Too Pretty to Die (17 page)

“I can’t,” she said, adamant.

“You’re seriously compelled to write another piece about Beemer-driving snots who only want to mix with other Barbies and Kens?”

It was redundant, really.

Weren’t we just at a Pretty Party last night, where women lined up for free injections of gunk into their creases? Didn’t she just drag me to Dr. Sonja’s boutique in the mall this morning so I could get a salad-dressing facial and she could get her Angelina Jolie kisser?

How many articles could she write about the beauty-obsessed in the Park Cities?

Maybe if the whole world stopped worshipping shiny objects, the shiny people would cease parading around in butt-baring jeans and too-tight T-shirts, showing off bodies carved by scalpels and hair glued into place with more gel than the cranberry mold at Thanksgiving.

“You don’t get it,” Janet said, sniffing. “It’s much more than a dating service for the plastic set.
Waaay
more. I’ve heard the rumors, Andy. I just have to find another way to prove the whispers are true.”

I swear I saw the sheen of sweat on her upper lip. Her eyes kept straying toward the door, as though afraid someone could overhear our conversation through solid wood and walls thick as cinder block.

It was like she was about to confess that she had the paperwork proving Tom Cruise was an alien life form, and she was afraid the Scientologists had her oversized lapels tapped.

She ran a tongue across her lips before she hissed, “Here’s what I need to confirm, because speculating isn’t enough for a front-page feature. Once the club owners decide you’re gorgeous enough to get you in the door, that’s just step one. When you’re there and you pass some kind of loyalty test, they move you up in the ranks. Then it’s Sodom and Gomorrah. I’ve heard what goes on in the back room at their secret gatherings makes
Caligula
seem like a Disney flick.”

“
Caligula
?” Wasn’t that, like, a million years old? Heck, I hadn’t even seen the
Rocky Horror Picture Show
yet. I was way behind on watching cult films, particularly the X-rated kind. “Isn’t that, like, from the seventies or something?”

“My God, girlfriend, it’s been called the Ben-Hur of Porn.” She paused to fan herself with her notepad. “Has a bit of something for everyone, shall we say.”

“Um, okay.” Was I the only grown woman in the world who’d never seen porn before, even old stuff? “So you’re saying the Caviar Club is a sex club,” I deciphered. “Like for big-time swingers.”

“
Very
prominent swingers with a lot to lose if they’re outed,” she clarified, and her cheeks turned a shade of pink that nearly matched the magenta of her outfit. “I don’t have names, not on the record. But the buzz is there are some biggies involved.” Her eyes had a freaky kind of gleam. “I tried to get Theresa Hurley to cough up something incriminating, but she wouldn’t bite. She’s like a very thin bulldog, guarding the door.”

All very interesting, I mused, but I wasn’t sure why she was telling me this.

“Um, Janet, I hope you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “but what does your Caviar Club story have to do with me?”

It’s not like I was a member, or even cared about the secret society.

On a good day over lunch at Patrizio’s, I may have been in the mood for sordid stories about Orgies of the Rich and Famous. But it had been a stinky past twenty-four hours, I was dying to fetch Brian and head home for some alone time, and I still needed to chat with my mother.

“First off, oh, pal of mine,” Janet said, leaning nearer, “I’m going to need your help again.” I started to protest, because I’d already done her a huge favor that morning, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Caviar Club besides.

“Look, Jan, didn’t I help you out at North Park already? So I don’t really think—” I tried to gracefully decline, but she talked right over me.

“Consider that I’m calling in a few markers. Because you owe me more than one, lest you’ve forgotten all the things I’ve done for you.”

Markers.

Oh, boy.

She would have to bring that up.

Yeah, yeah, Janet had come to my rescue more than once, like when she’d filled me in on the background of folks in a chichi retirement home that I thought might be involved in a couple murders, or when she’d informed me that a boy-toy who’d been dating a lifelong friend of Mother’s had a well-recorded history as a gold digger.

“Okay, okay”—I relented, because I was indebted to her, and she clearly knew it—“but make it a small favor, would you? I don’t want to do anything illegal. I’m already no favorite of Anna Dean as it is.”

She flashed a brief, fish-lipped smile. “We’ll talk about specifics later, okay? I’ve got to figure out logistics.”

