Too Pretty to Die (26 page)

“And if he had anything to do with her death,” I added for him, because that’s the part he’d left unsaid.

“C’mon, admit it. You’re as convinced as your mother that Miranda didn’t snuff her own candle,” he stated, and he seemed pleased when I sighed, “Yes.”

“Well, I hate to agree with someone so disagreeable,” Miltie went on, “but I think something’s fishy in those waters, too, despite how things look. I talked to another pal at the medical examiner’s office tonight, and he tells me it’s likely the autopsy report will be issued as early as tomorrow.”

“You have a lot of pals, don’t you?” I muttered, but he didn’t even break stride.

“Forensics says the only prints on the gun are Miranda’s . . . on the bullet casings, on the trigger and pearl handle. I asked about other prints, as Cissy told me about the, um, shooting incident at the Botox party.”

“
Pretty
Party,” I found myself correcting, though I’m not sure why.

“Anyway, if Miranda dropped her .22 and someone else picked it up, there should at least be another set of prints on the weapon, right?”

“And there wasn’t,” I offered, a tickle in my belly.

“No, there wasn’t. So, if someone else picked the gun up, he was sure careful about handling it.”

“Or she,” I quietly added.

Despite the voices and music swirling around us, I heard little but the quickening beat of my own heart and Milton as he continued, “My buddy also tells me the site ramp angle—the way the muzzle was held against Miranda’s temple—is a little high for a suicide, but not completely impossible. Still, I think it proves our point.”

And there was still that missing laptop
, I nearly said, but Milton spoke up before I could say more.

“So how about we call a truce, since we’re both working toward the same end, eh? If you don’t blow my cover, Andy darlin’, I won’t blow yours. You cool with that?” His eyes glinted, the devil clearly in them. “It might not be a bad idea if we did a little back scratching, too. Sharing ain’t all bad, like we learned back in kindergarten.”

Maybe Miltie and I had a similar goal in mind, but I had no intention of hanging on his elbow tonight. Not for love or murder.

“I’m an only child, Mr. Fletcher, so I don’t do sharing well, or back scratching, either,” I told him, because something about Milton Fletcher made me want to resist him, even if he made sense.

He rubbed his jaw. “Let me put it another way. If you play nice with me, I won’t mention a thing to your very jealous boyfriend about seeing you here, dressed to kill and sipping Moët, because he doesn’t know where you are, does he, sweet pea?” He drawled the latter, mimicking my mother, and I gritted my teeth. “Did you send him out to carouse with the boys?”

“No, he’s not out carousing with the boys,” I said with plenty of venom. “He’s watching the hockey game, smarty pants, though it’s got to be over by now, even if they went into a sudden death shootout.”

“So he doesn’t know where you are?”

“I didn’t say that!” I snapped.

“Oh, yeah, you pretty much did.” Miltie smirked.

He’s lucky I didn’t try that move on him I’d learned in self-defense.

“We trust each other,” I said, not liking at all the way he was mocking my relationship with Brian when he knew nothing about it. “Though that’s probably something foreign to you, isn’t it? Considering your gainful employment depends on people
not
trusting each other. Now let me go.”

A country western ring tone started playing, and I realized the noise was coming from the beaded purse.

I finally twisted out of his grip so I could reach into the handbag, thinking at first it was Brian calling to see where I was; until I remembered I had Janet’s phone and not mine. As if the ring tone wasn’t evidence enough. I wouldn’t have wanted him to hear loud music and cocktail chatter in the background when I picked up, that’s for sure.

“That your boyfriend?” Mr. Nosy Private Eye asked.

“None of your bee’s wax,” I told him while I squinted close at the tiny screen, which said,
ROSS CALLING.

I had no idea who Ross was, unless it was Mr. Perot wanting to get a hold of Janet.

So I turned off the cell and stuffed it back in the bag.

“Bet it was your home boy tracking you down.”

“Wrong number,” I told him, and snapped the purse closed.

He had me thinking of Malone, however, and wishing I were back at the condo. I reassured myself that in less than an hour I’d have dumped these clothes at Janet’s and wiped the clown paint from my face; and I’d be heading north to Prestonwood in the Jeep, calling Brian on my own cell. I’d promise to be back at his side lickety-split, and that would be no lie.

