Sprayed Stiff

by Laura Bradley

  “Yes, Charlotte,” I interjected quickly. “I’m having more fun than I can stand.”

  “Let’s get you back to the action, then.” Trudy led the way back down the hall.

  “It’s going to be so cool to have you in the League, Reyn,” Charlotte began before we could take two steps toward the cavernous sunroom that opened into the gardens where most of the platters of hors d’oeuvres and fruit lay. “We’ll do our community service together.”

  As we wound our way through the assembled group, it seemed half the women were already drunk, while the other half were either pregnant or nursing and held tight to virgin mint juleps. I was so overwhelmed that I was ready for an IV line of Chardonnay. I stopped myself from reaching for one of the glasses being circulated by the tuxedo-clad caterers because I wanted to stay sharp while I got the dirt on Wilma.

  Charlotte hadn’t stopped talking, but that was her way. In the two years since she’d started coming to me to get her brunet curls trimmed, I’d mastered the art of listening to her on two planes. I could take in only certain words, enough to provide a believable answer, which freed me up to think of other things. Charlotte had a heart of gold and an unenviable life as the daughter of filthy rich, emotionally absent parents. I’d heard all about the nannies who’d raised her and even met the one the Holmeses kept on the payroll even though Charlotte was well into her twenties. She arrived to her appointments at Transformations in a chauffered white Mercedes. When I’d asked what the special occasion was, Charlotte looked at me like I’d spoken Chinese. Finally, she explained she had a driver because her parents considered it “too dangerous” out on the road for her ever to be behind the wheel. She was book-smart, having graduated from the top private school in San Antonio two years early as a CPA, but had been taught absolutely no common sense, which, personally, I considered more dangerous than driving.

  “So, do you want to, Reyn?” Charlotte popped an orange-glazed cookie in her mouth. She was a hundred pounds overweight because when she didn’t have anyone around to talk to, she ate. “Huh? What do you think about that?” She snatched a petit four off a passing tray and swallowed it without visibly chewing. “I think that would be the perfect place for you to meet new people.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte, what did you say?”

  Her brown eyes chastened while looking sorrowful. How did she do that? I wanted to learn how to do that. She sniffed. “I guess I was talking too much.”

  “Oh, no, Charlotte.” She was prone to erupting into fountains of tears. That was the last thing I needed. “You just have to forgive me. This is a whole new world, and I’m just trying to take it all in.”

  “I understand. I grew up with it, so this is nothing new, and I know how someone who really didn’t have money or social position or marry well would have a hard time getting with the program here.”

  Did I mention Charlotte didn’t have any couth either? Money, social position, and marrying well weren’t ambitions of mine, so what she said didn’t really bother me. Now, good legs, that was another thing entirely.

  Speaking of good legs, the best pair I knew had wandered off to talk to a trio of women. Trudy laughed at something one of them said, and I felt a pang of jealousy that she would fit in so well in a world I was not comfortable in. It was silly, I knew, to feel that way, but emotions were rarely logical. Bad luck for me, since emotional was my middle name.

  Charlotte dove back to the table for another meatball, and a pair of twentysomethings who had on more gold than was held in Fort Knox paused before me. “Isn’t that a Mitchell Saunders?” the blonde asked.

  I tried to look encouraging, when in fact I could not for the life of me remember if that was the name of the designer Daffy was so proud of.

  “Of course it is,” the brunette answered. “Jerry Hall was wearing it in the last issue of W.”

  The blonde eyed me critically. “You know it’s not appropriate here, but I guess if I could afford it, I would’ve worn it, too, just to make everyone else sick with envy. I’m sure a lot of girls here will be scrambling to catch up with this by tomorrow.”

  The brunette nodded in agreement, and they walked off while I wondered what planet I was on. Who wanted to “catch up” with a fashion disaster besides Joan Rivers and Mr. Blackwell?

