Pampered to Death

by Laura Levine

  Gone was the haunted look I’d seen in his eyes. With Mallory dead, no one (except maybe the friendly folks at Frederick’s of Hollywood) need ever know about his penchant for ladies’ underlovelies.

  Rounding out our crew of suspects was Cathy, who was parked at my side as usual. But for once, she wasn’t bubbling with happy chat. Mallory’s murder seemed to have put the fear of God in her.

  “Omigosh,” she moaned, eyes darting around the lounge. “One of you is a killer!”

  “Oh, please,” Kendra said. “Mallory had an enemies list as long as her hair extensions. Maybe the cook killed her. Or the maid. Or the masseuse. Especially the masseuse. Everyone could see Mallory was making time with her husband.”

  She was right, of course. Who’s to say Shawna hadn’t strangled Mallory herself and then pretended to discover the body?

  “It might even be one of the townies,” Kendra suggested. “Over the years, Mallory’s alienated just about every shopkeeper on Main Street. Or maybe someone from Hollywood drove up and bumped her off.

  “For all we know,” she added, pointing at Cathy, “it was you!”

  “Me!” Cathy blinked, stunned. “You’re crazy!”

  It did seem like a zany idea. Cathy was the one person in this joint who actually seemed to like Mallory. But maybe she figured Mallory’s autographed cocktail napkin would be worth more money on eBay if Mallory was dead. A pretty flimsy motive for murder, but it was the best I could come up with.

  After Cathy’s outburst, we all just sat there in an uneasy silence, waiting to be questioned.

  One by one, the others were called in.

  Finally it was my turn.

  The cop who ushered me into the dining room was a tall good looking dame with pouty lips and a body that wouldn’t quit. And her partner was no slouch in the looks department, either. Craggy and tan, he looked like he’d just come from a GQ photo shoot.

  For the purposes of this narrative, I’ll call them Brad and Angelina.

  But their looks were the last thing on my mind when I stepped into the dining room. For the first time since I’d shown up at diet hell, I actually smelled something delicious!

  I looked over at the table Brangelina had commandeered for their investigation and saw two humungous, half-eaten deli sandwiches. Hers looked like roast turkey and ham. His, roast beef and swiss. Both had bags of chips and pickles.

  “Hope you don’t mind if we eat while we do this,” Brad said. “We didn’t get a chance to have lunch.”

  Was he kidding? It was all I could do not to hurl myself at their chow and make a run for it.

  But somehow I managed to contain myself.

  They started with some routine questions about my name, age and occupation, all of which I answered staring fixedly at their sandies, praying one of them would offer me a bite.

  “So did you?” Brad was asking me.

  Oh, dear. I’d been so intent on a piece of swiss cheese dangling from his Kaiser roll, I hadn’t heard his question.

  “Did I what?”

  “Hear anything at all during your massage that might give us a clue to the killer’s identity?”

  “Afraid not.”

  Unless George Clooney was the killer, I hadn’t heard a peep.

  “Do you have any idea,” Angelina asked between bites of her ham and turkey, “who might have wanted to kill Mallory?”

  I hesitated to rat on my fellow guests, but there was a murderer among us. I couldn’t just sit by and pretend that Mallory was adored by one and all.

  I ran down my list of suspects—just about everyone—and was about to offer them my services as a part-time semi-professional P.I. (You’d never know it to look at me, but I have solved a few murders in my day, which you can read all about in the titles listed at the front of this book.)

  But just then they threw me a most unwelcome curve ball.

  “What was your relationship with the deceased like?” Angelina asked.

  “What relationship?? I barely knew the woman.”

  “That’s not what we heard.”

  “Huh?”

  “According to our notes,” Brad said, taking time out from his sandwich to flip through a small pad, “the other night at dinner, you offered Mallory your services as a writer.”

  I thought back to that first dinner when blabbermouth Cathy, upon hearing that Mallory needed a writer, piped up and suggested moi.

  “I didn’t offer my services. Cathy did.”

  “Whatever. We have an eyewitness who confirmed that Mallory Francis was quite insulting in her reply to you. Suggesting you weren’t a real writer.”

