Pampered to Death

by Laura Levine

  Oh, gosh. There was that killer smile again.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to go out with me the next time I come to L.A?”

  Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!

  “Sure,” I managed to gulp.

  Then he came out from behind the counter in his chambray workshirt and faded jeans.

  By now my heart was the consistency of chocolate pudding.

  “I wanted to show you our special of the day.”

  And with that, he took me in his arms and hit me with the smooch I’d been dreaming of.

  All I can say is that when we finally came up for air, I was one satisfied customer.

  I headed to my car, still basking in the glow of Darryl’s kiss. Reaching into my pocket for my keys, I saw Cathy’s sales slip fall out. I picked it up and was about to shove it back when I saw something that made me forget all about Darryl and his fabulous lips.

  The name on the credit card receipt was not Cathy Kane but Lorraine Sandoval.

  Had I picked up someone else’s receipt?

  No, Cathy’s eight Snickers bars were listed right there.

  So who the heck was Lorraine Sandoval?

  It wasn’t until I was halfway back to The Haven that I remembered the Mexican guy who crashed his car getting mangoes for Mallory. Pablo, the assistant director. The night I ran into Kendra and Harvy at the Pizza parlor, Kendra said Pablo had been injured badly, that he’d wound up in a wheelchair.

  Suddenly a scenario began to take shape in my mind.

  What if Cathy/Lorraine was a relative of Pablo’s? After all, Sandoval was a Hispanic name. True, Cathy didn’t look Hispanic. But what if she was his wife? A wife who’d watched her husband lose the use of his limbs all because of Mallory’s idiotic obsession with mangoes.

  For years she’d seethed with resentment, until one day she decided to take action. She showed up at The Haven, pretending to be a daffy supermarket checker, all the while plotting to murder the woman who’d ruined her husband’s life.

  Could it be? Was it possible that all Sven and Shawna were guilty of was theft? And that the woman I knew as Chatty Cathy was the real killer?

  Chapter 25

  Olga was in the lobby when I got back, making some notes at the reception desk.

  For once I was glad to see her. I needed to speak with Kendra, and I had no idea which room she was in.

  “Hey, Olga.”

  She looked up at me and sniffed suspiciously.

  “I smell food,” she said, staring at the bulges in my sweats.

  Out of habit, I’d stashed my goodies in my pockets.

  She got up and walked over to me, clad in a somewhat ratty chenille bathrobe, her silver-laced braid dangling down her back.

  Ordinarily I would have been trembling in fear before the Diet Nazi. But not now. I had a killer to catch, and I didn’t have time for her nonsense.

  “Pastrami!” she exclaimed, with a triumphant sniff. “It’s pastrami, isn’t it?”

  “Good for you,” I said. “Pastrami and swiss on rye. With a Dove Bar for dessert. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, tell me: Where’s Kendra’s room?”

  She gasped at my impudence.

  “Just because it’s your last night here,” she snapped, “doesn’t mean you can cheat. Hand it over.”

  She held out her open palm.

  “I will not hand it over!” I snapped right back. “You want a pastrami sandwich, you’ll have to drive over to Darryl’s and get your own.”

  Her mouth formed a tiny Cheerio of surprise.

  “Now where the hell,” I said, grabbing her by her chenille lapels, “is Kendra’s room?”

  “Upstairs,” she said meekly. “Number seven.”

  Wow, if I’d known it would be this easy standing up to her, I would’ve tried it ages ago.

  “Here,” I said, tossing her my Dove Bar as I raced up the stairs. “Don’t eat it all in one bite.”

  Seconds later, I was banging on Kendra’s door.

  I waited impatiently in the hallway until she finally answered it—clad in sexy baby dolls, her hair tousled, the room behind her shrouded in darkness.

  “Sorry if I woke you,” I said.

  “What do you want?” she asked, with more than an edge of irritation in her voice.

  “Remember that assistant director in Mexico, the one Mallory sent to get mangoes in a hurricane?

  “Pablo, yes.”

  “Do you remember his last name?”

  She scratched her head. “Gee, I don’t know. Sanchez? Fernandez? Jimenez?”

