Pampered to Death (11 page)

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Authors: Laura Levine

BOOK: Pampered to Death
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C
athy wasn’t the only no-show in aerobics class. Harvy came trotting into the gym a good twenty minutes late.
“Sorry,” he said to Sven, “I had an errand to run.”
Depositing a check at the bank, no doubt.
Once again I marveled at how perky he was after all the beer he’d knocked back at the pizza parlor. I guess one hundred grand in the bank will do that to a guy.
He hurried over to join Kendra, breathless with gossip.
“Guess what, Ken? I picked up a copy of the
Times
while I was in town, and Mallory’s obit was buried all the way back on page eighteen!”
Kendra’s eyes lit up with glee.
“Mallory would be so ticked off!”
“And they used a picture from before her nose job!”
“How delicious!”
Kendra had changed from one of Mallory’s jog suits into one of Mallory’s body-revealing workout ensembles. And I was amazed to see she had quite a hot bod to reveal. I’d never noticed it before, hidden under the baggy clothes she’d worn. Without Mallory around for unflattering comparisons, Kendra was really rather pretty.
Sven, I saw, was eyeing her with newfound interest.
Good heavens. With Mallory dead less than twenty-four hours, was he already poised to make a new conquest?
Poor Shawna. I sure didn’t envy her that marriage.
Shawna wandered among us now, giving half-hearted pointers, a haunted look in her eyes.
Was she still reeling from the trauma of having discovered Mallory’s body? Or from the trauma of having killed her?
True, it would have been foolish of Shawna to kill Mallory during the seaweed wrap, when she’d be the most obvious suspect. But maybe she’d acted on impulse in a moment of rage. Maybe Mallory had been bragging about her affair with Sven, and Shawna had snapped, strangling the life out of the woman who was out to steal her man.
I needed to get her alone to question her. But when the class was over, she hurried away before I could stop her. So I lingered behind to talk to Sven.
“What a tragedy about Mallory, huh?” I said, as he gathered up our exercise bars.
“Indeed,” he nodded solemnly. “She was a wonderful woman, and a fine Golden Globe-winning actress.”
He dropped the exercise bars in their container and turned to me, clearly waiting for me to make my exit.
“I guess we’re done,” he said, “unless you want to get another body fat measurement.”
He pointed to the god-awful Fat Vat in the corner.
“Thanks,” I shuddered, “but I think I’ll let my fat stay unmeasured for the time being.”
“Then if you’ll excuse me,” he said, all brisk and businesslike, “I’ve got some work to do.”
He started for the small office at the side of the gym.
Not so fast, buster.
“I know you were boffing Mallory,” I called out.
He stopped in his tracks, as I knew he would, and whirled around to face me.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come off it, Sven. I saw you going into Mallory’s suite wearing nothing but a smile and a Speedo.”
Okay, so I hadn’t actually seen him going into her suite, but he didn’t know that.
He paled under his perfect tan.
“Would you believe I went there to give her a therapeutic massage?”
“No, I would not.”
“Okay,” he shrugged, “so we were fooling around. Is that a crime?”
“Sort of, if you’re married, and especially, if you’re the killer.”
“Why on earth would I want to kill Mallory?”
“Maybe you fell madly in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of your life with her. Maybe she laughed at you and told you to take a hike, and you got angry enough to wring the life out of her with a piece of kelp.”
“That’s ridiculous! I had every reason to keep Mallory alive. She promised she’d get me in the movies.”
“And you believed her?”
“Sure, I believed her. She was crazy about me. Most women are.”
Wow. If those two had hooked up, they would’ve needed walk-in closets for their egos.
“I hate to disappoint you, sweetheart,” he said, with what was meant to be a beguiling grin, “but I’m not the killer.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s a rumor going around The Haven that Shawna is.”
Okay, so once again, I exaggerated just a tad.
“That’s not true!” For the first time, I saw fear flicker in his eyes. “Shawna couldn’t have strangled Mallory. After she settled everybody in their seaweed wraps, she was here with me in the gym the entire time.”
“What was she doing in the gym?”
“Yelling at me. She’d found out about me and Mallory and was raking me over the coals like she always does before she forgives me and takes me back.”