  Oh, for crying out loud. Who the heck felt the need to share that little anecdote?

  “So?” I shrugged. “Mallory dissed me. She dissed everybody.”

  “Writers can be very sensitive,” Brad said.

  “High strung,” Angelina chimed in.

  “You think I’d strangle Mallory with a piece of kelp because she said I wasn’t a real writer?”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Well, I can assure you, I didn’t do it.”

  “Nevertheless, we’d like you to stick around for a few days. Understood?”

  “Understood,” I nodded, steamed to the max. The nerve of these people, practically accusing me of murder!

  “Any questions?” Brad asked, licking some mustard from his finger.

  “Just one,” I said.

  Brangelina looked up at me inquiringly.

  “You guys gonna eat your pickles?”

  Chapter 14

  I allowed myself the faint hope that Olga might cancel our classes out of respect for the not-so-dearly departed. But alas, that night over celery fizzes, Olga announced that, murder or no murder, it was business as usual at The Haven. Same nine hundred miserable calories a day. Same god-awful exercises.

  Whatever uneasiness had descended upon the gang in the aftermath of Mallory’s death was gone by dinner. Olga was positively buoyant as she dished out the evening’s slop (gray chicken, soggy zucchini, and—alert the media!—cantaloupe instead of mangoes for dessert).

  Kendra had taken Mallory’s place at the “A” table, and for once, I saw a smile on her face. After a whole thirteen seconds of pretending to mourn her sister’s death, she and Harvy and Clint were laughing and telling jokes, in the highest of high spirits. Every once in a while, Olga would join in with a bon mot of her own.

  Even Armani, the Peke, seemed to be in a jolly mood, digging into his steak tidbits with gusto.

  Here with me at the peasant table, though, Cathy was a nervous wreck, still convinced one of her fellow guests was a killer.

  “Not you, of course, “she whispered to me. “I know you didn’t do it. But I wouldn’t trust those others as far as I could throw a celery stick.

  “How I wish I were back in Duluth scanning Pringles at the Piggly Wiggly,” she moaned. “I should have listened to Mr. Muffin. He told me not to go away and leave him in the kennel.”

  She was right, of course. Not about Mr. Muffin. I had no idea whether he was in psychic communication with his mistress.

  But I did know that someone at The Haven was a killer. And I was still steaming over Brangelina’s insinuation that it might be me. I made up my mind then and there to do a little investigating of my own. The sooner the Spa Strangler was found, the sooner I could go home to my Chunky Monkeystocked refrigerator.

  Back in my room, I saw Prozac out on the patio staring at the koi pond.

  You’ll be pleased to know that in my absence she finally got a vigorous workout with her Whirlybird exercise toy.

  I found the feathered remains of the poor thing scattered everywhere.

  “Prozac,” I said, plucking a feather from the bowl of flowers on the dresser, “how could you?”

  She glared at me, affronted, and began swishing her tail in an Academy Award-winning performance of a Long-Suffering Kitty.

  How could I???? Trapped in this diet dungeon with n
othing to eat but a measly can of Fancy Feast? No wonder I went after that idiotic Whirlybird. If I don’t get something in my tummy soon, there’s no telling how long I’ll last! At this stage of the game, I’ll eat anything, I tell you! Anything!

  “Here,” I said, holding out the gray chicken I’d smuggled from dinner. “I brought you this.”

  She took one look at it, and wrinkled her pink nose in disgust.

  Eeeeu. I can’t eat that.

  Is she impossible, or what?

  “It’ll have to do, until I get back from my food run,” I said, plopping it in her bowl.

  After gathering poor Mr. Bird’s remains and hiding them in my suitcase (heaven knows what punishment Frau Olga would mete out if she discovered them), I headed off to town.

  I’d cleverly donned cargo pants and a jacket with plenty of pockets to store the goodies I planned to buy. I intended to dash into Darryl’s Deli to load up on calories and a quick peek at the eminently peek-worthy Darryl, then hurry back to feed Prozac, who’d been meowing piteously when I left, draped over the back of the armchair, very Sarah Bernhardt On Her Deathbed.

