Death by Tiara (6 page)

“I don’t know. It must have flown away. You know bees. Always flitting here and there. To and fro. Busy little critters. Pollinating flowers. Spreading nature’s glory.”

I tend to babble when I’m nervous.

But Gigi wasn’t about to let this drop.

“What’s a bee doing inside a hotel, anyway?” Then, turning to the nearby moms and teen queen wannabes, she asked, “Have any of you seen a bee?”

A chorus of no’s filled the air. Accompanied by lots of suspicious stares.

“Oh, dear. I guess I was seeing spots again. It’s been happening to me a lot lately. I really must go see my doctor. Well, see you later!”

And without any further ado, I slunk back to Heather and Taylor. I was beginning to think it would have been better if Heather had gone over and made a scene.

“Well?” Heather hissed as soon as I returned. “Did you smell anything?”

“Not a thing. Except Swedish meatballs.”

“See, Mom?” Taylor said. “They didn’t take my gown.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. They probably showered off the evidence, knowing I’d be on to them.”

The next fifteen minutes or so were spent mixing and mingling, pageant moms and daughters slugging down mocktails as they checked out the competition.

Heather, however, barely listened to the chatter around her, too busy shooting death rays at Luanne.

The mixing and mingling came to an abrupt halt when Candace strode over to a podium on stage at the front of the room.

“Attention, everyone!” she barked into a microphone. “Let’s all take our seats!”

She pointed to the rows of folding chairs that had been set up for the occasion.

I followed as Heather nabbed us seats in the front row.

“Welcome,” Candace said, when everyone had scurried to their seats, “to the Alta Loco division of the Miss Teen Queen America pageant. I’m your pageant director, Candace Burke.”

She smiled coolly as pageant moms and daughters, eager to suck up to her, applauded wildly.

“Over there behind the buffet table is my assistant, Amy Leighton.”

The mousy blonde in her red blazer waved from behind the table.

“And here are this year’s distinguished judges.”

Candace gestured to the stage where two men and a young woman were sitting behind a table. Hanging from the front of the table was a satin banner, with the words A
LTA
L
OCO
T
EEN
Q
UEEN
A
MERICA
embroidered in hot pink letters. The “i” in America, I could not help but notice, was dotted with a tiny tiara.

“First, let’s all say hello to Dr. Edwin Fletcher, principal of Alta Loco High School.”

I immediately recognized the skinny guy with the bow tie and wire-rimmed glasses Heather had practically knocked over in her efforts to promote Taylor. Now he gave a curt nod, his lips a thin grim line. Something told me he’d not be handing out a lot of tens.

“Sitting next to Dr. Fletcher is former Alta Loco Teen Queen, Bethenny Martinez.”

A Hispanic beauty in her early twenties, blessed with creamy olive skin and lush chestnut hair, Bethenny flashed an Ultra Brite smile and waved to the girls, gliding her palm from side to side, much like Queen Elizabeth waving to the commoners.

“She’s not so hot,” Heather muttered, prompting all who heard her to wonder if she needed her eyes examined.

“Our third judge,” Candace was saying, “is none other than Antoine ‘Tex’ Turner of Turner BMW, Alta Loco’s number-one car dealership.”

A hunky dude in western gear, Tex graced us with a high-testosterone grin.

“Howdy, gals!” he said, doffing his cowboy hat and revealing a headful of thick, Brad Pitt hair.

A soft murmur of approval rippled through the audience.

“And last but not least,” Candace said, yanking her charges back from their fantasies, “I’d like to introduce your pageant emcee, star of stage, screen, and television—my hubby, Mr. Eddie Burke!”

At which point a short, stocky guy in a bad toupee came bounding out on stage, waving to the audience.

This was a star of stage, screen, and TV? Really? On what planet?

“I just flew in from New York,” he announced, “and boy, are my arms tired.”

Good heavens. Pterodactyls were telling that joke in
Jurassic Park
.

He waited in vain for some laughs, then took a seat at the end of the table next to Tex, where he proceeded to scratch his toupee, moving it ever so slightly askew on his head.

“We’ll be doing Q and A with the judges and Eddie in a few minutes,” Candace said, “but right now I want to remind you of our upcoming schedule of events.

