Matchpoint (18 page)

With Dr. Dulur turning into the bogeyman, the question
wasn’t who wanted Simon Dulur dead; the question was who didn’t want him dead?

“I have to get going,” Yvonne said. “I have yoga at three.”

Sister Cyril jumped up from her seat. “I’ll go with you, dear. I’ve always wanted to try yoga.” She winked at me. “Just in case there’s another emergency,” she mouthed in my direction.

Yvonne grabbed her purse and what I was relieved to see was a bra and was just about to hook herself into place when Grandma’s front door burst open and the mayor marched in with Bridget, Lucy, and Belinda trailing behind him.

“Good day! Good day!” he announced, stumbling slightly when he noticed Yvonne’s rack. She paused and posed for him a moment before putting her bra on. “Plans, ladies, plans. Let’s make them!” he cheered, regaining his composure and clapping his hands together.

Mayor Robinson was soaking wet, half his clothes had been ripped off him, and his head was wrapped in a bandage. He became distracted by dust motes in the air and clutched at them.

“He won’t go to the hospital,” Bridget explained, pushing her way in front of him. “The donkey kicked him in the head. The paramedics said he’s lucky to be alive.”

“Beezow Bee Bop,” the mayor exclaimed, giving up on the dust. “That’s a much more fitting name for a mayor, don’t you think?”

Grandma leaned into me. “I was wrong. The kick didn’t improve his brain. He’s got scrambled brains now. No different than the omelet special at Denny’s.”

“Mr. Mayor, wouldn’t you like to sit down and rest a bit?” Lucy asked.

“Fine, just fine,” he said. “I’ve got a big of vitiligo. The room is spinning.”

“That’s vertigo,” explained Belinda. “Vitiligo is what Michael Jackson had.”

“No, vitiligo. I know what I’m talking about. I Googled it.”

Belinda was slightly dazed but all in one piece. I was relieved. I figured she had had a fifty-fifty chance of getting trampled to death. “I’m so happy you’re okay,” I told her, patting her back.

Lucy looked through Grandma’s booze cabinet and poured herself a drink. “We drove around all hell and gone looking for her. Finally found her at the lake, where the whole town wound up following the flying donkey.” She snickered. “Flying donkey. Hey, that’s kind of funny.”

“My donkey!” the mayor yelled out.

Grandma patted him on his knee. “There, there. Dulcinea is fine, now. She’s forgotten about it already.”

“Is that true, Zelda?” the mayor asked, his eyes big and round.

“Yes,” Grandma said, as sure as only Grandma could be about a donkey’s state of mind.

“Good, because she’s the only one who understands me,” the mayor said.

Lucy punched back her drink and Grandma wordlessly joined her for another.

“Should we go check on the donkey?” Belinda asked. Her hair had come undone, and her tracksuit had green stains on the knees, where I supposed she took a tumble in the stampede. I made an excuse and pulled her out of the room.

“I’m on the case,” I told her. “I’m getting really close.” I didn’t want to come right out and tell her that Holly was stealing money from Bliss Dental for fear that Belinda would try to take revenge and get into trouble with Holly, but I wanted her to know she would be okay. “You won’t have to worry about the police, and
on the romantic front—” I started, but Grandma came up behind me and tsked loudly.

“Bridget and Lucy want the keys to your car. They’re going to fetch it for you later,” she said, eyeing me pointedly.

I pretended not to take the hint. I didn’t have a clue who to fix Belinda up with, and the mayor would just have to do for the moment until I could find someone better. It wasn’t that I was giving up on Belinda, I just needed a stalling tactic. Besides, the mayor shouldn’t be alone just now, I figured, and Belinda could watch him to make sure he didn’t get kicked in the head again.

I handed Grandma the keys and gave her a little nudge in the direction of the parlor before turning back to Belinda.

“Isn’t the mayor handsome?” I asked her. “Did I tell you he was single?”

“Was he the one you picked out for me?” she asked, craning her head to get a better look at Mayor Robinson.

“Yes, and he may be a bit damaged now, but he cleans up nice,” I said.

“He drives a Lexus,” she said, her mind in fast-forward.

“Okay. Would you consider going on a date with him?” I asked, but she was already in the parlor, planting herself next to the mayor and whispering something in his ear.

“Off we go!” he announced. “After you, my lady.” He held his hand out gallantly for Belinda. She giggled, and they left Grandma’s house with Yvonne and Sister Cyril behind them.

I took a deep breath. Grandma arched an eyebrow at me, her disapproval of my matchmaking shooting out of her eyeballs. Lucy handed her another drink. There was a lot of alcohol flowing in the middle of the day.

“Is it my imagination or have things turned a little
Twilight Zone-
y lately?” Lucy asked.

Bridget stared at the chair where Yvonne had sat. She shook her head like she was trying to wake up. “Hey, was Yvonne naked?” she asked.

