CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I return to my room exhausted. Shanelle, though, is awake enough for both of us.
“Good, you’re dressed.” She is wearing white capris and a strapless plaid bustier with a sweetheart neckline. “Let’s go get drinks.”
I flop onto my bed. “Are we at it again?”
“Of course we are! Is it or is it not sunset?”
“It’s sunset.” I roll over. “That’s why I want to go to sleep.”
She slaps my bottom. “Up! We’re on Oahu, we’re not going to sleep the day away unless we’re lying on the sand. Rise and shine, girl, we still got five or six hours of fun left.”
I force myself into a vertical position. “All right, but I’m drinking only wine tonight. And only one glass.”
“Fine.”
But when we get to the lobby lounge, Shanelle points in my direction and declares that I’ll have a Lava Flow. “And I’ll take a Chi Chi and, oh, Trixie!” Shanelle motions Trixie over from the general area of the macaw. Ms. Congeniality appears only too happy to oblige. “What do you want?”
“The usual,” Trixie says. “A Blue Hawaii. Hi, Happy. You look a tiny little wee bit tired. What have you been doing today?”
How do I explain?
“You’ll feel better after you have your drink,” Shanelle says. “Just relax and sin with the rest of us.”
“I told you I was having only wine. What is in that thing you ordered me?”
“Oh …” She looks away. “This and that.”
I find out it has rum and coconut cream, disaster in the making for both brain cells and thighs.
“Will your mom be joining us?” Trixie asks.
“No. I begged off. I spent most of the day with her today.” I did sneak in a little canoodling with Jason. It was sort of like being teenagers again. Of course, unlike years ago, this time foreplay involved reviewing six flat-screen TV brochures.
“How was the nail salon?” Shanelle asks me.
That questions launches us into a discussion of what I learned about Keola Kalakaua and Dirk Ventura. When that sordid tale has been told and dissected, we analyze the tidbit about Tiffany going to Sebastian Cantwell’s penthouse suite. The trifecta is completed with a dialogue about how Misty found out about Magnolia’s videotaping.
“Misty said another thing that I can’t get out of my head.” I set down my empty glass. “She said that if it weren’t for the effing videotape, pardon my French”—I nod at Trixie—“she’d be holding the title. But what about Tiffany? I’m pretty sure that going into the finale all of us thought Tiffany was most likely to win.”
“I sure did,” Trixie says.
“The reason she said that is simple.” Shanelle takes a bite of the pineapple wedge from her Chi Chi. “She knew she’d murder Tiffany before the finale ended. And, arrogant you-know-what that she is, she figured that with Tiffany gone, she’d win.”
“You’ve thought from the beginning that it was Misty who killed Tiffany,” I say to Shanelle.
“You got that right, sister.”
Trixie slaps her thighs. “Time to eat.”
Clearly we’ve all gotten a lot more casual about this murder thing. We talk about it, then we go on about our business. “You know what?” I stand up. “Let’s eat here at the hotel. It’s expensive and not much of an adventure but I’m pooped.”
“Fine with me,” Trixie says. “I haven’t used much of my per diem yet today so it’s a good night for it.”
Shanelle rises. “Let’s do the casual place downstairs, though, not the fancy fish restaurant.” Which has stratospheric prices, as if the seafood didn’t come from a few feet away.
We’re on the wide staircase that leads to the oceanfront café, scene of this morning’s food fight, when something occurs to me, probably because I have Sebastian Cantwell on the brain. “He’s got to be hating life,” I say. “He has to keep paying for all the contestants to stay here on Oahu until the cops release us to go home. Hotel and food. It’s already been two extra days and who knows how long it’ll end up being?”
“He’s so rich, though,” Trixie points out. “Why would he care?”
“Phooey on Cantwell,” Shanelle says. “I’m enjoying myself. Those cops should take their sweet time.”
We arrive at the café’s hostess stand. “The scene of the crime,” Trixie whispers. “The second crime.”
