Pampered to Death

by Laura Levine

  Approaching the pool area, I saw Harvy and Kendra stretched out on chaises, Armani dozing on a chaise of his own next to Kendra, a hot pink sun visor perched on his pointy ears.

  Harvy and Kendra were leafing through some magazines, and if my eyes did not deceive me, munching on what looked like pretzels. Out in the open, in broad daylight!

  For heaven’s sake. Was I the only one in this joint who got caught cheating on her diet?

  Quickly, I trotted to their side.

  Indeed, they were eating pretzels from a bag on a small table between them. The short, thick, stubby kind, which happen to be my favorite.

  “Hi, there!” I said, hoping they’d offer me one.

  “Well, well,” Harvy sneered. “If it isn’t Nancy Drew. Come to arrest me?”

  Kendra, decked out in what was probably one of Mallory’s bikinis, took time out from the Vogue she was reading to shoot me a matching sneer.

  “Look, Harvy,” I said, eager to make amends, “I’m sorry if I insulted you earlier.”

  “You should be,” he huffed, still pissy.

  “I don’t really suspect you of murder.”

  Which was a baldfaced lie, of course. After what Shawna had just told me, he was practically my number one suspect. And Kendra wasn’t far behind, what with Brangelina digging for sedative-laced tea outside her cubicle window.

  But I needed to say something to put an end to the hostilities and nab myself one of those pretzels.

  “Honest, I don’t suspect you of anything.”

  “Oh, fab.” Harvy wiped his brow with exaggerated relief. “Now I can sleep easy.”

  I decided to take the high road and ignore his sarcasm. Instead, I just stood there, eyeing the pretzels, hoping they’d take the hint.

  I hoped in vain.

  “Anything else you’d care to say?” Harvy asked, clearly waiting for me to make myself scarce.

  “I don’t suppose you could spare a pretzel?” I finally broke down and asked.

  “No,” he said, biting into one. “We can’t.”

  Wow. Some people sure know how to hold a grudge.

  “I can spare a piece of advice, though,” Kendra said, looking up at me through Mallory’s designer sunglasses. “You really should be careful, Jaine. If there’s a killer among us, chances are, he—or she—won’t hesitate to kill again.”

  Was that a piece of advice I’d just heard—or a threat?

  Your guess is as good as mine.

  “Well,” Kendra said, dismissing me with a cool smile, “see you at cocktail hour.”

  Then, just as I was about to walk away, Kendra put down her Vogue and reached for some sunblock. I blinked in surprise. And not at the Swarovski crystals embedded in her dead sister’s bikini top. But rather, at a long gash of a scratch on her chest.

  “What happened to your chest?” I asked.

  “That damn Armani.” The dog’s ears perked up at the sound of his name. “I wasn’t fast enough feeding Mr. Cranky his doggie treat.”

  As if to prove his crankiness, Armani bared his tiny teeth and growled.

  “And to think,” Kendra said, rolling her eyes, “the little monster is going to inherit a million dollars.”

  I guess I must have still been staring at her scab, because Kendra shot me a glare even more hostile than the one she’d been lobbing at Armani.

  “I didn’t get it strangling Mallory, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  But of course, that’s exactly what I was wondering.

  Okay, class. Let’s pause to consider. Did Kendra really get that scratch from Armani? Or had she been clawed by Mallory, fighting for her life on the massage table? And had Harvy really zipped off to his room, as claimed, for an aspirin? Or had he been the one wringing that kelp around Mallory’s neck? And what about Shawna, the welterweight masseuse? Had she made a murderous pit stop at Mallory’s cubicle between seaweed wraps?

  I was soaking my aching muscles in the jacuzzi, pondering these questions and wishing I’d been able to nab a pretzel or two, when I gazed up and saw Clint Masters approaching.

  “Hey, there!” he said, throwing off his spa robe and tossing it on a nearby chaise.

  Crammed as he was into a tight red Speedo, just about every one of his jumbo muscles were on display, spray tanned to bronzed perfection.

  “Mind if join you?” he asked, flashing me his pearly whites.

