Deadly in High Heels (5 page)

"Actually, I'm with the pageant," I told him, attempting that bright smile again.

"Not a contestant?" Jeffries scoffed.

My smile dialed down about twenty watts at the disbelief in his voice.

"No," I ground out through what I feared was quickly becoming a grimace, "I'm providing the footwear for the contestants. I'm a shoe designer."

"Oh, right. Wonderful to have you on board, Miss Springer."

"Actually it's
Mrs
. Springer," I enunciated very clearly, pointing to the wedding band on my left hand.

Jeffries nodded but waved his hand as if glossing over the fact. I had a feeling something as simple as a little wedding band had never stopped him in the past.

"Did you just arrive on the island?" he asked, signaling to our friend behind the bar for another drink.

I nodded. "Yesterday. In fact I was just starting to settle in when I found…" I paused, trailing off for effect.

It took Jeffries' vodka-soaked brain a moment to catch up. "Oh, God, you're the one who found Jennifer, right?"

Again I nodded, this time casting my eyes downwards. I didn't have to fake the emotion backing up behind them. Miss Montana's body was a sight I would not soon forget.

"Tragic incident." Jeffries shook his head, clucking between his teeth. "Of course my character, Dr. Calvin Drake, is around death all the time. But I suppose that's not exactly the same, is it?"

"Not exactly." In fact it wasn't the same at all. "Did you know her well?" I asked. "Miss Montana?"

"Of course," he said, pausing to take a sip of his new martini as it arrived. "I make it a point to get to personally know every one of the contestants. I believe that the winner of a beauty pageant should be just as much about personality as it is about her outer beauty, don't you think?"

I nodded, though I was pretty sure he was full of more baloney than the Spam lunch buffet. "I'm so sorry," I said. "Were you two close?"

"Well, you know, as close as any judge can get to a contestant. I mean we're not really supposed to
fraternize
with the girls." He paused. "But the professionals involved in behind-the-scenes, say,
dressing
those girls, well that's a different story, now isn't it Miss Springer?"

"
Mrs
.," I said again.

This time he completely ignored me. This was getting old. Time to go in with the big guns.

"Do you have any ideas who might have wanted to see Miss Montana dead?"

Jeffries' head snapped up. "What you mean? Are you saying you think she was murdered?"

I didn't think I had to point out to him that most healthy, twenty-year-old girls didn't just drop dead of natural causes in a chaise lounge by a pool in the middle of the night. "I think it's very likely."

Jeffries shook his head. "No, there's no way. Jennifer was such a sweet girl. So…well, she was perfect. She wouldn't hurt a soul."

That seemed to be the consensus. Of course somebody didn't think she was such a fantastic girl, or she wouldn't have been poolside getting the sunburn of her life. I decided to take the same road that Miss New Mexico had pointed out. "I find it hard to believe somebody can be so active in the pageant circuit without making a few enemies?"

"Look, you want to talk enemies—then you should take a look at that Laforge."

"Laforge?" I asked, my ears perking up. "Why is that?"

"Because that man is singing his swansong as director of this pageant."

"Meaning he's leaving the Miss Hawaiian Paradise Pageant?"

Jeffries snorted. "Meaning he's being
replaced
."

While I hadn't personally seen anything amiss with Laforge's direction of the pageant, except possibly the heavy hand when it came to scolding the less coordinated contestants, I was having a hard time connecting the dots. "And you think this has something to do with Miss Montana's death?"

"I didn't say that," Jeffries said, throwing both hands up in an innocent surrender gesture. Though I noticed neither hand was very steady. The man was quickly going from inebriated to totally sauced. "I just said if anybody had a grudge against Jennifer's camp, it would be Laforge."

"Because…?" I asked.

"Because guess who is replacing our dear director?"

I shrugged, waiting.

"Ashton Dempsy."

It must've been the blank look on my face that caused Jeffries to continue with a, "Jennifer's pageant coach."

I raised one eyebrow his way. "So you think Laforge had it in for Miss Montana, in order to keep her coach from taking over his job?"

