Pampered to Death (14 page)

Read Pampered to Death Online

Authors: Laura Levine

BOOK: Pampered to Death
4.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“You’re not going to tell her, are you?” I asked, unable to keep a pleading note from my voice.
“Of course not,” she assured me. “I won’t breathe a word.”
“You won’t?”
“Worry not. For fifty bucks, my lips are sealed forever.”
Oh, for crying out loud. She’d be blackmailing me about this for the rest of my life.
And suddenly something in me snapped. I’d had it up to here with this pint-sized con artist.
“Go ahead and blab to Olga! And I’ll tell her how you’re selling forbidden calories to her guests. You’ll be out of a job before you can say ‘highway robbery.’”
But if I expected her to be cowed, I was sadly mistaken.
“Olga will never fire me,” she said. “Not with what I know.”
“What do you know?”
“I know,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect, “that Olga killed Mallory.”
“What??”
“It’s true,” she insisted. “Right about the time Mallory was killed, I happened to be taking a teensy break from my chores and sampling the pinot noir in Harvy’s minibar. Anyhow, I was looking out Harvy’s window when I saw Olga come running out of the spa therapy center. She dashed out of there like a crazy lady, her eyes all buggy and weird. Like . . . well, like she’d just strangled someone.”
Oh, boy. It looked like Olga had just joined the rapidly swelling ranks of my Most Likely Suspects.
“She killed Mallory all right,” Delphine nodded confidently. “Olga wasn’t about to let that bitch destroy The Haven with her gossip. So you can tell her all about my little food concession. She’s not about to fire me. Not with what I know.
“But you, on the other hand,” she said, that smirk of hers back in action, “she’s not scared of you at all. Quite the contrary.”
She held out her palm.
“So that’ll be fifty bucks, please.”
You’ll be quite proud to know that I stuck to my guns and refused to fork over fifty bucks for her silence.
I did, however, fork over fifty bucks for some M&N’s and a can of Fancy Feast, which the little extortionist just happened to have in her pockets.
Fifty bucks richer, Delphine skipped off into the night, leaving me alone at the koi pond. I stood there watching Sparky frolic with his kin, cursing Delphine and, not incidentally, wondering if The Haven’s genial Diet Nazi was indeed a killer.
 
YOU’VE GOT MAIL
 
 
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Not My Fault!!
 
I don’t care what Mom says about the debate, it was not my fault.
 
Your innocent,
 
Daddy
 
 
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: So Mad I Could Spit!
 
I’m so mad at Daddy I could spit. You won’t believe what happened at the debate.
 
First off, he insisted on taking one of his dratted gnomes with him, as a “visual aid.” I had to hold the hideous creature in my lap as we drove over to the clubhouse. Daddy made such a fuss over the darn thing, I’m surprised he didn’t buy it a car seat.
 
Anyhow, we got to the clubhouse and were walking past the rec room when Daddy poked his head inside and saw the remains of a party buffet.
 
“Oh, wow!” Daddy said, eyeing one of the platters. “Baby lamb chops! My favorite.”
 
“Hank Austen!” I said. “Don’t you dare go in there and take one of those lamb chops.”
“Why on earth not?” he wanted to know.
 
“First, because it’s not our food, and second, because we don’t have time. The debate is scheduled to start any minute.”
 
“Oh, please,” Daddy pshawed, “they can’t start the debate without me. Besides, I’m starving.”
 
“Starving? You just finished a meatloaf dinner!”
 
But you know Daddy. Nothing I ever say makes a dent in that brain of his. Before I could stop him, he was zooming over to the buffet table for a baby lamb chop. Which I have to confess was quite tasty. (Okay, I had one myself).
 
And then, just as he was reaching for another, the most awful thing happened.
 
With that dratted gnome in his arms, he knocked over a glass of champagne, which spilled right down the front of his pants!
 
In a most embarrassing spot.
 
“Oh, for heavens sakes!” I said. “Now look what you’ve done. You can’t go walking around like you’ve just taken a tinkle in your pants.”
 
Instead of worrying like a normal person, Daddy just smiled in that superior way of his and said, “That’s the trouble with you, honeybun. You panic in times of crisis. While I, on the other hand, stay cool as a cucumber. That’s one of the key leadership qualities I possess that will make me such a valuable president of the homeowners association.”
 
“Okay, Mr. President, exactly what do you intend to do?”
“Simple. I’ll dry my pants under the men’s room hand dryer. They’ll be good as new before you can say, You Can Bank on Hank For President!”
 
