Deadly in High Heels (7 page)

No pun intended.

*

On the way back to the hotel Marco and I contemplated Whitney aging out of the competition—and possibly even lying about her age. I also filled him in on the mysterious girl I'd seen leaving after curfew last night.

"You think it was Whitney?" Marco asked

"Honestly, it was too dark to tell. She was tall and slim…but that could apply to just about any one of the fifty-one girls here." I paused, correcting myself. "I mean fifty."

"Do you think the girl who left last night was the same person Jennifer was meeting on the beach the night she died?"

"Or," I said, "did the same person who lured Jennifer out after curfew also lure last night's girl out as well?"

"Hmmm," Marco pondered. "But last night's girl came back alive. We would've heard if one of the contestants wasn't accounted for."

"Good point." I had to admit I felt like I was going around in circles. It was possible Whitney'd had it in for Miss Montana, and it was also just as possible that her boyfriend or secret lover had done her in. The fact was we had lots of suspects, and lots of theories, but absolutely zero evidence.

"I'd really like to know who that girl was I saw last night," I mused aloud. I paused trying to think of who might know if someone had been sneaking around the hotel. As we approached the building I suddenly thought of one person who saw all the comings and goings from this hotel.

Our friendly neighborhood fashion protester.

Today she was standing outside the doors, holding a new sign that read
Beauty is Skin Deep
. I tried not to dwell on the irony that it looked like her skin was quickly getting burned in the afternoon sun.

"Do we have to?" Marco wined. I could tell that in his current outfit he was feeling a little bit scared of Ms. Protester. Especially since it looked like she had a bucket of red paint at the ready should anybody walk in wearing fur. And Marco's pleather did look rather authentic.

"Buck up, sister," I told him playfully. "She can't be that bad."

Marco shot a look toward her all-grey ensemble, shuddering a little when he got to her Birks. "Are you sure…"

I grabbed him by the crook of the arm and steered him toward our girl. As we approached I heard her shouting at a pair of insurance salesman leaving the hotel.

"Don't let our daughters become slaves! We're prisoners of our own body image!"

"Excuse me," I said coming up behind her.

She spun around, her stringy brown hair flapping behind her. "What do you want?"

Marco yipped and jumped back a step at her combative tone.

"Hi, I'm Maddie Springer," I said, holding my hand out to her.

She looked at it as if it was a snake. Or maybe just a fabulous snakeskin pump.

"And? Look I'm totally within my right to peacefully protest here, so if you don't like it—"

"Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions."

"Are you with the pageant?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

"I am a bit of a consultant," I said, being completely truthful. Of course I left out the part that my consultations were providing some of the fashions for the event.

She snorted. "That ridiculous farce. You know what those women go through just to parade around like cattle on that stage?"

Actually, I kinda did, being the one who was providing the footwear for said parade.

"Right, well, I was wondering if I could ask you—"

"And who are you?" she said cutting me off and turning on Marco.

He yipped again. "Marco. Not in the pageant."

"Hmph," she snorted again. "Don."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm Don," she introduced herself. "Spelled
D O N
."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Short for Donatella."

I blinked at her.

"As in Donatella Versace?" Marco asked. I could hear the barely contained giggle in his voice at the irony.

Don narrowed her eyes at him again. "Look, I can't help it if my mother was deluded and named me after some Botoxed, spray tanned, crazy Italian fashion mogul."

"Right. Of course. Makes perfect sense," I said quickly moving on. "I noticed that you're keeping a very vigilant post here." I motioned to the front doors of the lobby.

"Well, as long as they continue to poison the minds of our young girls, I'll be here."

"Uh-huh," I said. "I bet you have a clear view of anyone coming or going from the hotel from here, don't you?"

"Nobody gets by me!" she said proudly, her chin lifting. I noticed it could use a good plucking along with her eyebrows. Eek.

"I wonder…did you happen to see anyone leaving here last night? Late?"

Don rolled her eyes at me. "Only about a hundred people. It's a hotel."

I hated to admit that the sarcastic fashion victim had a point.

"It would've been around twelve forty-five?"

Don shook her head. "I was gone by then. After that one girl died, the police have been total jerks about me sticking to the times on my permit. 11 PM is when I have to leave."

Bummer. That meant I was back to square one with the slippery girl from last night. However since Don had opened the door to talking about the dead girl…

"Were you here at the front doors the night that she died?"

