Jaine Austen 7 - Killing Bridezilla (15 page)

146

Laura Levine

“Sure,” I said, grabbing a handful.

I wish I could pretend to be appalled at her lack of couth, but who am I kidding? I’ve been known to dine on Pringles and martini olives myself.

“Let’s eat outside,” she said. “It’s so depressing in here.”

Minutes later, we were sitting out on her narrow balcony in sagging lawn chairs, beers in hand, the bag of pretzels on the floor between us.

“Nice view, huh?” she said. “More than ninety-nine billion sold.”

“At least you’re never far from a Quarter Pounder.”

“I’m still not sure what you wanted to talk to me about.” She propped her bare feet on the railing. Her toenails, I saw, were painted a bilious purple. “I’m sorry I was a little groggy on the phone last night, but I was sleeping when you called.”

Yeah, right. Sleeping with her good buddy Mr. Budweiser.

“Have you been following the story of Patti’s murder in the news?” I asked. Somehow she didn’t seem like the kind of gal who was up on current events.

“Yes, I saw it. The cops think Normalynne did it.”

“Well, I don’t, and I’m investigating the case on her behalf.”

“Investigating? You mean, like a private eye?”

Her blue eyes widened in surprise. “But I thought you were a writer.”

“And a part-time private eye.”

“Wow.” She looked at me with unabashed admiration. “You’ve got two gigs going, and I can barely hold on to my crummy telemarketing job.

KILLING BRIDEZILLA

147

You wouldn’t believe how rude some people are.

I’ve been cursed out in more languages than I knew existed. Oh, well. At least now I know how to say ‘drop dead’ in Hindustani.”

Between the recently fired Normalynne and the minimum-wage Cheryl, I was beginning to feel like Hermosa High’s Girl Most Likely to Succeed.

“So you really think Normalynne is innocent?”

she asked. “I mean, you saw how crazy she was at the wedding.”

“I also saw how crazy
you
were at the cocktail party.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” she said, sitting up straight. “I hated Patti, but I didn’t kill her.”

At that moment, I tended to believe her. I remembered how smashed she’d been at the cocktail party. It didn’t seem likely she could’ve operated a power drill without hacking off a finger or two. But who knew? Maybe she snuck upstairs and did the dirty deed while she was still relatively sober. Maybe that’s why she’d been drinking—to anesthetize herself to what she’d just done.

“You didn’t by any chance happen to see anybody sneak upstairs that night?”

“Nah. I was too blotto to see much of anything.”

“So you have no idea who might have tampered with the balcony?”

“Not a clue.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to see Patti dead?”

“Take a number. To know Patti was to loathe her,” she said, slugging down some more beer.

“Lord, she made my life miserable.”

148

Laura Levine

“Even back in high school?”

“Especially in high school.”

“But I don’t get it. I thought you two were best friends.”

“Back in the beginning, yes. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world when I first moved to Hermosa and Patti took me under her wing.

I’d never been very popular before, but when she swept me into her inner circle, everything changed. Suddenly everyone was nice to me. But it didn’t take long to see how awful Patti could be. The same way she terrorized the rest of you, she terrorized me. Denise was strong and Patti respected that, but Patti sensed I was weak. And if Patti sensed weakness, she went for the jugular.”

“Why did you stick around?”

“Every time I’d think about breaking things off, she’d start acting nice and lure me back in again. And it was high school. There was a part of me that was willing to put up with anything, I guess, just to be popular.”

She sucked her beer for another comforting guzzle.

“So I hung in there. It was horrible. Patti got us to do things we would’ve never done on our own. We cheated on tests, drove without licenses—

we even shoplifted at the mall. I was always terrified that someday we’d get caught. And then one day, it happened. A security guard caught us leaving the Gap with a sweater. Patti was the one who’d taken it, but she convinced me to put it in my purse. She told me her parents would never buy her the BMW they’d promised her for graduation if they thought she’d stolen the sweater, and she begged me to take the rap for her. She swore that her parents would take care KILLING BRIDEZILLA

149

of me, that they were good friends with the judge, and that the case against me would be dropped.