Jeffries gave me a condescending smile. "Honey, Hawaiian Paradise is a
family
corporation," he said, slurring his words together. "You can bet that the bad publicity of having a pageant contestant die on their watch is just about killing them. There is nothing on God's green earth that's going to make them put said contestant's coach on national television now, donchathink?"

While it was clear that Jeffries was half in the tank at this point, he might have also had half a point. The entire purpose of the pageant was to put a bright, shiny face on the Hawaiian Paradise sunscreen brand. If it was true that Miss Montana's coach had been about to replace Laforge, I was sure the corporation was giving serious pause to that decision now.

I glanced over at Laforge, who was still deep in conversation with Ruth Marie. Though in all honesty, it looked like Ruth Marie was doing most of the talking. After my earlier conversation with the aging judge, I knew how much was at stake for the contestants in the pageant. I wondered just how much was at stake for the director. And just what he might do to continue being the director.

*

After filling Dana and Marco in on my conversation with Jeffries over a plate of teriyaki and one more Babbling Mermaid, I decided to call it a night. I was definitely feeling the effects being in the middle of my own
CSI, Hawaiian Paradise
episode. I left Dana and Marco debating the merits of piña coladas versus mai tais and headed for my hotel room. I swapped my linen pants and wrap top for a pair of pink pajamas with cute little boy-short bottoms and made a quick call home to update Ramirez on my day of getting a pedicure, having drinks at the Lost Aloha tiki bar, and matching shoes with pageant outfits. All true. All carefully avoiding any actions that might possibly be construed as sticking my nose into anyone's investigations. Then I grabbed my tablet and pulled up a relaxing book as I went to sleep.

I was just getting into a fun beach read by one of my favorite authors when my tablet started making pinging noises and a window popped up signaling a Skype call was coming in. I didn't recognize the avatar of a grumpy looking cat, but the name next to it said
Mom
.

I raised an eyebrow. As far as I knew, my mom had only recently mastered the ability to initiate a phone call via Bluetooth in her car. (And even then, she had accidentally dialed me while singing song lyrics to her radio more often than on purpose.) Generally Mom and technology went together like peanut butter and dill pickles, but I hit the "accept" button anyway. Immediately her face filled my screen, her baby blue eye shadow circa 1985 and hot pink lipstick clashing in 252 pixels per inch brilliant color. Love my mother as I did, her sense of style had paused somewhere in the mid-eighties like a broken Betamax player.

"I don't think she's in there," I could hear Mom saying. "Maddie? Maddie, pick up the computer. It's your mother," she shouted.

I grinned. "Hi, Mom."

"Oh my word, I think I heard her. Maddie, is that you? I don't see anything." She squinted at the computer, her features contorting as they moved in toward her webcam.

"Mom, I'm here. Click the video icon," I told her.

"Did you get Maddie to pick up the computer?" I heard my stepfather's voice in the background.

"I don't know, Ralph. I can hear her, but my screen is still showing Candy Crush."

"Maybe you got her voicemail. Can you leave a voicemail?"

I rolled my eyes. No need not to. Apparently they couldn't see me.

"Mom, it's me. It's not a voicemail. Click the video icon. It looks like a little movie projector."

But no one was paying attention to me.

"Do we need to be plugged into the phone line, Ralph?" Mom asked. "Where's the modem line?"

"Try adjusting the screen," my stepfather yelled. "Maybe you need to zoom in."

I suddenly got an up-close-and-personal view of my stepfather's nasal hairs as he moved in.

"Don't zoom!" I pleaded. "I can see you fine."

"I don't see myself," said Mom.

"You don't need to see yourself. I see you. You see me."

"Maybe we should turn the monitor around, Ralph," Mom suggested.

Good grief.

"Did you call for a reason, Mom?"

"Maddie, we're worried about you. Are. You. Okay?" My Mom shouted as if actually trying to get me to hear her from an ocean away. "We just heard on the news about that poor girl from your pageant."

Oh, boy. I don't know why I had hoped that the death of a beauty queen would remain local news. I should've known it would be inevitable that it would get back to my family on the mainland.

"I'm fine, Mom."

"Are you sure, honey? I don't think that hotel is safe. They said on the news that someone is killing beauty queens."

"Singular. One beauty queen died."

