High Heels Are Murder (6 page)

“Muffy said in this snotty voice, ‘It’s a portico, not a carport.’ I felt like an idiot.

“Muffy was shipped off to Europe until school started so she wouldn’t associate with the riffraff anymore.”

Josh laughed, but Josie could tell his blunder still hurt after all these years.

“Her loss,” Josie said. “She had money, but you have talent, Josh. I read your novel. I don’t usually like science fiction, but I couldn’t put it down. Those robot slaves were unforgettable. And their Rubicon masters—they were amazing.”

“Thanks for reading it,” Josh said. His smile lit the dark intelligence in his eyes. “I made most of the revisions you suggested. You’ve got a real eye for editing, Josie. The final manuscript is nearly finished.”

“So what’s your plan?” Josie said.

“I thought I’d hold up a bank for enough money to take my book to New York,” Josh said.

“But seriously,” Josie said.

“Seriously, I need to find some money fast if I’m going to get anywhere. I can’t keep sending query letters from St. Louis. New York thinks this city is nowhere. An agent actually asked me if I had a horse. I couldn’t believe it. I said it was hard to keep one in my second-floor apartment.”

“You wouldn’t want anyone that dumb for your agent,” Josie said.

“No,” Josh said, “but I have to find a good one. I want to set up some appointments, then spend a week in New York. I’ve had some nibbles from a couple of big agencies, but I need to interview the agents in person. I have to get enough money for the trip. My credit cards are maxed out.”

Josie remembered their dinner the other night. We probably ate his plane ticket, she thought. “Josh, I have two hundred dollars in my savings account. You can have it.”

“I can’t take your money,” he said.

“You should. You have real talent. I believe in your work. Consider it an investment. I’m not giving you money. I’m buying Josh futures.” Josie flashed briefly on a future that was a bigger fantasy than anything Josh could create. She saw him as a best-selling author in a book-lined study. She was his personal editor. Their Manhattan apartment—

One look at Josh’s face and her fantasy shriveled and died. It was set in a stubborn mask. “I haven’t sunk so low that I’d take money off a working mom,” he said. “I have to solve this myself.”

“Will the store let you work extra hours?” Josie said.

“No. Has Beans is cutting me back five hours, so I’m only working thirty-five hours a week. That means I’m no longer a full-time employee and they don’t have to pay my health insurance.”

“Josh! That’s awful. What will you do? Get a second job?”

Josh laughed bitterly. His hands shook as he poured
the water, and it splashed over the coffee machine. “Two shit jobs add up to more shit, not more money. My book is good, Josie, really good. Even you think so, and you don’t like science fiction. It could make me a fortune if I find the right publisher. I know it could.”

“I’m really sorry,” Josie said.

“I’ll think of something,” Josh said. But he banged the glass coffeepot down so hard on the burner Josie was afraid it might break.

“Perhaps Madame would be more comfortable shopping at Wal-Mart.” The salesclerk looked down his long, thin nose at Josie, as if she were a cockroach on his jewelry counter.

Josie’s eyes widened in surprise. Did he really say that? Obviously, the man didn’t know she was a mystery shopper.

“I asked to look at your gold-filled hearts,” Josie said. “Are you going to show them to me or not?”

“If you wish,” he said, in a tone that made it clear he didn’t wish it.

Josie knew the man’s game. He only wanted to sell expensive rings and watches. He wouldn’t get much commission on the store’s small items, so they weren’t worth his time. She bet he regularly chased off those customers.

Josie smiled sweetly. This jewelry job was a break from her Soft Shoe work. She would enjoy nailing this guy. How many other customers had he insulted? No wonder the store’s sales were slipping. This was what her job was all about—protecting innocent shoppers. No one deserved this treatment.

How did he know she wasn’t a trophy wife? She sneaked a peek at herself in the store mirrors. She thought she looked pretty damn good in her pinched-toed Pradas and garage-sale Escada. Her hair was perfect. Then she saw her chipped nails. Of course, rich women didn’t do their own housework. He’d spotted the giveaway. But this time, he’d outsmarted himself.

Wal-Mart indeed, she thought. He’d be lucky if he got
a job stocking shelves there when she finished with him. Josie left the store with hurt feelings and sore feet. When she hobbled back to her car, she saw a new ding and a scrape on the right fender. Someone had hit it with a shopping cart. Josie sighed. Another hazard of mystery shopping.

She checked her watch. If she hurried, she could pick up Amelia at the Barrington School on time. At least the traffic was cooperating today. She made it to the school with five minutes to spare.

