Jaine Austen 7 - Killing Bridezilla (25 page)

“I’ll bring her to the pound when things settle down. In the meanwhile, everyone will think I’m Saint Dickie.”

I heard another muted whimper.

Poor Mamie. I couldn’t leave her there with a pair of killers.

So there I was, ducked under the window, wondering how the heck I was going to get Mamie out of the house, when suddenly I heard the tinkling strains of “The Mexican Hat Dance.”

It was not, I’m sorry to report, coming from inside the bungalow. That idiotic tune was the ringer I’d chosen, in a momentary lapse of good taste, for my cell phone.

“Somebody’s outside!” I heard Veronica saying. “I think it came from that window.”

At that point I had a choice. I could do the sensible thing and run for my life. Or I could stay and try to rescue Mamie.

It was no contest. Good sense didn’t stand a chance against a sweetheart like Mamie. I stood up and screeched “Mamie!” at the top of my lungs.

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I had no idea what good that would do, given that Dickie had her stowed away in the den. So you can imagine my joy—and surprise—when she came bounding into the room. She must’ve pulled her old Jump-Up-and-Turn-the-Door-Handle escape trick.

What a clever dog!

“Here, Mamie!” I called to her.

And like a curly-haired bat out of hell, she charged across the room and out the window into my arms.

Veronica, who’d been gaping openmouthed throughout this daring canine escape, now regained her powers of speech.

“Damn it!” she cried. “It’s Jaine. She probably heard everything.”

And then, tearing a page from Mamie’s book, I did my own impression of a flying mammal out of Hades and took off down the block.

“Stop her, Dickie!” Veronica shrieked.

The door banged open as Dickie came bolting out of the house in hot pursuit.

Now Dickie was a tall, rangy athletic guy, and I’m about as athletic as your average lawn ornament. So normally he would’ve caught up with me in a heartbeat. But lucky for me, he was barefoot. As I puffed toward my car, Mamie in my arms, I heard him yelp in pain. I turned and saw him clutching his foot, plucking out what I figured was a piece of glass.

Which was why I was able to make it to my car and drive off unscathed.

“Oh, Mamie,” I said, my hands trembling on the steering wheel, “I’m so sorry for leaving you with those dreadful people.”

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But Mamie had already forgotten her ordeal and was busy sniffing for buried treasure in my purse.

She’d just dug out a priceless used Kleenex when I heard the strains of “The Mexican Hat Dance.” I was afraid it might be Dickie, but when I flipped open my phone, I was relieved to see Kandi’s number on the screen.

“Hey, Kandi,” I said, putting her on the speaker.

“Jaine, where were you? I tried calling you a few minutes ago.”

So she was the one who blew my cover.

“You’ll never believe what happened,” she moaned. “It’s just awful.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m stranded in Minneapolis!”

“What??”

“Remember my air date? The guy I was meeting on the plane?”

Yes, indeed. I remembered her plan to fake a business meeting in Minneapolis in order to hook up with a perfect stranger. How could I forget such an idiotic idea?

“He never even showed. I flew all the way to Minneapolis for nothing. And we landed in the middle of a storm. They closed the airport. I could be stranded here for days.”

I restrained myself from breaking into a rousing chorus of I-told-you-so’s.

“All the decent hotels are booked. And now I’m stuck in the world’s crummiest motel with nothing to wear, except for a Vikings sweatshirt I bought at the airport gift shop. I don’t even have a toothbrush. What am I going to do?”

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I heard a car roar up behind me. There, in my rearview mirror, was Dickie behind the wheel of his yellow VW.

“Hang in there, honey,” I called out to Mamie as I hit the gas pedal.

“How can I hang in there,” Kandi whined,

“when I’m trapped in this godforsaken motel?”

“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the dog.”

“What dog?”

“The dog who’s eating my wallet.”

And it’s true. Mamie, oblivious to my sudden burst of speed, had fished my wallet out of my purse and was now digging into it as if it were a T-bone steak.

“Don’t eat the MasterCard!” I shrieked.