"Honey, I think maybe you should come home. Does the hotel have adequate security? I saw on
20/20
that traveling to foreign places is not safe right now."

"Hawaii is not a foreign country, Mother."

"You know what I mean. Some of those places just don't have the modern security we do here."

I glanced up from my tablet at the flat screen television, minibar filled with imported bottled water, and high-speed Internet access in my luxury hotel room. "It's pretty modern here. I think I'm fine."

"I think I've almost got it!" I heard my stepfather say. "It's got to be this cable. I think maybe we need to put it in the monitor. Do we need to hook the monitor up to the phone? I think maybe if we just hook this cable up like this—"

My screen went suddenly blank. Then Skype told me I had lost the call.

Thank God for small favors.

I closed Skype and went back to my book.

Several chapters later, my lids finally started to feel heavy again, and I shut my tablet off, laying my head down on the soft feather pillows. I was just starting to drift off to dreamland when I heard a noise outside in the hall.

I opened my eyes and glanced at my bedside clock. 12:43. Way past curfew for any of the pageant contestants in this wing.

Despite the drowsiness settling in, I couldn't help my curiosity winning out. I tiptoed to my door and opened it a crack.

Just in time to see the back of a beauty queen, scarf tied over her head and wearing a long, black coat, slip into the elevators before the doors slid closed behind her.

Thanks to an exhausting day, I was happy to say that the next morning I awoke perfectly acclimated to Hawaii time. I showered and blow-dried my hair, then did a mascara and lip gloss thing, adding a little extra concealer under my eyes as a concession to said exhausting day. I threw on a pair of white capri pants, hot pink strappy sandals with a mid-rise heel, and a flowing, sleeveless top in a pink floral print that was very on trend for spring. Then I quickly made my way downstairs toward the Tropical Tryst breakfast buffet.

As the elevator opened onto the lobby I could see that just outside the front doors our friendly neighborhood fashion protester was already hard at work. She was wearing dingy gray Birkenstocks, gray linen pants at least one size too large, and a black T-shirt that looked like it had seen one too many washings. She was holding up a big sign that read
I Am Not A Slave To Fashion
.

I hated to tell her, but in that outfit, the sign was redundant.

I made my way across the lobby to the Tropical Tryst where a long counter filled with pastries and tropical fruits took up one wall. Along another, a buffet table was filled with chafing dishes of sausage, bacon, pancakes, eggs, and other types of traditional American breakfast foods simultaneously calling my name. I spotted Marco at the made-to-order omelet station and joined him, plate in hand.

"Good morning, dahling," he said, giving me a big bright smile as he waited for his egg white omelet.

"So far it's better than yesterday," I agreed. "Spinach?" I asked, gesturing to the pile of greens being stirred into his omelet mixture.

"Kale," he corrected me. "It's a superfood."

I blinked at him. "It's finally happened. Dana's converted you to the healthy side, hasn't she?"

Marco grinned. "Hardly. I just read an article in
Cosmo
about how it's supposed to take five years off your skin's appearance." He winked at me. "It may taste like rabbit pellets, but a boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do to look this hot."

I covered a very unladylike snort. "Point taken."

Marco was dressed today in a pair of white pleather Bermuda shorts, white loafers with no socks, and screaming neon turquoise baby-doll T-shirt that read: Queen. While I recognized it as one of the Miss Hawaiian Paradise promotional shirts, I was pretty sure Marco was enjoying the double entendre.

I gave my order of a Denver omelet, complete with ham (Aren't diet gurus always tell you to eat more protein?), cheese (What woman doesn't need more calcium, right?), and green peppers (Vegetables! I'm sure these were
almost
as good for the skin as kale.). My mouth was beginning to water from the heavenly scents as I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Good morning, Maddie."

I turned to find Laforge striding up to the omelet station. In all honesty, I was a little surprised he remembered my name from our brief introduction when I'd first arrived on the island.

"Good morning," I said, mustering up my most cheerful voice for my boss-for-a-week.

"I trust there were no more incidents this morning?" While the words were benign enough, the tone in his voice sounded almost as if he blamed
me
for
finding
Miss Montana.

"Not so far," I said, punctuating it with a smile.