  A fat lot of help she was.

  “I know his last name.”

  A shadowy figure got up from the bed and walked over to us. Or I should say swaggered over. It was none other than macho action hero, Clint Masters, who’d apparently been making a special guest appearance on Kendra’s mattress. There he was, naked as the day he was born. Except for the maraboutrimmed robe he was holding up in front of his privates.

  Whether it was his or Kendra’s, I had no idea.

  “Sure, I remember Pablo’s last name,” he said. “It was Sandoval. Pablo Sandoval.”

  Bingo.

  I left Kendra’s room, convinced that Chatty Cathy aka Lorraine Sandoval was the killer. It all made perfect sense.

  I had to call Brangelina right away and tell them the news.

  But I never did get around to it. Because when I got back to my room, I was in for a most unpleasant surprise.

  Prozac was missing.

  “Prozac, honey,” I called out. “Look what Mommy’s got you. Yummy smoked salmon!”

  But there was no patter of little paws skittering to my side.

  And right away I knew something was wrong.

  That cat can smell food in Des Moines. She should have been howling at my ankles doing her Feed Me dance.

  I hurried to the patio, hoping she might be having a close encounter with her litter box, but no such luck. Then, remembering last night’s koi caper, I checked the patio screen. Kevin had stopped by to fix the gap in the mesh earlier that afternoon. But now I saw it had come loose again.

  Damn that Kevin. The kid gave new meaning to the word incompetent.

  Figuring Prozac had clawed her way out, I headed straight to where I knew I’d find her: The koi pond.

  But much to my disappointment, she was nowhere in sight.

  By now I was beginning to panic. The Haven was surrounded by woods. What if coyotes were lurking nearby, just waiting to pounce on my precious kitty?

  Frantically I started searching the grounds. I checked the garbage pail outside the kitchen (hoping I’d find her swan diving for scraps), the pool area (terrified I’d find her floating in the water), and the organic garden (I knew I’d never find her there).

  Then, just as I was passing by the gym, I heard the blessed sound of meowing inside.

  Flinging the door open, I breathed a sigh of relief to see Prozac sitting in a shaft of moonlight.

  Thank God there wasn’t a koi hanging from her mouth.

  I hurried toward her—wondering for the first time how she’d been able to open the door—when suddenly a walloping shove in my back sent me sprawling to the floor.

  Behind me, I heard the door slam shut and the overhead fluorescent lights click on. When I looked up, I saw Cathy standing over me, wielding one of The Haven’s heavy metal exercise bars.

  Gone was the silly dingbat who’d been plaguing me with her chatter. In her place was a steely-eyed gal with alarmingly beefy muscles.

  “Game’s over, Jaine,” she said, slapping the exercise bar into her open palm. “I saw you pick up my sales receipt.”

  For a minute I considered playing innocent, pretending I had no idea what she was talking about, but I could tell from the steel in her eyes I’d be wasting my time.

  “Now we can do this the hard way,” she said, “where I bash in your skull right now.”

  I cringed as she swung the exercise bar just inches from my head.
/>   “Or we can go the easy way, where you do what I say and there’s no bloodshed.”

  “Plan B,” I said. “I vote for Plan B.”

  “Wise choice. Now get up and start walking. Over there.”

  She pointed to the Fat Vat.

  You remember the Fat Vat, don’t you, that detested egg-shaped contraption Olga used to measure my flab? Now it hovered ominously in the far corner of the room.

  What on earth was Cathy/Lorraine up to? Whatever it was, I doubted she’d be doing any measuring.

  Prozac, sensing I was in extreme danger, sprang into action and hid behind a treadmill.

  I thought of making a run for it, too, but I couldn’t risk it. Not with that exercise bar just inches from my cranium. I had to keep Cathy/Lorraine talking and pray someone noticed the light from under the gym door.

  “So you’re Pablo Sandoval’s wife,” I said, as I struggled up from the floor.

  “Pablo was my hubby, all right. Met him down in Acapulco on vacation. Fell head over heels in love. But then that bitch Mallory came along and ruined everything. Her and her goddamn mangoes.”