And with that, he shoved the gnome in my arms and dashed across the hallway to the men’s room.
 
Well, honey, I stood outside that men’s room for what seemed like a small eternity when suddenly I heard Daddy shout, “Oh no!”
 
Two seconds later, he poked his head out the door.
 
“What on earth happened?” I asked.
 
“I set my pants on fire.”
 
“What??”
 
It turns out he held the pants way too close to the dryer nozzle and I guess it must have ignited the alcohol from the champagne.
 
“Now what are we going to do?” he wailed. “I had to throw my pants in the trash.”
 
At which point Artie Myers came running up to us.
 
“Where the hell have you been, Hank? The debate was supposed to start five minutes ago.”
 
Daddy explained how he’d set his pants on fire, and I offered to go back home and get another pair.
 
“We don’t have time for that,” Artie said. “I’ve got a poker game that starts in a half hour. Let’s get this show on the road.”
So we hustled up the stairs to the Channel 99 studio, with Daddy in his
I
My Gnome
boxer shorts, praying no one would see us.
 
“Don’t worry,” Artie told Daddy when we got to the studio. “Just stand behind the podium, and I’ll shoot you from the waist up.”
 
I waited in the wings as Daddy took his spot behind one of his coffin shaped podiums, his gnome on the floor beside him. Then the cameras started rolling and the debate began. Lydia, needless to say, after an initial gasp at Daddy’s boxers, was poise personified, talking about her plans to improve the quality of life at Tampa Vistas.
 
Then it was Daddy’s turn to speak. Up to this point, Daddy had been Mr. Confident, snickering and smirking throughout Lydia’s wonderful speech. But the minute the camera was on him, he froze. Just stood there and gulped.
 
Finally, he took out his notes, cleared his throat and said, “And now, a few words about ancient Aztec and Incan civilizations. . . .”
 
Good heavens! He’d taken my class notes by mistake!
 
I couldn’t believe it. I’d spent all day listening to him rehearse his speech about freedom of speech and press and the right to bear lawn gnomes. And here he was yakking about how the Aztecs invented popcorn!
 
We all just stood there, boggled, wondering what on earth had gotten into him. Then I guess Daddy must have realized he was several hundred years and a hemisphere off topic, and began blathering about his campaign to save the gnomes.
Finally, remembering his visual aid, he picked up his gnome and said, “I’d like you to meet a little friend of mine.”
 
He plunked the gnome down on the podium. And that’s when it all fell apart. Literally. The minute the gnome hit the podium, the rickety wooden structure shattered to smithereens. Which was no surprise. The darn thing had been practically put together with spit and paper clips. And that silly gnome weighed a ton.
 
So there was Daddy, without a podium for cover, in his
I
My Gnome
boxers, his own “little friend”
thisclose
to making its TV debut.
 
And as if that weren’t bad enough, the very next minute the janitor came racing in the studio shouting, “Everybody out! Fire in the clubhouse! Some idiot put a pair of burning pants in the trash!”
 
Not only did Daddy expose himself in his underwear to all of Tampa Vistas, the darn fool set fire to the clubhouse men’s room!
 
In other words, honey, I think it’s safe to say that
 
HANK STANK!
 
And as for me, I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life!
 
Love and kisses from
 
Your wretched,
 
Mom
 
To: Jausten
From: Sir Lancelot
Subject: Surely You Didn’t Mean It
 
Jaine, sweetie, I got your last message and I must say I was rather upset. Surely you didn’t mean it when you threatened to choke me with a chimichanga.
 
I’m sorry if you resent a few meals I might have enjoyed while you were dieting. I never dreamed it would get on your nerves.
 
I’m sure you’re just cranky from all that sugar withdrawal.
 
