Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes (23 page)

A
word to the wise: Never hang from the side of a roller coaster in a denim wrap skirt.

By now a crowd had gathered down below, all of them looking straight up into the all-cotton crotch of my control-top pantyhose. Gad, how mortifying.

Kandi had called 911, and before long a rather attractive Marlboro Mannish fireman was climbing a ladder, telling me to stay calm.

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t clinging for dear life to a pile of termite-infested popsicle sticks.

Finally, he made it to the top of the ladder and managed to extricate me from my precarious perch. Step by step he guided me down the ladder, all the while treated to the aforementioned view of my crotch.

At last I was on terra firma, just in time to see the cops swarming around Wells’s body.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Jaine.” I turned to see Detective Incorvia, looking rather sheepish. “We found a suicide note in his pocket. He confessed to everything.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I had a hard time believing it myself. Wells was such a nice guy.”

“I hope you realize he had nothing to do with cutting the wire on the klieg light.”

“I know,” I said.

“Stan did that. I just got off the phone with him. I told him about Wells, and he recanted his confession. Except for the part about the klieg light. He swears, though, that he never meant to hit you. All he wanted was to get
Muffy ’n Me
cancelled. He thought if he could get Audrey to retire to Palm Springs, he could save their marriage.”

“But I don’t understand why he confessed to Quinn’s murder.”

“Apparently, he thought Audrey was the killer. He’d bought the rat poison—innocently enough—to kill rats. Then, after Quinn was murdered, he thought Audrey had used the stuff to knock off Quinn. He’d overheard her threatening to get rid of him, and he was afraid she’d lived up to her threat. Which is why he foolishly threw the box of poison into the dumpster with his prints all over it.”

“So he confessed to protect her.”

“The things we do for love, huh?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, reminding myself to pick up some crabmeat for Prozac on my way home. “The things we do for love.”

“Well, it’s been nice working with you, Jaine.”

We shook hands good-bye, and then he walked back to where poor Wells’s body was being loaded in to the coroner’s truck.

“Excuse me, miss.”

It was the Marlboro Man fireman, holding a clipboard. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to need a few facts for my report.”

I couldn’t help noticing his eyes, which were a beautiful hazel with flecks of brown, like chocolate jimmies on pistachio ice cream.

“Your name?”

“Jaine. Jaine Austen.”

“No kidding!” His eyes widened with surprise.

“I know, I know. You love my books.”

“Actually,” he said, “I was just going to call you.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. Your mom gave me your phone number. Didn’t she tell you?”

My eyes shot to his name tag.

“I’m Ernie,” he grinned. “Ernie Lindstrom.”

Epilogue

T
hanks to the machinations of his high-powered attorney, Stan wound up serving less than a year in jail. During which time he lost twenty pounds and gave up booze. By the time he got out of jail, Audrey had started divorce proceedings, but Stan didn’t mind. Three months after his release, he married his parole officer.

Audrey went on to produce a string of forgettable sitcoms. Lance’s wasn’t one of them. In fact, after the night of the taping, he never heard from her again.

After
Muffy
folded, Vanessa played the corpse in a teen slasher movie, and Zach Levy-Taylor got himself a gig on a long-running soap opera. He plays a guy named Brick, a moniker which I think suits his acting talents to a T.

Dale was unemployed for a while, but finally landed himself a gig doing infomercials for the Turbo Steamer. He’s now my father’s favorite TV star.

Kandi is back writing for the cockroach and, incidentally, dating a guy she met in Dr. Mellman’s waiting room.

And Bianca is still picking up Audrey’s dry cleaning.

As for me, I’ve resumed my old life, writing resumes and brochures. Perhaps you’ve read my latest:
Only YOU Can Prevent Clogged Toilets!
I still teach my memoir-writing class at the Shalom Retirement Home. Mr. Goldman is as insufferable as ever, bragging that he knew all along “whodunit.” And, as galling as it is to admit, he did. He’d always said the murderer was Wells.

I dated Ernie Lindstrom for a while. After a few months he decided he wanted to get married. Unfortunately, not to me, but to a nymphette he met while putting out a fire at a Swedish massage parlor.

