Elaine Viets & Victoria Laurie, Nancy Martin, Denise Swanson - Drop-Dead Blonde (v5.0) (pdf)

by Drop-Dead Blonde (epub)

  ``Yeah,'' I said, still uneasy, ``I know she's the obvious choice here, but I'm just not buying it. My intuition says it wasn't her.''

  Millicent darted a look at me, interest lighting up her features. ``You mean your psychic sense can tell she didn't do it?''

  I thought about that for a moment and nodded my head. ``Yeah, that's right. My intuition says that it wasn't Deirdre. BLIND SIGHTED 295 In fact,'' I added as I shifted into psychic mode for a mo- ment, ``my intuition is screaming that there was more than one killer. I keep seeing the number two, so my guess is that one lured her down to the deck, and the other stabbed her to death.''

  ``Deirdre and her manager!'' Cat said, excited to put the pieces together.

  ``Yes!'' Millicent hurried, catching on to Cat's excite- ment. ``It makes perfect sense!''

  One skeptical eyebrow shot upward as I gave both women an unconvinced look. ``Ladies, ladies . . .'' I began, trying to insert a little reason into the lynch mob forming in front of me. ``Listen, I think it's fairly safe to say that at this point we don't know who did it, and I believe it's best if we let the police handle--''

  ``Oh, Abby, grow up,'' my sister interrupted, swatting away my good reasoning with a small condescending flick of her hand.

  ``Excuse me?'' I asked, offended.

  ``You know very well the police aren't interested in any- thing that's going to involve work, and since Deirdre is the most obvious suspect, it's clear they'll focus on her to make the murder stick. And if she didn't do it . . . well, I think we should absolutely devote the rest of our stay here to helping them discover who did.''

  I ogled my sister for a full ten seconds. She couldn't be serious. ``Are you crazy?'' I finally spat, looking to Milli- cent for support, only to find her excitedly nodding her blue haired head in support of Cat.

  ``Oh, come on, Abby! We can do this! We can solve this crime! We have everything we need between the three of us--especially given our considerable resources,'' my sis- ter persisted.

  ``And what exactly are our `considerable resources'?'' I asked caustically, folding my arms stubbornly across my chest.

  ``Well, there's your sixth sense,'' Cat said, ticking off her index finger and directing it toward me, ``and Millicent's trusting appearance--I'll bet you know everything about every one of your neighbors, don't you, Millicent?''

  ``Absolutely.'' Millicent nodded, ``People will tell a little old lady just about anything,'' she added smugly. 296 Victoria Laurie

  ``And then, of course, there's my money--which has opened many a door, let me tell you,'' Cat said triumphantly.

  ``Cat,'' I said sternly, wanting her to see reason, ``this is crazy! There is no way I'm going to be party to this. I'm tired,'' I insisted, ticking off on my hand, ``I haven't slept in, like, days, the sun is coming up, I'm still pale, and I want my vacation!''

  ``Fine,'' Cat said, giving me her ``I'm sooooo disap- pointed in you'' look and turning to wrap an arm around Millicent. ``If you won't help us then Millicent and I will just have to work this case without you. Come on, Millicent; let's go see what we can dig up.'' And with that the pair actually turned and began to walk away from me.

  I slapped the top of my forehead and snarled in frustra- tion. My sister lived to play dirty. ``Fine!'' I said when they'd taken several steps away.

  ``Pardon me?'' Cat called over her shoulder. ``Did you say something?''

  I took a very deep breath and hissed it out through clenched teeth. ``I said, `Fine,' as in I will help you, but only after I take a nice long nap, and only if you promise that the moment this gets hairy we will turn over what we know to the police,'' I added, my voice all business.

  Millicent and Cat nodded their heads vigorously, their eyes large with innocence, which I wasn't buying for a second.

  ``That's very fair,'' Cat said happily. ``Now why don't you go on to bed and we'll come for you in a few hours, okay?''