  But you know how it is with best laid plans.

  Driving through town, I happened to see that the pizza parlor was open. Even from my car, I could smell the garlic wafting from the exhaust vent. Mind you, I’d been dreaming of that pizza ever since I’d first seen the restaurant from the top of Mount Olga.

  The lure of garlic was too powerful to resist. The next thing I knew, I was pulling into the parking lot.

  I’d just run in for a quickie slice to go. I’d be in and out in five minutes. Six, tops.

  But once again my plans were derailed. Because the first thing I noticed when I stepped inside, other than the heady aroma of garlic and sausages, was Harvy and Kendra sitting at a table, a pizza and pitcher of beer on the red checkered tablecloth between them.

  What a perfect opportunity to start my investigation. Princess Prozac would just have to wait.

  I trotted up to Mallory’s former posse, a suitably mournful but friendly smile on my face.

  “Hi, there. What a surprise running into you two like this.”

  Kendra looked up from her beer with bloodshot eyes.

  “Not really,” she replied, slurring her words. “Sooner or later everybody at The Haven winds up here.”

  Aha. So I wasn’t the only inmate who cheated.

  “Mind if I join you?” I asked, pulling out a chair before they could say no.

  “Sure,” Harvy said, with an expansive wave of his beer stein. “Have a seat.”

  I horned myself in between them and got right down to business.

  Okay, I didn’t get right down to business. I took one look at their pizza and forgot all about the interview. Gosh, that thing looked good. Sausages and mushrooms, swimming in a sea of thick gooey cheese.

  “Help yourself,” Harvy said, no doubt noticing the pizza lust in my eyes.

  He and Kendra watched in disbelief as I wolfed it down in record time.

  “Care for another slice?” Harvy asked.

  Before he’d even finished the question, slice number two was in my mouth.

  “Miss!” Kendra called out to our waitress. “Another sausage and mushroom pizza. Looks like we’re gonna need it.”

  Then she turned to Harvy and, in a stage whisper that could be heard in Fresno, said, “Better grab a slice while you can.”

  “Guess I was a little hungry.” I smiled apologetically when I’d finished inhaling.

  “I’d hate to see her when she’s starving,” Kendra muttered into her beer.

  “I’ll be happy to pay you for what I ate.”

  “No, that’s okay,” Harvy said, staring at the empty space where the pizza slices had been. “It’s our treat.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  My feeding frenzy abated, at last I remembered my mission.

  “I can’t believe I’ve been sitting here all this time and haven’t offered you my condolences about Mallory.”

  “It hasn’t been that long,” Harvy said. “I think you ate that pizza in less than thirty seconds. It could be a world record.”

  Okay, so I ate fast. He didn’t have to make such a big production over it.

  “As I was saying,” I said, eager to drop the topic of my speed eating. “I want to express my condolences on the untimely demise of your sister, Kendra. It was a real tragedy.”

  “Yeah,” Kendra said, in a voice singularly devoid of sorrow, “a real tragedy.” She hoisted her beer stein in a toast. “To my dearly departed sister. Here’s hoping they serve mangoes in hell.”

  Harvy clinked his glass against hers and they wasted no time slugging down their beer.

  Something told me it wasn’t their first pitcher.

  “I just got off the phone with her attorney,” Kendra groused, “and would you believe that selfish bitch left me only fifty grand?”

  Wow, she sure hadn’t wasted any time making that phone call.

  “She left a hundred grand to the gal who gave her botox shots, for crying out loud! A million for the care and feeding of Armani. And the rest to the Mallory Francis Foundation for Abused Pekes.”

  She slammed down her beer stein in disgust.

  “How many abused Pekes are there on the planet, anyway? Zero, that’s how many! Armani will be vacationing at the Ritz Carlton and I’ll be stuck with fifty measly grand.”

  Of course, fifty thousand dollars sounded like a gold mine to me, but obviously Kendra had been expecting more. Much more. And once again, I wondered if she’d bumped off her sister to get it.

