Buttercream Bump Off (5 page)

“I’ll give you a hint,” Angie said. “ ‘Story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.’ ”

“Some Like It Hot,”
Mel said. “Excellent. I could use a screwball comedy.”

“What, no Joe tonight?” Tate asked.

“Serial shooter case,” Mel said. “I heard the word
depositions
and bailed. He’s on his own.”

“Too bad,” Tate said. “Curtis and Lemmon in drag is a beautiful thing.”

Mel noticed Angie watching Tate watching her. Angie suffered from the misguided belief that Tate had a thing for Mel, and Mel had had no luck convincing her otherwise. Now that she was dating Joe, she thought Angie might let go of that whacky notion, but no; Angie was convinced that Tate was jealous of Mel’s relationship with Joe.

Mel didn’t get that. Tate had sworn off women since his last train wreck of a relationship, and who could blame him? If she’d dated a nut like Christie Stevens, she’d swear off the opposite sex, too.

“And rolling,” Tate said as he pressed play.

Mel had finished off her popcorn and was halfway through her box of Whoppers when her phone chimed. Both Angie and Tate gave her dark looks.

“Doesn’t Joe know it’s movie night?” Angie asked.

Mel glanced at her phone. “It’s not Joe. It’s my mom.”

“Maybe it’s a date report,” Tate said as he paused the movie. “That guy better be treating her right, or I’ll squash him.”

Mel flipped open her phone. “Hello?”

“Oh, thank God, you answered,” Joyce said breathlessly. “My dress did it again.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“My dress,” Joyce said. “It caused another heart attack, and this time I think I killed him.”

“What?”

“Baxter,” Joyce said. “He’s dead.”

“Where are you?” Mel demanded as she sprang to her feet. Tate and Angie watched her, wide-eyed, obviously picking up from her tone that all was not well.

“At his house,” she said.

“His house? On a first date?” Mel asked.

Tate jumped up, looking like he was ready to pound someone. Angie was right behind him, looking equally ferocious.

“It’s not like it sounds,” Joyce said. “The ambulance is here. I have to go.”

“Address, Mom. Give me the address,” Mel said.

“Oh, I’m not sure, it’s the big house on Saguaro Road, just past Forty-second Street,” she said.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, and I’m calling Uncle Stan,” Mel said.

“What’s going on?” Angie asked as they followed Mel to the elevator.

“Mom’s date is dead,” she said.

“Holy . . .” Tate began.

“Crap,” Angie finished.

“My car is faster. I’ll drive,” Tate said.

Mel looked at her hands. They were shaking.

“Good idea.”

Tate jetted his silver Lexus across town. They peeled up a winding hill, rolled through three stop signs, and came to a screeching halt in front of a mansion that was nestled on the north side of Camelback Mountain. The estates were many here in Paradise Valley, but it was easy to pick out the one they were looking for, as three police cars and an ambulance were parked out front with lights flashing. Not exactly balloons signaling a kid’s birthday party, but it would do.

Mel shoved open her door and started to run. Several uniformed officers were standing in her way, but she raced around them, frantically searching the sparse crowd for signs of her mother’s blonde bob.

“Mom!” she called. “Mom!”

The large double doors to the glass-and-stone mansion stood wide open, so Mel charged through the entrance with Tate and Angie on her heels.

She ignored the black tile and glass furniture and the precisely lit objets d’art. All she wanted was to find Joyce safe and sound.

She noticed that a crowd had gathered on the back patio by the pool. She made a beeline. As soon as she stepped through the glass doors at the back, however, a hand grabbed her elbow and brought her up short.

“Authorized personnel only,” the officer said.

Mel yanked her elbow out of his hand. “I am authorized. I’m with the DA’s office. These are my assistants.”

Okay, technically she was sleeping, literally, with a person in the DA’s office, so it wasn’t a total lie, or so she told herself. The officer released her elbow and stepped back. Well, hello. It worked.

She strode forward, past the outdoor fireplace, the granite cooking area, the barbeque pit, and the built-in lounge. She circled the dark blue-tile swimming pool, which with its interior lighting cast the area in an eerie blue glow.

A short stairway led up to a sunken hot tub. And there, in the middle of a knot of uniforms, huddled in a patio chair, sat Joyce. She was bundled in a standard-issue gray police blanket. Her hair looked wet and her makeup streaked. Even from twenty feet away, Mel could see her shivering.

The minute she saw Mel, Joyce rose to her feet, looking ready to sob with relief. Mel folded her mother in her arms and held her tight.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Joyce said, although her teeth were chattering, and she felt icy cold to the touch.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a man said. “We have some more questions.”

Mel clamped her mother to her side and spun to face the officer. He was several inches taller than her, wearing khakis and a dress shirt, the uniform of a detective. She could see the badge clipped at his waist and the shoulder holster that housed his gun. His short brown hair was combed back from his face, giving him a stern demeanor. Mel didn’t care.

“My mother is standing here shivering. She is going to warm up and dry off and then she’ll be happy to answer your questions,” she said.

The detective narrowed his gaze at her. “Who the hell are you?”

“Joe DeLaura’s girlfriend,” she said.

“And I’m his sister,” Angie chimed in.

“I’m neither,” Tate said. “But I play a mean game of golf.”

The detective glowered at them. It was obvious he could not care less who they were dating or were related to or what their golf handicaps were. When it looked as if he was about to open his mouth and yell, he was interrupted by a new arrival.

“Detective Martinez,” Uncle Stan said as he held out his hand. “Detective Cooper, Scottsdale PD.”

“A bit out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it?” Martinez asked as they shook.

Uncle Stan gestured to Mel and Joyce. “Family.”

Martinez gave him a curt nod. “Dry her off, but she doesn’t leave until I say.”