Hug hug, kiss kiss,
 
Lance
 
PS. Will call soon. I promise!
I
cringed at the thought of questioning the Diet Nazi about Mallory’s murder. (You would, too, if you’d seen her biceps.) But question her I must, so I decided to use my busted patio screen as an excuse to pay her a little visit.
I waited till after breakfast the next morning (rice cakes and stewed prunes—gaaack!), and found her office tucked away at the back of The Haven across from the kitchen. At least I assumed it was her office from the PRIVATE sign on the door.
The door was partially open, and after a tentative knock, I poked my head inside.
Olga, seated behind a desk, waved me in as she talked on the phone.
“I can assure you, Mrs. Washton,” she was cooing, “that Mallory Francis’s tragic demise has not affected the safety of our guests in the slightest.”
Yeah, right. Except for the occasional attempted jacuzzi drowning.
As Olga rambled on about the nonexistent security system at The Haven, I glanced around her small office, which was decorated more like a living room than a place of business, with furniture straight out of the pages of
Architectural Digest
. True, it would have been a decades old issue of the magazine. But even I, the queen of Ikea, could tell the stuff had cost a bundle in its day.
Through an open doorway I caught a glimpse of an adjoining bedroom.
So this was where Olga lived.
Scattered on a nearby étagère were several sterling-framed photos of Olga in better days, arm in arm with a distinguished older man. Probably her deceased husband. In one picture they were sitting on a sofa in front of the fireplace in the lounge. Back when it was their living room, and not a gathering place for paying guests.
To think this vast estate was once Olga’s private residence, and now she was reduced to living in two cramped rooms.
No wonder she was such a grouch.
Then another picture caught my eye. A publicity shot of Olga, back when she was a wannabe starlet. I was stunned by how sweet she looked, no trace of hardness in her blue eyes or wide smile. Her thick blond hair, unbound from Valkyrie braids, flowed freely to her shoulders.
She’d been a beauty, all right. Every bit as pretty as Mallory.
Surely she must have resented Mallory’s rise to fame. Enough, I wondered, to propel her to murder?
Behind me I could hear her grow more desperate as she tried to keep her skittish customer from jumping ship.
“Honestly, Mrs. Washton, you and your poodle will be perfectly safe during your stay.... Why don’t I give you a twenty-five percent discount as a show of good faith? . . . Fifty percent? . . . And extra dog treats for Tinkerbell?” Then a deep sigh. “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. Maybe some other time.”
She hung up with a groan and raked her fingers through her hair, unleashing rebel tendrils from her braids.
“If this keeps up, I should be out of business by next Tuesday.”
“I’m sure the police will find the killer soon,” I offered feebly.
At which point she remembered I was one of her inmates.
“Shouldn’t you be in aerobics class?” she scowled.
“I just popped by to tell you there’s a rip in my patio screen.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Anything else?”
You bet there was something else.
“You may have heard,” I said, clearing my throat, “that I’ve been making some inquiries into Mallory’s death.”
By now I figured the whole world knew.
“Shawna mentioned you were some kind of P.I., but I thought she was joking.”
I forged ahead, choosing to ignore that zinger.
“Like I said, I’ve been investigating the murder. It was pretty horrible the way Mallory was strangled, huh?”
“I can’t pretend I liked the bitch, but she certainly didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“Lucky thing she went when she did, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, flexing her biceps in a manner that made me distinctly uneasy.
“Only that if Mallory had lived, she might have made good on her threat to ruin The Haven.”
“Wait a minute, honey.” She got up from behind her desk, a forbidding figure in denim overalls and Gestapo work boots. “You’re not accusing me of killing Mallory, are you?”
I edged closer to the étagère, figuring I could always bop her over the head with one of her sterling frames if she attacked me.
“Um . . . now that you mention it,” I stammered, “I have it on good authority that you were seen running out of the spa therapy center around the time of Mallory’s murder.”
“What good authority?”
I didn’t like the way that vein in her neck was throbbing.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you were seen at the scene of the crime.”
I reached for one of the frames, just in case of violence, but much to my relief, no fisticuffs ensued.
“Okay,” she sighed, slumping down into a nearby armchair, “so I went to Mallory’s cubicle. I was going to throw myself on her mercy and beg her not to trash The Haven. But I swear she was dead when I got there.”
She looked up at me with those still beautiful blue eyes, and there was something in them that made me want to believe her.
“So I panicked and ran. And then when Shawna discovered the body, I decided to keep my mouth shut and pretend I’d never been there. But I can assure you,” she said, the starch returning to her spine, “you are barking up the wrong suspect. I did not kill Mallory Francis.”
I looked around her tiny living room, crammed with relics of a happier life, and at that moment, in spite of all the hell Olga had put me through, I couldn’t help feeling a spark of pity for her.
“Who was it who saw me at the spa therapy center, anyway?” she asked.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t want to cause trouble between an employee and her boss, but in Delphine’s case, I was willing to make an exception. Frankly, I was surprised the little extortionist hadn’t already tried blackmailing Olga for her silence.
“It was Delphine.”
“Why, that rat!” she cried, banging her fist down on her desk. “I knew the kid was trouble the minute I hired her. She refuses to do hospital corners on the sheets. Can’t fold a towel to save her life. Sells food to the customers behind my back—”
“You know about that?”
“Of course I do. I’d fire her in a minute, but I can’t find anybody to work that cheap. So I’ve put up with her food cart, her affair with Sven, her goofing off on the job—”
“Whoa. Back up a sec. What affair with Sven?”
Olga rolled her eyes in disgust.
“Delphine wasn’t here two weeks before she was making a play for him. Bragged about it to me. Said Sven was going to leave Shawna to marry her. But that all stopped when Mallory showed up. He dropped Delphine like a hot potato.”
Holy Mackerel. That sound you just heard was yet another suspect popping up. Was it possible Delphine bumped off Mallory?
Maybe she hadn’t been in Harvy’s room when she saw Olga running from the spa therapy center. Maybe she’d been hiding nearby in the shrubs, just waiting for her chance to race in and bump off her rival for Sven’s affections.
“Now that I think of it,” Olga said, interrupting my thoughts, “that gives Delphine a motive to kill Mallory, doesn’t it?”
For once, the Diet Nazi and I were on the same page.
 