Don nodded. "Yeah, and I saw her leaving. I already told all of this to the police. Trust me, they grilled me like crazy. Like they thought I had something to do with it!"

I looked down at her
Death to Fashion Slaves
T-shirt and couldn't imagine what had given them that idea.

"But they can't make me leave. It's my First Amendment right to free speech, you know!" Don shouted, getting worked up now.

"Anyway back to Jennifer," I said. "Did you see where she went?"

"Yeah, she took off toward the beach. But that's the last I saw of her."

"You didn't see her coming back?"

Don shook her head
no.
"But the police say she was found at the pool right? That's at the back of the hotel. She would've gone around to the side entrance if she was meeting someone there."

"You think she was meeting someone?" I asked

Don rolled her eyes at me. "She didn't kill herself, now did she?"

Okay, this was getting me nowhere.

"Did you happen to see anyone else leave the hotel that night?" I asked.

Don opened her mouth to answer, but I held up a hand to stop her.

"Specifically anyone else involved in the pageant? Any of the other girls?"

She shook her head
no
again. "You know those pageant girls—they have a curfew, right? Like little children. So sexist. You don't see any of the men involved in the pageant with a curfew. They are free to come and go into the wee hours of the morning."

"Are you saying you saw one of the men associated with the pageant leave the hotel that night?" I asked, honing in on her wording.

Again with the eye rolling. "Duh!"

I took a mental deep breath. "Who?"

"Well there was that soap star, Jeffries. That bit of chauvinistic slime was heading toward the bar. Shocker," she added. "And then there was the pageant director."

"Laforge?"

She nodded. "He was out there with Dempsey."

"Wait—" I held up a hand. "You saw Laforge heading to the bar
with
Dempsey?"

"Yeah. So?"

I bit my lip. If Dempsey and Laforge were really so at each other's throats, what were they doing sharing a drink the night Jennifer had died?

"You know," Marco said taking a tentative step toward Don, "I have an eyebrow threading kit up in my hotel room. If you just gave me half an hour—"

I elbowed him in the ribs.

"What are you trying to say?" Don asked, putting her hands on her hips

"Nothing! My friend here has nothing to say." I shot him a pointed look

"What? I was just offering my expertise as a salon employee."

I was just dragging Marco away before Don decided to use her bucket of red paint after all, when I felt my phone vibrating from my purse.

I quickly told Marco I'd meet him upstairs and pulled my cell from my pocket.

I looked at the readout, saw Mom's smiling face staring back at me, and swiped my finger across the screen.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Maddie, honey it's your mom," my mother yelled, loudly enough to momentarily stun me.

"I know, Mom. Your name came up on my phone."

"You're on speakerphone!" she shouted into the phone.

"Mom, you don't need to yell. I can hear you fine."

"What? Can you hear me now?!"

I held the phone away from my ear. I was going to be deaf by the end of this call. "Loud and clear," I mumbled.

"I'm here with Mrs. Rosenblatt!" she screamed.

"Hiya, Bubbee!" Mrs. Rosenblatt yelled in the background.

Mrs. Rosenblatt was a three-hundred pound Jewish psychic who spoke to the dead. She was also my mother's best friend. While they made an unlikely duo, the truth was that Mrs. Rosenblatt had been through two husbands since meeting my mom, proving that their bond had what it took to last.

"Maddie!" Mom yelled. "Mrs. Rosenblatt has been talking to Albert, and he's concerned about you!"

"Albert?" I asked searching my memory banks for info associated with that name. While I knew Mrs. Rosenblatt had been married multiple times, I didn't recall any of them being Alberts.

"I give up. Who is Albert?"

"Her spirit guide!"

Mental forehead thunk.

"Tell Albert not to worry," I assured her. "I'm fine."

"Bubbee, is that you?!" Mrs. Rosenblatt screeched. "Hold on, let me get closer so you can hear me."

"No! You don't need to get any closer. I can hear you fine—" I started.

"MADDIE!" Mrs. Rosenblatt's voice came in a distorted rumble right next to the microphone.

I jumped, a ringing instantly spreading through my eardrum.

"Maddie, Albert says there's some bad mojo going on there."

Well, I couldn't argue with the spirit guide there.

"I'll look out for mojo, Mrs. Rosenblatt," I assured her

"Hawaii is famous for bad mojo. You remember that Brady Bunch episode where Bobby found that cursed tiki idol?"

