Murder Has Nine Lives (18 page)

Chapter 26

P
rozac was at the top of her game the next morning, clawing me awake for her breakfast with her usual gusto, yowling at the top of her lungs.

Music to my ears.

I watched her inhale her mackerel guts, thrilled to have my feline chowhound back in action. Then, still in a rosy glow, I settled down on my sofa with my coffee and CRB and checked my cell phone messages.

Acck! I gulped in dismay to see five texts from Arnold, begging me to go out with him, each signed with a throbbing emoticon heart.

And if that wasn't enough to put a dent in my morning, there were the e-mails from my parents. Can you believe Daddy tackling Alex Trebek and giving him the Heimlich maneuver?

Rest assured he would not be playing Final Jeopardy any time soon.

But I couldn't worry about Daddy (or his plans to serenade the people of Maui with his handmade ukulele), not when I still had a murder to solve.

I thought about that multimillion-dollar cat toy deal Artie told me about, and once again I wondered if Linda bumped off Dean to ace him out of the profits.

But had the deal really taken place?

I couldn't very well ask Linda. Not without admitting I suspected her of killing her hubby.

Then I thought of someone I could ask: the Pink Panther. She and Dean had been more than just business associates. Way more. Surely he would have told her about any deal in the works.

“Ms. Austen!” she cried when I called to make an appointment to see her. “I've been waiting to hear from you. So what did your editor say? Did she like the pictures of Desiree?”

Foo. Another lie come back to bite me in the fanny. Those of you “A” students out there will no doubt remember my whopper about
Cat Fancy
magazine wanting Desiree for their first ever centerfold. I really had to nip this fairy tale in the bud and tell her that my fictitious editor had decided not to go with a centerfold, after all.

“Desiree and I have been so excited!” the Panther gushed. “This centerfold has been such a ray of sunshine in our lives after the trauma of Dean's death.”

Cripes. I couldn't very well stomp on her ray of sunshine, could I?

“My editor loved the pictures,” I said, plowing ahead with my lie.

“That's marvelous. I've been going through Desiree's photo albums and found some adorable snapshots you may want to use in addition to the centerfold. Why don't you stop by, and I'll show them to you?”

And so later that morning I found myself being ushered into the Panther's palatial bedroom by her maid, Sofia.

The Panther, clad in white capris and a slouchy pink cashmere tunic, was gazing fondly at a bunch of photos spread out on her satin duvet. Lounging alongside the pictures were her German shepherds, Tristan and Isolde, and of course, the would-be centerfold, Desiree.

“How lovely to see you,” the Panther said, offering me a perfectly manicured hand and almost blinding me with a honker pink sapphire ring. “And thank you again for making this centerfold possible. It's given me something positive to focus on, and I'm very grateful.”

From beneath their Botoxed brows, her eyes did indeed shine with gratitude.

By now I was feeling so guilty, I was actually considering writing
Cat Fancy
and pitching Desiree for a story.

I oohed and aahed as the Panther showed me pictures of her beloved furball—frolicking with a Cartier necklace, sleeping on a pink satin pillow, and curled around a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

Finally, when I'd oohed my last ooh and aahed my last aah, she swept the photos up in a manila envelope for me to show to my “editor.”

“I don't suppose you've heard anything new about Dean's murder,” she said, handing me the envelope.

Just the opening I'd been looking for!

“Actually, I heard a rumor that shortly before Dean died, he and Linda had signed a multimillion-dollar cat toy deal. And I was wondering if Linda might have killed Dean to keep all the money for herself.”

“Linda?” She blinked in surprise. “I doubt she'd have the nerve. She seems too weak to be a killer.”

“Appearances are deceptive,” I said.

“I guess they can be,” she agreed.

“So do you know anything about the cat toy deal? Was it true? Or just a rumor?”

“Dean had been bragging about it to me. But that doesn't mean it was true. Dean was a wonderful man,” she said, her eyes growing soft at his memory. “So charming, so charismatic. But he often exaggerated things to build himself up. Maybe he had a deal. Maybe he didn't. With Dean,” she shrugged, “you never knew.”

