Makeovers Can Be Murder (4 page)

I wasn′t sure that ″handling″ a cheating, thieving spouse all by herself would make her seem any less foolish in her brother′s eyes. But I would do whatever I could to help my friend.

After pausing for a moment to consider whether it would be wise to unleash a caveman on my genteel friend, I said, ″I do know a guy who might be able to help. He′s a former cop named Beau Fisher. Everyone just calls him Fish. He used to be on the Durham bunco squad.″

″Bunco squad? What′s that?″

″They bust confidence swindlers,″ I said, extracting my cell phone from my pocket to look up Fish′s number.

″Confidence? That′s perfect. Gavin swindled my trust in him big-time.″

Tapping Fish′s number into her own phone, Jana continued, ″I′ll call this guy Fish as soon as we finish lunch. I want to have the wheels in motion before I go back to Miami.″

Sensing a shadow near my left elbow, I looked up. Standing next to me was the person I′d been trying desperately to avoid: Lainey Lanston.

″Well, hel
lo
there, Kate.″ The reporter′s caustic voice cut through the air and landed with a rattle against my eardrum. ″Working hard, or hardly working?″

″Hi, Lainey,″ I said, not bothering not to roll my eyes. I looked over her shoulder for Floyd the councilman, but there was no sign of him. He′d probably drifted into the bar in search of an early-bird drinking buddy.

″The whole newsroom is buzzing about your new fat-scam series,″ Lainey said to me, then shifted her gaze to Jana. ″We′re just
dying
to see Kate in her swimsuit segment. Did she tell you about it?″

If I′d had any kind of segment in my hand right then, I′d have shoved it right up her mini-sized ass, which right then was encased in a ruffled, ruby red skirt topped by a jacket that was cut low enough to show plenty of cleavage.
Look at me; I′m so fine
, her outfit screamed.

″Well, stay tuned—it′ll be worth waiting for,″ I said, stretching my lips wide enough to show plenty of teeth.

When I let a long moment pass without introducing her to Jana, Lainey′s eyes narrowed.

″Well, I′ve got to go work on my county hospital piece,″ she said, checking in with the pager she had clipped to the outside of her patent leather tote bag. ″Beatty just assigned it to me. Did you know? I guess you′ve been too busy. Enjoy your lunch, ladies.″ Without waiting for a response, she spun about on a spiked heel.

As Lainey marched away, Jana raised her eyebrows at me. ″Was that a friend of yours?″ she asked with a smile.

″Not even when she′s pretending. Which she wasn′t just then.″

″Well, her boobage is really hideous. She should have gone to Dr. Medina for her breast implants.″

″I
thought
Lainey′s figure had changed since she switched from newspapers to TV,″ I said, suddenly wishing I′d studied her cleavage more closely. ″But how could you tell she had implants? ″

″You can always tell a cheap boob job by the mile-wide cleavage,″ Jana said. ″Those saline sacs will be sliding down to her belly button by the end of the first year.″

″Ah.″

I tried to console myself with visions of Lainey being stuck with a boob job gone wrong, but her parting shot about taking over the county hospital story had left a smoking hole in my stomach. I′d just assumed the story was mine—a stupid assumption now that she was dogging my heels day and night. I′d already looked into charges that the hospital was dumping homeless people on skid row. It was going to be a huge story.
Her
huge story now.

Obviously Lainey had taken the lead on the fast track. She′d always been my major competitor for stories even when she′d worked in print. But things were worse now that she was digging her little stiletto heels into my home turf. Now she was more than just my competition. Now she was a threat to my job.

When the waitress came with our check, Jana mentioned that she′d lost her purse the night before.

