Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) (7 page)

“I don’t care what she does as long as she pays me on the first,” she told me.

Okay, now I was feeling kind of bad for pretending I knew someone who wanted to rent the room. But what could I do except roll with it?

“How come McKenna moved out?” I asked, as I sat down on the other end of the couch and put my glass on the card table. “Does the apartment have, you know, unwanted roommates like bugs or something?”

“McKenna was always late with her rent money. She got way behind. I had to make up the difference because it’s my name on the lease,” Jasmine said. “Then she skipped out on me.”

“She didn’t pay you? Not at all?”

“Bitch,” Jasmine muttered.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and began fiddling with it.

“Do you think McKenna’s family might make it right?” I asked, trying to bring her back to our conversation.

“I doubt it,” she said, glancing up from the phone. She shook her head. “And I was close—so close—to getting the cash from McKenna.”

“She got a job?” I asked.

“She got struck by lightning,” Jasmine said, turning back to her phone. “A role in a sitcom. Prime time. A major network. Starting at twenty grand an episode.”

“Twenty thousand dollars? Every week?” I might have yelled that.

“Don’t ask me how, but she got it,” Jasmine said.

“So what the heck was she doing working as an elf at Holt’s?” I asked.

I mean, jeez, if I had a job pulling down twenty big ones a week I wouldn’t even drive past a Holt’s store, let alone go inside.

“Production hadn’t started yet. She needed money. But mostly, I think she liked being around the rest of us so she could brag,” Jasmine said. She turned back to her phone, then said, “Hang on a second. I have to submit for this audition.”

I leaned forward a bit to try and see what she was doing, and asked, “You can get an audition on the Internet?”

“If you don’t have an agent,” Jasmine said, working her phone.

“Like Extra Extra?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. “A lot of productions will take actors who aren’t in the Screen Actors Guild yet. They post casting notices. I signed up for this service so I can submit my headshot and acting résumé directly to the casting director, and try to get an audition.”

“Did McKenna do that, too?” I asked.

Jasmine huffed and said, “Look, McKenna was a bitch. She treated me like trash. She treated everybody like trash. She skipped out on me and moved in with this guy who had the serious hots for her—not because she cared about him. She didn’t. She just used him because she needed a place to live.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, which was just as well since Jasmine kept talking.

“And when she got her big break, that sitcom role, she became an even bigger bitch,” Jasmine said. “Throwing it in everybody’s face about how she was going to hire a personal assistant, buy a condo on the beach, vacation in Europe, start doing movies. She went on and on about what she’d wear to all the award shows, about how great her life was—when the rest of us are lucky if we eat three times a day.”

Jasmine looked angry—and I can’t say that I blamed her. Still, what better time to push her for a little more info?

“So if you needed money so bad, why did you cancel on the elf thing at Holt’s?” I asked.

Jasmine fumed, bouncing her fist off her thigh, staring off at nothing like she was remembering every bad thing McKenna had ever done to her.

“Did you come to the store that morning at all?” I asked.

A few more seconds passed, then Jasmine sat back on the couch.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off like that about McKenna,” she said. “It’s just that I want this so bad. I want to act. It’s like some crazy passion that I can’t control. Did you ever feel that way about something?”

Did designer handbags count?

“And my mom.” Jasmine’s emotions spun up again. “She’s ragging me big-time to give up on trying to make it as an actress and move back home. To Scottsdale.”

“Ugh,” I said. Scottsdale was probably a really nice place, but not if your dream was to become an actress.

“Yeah. And she keeps talking to me about this guy I went to high school with who’s going to inherit his dad’s Kia dealership in like fifty years, or something, like that’s going to lure me back home.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Look at this.”

Jasmine launched off the couch, and pulled a gift box from under a stack of magazines on the floor beside the TV.

I recognized the logo. My heart began to beat faster.

She ripped open the box and thrust a Coach wristlet at me. I took it, cradled it in my palms, giving it the tender, loving care it deserved. I caressed its supple leather, breathed in the rich aroma.

There’s nothing like the smell of a new handbag.