“Sorry I can't be more help,” she said when she saw the disappointed look on my face.

Then her eyes lit up. “But I know who'd have an answer for you. Dean's attorney. I've got his phone number in my office downstairs. Wait here while I get it. You can play with Tristan and Isolde while I'm gone.”

At the mention of their names, the two hulking dogs woke up from where they'd been snoozing on the duvet and began growling.

“Tristan! Isolde! Be nice to Ms. Austen. No biting,” she added, wagging a stern finger at them.

And off she skipped, leaving me alone with her canine mafiosi. Who continued growling most menacingly, throwing in some fang-baring for good measure. I spent a terrified second or two before they finally decided I wasn't worth noshing on and resumed their snooze.

Glancing around the room, my eyes were immediately drawn to the Panther's huge walk-in closet. Unable to resist the urge to snoop, I tiptoed inside.

Unlike my closet at home, with clothing jumbled together like remnants at a yard sale, the Panther's closet had been organized to within an inch of its life.

Dresses, skirts, slacks, blouses were in separate sections, all standing at attention on couture wooden hangers, not one item of clothing touching another. There were shelves for shoes, cubbyholes for handbags, and everywhere I looked, I saw different shades of pink. A locked door in the corner led to what I assumed was either a panic room or a small bank vault.

And in the center of it all was a ginormous jewelry case, stocked with such fabulous doodads, I felt like I'd wandered into a branch of Tiffany's. Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of gold and diamonds and pink sapphires sat under lock and key. On top of the glass case were the Panther's costume jewelry pieces, stuff she felt safe leaving out on display.

I was gazing down at the Panther's honker rings when I noticed a ring on top of the case that looked familiar. An eye-catching piece of bling with pink stones set in the shape of a flower.

Yikes. It was the pink hibiscus ring Nikki was wearing the day of the shoot! The one that went missing when she left it to get a snack at the buffet table. I picked it up and examined it. No doubt about it. It was the exact same ring. What on earth was it doing here in the Panther's closet?

There could be only one explanation. The Panther must have stolen it the day of the murder, when Nikki left the cat food unattended.

Was the Pink Panther the one who sprayed the Skinny Kitty with Raid? But why? She was one of the few people who actually liked Dean. Why on earth would she want to kill him?

And then I looked up and understood everything.

There, in the doorway, was the Pink Panther. And she wasn't alone. Standing at her side was Linda, a gun in her hand. A gun aimed most distressingly at my heart.

I'd been so engrossed in my snooping, I hadn't heard them coming.

Now I looked at the two of them standing side by side and realized I'd been right about Linda. She'd grown tired of Dean's cheating ways and found a new partner. But it wasn't Zeke she'd fallen for. It was the Panther.

All along the two of them pretended to be enemies while they plotted to kill Dean and cash in on his multimillion-dollar cat toy deal.

“I had a feeling you'd be trouble,” Linda said, eyes like steel behind her harlequin glasses. “You really should have minded your own business. I tried to warn you with that Raid ad. But did you listen? Noooo.”

Now she was aiming the gun at my gut.

“And it wasn't very smart fibbing to me about
Cat Fancy
,” the Panther piped up. “I called them the minute you left the house the other day. They'd never heard of you.”

Here I thought I was putting one over on her, and she was the one setting a trap for me. She'd undoubtedly lured me over to her house today to find out how much dirt I'd dug up about Dean's murder.

“Oh, well,” Linda said. “No harm, no foul. You won't be around to poke your nose in things anymore. Not after today.”

That sure didn't sound good. I had to keep them talking while I thought of a way to worm my way out of this mess.

“So my theory was right,” I said. “You killed Dean for the money. Now you won't have to split the profits from your cat toy deal.”

“We killed him,” Linda said, “because he was a cheating, lying bastard, and he deserved to die.” Then, with a sly wink, she added, “And for the money. I gotta admit, it was quite an incentive.”

