Murder Plays House (26 page)

The weekend found me absolutely gleeful at the
prospect
of time with the children, and out of Al’s Suburban. That is, until Ruby began her by-now tedious refrain.

“I don’t understand, why do I have to wait until I’m twelve to get my ears pierced?” she said.

“Because you have to be old enough to take care of the holes yourself. And that will be when you’re twelve.”

“But I’m old enough now! Both Isabel and Sophie got their ears pierced! All they had to do was clean the holes with special stuff and keep twirling their earrings. I can do that. I’m not a baby.”

How could I explain to my child that the thought of a needle being jammed through her little white lobes, those pads of sweet flesh as precious to me as every other tiny, innocent part of her adorable little body, just made my heart rush to my mouth? We own our children’s bodies when they’re small. We created those little pearl toes, those dimpled elbows, those rounded cheeks. Our children belong to us as much—no
more
—than they belong to themselves. I reached around Ruby’s waist and dragged her onto what lap I had left. She wriggled out of my arms, unintentionally jabbing me in the belly.

“Ouch!” I said.

“I don’t feel like sitting on your lap.”

“Okay,” I said, my feelings hurt. Then, I looked at her. She was standing in a way that was unfamiliar to me. Her hip jutted out at an angle, and she had the toe of one sneaker balanced on the other foot. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest and she looked almost comically furious. She wanted to grow up, and I wasn’t letting her. Then I thought of horrible little Madison and the other diet girls, and how scary that had all come to seem to me, in the wake of the tide of anorexia and bulimia that seemed to be washing over everything in my life. I was so afraid for Ruby, and so desperate for her to stay close to me so that I could protect her from all that.

“You know what, Ruby?” I said. “Let’s go get your ears pierced.”

Her shrieks of joy were so loud they made her little sister in my belly kick me in the ribs. Hard.

O
UR
first stop was the mall. None of the jewelry stores did ear-piercing, but we found a gift shop that advertised the service in the window. We waited at the register while the sales girl talked into her cell phone.

“He is like such a complete pig, and I like totally told him so. I instant messaged him, and I’m like, if you think I’m gonna just sit here while you boff her—”

“Excuse me!” I said loudly.

The salesgirl looked up at me from under her stiff, blond bangs. “What?”

“We need some help,” I said.

“Mama?” Ruby said. “What does ‘boff’ mean?”

The girl laughed and said into her phone, “O’migod, I gotta go. I’ll call you back in like a minute.”

“Mama!” Ruby insisted.

“Nothing, honey. It’s teenager talk.” Then I turned to the girl. “We’re interested in having her ears pierced.”

“Cool!” she said, ducking under the counter and coming out to stand by us. “I just learned how to do that the other day. C’mon.”

She led us to the front of the store where a little stool was set up in the window. She pointed at a row of stud earrings and told Ruby to pick out a pair.

“I’ve just got to remember how to do this,” she said, picking up a white piercing gun. “Oops!” she shrieked, howling with laughter as a gold stud flew out of the gun and landed on the floor. “I guess someone loaded it already.”

Ruby pointed out a pair of blue glass earrings, and the sales girl bit her lipsticked lip, leaving teeth marks in the heavy gloss. “Um, when’s your birthday, because those are for December,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her.

“Well, like it totally does. I mean, she can’t have like someone else’s birthstone.”

Ruby’s lip began to tremble, giving lie to the notion that she was old enough to be doing this in the first place.

“Just give her the blue ones,” I said.

“Okay, whatever,” the sales girl said, and then, as if entirely unaware of our presence, reached a talon-nail up to her forehead and picked at a shiny pimple. I watched horrified as the zit popped under her finger. She glanced at the smear of puss on her nail and then wiped it casually on her jeans.

“You know what?” I said. “I’ve changed my mind. Come on, Ruby.” I grabbed my daughter by the arm and dragged her out of the store. By the time we hit the parking lot, she was hysterical.

“Stop crying!” I said, opening the car door and lifting her
inside. “Stop crying, Ruby. We’ll get your ears pierced. I promise. Just not there. That place was disgusting”

“Well then, where?” she snuffled.