“Whatever.” Maybe I’d be locked inside my condo later, not answering my telephone.

Then she seemed suddenly nervous again, clearing her throat and glancing over at the door. “I’ve got something else on my mind at the moment, and, not coincidentally, it concerns Ms. Miranda DuBois.”

“What about her?”

What else was there to discuss? Hadn’t we done that topic to death already (no pun intended)?

“I’m not a hundred percent, but I firmly believe Miranda sent me an e-mail last night,” Janet said out of the blue, and I nearly fell off the couch.

Last night
?

“But that’s impossible. She—” I started, unable to finish, as Janet jumped in.

“She died last night, I know. So it must’ve been sometime shortly before that. The e-mail wasn’t signed, not with a name, but it was sent from the news department of KXAS. Sometimes I get tips from the anchors or the news writers, so I wasn’t sure it was from Miranda specifically until I knew about her connection to the Caviar Club. Unless there’s someone else on the Channel 5 staff who had a bone to pick with the club, it’s gotta be her.”

I sat up straighter.

So Miranda
had
arisen after I left her alone, at least long enough to shoot Janet an electronic message . . . and maybe open the front door to someone?

Likely someone she knew, too.

Geez, Louise, but this was getting crazier by the minute.

“Why would Miranda e-mail you?” I asked. “Was it about her behavior at the Pretty Party? Did she want you to kill the story?”

“No, it wasn’t that at all. In fact, her note didn’t make sense until a few minutes ago,” Janet answered, keeping her voice low. “She said she belonged to a hush-hush club that wasn’t what it seemed on the outside . . . that she had names and pictures . . . revealing stuff from secret parties where everyone got drunk and down and dirty. She was willing to hand over the owners on a silver platter, and she promised to forward the special password to get me into the members-only part of the Web site where they post the surprise location of the next gathering a mere hour before it starts. That’s how they keep out the riffraff, you see. She was ready to deal dirt, Andy. If I’d just had the chance to talk to her before—” Janet expelled a slow breath. “If I’d only reached out to her sooner, maybe I . . .”

“Maybe you what?” She sounded like me after I learned that Miranda had died. I was wracked with guilt, thinking I could’ve done something to change what had happened. “You think she’d still be alive?”

“I don’t know.” Janet tugged on a dangly earring. “But I’m sure now that her tirade at Delaney’s was the beginning of the end for her.” Her eyes flickered. “What if punishing Sonja for her messed-up face was only part of the reason she showed up at the Pretty Party?”

If I go down, I’m taking them with me.
Then it’ll be all over, Andy.
And I mean, all over.
You’ll see.

“Oh, shit,” I said.

Janet looked equally grim. “My thoughts exactly. What if there were Caviar Clubbers there, too, and they felt as much a target as the good dermo?”

Yipes, yipes, yipes.

My arm hairs prickled.

If Janet’s guess was on the money—if there were really high-profile Dallasites merrily swinging at the Caviar Club’s hush-hush orgies—and if Miranda could blow the lid on it all, it screamed MOTIVE like a big, black headline.

It meant Miranda’s death was hardly as clear-cut as the police seemed to think.

I wondered about Miranda’s missing laptop—because it
was
missing if the cops couldn’t find it—and I imagined the possibility of any of those lurid pictures having been stored in her Dell notebook. The thing was right in plain sight when I’d left her duplex. I’d even glimpsed a photo on her screen saver. Miranda clinging to some dark-haired guy. What if someone
had
been there after I left, and swiped the thing after making sure Miranda would never rat on anybody?

My throat felt about to close in on me, not liking what that implied.

What if the owners of the Caviar Club knew she was about to blow the whistle?

Like Janet suggested, it might have been someone at the Pretty Party who’d witnessed Miranda going postal . . . and feared what her fury might further unleash.

So that someone had made sure Miranda wouldn’t talk.

Ever again.

“What if your gut’s on target, the cops are on the wrong path entirely, and she really and truly didn’t commit suicide?” Janet said. “You don’t believe she killed herself, Andy, and now I’m thinking you may very well be right. Someone else could have shot Miranda with her own .22. Someone who wanted to keep her quiet about the Caviar Club, very probably someone she knew.”

