Pampered to Death (13 page)

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Authors: Laura Levine

BOOK: Pampered to Death
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I
skipped cocktail hour that night, opting instead to cower in bed, curled in a fetal position.
“Oh, Pro,” I moaned, burrowing under the covers, “someone tried to drown me in the jacuzzi! It was awful, just awful! All that water in my nose! I couldn’t breathe! I honestly thought I was going to die!”
Prozac, who had been napping on her treadmill, scurried to my side, shooting me a moony-eyed look that could mean only one thing:
Thank God you’re still alive! Now you can go out to the car and get me some more cat food.
With that, she began her patented Feed Me dance on the bedspread.
Oh, groan. How was I going to break it to her? There
was
no more cat food.
“Pro, sweetie,” I said, scratching her favorite spot behind her ears. “I’m so sorry. All I bought was one emergency can, and you already ate it. But I promise I’ll run into town and get you another right after dinner.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
Just one emergency can? And you call yourself a cat owner?
I thought for sure I was in for a major yowlfest, but once she realized there was no chow forthcoming, she just stalked out to the patio, her tail swishing in irritation.
I resumed my fetal position, staring at some water stains on the ceiling, cursing the day I’d ever checked into The Haven. Maybe I should call a halt to my investigation and wait for Brangelina to find the culprit on their own. But Lord only knew how long that would take—and how many more three-hundred calorie meals I would have to suffer through.
Besides, I couldn’t let the killer intimidate me. I’d be a disgrace to part-time semi-professional P.I.s everywhere.
No, I’d hang tough and pick up where I’d left off.
And so, after treating myself to a hot shower—and an Altoid that had escaped Olga’s eagle eye—I left Prozac out on the patio, and joined my fellow murder suspects for dinner.
 
“So who did it?” I asked Cathy, as I sat beside her at the “B” table. “Who killed Mallory?”
When we last left Cathy, if you recall, she was convinced she’d figured out who the killer was.
“Well,” she said, carefully selecting a radish from our crudite plate, “at first I was sure it was her ex-husband. I read in the tabloids they went through a really messy divorce.”
“But doesn’t he live in Australia?” I asked, remembering the down under hunk Mallory had been married to for about fifteen minutes.
“Yes,” she conceded. “And on the day of the murder he was supposedly shooting a movie on location in Sydney. But I figured maybe he got a stunt double to take his place while he flew to the States on a private jet and strangled Mallory. But the more I thought of it, the more it seemed a bit farfetched, huh?”
“Maybe just a tad.”
“Then I figured it had to be Kendra. Anyone could see she hated her sister’s guts. But then, Olga hated Mallory, too, for threatening to ruin The Haven. And Harvy must’ve been furious when Mallory decided to stop payment on his check. And just when I was convinced Harvy did it, I thought of Shawna. Surely she felt like strangling Mallory, the way she’d been making a play for Sven.”
Yadda yadda, blah blah. Tell me something I hadn’t already thought of.
“But now,” she announced, waving her radish with a flourish, “I’m pretty sure I know who did it, after all.”
“Who?”
“Delphine,” she nodded smugly.
“The maid? Why on earth would Delphine want to kill Mallory?”
But I didn’t get to find out why, because just then Olga came marching over with our fresh weed salads, tossed as usual, in a piquant Pine-Sol dressing.
“Eat hearty, gals,” she said, dumping the plates in front of us.
“Looks yum!” said Cathy, the little toady.
“So why did Delphine kill Mallory?” I repeated in a hushed whisper, the minute the Diet Nazi had goose-stepped away.
“Oh, I haven’t figured out that part yet,” Cathy replied breezily, “but Delphine’s such a sneak, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
Right, Cath. When solving a mystery, who needs a pesky little thing like a motive?
“Delphine is just like Dawn Drummond,” she said, spearing her weeds with gusto.
“Dawn Drummond?”
“A gal I work with at the Piggly Wiggly.” Cathy lowered her voice to a whisper, as if about to impart classified military secrets. “I personally have seen Dawn spill ketchup on a
People
magazine during her lunch break, and then put it back on the magazine rack!”
I did my best to look horrified.
“The woman is utterly unscrupulous. The week she was in charge of watering the Christmas poinsettias, three of them died!”
As she rambled on about Dawn’s many foibles, I let my gaze wander to the “A” table, where Harvy, Kendra, and Clint were sneaking shots of booze from a flask. Indeed they were feeling no pain, giggling like naughty school kids, hiding the flask when Olga came out from the kitchen, then whipping it out when she went back in.
The few times they glanced in my direction, it was not, I regret to inform you, with a jolly wave, or to ask me if I’d care for a wee bit ’o booze. Indeed, I seemed to be high on their Most Likely to be Shunned for All Eternity list.
Dinner slogged on. Our Pine-Sol salads were whisked away, replaced by the main course—pork loin ala Kevin. Which is to say, a most depressing shade of gray. Stylish, perhaps, on a Prada suit. Not so hot on a piece of pork. I picked at it listlessly, wondering how Kevin managed to decolorize absolutely everything he cooked.
Meanwhile Cathy was still on a toot about Disgraceful Dawn—yammering about her deplorable habit of pilfering grapes from the produce section—when I happened to glance up and see something that made my blood freeze.
There, prancing out in the lobby before my horrified eyes, was Prozac.
And she was not alone. No, sir. Dangling from her mouth was one of Olga’s prized koi!
When I’d left my room earlier, she’d been hunched up on the patio chaise staring out into the distance. I should’ve known she’d been eyeing that koi. Somehow she’d managed to bust out of stir and go for her prey!
“Omigod!” I moaned.
“I know,” Cathy tsked. “It’s disgraceful, isn’t it? Not only is she stealing produce, but she eats the grapes without washing them. Ugh!”
Thank heavens Cathy was facing away from the hallway, so she hadn’t noticed my little fishnapper. Nor had the gang at the “A” table, still busy sneaking shots from their flask.
“I just remembered a very important call I have to make,” I said, jumping up.
“But you’ll miss dessert,” Cathy protested. “Tonight it’s gluten-free zucchini cookies.”
“Mighty tempting,” I said, dashing for the door, “but I’ll pass.”
I got to the lobby just in time to see Prozac’s tail disappearing into the lounge. Lunging in after her, I spotted her near the fireplace, the poor koi still flapping in her mouth. For a terrifying instant, I was afraid she was going to toss it into the flames for a quickie barbeque.
But no, the minute she saw me, she was off and running again.
Damn that cat. She was actually enjoying this!
And it was at that moment, just as I was about to take off after her, that a tiny ball of tan fur came whizzing into the room.
Good heavens, it was Armani! He’d seen Prozac and Mr. Fish and had decided to join in the fun.
So there we were in a frantic daisy chain, me chasing Armani while Armani chased Prozac while the poor little koi was no doubt wondering what the heck had happened to his pond.
Fortunately, thanks to all those years of being toted around in the crook of Mallory’s arm, Armani wasn’t used to high speed chases, and I quickly managed to nab him. Frantic, I looked around for a place to stash him.
Spotting a nearby door, I opened it and saw a small wellappointed library, filled to the brim with leather bound volumes.
“No fish for you,” I hissed, tossing him inside. Then, firmly shutting the door, I returned to Prozac, who continued to lead me on a merry chase around the furniture, her tail swishing with glee. It seemed like forever but was probably only seconds before I caught up with her behind a loveseat, where she dropped the fish at my feet.
Quite proud of herself.
I’d like it sauteed, please, with a beurre blanc.
I looked down at the poor critter. Thank heavens it was still wriggling. Thrilled to see no visible blood, I snatched it up with one hand, and with Prozac slung under my other arm, I raced back to my room where I filled my sink with water, and dropped in the fish.
Prozac looked up from where she was pacing at my ankles.
Wait a minute. That’s not beurre blanc.
I stared at the sink in dismay. The koi was just floating there, immobile. Oh, Lord. It was dead after all. Desperate, I gave it a gentle push.
And then—miraculously—my little gold friend started swimming!
Hallelujah! It was still alive! As I watched it circumnavigate the sink, my heart flooded with relief.
But just when my blood pressure was descending from the stratosphere, I remembered Armani.
I raced downstairs to the library where I found him busily chewing a first edition of
Catcher in the Rye
. I wrestled it away from him (I’ve still got the commemorative scars to prove it) and was just putting the book back on the shelf when Kendra came wandering in.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” she scolded Armani. “What the heck have you been up to?
“Catching up on his reading,” I said with a feeble laugh, hoping she wouldn’t notice the scrap of J.D. Salinger hanging from his tush.
 
