Murder of a Botoxed Blonde (32 page)

The second floor guest rooms were all locked, too, so Skye ran down to the lobby. A vase was smashed on the floor, having been swept off a table that was overturned, and the entrance door stood wide open. Skye ran through in time to see Wally chase Amber across the drive and grab her in just a few strides.

“Let me go!” She wiggled free, darting a few steps. “We just wanted revenge against the women who had stolen our fathers. Is that so wrong?”

“That’s for a judge and jury to decide.” Wally grabbed her again and hauled her back to the squad car, positioning her face down across the hood. “Take your hands off the car, and I’ll make sure your birth certificate is a worthless document.”

Skye grinned. It was good to see Amber getting a lesson in reality.

I
t was hard to believe that only five days earlier Frannie had been held at scissor-point by the Scumble River Spa Slayers—at least that’s what the newspapers were calling Amber and Whitney. Tonight Frannie looked radiant, surrounded by her friends and family, celebrating her seventeenth birthday.

Skye and Wally had argued about attending Frannie’s surprise party, which Xavier, Simon, and Bunny were throwing for her at the bowling alley. Skye thought she should go alone, while Wally wanted to come as the “and guest” on her invitation.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to spend the evening with Wally, or be seen in public with him. It just seemed a bit of a slap in the face to Simon and his mother. That, and she was afraid that the two men would get into a fight and ruin Frannie’s special evening. Wally had finally agreed with Skye, but he insisted on dropping her off at the party and picking her up when she was ready to leave. Was this a jealous side of Wally she had never noticed before?

She could understand him not wanting her to spend time with an ex-boyfriend. She’d feel the same way about Wally’s ex-wife, and she secretly found a little jealousy attractive. But his possessiveness would get old quickly if he acted that way about all the men she came in contact with.

Skye’s thoughts were interrupted as Bunny clanked two martini glasses down on the table and dropped into a chair. With a grunt, she adjusted the cleavage created by her pink crocheted halter top, tugged down the matching miniskirt, and pushed her crocheted cowboy hat out of her eyes.

Skye was struck speechless by Bunny’s outfit. The redhead looked like a walking doily dyed in Pepto-Bismol.

Bunny finally looked up and said, “You and the police chief have a fight?”

“No.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” The redhead shoved one of the glasses in front of Skye. “Try this.”

“I thought it was inappropriate to bring him to a party that Simon was paying for.” Skye looked around. “By the way, where is Simon?”

“He called and said he’d be a little late, but he wouldn’t tell me why.” Bunny raised an eyebrow. “Maybe his date wasn’t ready on time.”

“He’s bringing a date?” Skye hadn’t thought of that possibility, and wondered how she felt about seeing Simon with another woman.

“Who knows?” Bunny threw a pointed look at Skye. “He’s free to, right?”

“Certainly.” Skye knew she’d better change the subject, so she sniffed the concoction in front of her—it was the same color as Bunny’s outfit—and asked, “What’s this?”

“Cosmopolitan à la Bunny.”

Skye took a mouthful. “Hey, this is good. Thanks.”

“Of course it is.” Bunny smirked. “I made it myself.”

The two women sipped in companionable silence until Skye asked, “Has Spike gone home? I wanted to say goodbye, but with school starting back up, this past week has been a blur.”

“She left last night.” Bunny’s usually ebullient personality seemed a bit dampened. “I’m glad she agreed to stay with me for a couple of days so we could talk.”

“Is everything okay between you two?”

“As good as I have a right to expect, after tossing her away.”

“Giving her up for adoption is not the same thing as tossing her away.” Skye frowned. “You made sure she had a good family when you knew you couldn’t take care of her.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But now I don’t know.”

Skye was puzzled. “You’ve never shown much remorse for deserting Simon for twenty years. What’s the difference between what you did with him and what you did with Spike?”

“He was with his father, and I kept tabs on him through friends—they even sent me pictures. But Spike was with strangers.”