“Thanks,” Uncle Stan said. He put his arm around Joyce and led her back to the outside fireplace, which was ablaze.

Mel, Angie, and Tate followed. Mel went to pull the sodden blanket off her mother’s shoulders, but Joyce only clutched it tighter.

“Mom, we need to dry you off. You’re going to catch pneumonia.”

“I can’t take it off,” Joyce whispered.

“Why not?”

Joyce lowered her head and mumbled.

“I didn’t catch that,” Mel said.

Joyce sighed. “I can’t take it off. I’m in my underwear.”

She flashed Mel a shot of her blue bra strap, and Mel gasped.

“Mom!”

“What?”

“On a first date?” Mel asked. “I am shocked!”

“It’s not how it looks,” Joyce said. “We were going to jump in the hot tub.”

“Hot tub?” Mel slapped a hand to her forehead.

“Don’t be such a prude,” Joyce chided her. “I went into the cabana to hang up my dress and borrow a robe, and when I came out, Baxter was floating facedown in the pool.”

“Good grief,” Tate muttered. “Did he fall in and hit his head?”

“No, I think it was the dress,” Joyce said in an ominous voice. “I think it’s cursed.”

“Mom, it’s not the dress,” Mel said. “It’s just a freak accident.”

“Joyce,” Uncle Stan interrupted, “did you see or hear anyone on the premises?” He had his cop face on. His usual affectionate expression was gone, lost behind the hard angles and planes of a face that had spent too much time catching bad people making bad decisions and telling bad lies. His worldview was just all-around bad.

“No, there was no one,” Joyce said. Her teeth clacked together, and she pulled the blanket tighter. “I thought he was swimming at first, then I thought he was joking, then I realized he was in trouble, and I jumped in and fished him out. I called 9-1-1, and I tried to do CPR, but he was already gone. That’s when I called you, Melanie.”

“Mel, go get your mother’s clothes,” Uncle Stan said. “I’m going to talk to Martinez and see how much longer they’re going to need you.”

Joyce reached out and clutched his hand. “Thanks, Stan.”

The hard lines disappeared. Uncle Stan’s face was once again filled with gentleness, and he leaned forward and placed a kiss on Joyce’s head. “It’s going to be all right.”

Mel hurried across the patio towards the cabanas. They were four small changing rooms built into the side of the house just beyond the hot tub.

A knot of police, including Martinez, a photographer, and a medical examiner, were near that end of the pool. Mel knew they were gathered around Baxter Malloy’s body. And just like at the scene of an accident on the highway, she felt herself slowing down, rubbernecking, to get a look-see at the man her mother had been out with.

She saw a shock of white hair over a very tan face—unnaturally tan, in fact. He was splayed out on his back with his arms wide. He was still clothed, thank heavens, from his dress shirt and slacks to his loafers. Obviously, he hadn’t gone into the pool by choice, then.

She felt a pair of eyes watching her, and she glanced up to see Detective Martinez studying her. He was younger than she had first realized and handsome, too, in a testosterone laden “I put away bad guys” sort of way.

Her toes hit the bottom step of the stairs that led up to the cabanas, and she broke eye contact with the detective in order to stop herself before she tripped. She failed and had to catch herself on the steps, narrowly escaping a full splat against the hard stones. Grace in motion, hardly.

When Mel glanced back up from her stooped position, Martinez was watching her, and he looked amused. She pushed herself into an upright position and felt her face get hot with embarrassment. She stomped up the stairs. Served her right for gawking at a dead man, she supposed.

She found her mother’s blue dress on a hanger in a tiny closet in the second cabana. Her shoes had been carefully placed on the floor beneath the dress. Joyce was always tidy; even at someone else’s house there was a place for everything and everything in its place.

She took the dress and shoes and trotted back to the fireplace. When she got there, Detective Martinez was holding a large brown envelope and a small notepad and was asking her mother questions while Uncle Stan hovered protectively behind her.

“Can you identify this, Mrs. Cooper?” he asked.

Mel saw Detective Martinez hold out a clear plastic bag containing one nude thigh-high stocking with lace-trimmed edges.

“Oh, that’s mine,” Joyce said.

“Can you explain how this came to be in Mr. Malloy’s pocket?” he asked.

Joyce’s face turned a shade of red only found on small, bitter root vegetables.

“I, uh, we . . .” she stammered. She glanced skyward as if hoping a meteor might plummet to Earth at that very second and spare her this conversation. Mel glanced up, too. Clear sky. No such luck.

With a heavy sigh, Joyce said, “We were playing shoe salesman, and Baxter took my stockings off for me.”

It was safe to say every single person in the group was now hoping for a meteor to hit. Tate cleared his throat. Uncle Stan puffed out his cheeks. Angie and Mel exchanged glances of equal parts
wow
and
ew
. The noted exception was Detective Martinez, who looked unfazed, as if he heard worse than this every day.

“Can I get dressed now?” Joyce asked.

Martinez looked up from the pad on which he was making notes. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” Joyce said. Mel handed her the dress and shoes.

“One thing,” Martinez said.

“Yes?” Joyce asked, looking wary.

“We only found one of your stockings on his person,” he said. “What happened to the other one?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, looking pained. “He had both of them when I went to change.”

“Interesting,” Martinez said.

“How so?” Uncle Stan asked.

“The medical examiner seems to think Mr. Malloy didn’t just have a heart attack and fall into the pool,” he said. “In fact, it appears he was strangled by this.”

Martinez produced another baggie with a stocking in it from inside the large brown envelope. This one was wet and left droplets of water in the bag.

“We found this one in the pool. His assailant must have dropped it after killing him,” Martinez said.

Joyce gasped and then keeled over with a thud.