“Jaine, don’t tell me you got a dog? Don’t you have enough aggravation with Prozac? And speaking of aggravation, you should see the towels in this joint. They look like they’ve been recycled from a car wash. Ugh!”

By now I was barreling along the streets of Santa Monica, Dickie hot on my tail.

“Kandi, I think I’m going to have to call you back—”

“And the guy at the front desk looks just like Norman Bates. Honestly, I don’t know how I’m going to sleep a wink tonight.”

“Oh, no!” I gasped, as I saw a red stop light looming ahead.

“At last,” Kandi sniffed. “A little sympathy.”

Up until then, I’d been taking my chances and ignoring stop signs. But this was a signal at a major intersection. I thought briefly about taking my life in my hands and running the red KILLING BRIDEZILLA

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light. But I abandoned the idea when I saw a logjam of cars backed up in front of me. I was trapped!

I checked my rearview mirror and saw Dickie pulling up behind me.

Damn.

He got out of his VW and started for my car.

Double damn. What if he had a gun? What if he pulled it on me and made me drive back to his place at gunpoint?

At the fringes of my consciousness I could hear Kandi whining about how there was nothing decent to eat in the motel’s vending machine.

By now Dickie had reached my passenger door.

I had to do something. And fast.

The light up ahead turned green, but the cars directly in front of me still weren’t moving.

So I did what any rational human being would do under similar circumstances: I made a U-ey into oncoming traffic.

All around me drivers honked their horns and slammed on their brakes. A medley of colorful curses wafted through the air. Thank heavens there wasn’t a cop around or I’d be doing five to ten in traffic school.

As I drove off, I saw Dickie in my rearview mirror, shrugging in defeat. I also saw several motorists giving me the finger, but hey, I’d escaped Dickie and that’s all that mattered.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” I said to Mamie, who was looking up at me, wide-eyed.

“Of course, I’m not okay,” Kandi’s voice squawked from my phone. “I’ve just spent the past ten minutes telling you how miserable I am.

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Oh, well. I suppose I’ll survive. So what about you, hon? Anything exciting happening in your life?”

“Yes,” I said, mopping the sweat from my brow,

“I guess you could say things have been a little hectic around here.”

Chapter 24

After that heart-stopping little adventure, I wanted nothing more than to go home and soak in the tub for the next 48 hours. But I could not allow myself that luxury. I had to find out if Patti had indeed named Dickie beneficiary in her will.

I figured the Devanes would probably know.

So after a pit stop at McDonald’s for some burgers—paid for with a credit card still damp with dog spit—I headed off to Bel Air.

I parked the Corolla in a shady spot on the Devanes’ driveway and cracked the windows open so Mamie would have some air. Then I left her happily munching on her burger.

I only hoped Daphna wouldn’t spot her and have a hissy fit.

But as it turned out, Daphna wasn’t home.

Apparently her period of mourning had come to an end.

“She’s off in Beverly Hills on a shopping spree,” Rosa told me when she came to the door.

Fortunately Conrad was home and agreed to see me.

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she led the way to his study. “He’s worse than ever. I’ve never seen a man so unhappy.”

And indeed Conrad seemed in terrible shape.

Worse, even, than when Patti first died.

He sat slumped at his desk, his eyes bloodshot, his hair matted, a glass of scotch at his elbow.

What a difference from the day I first saw him stepping out of his Rolls in his megabucks suit, his hair styled to perfection.

“So how can I help you, Jaine?” he asked after Rosa had left the room.

“I know you’ll find this hard to believe, Mr. Devane, but I think Dickie Potter masterminded a plot to kill Patti for her money.”

“Dickie?” He blinked, puzzled. “But Julio saw a woman on the balcony.”

“He did. Veronica Hubbard was the one who did the dirty deed, but she was taking orders from Dickie. They’re having an affair, you know.”

If I expected him to be shocked, I was in for a surprise. There was nothing. Nada. No reaction whatsoever. He just took a slug of his scotch and stared at me dully.

“Look, Mr. Devane,” I said, as gently as I could,

“before I can go to the police, I need to know: Did Patti change her will to leave Dickie all her money?”

“Patti didn’t have a will.”

“No will? With all that money?”