  I nodded dully and was about to turn away when I re- membered that Millicent hadn't slept all night either. Tiredly I turned back to the two of them and asked, ``Milli- cent, aren't you exhausted too? Shouldn't you get a couple hours' sleep before we start snooping around?''

  ``Oh, no,'' Millicent replied, a huge smile spreading across her face. ``I'm fine. I rarely sleep more than a few hours a night anyway. Been an insomniac all my life, and it's never been as exciting as it was last night. I could go all day without any trouble at all. Well . . .'' she added, looking down, ``perhaps I should just change into some new clothes first. All the blood might scare people.''

  Cat nodded and took Millicent by the arm, walking her BLIND SIGHTED 297 in the direction of the gift shop. ``Come on, Millicent; I know the perfect little ensemble for snooping. I saw it in the hotel store here yesterday. . . .'' And the two disap- peared around the corner.

  Watching them go, I sighed heavily and shuffled over to the elevator, waiting impatiently for the double doors to open. When they finally did I nearly ran smack dab into one of the Peace Twins who smirked at me as I mumbled my apologies. As she and her sister brushed by me my intuition began to buzz. Sleep-deprived and lethargic, I turned in the elevator slowly and cocked my head, listening for the message. The feeling that I had was that there was something not quite right about the two girls, and they deserved a second look. I was about to trudge out of the elevator after them when a family of four barreled in, blocking my exit, and just then the double doors closed. As the elevator moved up, my whole body ached with fa- tigue, and I figured that before I did any sleuthing I might as well get a little rest. I had a strong suspicion the twins weren't going anywhere with so many police personnel around. They'd still be there in a couple of hours, and I could follow up later. Looking back, I can't help but think that if I'd only followed them when I'd had the chance we could have saved ourselves a whole lot of extra time and effort. Chapter 4

  Around one o'clock that afternoon I'd pretty much gotten all the sleep I was going to get for the day and sluggishly rolled out of bed. My eyes felt itchy, my brain was foggy and my limbs dragged along behind me as I propelled my- self in the general direction of the shower. Sleep and I are great friends; in fact, I visit with the old guy regularly right around eleven every night, and leave him only when I've had my fill about eight hours later, so having to go through a twenty-four-hour period when I hadn't gotten a chance to linger with my dear friend for longer than a catnap was making me feel very neglected.

  Under the spray of the shower I managed to revive a little and clear some of the cobwebs from my sluggish thoughts. The idea of joining up with Cat and Millicent for some supersleuthing was never far from my mind, and I'd had some weird dream about the three of us walking around trying to find someone's lost cat and coming across Deirdre, who said that she'd seen the cat bouncing a bas- ketball and to look over by the pool. The dream ended with an image of Celeste lying dead and facedown in a pool of milk while a calico cat licked at the liquid and intermittently stopped to twirl a basketball with one paw.

  I wasn't even going to try to figure out what the hell my subconscious was trying to tell me.

  Just as I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair I heard my sister call from the bedroom, ``Abby?''

  I sighed heavily then yelled back, ``I'm in the shower! Be out in a minute!''

  Annoyed that I had to rush now, I quickly ran some conditioner through my hair, rinsed, and grabbed a towel

  298 BLIND SIGHTED 299 and my robe. I padded out to the sitting room, where Cat and Millicent sat bubbling with excitement.

  ``So what's up?'' I asked as I mopped at my hair with the towel.

  Millicent nearly squeaked with excitement as she said, ``Oh, we got such good dish!''

  ``Do tell,'' I said smiling at her enthusiasm and sitting down on one of the large chairs with brush in hand to comb out my wet hair.

  ``Well! Word has it that Deirdre wasn't doing so well in the finance department as of late. Her last two books bombed and we've learned that she just bought a huge house in Malibu that she's ha
ving a really hard time making the payments on. So in desperation she signs on her man- ager, a man named Mark Hamilton--I believe you're al- ready acquainted,'' she added, tongue in cheek.

  ``Are you talking about the guy in the tweed jacket who was sitting at our table and who manhandled me out of the hall last night?''