“Mom sent me this thing with a note telling me that I could have nice stuff like this all the time, if I came home and married boring-to-the-bone Kia guy,” she said, throwing the box into the floor. “It’s a Coach—”

“—laser cut Op Art large wristlet from their Madison line, with perforated leather in an eyelet lace pattern, an inside open pocket, zip-top closure, fabric lining, available in silver and parchment, that retails for two hundred bucks,” I said.

Jeez, maybe I should get a life.

“I don’t
need a
two-hundred dollar wristlet,” Jasmine said. “What I
need
is grocery money.”

“Why don’t you—”

My throat went dry. I couldn’t say the words, yet I had to.

I gulped hard and tried again.

“Why don’t you … return it?” I asked.

“She didn’t include the receipt. I took it to their store at the Northridge Mall—where I was treated like Julia Roberts on Rodeo Drive
before
Richard Gere shopped with her, by the way,” Jasmine said. “They would only give me store credit.”

“I’ll buy it from you.”

The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them—not that I wanted to.

Jasmine just looked at me for a couple of minutes, like she was wondering if she’d heard me right, if I really meant it, what I did to earn that much money, or maybe who I was sleeping with who gave me that kind of cash.

I saw no reason to get into it with her.

I grabbed my purse and pulled out the two one-hundred dollar bills I kept hidden in my cosmetic bag. It was my don’t-get-embarrassed-at-checkout-if-my-credit-card-is-declined emergency fund.

Yeah, okay, this was, technically, Jasmine’s emergency, not mine. But I felt really bad for her and I wanted to do something to help. Plus, the Coach wristlet was awesome.

I held out the money.

Jasmine didn’t jump at it. She just stared, then said, “Are you serious?”

“I never kid about designer handbags,” I told her.

“Oh, wow.” She collapsed onto the couch again and covered her face with her palms. She sniffed.

Oh my God, was she crying?

I’m not good with a crier.

Jasmine sniffed again, dug her fists into her eyes, then looked up at me. Her eyes were red but—whew!—she wasn’t shedding tears.

“It’s just that, well, nobody’s ever done something like this for me before,” she said softly.

“It’s a great wristlet. I’m thrilled to have it,” I said.

I put the money on the couch, then grabbed the box off of the floor and put the wristlet inside.

“Thank you,” Jasmine said, gazing up at me. “Thanks so much.”

I could tell she really meant it. But I’m not big on emotional scenes, so I headed for the door.

“Let me know about your friend,” Jasmine said, following me.

It took me a second to realize she was talking about my imaginary friend whom I’d said wanted to share the apartment.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” Jasmine called, as I went down the stairs.

Okay, despite giving her money for the wristlet—which was really as much for me as it was for her—I felt like a jerk. I’d come here using the I-have-a-friend excuse because I’d thought Jasmine might have murdered McKenna. While it sounded as if McKenna hadn’t endeared herself to Jasmine—or anyone else—Jasmine didn’t have any reason to kill her. In fact, keeping her alive would have benefited her greatly, because she could have gotten her back-rent out of McKenna from the astronomical first paycheck she was going to receive from the sitcom.

I walked to my car.

Now, of course, somehow I was going to have to find Jasmine a roommate. Or maybe I’d just pay half her rent for her. Or maybe I could get Ty to buy a production company and cast her in some big movie.

And why hadn’t Ty called me? Where was my official boyfriend when I needed him?

Crap.

I got in my car, cranked up the air conditioning and called Ty—which didn’t suit me but there it was. He answered—surprise, surprise—right away.

“I’m really glad you called,” Ty said. He sounded tired, a little weary. “I had a day like you wouldn’t believe. First thing this morning …”

His words turned into blah, blah, blah, and I drifted off thinking about McKenna getting her big break landing a role in a sitcom, then getting murdered.

Wow, was that lousy timing, or what?

“Haley?” Ty asked.

I realized he’d finished talking and had probably asked me something.

“Are you there?” he asked, sounding concerned.

Honestly, you’d think that by now he’d be used to me not listening to him.

“I’m here,” I said. “Listen, I’d like us to go to the Christmas charity fundraiser this year. It’s Saturday night. Will you be back by then?”