  Harvy reached over and took her hand, a reasonable facsimile of sympathy in his eyes. “I’d give you some of my money, hon, but I need it for the salon. But you can come in any time for a free cut and color.”

  “Thanks a ton,” Kendra sighed. “At least I’ll look good on the unemployment line.”

  “I wish it could be more, but I’ve already signed the lease and everything.”

  “Hey, not to worry. It’s not your fault my sister was such a bitch.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Harvy said, guzzling down some more suds. “Remember the time she flew me back from my uncle’s funeral to blow out her bangs? And then she expected me to reimburse her for the plane ticket!”

  “How awful,” I commiserated. Lord knows how many resentments he’d stored away over the years. Probably enough to want to see her dead. Maybe even enough to kill her himself.

  “Mallory was always pulling off stunts like that,” Kendra said.

  “Did she really send out that assistant director to buy mangoes in a hurricane?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kendra nodded. “Poor Pablo. Crashed his car and was injured pretty badly. Heard he wound up in a wheelchair.”

  “And what about the makeup lady she fired just as her little boy was about to go into the hospital for surgery?” Harvy chimed in, tripping down miserable memory lane.

  “Poor thing lost her health insurance,” Kendra said. “Did Mallory care? No, she was just annoyed she had to break in a new makeup lady. No wonder somebody killed her. Frankly, I’m surprised it took so long.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?” I asked.

  “Half the population of Hollywood had a motive. But I still think it’s that masseuse.”

  “Me, too,” Harvy seconded. “I heard Sven and Mallory going at like bunnies last night. Shawna had to know about it.”

  “Are you kidding?” Kendra sniffed. “If I know Mallory, she was probably bragging to Shawna about it.”

  “Besides,” Harvy pointed out, “Shawna’s the one who was in the room with Mallory, giving her the seaweed wrap.”

  All very true, of course. Shawna had both motive and opportunity. But I couldn’t help wondering why she’d kill Mallory during the seaweed wrap, knowing she’d be the obvious suspect. Why wouldn’t she wait for some other chance to strangle her rival in romance?

  If you ask me, both Kendra and Ha
rvy had equally strong motives for killing Mallory. Who’s to say they weren’t pointing fingers at Shawna to throw suspicion off themselves?

  For all I knew, the killer was right there at my table, scarfing down a Heineken.

  Chapter 15

  I left Mallory’s former posse bitching into their beers and dashed over to Darryl’s, popping an Altoid en route—just in case my deli doll was behind the counter.

  Oh, goodie. He was.

  “Welcome back!” He grinned as I walked in the door.

  “Hi, there,” I replied, my heart melting at the sight of his laugh lines.

  “How did you and Grammy Austen like the fudge sauce last night?”

  “Never got a chance to try it,” I sighed. “I got busted at the front door by Olga.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have warned you to be careful. She’s got eyes like a hawk.”

  “I learned my lesson. This time,” I said, pointing to my cargo pockets, “I’m prepared to smuggle my loot into my room.”

  “Smart thinking.”

  He smiled again.

  My heart melted again.

  Then, after an awkward second or two during which he did not take me in his arms and cover me with baby kisses, I said, “Guess I’d better get my groceries.”

  I grabbed a cart and headed down the aisles, praying my tush didn’t look too big.

  A few minutes later I was back with my loot.

  “Find everything you want?” he asked.

  “Possibly, now that I’ve met you.”

  Of course, I didn’t really say that. I just nodded and wowed him with the delightfully witty, “Yes, thanks.”

  “I hope you’re not too upset about what happened at the spa today,” he said, as he started bagging my stuff.

  “Upset? About what?”

  “Mallory Francis’s murder.”

  Oh, for crying out loud. Can you believe I’d forgotten all about it? Shows you what a few laugh lines on the right face can do.

  “Right. The murder. What a terrible thing.”

  “Everybody in town’s been talking about it.”

  “Any idea who did it?” I asked, hoping he’d heard some juicy gossip.

  “Not a clue,” he shrugged. “Although word on the street is that Olga hated Mallory’s guts.”