Jaine Austen 7 - Killing Bridezilla (21 page)

“I already told you, Jaine,” she said in an even KILLING BRIDEZILLA

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voice. “I stayed in Patti’s life for one reason only.

I felt sorry for her. I don’t run scared. Not from anyone. Not Patti. Not the voters. And certainly not you.”

Well, that certainly knocked the stuffing out of my piñata.

“As for that silly ‘blackmail’ picture, lest you forget, I’m running for office in the state of California. A topless picture of me in my cheerleader days will probably win me the election.”

I had to hand it to her. If she was bluffing, she was doing one hell of a job. Why couldn’t I ever stand up to people like that? I usually fold after the first dirty look. Like I did with Kyle Potter.

And like I was about to do then.

“Hey, it was just a wacky theory,” I said, backing out of the room. “I get ’em all the time.

Doesn’t mean it’s true. Well, I’ve wasted enough of your valuable time. Must dash. Great seeing you! Rah, rah, Hermosa, and all that.”

I scooted out of her office and made my way to the elevator, minus my backbone. I really had to work on my confrontational skills. But in the cold light of Denise’s icy glare, my blackmail theory seemed pretty lame.

On the other hand, she could’ve been bluffing. Maybe her bravado was just an act. All I knew for sure was that Denise was one cool cookie. The woman had the cojones of a Beverly Hills real estate broker.

I sure as heck didn’t envy the poor soul who was running against her.

The elevator ride down to the lobby took forever, stopping at what seemed like every other 214

Laura Levine

floor. Before long, the tiny space was jammed with $500-an-hour attorneys, packed together like sardines in testosterone.

At last the elevator doors dinged open. I made my way across the travertine marble lobby to the escalators that led down to the garage.

They, too, were crowded when I got on, but by the time I got to the peon level of the garage where I’d parked, I was the only one still on.

I started the long trek to my car, which was parked in the spot I always seemed to get stuck with—the one as far as possible from the escalators.

It was dark and creepy down in peon-land.

You’d think they’d spring for some decent lighting in a ritzy building like this. Instead they had puny 40-watt bulbs casting ominous shadows wherever I looked.

Suddenly I felt uneasy, as if some unknown danger were lurking in the shadows. It told myself I was being silly. It was just this murder business that had me on edge.

Nevertheless, I trotted the rest of the way to my car, eager to get out of this dungeon and back into the light of day. At last I saw my trusty Corolla. With a sigh of relief I ran to its dinged side.

I’d opened the door and was just about to get in when I noticed a flyer stuck under the windshield:
LOSE WEIGHT FAST!

Seven-Day Wonder

DIET!

Call (323) 555-7676 for details
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215

A jolt of fear ran down my spine.

Not at the thought of going on a diet, although that’s never a pleasant prospect.

No, what sent that tingle down my spine was the fact that someone had scratched out the “T”

in diet, changing it to:

DIE!

Was this a threat from the killer? Her way of telling me to mind my own business?

Just then I heard the sound of high heels clicking on the cement. I turned and saw a woman heading toward the escalator alcove. A reed thin brunette. I gulped when I saw what she was wearing.
A pinstriped suit!
I’d just seen that same pantsuit not five minutes ago.

My God, it was Denise!

So she
had
been bluffing in her office. She
was
the killer. She must’ve taken an express elevator and put the note under my windshield to scare me off the case. After the way I’d caved in her office, she probably figured it would be easy to put the fear of God in me. She was right of course. I was a tad terrified. But I’d be damned if I’d let her intimidate me.

“Denise!” I called out.

She went on walking.

I started to run after her, and at the sound of my footsteps, she started running, too. The chase was on—but I had the advantage. I was wearing running shoes while she was stuck with wobbly designer heels.

That is, I thought I had the advantage. For a woman in three-inch stilettos, she was pretty darn 216

Laura Levine

fast. As I went puffing after her, weaving in and out between luxury cars, I cursed myself for not going to the gym more often. Or ever, if you want to get technical.