I heard some shuffling in the background and imagined Ty checking his calendar.

“I’ve got a meeting,” he said. “I’ll try to make it, but I can’t guarantee it.”

One thing about Ty, he never made a promise he couldn’t keep. He maintained a record of 100% reliability on this issue by simply never promising anything.

“I’ll text you the info, just in case,” I said.

He was quiet for a few seconds—I thought maybe he’d gotten distracted by the allure of a new spreadsheet—then said, “I miss you, Haley.”

That was nice to hear. It made my stomach feel warm and kind of gooey.

But before I could tell him that I missed him, too, he said, “I’ve got to run. I’ll talk to you again soon.”

He hung up before I could say goodbye.

Okay, that wasn’t exactly the official boyfriend-girlfriend I-can’t-live-without-you-conversation I’d hoped for.

I decided my day needed a boost.

The Coach wristlet I’d bought from Jasmine seemed kind of sad, just sitting there in the box on the seat next to me. I decided a new Breathless handbag to put it in would make us both feel better.

Just as I was about to pull away from the curb, I caught sight of Jasmine in a faded Saturn driving out of her apartment complex. I was going to wave, but she didn’t see me.

I wondered if she was headed for the grocery store to stock up using the money I’d just paid her, while here I sat with visions of a new handbag dancing in my head.

Not a great feeling.

No way could I go shopping now.

I admired the fact that she was willing to live the way she lived because she was so devoted to her acting. From what my mom had told me, actors attempting to break into the business weren’t treated all that well on-set. They had financial problems, and Jasmine sure seemed to have more than her share of those. Plus, she had to deal with her mom tempting her with expensive gifts, and trying to marry her off to that guy from high school with the maybe-one-day Kia dealership.

It was a hard life. It almost sounded like it could be a Lifetime movie.

A jolt hit my brain—and I hadn’t even had any chocolate recently.

Sitting upstairs and listening to Jasmine talk, I’d believed everything she said. In fact, I’d gotten so caught up in her story I’d bought that Coach wristlet.

Now I realized she’d never answered my questions about why, if she was so desperate for money, she’d cancelled on the elf job at Holt’s. I’d asked her if she’d come to the store at all that morning, and she hadn’t responded. Instead, she’d launched into that story about her mom.

Had she just gotten so wrapped up in her own problems that she’d forgotten I’d asked her those things?

Or had she used those problems to distract me?

I thought about it for a minute. Jasmine had seemed genuinely upset and distraught about her mom, the Kia guy, McKenna skipping out, and trying to make rent.

But maybe she’d fooled me.

She was, after all, an actress.

Six minutes to go.

I sat in my car outside Holt’s the next morning, enjoying my last few minutes of freedom—and the mocha frappuccino I’d picked up from Starbucks—before I had to clock-in. The parking lot was filling up with employees arriving for work. The janitor was in front of the store cleaning the big glass windows.

Nobody looked happy.

Since I was forced to wear that elf costume, I was also forced to show up a half hour early so I’d have time to squeeze into the thing, do my makeup, and put on that oh-so attractive Santa hat. Luckily, my apartment was near the store. It only took seven minutes to drive here—six, if I ran the light at the corner—but somehow I’d ended up arriving a few minutes earlier than required.

Obviously, I was going to have to be more diligent about adhering to my established morning routine so this never happened again.

I’d awakened thinking about Christmas—thanks to that hideous elf costume, no doubt—and immediately it hit me that now would be a good time to get a jump on my holiday shopping.

Really, it’s never too early to think about shopping.

Since I had six minutes to kill, I pulled the list that I’d started this morning over my bowl of Cocoa Puffs from my bag—an awesome Prada tote—and looked it over.

My BFF Marcie topped my list, of course, as a BFF should. I considered giving her the Coach wristlet I’d bought from Jasmine last night, along with a Coach handbag. I’d love to have it myself, so I knew she would, too.

Next on the list was my sister. She’d die for a L.A.M.B. tote—who wouldn’t? I’d penciled Mom in for a Ralph Lauren satchel.