  “Of course not, come on in.”

  At last, a friendly face.

  A little too friendly, as things turned out.

  “How’s it going, June?” he said, immersing himself in the bubbles.

  Before I had a chance to reply, he inched closer to me and cooed, “Anyone ever tell you you look mighty fetching in a bathing suit?”

  (His eyes, I might point out, were nowhere near the ghastly loaner bathing suit I’d donned, but rather on my bobbing cleavage.)

  “Only my mother,” I said, sidling away from him, “and I was seven at the time.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, closing the gap between us. “I love a self-deprecating woman.”

  Frankly, I was surprised he knew the meaning of self-deprecating.

  “After we finish our little soak,” he asked, flashing me his idea of bedroom eyes, “how about we head up to my room for a shower?”

  Yikes. The guy was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

  “So what do you say, June?”

  “I don’t think so,” I demurred.

  To be perfectly honest, he wasn’t my type. As you well know from my encounters with Darryl, I much prefer a sensitive sweetie to a musclebound gym rat whose idea of foreplay is looking at his own head shots. And even if Clint were my type, I try never to have dipsy doodle with someone who can’t remember my name. Call me wacky, but that’s usually a deal breaker.

  I scooted away a few inches. And once more, he wasted no time closing the gap between us. By now we’d made a full circle around the jacuzzi and Clint was beginning to get ticked off.

  “Don’t you understand?” He pouted. “I’m giving you the opportunity to make world class love with a major motion picture star.”

  “Really? Who?”

  Okay, I didn’t really say that. It’s just that when I think of major motion picture stars, I think of guys like George Clooney and Cary Grant. Not the steroid-injected lunkhead who ran around in a loin cloth in Revenge of the Lust Busters.

  “Actually, I’m very flattered that you want to, um, ‘take a shower’ with me, Clint, but I can’t. I’m just too upset about Mallory’s murder. I practically discovered her body, you know.”

  Suddenly he remembered he was supposed to be in mourning.

  “Oh, right.” He slapped on a suitably soulful expression. “Poor Mallory. Strangled with a piece of seaweed. What an awful way to go!” He shook his head in faux sorrow. “Such a great gal. Although,” he said, doing surreptitious leg kicks in the water, “she really did have a habit of making enemies. Not me, of course,” he hastened to add. “I always loved her.”

  Man, this guy was one heck of a stinky actor. I’d seen better performances from the clown at the Jack in the Box.

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

  “None whatsoever. Like I told the police, I was in my room the entire time.”

  “So you saw nothing and heard nothing?”

  “All I heard was Shawna and Sven arguing in the gym.”

  “You heard them from your room?”

  “Oh, yes. My balcony faces the back of the estate and their voices carried.”

  So The Aerobic Twins hadn’t been lying about being at the gym at the time of the murder. That still didn’t mean Shawna couldn’t have taken time out to strangle Mallory, but it certainly shoved her a bit lower on my suspect list.

  “You should have heard Shawna reaming into Sven. She said she was sick and tired of his fooling around and that she couldn’t believe he was stupid enough to get involved with a woman like Mallory. Sooner or later, she said, Sven
was bound to get hurt.”

  Women are amazing, n’est-ce pas? Here Shawna was worried about Sven getting hurt when she was the one who’d just had her heart broken!

  “Then Sven said he couldn’t help himself, he was overcome by desire; and then he promised he’d never do it again, and that everything would be okay.”

  “You heard all that from your room?”

  Was it my imagination, but was there just a hint of hesitation in his reply?

  “Sure,” he said. “They were both talking pretty loud. And the sound really carries around here.”

  Not really.

  Those of you taking notes will no doubt recall my hellish stint working in the organic garden, the day I heard Clint begging Mallory not to spill the beans about his ladies lingerie fetish. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Not at first. I’d had to scoot closer to the house to listen in.

  Maybe Shawna and Sven had been shouting loud enough for the sound to carry.

  Then again, maybe Clint just happened to hear them as he walked past the gym on his way back from strangling Mallory.