“She refused to have one drawn up. She said they were ‘spooky.’ ”

And just like that, my brilliant theory was shot to hell. Without a will naming Dickie her beneficiary, Dickie wouldn’t have inherited a cent.

“I guess I’m wrong,” I sighed. “If Dickie wanted KILLING BRIDEZILLA

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to kill Patti for her money, he would’ve waited till after the ceremony.”

“Oh, but he didn’t have to wait,” Conrad said with a bitter laugh. “The day of the wedding, he and Patti were already married.”

Talk about your jawdroppers.

“Already married?”

“I just spoke with my attorney,” he nodded.

“It seems they ran off to Vegas weeks earlier and got married in a quickie ceremony on the strip.

Which meant Dickie inherited everything.

“Scheming sonofabitch,” he muttered, downing the last of his scotch. “I should’ve known he was up to no good when I saw him kissing Veronica.”

“You saw them kissing?”

“The day before the wedding. They snuck away from the cocktail party. I looked down at the gazebo and there they were, going at it like rabbits.

“Damn,” he said, staring down into his now-empty glass, “I need a refill.”

He heaved himself up from his chair and started for the door.

“Can I get you anything while I’m gone?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Which, of course, was a gross exaggeration. I was far from fine. I was stunned, flabbergasted, totally blown away by what Conrad had just told me. Not that Patti had run off to Vegas, or that she’d gone through with the wedding in L.A.

even though she’d already tied the knot. If I knew Patti, she did it to cash in on the gifts.

What stunned me was that Conrad would let Patti marry a man he knew was cheating on her.

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At the time, he had no idea Patti was already married. And yet he allowed her to go ahead with the wedding, in spite of the fact that he’d seen Dickie kissing another woman in the gazebo.

And that’s when it hit me. The full significance of what Conrad had just said.

He said he’d
looked down
at the gazebo.

Patti told me that it was called the Secret Gazebo because it was hidden from view by the surrounding trees, visible only from her balcony.

Which meant that Conrad Devane had to have been up on the balcony when he saw Dickie and Veronica kissing. And which also meant he was up there during the cocktail party, when the murderer jimmied with the railing.

You see where I’m going with all of this, don’t you?

Conrad Devane could very well be the killer!

But he couldn’t be. Julio swore it was a woman he saw out on the balcony. Had Julio been lying? And if so, why?

My mind spinning, I got up and paced the room.

It was a spacious book-lined study, with volumes no doubt purchased by the yard to color coordinate with the walls. Off to one side was a full-scale model of what I assumed was Conrad’s latest housing development, Sunset Estates.

I glanced down at the meandering streets.

They were lined with papier-mâché trees and miniature mansions and had names like Pleasant Drive, Leisure Lane, and Easy Street—

Whoa!
Easy Street?

Didn’t Julio tell his Godzilla apartment manger that he was going to be on easy street?

Was it possible he’d meant it literally?

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What if it was
Conrad
Julio had seen on the balcony? What if Conrad made a deal with Julio?

He’d give his gardener big bucks to keep quiet and swear it was a woman he’d spotted at the scene of the crime. Then he arranged to meet Julio on Easy Street, and when poor Julio showed up, instead of getting his payoff he got a bullet in his gut.

Oh, Lord. It all made sense.

Conrad was the killer!

I had to get out of there, and fast.

I raced to the door and flung it open, only to find Conrad standing there with a handgun aimed straight at my heart.

“So you figured it out, huh?” he said, shoving me back in the room with the muzzle of his gun.

“The minute the words were out of my mouth, I realized I shouldn’t have told you about looking down at the gazebo.”

I tried to look as if I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Figured what out?”

“Oh, come on. You know it was me up there on the balcony. Why else would you be running out of my study like a chicken with her head cut off?”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I just remembered an important appointment, that’s all. Now I really have to be going or I’ll be late for my tonsillectomy.”

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “but the only place you’re going is to your final reward.”

Oh, gulp. I didn’t like the sound of that.

“But I don’t understand,” I said, abandoning the innocent act he clearly wasn’t buying. “I thought you liked Patti.”