Unwilling to risk any surprise encounters, I decided to wait until everyone had gone to bed to put Mr. Koi back in his pond. Which meant I spent the next hellish few hours trying to keep Prozac out of the bathroom and away from her “dinner.”
At one point she gave up on the bathroom and made a mad dash for the patio screen. For the first time I noticed a gap in the bottom of the mesh. So that’s how the little devil made her escape. I had no idea if the opening had been there all along, or if my ingenious kitty had managed to pry it open herself. I wouldn’t put it past her. This was a cat who could crack open a safe if there was something to nosh on inside.
Before she could escape again, I grabbed her and deposited her on the bed, locking the door to the patio.
The minutes passed like centuries as she yowled for her lost dinner.
I was tempted to run to town to get her some cat food, but I couldn’t trust her with the koi just a bathroom away. So I stuck it out until I was fairly certain everyone had retired for the night.
And then I got ready for my mission.
Looking around my room, I spotted the bowl of fresh flowers on my dresser. I dumped out the flowers and rinsed the bowl in the bathtub, filling it with fresh water. Then I scooped up the koi, still doing laps in the sink—and plopped the poor little thing into the bowl.
“C’mon, sweetpea,” I said. “We’re going home.”
 
I tiptoed down the corridor with my precious cargo, praying I wouldn’t bump into Olga on her way to the kitchen for a midnight snack.
My prayers were answered, and I was soon slipping out the back door and along the path to the koi pond.
“Okay, little fella,” I said when I reached my destination, “time to join your brothers and sisters.”
I was just about to preside over this touching family reunion, when I heard a chirpy voice behind me say:
“Bon Voyage!”
I whirled around to see Delphine, still in uniform, arms clamped across her flat chest.
“What’s up?” she asked with a sly grin.
Oh, foo. What on earth was I going to tell her?
“A gift for Olga,” I lied shamelessly, dropping the fish in the pond. “I was in town today and picked up another koi for her collection.”
“Really?” she smirked. “The same koi I saw in your cat’s mouth earlier this evening?”
Rats. Busted.
But I’d be damned if I was going to let her rattle my nerves.
“Okay, so my cat took the fish,” I said, going for an air of nonchalance. “It’s alive and that’s all that matters.”
“Not exactly,” Delphine pointed out. “Olga’s crazy about her koi babies. If she knew Sparky had almost been cat food, she’d have a snit fit.”
“Sparky?”
“Yes, she’s got names for all of them. Sparky’s the one with the black dots down his back.”
Oh, Lordy. Who knew that Olga was a koi cuckoo? I hated to think what she’d do to me if she found out about Prozac’s fishnapping. Probably chain me 24/7 to that damn organic garden.

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