  I looked around and noticed that, like the Bobbsey Twins who’d just critiqued me, most of the women my age were wearing some combination of black pants or skirt and denim. It was so prevalent it almost resembled a uniform. Well, damn, someone could have told me. Why hadn’t Trudy told me wearing her mom’s suit would make me overdressed? For punishment, no doubt. Someone walked by wearing a denim jacket trimmed in ostrich feathers. That made me feel a little better. I didn’t think I looked quite that goofy.

  “Serena.” Charlotte, having reappeared with her mouth half full of meatball, clamped a hand on Ostrich Feather’s forearm. “You have to meet a friend of mine, Reyn Marten Sawyer.”

  I nodded politely. Serena Ostrich Feather looked irritated, but nodded back and smiled stiffly. She extended her perfectly manicured hand and fluttered it amid the feathers. It never touched my hand. A handshake version of the air kiss. “Nice to meet you. Are you joining us?”

  “Ah, yes, I guess so.”

  “You’ll meet so many people who can help you. You’re not married, are you?” She looked at my left hand, and I felt like I was in a singles bar. “No, you’re not. Great. See that woman over there, the one in the Valentino, with the Gucci purse and that David Yerman we are all dying for? She’s got a son who just got out of A&M med school after getting his degree from Harvard Law. Word is he’s going to go with the number-one medical malpractice firm in the nation—they offered him more than he’d make as an M.D., even one with a specialty. He’s visiting home for two weeks before he gets started with his practice. You’ve just got to meet him. Makes me wish I weren’t married; an architect really doesn’t measure up to that.”

  The ostrich feathers flew off. I was just getting ready to beg off sick when I passed a group of three women and heard Wilma’s name.

  “I hate to say she deserved it, but Wilma was so mean, especially to the provisionals. I bet she ran off half of each year’s potential League members.”

  “She said she was practicing Darwinism, survival of the fittest. By giving them a hard time, she weeded out the weak provisionals, making the League stronger.”

  I sidled up to the group and tried to look innocent. “Uh, I’m going to be a provisional. Is she someone I should look out for?”

  “Not anymore. We’re talking about Wilma Barrister. She was murdered last night in her house. And it’s good news for you,” added the caramel blonde with the hairdo Trudy had tried to get me to emulate, her critical sweep of my outfit telling me I’d have had a lot to worry about if Wilma were still around.

  “Now, Charis, don’t be so heartless,” the pal to her right with the same hairdo chimed in, although I wasn’t sure whether she was chiding her for her comment to me or the one about Wilma. “She was an amazing leader.”

  “Like Stalin,” Charis said under her breath.

  “Mrs. Barrister was an icon,” put in the third woman, also with the flip-out hair and a barrette like mine. “The fund-raising projects she headed up made more money than any others in the history of the JLSA. Programs she started had record-setting results.”

  “What about the programs she killed?” asked a short, dumpy woman who’d come up beside me. She was about my age and dressed worse than I was, in an off-the-rack suit that was ill-fitting in a way that made me think either she’d had it a long time or she’d lived with the tight shoulders and loose skirt because she got it cheap at a secondhand store. Her flyaway frizzy black hair was starting to spring out of its super-sprayed bun at the nape of her neck. She nodded and smiled, then extended her hand to me, which was more than the three others had done. “Mitzi Spagnetti.”

  I ignored the way they were looking down their noses at her, introduced myself
, then asked, “What programs did she, uh…” I couldn’t use the word “kill.” “Eliminate?”

  “Anything that didn’t directly have to do with children under the age of ten,” Mitzi said with more venom than seemed necessary.

  Before I could get to the source of her anger, Trudy appeared at my elbow. “Hi, Mitzi, I’m sorry I missed your meeting this morning. I’ll try to make the next one.”

  “Good news. We might not have to go underground anymore with the program. I just talked to Sonya, and she says we can present it again to put on the community service slate.”

  “What program?” I asked.

  “Outreach on preventing teenage pregnancy.” Mitzi lit up like a proud parent talking about her child. The sudden animation made her almost pretty. “Trudy worked with me when I chaired the program for a couple of years before the League pulled the plug on the money.”