“They weren’t strangers to her, they were her family. Do you see the difference?”

Bunny nodded, tears in her brown eyes.

They were silent again until Frannie and Justin joined them.

Frannie held out her left hand. “Look what Justin got me for my birthday.” A tiny diamond chip in the center of a gold heart sparkled on her finger. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Before Skye could form the words, Bunny, who seemed back to her usual self, demanded, “Is that an engagement ring?”

Justin, who had been taking a swallow from his can of Coke, choked and Frannie giggled.

“No, silly, it’s a promise ring. We’re going steady.”

Skye felt a huge sense of relief—sixteen and seventeen were way too young to be thinking about marriage. Besides, if Frannie got engaged before Skye did, May would have an aneurism.

As if Skye had conjured up her mother, May appeared beside her and sat down. “What are you guys looking at?”

As Frannie showed off her ring and explained its significance, Trixie and Owen pulled up chairs. They were all admiring Justin’s gift to Frannie when the doors to the bowling alley swished open, and Simon strode in. His auburn hair was windblown, his pants legs and shoes were caked with mud, and he wasn’t wearing the jacket to his suit.

Skye had never seen Simon in such dishabille. What in heaven’s name had happened?

He stopped at the table and dropped wearily into the remaining chair. Up close, Skye could see that his cheeks were flushed and the tip of his nose was red.

Bunny demanded, “What in the world happened to you?”

He put up a finger, indicating he needed a second, then grabbed his mother’s martini glass and drained the contents. Smacking the glass back on the table, he grinned. “I found the Bruefeld Treasure.”

Everyone started talking at once, but May made herself heard above the others, “Wow. Now you must be really rich.”

“Not exactly.” Simon chuckled. “First, I agreed to give Margot and Creighton half, and second, I suspect the jewelry is fake.”

“What?” Again, the whole table exploded in questions.

Simon finally quieted everyone down and explained. “My guess is that Mr. Bruefeld exchanged the real jewelry for phony pieces when he first started losing money, but never told his wife he had made the switch. Good replicas were often made back then so the real jewels wouldn’t be stolen.”

“All that trouble and they’re worthless,” Trixie grumbled.

“Not quite. They’re nice costume pieces, collectibles. They’re probably worth a couple of thousand dollars.”

“So how did you solve the riddle?” Frannie asked.

“The riddle was:
the man who invented me doesn’t want me. the man who buys me doesn’t need me. the man who needs me doesn’t know it
.” Simon paused, as if waiting to see if anyone else could get the answer. When no one did, he continued, “So, I had a little head start because of my profession.”

“How does being a funeral director help you solve it?” Justin drew his brows together.

“The ‘it’ referred to is a casket,” Simon explained. “Once I realized that, I went to the family cemetery with a metal detector, and after eliminating metal coffins by their size, I found the spot, dug, and there was the jewelry box.”

“Very clever,” Skye finally said. She wasn’t sure how to treat Simon after their awful encounter at the diner, but felt her silence was growing noticeable.

“Thank you.” Simon dipped his head in acknowledgment, then said, “I have a question for you.” He smiled back. “Did you ever figure out who were in the cottages the night I startled you?”

“Amber and Elvis were in the one I was peeking into, but I knew that. It’s the other one that I didn’t get a chance to check out, but Wally thinks he’s figured it out.” Skye faltered when she saw Simon wince at Wally’s name, then went on quickly. “He found a wig, colored contact lenses, a theatrical makeup kit, and a navy pantsuit with a badge pinned to the jacket pocket.”

“Special Agent Vail,” May shouted out.

“Yep, that’s what he thinks.” Skye nodded. “For some reason this woman impersonated a police officer for a day, then must have hung out in the cottage for a while watching everyone.”

“Any idea who she really was or why she did it?” Justin asked with a reporter’s gleam in his eye.

“None at all,” Skye answered, trying not to let the teen see that she was still troubled by that issue herself. She had a feeling they hadn’t seen the last of Veronica Vail or whomever she was, and that when she reappeared she’d bring her own brand of evil with her.