  All that chatter about Mallory’s murder must’ve taken the starch out of Clint’s Speedo, because he soon bid me a hasty farewell and returned to his room, presumably to shower alone.

  I looked around the pool area and saw that Harvy and Kendra were gone, too.

  I was tempted to haul myself out of the jacuzzi and see if they left behind any pretzels, but I was too lazy to move. All that hot water was making me sleepy.

  And before long I drifted off into a most delicious doze, starring me and my favorite dream co-star, George Clooney.

  This time George and I were lounging beachside in a tropical paradise, George as stunning as ever in sedate but sexy swim trunks, me in a string bikini, my thighs miraculously thin.

  And here’s the best part: George was hand-feeding me pretzels dipped in Chunky Monkey ice cream!

  It was heaven. Sheer heaven.

  And then, abruptly, as things tend to happen in dreams, Darryl of Darryl’s Deli came racing up to us on the beach.

  “Jaine, what are you doing here with George Clooney?” he asked, a look of consternation in his definitely-hazel eyes.

  “She’s eating ice cream and pretzels, buddy,” George said. “Want to make something of it?”

  “I sure do,” Darryl cried. “You can’t stay here, Jaine!”

  “Sez who?” George said, getting up.

  “Sez me, that’s who!” Darryl replied, fire in those hazel eyes.

  Oh, wow! Geo. Clooney and Darryl of Darryl’s Deli were fighting over me, Jaine Austen. This was even better than the ice cream and pretzels. Almost.

  “C’mon, Jaine,” Darryl said, pulling me up from the sand. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Why? Can’t you two keep fighting over me just a little while longer? At least until I run out of pretzels.”

  “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you were in a dream with George Clooney?” Darryl said. “Someone got murdered!”

  Omigosh, he was right.

  “You’d better wake up ASAP.”

  I tried to force myself awake, but I was trapped in the dream. And what’s worse, George and Darryl had vanished. Suddenly I was no longer on the beach, but in the ocean, under water, the waves churning around me. I tried to push up to the surface, but something was holding me down.

  And then I realized this was no dream. This was really happening!

  I was still in the jacuzzi, and someone was trying to drown me!

  I thrashed and kicked to no avail. Oh, God, the water was coming up my nose. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the hands that were holding me down released me.

  Coughing and gasping for air, I came bursting up out of the water.

  After I’d finally managed to catch my breath, I looked around to see who’d attacked me. But whoever had done it was long gone.

  I stumbled out of the jacuzzi and wrapped myself in my spa robe, shivering in spite of all that hot water I’d been soaking in.

  On shaky legs, I headed up the path to the main house.

  For a minute I wondered if maybe I had dreamed the whole thing, after all. Had I simply fallen asleep and slipped underwater?

  No, it couldn’t be. I’d felt those hands on my head, pushing me down. They were real, all right.

  And that could mean only one thing.

  The killer had struck again.

  Chapter 21

  I skipped cocktail hour that night, opting instead to cower in bed, curled in a fetal position.

  “Oh, Pro,” I moaned, burrowing under the covers, “someone tried to drown me in the jacuzzi! It was awful, just awful! All that water in my nose! I couldn’t breathe! I honestly thought I was going to die!”

  Prozac, who had been napping on her treadmill, scurried to my side, shooting me a moony-eyed look that could mean only one thing:

  Thank God you’re still alive! Now you can go out to the car and get me some more cat food.

  With that, she began her patented Feed Me dance on the bedspread.

  Oh, groan. How was I going to break it to her? There was no more cat food.

  “Pro, sweetie,” I said, scratching her favorite spot behind her ears. “I’m so sorry. All I bought was one emergency can, and you already ate it. But I promise I’ll run into town and get you another right after dinner.”

  Her eyes widened in disbelief.

  Just one emergency can? And you call yourself a cat owner?

  I thought for sure I was in for a major yowlfest, but once she realized there was no chow forthcoming, she just stalked out to the patio, her tail swishing in irritation.

  I resumed my fetal position, staring at some water stains on the ceiling, cursing the day I’d ever checked into The Haven. Maybe I should call a halt to my investigation and wait for Brangelina to find the culprit on their own. But Lord only knew how long that would take—and how many more three-hundred calorie meals I would have to suffer through.