  My friend in her micro-miniskirts counseled teens on abstinence? What other surprises lay in store for me?

  “The program was killed,” Mitzi continued, “but now it might come alive again.”

  The symbolism was a bit creepy, but she seemed so excited I didn’t comment beyond “Congratulations.”

  The three fashion stooges drifted off just as Charlotte bounced up. “Aren’t you having a blast, Reyn? Isn’t it fun? Isn’t this just the greatest, Trudy, having Reyn here with us in the League?”

  Trudy looked at me and raised her eyebrows in question.

  “I’m glad to meet someone like Mitzi. Someone who really wants to use her membership to make a difference.”

  “Not all of us think community service means taking the best eligible bachelor out of circulation.”

  I smiled at what I thought was a joke, but Mitzi wasn’t smiling. She seemed to take just about everything a little too seriously, but that probably boded well for the programs she worked on. No teens would dare get pregnant on her watch. I drew in a deep breath to bolster my good manners and caught a whiff of her cologne. It smelled vaguely familiar.

  Before I could place it, Daffy tip-tapped up on her four-inch black lizard-skin heels. Her perfectly liposuctioned hips and model C cups undulated beneath a gold and black checked dress that was surely out of place in the land of the denim and black uniform. Somehow it seemed to work for her as well as the rainbow raccoon wasn’t working for me. Go figure. Her five face-lifts had left her skin so tight across her cheekbones that I cringed when she blinked her false eyelashes. It looked like it might hurt. “Thank Gucci I found you, Reyn, dahling. The membership chair just asked me for your application. Did you remember to bring it?”

  “I left it in the car. Let me go get it.”

  I wound my way back through the throng to the front door, pausing only a couple of times when I heard Wilma’s name mentioned. One group was reliving the gory details of the murder according to the gossip mill, which had her possibly dismembered after being shot. Someone had heard she was wearing bad makeup, which got answering gasps of horror and one terrible speculation that it was—horrors—Revlon.

  I was still shaking my head over that one as I rounded the bush I had parked behind.

  Suddenly, I felt a hand reach around from behind me and grab the V neckline of my suit. Fur bunched up my nose. I knew it. A militant animal-rights activist had followed me out of the party and was about to strangle me for wearing raccoon.

  Nine

  I WAS PRESSED AGAINST A HARD BODY. I wiggled against some interesting testosterone-inspired contours and began to think being assaulted by this particular PETA member might not be all bad.

  “Don’t move,” he warned, squeezing me more tightly. “I think I’ve got it under control.”

  “Got what?”

  “Don’t look now, but you’ve been attacked by a psychedelic raccoon that’s thrown up all over your suit. Oh, wait! I see why he got sick—he ate off the toes and heels of your shoes.”

  It was just my luck that it was Scythe and not a hunky animal-rights activist. I wanted to stab his foot with my Plexiglas spike heel, but before I could, I started feeling his body heat through the tweed and got distracted. Damned hormones.

  “You know,” he added thoughtfully, straining to look down around my fur, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your toes. You always have boots on.”

  With a herculean effort, I shoved his hand off my raccoon and separated my backside from his frontside. I spun to face him. He looked me up and down, then burst out laughing.

  I jutted my chin in the air. Pride comes in handy sometimes, especially when you’re dressed like a buffoon in front of the man you have wet dreams about on a regular basis. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head, though the rusty laughter had slowed to a rumbling chuckle. “That’s a tall order.”

  “I don’t want you to excuse me, you idiot. I was politely asking you to excuse yourself for accosting me.”

  “I guess we should go in order. Did the raccoon already apologize?”

  I arched my eyebrows, folded my arms across my midriff, and tapped my Plexiglas toe.

  “Oh-ho. You hang out for a couple of hours with the upper crust and suddenly you’re hoity-toity.”

  “You know what they say about the company you keep,” I said archly with a pointed glance at his bad haircut.