“She forgave you? Already?” I figured she’d banish him to the sofa for at least a couple of weeks.
“Like I told you. She always does.”
Talk about your poster couple for
Cheating Bastards and the Women Who Love Them
.
“Look,” he said, “I feel terrible about hurting Shawna, but I couldn’t help myself.”
At least he had the good grace to look ashamed.
“I know my wife, and I know she’s not capable of killing anyone. I swear she was with me the entire time the guests were soaking in seaweed.”
Not necessarily the entire time. Shawna could have easily taken a minute or two to strangle her rival in romance. I remembered the look of fury in her eyes when she’d seen Mallory locking lips with her husband.
For all I knew, Sven was lying through his teeth to save his wife’s well-toned fanny.
 
Harvy and I were on Pruning Patrol, hacking away at some hibiscus bushes, the hot sun blazing merrily on our backs.
I, of course, was a virtual Niagara Falls of sweat. But Harvy, in cutoffs and a spanking white sleeveless tank, was enviably moisture-free.
“I never sweat,” he boasted. “It’s something in my genes.”
“Lucky you,” I said, wiping a bucket of the stuff from my brow.
He lifted his designer glasses to peer at me.
“Sweetie, do you know what you need?”
“A Mochaccino Smoothie with extra whipped cream.”
“Heaven forbid. One more calorie and your hips will have their own zip code.”
Well, harty har har. Someone had just promoted himself to Person I’d Like Most to See Behind Bars.
“No, doll,” he said. “What you need is a good conditioner and a decent hair cut.”
And without even asking my permission, he pulled out the scrunchy from my mop of curls and let my hair fall to my shoulders.
“Omigod. It’s worse than I thought. What are you cutting your hair with? A chainsaw?”
Of all the nerve! I happen to pay perfectly good money for my Supercuts.
Definitely time to change the subject and do a little Suspect Grilling.
“Have any luck in the kitchen yesterday?” I asked, as casual as could be.
Once again, he lifted his glasses and peered at me, this time with more than a hint of suspicion in his eyes.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Cathy said she thought she saw you hurrying down the hallway from the kitchen.”
A tiny fib, but all in the interests of justice.
“I was nowhere near that kitchen,” he snapped. “And nowhere near Olga’s Valium, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Gosh, no!” I replied, very babe in the woods. “I thought maybe you were raiding the fridge.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, whacking a hibiscus branch with a vengeance. Then he glared at me, suddenly very Perry Mason. “Hey, how do I know
you
didn’t take that Valium and put it in our tea? How do I know
you’re
not the killer?”
“Me? Why would I want to kill Mallory?”
“She insulted you in public, didn’t she? Said you weren’t a real writer.”
“So you’re the one who told that story to the cops!”
“I may have mentioned it in passing,” he sniffed.
Nope, I sure wouldn’t have minded seeing him behind bars right then.
“Plenty of writers have wanted to kill Mallory. The screenwriter on
Revenge of the Lust Busters
once came after her with a machete. Of course, it was a prop machete, made of rubber, so she wasn’t hurt. Much to everyone’s regret. But you writers are all nuts. So for all I know, it was you.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
We clipped in silence for the next minute or so, before I added, “Although I have to admit, I can’t get Mallory’s murder out of my mind.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s strange. Right before I drifted off to sleep during my seaweed wrap, I thought I heard a man’s voice in Mallory’s cubicle.
Another fib, which, as you’ve no doubt noticed, happens to be a specialty of mine. But I needed to provoke the guy.
And it worked.
“Are you accusing me of murder?
He turned to face me, his knuckles popping as he clutched his gardening shears.
“Not at all!” I fumphered, suddenly uncomfortable at the thought of being within hacking distance of those shears. “It was probably just a crazy dream. I have them all the time. I once dreamed I was arm wrestling with the Pope.”
“I can assure you,” he said, not the least bit interested in my sleep history, “I didn’t kill Mallory. I may have hated the Mad Cow, but I didn’t strangle her. If you heard a man in her room, it was probably Clint Masters.”
“Clint?” I asked, as if I hadn’t seriously considered that possibility myself.