I wanted to agree with her.

But my mouth was too dry to respond.

“W
e have to tell the police,” I said as soon as I could find the spit to speak, because there didn’t seem any way around it.

Anna Dean already suspected I was keeping things from the authorities, and I hadn’t been . . . I knew I wasn’t . . . until this very moment.

But I felt better, somehow, realizing I was no longer the only soul in town who had a reason to suspect there could be foul play involved in Miranda’s death.

Well, except for my mother. Though Cissy tended to see conspiracies everywhere she looked. She thought global warming was an evil plot by the folks at PETA to keep her from wearing mink.

“You have to call the deputy chief and explain about the Caviar Club and Miranda’s e-mail,” I insisted. “That could be important evidence in their investigation. It could change the course of things entirely—”

“Hold your horses, kemosabe.” Janet grabbed my arm and squeezed hard. “No, no, no. We’re not calling Anna Dean. We’re not blabbing about this to anybody, not your mother and not your boyfriend. You hear me? Not before I’ve had a chance to get my story. I’ve spent years penning cutesy prose about debutantes and society matrons and their teas and rodeos for charity, and I’ve finally got my claws into real juicy scoop, the kind that’ll get me on the front page, and I don’t mean the Society pages. Don’t blow it for me, Andy. I won’t let you do it.”

She definitely had her claws into
me
, and it hurt.

Her magenta fingernails dug into my skin, and I grimaced.

What the devil was up
?

I’d never seen Janet go so bananas over a story before. She wrote and edited the Society pages for the
Park Cities Press
, not the
New York Times
. But the rag gave her clout in this town, entrée into the lives of the powerful and provocative. It was no secret how much she enjoyed the gig and the social perks it gave her. So the only thing I could imagine that would get her so worked up was if her job was threatened.

Jiminy Cricket.

Could that be it?

“Um, ouch,” I said, and wrested my arm from her grasp. As I rubbed the spot where her pink finger marks lingered, Janet gathered up her pad and pen and shoved them into her purse. “What is going on?” I asked her point-blank. “I’ve never seen you so obsessed over a feature.”

Or over
her
features, for that matter.

“Don’t ruin this for me, Andy,” she begged, her chin quivering. She had the most pitiful look in her eyes, and I knew then that something more was involved. “This is my shot to prove myself, and I need it.” She wet her lips—no small feat—adding, “Badly.”

“Why?” I said, feeling sure now that something precious hung in the balance. If it wasn’t her life, it had to be her position at the paper. “Is something going on at the
PCP
?”

Her shoulders stiffened. “Why would you say that? Have you heard anything?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” I nudged her with my knee. “C’mon, you can talk to me.”

She paused a long while, as if unsure how much to spill, then gave in with a sigh. “I’m not supposed to discuss this with anyone, all these SEC rules and what not. But the newspaper’s being bought out by a twenty-five-year-old trust fund baby who’s decided to become a media mogul, and he thinks that anyone over thirty is
ancient
.” She stopped to gnaw on her upper lip, chewing off most of her magenta lipstick. “He’s threatened to replace me with a younger model if I don’t start writing flashier, bigger pieces and skewing to a broader audience beyond the Slipper Club crowd.”

“A younger model?” I repeated. Janet was only in her early thirties. It wasn’t like she was ancient by any standards, except maybe some twenty-five-year-old guy’s.

“Younger, as in baby.” She snagged a compact from her bag and nervously powdered her nose. “His girlfriend is twenty-one, if she’s a day,” she said so bitterly that I winced. “And, yes, she’s a model, at least for the moment. She walks the runway for Kim Dawson. I’ve seen her. She weighs about eight ounces and wears at least two tons of makeup. I’m surprised her cheekbones don’t collapse under the weight of all the Bobbi Brown blush.”

“Wow, I had no clue all this was going on,” I said, because this was the first I’d heard about it. “I’m so sorry.”

Janet usually kept her work problems to herself, and I hadn’t seen this one coming.

I was so out of the loop with the Park Cities scene that I had no earthly idea some junior Mark Cuban was buying out the
Press
and threatening to ax my friend just because Janet was no anorexic model barely out of her teens.