But eventually I managed to narrow the gap between us. I’d almost caught up with her and was all set to pounce when I heard the earsplitting sound of brakes squealing.

I looked up and saw that I had come
thisclose
to being mowed down by an SUV. An angry blonde in designer sunglasses shouted at me through her open window.

“Are you crazy, darting out in front of my car like that? I could’ve killed you.”

“You’ll have to wait your turn,” I shouted as I dashed into the escalator alcove where Denise had disappeared.

By now she was halfway to the top of the stairs.

I was just about to leap on after her when out of nowhere a young mother with a baby stroller jutted in front of me. And it wasn’t just any baby stroller. The woman had twins! Talk about inconsiderate. Couldn’t she sense I was chasing a killer? And what the heck was she doing bringing toddlers to an office building? There was no way I was going to get past her and her wide-bodied stroller.

And so I did what millions of drunken fraternity boys have been doing since time immemorial. I went up the Down escalator.

Trust me, it’s not easy. Now I knew what a salmon felt like at spawning time.

“Stop that woman!” I shouted as I struggled against the current of the downward moving steps. “She’s the Bridezilla Killer!”

But my fellow escalatorians just looked at me KILLING BRIDEZILLA

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like I was nuts. Can’t say as I blame them. I was, after all, a woman in a
Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs
T-shirt going up the Down escalator.

Pushing my way past the downstream passengers, I finally made it to the top. This time, with no pesky strollers impeding my progress, I leaped onto the next escalator and took the steps two at a time.

“It’s no use, Denise!” I called out as she got off the escalator. “I know you killed Patti.”

In a final burst of speed, I attacked her from behind and shoved her up against a wall.

“Please don’t hurt me!” she cried.

Funny, that didn’t sound like Denise.

“Take my money!” she pleaded. “It’s in my purse.”

By now a crowd had formed around us. The young mother with the twins, I saw, had stopped to take in the show.

“What’s going on here?” asked a concerned bizguy, shooting me a dirty look.

My captive turned to face me, and with a sinking sensation, I saw that it wasn’t Denise. Not even close. She was a fresh-scrubbed gal with freckles and rosy cheeks (no doubt a fear-induced cardiac flush).

Yes, folks. The “killer” I’d just chased across the parking garage and up two flights of escalators was a perfectly innocent stranger.

Ten minutes later I was in the bunker-like offices of the Century City police begging my innocent victim not to press charges.

How could I have been so stupid? Chasing her down just because she was a skinny woman 218

Laura Levine

in a designer suit. For crying out loud, this was L.A., where nine out of ten women are skinny and in designer suits. And why hadn’t it occurred to me before I went sprinting off on my wild goose chase that Denise would have had no way of knowing where I’d parked my car?

I’d thought Daddy was nuts, bringing home the wrong guy from the airport. Daddy didn’t hold a candle to me in the Stupid Mistakes department. I was a disgrace to private eyes everywhere. And freelance writers, too.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to my victim. “You see, I got this flyer on my windshield, and the
T
in
DIET
had been crossed out so all it said was
DIE

and I thought you were the killer.”

The cop who’d driven us over on his golf cart looked up from the notes he was taking and shot me a piercing look.

“What killer?”

Oh, crud. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him I was investigating Patti’s murder. Not after having just attacked an innocent citizen.

Surely that would lead to all sorts of pesky questions about whether I was licensed to be a P.I., which of course I wasn’t.

“Did I say
the
killer? I meant
a
killer. I just thought she was a dangerous person and wanted to make a citizen’s arrest.”

“Talk about overreacting,” my victim piped up. “I got the same flyer on my windshield, and I didn’t go attacking anyone.”

She took out a flyer from her purse, and sure enough, the
T
in her
DIET
had been crossed out, too.

At that moment, the door opened and a cou

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219

ple of security guards came in, hauling two sullen teenage boys.

“These kids were hired to put diet flyers under windshields,” said one of the guards, “and they thought it would be funny to cross off the
T
, so it said
DIE
. Scared a lot of people.”