Sometimes, at the end of the day, when I’m sitting in my living room sipping a chardonnay and enjoying the view of my neighbor’s azalea bush, I think about what my life would have been like as a high-paid sitcom writer, with a fancy car and a Malibu beach house and a closetful of Joan & David shoes. But then I remember what life was like at Miracle Studios—the monumental egos, the petty jealousies, and those godawful rubber sandwiches. And I realize that there’s no way I’d ever go back to all that Hollywood crap.

Unless, of course, somebody offered me a job.

PS. I almost forgot. Detective Incorvia sold
Kung Fu Cop
to Dreamworks for $3.5 million.

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

Laura Levine’s next Jaine Austen mystery

KILLER BLONDE

coming next month in hardover!

Prologue

M
y name is Jaine, and I’m a bathaholic.

Yes, it’s true. I like nothing better than to tear off my clothes in the middle of the afternoon and leap into a hot bubble bath. So it’s lucky I’m a freelance writer. While other working stiffs are trapped in offices, chained to their computers, I can hop into the tub any time I please.

Which is what I was doing the day SueEllen Kingsley first called me. I’d just finished writing a slogan for a new client, Tip Top Dry Cleaners (
We’ll clean for you. We’ll press for you. We’ll even dye for you.)
, and I was relaxing in a marvelous haze of strawberry-scented bubbles. The mirrors were fogged over. The radio, if I remember correctly, was playing a soulful Diana Krall love song. And my cat Prozac was perched on top of the toilet tank, licking her privates, visions of fish guts dancing in her head.

It was one of those blissful moments I often experience after I’ve finished a writing assignment, basking in the glow of a job well done (or done, anyway), until it dawns on me that now that the assignment is over, I’m out of work again.

I was still in the bask-in-the-glow stage when the phone rang. I let the machine get it.

“Ms. Austen.” A syrupy, southern-accented voice drifted out from the machine. “SueEllen Kingsley here. I saw your ad in the yellow pages—”

Yippee! A prospective client!

“And I’m calling because I need a ghostwriter to help me write a book.”

At the sound of the word “ghostwriter,” my enthusiasm came to a screeching halt. In my experience, people who are looking for ghostwriters often fall into the “mentally unstable” category. These are people who want to tell the world about how they were abducted to the planet Clorox and forced to have sex with spatulas. Or people who believe that they’re the love child of Wayne Newton and Golda Meir.

SueEllen Kingsley left her number on my machine. For a minute I considered not returning the call. But then I remembered a few pesky facts of life, like my rent and my Visa bill and my impossible-to-kick Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey habit.

Reluctantly, I hauled myself out of the tub and into a worn chenille bathrobe. Then I shuffled over to the phone and dialed.

If I’d known what I was getting into, I would’ve stayed up to my eyeballs in soapsuds.

Chapter One

S
ueEllen Kingsley answered the phone, her voice as gooey as melted Velveeta. “Ms. Austen,” she oozed, “can you hustle your fanny over to my house in an hour?”

I assured her I was an expert at fanny-hustling, and she gave me the directions to her house. Which turned out to be more like a castle. A vintage Spanish estate nestled in one of Beverly’s niftiest Hills, the house was a showstopper. Its arches and balustrades and red tile roof glistened in the midafternoon sun. The whole thing was so Spanish manor-ish, I almost expected to see Zorro leap onto one of the many balconies with a rose in his teeth. But there was no sign of Zorro. The only Hispanic in sight was a gardener pruning the bougainvillea.

I drove up a circular driveway and parked my humble Corolla next to a gleaming Bentley. Then I checked my teeth in my rear view mirror for any stray pieces of lettuce left over from the Jumbo Jack I’d picked up on my way over. Satisfied that all was clear on the dental front, I gave myself a quick blast of Binaca and tugged a few unruly curls back into my ponytail.

Finally, plucking a stray french fry from my lap, I got out of the Corolla and looked around. What a palace. The kind of place God would build if He had money.

I was beginning to regret my decision to wear my usual work outfit of jeans and a blazer. A place like this called for something a lot fancier. Like the British crown jewels and a blazer.