"Was that mojo or juju?" I heard mom asking in the background.

Good grief.

"I'm sure my mojo
and
my juju are fine," I said.

But no one was listening to me.

"Albert wants to know if you have come in contact with any tikis lately?"

"Tikis?"

"Yes. Enchanted ones specifically?"

"Enchanted tikis?"

"Wikipedia says it's juju. That's bad luck!" Mom shouted.

"So did Bobby have tiki juju?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked.

"Gee, you know, I'm so busy I've really got to go—" I started.

"Maddie, I've got the episode up on my YouTube," I heard Mom shout in the background. "It was definitely juju that Bobby Brady had. Maddie, can you hear me?" Mom yelled, her voice moving closer to the telephone again. "It's juju, honey."

"Thanks, Mom," I mumbled, a headache brewing between my eyes.

"When Bobby found that tiki at the construction site, Greg almost died surfing, and all the terrible things happened to the kids. You need to get rid of the tiki, Maddie."

"I don't have a tiki," I reassured them.

"I think you need a cleansing, Maddie," Mrs. Rosenblatt offered. "I know a witch doctor who could conjure one up real good. She's online now. She even takes PayPal!"

"I'm fine," I tried to tell her.

"Do you need help? Should we come down there? I could do a cleansing in person. Of course, I've never done a Hawaiian tiki juju cleansing, but I'm always up for challenge," Mrs. Rosenblatt said.

"No!" I said, my volume almost matching theirs. "I'm fine!”

"Maddie—"

"You know what, Mom, I can barely hear you. Your voice is so far away. Must be a bad connection. I'll try calling you later from a landline…" I trailed off, quickly hanging up.

I know it was mean to lie to my mother. I blamed it on the bad juju.

After grabbing a quick bite at the lunch buffet, I was scheduled to do a fitting with Miss New Mexico for the stilettos to go with her eveningwear look. And considering she'd been the only person so far to talk ill of the dead girl, I was planning to make the most of my time with her.

I made my way to the auditorium, and as soon as I walked in I saw that the girls were still working out the kinks in the dance numbers. God bless her, poor Miss Arkansas was still tripping over her feet. It would be a wonder if the stage dressing survived her version of dancing. I saw Dana's face pinch as she watched her, my friend obviously trying to see the best in each contestant. The other two judges just looked bored, as if they'd already made up their minds who their top picks were.

I quickly made my way down the right aisle and slipped into the backstage area. In contrast to the craziness going on out front, the backstage was actually quiet at this time of day—most of the contestants either on stage or sitting in quiet pairs with their coaches, going over their giant binders of sample interview questions for the dreaded preliminary interview judging, which was scheduled to begin momentarily.

"Maddie, I was wondering when you'd arrive," Laforge said, casting an eye toward the large bejeweled watch on his left wrist. Even though I was five minutes early, according to my cell. I noticed that he was still wearing his oversized, last-season shades from earlier today, making me wonder if that hangover was still hounding him or if they really were an indoor fashion statement. "Desi will be meeting you in Dressing Room A for her fitting any moment." He gestured to a short hallway leading off from the backstage area, along which I could see several marked doors. "We've had to schedule extra fittings today. Losing an entire day in our already tight schedule is just something we were not prepared for."

"No problem," I told him, mentally calculating how much time I could spend with each girl.

"Thank you, Maddie I—"

Before he could finish we both heard a loud crashing sound from the stage. Laforge turned his head toward the commotion, just visible from our spot in the wings. "Oh, for the love of heaven, Arkansas. How many times have you crashed into that same column?" He didn't wait for the unfortunate contestant's answer, rushing onto the stage and leaving me on my own.

I quickly made my way toward the dressing room he'd indicated, feeling bad for Miss Arkansas but glad that I was out of his sights.

There were four different dressing rooms, marked A, B, C, and D. Over the door to Dressing Room B, someone had taped a sign indicating it was reserved for the show's host, a TV personality from the E! Channel. C and D were labeled with the word Crew, and Dressing Room A held one word on its door:
Shoes
.

I pushed through and found that all of the footwear designs I had picked out at home for the contestants and had shipped ahead of time to the hotel were stacked in neat rows of shoeboxes along the walls. I grabbed my tablet and did a quick inventory, making sure that no shoe had been left behind. I was just finishing up and satisfied that everyone's footwear had arrived in good condition when the door opened, and Miss New Mexico poked her head in.