  Besides, I couldn’t let the killer intimidate me. I’d be a disgrace to part-time semi-professional P.I.s everywhere.

  No, I’d hang tough and pick up where I’d left off.

  And so, after treating myself to a hot shower—and an Altoid that had escaped Olga’s eagle eye—I left Prozac out on the patio, and joined my fellow murder suspects for dinner.

  “So who did it?” I asked Cathy, as I sat beside her at the “B” table. “Who killed Mallory?”

  When we last left Cathy, if you recall, she was convinced she’d figured out who the killer was.

  “Well,” she said, carefully selecting a radish from our crudite plate, “at first I was sure it was her ex-husband. I read in the tabloids they went through a really messy divorce.”

  “But doesn’t he live in Australia?” I asked, remembering the down under hunk Mallory had been married to for about fifteen minutes.

  “Yes,” she conceded. “And on the day of the murder he was supposedly shooting a movie on location in Sydney. But I figured maybe he got a stunt double to take his place while he flew to the States on a private jet and strangled Mallory. But the more I thought of it, the more it seemed a bit farfetched, huh?”

  “Maybe just a tad.”

  “Then I figured it had to be Kendra. Anyone could see she hated her sister’s guts. But then, Olga hated Mallory, too, for threatening to ruin The Haven. And Harvy must’ve been furious when Mallory decided to stop payment on his check. And just when I was convinced Harvy did it, I thought of Shawna. Surely she felt like strangling Mallory, the way she’d been making a play for Sven.”

  Yadda yadda, blah blah. Tell me something I hadn’t already thought of.

  “But now,” she announced, waving her radish with a flourish, “I’m pretty sure I know who did it, after all.”

  “Who?”

  “Delphine,” she nodded smugly.

  “The maid? Why on earth would Delphine want to kill Mallory?”

  But I d
idn’t get to find out why, because just then Olga came marching over with our fresh weed salads, tossed as usual, in a piquant Pine-Sol dressing.

  “Eat hearty, gals,” she said, dumping the plates in front of us.

  “Looks yum!” said Cathy, the little toady.

  “So why did Delphine kill Mallory?” I repeated in a hushed whisper, the minute the Diet Nazi had goose-stepped away.

  “Oh, I haven’t figured out that part yet,” Cathy replied breezily, “but Delphine’s such a sneak, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

  Right, Cath. When solving a mystery, who needs a pesky little thing like a motive?

  “Delphine is just like Dawn Drummond,” she said, spearing her weeds with gusto.

  “Dawn Drummond?”

  “A gal I work with at the Piggly Wiggly.” Cathy lowered her voice to a whisper, as if about to impart classified military secrets. “I personally have seen Dawn spill ketchup on a People magazine during her lunch break, and then put it back on the magazine rack!”

  I did my best to look horrified.

  “The woman is utterly unscrupulous. The week she was in charge of watering the Christmas poinsettias, three of them died!”

  As she rambled on about Dawn’s many foibles, I let my gaze wander to the “A” table, where Harvy, Kendra, and Clint were sneaking shots of booze from a flask. Indeed they were feeling no pain, giggling like naughty school kids, hiding the flask when Olga came out from the kitchen, then whipping it out when she went back in.

  The few times they glanced in my direction, it was not, I regret to inform you, with a jolly wave, or to ask me if I’d care for a wee bit ’o booze. Indeed, I seemed to be high on their Most Likely to be Shunned for All Eternity list.

  Dinner slogged on. Our Pine-Sol salads were whisked away, replaced by the main course—pork loin ala Kevin. Which is to say, a most depressing shade of gray. Stylish, perhaps, on a Prada suit. Not so hot on a piece of pork. I picked at it listlessly, wondering how Kevin managed to decolorize absolutely everything he cooked.

  Meanwhile Cathy was still on a toot about Disgraceful Dawn—yammering about her deplorable habit of pilfering grapes from the produce section—when I happened to glance up and see something that made my blood freeze.