Death By Chick Lit (9 page)

There is no way I can have children anytime soon.

“Please, guys, just a little break,” Lola begged. “I know! Let’s play the sleep game. Whoever falls asleep first wins.” The dogs stared. Lola’s eyes closed.

 
What the—? Lola batted at her ear, smacking Sidecar, who’d been busy licking it. Gibson, to her left, was still staring.

Oh. Guess I won.

Wait. Why is it so dark?

Lola hit the indiglo button on her favorite old watch.

It was 9:30 PM.

Sidecar whimpered.

Where on earth was Daphne?

Twelve

Okay. Okay. I just need a moment to thi—

The dogs, sensing Lola’s need to concentrate, started to bark.

If I could just get a thought in edgewise.

A faint beep came from Lola’s giant bag. Her cell phone, like a kid in a well, was calling for help.

Three messages. Doug, Annabel, and Private Number, in that order, according to the caller ID. Perfect. It’s the two people I’m letting down simultaneously, plus ever-fabulous Daphne, no doubt giggling that “something has come up” but she’d be on the next flight from Capri.

The dogs were now sprinting back and forth between Lola and the door, tripping on their ears as they went. Lola toggled between hooking up their leashes and punching into her voice mail, skipping ahead to message three and bracing herself for another day with the dogs.

Nothing. Just a pause, then a click.

Nothing?

Under “received calls,” the last incoming number was listed as “unknown.” Lola tried the “return this call” option, but the voice mail robo-lady refused. “That service is not available for this number,” she said, just to spite Lola.

Nothing. Fine, probably just a wrong number, but then—where was Daphne?

Lola called Daphne’s cell. No answer. She left a message.

Then she called Doug. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry, I fell asleep and didn’t hear the phone.”

“I’m not surprised you conked out,” he said. “But where are you now? Wasn’t Daphne supposed to—”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. I have no idea where she is,” said Lola. “And I’m sorry, I know we were supposed to just chill together tonight.”

The upside of Daphne’s lateness? At this point I don’t even have to tell Doug I was going to bail. Nor do I even have to fake- fete Annabel. At least not tonight. In that regard, I am golden.

“It’s okay, monkey, it’s not your fault,” said Doug. “We should have assumed she’d be late, anyway. I think they don’t let you take either liquids or solids on planes now, so imagine the security delays.”

“I know, but still,” said Lola. The dogs, waiting at the door, were emitting low, sad howls. “Uch, I have got to take the dogs out.”

“Just take the Doug out sometime, too, okay?”

Ouch.

“Oh jeez, sweetie. I know. I will. I’m sorry,” said Lola.

“It’s all right,” said Doug. “Just saying.”

At this point Lola had her hands full with the door and the dogs. “Listen, sweetie, not to change the subject, but can you do me a huge favor and check FlightTracker.com? I’ve got Daphne’s flight info memorized.”

Lola had learned about FlightTracker not from Doug but from her mom, who made no secret of the fact that she always used it to make sure Lola’s plane had landed safely. “But Mom, I always call you when I land,” Lola had said.

“Yes, I know,” Mrs. Somerville said, “but the computer is faster than you.”

Heading downstairs, Lola heard Doug start tapping on a keyboard. He was never more than a foot or so from some kind of computer, even during
Battlestar Galactica
. “You know, you could do this on that phone I gave you.”

“I know, but then I couldn’t talk to you at the same time.” And then I’d be admitting that the bells and whistles on this gizmo are actually useful.

Tap, tap, tappity tap. The night, a deepening washed-out gray, was warmer than the last. The dogs were quiet now, sniffing vigorously at the trash cans that people had put out for the morning’s pickup.

Beep. Call waiting.

“Sweetie, hang on a sec,” Lola said. “Bella? I am so sorry. I fell asleep and—”

“Don’t worry, I know how wrecked you were. No big.” Lola could hear whoops in the background. “Leo came by and we wound up going to Trivia Night at Saloon. You wanna join us? There’s this complete hottie on my team who knows even more than I do about French bacteriologists,” Annabel said. “He will be mine.”

“Annabel, listen. Daphne isn’t even back yet!”

“Oh God, you’re kidding. She didn’t call?”

“Nope,” said Lola. “Weird, right? Doug’s on the other line checking the flight. I’ll call you back.”

“Tuberculosis!” yelled Annabel. “Sorry. Jesus. Definitely keep me posted.”