She could tell by the way Amelia slung her backpack into the car and flopped on the seat that her daughter was going to be a pain in the neck. Josie was in no mood for it.

They were barely to the end of the school drive before Amelia started in. “I want to go to the mall,” she whined.

Josie ground her teeth. In the parenting magazines, supermoms used sensitive questions to gently probe the real reason for their child’s unhappiness. But Josie was short on supermom patience this afternoon. She hated whining. When Amelia was moody, her jaw had a stubborn, bulldog thrust that echoed Jane’s. Her grandmother, the shopaholic. Josie was not going to raise a mall rat.

“What do you need?” Josie said. She realized she was going forty in a school zone and slowed the car. Speeding would only add a ticket to this rotten day.

“I want to get a present from Dry Ice for Emma’s birthday,” Amelia said.

Dry Ice was the latest little-girl craze. There wasn’t a useful item in the store. That was part of its charm. It had outrageous purses, clothes, bedding and fake-fur lamps. Josie remembered the absolutely essential junk she had to have at Amelia’s age. She’d desperately wanted a Trivial Pursuit game and one of the hot new CD players. She didn’t get them. Josie wasn’t allowed to rip her jeans like everyone else did after
Flashdance
. Jane wouldn’t even let her see the movie. Was her own daughter’s childhood going to be another series of don’ts?

Amelia must have felt Josie’s mood shift. “Please, Mom. I’ll even use my own money,” she pleaded. The ultimate nine-year-old sacrifice. Thanks to cash gifts from her grandmother on her birthday, Christmas, even Groundhog Day, the kid had more walking-around money than Josie did.

“I have to get Emma’s present from Dry Ice,” Amelia said. She sounded desperate. “It’s important, Mom.”

Josie knew it was. As a child, she’d shown up at too many birthday parties with off-brand Barbie dolls that Jane bought on sale. Josie’s mother had forgotten what it was like to be a kid. “Those dolls look just like the real thing,” Jane would say. “Children can’t tell the difference.”

But they could. Josie could remember the birthday girl’s curled lip when she unwrapped Josie’s gift. There was dead silence, until the girl’s mother prompted, “What do you say, Tara?”

Tara’s grudging “Thank you” was worse than an outright insult. Josie still felt the sting of shame twenty-two years later. Her daughter was never going to feel that way. Josie wasn’t a supermom, but she understood that much.

“What do you want to get Emma?” Josie said.

“Dry Ice has this laptop cosmetic kit. It’s sweet, Mom. Looks just like a laptop computer, except instead of keys it has sixty-six colors of lip gloss and eye shadow. The applicators are in the mouse pad. Emma will love it.”

“I’m sure,” Josie said. “But her mother won’t. You girls are not allowed to wear makeup.”

Amelia stuck out her lower lip. “Zoe does.”

Josie mashed her molars together again. Zoe’s mother had had her brains sucked out during her last liposuction. Zoe’s mother thought it was okay for her nine-year-old daughter to wear eyeliner and belly shirts. She let Zoe play laser tag, which Josie thought was way too dangerous for kids that age.

“Zoe gets to do everything. I don’t get to do anything,” Amelia said. The whine was back, worse than ever.

“If Zoe got to jump off the Poplar Street bridge, would you follow her?” Josie said. Omigod, I sound like my mother, she thought.

“Oh, Mooom,” Amelia said. “That’s not fun.”

Her whine would make any mom hit the margaritas. Give me strength, oh, Lord, Josie prayed. She’s not even a teenager yet.

“We’ll go to Dry Ice, but you’re not getting Emma a makeup kit,” Josie said. “How about a gift card? Then Emma can buy what she wants.”

The sunshine fairy must have waved her wand over Amelia. Josie’s daughter suddenly became all smiles. Her jutting chin was tucked back. Her lower lip retracted into a tender curve. The cinnamon sprinkle of freckles reappeared on her nose.

“Sweet,” Amelia said. “Cards are good. Thirty-five dollars?”

“Thirty, and that’s my final offer.”

“Sold,” Amelia said.

Josie realized she’d been suckered into paying for Emma’s gift. The fat wad of cash in Amelia’s sock drawer would remain untouched. Oh, well. Josie had her Soft Shoe bonus. She could afford the gift card. She’d planned to take Josh to dinner with that cash, but now it didn’t seem right to eat, drink, and be merry with money earned by getting a future murdered man fired.