"Hi. I'm supposed to do a shoe fitting in here?" she said. Today she had on a pair of skinny white jeans that would have shown every teeny ripple of fat, if she'd had any. She'd topped it with a simple, pale yellow tank blouse that highlighted her unnatural tan. (Which was a little on the orange side for me, making her look like a sunburst.) Her hair was teased into a large coiffed brunette helmet, and she had more makeup on than the clown at my children's last birthday party.

"You're in the right place," I told her.

"Maddie, right?" she asked, coming into the room. "I remember you from yesterday."

I nodded. "It looks like we're fitting you for your eveningwear, swimsuit, and the commercial-break dance numbers, correct?"

"I guess so. Laforge just told me to come in here and try on shoes," she said.

"Right, well let's get started with your eveningwear. This is your gown?" I asked, using my tablet to pull up the photos I'd been emailed of her dress. It was a stunning off the shoulder red number with a long sequined train. When she nodded, I grabbed her shoebox containing the black satin four-inch pumps I'd chosen to complement the dress. Though, at the time, I'd had no idea how tall New Mexico was, let alone her hair. I hoped that the extra inches the heels gave her didn't count against her in the judging.

New Mexico slipped the shoes on and tried walking around in them. I had to say she was a total high heels pro. She looked as if she'd been born in stilettos.

"These are super cute," New Mexico said, checking herself out in the full-length mirrors mounted to the wall behind the door.

"Thanks," I said, unable to keep the beam of pride out of my voice. "I'm glad you like them."

"Well, honestly, I'm just glad I'm going to get to wear them on stage at all! I can't believe the competition was almost canceled. As it is, now we're having to double up on rehearsals. Talk about Jennifer screwing us over even in death!"

Clearly New Mexico had not been a fan of the dead girl. It made me wonder…had Desi had something personal against Miss Montana?

"From what I've been hearing, Jennifer was well liked by everyone." I paused, gauging New Mexico's reaction.

She grinned, a slow thing that was anything but friendly. "Well…let's just say that not
everyone
loved Miss Montana."

"Oh?" I asked, raising one eyebrow in her direction as I grabbed another shoebox from the stack, this one containing the sapphire blue stilettos to match her swimwear outfit.

"Sure, Jennifer was sweet and kind and yada, yada, yada."

"But?" I prompted.

"It became crystal clear, to me at least, on the first day we arrived in Hawaii that someone had it in for her."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, we were all getting our costumes together on our racks in the main dressing room…you know, the one set up in the green room?"

I nodded. While I'd seen the few private dressing rooms off the backstage area, it was clear there certainly weren't fifty-one of them. The girls each had one small luggage rack assigned to them in the green room and one vanity in which to do their hair and makeup.

"Go on," I prompted.

"Well, Jennifer couldn't find her bikini top. She said it was missing."

"Did she misplace it?"

"Ha!" New Mexico barked out. "You really didn't know Jennifer. Jennifer did
not
misplace her pageant costumes. Everybody knows that. Heck, even Maxine wouldn't misplace her costume. It's like the cardinal rule."

"So…it was stolen?" I asked.

"Well, I don't know if I would say 'stolen'…"

"But somebody did take it?"

New Mexico looked over her shoulder, as if making sure no one was listening. Which, since we were in a closed dressing room, nobody was. "All I know is that Jennifer's coach, Dempsey, was carrying on about how it was a clear case of sabotage against his client. But Jennifer said that maybe it just slipped out somewhere or got lost in the luggage."

"Always Miss Congeniality," I mumbled.

"Seriously!" New Mexico said. "I mean, what a big fat phony."

As soon as the words popped out of her mouth, her hands reached up and covered her lips. "That was going a little too far, wasn't it?"

I shook my head. "Don't worry. I know what you meant." What she meant was she hated Jennifer. I stored that tidbit away for later.

"Anyway, we all felt bad for her, you know? I mean swimsuit is a huge portion of our overall score. You don't have your costume, you're screwed."

"So what did Jennifer do?"

"Well, luckily there are, like, a million bathing suit shops here. So Dempsey ran out and picked up a couple of different bikinis. Jennifer luckily found one she liked."

She was lucky. She'd had a perfect sample size body. Anything would have looked good on her.