  I tutted in sympathy, hoping to worm my way into her good graces.

  “Pablo wound up in a wheelchair, and I spent the next fifteen years taking care of him. He finally died last spring. Shot himself in the mouth.” She barked out a bitter laugh. “It’s a wonderful life, huh?”

  “How awful for you!”

  Maybe if I convinced her I was on her side, she’d let me go. I just had to keep nodding and tsking and being her friend.

  “Thank God Pablo took out a life insurance policy. It gave me the money I needed to even the score with Mallory. When the little publicity whore tweeted she was going to be staying at The Haven, I decided to book a trip of my own. It was high time she paid for her sins.

  “Absolutely!” I commiserated. “Justice served and all that. There’s not a jury in the land that would convict you!”

  “But I couldn’t check in as Lorraine Sandoval. I’d be the first one the cops suspected when Mallory was bumped off. I needed another identity. So my cousin Cathy loaned me her driver’s license and credit cards.”

  “How nice of her,” I chimed in, still playing her BFF.

  “Well, she didn’t exactly loan them to me. Not willingly. Actually she put up a bit of a struggle. Which is why I had to kill her.”

  “You killed your own cousin?”

  “Oh, we weren’t very close,” she replied breezily. “But luckily we share a family resemblance. It really helped with the photo ID.”

  Holy Moses! This woman had now entered the serial killer zone.

  “Fortunately Cathy had few friends to speak of. And she was on vacation from her job at the Piggly Wiggly. So nobody even knows she’s missing.”

  She shot me a sly smile.

  “Except you, of course.”

  Gulp.

  “You know, I warned you to mind your own business.”

  “So it was you who tried to drown me that day at the jacuzzi.”

  “Of course it was me. You were snooping around too damn much. Why do you think I kept hanging around, helping you ‘solve’ the crime? I wanted to keep an eye on you.”

  I kicked myself for never suspecting her.

  “Too bad we had to bump into each other at the market tonight. My cousin had maxed out her credit cards, so I was reduced to using my own. If only I hadn’t dropped my receipt. Rotten luck, wasn’t it, hon?”

  I didn’t like the look in her eyes. A lot like Prozac’s when she’s about to pounce on my pantyhose.

  “I figured you’d figure out the truth, so when I got back to The Haven, I cut open your patio screen and your darling kitty was only too happy to jump into my arms and act as bait to my little trap.”

  By now we’d reached the Fat Vat.

  “I can’t very well let you go running to the cops, can I?” Cathy/Lorraine asked with a deadly smile.

  “Oh, but I won’t! It’ll be our little secret. Honest. Cross my heart.”

  Somehow I failed to convince her.

  “In you go!” And without any further ado, she opened the door to the Fat Vat and shoved me inside.

  So much for BFFs.

  Then she slammed the door shut and jammed her exercise bar under the levered handle.

  “There.” She smiled, satisfied. “Tight as a drum.”

  Her voice was faint through the thick walls of the vat.

  Oh, God. This thing was like a coffin. I sat on its tiny metal bench, peering out from the reinforced glass window, with barely any room to move. With each breath I took, I could feel myself sucking up the air inside.

  “With any luck,” Cathy/Lorraine said, “you’ll run out of oxygen in an hour or so. And if not, it won’t matter. I’ll be on a plane to a faraway country that doesn’t believe in extradition.

  “Ta ta,” she said with a jaunty wave, and started for the door.

  She couldn’t just leave me to die like this. I’d rather have been conked over the head with the exercise bar.

  I started screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “Don’t waste your breath, hon,” she called back over her shoulder. “Nobody will be able hear you. Not from inside that thing.”

  And then, with a final wave, she was gone.

  Panic rising, I tried to open the Fat Vat’s door from the inside, working the handle as hard as I could, but it was jammed tight thanks to that damn exercise bar. I tried smashing the window with my running shoe, but the glass was like steel.

  Finally, hoping against hope someone would hear me, I pounded on the window, screaming for help. But it was no use.

  I cursed myself for all the oxygen I’d wasted. Who knew how long I had left before I sucked it all up?