″Can you believe this, Kate?″ she said. ″I feel just like one of those rich jerks who invites people out for lunch and then doesn′t pay. I′m sorry.″

″Don′t be silly.″

″Do you remember me having my purse at Trish′s house? I thought I brought it there, but I didn′t have it at the Hilton when I got back last night.″

″Let′s see,″ I said, trying to dig up a memory. ″Did it have a woven metallic finish? Bronze colored?″

″Right! My Miu Miu bag—I
thought
I′d brought it in there with me last night,″ she said. ″Okay, so I left it at Trish′s house. No wonder; I was so distracted about seeing Shaina. Phew! I′ll leave her another message, but I think she and Archer are leaving town. Maybe their son is still there. What′s his name? D′you know?″

″Chaz, I think.″

″That′s right. Chaz must have answered when I called their house this morning. But when I mentioned my purse he just grunted and hung up.″

″No surprise there,″ I said. ″He′s probably still out of it. I smelled pot on him last night. It was pretty strong.″

″Uh-oh. I don′t think Trish knows anything about that,″ Jana said. ″But then, she′s such a Gidget, she might thinks it′s incense. According to her, the boy′s highly gifted with computers, but a little low on the social IQ.″

″Well, last night he would′ve scored high on a drug test,″ I said, reaching for the check.

Chapter 4

A Big Phooey on ″Flat Belly″ Diets

1.
Cut 150 calories a day from your daily intake.

2.
Walk at a brisk pace five days a week for twenty minutes, and build up to thirty minutes per day.

3.
Start with a set of ten crunches on the first day, and add sets of ten until you build up to two hundred per day.

—From
The Little Book of Beauty Secrets
by Mimi Morgan

 

 

Something was definitely wrong.

When I returned to the studio that afternoon, I left not one, but
two
messages on Jonathan′s cell phone. I had to handle some assignment-desk chores for Beatty while he recovered from an emergency root canal; meanwhile, I kept compulsively checking the messages on my landline at home. By five p.m., Jonathan still hadn′t called me back. That would be ten p.m. in London—plenty late enough for his mother to be asleep.

Before leaving the second message for him, I sought out the privacy of a sound booth. I perched on a stool, then listened with mounting tension to his greeting message. In the past, I′d always felt soothed by the sound of his voice, even in a recording. Not this time.

″Jonathan here,″ came his message. ″Leave a word and I′ll ring you back.″

″But you′re not ringing me back,″ I blurted after the beep. ″It′s me. Is your mom okay? Are
you
? Please call me as soon as you get this message. I love you.″

My tongue tripped over the ″I love you,″ three words that had always rolled off it so easily before. It was almost embarrassing how totally, completely consumed I was by Jonathan. Maybe that was why I′d always felt a little insecure about him. Maybe that was the real reason I′d never let him see me naked in the full light of day. If I didn′t love my own body, why should he?

After leaving the second frantic message, I was afraid I′d come off like a clinging vine.

Fuck that thought—the man hasn′t called you in a week. It′s
his
fault.
My Inner Girlfriend, who′d been feeling emboldened ever since that morning′s shopping trip with the self-confident Evelyn, tried to prop me up.

But then Clinging Vine caterwauled,
There must be some reason he hasn′t called you back. Maybe he′s hurt. Maybe he′s lying in a London ditch, dead.

Jonathan hadn′t given me his mother′s phone number, and I didn′t know a single friend of his in the UK whom I could call to check up on him. Not that I′d call them anyway—checking up on a guy with his friends is the quickest way to stamp your forehead with big neon letters that spelled
dumped
.

Workwise, the day had gone from bad to worse. As Beatty′s fill-in, I had to review and approve every news story for the six o′clock show, including Lainey′s. Just as I′d feared, she′d developed a piece—tipped off by Tipsy Floyd—about how the head of animal control had submitted his resignation over allegations of sexually harassing a city dogcatcher. The story was slugged, ″The dog poop flies.″ It was scheduled to run as the lead that night.

Inside the production booth, I ran her story through a machine and reviewed her intro copy; the results were dreadful. Dreadful for me, that is.

Her story was great.