  ``Yes, that's the one.'' Millicent nodded. ``Anyway, Deir- dre talked him into bankrolling this seminar in order to lure people to her spiritual retreat in Hawaii. We hear Mark's background is selling timeshares there, and he agreed to put up the cash for this little shindig and split the profits with Deirdre on the Hawaii deal. The markup was ridicu- lous, from what I understand.''

  I nodded, remembering the ten-thousand-dollar price tag attached to the Hawaii adventure Deirdre had been peddling.

  ``So when Celeste got up onstage and ruined the whole thing, you can imagine how angry Mark must have been,'' Cat said, jumping into the conversation.

  ``Uh-huh,'' I agreed, working on a small tangle in my hair.

  ``'Uh-huh'?'' Cat demanded. ``That's all you have to say?''

  I stopped working on the tangle and stared at my sister, wondering why she'd suddenly become offended. ``Well, what would you like me to say?'' I asked.

  ``How about, `By Jove, Watson, I think you've solved the crime!' ''

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and settled on staring 300 Victoria Laurie pointedly at my sister. She had to be kidding. ``Cat,'' I began, forcing patience into my voice, ``first of all, while I will admit that it sounds like a pretty good lead, we're a long way from solving the crime. I mean, a lot of people get angry when they get screwed financially, but that doesn't mean they're willing to resort to murder.''

  ``Abby, you said yourself that another person was in- volved in the murder of Celeste. I remember looking at Mark after he'd pulled Deirdre and Celeste apart. He was furious!''

  I sighed again and sat down, my intuition humming slightly in the background of my thoughts. ``Okay, okay, it's motive, but I don't think that just that small piece of evidence we're going to convince the police that Mark did it.''

  ``So what would you suggest we do?'' Millicent asked, her large owl-like eyes blinking at me.

  I stood up again and looked at the two of them, resigna- tion settling in my shoulders. ``Well, let's do this: Let's go to the scene of the crime and see if my intuition can pick up anything to help tie Mark to the murder.''

  Cat and Millicent beamed at me as my sister jumped up and said, ``Perfect! I knew we could count on you! Go get dressed; we'll wait right here.''

  On lead feet I walked back to the bedroom and got dressed, still aching with sleep deprivation and wishing I hadn't suddenly agreed to use up more energy to play Sher- lock Holmes.

  Fifteen minutes later we were back in the lobby and I was standing just outside the pool entrance, which had been roped off by yellow crime scene tape and a gigantic sign that read, POOL CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

  Along the way, we had passed a long line of people hur- rying to check out of the hotel, and I really couldn't blame them, given the circumstances. Who wanted to stay in a hotel where someone had been stabbed in the back a half dozen times?

  I looked at the yellow tape and wondered what to do. It would be best if I could go out to the actual scene of the crime, but there was no way I wanted to risk getting caught snooping around--I was pretty sure it wasn't worth the trouble. BLIND SIGHTED 301

  ``Can you get a feel from out here?'' Cat asked, looking at me anxiously.

  ``I don't know. I hope so,'' I said leaning against the wall just to the side of the door. ``Cat, do me a favor and take some notes, okay? I'm going to try to tune in and just tell you my impressions. No matter how kooky they sound, just write them down.''

  I'd brought along a pad of paper and a pen and handed these to Cat.

  ``No problem, Abby,'' she said, taking them from me and waiting for my cue.

  I smiled gamely at Cat and Millicent, then closed my eyes and tried to clear away all other thoughts, centering my energy and concentrating. When I felt focused I shot my intuition like an arrow from a bow through the wall and over to where I thought Celeste had been murdered. Several images came to mind right away, and I began to rattle them off to Cat. ``The first thing I'm getting is the number two, as in two people were definitely involved. There's a feeling of betrayal, like I definitely think Celeste had a close connection to her killers. The next impression is something about a tree. . . . This is weird. . . .'' In my head swirled the image of an apple tree and as I watched an apple dropped to the ground. ``Something about apples or an apple tree, and now they're showing me poker chips . . . something about apples dropping and poker chips . . . hmmmm.'' I was having a hard time coming up with the meaning for these metaphors, but decided not to dwell on it. ``The next impression I'm getting is something about basketball, or someone who plays basketball. Also there's this image of a cat. . . .''