More of a misdemeanor, that one. I wonder if Misty will be able to get the egg stains off her white dress. Not that I care. Maybe Misty hates Tiffany so much because the two are so alike. Or maybe it’s because both came to Oahu with a high chance of winning the pageant and both committed the same misdeed—having an affair—but only one got caught. Of course Tiffany ended up paying the ultimate price, but none of us knows why.
Actually, I suppose one of us does.
It’s midweek and the hotel isn’t full so we score a desirable table on the open-air terrace that fronts the ocean. For a time we sit silently, not even reading the menus, just feeling the sea breeze on our skin and listening to the surf create its timeless music.
“If it weren’t for Lamar and Devon, I’d stay here forever,” Shanelle says.
“I know, I feel the same way,” Trixie says. “I wish Rhett were here.”
I can’t believe this. “Your husband’s name is Rhett? As in Butler?”
She nods. “It’s a southern thing. But my son’s name is Tag, after Rhett’s uncle. And my daughter’s named Tessa.”
“Why didn’t Rhett come to Oahu?” Shanelle asks.
“A so-called emergency with his mother. Don’t ask. Hey, look.” Trixie points toward the ocean. “A wedding.”
The aftermath, more like. A photographer is shooting pictures of the bride and groom, who are standing on the sand beaming into the lens. Various family members are off to the side watching, as are an astonishing number of bridesmaids in peach-colored satin and groomsmen with peach and white striped bow ties.
“I think the bride’s wearing Vera Wang,” Trixie says.
The gown is gorgeous. A strapless mermaid shape with an eyelet skirt.
“How do you know that’s Vera Wang?” Shanelle asks.
“That’s what I do,” Trixie says. “I work in a bridal shop.”
Off we go again, on another estrogen topic. It’s when we’re discussing how bridesmaid’s dresses have changed over the years that I happen to see a few tables away another pageant person, dining alone.
I lean in and whisper. “Rex Rexford’s over there. And he’s crying. No—” I grab Shanelle’s arm so she doesn’t turn all the way around to look. “Don’t be so obvious. I don’t want him to see us watching.”
Shanelle drops her napkin, then sneaks a peak as she bends down to retrieve it. She pops back up. “He loves to wear pink shirts, doesn’t he? I think it’s the wedding that’s got him going.”
“I think so, too,” Trixie says. “I wonder if he’s remembering Sonny.” Sonny Roberts. Soft rock icon of the fifties and sixties. He whose pompadour rose even closer to heaven than Rex’s. “They were together a long time,” Trixie adds. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Rex is still in mourning.”
Sonny Roberts went to his reward several years ago. I remember seeing pictures of his funeral in
People
, the white casket topped with an enormous bouquet of calla lilies, Rex walking alongside with bowed head. And white hanky deployed in pretty much the same position I see right now.
“It’s Sonny that got Rex into pageantry, isn’t it?” Shanelle asks.
“I think so,” I say. “Because Sonny was a judge so often, when he wasn’t doing Vegas. Though I think Sonny wasn’t getting gigs there so much anymore by the time Rex came along.”
“That’s because he was old as the hills by then,” Shanelle says. “But not too old to be Rex’s sugar daddy.”
“Sonny must’ve left him a bundle,” Trixie puts in. “Because he didn’t have any kids or anything.”
“I think Sonny remade Rex,” I say. “Remember how Rex sort of got transformed over the years? He started out pretty geeky.”
“He even had a different name,” Trixie says. “What was it? Something not so slick as Rex Rexford.”
It comes to me. “Ronald Bowser.”
“Though I’m not sure the name Rex Rexford is all that slick,” Shanelle sniffs. “Sounds like a soap opera name to me.”
I’m a little sensitive on that topic. My mother was very close to choosing Carrington as my stage name, after Alexis Carrington, Joan Collins’ character on
Dynasty
. To her that family represented the height of class. So there you have it.
“I think it’s a very sophisticated name,” Trixie says. “I think there’s a Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills.”
The server clears away our entrees. We look at one another.
“We can’t do dessert again,” I say.
“What if we split it three ways?” Trixie asks.