“I don’t know.”

She looked as if she was about to being sobbing again.

“Ruby!” I warned. “Enough.”

She sniffed dramatically, and we pulled out of the parking lot. We drove down Beverly Boulevard in silence, and then suddenly Ruby said, “How about there?”

She was pointing at a storefront brightly painted with geometric designs that looked vaguely tribal. A huge, green neon signed flashed the words “Body Piercing.” Two young men were leaning up against the wall of the building, their skateboards tipped up against their legs, their dreadlocks blowing in the gentle breeze.

I was about to say no, when a thought occurred to me. Who better to entrust with my baby’s precious lobes than someone whose business encompassed body parts far more sensitive and susceptible to infection?

I was probably not the first mother of two to hop out of her Volvo station wagon and into the waiting area of Tribal Memory Tat and Hole Works, but I doubt that they’d seen much of my kind of woman. The gaping mouths on the long line of bepierced and betatted young people waiting patiently on the paint-spattered vinyl couch and stools made that abundantly clear. Ruby and I crossed the cement floor with trepidation, both because we were nervous, and because the floor was decorated with a painting of the huge portrait of a Maori warrior in full face-paint, and it felt kind of weird to be stomping across his protruding tongue.

“Can I help you?” the young man behind the counter asked politely. He was young and part Asian, with long black
hair caught up in a bun on top of his head. His ears were pierced with large, round, steel plugs that measured at least one inch in diameter, causing his lobes to hang low and distended against his cheeks. Each of his eyebrows sported a dozen rings of various sizes. I couldn’t see under his clothes, but I was willing to bet that getting through a metal detector would have involved some nearly pornographic maneuvering.

“Exactly how sanitary are your facilities?” I said, ignoring the fact that I sounded like my Bubbe, who used to travel everywhere with a purse-sized bottle of Formula 409 with which she freely sprayed down park benches, bus seats, and even the chairs in restaurants.

“Good question,” he said, and then he proceeded to outline for me the various cleansing tools he used. He showed me the prepackaged needles, each individually wrapped and sealed. He described the technique he used to sterilize the earrings, and then promised that he wore gloves throughout the procedure.

His professional thoroughness won my heart. Ruby’s belonged to him the moment he showed her the gold hoops with the little mother-of-pearl beads he planned to use in her ears.

“Doesn’t she have to have studs at first?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “We find these work much better.”

The procedure wasn’t painless, but Squeak (that was what he told Ruby to call him) was true to his word. He washed his hands thoroughly, he changed gloves every time he touched something that hadn’t been sterilized, and he took a good five minutes meticulously evening out the dots he drew on Ruby’s ears. He assured me that if she ever wanted any more piercings in her ears, or if she ever planned on getting plugs like his own, there would be plenty of room in her lobes. I somehow managed to refrain from
shouting, “Over my dead body!” The actual piercing was done with a long, black needle, and Ruby managed it with nary a tear, although her arms, wrapped tightly around my neck, seemed to be shaking. It’s possible, though, that the trembling was my own.

The line of young men and women we had jumped (Squeak had asked them if they minded, and they had all assured us that they didn’t) burst into applause when we walked out of the curtained piercing room. Ruby blushed and showed off her little hoops.

“Ooh!” a tall, blond girl of about eighteen exclaimed. “Mother-of-pearl! That’s just what I want in my nipple!”

T
HAT
Monday I took the list of Board of Realtor members, as well as the names Marilyn had remembered, over to Felix’s house. Detective Goodenough arrived moments after I did.

“Ms. Applebaum,” he said, not sounding at all surprised to see me. I was waiting in the living room for Farzad to get Felix, and the maid had let the detective in.

“How is the investigation proceeding?” I asked him. “Finding out about the tampering with the programmer will certainly help, I imagine.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, and then nodded. “You’re friends with the younger Mrs. Lahidji.”

“Yes, I am.”