Lola juggled the leashes and phone and clicked back to Doug.

“Hi, sweetie, sorry,” said Lola.

“Listen, Lo,” said Doug. “Daphne’s plane got in on time.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Over three hours ago.”

“Okay, there’s got to be some explanation,” said Lola. “Can you check and see if traffic’s bad on the BQE or something?”

“Lo, I can basically hear you, but you’re starting to break up. Wanna call me in a few?”

“Sure,” said Lola. “Probably ’cause I’m right near the canal bridge.” Reception was sketchy there.

“Okay, just be careful over there,” Doug said, as far as Lola could make out.

“Don’t worry. Anyone messes with me, the dogs will gaze at him mournfully.”

“I didn’t hear that, but I’m sure it was funny,” said Doug.

“Yes, it was. Love you! Bye.”

“Lv yw tw,” said Doug.

Lola looked around, then at her phone. The signal was weak, but just enough to try Daphne again.

As she dialed, the dogs lurched forward toward the dimly lit Rio Stinko bridge, noses glued to the ground. She quickened her pace behind them. “Whoa, guys, relax,” she murmured. “I promise you don’t smell a rabbit.”

Riiing.

God, that ring sounds really real, like it’s—

Coming from that phone lying on the edge of the bridge.

Lola caught up with the dogs and swept the phone up from the concrete. Flashing on the screen were the words “Lola Somerville.” The dogs were running in circles, tangling their leashes. As they yanked, something below caught her eye. Before she’d even had time to think, Lola peeked over the railing. All she could make out below was a dark form wedged in some rotted piling. And accessorized with a bright pink scarf.

Thirteen

Lola didn’t faint this time. A steely survival calm took over as she yanked the dogs to the other side of the bridge and back into better-signal territory, where she called 911, Doug, and Annabel. Lola squatted down and patted the agitated dogs, speaking softly. “Good dogs. Yes, good dogs. This isn’t really happening, so you have nothing to worry about. Good dogs.” Touching their velvety ears actually calmed her down, too.

Two squad cars and an ambulance squealed onto the bridge. One cop asked Lola if she’d mind sticking around. She shook her head no. Close behind, someone stopped a rusting beige Volvo—the kind Lola’s parents had had back when professors, not lawyers, drove Volvos, which suggested that this one was a family hand-me-down. Wally Seaport got out, notebook in hand.

“That was quick,” Lola said to Wally after pointing out the scarf, and what it was attached to, to the police.

“Scanner. Plus I was covering the hunger strike right over at the Organic Depot site,” Wally shrugged, with no hint of recognition.

You
hoser
. We just met—re-met!—and at another murder to boot! What does it take to jog your memory?

Wally tried to follow the cops down the embankment, but one of them stopped him sternly at the already-up yellow police tape. The officer’s eyes on them both, Wally settled instead for asking Lola a few perfunctory questions.

No, I don’t know anyone who had anything against Daphne.

No, I actually hadn’t seen her for weeks.

Yes, that was me with whom you shared two drinks and five shrimp—why,
why
, do they serve romantic tapas in odd numbers?!—a couple years ago at Doomba.

Before Lola could answer that third question anywhere but in her own head, Doug jogged into view. “Excuse me, Wally,” said Lola. Doug pulled her into a giant hug, hand on the back of her head, just the way she loved. The dogs, envious, tried to paw their way into the action. Wally went back to the police tape to try to get a closer look.

That was Lola’s cue to fall apart. “Sweetie. I. Had. Like. A.
Vision
. Of. This,” she cried, her words coming between gasps.

“Whoa. Like, a premonition?”

“No,” Lola switched cheeks, her mouth now facing toward Doug on his damp shirtfront. “A fantasy.”

“Shhh, baby, shhhh,” he said. “It’s nothing. Just breathe. Let’s sit.” He guided her to a curb. They sat. As, for once, did the dogs. Lola breathed.

Before too long, two more headlights swept across their laps. Detective Bobbsey. Bobbsey had a few words with the various people surrounding the body, then trudged back up toward Lola. Dog leashes in one hand, Doug helped Lola to her feet with the other.

“Ms. Somerville,” Bobbsey nodded. “This is a first.”

“Second, really,” she said, trying to wipe away whatever mascara might have raccooned under her eyes. “This is Doug, my husband.”