“And like an idiot, I believed her. The case went to trial, and I wound up doing probation. I lost my scholarship to UCLA and my life has been in the toilet ever since.”

So that’s what Cheryl meant at the cocktail party when she said Patti had ruined her life.

“But I don’t understand. After all that, why did you still continue to be her friend?”

“Why?” She laughed bitterly. “I’ll tell you why.

She was sending me a check each month. Thanks to her daddy’s money, she could afford to keep me living in the lap of all this luxury.”

With that, she put back her head and drained the last of her beer.

“I need another. Want one?”

I shook my head and watched as she disappeared into the gloom of the apartment.

Was Cheryl the killer? She’d undoubtedly hated Patti’s guts—with a rage that had been festering ever since high school. And yet, if she’d been getting money from Patti each month, she’d be one of the few people with a motive to keep Patti alive.

I really had to talk to the Devanes’ gardener and worm a description of the mystery woman from him.

In the meanwhile, I grabbed a handful of pretzels and watched the sun set over the Golden Arches.

Stuffed from all those pretzels, I went to bed that night without dinner. For a rash instant, I considered digging into a pint of Chunky Mon150

Laura Levine

key I had sitting in the freezer, but I remained noble and had a cup of Orange Spice herbal tea instead. It was surprisingly delicious.

I really had to get in the habit of having herbal tea at night instead of high-calorie snacks. I bet I’d lose a ton of weight. I got out my calculator and began running the numbers. If I gave up just 200 calories a day, that would be 1,400 a week, 6,000 a month, and 72,800 calories a year!

Nearly 73,000 calories! My God, the pounds would practically melt away.

I was lying there, lost in a reverie of the new size 4 me in a string bikini, bouncing walnuts off my rock-hard abs, my cellulite a distant memory, when the phone rang.

“Hey, Jaine.”

Oh, crud. Walter Barnhardt.

“I was just calling to set up our date.”

I cringed at the “D” word. I wished he’d stop calling it that.

“Want to meet for breakfast Wednesday?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Breakfast sounded harmless enough. And Wednesday was two whole days away. I’d meet the guy, slug down some java, expiate my guilt for having set fire to his toupee, and then bye-bye, Walter.

We agreed to meet at one of the gazillion Starbucks in my neighborhood.

“Sure you wouldn’t rather have a discount sashimi dinner?” he asked. “I’ve got a half-off coupon.”

“No! No discount sashimi!”

I hung up before he got any other nauseating ideas and then trotted off to the bathroom to brush and floss.

Okay, so I didn’t trot off to the bathroom. I KILLING BRIDEZILLA

151

trotted off to the kitchen, where I made a beeline for that Chunky Monkey.

Yes, I know I’d just made a vow to give up high-calorie snacks. But you didn’t really think I was going to let a pint of Ben & Jerry’s sit untouched in the freezer all night, did you?

KILLING BRIDEZILLA

153

YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

To: Jausten

From: Shoptillyoudrop

Subject: Driving Me Crazy!

Jaine, honey, your daddy has been driving me crazy. Ever since he decided to act as his own attorney, he’s been running around the condo, shouting, “I object!” and “I rest my case!”

When I asked him what happened to the package of Fig Newtons I bought yesterday, he refused to answer “on the grounds it might incriminate him.”

The house is littered with legal pads and
Law for
Dummies
handbooks. He even bought himself a T-shirt that says,
If At First You Don’t Succeed,
Sue, Sue Again.

He says he can’t help me hang the new curtains in the guest bedroom because he’s busy preparing his case, but right now all he’s doing is watching old episodes of
Perry Mason
.

Meanwhile, he’s the laughingstock of Tampa Vistas. Lydia Pinkus told her best friend Gloria DiNardo what happened, and of course telling Gloria anything is practically like broadcasting it on CNN. Now everyone is buzzing about how Daddy is holding a library book hostage over a silly 18cent fine. I’ll never be able to hold my head up in the clubhouse again.

Oh, dear. Someone’s ringing the doorbell. I’d better get it.

XOXO,

Mom

154

Laura Levine

To: Jausten

From: DaddyO

Subject: The Nerve of Some People!