In a burst of defiance, I did not go to aerobics class. Instead, I decided to have a little chat with my Merry Maid from Hell.
I roamed around until I found her in Clint’s room. At least I assumed it was Clint’s room, from the barbells on the floor and the
Victoria’s Secret
catalog on the night stand.
Delphine was not, as you might imagine, busy making the bed or dusting the armoire. Rather she was stretched out on said bed watching
The Price is Right
, munching on some M&N’s. And draped around her neck was a hot pink feather boa.
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat to let her know she had company.
Muting the TV, she looked up at me with mild curiosity, not the least bit guilty about having been caught goofing off.
“Shouldn’t you be in aerobics?”
“Shouldn’t
you
be vacuuming?”
“I decided to take a break,” she shrugged. “How do you like the boa?” She ran her fingers over the pink feathers. “Yummy, isn’t it? I found it in Clint’s dresser.”
With that, she got up and sashayed around the room, working the boa like a seasoned stripper, which heaven knows she might well have been.
“You should see what fabulous teddies he has!”
Without batting an eyelash, she opened one of Clint’s dresser drawers and took out a gossamer confection of creamy lace, holding it up in front of her.
“If only we were the same size,” she sighed, tossing it back in the drawer.
“Do you make a practice of snooping in other people’s drawers?” I asked, bristling with righteous indig.
“Sure do. Gotta have some fun at this crummy job. By the way, you could use some new undies.”
For crying out loud. The kid had all the scruples of a hedge fund manager.
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So what can I do you for?” she asked, plopping back onto Clint’s bed, her dirty sneakers on his duvet cover. “I’m running a special on American cheese sandwiches. Just thirty bucks and I throw in a bag of chips.”
Tempted as I was to spring for some chips, I managed to restrain myself and get down to the business at hand.
“I know all about your affair with Sven,” I announced.
“So?” She picked up Clint’s
Victoria’s Secret
catalog, and flipped a page.
“So I know you were crazy about him and wanted to marry him. But then Mallory came along and ruined everything.”
“Me? Crazy about Sven?” She barked out a brittle laugh. “That’s nuts. I was just in it for the blazing mattresses. I knew he’d never leave Shawna. Sven’s practically got an umbilical cord attached to his abs.
“Besides,” she sniffed, “I’m not about to wind up with some tacky aerobics instructor. When I settle down, the guy’s gonna have an ‘–illionaire’ at the end of his name.”
“So it didn’t bother you when Sven began fooling around with Mallory?”
“Oh, please. I couldn’t care less.”
She went back to reading
Victoria’s Secret
, doing her best to look cool and collected. And it would have worked, too.
If she hadn’t been reading it upside down.
Oh, she was bothered, all right. Maybe even enough to have strangled the life out of Mallory.
I was heading for the door, wondering if I could possibly nab a bag of chips en route, when Delphine called out to me.
“I wouldn’t go around spreading rumors, Jaine. I once read about a woman who spread rumors, and she wound up strangled with her own elastic-waist pants.”
To drive home her point, she tightened the boa around her neck.
“Get my drift?”
Did I ever.
Next thing I knew, she’d be leaving a horse’s head in my bed.
And charging me for it.

Other books

Separation Anxiety by Lisa Suzanne
War Stories by Oliver North
Private Message by Torella, Danielle
One (One Universe) by LeighAnn Kopans
The Case of the Lazy Lover by Erle Stanley Gardner
Dead Man's Song by Jonathan Maberry
Player Haters by Carl Weber
The Children of Calm by Smith, J Michael