“First, or second?” Bobbsey asked Lola.

“What? Oh, husband?” asked Lola, flustered. “First.”

“Sorry,” said Bobbsey. “Wife says I should limit the wisecracks.”

“Yours, too, huh?” said Doug. Lola, who’d never suggested anything of the sort, knew that Doug, sweet Doug, was just trying to male bond.

That is, before he got protective. “Detective, my wife’s not a suspect here, is she?” he asked. “We’d be happy to call our lawyer.”

Bobbsey waved him off. “Times of death, types of trauma, buncha stuff I can’t tell you—it all adds up to ‘don’t worry about it.’ We could just use her help. Given her apparent gift for body-tracking.” He turned to Lola. “The Hoffa people ever call you?”

“No, but I am part basset,” Lola said. She told Bobbsey everything she knew, which wasn’t much.

“Boyfriend in the picture?”

“You know, I’m not sure. Daphne was a kick. She dated a lot of people.”

“Makes sense,” nodded Bobbsey, scribbling something down.

“Makes sense?” asked Lola, about to defend Daphne’s honor. Daphne wasn’t slutty. She was old-fashioned. She
dated
.

Oh, wait.

“Wife’s beach bag?”

“Yep.” Bobbsey nodded. “She and Ms. McKee. They ever date the same person? Quentin Frye. He and Daphne ever an item?”

Man. “Not that I know of,” Lola said truthfully, though a competing thought had begun to take shape in her head: one that might give her an edge here, one that she wasn’t about to offer up to the detective. Bobbsey wasn’t stupid, but the “it’s always the boyfriend” theory here was likely the wrong tree to bark up. He knew the victims were both authors, obviously, but perhaps he was naïve about the degree to which commercial fiction could inspire crimes of passion. This
I
know for sure, thought Lola: one person’s angry fantasy—my own, say—could be another’s vindictive murder.

The flashlight beams down near the water began to skitter closer. Lola and Doug stared; Bobbsey turned. The paramedics were trudging up the small hill with the body in a shapeless brown bag that Daphne really would have hated.

Bobbsey accepted Lola’s offer to take in Daphne’s dogs for the night; once they’d contacted Daphne’s family, he assured her, they’d help make canine custody arrangements. (This service, like the new cut-the-cord command for misbehaving car alarms, was a recent well-received police PR move.)

“By the way, you ever see that guy again? Oddball from the party?” Bobbsey asked.

Reading Guy. “You know, I did, but randomly. At a bodega. Near here, actually. But that was early this morning. Nowhere around here since then. And nowhere near, you know, the bridge. Probably just lives out here,” she said, a deliberate shrug in her voice. She was telling the truth, of course, but she also wanted to play her Reading Guy cards close to her vest, just to make that potential angle her own.

Bobbsey didn’t write that down. Good.

“Thanks,” Lola said.

“You think of anything else, you let me know,” said Bobbsey.

Lola and Doug stood and watched his car’s taillights shrink to pinpoints.

“Doug, I—” Lola started. “Can’t even finish a sentence.”

“I know, sweetie, I know. Let’s get everyone to bed.” He rotated her toward home and urged her forward with the arm he had around her shoulder; with the other, he pulled the dogs along. Lola’s left hand held tight, on Doug’s waist, to his cotton shirt; her right, in her pocket, to Daphne’s cell phone.

Fourteen

Feeling bitterly, dramatically insouciant about germs—we have
other
killers to worry about!—Lola popped out her contacts without washing her hands while Doug ran the dogs out. Too tired to even get under the covers, she flopped on the bed as he came back in. Gibson and Sidecar padded behind, puzzled, but going with it.

“Mimi
and
Daphne,” Lola murmured, eyes closed. “Why? Chick lit isn’t
that
bad.”

“Even if it were,” Doug said, curling up next to her and touching her cheek. “I mean, your fatwa on the author of
The Bridges of Madison County
was purely symbolic; everyone knew that.”

“Wait a minute,” said Lola.

“It wasn’t symbolic?”

“Hold on,” said Lola, shaking her head.

“The movie was surprisingly touching?”

“No,” said Lola. “Wilma Vouch.”

“Wilma?” said Doug, rolling back. “As in the Jane Austen Liberation Front?” Lola nodded. The dogs pawed at their legs. “She’s strident, irritating, and chooses poor battles, but that doesn’t make her a killer,” he said.