“Tomorrow we’re having the swimsuit and talent competitions, and on Sunday, the ball gown production number and final crowning, during which one lucky young lady will become Alta Loco’s Teen Queen and receive this genuine Tiffany tiara!”

She held up the tiara I’d seen in her office, the one with the strange clock in the center.

“It’s got a built-in clock, so the winner will always remember this very special ‘time’ of her life!”

“It sure doesn’t look like Tiffany to me,” Heather whispered.

She was right, of course. As I was to later learn, the manufacturer of this silver-plated headgear was an outfit in Taiwan called Tiphany Novelties and Erotic Toys.

But at that moment the teens in the audience were gazing at it with unadulterated lust.

“Remember, girls,” Candace was saying, “the next two days are going to be the most important two days of your life. The Teen Queen America title has been the stepping stone to all sorts of fabulous careers in show business, modeling, and TV weathercasting.

“Why, just a few months ago Bethenny here,” she said, gesturing to the former teen queen, “was cast in an exciting TV infomercial!”

Bethenny nodded modestly as the girls in the audience swooned with envy.

“Of course,” Candace continued, “there can be only one winner of the Teen Queen Tiphany Tiara. But that doesn’t mean the rest of you are losers. Just by being here today, you’ve shown you’ve got what it takes to be a proud competitor.”

Not to mention a thousand bucks in entry fees.

“Win or lose, these next two days will give you the chance to learn, to grow, and, most important, to make new friends—friends you’ll treasure for the rest of your life.”

As Candace babbled on about the value of friendship, my eyes wandered over to the judges’ table. Glancing down below the banner hanging from the front of the table, I saw that the former teen queen had slipped her foot out of her stiletto heel and was now rubbing her toes up against Tex Turner’s ankle.

Somebody was making friends, all right.

Very good friends, indeed.

Chapter 6

“A
nd now,” Candace chirped, “it’s time for Q and A with the judges!”

My cue to make my exit for my dinner date with Scott’s parents.

Getting up from my seat, I saw Candace frown in disapproval, and as I scurried up the aisle, I could practically feel her eyes burning holes in my back.

I’m surprised she didn’t have me arrested for going AWOL.

Back in the broom closet posing as my room, I threw off my clothes and jumped into the shower, which I soon discovered had all the water pressure of a leaky faucet. I sudsed myself as best I could with a complimentary sliver of Amada Inn soap, and patted myself dry with one of the graying towels hanging limply from the towel rack.

Never had I felt less refreshed.

I slipped into my new silk slacks with the matching kimono-sleeved top, my one and only pair of Manolo Blahniks, and some dangly silver earrings.

Then I slapped on some lipstick and mascara and surveyed my mop of curls, which—having been unsuccessfully jammed into the Amada Inn’s Barbie-sized shower cap—had sprung out like a chia pet. I thought briefly about blowing it straight, but did not want to risk electrocution with the Amada Inn’s antique hair dryer.

A final spritz of perfume, then I grabbed my purse and was out the door.

While waiting for the elevator, I checked my phone and found a text from Scott with his parents’ address. I was surprised to see they lived in Malibu. When I first met Scott he told me he grew up in my hometown of Hermosa Beach, and I’d figured his folks still lived there. Somehow I didn’t picture a cop’s blue-collar family living in tony Malibu. Oh, well. Maybe they lived in a modest pocket of town, just like my duplex in the slums of Beverly Hills.

After I’d Googled directions to their house, the elevator still hadn’t shown up. So I proceeded to clomp down four flights of stairs in my Manolos. By the time I got to the lobby, I was sweating like an Olympic gymnast.

All that time in the shower, for nothing.

Oh, well. There was nothing I could do about it. So I got in my Corolla and headed for the freeway.

Traffic, of course, was a nightmare. The only time traffic in L.A. isn’t a nightmare is between 3 and 5
AM
and when I’m going for a root canal. Then everything flows like mustard on a frank-in-a-blanket.

I sat in my ancient Corolla as traffic inched ahead, simultaneously cursing and trying not to sweat into my kimono-sleeved blouse. It was a hellish hour and fifty minutes, but at last I made it to Malibu and found myself on a winding road lined with gated estates.

This sure as heck wasn’t a modest pocket of town.

I pulled up at Scott’s parents’ address and peered through the gates. My jaw dropped when I saw what looked like a small castle in the distance.