“I’m in,” Shanelle says, and in short order the dessert menus arrive. We pop for a chocolate and pecan parfait with a mango coulis and coconut ice cream. Shanelle leans her elbows on the table and lowers her voice. “We should consider the possibility that Rex isn’t crying over Sonny but over somebody else.”
“Tiffany?” Trixie breathes.
“The very same,” Shanelle replies. “And I’ll tell you why. I have it on good authority that if Tiffany had won, she would have had to give Rex twenty-five grand. That’s his consultant fee. Ten percent. So maybe that’s why he’s crying.”
The dessert arrives. We all dig in. I glance at Rex, who appears calmer. His nose and eyes are still red but his hanky is no longer in evidence. “Who’s your source on that ten percent thing, Shanelle?” I whisper.
“That ninny Sherry Phillips.” Ms. Wyoming. The first to be named to the top five. “Rex was her consultant, too, when she was competing on the state level.”
Where she won, obviously, or she wouldn’t be here. Rex’s girls do well, there’s no doubt about it. “You know,” I say, “Rex is a man and he was cleared for backstage.”
“That’s because he’s sort of a man and sort of like one of us girls,” Trixie says.
“But he had no motive for murdering Tiffany,” I go on, “if he stood to collect that much money if she won. This pageant has bigger cash prizes than any other.”
“The mongo cash is why I entered,” Shanelle puts in. “That and I’m too old to enter anything else.”
“In another 25 years or so we’ll be able to compete in the pageants for seniors,” Trixie says.
“Aren’t those a little honky tonk?” I ask, then watch Trixie’s face crumple. “Maybe not,” I say.
“I can think of two other men who had clearance to go backstage,” Shanelle says. She takes an itsy-bitsy bite of the ice cream. “Mario Suave and Sebastian Cantwell.”
“Mario wasn’t backstage once during the finale,” I say. I like Mario, but my investigatory self replayed his actions in my mind. “As for Cantwell
—
”
“I never saw him back there,” Trixie says.
“Neither did I,” Shanelle adds.
“We could easily have missed him, though, in all the excitement.” I glance again at Rex and remove the napkin from my lap. “I’m going over there to talk to him.”
Trixie’s eyes grow wide. “As part of the investigation?”
I nod and slip from my seat. I feel my companions’ eyes on me as I approach my prey. “Rex? May I?” I indicate the other chair at his table.
“Be my guest, Happy.” He nods politely. Poor guy; he’s still sniffling. “Congratulations on your victory. I apologize for not congratulating you sooner. I’m not myself these days.”
“I don’t think anybody expects you to be. How are you holding up?”
He swipes his mouth with his napkin. I note he’s left most of the food on his plate. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
“Have the police told you anything about how the investigation is going?”
“As a matter of fact, I heard something today.” He lowers his voice. “Apparently the cause of death was cyanide poisoning.”
“So Tiffany
was
murdered.” A shiver runs through me, even though this news isn’t really surprising.
“The police found the poison in her lipstick.”
“Oh, God.” Briefly I close my eyes. I’m remembering the moments before I exited the isolation booth, when Tiffany lifted her skirt and revealed the lipstick and compact taped to her thigh. While I was onstage doing the final interview, she was refreshing her lipstick. With a tube that had been laced with cyanide.
“I’ll tell you who I blame,” Rex says.
I open my eyes. “Who?”
“Sally Anne Gibbons.”
“Why would she want to kill Tiffany?”
He snorts. “You have to ask?”
“Well, I saw those screaming matches, too, about the gown registry, but is that really enough to kill somebody over?”
“Absolutely. It cuts right at the heart of her business. Plus Sally’s not right. In the head, I mean. You saw her go berserk at me last night in the lounge. And I’m grief-stricken. She’s full of anger, that woman. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
He has a point. Actually a few of them. And as a consultant, Sally Anne had access to the backstage area. I try to think. Tiffany’s lipstick must have been poisoned during the finale when it was in her makeup bag backstage. Because she would have refreshed her face before each appearance onstage and everything was fine until that last fateful repair job in the isolation booth. I have no love lost for Tiffany Amber but the realization makes me shudder. “How do you know all this, Rex?”