“So what about it, Andy?” Milton Fletcher nudged my arm. “Want to play Nick and Nora tonight and see if two snoops are better than one?”

I glared at him, more irritated than I should have been. But he rubbed me the wrong way for some reason, like corduroy pants.

I was not about to join forces with Detective Fletch. I had some sniffing around to do on my own, and he’d only be extra baggage . . . and annoying baggage at that.

“How about you do a David Copperfield and disappear. I’ll take care of myself,” I told him in no uncertain terms. “So either you scram right now or I will.”

“Wait a minute, Andy,” he said. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into. There are some real players here, and I’d hate to see you taken advantage of. From what I hear, it’s pretty hard-core in the back room, so don’t get in over your head, kiddo. Your mother mentioned you could be reckless when you thought you were saving the world.”

What the hay
?

I was reckless, not to mention a gullible twit?

Puh-leeze!
Who did he think he was, talking to me like that? My protector? My savior? Did he assume I was some dopey girl who didn’t know how to watch her own fanny?

Give me a break, Jake.

“Later, Doogie or Roger Junior or whatever you’re calling yourself tonight,” I said, and I turned my back on him and started walking across the room, needing to be somewhere else, anywhere he wasn’t.

I brushed past clots of pretty people smelling of expensive colognes and perfumes, ignoring the occasional hand that reached out to touch my arm or shoulder, attempting to draw me over.

I had a goal in mind, and it wasn’t to mingle.

If I was going to get the real skinny on Miranda and the Caviar Club, I needed to zero in on the one person I recognized from Miranda’s photos; someone who could very possibly have been involved with her romantically.

Someone who was already involved with another woman—a woman with access to sharp things like needles—and who should have kept his hands to himself.

I paused only once to rearm myself with an appropriate prop—meaning, I snatched another glass of champagne off a waiter’s tray—which is when I spotted my target.

I saw Lance Zarimba’s blond head just before it ducked behind the red curtain into the back room.

Yeah, I know, I know
. Sevrugas weren’t allowed past the velvet.

But this was an emergency. Janet needed to write a kick-ass feature exposing the Caviar Club and linking the late Miranda DuBois to it, which meant I had a ton of dirt to dig up this evening. As if that weren’t enough, I didn’t like people telling me where I couldn’t go.

It only made me want to get there all the more.

And what was the worst they could do to me if I crossed through the velvet doors?

Toss me out? Revoke my temporary title of Lowly Fish Egg?

I wasn’t Miranda DuBois. Being evicted from this silly club would hardly kill me.

So I downed the glass of champagne to give myself a jolt of courage, put the drained flute aside, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

Here goes nothing, I mused and lifted my chin.

Then I took off after the dude who was Dr. Sonja Madhavi’s main squeeze and who may well have been Miranda’s lover. Oh, yeah, and possibly her killer.

If Dr. Miniskirt hadn’t done the deed herself.

N
o one stopped me as I entered.

If I’d expected to be grabbed and frisked, I guessed wrong.

Maybe it was the way I barged inside, snatching up a full glass of champagne from a passing waiter before I parted the curtains, my chin up, acting like I belonged.

My mother had always been expert at looking like she fit in—okay, more like she commanded the place,
any
place—so I mimicked that air of hers, practically daring anyone to tell me I wasn’t supposed to be there the moment I stepped past the red drapes. That idiot Danny Boy had said the privileged Belugas sometimes smuggled in a “delectable babe,” so I hoped to heaven I looked every bit as bedable as Suzy Bee had intended, even if it was all a façade made up of push-up bra, stiletto heels, and war paint.

Please, please, don’t let me encounter Theresa Hurley
. She of all people would recognize that I didn’t belong. But I quickly pooh-poohed that thought.

The Keeper of the Clipboard would likely stand guard in the foyer of Bébé Gâté until the party was over. ’Cuz, God forbid, someone of average appearance got past the bald-headed bouncer and wandered in off the street. They’d probably have to call in the Pretty People Pest Control and fumigate for cooties.

