Danger in High Heels (6 page)

Marco pouted, looking at the babies in question, laying on their backs on their play mat, both enamored with the tiny jungle animals dangling just above their reach.

"Pretty please," Dana chimed in. "I mean, we can't very well intimidate suspects with two babies in tow."

I frowned.
Intimidate
wasn't exactly on my to-do list. I was thinking more along the lines of polite questions of possible witnesses. But Dana was right about us going sans droolers. On the off chances that one of the people we talked to really was the one who had killed Irina, the last thing I wanted to do was expose my babies to a murderer.

"You know how much the babies love their Auntie Marco," I said, appealing to his maternal side.

Which seemed to soften him some, the pout turning into a nose-scrunch instead.

"It would mean so much to me," Dana said. Then added, "And to Ricky."

That did it. While every teen girl in the country had posters of Ricky on their walls, sixty percent of all gay men did as well. Including Marco.

"Would it mean enough for an autographed eight-by-ten?" he asked.

"Absolutely!" she promised.

"Fiiiine," Marco said, letting the word out on a sigh. "I'll watch Max and Livvie. Just don't be long. You know I don't do diapers," he added, scrunching his nose up again at the very thought of human feces.

"You are a prince," I said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and grabbing my purse before he could change his mind.

"And I want a full report when you come back!" he shouted over his shoulder as Dana and I made for the door.

"Fuller than a Texas beauty queen's bouffant," I promised. Then I hightailed it to my minivan before the bottle I'd just fed Livvie made it's way out the back end and toward Auntie Marco's delicate nose.

*  *  *

As any good crime drama addict knows, the first suspects on anyone's list are those closest to the victim. Ignoring the fact that she was found naked in Ricky's dressing room (which both Dana and I were doing with such fabulous denial that we should be in the running for Oscars), the next closest people to Irina were the ones she was with every day – her co-stars on
Dancing with Celebrities
. While ten celebrity and professional dancer pairs were part of the cast, only two others had been on the set the day Irina had died. Kaylie, the Teen Mom, and her partner, Sven, and Shaniqua, the tranny ex-football player and her partner, Joc. While I had a hard time seeing either star whacking Irina over the head to win DWC, it was at least a place to start.

Unfortunately, losing their star had temporarily shut down the DWC set. Meaning we had to find our suspects elsewhere.

Shaniqua, as it turned out, kept a surprisingly low social media profile. There was little info we could glean about her through our trusty friend Google. The expected news reports, pictures of her in drag, and about a dozen photos of her in the sequined number she'd danced the mambo in last week. No info about where she lived or how to contact her.

Luckily, the same couldn't be said for her co-star, Kaylie. She regularly tweeted photos of her place in Toluca Lake, and with a little more googling, Dana and I found an address posted on a virtual celebrities homes tour. I plugged it into my GPS, and twenty minutes later we were parked in front of a three-story McMansion flanked by palm trees, brick pavers, and a pair of large, stone gargoyles.

I looked to my left. Her neighbor had an RV parked in the drive of his modest, fifties-style ranch house. To the right was a tract home with a mid-sized sedan parked in the drive. Clearly one of these houses was not like the others.

Dana and I got out and followed the brick pathway along a circular drive to an ornate front door that looked more like it belonged on the entrance to a dungeon than a So. Cal residence.

I leaned on the doorbell, listening to it echo inside. A moment later the door was opened by a guy in a pair of neon yellow swim trunks and nothing else. He held a bong in one hand and a pink, plastic margarita glass in the shape of a cactus in the other.

"S'up," he said. Though I wasn't sure if it was a greeting or a question.

"Uh, hi. We're looking for Kaylie?" I asked.

"You the pizza guy?" he asked, squinting at me through half-baked eyes.

I put my hand on my hips. "Do I look like a pizza guy?" I countered. Personally, I thought the black stretch pants and red baby-doll top I'd paired with my favorite black wedges was a pretty stylish outfit. Granted, the pants were a size or two larger than my normal clothes, but they were certainly a cut above a Dominos uniform.

But the guy just shrugged. "Bummer. Kaylie's by the pool." He gestured vaguely somewhere behind him, which I took as an invitation to enter.

Dana followed me into a foyer featuring pink marble tiles, a huge chandelier dripping with pink crystals, and walls covered in velvet flocked wallpaper in hues of… you guessed it… pink. The entire effect had the feel of walking into a life-sized Disney princess dollhouse.

Down a hallway just ahead of us I spotted a pair of French doors leading out to the backyard. I led Dana through, leaving Kaylie's greeter to wait for his pizza as we stepped outside onto a large patio. At the edge was a swimming pool filled with inflatable floaties. A brunette in a bikini occupied one while two more guys in swim trunks splashed each other in the deep end of the pool. Sitting near the steps, wearing a hot pink bikini and sipping from another cactus shaped glass, sat Kaylie. She had platinum hair, accented with pink streaks, dark eyes rimmed in even darker eyeliner, and hot pink lipstick on her lips that I noticed were just a shade plumper than last season. As were her boobs. Apparently consenting to have her questionable parenting skills televised had paid off.

Sitting beside her in the shallow end was her golden ticket – her two-year-old son Brady. He was wearing a pair of Spiderman water wings and blowing bubbles in the water.

"Kaylie?" I asked as we approached.

She looked up, shading her eyes with one manicured hand as she squinted my way.

"You the new nanny?" she asked.

That's it. I was totally going shopping for a new outfit tomorrow.

"No. We're friends of Ricky's," Dana said.

Kaylie's gaze shifted to Dana. "Oh. Right. 'Sup, bitches."

I was about to take offense, when I realized by the expectant look on her face that it was just her version of a friendly greeting.

"Uh, s'up," I responded back.