“You were the one who sprayed the cat food,” I said to the Panther.

“It was all very serendipitous. We'd been planning to kill Dean by putting cyanide in his martini. But that day at the shoot, I took a break from my ‘work session' with Dean to go to the ladies' room and saw that Nikki had left the Skinny Kitty out on the counter. With the can of Raid right there on the shelf. So I just nipped right in and gave it a spray! Easy as pie!”

She smiled with pride.

“How did you manage to be . . . intimate with him?” I asked. “That can't have been easy.”

“Honey, I just closed my eyes and thought of all the millions of dollars at the end of the rainbow. How do you think I got all this?” she said, pointing to her mammoth jewelry case.

“We had so much fun fooling everyone, didn't we, hon?” Linda said, flinging her free arm around the Panther's shoulder. “Remember that scene at the funeral reception?”

Reprising the role she'd played that day, that of the grieving widow, Linda drew herself up with outraged dignity and huffed, “Please leave. You're not welcome here.”

They both broke out giggling like teenagers.

“Dean never suspected a thing,” the Panther said. “Not for a minute. I used to go over to their house to be with Linda in the middle of the night, and he never knew.”

So it wasn't Dean the Panther had been visiting that night when Zeke spotted her outside his cottage. It was Linda.

“From the moment we met at the charity ball, Linda and I clicked. Dean, egomaniac that he was, assumed that he was the one I was interested in. What a fool.”

“At first we figured I'd just get a divorce,” Linda chimed in. “But a divorce from Dean would have been ugly. And so expensive. And why pass up all those millions from the cat toy deal? It seemed silly to let him have half the money. He didn't deserve it, anyway. The catnip yarn wasn't even his idea. He bought it from some poor soul out in West Covina for five hundred dollars. Swindled the guy, just like he swindled Artie Lembeck.”

“But enough chitchat,” the Panther said with a bright smile on her pink lips. “Time to kill you, hon!”

“Just one more question,” I said, still trying to keep them talking. “With all your jewels, why did you steal Nikki's ten-dollar ring?”

“As a memento of my very first murder!” The Panther grinned.

“No more stalling,” Linda said, waving her gun. “Time to check out, hon.”

“But you can't shoot me. What if Sofia hears?”

“We're not going to shoot you,” the Panther said. “We're going to lock you in my fur closet.”

The Panther opened the door I'd seen earlier, the one I'd thought led to a panic room. It was a tiny hole of a room lined with a few empty shelves. Not a fur coat in sight.

“Where are the furs?” I asked.

“Furs are so yesterday,” the Panther said, with a wave of her fuchsia nails. “I sold them years ago. Had the closet converted into a freezer so I wouldn't have to run downstairs for ice cream.”

“Where's the ice cream?” I asked, looking at the empty shelves.

“Sorry, hon. I'm on a diet. If I knew we were going to kill you today, I would've laid in a farewell pint for you.”

“Please,” Linda sniffed. “The last thing she needs is a pint of ice cream. Not with those thighs.”

Of all the nerve! If she hadn't had that gun pointed at my innards, I would've stung her with a bitter retort. As it was, I just mumbled something about not being very hungry anyway.

“Just as well,” Linda said. “Once you're locked inside, we're going to set the thermostat to freezing. So I doubt you'd appreciate any ice cream.”

“If the cold doesn't kill you,” the Panther chirped, “the lack of oxygen will. And don't even think of calling for help,” she added. “Sofia will never hear you in the kitchen.”

“Let's drive out to Malibu for a nice leisurely lunch, sweetie,” Linda said. “By the time we get back, she should be dead.”

“Wait!” I cried in a last-ditch effort to save my life. “I told my neighbor where I was going, and that I suspected Linda of killing Dean. So if anything happens to me, the police will know it's you two.”

All lies, of course, but I was gambling it would work.

A gamble, alas, that didn't pay off.

“We'll take our chances,” said Linda, calling my bluff.