"Hmm." Laforge pursed his lips together. Clearly he did not appreciate my attempt at levity.

As with yesterday Laforge was dressed in a pair of skintight pants that I could easily see helping him sweat away an extra ten pounds by the time the afternoon humidity hit. He'd topped it off with a pale pink button-up shirt, unbuttoned one too low for my taste, reminding me of a '70s disco king. An image that was further reinforced by the large gold medallion hanging around his neck and the pair of expensive sunglasses perched on his nose, almost completely obscuring his eyes from view. I wondered if they were for fashion or if Laforge was nursing a hangover.

"I'd like you to meet my good friend, Marco," I said, tactfully changing the subject as I turned to my companion.

Laforge gave Marco a quick up and down. "I see you're enjoying our promotional Tshirts," he said, just that hint of West Hollywood style bitchiness in his voice.

"I feel like a diva in it," Marco answered cheerfully.

"You
look
like a diva in it," Laforge said, though I wasn't sure it was exactly a compliment.

I could tell Marco caught the tone in his voice as well, as he squared his shoulders, narrowed his eyes, and pasted on a smile more fake than Miss Arkansas's breasts. "It takes a diva to appreciate one, doesn't it,
dahling
?" Marco asked, gesturing to Laforge’s conspicuous sunglasses. "Indoor shades. Very drama."

"Hmm," Laforge mumbled through a smile that matched Marco's insincerity. "I'd say
Prada
is always appropriate, isn't it?"

"Practically timeless," Marco retorted. "You know, unless they're from
last
year's collection."

Laforge's eyes narrowed. Marco's smile grew bigger and sassier.

I could quickly see this turning into a fashion face-off and decided to intervene before my friend diva-ed me right out of a job.

"Any word yet on whether or not the pageant will go on as scheduled?" I asked, again using my brilliant subject-changing skills.

Laforge let out a deep sigh. "Sadly, no. I'm meeting with the detective in charge of the case later this morning, and hopefully they will give me something I can take to the corporate powers-that-be."

"It would be such a pity if they shut it down. You know, it being
your last year
here and all," Marco said. He just had to get that last jab in, didn't he?

Laforge's head snapped up from his perusal of the omelet bar. "What do you mean my 'last year?'"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe I was misinformed. I thought I heard you were leaving the pageant?" Marco blinked innocently.

Laforge's jaw tensed, though his eyes were still obscured behind last year's Prada shades. "I don't know what you think you heard, but, trust me, I'm not going anywhere."

I raised an eyebrow and silently wondered if Miss Montana's death had anything to do with Laforge's current confidence that he would be staying on as pageant director next year.

"Who told you I was leaving?" Laforge demanded.

Marco looked to me.

"Uhh…" I paused, not sure I wanted to rat out Jeffries. While he was definitely bar-slime, I wasn't sure I wanted to make an enemy of the soap star. Especially if he was Miss Montana's secret-lover-slash-killer.

"It was Dempsey, wasn't it?" Laforge's eyes searched the room, as if expecting to see Dempsey pop up at one of the tables. "That up-start hack has been gunning for a director's position ever since Jennifer's first pageant win."

"Hack?" I asked, jumping on the word.

"Listen, Jennifer was winning because Jennifer was good. It had absolutely nothing to do with Dempsey's coaching." He paused, a sneer curling his lips. "Just ask Dempsey how many winners he's coached in the past. Trust me the zero he gives you will be fatter than his bloated gut."

With that, Laforge turned on heel and stomped out of the room, sans breakfast.

"Geez, someone's panties are in a bunch this morning," Marco mumbled.

"Yeah, well, at the risk of them bunching me right out of a job, keep your Prada comments to yourself, Joan Ranger."

Marco blinked innocently at me. "Who,
moi
?"

*

While Marco and I indulged in our omelets, Dana joined us with a plate of fresh fruit, plain yogurt, and organic granola with little bits of what looked like birdseed in it.

"Any word on the pageant yet?" she asked, voicing what was clearly on everyone's minds morning.

I shook my head. "Still up in the air."

"At least according to La Director La Passé," Marco added.

Dana arched a questioning eyebrow.