Chapter 5

Don′t Try to be a Living Doll

If Barbie′s measurements were translated into a real-life woman, she′d be more than seven feet tall, wear toddler shoes, and have an oversized head like an alien. Honestly, she′d be
bizarre
!

—From
The Little Book of Beauty Secrets
by Mimi Morgan

 

 

I replayed Lainey′s story. In addition to having a well-written piece, she looked absolutely perfect on camera. While other reporters made do with pancake makeup, Lainey used an airbrush wand to spray foundation on her face, neck, and hands so that all her skin tones were perfectly matched on high-definition TV. She had staked out permanent squatter′s rights to the studio′s green room, where she′d spend an hour at a time, painstakingly contouring her features with little brushes and pots of bronzers. But the effort paid off. People had been whispering, ″network material,″ ever since Lainey had stepped into the newsroom.

Also network material was the little safari suit Lainey had donned for her stand-up. She looked ready to beam her next live shot from the Seren geti.

I shot a dispirited glance down at my own standard reporting gear—today I had on my expandable-waist black slacks, paired as usual from a rotating cast of V-necked tops in jewel colors. Today I was wearing cobalt blue to match my eyes. When assigned to cover a formal event, I′d throw on my good silk-and-rayon jacket from Nordstrom, which was roomy enough to cover my hips. Usually.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Fish, the private investigator.

″I owe you a round, Kate. Hell, I owe you a night on the fucking town.″ The ex-detective′s street-roughened voice boomed over a background thrum of clinking and bar chatter. ″Your friend Jana Miller just wrote me out a check for eight grand. Any more socialites where she comes from? I could buy that fishing boat
and
an island.″

I laughed and said, ″Take it easy on her, Fish, okay? Jana′s nice.″

″Sure she′s nice. It′s the nice ones who can whittle away a man′s balls until he′s got nothing left but a pair of olive pits.″

″I′ll have to take your word for it on that one, Fish.″

I heard a rattle of ice cubes as we signed off. I pictured Fish at the counter of the sports bar that had become his second home. Fish had the beetling brow of a Cape buffalo, plus a tendency to gore challengers when he got riled—or tanked.

Back when he was on bunco, Fish′s drinking habit had fueled one too many bouts of street rage. The final straw had come when he bashed in the head of a con man who′d stabbed a police dog during an arrest. Both dog and suspect made full recoveries, but Fish had been deemed a psychological risk and was forced into early retirement.

I thought the con guy had richly deserved his punishment. Which means it′s probably a good thing I didn′t follow my father′s example and become a cop. With my hair-trigger Irish temper, I might have actually blown off someone′s head by now.

When the six o′clock news show wrapped, I smiled off an invitation from a couple of my reporter friends to join the nightly migration to our favorite watering hole, a restaurant called Bug-tussles. At this point I was craving the solace of solitude, not shop talk.

My spirits rose when I reached the parking structure and saw my new car, a BMW Z4. I′d bought the silver sports coupe used, but its shark-like curves gleamed like it had just rolled off a showroom floor. My James Bond car, Evelyn called it. It was a wildly impractical machine to own, but fun as hell to drive.

When I pulled up in front of my house, I could just make out the edges of a furry, familiar profile. Elfie, my rag-doll cat, was posted at her usual spot in the bay window of the little foursquare house I′d rented a few months earlier in the Trinity Heights section of town.

Once inside, I clicked on the kitchen light. As if to reward my self-restraint for not checking my messages during the drive home, the red light on the answering machine on the faux-granite counter was blinking.

″Hi,″ a familiar voice began. It was Jonathan.

No ″Hallo, luv,″ his usual salutation for me.

My boyfriend′s voice sounded two degrees cooler than usual as he continued, ″There′s been a bit of a cock-up with my schedule and I had to change my plans—right now I′m not sure when I′m coming back. Might be another week or two. Keep you posted, all right?″ he said. ″Cheerio.″

Chapter 6

Straight from the Bunny′s Mouth