You’ll never guess who had the nerve to show up on our doorstep just now. Lydia Pinkus. The crazy battle-ax was raging and screaming at the top of her lungs, demanding that I return her stupid library book.

I calmly informed her that hell would freeze over first, and that if she didn’t quit the premises I’d take out a restraining order against her. In my quiet but assertive way, I think I showed her just how formidable an opponent I can be.

Love and kisses from,

H. Austen, Esq.

To: Jausten

From: Shoptillyoudrop

Subject: So Darn Mad!

Oh, heavens. That was Lydia Pinkus at the door.

She asked Daddy as nice as you please if she could have her library book back. He shouted at her to “quit the premises” immediately or he’d, and I’m quoting here, “ipso her facto!” And then he slammed the door in her face so hard I thought it would fall off the hinges.

I ran out after her with some fresh-baked brownies and tried to apologize, but before I could catch up with her, she drove away.

KILLING BRIDEZILLA

155

I’m so darn angry with Daddy right now, I feel like trading him in for a new Toyota.

Your disgusted,

Mom

PS. I don’t know why Daddy keeps referring to Lydia as a battle-ax. The woman weighs 90 pounds soaking wet.

To: Jausten

From: DaddyO

Subject: In a Snit

For some insane reason, your mother is in a snit, just because I asked that Pinkus woman to quit the premises. She practically threw my meatloaf at me at dinner.

Of all times for her to be mad at me—just when I need her to be my character witness in court! I had to soften her up somehow. So after dinner, I gave her a foot rub and agreed to pick up her old boyfriend at the airport.

What we lawyers have to do to win a case!

Love ’n hugs from,

H. Austen, Esq.

PS. I bet Perry Mason never had to pick up Della Street’s old boyfriend at the airport.

Chapter 15

Iwoke up the next morning nursing a Chunky Monkey hangover.

After wiping sleep from my eyes—and chocolate from my pillowcase—I staggered to the kitchen where I tossed Prozac some Hearty Halibut Entrails and fixed myself a spartan breakfast of instant coffee and an Altoid.

With a much-need jolt of caffeine flowing through my veins, I hunkered down at my computer to check my e-mail. I groaned as I read about My Father, The Budding Attorney and his ongoing feud with Lydia Pinkus. Leave it to Daddy to get into a battle royale over an eighteen-cent library fine. Poor Mom—the woman deserved combat pay. I was just grateful I was three thousand miles out of their orbit.

Not that things were so great at this end of the continent. Lest you forget, I still hadn’t been paid for Patti’s wedding gig, and my checkbook balance was teetering on life support.

So without wasting any more time, I printed out an invoice for
Services Rendered Mangling William
Shakespeare
and tooled over in my Corolla to deliver it to the Devanes.

I was happy to hear the sweet sound of a lawn 158

Laura Levine

mower as I walked up their driveway. Which meant that Julio, the gardener, was out back somewhere.

I fully intended to corner him and get the dirt on the mystery woman he’d seen on the balcony.

But first I had to drop off that invoice.

Part of me wanted to ring the bell and get a check in my hot little hands right then and there, but another part of me was embarrassed to be yakking about filthy lucre so soon after Patti’s death. So I took the coward’s way out and slipped the invoice in the Devanes’ mail slot. If I didn’t hear from them in a few days, I’d come back and talk to them in person.

Having dispensed with that awkward but necessary task, I trotted around back in search of Julio.

I should’ve known there’d be more than one gardener at a place as big as Casa Devane. At least four of them were hard at work, mowing, clipping, hedging, and pruning.

The grounds looked just as I’d seen them the day I first came to visit Patti. All traces of the wedding had been cleared away, except for the statue of Cupid beneath the balcony, which was blocked off—in a sad reminder of Patti’s fatal plunge—

by yellow police tape.

I made my way to the nearest gardener, who was busy trimming a magnificent lilac bush.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’d like to speak with Julio.”

The gardener turned to face me. He was a tall, muscular guy in a baseball cap that said
Chuy’s
Landscaping
. Given that his work shirt had the name “Chuy” embroidered on the pocket, I figured I was talking to the boss man, Chuy of
Chuy’s Landscaping
.

KILLING BRIDEZILLA