“I’ve done his hair and seen his dressing room. The man’s got enough Klonopin to put all of Malibu in a coma. It would have been a piece a cake for him to drug our tea.”
I often find that in these situations, the less you say, the more your suspects talk. So I just went on clipping the hibiscus.
“You don’t really think Clint was in his room, napping, do you?” Harvy went on, as I’d hoped he would. “I, for one, think it’s awfully suspicious that he’s the only guest who didn’t show up for the seaweed wrap. Mallory had some hot dirt on him that she was going to use in her memoirs. She said it would destroy him. He could’ve been lurking in the Spa Therapy Center men’s room, just waiting for the chance to strike. He wouldn’t have been the first movie star to kill for his career.”
Or the first hairdresser, either.
C
athy never showed up for lunch.
And although it was lovely to enjoy a chatter-free meal for a change, I was worried about my missing tablemate.
Had she indeed seen the killer racing from the kitchen with a fistful of Olga’s Valium? More important, had the killer seen her and decided to get rid of her?
I slogged through lunch impatiently, barely touching my motley plate of mushrooms and arugula tossed in Pine-Sol Vinaigrette. As soon as Olga cleared away our dishes, I passed on dessert (three slivers of kiwi—no great loss) and set out to find Cathy’s room.
Wasting no time, I ran around knocking on doors, praying she’d be alive behind one of them.
At last I found her room upstairs at the end of the hallway.
“Who is it?” she replied to my knock.
I sighed with relief at the sound of her voice.
“It’s me, Jaine.”
Seconds later, I heard her padding across the floor. Then her shadow darkened the peephole and she opened the door a cautious few inches, clad in a pair of cat-covered pajamas. In the background, I heard her TV playing.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sure, I’m fine. I was just watching
I Love Lucy
. The one where Lucy goes on a diet. I can so relate to the pain she feels when she’s eating a celery stick and Ethel and Ricky and Fred are eating steaks. But she sticks to her diet. Really, it’s such an inspirational episode. I’m so sorry you missed it, Jaine. You could really learn a lot from it.”
Okay, alert the media. I’d found the one woman walking the planet who didn’t realize that
I Love Lucy
was a comedy.
I felt like a fool for having been so worried about her.
“Aren’t you hungry?” I wanted to know.
“I’m fine,” she assured me. “Olga sent Delphine up with some chicken noodle soup.”
“Campbell’s?” I asked, yearning for a bowl of the noodlestudded stuff.
“And some tea and toast,” she nodded. “Needless to say, I didn’t open the door for Delphine. I made her leave my tray outside. I’m not taking any chances around here.”
“You got toast?” I asked, zeroing in on the crucial part of her narrative. “Actual bread? With butter?”
“Yep.”
“And jam?”
“Strawberry,” she nodded. “Not that I ate the jam, I was feeling too guilty about the calories from the bread and butter.”
“Well, if you’re not going to eat it, can I have it?”
“No, you can’t have it.” She tsked in disapproval. “Honestly, Jaine. Murder or no murder, we’re here to lose weight.
“And speaking of the murder,” she beamed, “I think I may have figured out who did it!”
“Who?”
“I’ll tell you at dinner. I’m still working out the details—Oops,” she said, checking her watch. “Can’t talk now.
Sleepless in Seattle
is about to start.”
In the background I could hear the music for the movie’s opening credits.
“See you later,” she said, shutting the door in my face.
I stood there, shaking my head in disbelief.
The woman was maddening, n’est-ce pas? Here she thought she knew who the killer was, and she was taking time out to watch Tom Hanks make goo goo eyes at Meg Ryan!
I headed back downstairs, ticked off at her for not giving me that jam.
But who cared? Lest you forget, I had one of Darryl’s heavenly turkey and swiss cheese sandwiches waiting for me back in my room.
 
I whizzed down the steps, eager to sink my teeth into Darryl’s dense focaccia bread, studded with onion slivers and poppy seeds. But then I had a frightening thought: What if Prozac had beaten me to it?
True, I’d taken the precaution of leaving her some of the turkey from my sandwich for a mid-morning snack. But what if she’d smelled the rest of the sandwich and decided she wanted more? What if she broke into the suitcase where I’d hidden it?