Or, perhaps—and more likely—no one had tossed me out yet because they couldn’t
see
who I was. I could hardly peer more than a yard ahead with any precision. All right, I was exaggerating. But it was awfully dark, so much so that I was afraid to go too far beyond the curtain I’d dropped behind me.

I didn’t want to risk walking into somebody or spilling my champagne on anyone I didn’t despise.

As my eyes better adjusted, I realized there was no electric lighting at all here, not even set to dim. It was strictly candle glow in the inner sanctum where the upper tier Belugas swam or cavorted or did whatever they did. No wonder Miranda’s photos had all looked so dark.

I took a few tentative steps in, enough to assess a lengthy console table rigged with champagne in ice and plenty of tiny toast points and sterling bowls of roe. There was another large silver bowl that held some kind of square packets.

Was it candy?

I reached in, snagged a pack, and brought it nearer my nose.

The label was a bit difficult to decipher without direct light, but I soon picked out the large print on the front that touted the contents as a “glow-in-the-dark condom.”

So these were the back room’s party favors?

How very classy.

Not.

Though tempted to stash one in the Judith Leiber bag to take back to Janet, I didn’t. I tossed it back into the pot instead and backed away.

When Janet had said the Caviar Club was for S-E-X, she hadn’t been kidding. I’m guessing one-night stands were de rigueur for the members, if they were passing out condoms alongside the bubbly.

Yet another reason to be glad that I didn’t belong.

I figured I’d need a long, hot shower to wash this place off my skin when I was done snooping.

Speaking of, how much longer would I have to lurk around here and take mental notes?

“One more glass of champagne’s worth,” I told myself. Then I was getting out, whether I’d seen anything worth reporting back to Janet or not.

When this flute I held was empty, it would be time to go.

Until then, it was my job to spy. And spy I would.

My ears still picked up on the thump of the bass from the music in the main part of the bar, although the Latin beat was much more muted; but I detected something else I hadn’t heard outside the velvet drapes: the voices seemed to whisper rather than to shout, and, oh boy, was that
moaning
?

And I mean the kind of moaning that sounded curiously like someone was playing an X-rated movie. Only I didn’t see any television screens anywhere, just flickering candles and shadowy forms and fabric partitions separating me from God knows what.

I took a slow sip of champagne, the slide of bubbles down my throat adding to the faint buzz I’d gotten from my first glass. I had to nurse this sucker. If I drank too fast, I’d be positively giddy.

The entry area, where I stood, was deserted except for me. All the action seemed to be going on behind the partitions.

I started toward the nearest one and almost dropped my champagne when I walked into something solid reeking of bad cologne.

A man.

“Hey, there, sweetheart,” a smooth voice whispered from the shadows around me, and I felt a hand slide possessively up and down my arm. “I was about to take off, but now I’ll have to reconsider. How would you like to have a go with me under the canopy? It’s not every day you run into a TV star like me, is it?”

TV star
?

This could be the scoop I’d been looking for!

I turned and squinted up at the face that hovered above mine. The shadows created dark grooves on weather-beaten cheeks, and the hair looked shiny with product. It was broad-minded, I thought, for the Caviar Club to have allowed in a dude who definitely looked well beyond middle age.

Then something crackled in my brain, and I gulped when I realized it was Dick Uttley, Miranda’s former co-anchor on the Channel 5 nightly news.

Egads.

Wasn’t the dude in his late fifties, and he was hitting on
me
? Obviously, he liked his ladies younger by a couple decades (except for his long-suffering wife, I mean). If the man had been messing around with Miranda before she died, he obviously didn’t seem overcome with grief now that she was gone.

“Under the canopy?” I repeated, trying not to sound as creeped out as I was feeling. “I’m sorry. I’m new here. In fact, it’s my first time.”

“Ah, fresh caviar. Delicious.” He laughed, as if he’d made some hilarious joke. He took my hand and tugged. “The canopy, my dear, is a spot where you and I can get most comfortable. Perhaps I can help break you in.”

He laughed again, and I shivered.

I made note of the fact that he didn’t even ask my name before volunteering to “break me in.” How unchivalrous of him.