“Since we’re asking questions, I have a few myself.” Bunny folded her arms. “For instance, why did Ustelle keep disappearing? Why was Kipp so jumpy? And what was the deal with Frisco?”

“Ustelle and her boyfriend Carlos want to open their own spa, so she was trying to discover the secret ingredient in Miracle Mud,” Skye explained. “Kipp was selling contraband food and afraid Margot would find out and fire him, and Frisco was sleeping with anything female and trying to keep them all from finding out about each other.”

“What I want to know is, how did Wally get Amber and Whitney to confess?” Frannie asked. “If they would have kept their mouths shut, they might have gotten away with it.”

“Maybe.” Skye shook her head. “But I doubt it. Once the police knew what had really happened, they would have been able to round up the forensic evidence, such as the needle Amber used on Esmé, to support their case. That, along with Elvis’s testimony, would have been enough to put Amber away. Then they would have reopened Amber’s stepmother’s case.”

“Is that why they confessed, they knew the jig was up?” Bunny asked.

“No. Wally tricked them. He told both Amber and Whitney that the other had confessed and blamed both murders on her partner,” Skye reported. “Amber held out for a while, but Whitney was the weaker link, and she confessed the whole plan in exchange for a lighter sentence.”

“That’s not fair.” Frannie smacked the table. “They were both murderers.”

“True, but sometimes that’s the only way to insure the guilty parties come to justice.” Skye patted the teen’s hand. “And both Amber’s and Whitney’s fathers are refusing to give them money for their defense.”

The group was silent until Bunny whined, “I still don’t understand how they did it, or where the Dooziers’ secret entrance was.”

“Yeah,” Frannie chimed in. “How did Whitney get close enough to put pills in Amber’s stepmother’s booze? Why did Amber take the job at the spa once her stepmother was dead and her dad had taken her back? And, last, why didn’t Amber and Whitney just alibi each other?”

Skye combed her fingers through her hair. “About the time Whitney and Amber reconnected online, Esmé started to talk about getting pregnant. Amber warned Whitney what would happen if her father thought he would have a new little girl. Amber’s own stepmother was expecting, which had made Amber’s father pay even less attention to her. As a result of the perceived neglect, Amber and Whitney concocted their plan to kill each other’s stepmothers. Amber’s stepmother had to be killed first, before she had the baby. Whitney took a job as Amber’s stepmother’s social secretary
under an assumed name, which made access to the alcohol bottles easy.”

“Okay, I can see that, but how about Amber’s spa job?”

“Even though the spa just opened, Margot lined up her staff nearly a year ago. Amber signed the contract for the job before her father became a widower and started showering her with presents again. The two girls decided that if Whitney could persuade her father to give her and Esmé the spa trip as a gift, it would be the perfect opportunity for Amber to kill Esmé.”

“So why didn’t they alibi each other?”

“Because they thought it would look too suspicious, and they didn’t want the police to link the two of them so closely. They decided it was more important for Whitney to have an alibi since Amber had no motive. They were careful not to let anyone notice them spending time together, but,” Skye nodded at Frannie, “they couldn’t hide it from you because you hung around with one or the other of them so much.”

Trixie reached over and took a sip of Skye’s drink, then said, “What I don’t understand is why they panicked when they found Frannie in Amber’s room. If they had just played it cool, they might have gotten away with the murders.”

“Ah.” Skye snatched her glass back and finished off the pink liquid. “It all goes back to the Dooziers.”

Bunny scratched her head. “What did they have to do with anything?”

“As it turns out, several of the clan worked on the construction crew that Margot hired to remodel the spa. I noticed Elvis the first day, and the contractor confirmed the others when Wally asked him. Anyway, since they figured the spa would attract a lot of rich people, they added a hidden entrance to the new mud treatment room addition so they could do a little stealing now and then. Remember the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river? Well, one of them opens like a French door.”