have frightened me but now I know Consuela is no killer.
“You laugh,” she spits. “But someday I will make you pay for convincing Hector to stay with that ridiculous wife of his.”
“So after all this you still want to marry him? I don’t know if that surprises me or not. But you can be sure of this, Consuela. I didn’t convince Hector of a darn thing. He never intended to divorce his wife. He loves her and she loves him, the real him. Which is more than he can say of you.”
She slaps her thigh a second time for good measure then flounces away.
Shanelle and I watch her go. “This is turning out to be a pretty good afternoon,” Shanelle observes.
Later that afternoon, since I’m tied down, Pop picks up Rachel from Paloma’s. My daughter reports she made progress with Doña Paloma, and that the housekeeper, whose name is Mercedes, helped. “I think Doña Paloma is going to come around, Mom. But if she doesn’t, tomorrow I could sneak into Ms. Lopez’s bedroom and—”
“No, Rach. No sneaking. We’ll find another way to get what we need. So the cops never came to the house to take back Peppi’s things?”
She shakes her head. “And I was there all day.”
So it appears Detective Dez did not take my voicemail seriously. I believe he will regret that. I pat my daughter’s leg. “Don’t worry about a thing, Rach. You go to dinner with Grandpa and have a good time.”
It doesn’t surprise me that Rachel and Pop elected not to watch the preliminary competitions. The audience is comprised primarily of the contestants’ parents. My own dinner is a turkey and avocado sandwich shoveled down between the swimsuit and evening gown events. Sure, a few girls ignore the ban on body g
litter and several more kill their chances by sporting stilettos with heels higher than four inches, but matters proceed smoothly regardless.
At the conclusion of the festivities, I meet with Shanelle and Lasalo to compare our composite scores. Mariela easily makes it onto our list of 15 semifinalists, which will be announced at Saturday’s finale shortly after the opening number.
“What did I tell you, girl?” Shanelle murmurs as we collect our paperwork. “You know how to be fair.”
“Let’s see if I can repeat the performance tomorrow night at the finale.”
I’ve just walked into the hotel’s humdrum lobby when I check my cell phone and see that Mario left a voicemail. “You were right!” he says. “On both counts.”
I stop listening and hold my cell to my chest. Since this lobby is so bare bones it doesn’t even have a chair I can drop into, I lean a hand against the wall for support.
I did it again. I solved another murder. I can’t believe it! And yet I can.
I push a few buttons and replay Mario’s voicemail, this time to the end. “Good girl!” he goes on. “Excellent work. Call me for the details on what I found out. I don’t care how late it is.” I play the message three more times. There’s no doubt about it. I hear admiration in his voice.
Since it’s been a while and I’m still leaning against the wall, the chubby girl at the reception desk glances my way. “You okay, ma’am?”
I assure her I am. In fact I’m so okay I don’t even mind her calling me “ma’am” instead of “miss.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A couple of hours later I’m thinking there’s nothing like South Beach on a weekend night. Under swaying palm trees strung with white lights, with the smell of the sea filling the air, the beautiful people are out in force, ready to revel. Purple spotlights rake the starry sky. Music pulses from every direction.
In my little black dress and ankle-strap heels, I push through the midnight crowds. In a boutique window, a man and a woman half-naked but for a few inches of spandex are whipping each other with leather straps. A shirtless, incredibly buff Latin guy strolls past sporting a large iguana on his shoulder. Since I’ve had enough of reptiles to last a lifetime, I give them a wide berth.
I can’t say I’m surprised it will all end here in South Beach. Where better to nab a strangler than among the beautiful, the bronzed, and the brazen? I’ll be lucky if I get a wink of sleep tonight, not that I’m the least tired. I’ve been riding an adrenaline high ever since this morning when it first came to me who strangled Peppi. Now I know for sure. I have all the proof I need.
What I want is a face-to-face with the killer.
After I got the call from Mario, I walked upstairs and woke Rachel. Despite the late hour she got Paloma on the phone and this time her entreaties did work. That’s my daughter for you! At long last Paloma allowed us into Peppi’s bedroom and I found what I needed on Peppi’s phone and in her notebook. If I’d looked at them days ago, I’m not sure I would have understood what I was seeing. So I guess Trixie is right and it is all working out the way it’s meant to.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, I saw a top five list in Peppi’s notebook, too. With Mariela’s name crossed off. I can easily imagine Consuela screaming at Peppi over that. But that fight wasn’t the one that mattered in the end.
I halt in front of Flor, one of South Beach’s many nightclubs. I’m waved inside. It’s a mob scene, dark and loud and raucous. In an elevated cage, a woman in a bikini top and barely-there hot pants does a flame dance with a baton. In another, a couple is simulating sex. At least I think it’s a simulation.
I thread my way through the dancers and the drinkers. I know Alfonso is here. He tweeted he would be.
It doesn’t take long to find him, because as usual he’s doing a salsa and as usual he’s executing it so expertly he’s got a throng of admirers. I join them as they clap and cheer. When Alfonso spies me, he does what he did Saturday night at Diego’s. He trades his partner for me.