"Don't ask," I told her. "Marco met Laforge earlier." I quickly filled her in on Laforge's insistence that he was staying on as pageant director and the information he'd divulged about Jennifer being Dempsey's meal ticket.

"Hmm," Dana said, chewing on this development as her jaw worked on her crunchy granola. "If that's true, Dempsey definitely wouldn't have any reason to want Jennifer out of the way."

"But Laforge might," Marco pointed out. "Like Jeffries said, if Laforge wanted to tarnish Dempsey's reputation, killing his only successful client might go a long way toward that end."

"But we only have Jeffries' word for the fact that Dempsey was even in the running for director," I pointed out. "And who knows if Jeffries was just trying to divert suspicion from himself? I still think he's the most likely candidate for Jennifer's lover on the lowdown."

Dana shook her head. "Honestly, I just cannot believe that a judge would be sleeping with a contestant," she said, doing more crunching.

"I have to ask—are you eating birdseed?"

Dana pursed her brow at me. "What?"

"The little brown flecks in your granola. Birdseed?"

"Flax seed. It's super high in omega-3 oil," she said around another crunchy bite.

"It's also stuck in your teeth," Marco kindly told her, gesturing between his own two front teeth with a perfectly manicured pointer finger.

I was about to point out that the kale hadn't been terrifically kind to Marco's own Pearly Whites, when my cell started Vogue-ing from my pocket. I pulled it out to find a new text from Mom.

15 a miracle cans were killed overstays list beer

I blinked at the text. I had no clue.

What?
I reluctantly texted back.

A couple of seconds later I got:
sorry. Auto type not twerking write.

I stifled a snort.
You mean "not working right?"

There was a pause, then:
Right.

Try turning autotype off
I suggested.

A few minutes later a new text pinged in.
15 Americans were killed overseas last year

I barely stifled an eye roll.

I'm not overseas
I texted back.
I'm just by the sea
I added, looking out the window at the beautiful blue waves crashing on the white sandy shores outside the resort.

Despite the fact that a girl had died here just yesterday, I had to admit that the scene was the farthest from sinister you could get. To my right sat a family with two adorable young boys and a teenager in a pair of shades and a straw hat, the two boys giggling as they threw pieces of pineapple at each other. To the left I could see Miss California, Miss New Mexico, and Miss Arkansas giggling over breakfast smoothies together. And near the buffet a long line of men in slacks with duck-emblazoned shirts was starting to form. In every way it seemed like your average vacation hub. Except somewhere among its vacationers, a murderer lurked.

I don't think you're safe! do u have pprspry?

I stared at the text my mother responded with, mentally sounding out the last word with a myriad of different vowels. Finally I gave up.

What?

A few seconds later her response came in
PEPPER SPRAY

I rolled my eyes with abandon this time. Hey, she couldn't see me, right?
Not allowed on the plane.

what??!! ur unarmed?!!

Easy on the exclamation points. you don't wanna hurt yourself

There was a pause, then:
r u tryin to be funny?

I smirked.
did it work?

ur stepfather is not laughing

How she could type out the entire word of "stepfather" but couldn't type out "pepper spray," I had no idea. Trying to decipher how my mother texted was like trying to decipher Kesha's dress code.

i'm safe, luv u, gotta go
, I typed, then I strategically set my phone to silent.

*

After breakfast Dana, Marco, and I wandered around the gift shop, took a leisurely walk through the gardens on the grounds, and generally meandered about, not quite sure what to do with ourselves. Finally we found ourselves back at the Lost Aloha Tiki Shack. While it was a little early in the day for imbibing, the three of us ordered pineapple Mango smoothies and sipped them as we strolled down the beach.

Again I was struck by the dichotomy of the tragedy that had occurred at the resort the day before and the seemingly serene landscape before me. The beach was clean white sand stretching as far as the eye could see, broken only by rock formations covered in various tropical foliage at random intervals. The ocean was a perfect crystal blue like some sort of painting. And not a cloud dared mar the sky above us as the warm sun beat down on my bare shoulders.

About halfway down the beach Marco grabbed my arm in a vice grip, shaking me out of my admiration for the tropical landscape.