Why the heck was a woman with SueEllen’s money calling a writer from the Yellow Pages? I’d checked her out on Google before I left my apartment, and found her name scattered on the society pages of the
Los Angeles Times.
SueEllen was apparently a partygiver and fund-raiser par excellence. Surely she had access to scads of well-known writers. So why, I asked myself again, had she called anonymous old me? Oh, well. Who cared why she called? Just as long as her check didn’t bounce. And from the looks of the place, I was sure it wouldn’t.

I headed up the front path, and rang the bell.

Now I don’t know if they have a doorbell at Versailles, but if they do, I’ll bet it sounds just like the Kingsleys’. A series of mellifluous bongs resonated from inside the house. Seconds later the door was opened by a timid Hispanic maid holding a bottle of Windex.

“Hi,” I smiled. “I’m Jaine Austen. I have an appointment with Mrs. Kingsley.”

“Si,” she said, eyes lowered, clutching her Windex to her chest. She spoke softly, in a heavily accented voice. “Mrs. Kinglsey’s having her massage. She wants you to wait in the living room.”

I followed her as we hiked across the foyer. A wide curving staircase with gleaming mahogany banisters ascended to the floor above. I almost expected to see Scarlett O’Hara come skipping down the steps, twirling her parasol.

The living room was huge, with hardwood floors, an exposed wood beam ceiling, and a fireplace as big as my kitchen. I took a seat in one of the many overstuffed armchairs dotted throughout the room. The maid asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and seemed relieved when I said no.

As she skittered away, presumably to do battle with dirty windows, I glanced down and saw a grease stain on my blouse. Probably from the french fry that dropped in my lap. Oh, great. Now I’d have to spend the entire interview with my blazer buttoned. Which wasn’t going to be easy, since I’d bought the blazer two sizes too small. It was on sale at Ann Taylor, the only one they had left, reduced seventy percent. I went ahead and bought it, figuring I’d never have to button the damn thing.

Now I sucked in my gut, and was struggling with the buttons when I heard:

“You’ll never last a week.”

I looked across the room and for the first time I noticed a young girl nestled in an armchair underneath a huge bay window.

She was a chubby kid, about 15, with soft brown eyes and an old fashioned Dutch Boy haircut. Something about her looked vaguely familiar. And then I realized—Good heavens, she was me—at fifteen. Not that I have brown eyes; mine are green. And when I was 15, I wasn’t quite as chunky as this girl. But there was something about her that reminded me of the young Jaine Austen. Maybe it was the book she was reading.
Stiff Upper Lip,
by the British humorist P.G. Wodehouse. When I was a teenager, I was crazy about his books. In fact, I still am. But it’s not every day you see a teenager reading Wodehouse.

“Nobody ever lasts a week,” she said, looking up at me from under her thick bangs. “Sooner or later, they all quit.”

So that’s why SueEllen was willing to hire a writer from the Yellow Pages. No reputable writer would work for her.

“She’s nice at first, but then she turns mean. You’ll see.”

“So your mom’s tough to work for, huh?”

The kid looked at me as if I’d just offered her a worm for lunch.

“SueEllen isn’t my mother,” she said with all the warmth of Christina Crawford talking about Joan. “She’s my stepmother. My real mother’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too.”

And with that she picked up her book and began reading. Conversation terminated.

“Miss Austen?”

The Hispanic maid was at the door, still clutching her Windex. I only wished she had some stain remover for the grease spot on my blouse.

“Mrs. Kingsley will see you now,” she said.

I got up to go. I tried to button my blazer, but it was no use. SueEllen Kingsley would have to accept me as I was, grease stain and all.

“Nice meeting you,” I said to the kid in the chair.

“Whatever,” was her jolly reply.

I followed the maid up a flight of stairs and down what seemed like an endless hallway. If I’d known how big this place was, I would’ve worn hiking shoes.

Halfway down the corridor, we ran into a bubbly blonde carrying a portable massage table. She weighed about as much as my right leg.

“Hi, Conchi,” she said to the maid. Then she turned to me, beaming me an impossibly white smile. “I’m Larkspur O’Leary, SueEllen’s masseuse.”

Larkspur O’Leary? And I thought my mom was bad naming me Jaine Austen.