We whirl and spin and put on a pretty good show. I’ll say this for Alfonso: the man can dance. When we shimmy to a stop, we move to what passes for a quiet corner and I order champagne. I’m not sure Alfonso will be, but I’m celebrating.
“What do we toast to?” he wants to know.
“How about your new job?” I’m thinking it’ll be something along the lines of making license plates.
He frowns. “You know something I don’t?”
“You’d be surprised what I know, Alfonso.” I sip my champagne and let that sink in. Then, “How about we start with where your cuff link disappeared to?”
He freezes, his champagne flute halfway to his mouth.
“You know which one,” I go on. “It’s round with a bull’s eye in black and neon pink? You lost it a week ago when it got knocked off and fell into a pirate ship. It’s really a shame. It looked great that morning when you were doing the weather. There’s video of you wearing it and everything.” Mario checked that out for me. That’s the kind of access a TV station will give someone who works for the FBI.
“You’re crazy,” Alfonso spits. “I was nowhere near any pirate ship.”
“I think you were. Especially since you didn’t go home from work like you told the cops you did. Since your station is in Miami Beach and your condo is in South Beach, you wouldn’t have crossed any bridges if you’d gone straight home. But just like there’s video of you wearing your cuff links, there’s video of your car on the causeway. Which tells me that you went to the theater where the Teen Princess of the Everglades pageant is being held. It just so happens there’s a prop of a pirate ship there.” I pull a piece of paper from my clutch. Thank you again, Mario! “I want to get the times right when you passed the cameras on the causeway,” I tell Alfonso. “Westbound at 11:37 a.m. and eastbound at 12:58 p.m.”
Alfonso clenches his jaw. I see a hardness in his eyes I’ve never seen before. I bet Peppi saw it, too. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Happy Pennington.”
“You a cop?”
“No. I’m a beauty queen.”
He guffaws then throws back his champagne. He slams the flute down on the small table that separates us. “And I’m supposed to take you seriously?”
“You didn’t take Peppi seriously either, did you? Not her reporting, anyway. Not until you realized her next investigative report wasn’t going to be about nail polish. It was going to be about those sex parties where you pimp women.”
He stares at me. A muscle twitches in his jaw. Then, “I suppose you have video of those, too?”
“No. And Peppi didn’t, either. But she was going to get some. You found that out when you discovered that a cameraman at your station was mounting a lipstick camera in an evening bag so a reporter could get undercover video. And that reporter turned out to be Peppi.”
The cameraman texted Peppi that Alfonso asked whose evening bag he was working on and seemed shocked that it was Peppi’s. It really helped me put things together when I found that text on her phone.
“You knew,” I go on, “that unless you put a stop to it Peppi was going to go to another one of those parties and get the video she needed to blow your slimy scheme wide open. That’s why you went to the pageant venue. You knew Peppi would be there. Then all you had to do was wait for your chance to get her alone.”
He eyes me. “So what are you saying?”
I don’t miss a beat. “I’m saying you strangled Peppi Lopez.”
He grabs my arm and manhandles me away from the quiet corner, much like he did at my salsa lesson when he told me I should “let the man lead me wherever he wants to go.”
Now Alfonso wants to go outside. But he doesn’t exit via the front door, where the crowd and the bouncer are. Inveterate clubber that he is, Alfonso knows Flor has a door out the back that opens onto an empty alley.
At least he thinks it’s empty.
He drags me next to a Dumpster but doesn’t let go of my arm. He’s clenc
hing it so hard it hurts. In the distance I hear tires squeal as a driver struts his stuff. That’s the kind of bravado that can get you into trouble, even in South Beach.
“Nobody’s going to know about those parties,” Alfonso mutters.
“The cops already know about them. They have Peppi’s notebook back. She had all kinds of information written down. The names and contact info for a couple of women who wanted to tell their story. The names of some of the men, like that city councilman who might run for mayor. And she had addresses, too, the addresses where the parties happen. One of those I recognized because I was there.”
“You’re just like Peppi.” He pushes me in the chest and I stumble backwards. “You think you’re so smart when you don’t know a thing.”
“You didn’t give her enough credit, either. She was a good reporter.”
He’s in my face now. “She was a druggie who got what she wanted because of her family. And when that didn’t work, she got it on her back.”
“If you hated her so much, why did you ask her to those parties?”
“Because I knew deep down she was a party girl. And my man who hosts those parties, he likes women there that people recognize.”
“You get paid more for them showing up, right?”
“You bet I do.”
“What’s your problem? Don’t you make enough money already?”
“You airhead! You think all I want to be is a weatherman my whole life?”
“So you want to be a high roller. That’s what got you, Alfonso.”
“Nothing’s got me yet,” he declares and shoves me back against the Dumpster. The metal is cold against my skin but Alfonso’s eyes are spewing fire.
He reaches for my neck with both hands and I dodge and weave to get away from him and we sort of start wrestling. I don’t know what he’s trying to do, maybe strangle me like he strangled Peppi, but I am not going to give him that chance. After I kick him in the knee so that he drops back a few feet I manage to pull my pepper spray from my clutch—very glad I grabbed that when he dragged me out of the club—and hold it right in front of his enraged face and shoot.
Ms America and the Mayhem in Miami (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 3) Page 26