As Josie’s car turned into their Maplewood street, the late-afternoon sun was smiling, too. It warmed the old brick houses to a mellow red and turned the broad lawns seed-catalog green. Jane’s flower garden glowed with the deep, rich colors of fall: dark reds, golds and oranges.

Two boys in baggy shorts skateboarded in the street, leaping a homemade wooden ramp. A small girl rode her pink bicycle on the sidewalk. A fat old man waddled along beside his fat old dog.

Stan the Man Next Door was giving his lawn a final mowing before winter set in. He waved. Josie and Amelia waved back.

Now he was a good neighbor, Josie thought. Too bad
Mrs. Mueller, who lived on the other side, couldn’t be as nice as Stan.

The curtains twitched at Mrs. M’s house, but Josie ignored them.

Amelia grabbed her backpack and raced up the sidewalk, crying, “Grandma!”

Jane was waiting at Josie’s front door, arms folded stiffly over her chest. Oh, oh. A bad sign. From the rigid way her mother stood, Josie knew something was wrong. Jane barely unbent to hug Amelia.

“I need to talk to you,” Jane said to Josie. “Alone.” There was a light breeze, but Jane’s sprayed helmet of gray hair didn’t move.

“Amelia, go to your room, please,” Josie said.

The changeling child was back. “Oh, Mom,” Amelia said. “I haven’t done anything.”

“I didn’t say you did. Your grandmother and I need to have a grown-up talk. It’s okay if you want to listen to 101 The River.”

Amelia flounced into her room, then turned up her favorite radio station until the walls vibrated. Good. At least Amelia wouldn’t eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Want a soda, Mom?” Josie asked. “I’ve got some cold ones in the icebox.”

“It’s a refrigerator, Josie,” her mother said. “Iceboxes went out in the thirties.”

“True St. Louisans never call it a refrigerator,” Josie said. She took an ice tray out and ran water over it to loosen the cubes. “What do you want, Mom?”

“I want you to listen to me,” Jane said. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

“What’s wrong, Mom?” It’s Mrs. Mueller, Josie thought. She complained about Josh and me. The old biddy was waiting for the right opportunity. After a Perfect Cheryl Report, I’ll look like an even bigger loser, groping my too young boyfriend on the porch.

“It’s Mrs. Mueller,” Jane said. Her face had that clamped-down look.

I knew it, Josie thought.

“She wants to ask you for a favor,” Jane said.

“She what?” Josie said. Her voice rose to a near-shriek.

“I knew you’d act that way.” Jane thrust out her bulldog jaw, prepared for a fight.

Josie gave her one. She’d had to put up with a snotty clerk and a cranky kid. A mom with a chip on her shoulder was the last straw. “You’re right,” Josie said. “Mrs. Mueller has made my life hell since I was fifteen, and now she wants me to do her a favor. Well, she can do me a favor. She can get a life and quit watching mine.”

“That was all a long time ago, Josie. She’s—” Her mother hesitated. “She’s in a position to help me. Mrs. Mueller can make me the Maplewood chair of the St. Louis Flower Guild.”

Jane hung her head, as if she was ashamed for Josie to see how much she wanted this honor. Now that she was retired, Jane tried to recapture a little of the genteel life she’d lost years ago. She could never afford to move back to her beloved Ladue. But she did have time for the worthy causes she loved. Jane had long coveted the Maplewood flower chair, but it always went to someone richer and better connected.

“Mrs. Mueller says she can swing the votes if you’ll help her,” Jane said.

That old woman had the political instincts of a Washington lobbyist. She’d offered the one bribe Josie could never refuse. She couldn’t turn down the thing her mother wanted most. Mrs. Mueller was diabolical.

Josie looked at Jane, small, stooped and work-worn, and felt a stab of pity. “GBH, Mom,” she said. She pushed back her chair and held out her arms.

“You’ll do it?” Jane said.

The hope Josie saw lighting her mother’s face made Jane seem ten years younger.

“Yes, Mom, I’ll do it.” She hugged Jane’s tense, tired body. Josie would swallow her pride and work with Mrs. Mueller to keep that light in her mother’s face. “What does she want?”

“Did you know a salesman named Mel at Soft Shoe? The one who got himself murdered?” Jane said.

Bits of Josie’s brain felt like they were cracking off
and sliding down her spine. What did Mel the foot fondler have to do with the straitlaced Mrs. Mueller? That woman would turn catatonic if she ever spied on Mel.

Jane must have thought Josie couldn’t place Mel. “He was tall and had dark hair. He always wore a pink flower in his buttonhole.”