  That wiped the last vestiges of the smile off his face. He didn’t know I’d guessed about Zena. Did he feel guilty about dating her, or was he serious about her? Before I could analyze the issue, he nailed me with his laser blues. I smelled something stinky blow by on the evening breeze and used it as an excuse to look away from him. Had something really barfed on my suit? No, that wasn’t quite the odor. Scythe put his hand on my elbow to get my attention again. “What are you doing here, Reyn?”

  I smiled. “Rushing the Junior League.”

  “Right.” He shook his head in frustration. “Really. Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I told you. Ask anyone. I’m turning in my application to be a provisional today.”

  Scythe shook his head and stuck his hands in the pockets of his starched khakis and balled them into fists. He drew them out and ran his right hand through his hair. “You’re here nosing around about Wilma Barrister. Reyn, I told you to stay out of it. I let you out of—”

  I raised my eyebrows before he could say “jail.”

  “—my sight for a couple of hours, and you’re in trouble again.”

  “What trouble am I in?”

  “Fashion trouble. Look in the mirror.”

  “With your haircut, you can’t give anyone advice about what’s in fashion and what’s not.” I paused while he tried hard not to look insecure.

  “With your fingerprints in the victim’s lap, you have no cause to sound high-and-mighty,” he threw back after a moment.

  “Her lap? I swear I wasn’t doing anything kinky with Wilma. The cat was the only one in her lap.”

  “There was a videotape.” Scythe arched both eyebrows, and that said it all.

  The porn tape. Argh. “I was just trying to get the cat off.”

  “The cat? One would think you were getting Wilma off, then offed her.” Scythe grinned. Big. Jerk.

  Uh-oh. “What was the video? I mean, what was the title?”

  “Daring Duos Doing It,” Scythe answered sternly, then busted up laughing.

  I sniffed. The rank smell was nearby, not just on the breeze. It was dog doo.

  “Now that you’ve provided some comic relief, it’s time for you to stay out of the investigation,” Scythe ordered, completely sobered up from his little titter fit.

  “I’ll stay out of the Barrister murder when you are on the right track,” I put in with a chin jut for emphasis.

  “And what track is that?”

  “That Lexa didn’t do it. That the person who did it is a major whack job who had a personal vendetta against Wilma and wanted to tarnish her image and that of her family. Anyone who would risk the time to defile her with the makeup and sprayed-
stiff hair killed her for a bigger reason than just to be rid of her. The case could hinge on whether the makeup and hair job was done posthumously or not. Surely the medical examiner could tell you that.”

  “Why do you think it matters? Maybe Wilma did it herself.”

  “Believe me, the woman wasn’t flirting with the idea of becoming a rodeo clown, then accidentally met a bullet. When you get to know Wilma, you’ll know she’d only look like a clown over her dead body.”

  “I guess she proved that.”

  “The hard way,” I admitted, then looked at the soles of my shoes and the ground around where we were standing. No poo.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” He pulled a Ziploc containing a brush and a bottle of Main Mane triple-super-extra-hold out of his jacket’s interior pocket. Some brown stuff was smeared on the inside of the bag.

  “Gross!” I backed up a couple of steps and nearly fell off my Plexiglas perch. “What kind of guy goes around with a bag full of dog doo in his jacket pocket?”

  “A guy investigating a murder. It’s better than blood.”

  I grimaced. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Could this have been what was used on Wilma’s hair?”

  “Where did you get this?”

  “From inside a doggie-doo scooper sitting next to a trash can in the alley a block from the Barrister home. An enterprising patrol officer found it.”

  I wrinkled my nose harder. For some reason, knowing what was smelling made it stink worse. “I hope he got a commendation for reaching in and getting it.”

  “He called Manning to take care of that.”

  That made me smile.

  “Check for Wilma’s hair.” I studied the bristles through the plastic. They looked like they’d been picked clean, but I saw a couple of potentially conclusive broken strands of hair. “The hairspray will be a match, though. No question, this is what lacquered her hair to a standstill. It’s a shame the company couldn’t use this as a selling point.”

  “What did you find out in there?” Scythe nodded toward the house.