Don’t laugh. That cat has been known to open pizza boxes, Chinese takeout cartons, and buckets of extra crispy KFC. Pulling open the zipper on a suitcase would be child’s play for my feline food felon.
By now my head was filled with images of Prozac sprawled out on my bed, surrounded by a few focaccia crusts, belching her little heart out. I raced down the corridor to my room, where I fumbled with my key and shoved the door open.
You’ll be happy to know that Prozac had not discovered my turkey and swiss treasure.
But, alas, someone else had.
There, sitting in my armchair, my sandwich in her lap, was Olga.
And that’s not all she’d dug up.
Displayed on my bed was the rest of my smuggled booty—Prozac’s gourmet cat food, my emergency Almond Joys, and a snack bag or three of Doritos.
Not to mention the pathetic remains of poor Mr. Whirly Bird.
Olga arose from the armchair like Zeus popping up on Mount Olympus. Eyes narrowed in disgust, she waved the sandwich in my face.
“What, may I ask, is this?” Without waiting for a reply, she gestured to the swag on my bed. “And all this?”
Prozac, who had been weaving among the cans of cat food under the delusion she was about to be fed, let out an irritated meow.
It’s my lunch, lady, and I’d like it now!
Ignoring Prozac’s yowls of complaint, Olga turned her eagle eye on yours truly.
“Have you got anything to say for yourself?”
“I sure do! You’ve got a lot of nerve breaking into my personal property! In certain circles,” I didn’t hesitate to point out, “that’s considered illegal!”
You don’t want to mess with us Austens when we get our dander up. And my dander at that moment was ready to bust the dander-o-meter.
Strangely, Olga didn’t seem at all fazed.
“I’m perfectly entitled to search through your things,” she replied with a smug smile. “It says so right there.”
She pointed to the laminated card on the back of the door, the one with the room rates and fire exit instructions. I perused its contents and sure enough there was some ridiculous clause claiming that if the management suspected a patron was sneaking food onto the premises, said management retained the right to conduct an on-site inspection and confiscate said food.
“I’m well within my rights,” Olga smirked. “So you can forget about any lawsuit.”
And with that, she tossed my sandwich into a Haven plastic laundry bag.
Ten to one she’d be eating it for her dinner.
When she started tossing in the cat food, Prozac’s eyes widened in alarm.
Hey, whaddaya think you’re doing?
Olga continued dumping stuff in the bag, ignoring Prozac’s decibel-shattering wails.
Finally she got to the remains of Mr. W. Bird and happily informed me, “You’ll be charged an extra thirty dollars to replace this.”
“Oh, please. That thing couldn’t have cost more than a buck ninety-nine.”
Prozac eyed the last of Mr. Bird’s feathers.
And it needed ketchup, too.
Having gathered all my goodies in her bag, Olga started for the door. But Prozac was having none of this. With an outraged meow, she leaped off the bed and hurled herself at Olga’s ankles, clawing at her socks.
Stop, thief!! I’m making a citizen’s arrest!
Barely batting an eyelash, Olga grabbed Prozac by the scruff of her neck and dumped her in my arms.
“This,” she said, tsking in disapproval, “is the most poorly disciplined cat I’ve ever met.”
Prozac responded with the kind of hiss she usually saves for the vet.
You’re no bargain yourself, lady.
As Olga marched out the door, Prozac wriggled free from my grasp and ran out into the hall, yowling all the way.
I’m going to report you to the ASPCA, the ACLU, and Morris the Cat!
I quickly snatched her back into the room, where she began chewing the scenery for all it was worth, now whimpering like Camille on her deathbed.
What’re we going to do? I’ve already gone two hours without a snack! Just look at me! I’m practically skin and bones.
“Calm down, will you? I’ve got everything under control.”
And indeed I did.
We Austens know how to use our noodles in tough times. My strategic planning skills, honed on years of crossword puzzles and living with Prozac, had stood me in good stead.
Figuring that Olga just might be sneaky enough to go nosing around in my room for forbidden calories, I’d taken the rather brilliant precaution of hiding some emergency provisions in my car.
And without any further ado, I headed for the parking lot.

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