"So if you had to guess, who sabotaged Jennifer's wardrobe?"

New Mexico's eyes went big and round. "Gosh, I don't know," she said. "But I do know that Whitney has come in second place in the last two competitions we've all competed together in." She did a big wide innocent smile that was anything but.

If I didn't know better, I would say that Miss New Mexico was throwing Whitney under the bus. From everything I'd learned about Whitney, she was doing well in the competition, and she was desperate to win before she aged out—if she wasn't already lying about her age now. She
did
have an easy access to Jennifer's room. Jennifer and Desi's room was two down from mine and directly across the hall from the one shared by Whitney and Maxine, Miss Arkansas. It would have been fairly easy for Whitney to slip into the room unnoticed and steal Jennifer's top. And with girls going in and out, arriving and changing at the rapid pace I'd seen yesterday, doors were always opening and closing, girls slipping into each other's rooms.

Which begged the question: where had Whitney been the night of the murder?

There was one person who I was sure knew of Whitney's nighttime activities: her roommate, Maxine, Miss Arkansas.

As soon as I finished with Desi, there was a parade of a dozen more contestants coming in and out for their fittings. By the time I finally had a moment to slip back into the auditorium, the interview questions were in full swing. Miss Arkansas was standing on the stage next to Laforge, being read her interview questions for the preliminary round of judging.

While on the televised version the judges only had to hear the top three finalists give their answers, in the pre-televised portion of the competition all of the contestants participated in a question-and-answer round on which they were scored. I wasn't sure how many the judges had to see today, but by the looks on their faces it was one too many. Ruth Marie looked half-asleep, her elbow resting on the judges' table, her chin in her hand. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you whether her eyes were open or closed, as the wrinkles and extra skin on her face were smooshed up toward her eyelids.

Jeffries was staring at the contestant on the stage, his eyes glazing over as if he were sleeping with them open.

Only Dana seemed to be paying attention, though I could tell that the day had taken its toll on her as well. Her usually perfectly styled strawberry blonde hair was pulled back into a loose messy knot secured with a pen. The lipstick had been chewed off her lower lip, and there were traces of eye makeup along her cheek as if she'd been rubbing at her eyes.

"This is our last interview contestant of the day," Laforge told the assembled judges. "We'll conclude with Miss Arkansas."

Arkansas did a big smile toward the judges as Laforge pulled her question from a fish bowl filled with scraps of paper. "And our question for Miss Arkansas is…" he started

Maxine's smile froze on her face, and I could see fear in her eyes.

"What are your feelings on euthanasia?"

Miss Arkansas blinked her false eyelashes up and down a few times before she began her carefully modulated response. "I was raised with the belief that people the world over deserve the same respect, care, and consideration as people in the United States. We are all one big family of humans, no matter where we hail from. As such, I believe we must respect and care and give consideration to the youth everywhere, including the youth in Asia."

From the judges' table I heard Jeffries snort, Ruth Marie stifle a hacking cackle, and Dana do a small groan. Me? I bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud.

I watched Arkansas walked off the stage, the bright smile still on her face even as her eyebrows formed a
V
of confusion. I think she was still trying to figure out the question. I jogged to catch up with her just as she slipped backstage.

"Maxine?" I called

Her blonde head whipped around, her eyes blinking a couple of times before recognition set in. "Oh, Maddie, right? Shoes?" she said

Even while her bulb wasn't the brightest, her smile was somewhat contagious.

"Yes," I said, smiling back at her. "I'm providing the shoes for the pageant. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment."

"Sure. What's up?" she asked, twirling a lock of hair in her index finger.

"I had a couple of questions for you about your roommate."

"Whitney?"

"Yes. I was just curious how well you know her?"

"Just the last few days you know? I've heard of her and seen her on the pageant circuit before, but we've never competed in the same categories." Arkansas paused, sucking in her lower lip, causing a void in her pink lipstick. "Truth is, this is my first time competing at a national level pageant." She sent me that bright-eyed smile again.

"Well, I'm sure you'll do very well." I think I was at my white lie quota for the day. "Anyway, I was wondering…the night that Jennifer died, did you hear anything or see anything odd?"

Arkansas shook her head back and forth, her blonde locks whooshing against her cheeks. "No. The police asked me this too. I had no idea Jennifer snuck out. At least not that night."