  Oh, God! I didn’t want to die. Not here. Not now. Not in a stupid Fat Vat!

  My only solace was the thought of Lance bawling his eyes out at my funeral, blaming himself for my untimely death.

  Yeah, right. If I knew Lance, he’d shed a few tears and then start making a play for one of the pallbearers.

  I was sitting there, promising God I would give up Chunky Monkey forever if only She’d get me out of this mess, when Prozac came trotting out from behind the treadmill.

  Dear, sweet, Prozac. I was going to miss her so! Her funny little Feed Me dance, her quaint habit of clawing my cashmere sweaters to ribbons, her pooping in my boots when she was pissed at me—

  Okay, so we had our issues, but doesn’t every couple?

  Now she looked up at me with big green eyes that seemed to say:

  Where the heck is my snack???

  And then it hit me.

  Prozac’s snack! It could be my ticket to salvation!

  Rummaging around in my pockets, I found the smoked salmon I’d bought for her at Darryl’s what seemed like centuries ago. I ripped open the plastic with my teeth, then held up a strip of the bright orange delicacy in the Fat Vat window.

  “Look!” I shouted. “Yummy smoked salmon!”

  Prozac’s eyes lit up with lust, and she began clawing at the door of the Fat Vat, somehow hoping to get it open.

  A waste of time, of course.

  This trick may have served her well with the kitchen cupboards at home, but it’d never work on the Fat Vat. The only way she’d be able to open the door was to dislodge that damn exercise bar.

  I banged on the glass window to get her attention, then waved the piece of salmon at eye level with the exercise bar.

  Now she got the idea. With an impressive leap, she landed on the exercise bar, hoping to get at the salmon. Unfortunately the bar didn’t budge, and don’t think she wasn’t mighty peeved. Even through the Fat Vat’s thick window I could hear her high decibel yowls of disappointment.

  But Prozac is nothing if not persistent.

  She tried again. And again. And again. After her fourth attempt, I thought I saw the exercise bar move.

  “Keep going, honey!” I shouted. “You’re almost there!” />
  And then, with one last flying leap, all those years of overeating finally paid off. The exercise bar gave way to her weight and came clattering to the ground.

  Thanks to my clever feline snackaholic, I was free!

  With trembling hands I let myself out of the Fat Vat, and scooped her up in my arms.

  “Oh, Prozac, sweetheart, how can I ever thank you?”

  You can start with that salmon.

  “Of course,” I said, quickly tearing her treat into bite sized morsels.

  She dug in with gusto, then gazed up at me in that cute little way she has, as if to say:

  What? No crème fraiche?

  This touching little reunion was interrupted when Olga came storming in to the gym in her chenille bathrobe, braid flying.

  “What on earth is going on? I heard your cat yowling all the way from my room.”

  I gave her a brief recap of recent events and she quickly put in a call to Brangelina, who managed to apprehend Cathy/ Lorraine just as she was about to board a connecting flight for Mozambique.

  Meanwhile Prozac and I were nestled in Olga’s kitchen, celebrating my escape from the Fat Vat with pastrami and smoked salmon. Plus a bonus slab of cheesecake.

  By now the other guests had woken up and wandered in to join us, eager to know what the fuss was all about.

  Unfortunately my mouth was filled with pastrami at the time, so Olga told them about my confrontation with Cathy. When she was finished, they gazed in my direction with newfound respect.

  “Why that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard!” Kendra said.

  “Amazing!” Clint agreed, flashing his pearlies in approval.

  “What a heroine!” Harvy gushed.

  I smiled modestly.

  “Can I pet her?”

  Huh???

  “Can I pet your cat? I can’t get over the way the little darling came to your rescue and saved your life.”

  Prozac preened.

  I don’t know what she’d do without me.

  Oh, for crying out loud. What about me? Jaine Austen? The gal who risked her life bringing Mallory’s killer to justice?

  “She’s such a pretty little thing,” Clint said, stroking her behind the ears. “And so well behaved. She ought to be in movies.”

  Prozac looked up at him with worshipful eyes and purred.