  ``Me?'' Cat asked.

  ``Uh . . . no . . . not you. It's more like someone's pet. . . . No, that's wrong. . . . I don't know, they keep showing me this calico cat, and there's a connection to Little House on the Prairie. . . .''

  ``Little House on the Prairie?'' Cat asked.

  ``Yeah, this calico cat is coming out of that school from Little House on the Prairie . . . remember? The one that Laura Ingalls and her sister Mary went to?''

  ``Abby, this is so bizarre,'' Cat said.

  I snapped my eyes open, frustrated that the clues were 302 Victoria Laurie so all over the place and completely nonsensical. ``Yeah, I know. This is so weird. My antenna doesn't work well when I'm tired, and I think maybe my guides are trying to help me by keeping it simple and just showing me pictures. I know there are some good clues here, but I'm not sure how they fit.''

  ``Well, maybe one of the killers has a cat and he likes to play basketball,'' Millicent suggested helpfully.

  I shrugged my shoulders. ``Yeah, maybe . . .''

  ``Only one way to find out,'' Cat said, and began walking toward the checkout counter.

  ``What's she doing?'' Millicent asked.

  ``I have no idea,'' I said, ``but if I know Cat, it's going to be good.''

  Millicent and I watched as my sister strolled around to the side of the desk and tapped one of the harried clerks on the shoulder. She then pulled the clerk aside and whis- pered in his ear. This was followed by emphatic head shak- ing on the part of the clerk, at which point Cat subtly reached into her purse and extracted several folded bills, delicately tucking them into the clerk's palm. After a slight moment of hesitation the clerk moved quickly over to his computer terminal, typed furiously on a few keys, scribbled something quickly down on a piece of paper, and handed it discreetly to Cat.

  Moments later she was back by our side, triumphantly waving a small piece of paper.

  ``What gives?'' I asked.

  ``Mark Hamilton's hotel room.''

  ``How is this going to help us?'' I asked.

  ``Well,'' Cat began patiently, ``what if there's something to what Millicent said and your guides are talking about someone who has a pet cat and who likes to play basket- ball? Mark Hamilton is certainly tall enough. . . .''

  ``Uh-huh,'' I said skeptically, not liking the direction this was taking.

  ``So I think we should just go ask him, and if all the clues about cats, basketball, apples, and poker chips fit, then we've found ourselves the killer. And the beauty of it is that he doesn't even have to know we know he did it! We can just thank him for his time and go directly to the police!'' BLIND SIGHTED 303

  ``Cat, that is the craziest thing you have ever--''

  ``What are we waiting for?'' Millicent said over me as she sauntered over to Cat and took her by the arm, and the two began trotting in the direction of the elevators.

  ``Coming, Abby?'' Cat said over her shoulder.

  ``Oh, for Christ's sake!'' I said, giving her the full eye roll before stomping after them just the same.

  Five minutes later Cat was kn
ocking confidently on Mark Hamilton's door, and after a short wait it opened abruptly to a bleary-eyed and much-disheveled man who looked like he'd just been run over by a Mack truck. The three of us recoiled as the smell of vomit filled the hallway from the open door.

  ``Yeah?'' he asked, swaying a little in the doorway.

  ``Good afternoon, Mr. Hamilton,'' Cat said gamely. ``We're so sorry to disturb you; however, we were wonder- ing if we could ask you a few questions?''

  Mark bobbled slightly in the doorway as he tried repeat- edly to focus his bleary, bloodshot eyes. ``Wha?'' he man- aged after a series of rapid blinks.

  ``Some questions?'' Cat tried again, ``We have a few questions for you?''

  ``You the police?'' he mumbled. `` 'Cause I've already talked to you guys once today . . .''