Smiling awkwardly into a security camera, I pressed a buzzer, and seconds later, the gates swung open. Then I drove my Corolla up a tree-lined path, eventually reaching the castle-like home I’d seen from the road, a sprawling affair with enough wings to host a Teen Queen America convention.

Was it possible, I wondered, that Scott’s parents worked as caretakers for a fabulously wealthy family?

Getting out of my Corolla, I groaned to see my beautiful silk top was a mass of wrinkles. If only I’d remembered to pull it out from under my seat belt. Now the darn thing looked like a road map of the Rockies.

I headed for the Willises’ elaborate front portico, desperately trying to smooth out the creases. But it looked like they were set for life.

What’s worse, when I checked my watch, I saw that it was close to eight. And I was supposed to have been there at seven.

I rang the bell, an hour late and draped in wrinkles.

Soon a sweet, cherubic woman came to the door, the same kind of rosy-cheeked woman I’d imaged Scott’s mom would be.

Unfortunately, this was not Scott’s mom.

It was the maid, Rosita, who greeted me with a warm smile and ushered me down a hall into a gargantuan wood-beamed living room, dotted with overstuffed furniture, French doors leading out onto a terrace, and a fireplace big enough to house a Cessna.

A regal woman with a slightly beaked nose unfurled herself from where she was sitting on one of the overstuffed chairs. Her black hair, streaked with gray, was swept back at the sides in perfect wings.

Like me, she was dressed in silk pants and flowy top. But unlike my Nordstrom special, hers had undoubtedly cost thousands of bucks. And needless to say, there was nary a wrinkle in sight.

Rosita announced my presence before skittering away down the hallway.

The woman with the beaked nose, who I could only assume was Scott’s mom, looked me up and down with cold gray eyes.

“A pleasure to meet you . . . at last.”

The latter said with a pointed glance at her watch.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. I got stuck in traffic. I hope I didn’t hold things up.”

“Not at all,” she assured me. “We finished our hors d’oeuvres ages ago.”

I glanced over at a glass-topped coffee table littered with the remains of cocktail hour munchies.

“I’m Scott’s mother, Patrice,” Ma Willis was saying, “and this is my husband, Brighton.”

“Bri!” She called out to a red-faced guy sitting on a recliner, nursing a scotch and watching The Weather Channel on a TV mounted above the fireplace.

“Bri, say hello to Scott’s friend, Jan.”

“Um. Actually, it’s Jaine.”

“As if I give a rat’s patootie.”

Okay, so what she really said was, “Oh, right.” But I could read between the lines.

Scott’s dad tore himself away from a storm in Topeka and tossed me a halfhearted, “Hello, there.”

“Sit down, Jaine,” Ma Willis said, “and help yourself to whatever’s left of the hors d’oeuvres. The pâté’s gone, but I think there are a few crackers left. Dinner should be ready any minute. I’ll go check with Rosita.”

She slithered off, and I sat down on a sofa across from Scott’s dad, who seemed to have totally forgotten my existence, his eyes still glued to that storm in Topeka.

By now, I was starving. It seemed like ages since I’d scarfed down those franks-in-a-blanket at the Amada Inn.

I checked the coffee table and found a few cheese rinds, some abandoned shrimp tails, and exactly one uneaten cracker.

I snapped it up eagerly.

I was looking around, wondering where the heck Scott was and hoping to find a stray bowl of nuts, when I noticed a half-finished glass of champagne in front of me.

For an instant I was tempted to slug it down, but I didn’t dare. What if Pa Willis lost interest in The Weather Channel and caught me in the act?

I was staring at the champagne longingly when I realized there was bright coral lipstick on the rim of the glass.

Funny. Ma Willis’s lips had been colored a deep blood red.

Suddenly I began to feel uneasy. Whose lips, I wondered, belonged to this coral lipstick?

I was about to find out, because just then Scott came walking in through the French doors with a lithe, blond, willowy creature. With startling blue eyes and sun-bleached hair pulled back in a headband, she practically radiated blue blood and old money.

Her simple jeans and T-shirt made my wrinkled kimono getup seem wildly over the top. She and Scott were laughing gaily as they entered the living room—a little too gaily for my tastes.

“Jaine!” Scott cried, catching sight of me. “I’d like you to meet an old friend of the family. Chloe Landis.”