“I know all about it,” the desk cop said, rolling his eyes. “Just let me finish up with these women and I’ll get to the kids.”

Finally, after I promised to write free resumes for all three of my victim’s children, she agreed not to press charges.

The cop let me go with a stern warning about overreacting and a not-so-subtle suggestion that I seek psychiatric counseling.

I was just about to leave his office when I looked up at a TV mounted on the wall. There on the news was a picture of Julio, the Devanes’

gardener.

I raced over and turned up the sound just in time to hear the anchorman saying, “—found dead in a ravine, his body riddled with bullets.”

Needless to say, I was glued to the news that night. Normally the death of a gardener wouldn’t rate much coverage, but because of Julio’s connection with the Devanes, he was granted his fifteen minutes of posthumous fame.

All the local stations ran with the story. According to their accounts, Julio had been dead for at least two days, killed in what the police were saying was most likely a drug deal gone bad.

A drug deal? I didn’t think so.

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Laura Levine

I’m no expert on drugs (unless you consider Chunky Monkey a narcotic), but I had a hard time picturing timid little Julio in a dark alley forking over hard cash for white powder.

The way I figured it, Julio was offed because he’d seen the killer. Somehow she found out that there’d been an eyewitness to her crime and tracked poor Julio down. Even though he hadn’t been able to give a clear description of her, she was taking no chances that someday he might be able to identify her.

Zapping from one newscast to another, I saw that one enterprising station had sent out a news team to the East L.A. apartment building where Julio had rented a room. The reporter tried to talk to the manager of the building, a tank of a woman in a floral muumuu and a headful of rollers. But—in a moment I was certain would never appear on the reporter’s demo reel—she chased him away with a broom and a string of bleeped-out curses.

A formidable woman, indeed. I wouldn’t want to be late with my rent in her building.

But maybe she’d seen or heard something that would lead me to Julio’s killer. Maybe she’d even seen the murderer. I needed to talk to her and pump her for information.

As the frightened reporter scurried to the safety of his news van, I saw a sign on the apartment lawn:
LUCILLE ARMS. VACANCY

Lucille could have been the name of the woman in the muumuu, of course. And the building could have been named for her pendulous KILLING BRIDEZILLA

221

arms. But I didn’t think so. A quick trip to Map-quest, and I discovered a street in East L.A. called Lucille Avenue. Like so many apartments, Lucille Arms was probably named after the street it was built on.

It shouldn’t be too hard to drive along Lucille Avenue until I spotted it.

Now all I had to do was think of a way to approach the manager without getting attacked with a broomstick.

Then I remembered the VACANCY sign on the lawn. And I knew exactly how to get an audience with the muumuu-clad manager.

First thing tomorrow morning, I would go apartment hunting.

Chapter 21

Lucille Avenue was a lot longer than it looked on the map. When I passed my third bodega it was clear I was in a predominantly Hispanic section of town.

Crawling along at fifteen miles an hour, scanning the streets for Lucille Arms, I stood out like a gringo sore thumb. Drivers behind me honked impatiently, but I couldn’t risk going faster or I’d miss Julio’s apartment.

At last I found it—a squat two-story building with security bars on the windows and a patch of weeds masquerading as a front lawn.

I parked my ancient Corolla (which was right at home on the streets of East L.A.) and headed up the front path.

Reassured to see the VACANCY sign still up, I rang the manager’s buzzer. A blast of static came on the line, and then a hoarse “Yeah? Whaddaya want?”

“I’m here about your rental unit.”

“Hold on. I’ll be right out.”

I peered past the security bars on the glass door into a musty hallway with a bare overhead lightbulb. The same woman I’d seen on the news came out of one of the apartments, carrying her 224

Laura Levine

trusty broom. She waddled to the front door in the muumuu she’d worn yesterday, her hair still in rollers. Why did I get the feeling those rollers had been in her hair since 1987?

She opened the door warily, a cigarette dangling from her lips. With beady raisin eyes and a most unfortunate mustache, she looked a lot scarier in person than she had on TV. And that was pretty darn scary.