We waited in silence until Felix and Farzad walked into the room. The men were obviously surprised to see the detective. They had been expecting only me. Goodenough pulled a long list of names out of his briefcase. In addition to
the names of the members of the Board of Realtors that I had also brought, he had others that must have been from the sign-up sheet. After a quick glance at me, to which I replied with a nod, Felix and Farzad agreed to look over the names. The four of us passed over them, one at time, using Felix’s Palm Pilot to see if anything hit. Nothing did. And neither did any of the names strike either man as familiar. I wasn’t surprised. After we were done, the detective piled his papers together and slipped them back into his case.

“Do you think I could get a copy of the list?” I asked.

He smiled thinly and shook his head. “How’s that certification coming, Ms. Applebaum?” he asked, instead of replying to my request.

I opened my mouth but could think of no searing reply.

He stood up. “I’ll see myself out. If you think of anything new, you’ll call me,” he stated, rather than asked.

After he’d gone, Felix excused himself.

“I’ve got a lunch meeting at Barney’s. I haven’t met with the buyers there in ages, and I want to give them a sneak peek at the new line.”

“So you’re working again?”

He passed his hand over the stubble on his head. “I guess so. I mean, I have to get back sometime, don’t I? Too many people depend on me.” He didn’t look at Farzad, but I did. The younger man had his lips pursed in a tiny frown.

After he left the room, I turned to Farzad. “It’s good he’s working, don’t you think?”

“It’s about time,” the slight man said, kicking off his slippers and tucking his feet up under him. “So, you haven’t found out anything, have you?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.”

“So much for your house.”

I winced and examined his face, hoping to see reflected
there at least some humor. He still wore his almost petulant moue. I felt a sinking in my stomach. There was just no way he would allow me to buy Felix’s house unless this case came to some kind of satisfactory conclusion.

“You’re still billing us, too, aren’t you?” Farzad said.

“If you aren’t satisfied, or if you think the bill is too high, you won’t have to pay it.” Now, that wasn’t generally Al’s and my policy, but neither did we usually force our services on people whose homes we hoped to buy.

Farzad acknowledged my statement as if it were no more than his due.

“So, who do
you
think killed Alicia?” I asked him.

“That detective thinks it was just a random sex-crime,” he said.

“Did he tell you that?”

The little man shook his head. “No, but that’s what he thinks. I’m sure of it.”

“And what do
you
think?” I asked again.

He leaned his chin in his hands and cocked his head coquettishly “What does it matter what I think? Aren’t you the private eye? Maybe you think I did it?”

“Did you?” I asked in a pleasant tone of voice.

He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Then he said, “No, no of course not. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I felt like killing the woman. I mean, not really. But you know how it is. She was exasperating. She wasn’t an easy person to share Felix with.”

“Was that what it felt like? Sharing your boyfriend?”

“She lived with us, didn’t she? And she worked for Felix. Alicia was always around, and she was a presence, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t someone you could ignore.”

I nodded. “That must have made moving to Palm Springs pretty attractive.”

He smiled. “Absolutely. Of course that wasn’t the only reason, and we still want to go. But getting away from her was definitely part of it. For me, at least.”

I shifted tacks. “Farzad, why wasn’t the alarm on the night Alicia was killed?”

He wrinkled his brow. “Well, it wouldn’t have been, would it? We never used it when we were home, only when we went out. And even then Alicia was pretty bad about turning it on. Anyway, if there’s nothing else . . .” He rose to his feet both suddenly and languidly, like a cat. “Let me see you out.”

I was about to object, but there really wasn’t anything more I could ask Farzad. Perhaps he had killed her. He certainly had motive. But he, like Felix, had been in Palm Springs. They would have to have conspired to kill her together, and to provide one another with an alibi, and that just didn’t make any sense.

As I drove cross-town to my prenatal appointment, I ran through the list of suspects in my mind. There was Charlie Hoynes, and Dakota. And his ex-wife. There was Felix and Farzad. Nahid Lahidji, Julia Brennan. None of them seemed any more or less likely than the others. So who had killed Alicia, and why? Was it just some crazed psychopath, after all?

Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Kat. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said.

“What?”

“Marilyn found her programmer.”

“She what?”