"You're, like, Ricky's GF or something, right?" Kaylie said, addressing Dana.

"GF?" I asked.

"Girlfriend," Dana supplied, apparently more well-versed in Teen Speak than I was. "And, yeah, I am."

"Bummer. Sorry," Kaylie told her. "What a TCA, right?"

"TCA?" I looked to Dana to translate.

"Total Cheating Asshole," Dana said, her face scrunching up, eyes tearing.

"Ah. Anyway," I said, quickly changing the subject, "we were wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions about Irina."

"Oh, yeah. Totally sad about that." Kaylie pursed her lips and nodded. "I hear production is going to be shut down for, like, the whole week."

"Did you know Irina well?" I asked.

Kaylie shrugged. "Not really. She kinda kept to herself. Ricky was really the only person she talked to, you know?" She paused, then turned to Dana. "Sorry."

Dana did the scrunched face thing again.

"What about the other dancers," I asked. "Was she close with any of them?"

Kaylie shook her head, hair falling in front of her eyes like a highlighted sheepdog. "Not that I noticed. I mean, we hardly ever saw the other contestants." She paused, turning to me. "We all rehearsed on set on different days. Shaniqua, me and Ricky were all on the same day, but the rest of the cast was split up on other days," she explained.

"And she didn't seem particularly close to anyone from your day?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Irina was Russian, and Sven and Joc are both from Norway. The language barrier was, like, way hard. I don't think she really hung out with anyone else. You know, except for Ricky."

"What about-" I started.

But I didn't get to finish as Dana blurted out, "Was Ricky cheating on me?"

I cringed, not wanting to hear the answer to that.

But Kaylie just shrugged again. "I dunno. I mean, it wasn't like they made out on set or anything."

I did an internal sigh of relief.

Dana did an audible one.

"But I did see her going into his dressing room last week."

Dana sucked in a breath beside me. "You did?" she squeaked out, eyes pooling again.

"Uh-huh. She was totally cagey about it, too. Like, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching and stuff."

"Was Ricky with her?" Dana asked.

"No. I figured he was inside waiting for her or something."

"Ohmigod…" Dana trailed off in a high-pitched squeak.

"Back to yesterday," I quickly said, trying to re-direct the conversation again. "Did you notice anything odd on the set? Or anything out of the ordinary with Irina?"

Kaylie shrugged again. I was beginning to think it was her signature move. "What's out of the ordinary? Irina was, like, such a W-O."

I turned to Dana for an interpretation.

"Weird-o," she supplied, getting her sniffles under control.

"Weird how?" I asked Kaylie.

"She was, like, all loud and screamy and stuff. She was so not friendly. I mean, ask Shaniqua."

"Why? Did something happen between her and Shaniqua?" I asked, jumping on the statement.

Kaylie nodded vigorously, her hair covering her eyes again. "Uh, yeah! She totally laid into Shaniqua the other day."

"They argued?" I asked.

She nodded. "Dude, it was like World War three. I caught them backstage after Irina's number in that black, off the shoulder dress."

"The mambo," I supplied, having DVR-ed the episode myself.

"Right. Anyway, Shaniqua was like totally yelling at Irina."

"What was she saying?" I asked.

Kaylie shrugged. "I dunno. I didn't really pay attention. It was like something about her being a liar."

"What did she lie about?"

"Sorry. You'd have to ask Shaniqua."

Trust me, I intended to.

"Is that a margarita?" Dana asked, gesturing to Kaylie's glass.

"Uh, yeah," the teen answered.

"I could so use a drink right now," Dana hinted.

Kaylie handed her the glass. "Knock yourself out.

"Aren't you a bit young to be drinking?" I asked, watching my friend knock back the entire contents of the glass.

Kaylie did her signature shrug again. "If I'm old enough to shoot a person out of my hooha, I think I deserve a drink."

I had to admit, I couldn't argue with her there.

We thanked Kaylie for her time and left just as the pizza guy was arriving. (Who, by the way, was dressed nothing like me.)

Dana agreed with me that talking to Shaniqua was our next move. Unfortunately, we had no idea where to find the former athlete. Fortunately, I knew of one person who would.

I slipped on my hands-free earpiece and dialed as I pulled back into traffic.

Two rings in, it was answered by a female voice.

"Bender," she barked as a greeting.

Tina Bender was the gossip columnist at the
L.A. Informer
and knew everything about everyone who was anyone in Hollywood. And, as much as I hated going to the press for help, Tina and I shared one very important common bond - a mutual distrust of Allie Quick. Tina was everything that Allie was not: brunette, tom-boyish, funky, and outspoken to a fault. Tina had purple hair, drove a motorcycle, and dated a bodyguard with muscles the size of basketballs. When I'd first met her, I'll admit, I'd been a little intimidated. But, after getting to know her a little, I'd realized that not only was Tina softer on the inside than she appeared on the outside, but she was also the most highly connected person in Hollywood. A trait that made her my first choice for tracking down Shaniqua.

"Hey, Tina. It's Maddie Springer. Listen, I was wondering if you could do me a small favor?"

"Depends," Tina said, and I got the distinct impression she was chewing something. "What kind of favor?"

"I'm trying to track down the address of a celebrity, and I was wondering if you might be able to help."

"It's possible," Tina said, definitely chewing this time, then doing a swallowing sound. "Who is the celeb?"

"Shaniqua Jones."

There was a pause on Tina's end. Then finally she asked, "This wouldn't have anything to do with the murder on the set of DWC that Allie's working on, would it?"

I squinted one eye shut, cringing just a little. "Yes?" I said, though it came out more of a question.

"Sweet. I'm in," Tina responded. "Just promise that you come to me first with the story, not Barbie. Cool?"