LUCY WENT home to nap, and Bridget went to do the books over at Pete’s Market. With the house quiet, I only had to contend with Grandma’s disapproval. So I feigned exhaustion (not really a lie) and went upstairs to check on the other problem in my life: Spencer.

My room was oddly quiet when I opened the door. Spencer was standing shirtless, his back to me, dusting my nightstand. The muscles in his back moved and bulged while he dusted. I bit my lower lip, and my breath hitched. The sound made him turn.

“Put a shirt on,” I grumbled.

“Hey, Pinkie, what’s up?” he said.

His chest was wide and hairless except for his treasure path of love. “Put on your damned shirt!”

“Okay. Okay. You don’t have to get pissy.” He grabbed a shirt and then paused, studied me a minute, and arched an eyebrow. “Does my manly torso make you uncomfortable, Pinkie?” He flexed his pectoral muscles, and I took a step backward.

“Put the shirt on,” I managed.

Spencer slipped a T-shirt over his head. It was another Padres shirt, his favorite baseball team. It was bulky and hid some of his body. I took a deep breath of relief.

“Holy crap,” I said, taking a seat on the bed. “You’re up.”

“What does that mean?”

“Normally, you’re lying around with a bag of chips, watching
Family Guy
.”

“It starts in five minutes.” He opened another bag of chips and popped open a root beer. He passed it to me, but I refused.

“You better watch out,” I said. “You’re going to get fat.”

“Don’t worry about my body. I don’t get fat.”

“I thought I saw the start of a roll just now,” I lied. “You might want to lay off the Ruffles.”

“There’s no roll, Pinkie.” I thought I detected a trace of doubt in his voice. “But if there is, how about you help me work it off?”

“Okay, that’s it. That’s it!” I threw a pillow at him, truly angry now. “Do you know how I spent much of my day, Spencer? Can you guess?”

“Did it involve a bikini wax?” He smirked his annoying smirk, and it was everything I could do not to belt him.

“Rosalie Rodriguez. Does that name ring a bell?”

“It might,” he said. He fluffed the pillows and leaned back against the headboard.

“Rosalie ran after me through the streets with a knife.”

Spencer sighed. “Yeah, she does like to do that, doesn’t she?”

I blinked. “What’s with you? You’ve changed. You’re still a philandering jerk, but now you’re wimpy, too.”

Spencer grabbed me, pulled me to the bed, and rolled on top of me. “Wimpy?” he asked in a whisper. “I don’t think so.”

His eyes were huge and dark, and focused. “Your breath smells like barbecue chips. Get off me before I gain five pounds smelling you.”

He rolled off and tossed a chip in his mouth. I punched him in his arm. “No more fooling around. You have to leave. You can’t stay here anymore. You have to deal with Rosalie. She’s got a whole set of Rachael Ray knives, and she wants to use them on someone.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Do something, Spencer. You got yourself into this mess. Get yourself out of it.”

Spencer grunted and turned on the television. It was like living with Archie Bunker.

“And that’s not all,” I continued. “The town has gone berserk. Spencer, donkeys are flying over our town. Flying. What do you say about that? And the mayor has brain damage, and there is a murderer on the loose with Dr. Dulur’s face.”

“The mayor has always been brain damaged,” Spencer said.

I kicked off my shoes and got into bed, pulling the covers over me. I was exhausted. What a couple of days. My world was in chaos, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

“You want to know what I’m thinking?” I asked him.

“Is that a trick question?”

“I think the suspects in the No-Face Case are mounting.”

Spencer put the TV on mute. “Pinkie, are you sticking your nose in?”

“Well, someone has to.” I looked at him pointedly and punched my pillow. “I would love to have my bed back. If I knew I would have to share with a behemoth, I would have bought a queen.”

“I hate to tell you this, but your friend Belinda looks like a good candidate for murderer,” he said, chewing on a chip.

“Are you kidding me? She wants to be fixed up. She’s looking for love, not murder.”

“So maybe she was looking for love, and the doc rejected her.” He tossed another chip in his mouth and chewed. I thought about his theory a minute but threw it away. Dr. Dulur looked nothing like George Clooney. She wouldn’t have killed him for love.

“And there’s the problem with the missing money,” he said.

“Oh!” I shouted. “I almost forgot. Yvonne Richardson just told me that when she was having her first boob
job, Holly the hygienist told her that she was the one taking the money from Bliss Dental. She was using it for plastic surgery, a Camaro, and a condo in Texas.”

“Why is Yvonne telling
you
that?”

“I’m a good listener.”

Spencer ran his fingers through his hair, leaving remnants of chips speckled through it. “We’ll check out the Holly angle, but Holly has an alibi. She was at Bar None all night, according to a dozen witnesses, and your friend Belinda says she doesn’t remember where she was that night. That doesn’t sound suspicious to you, Miss Marple?”

It did sound suspicious to me. I had forgotten that fact. What was Belinda hiding about that night? I would have to get it out of her somehow. “I don’t think it’s suspicious at all,” I said.

Spencer counted on his fingers. “Belinda doesn’t have an alibi, the money is missing, and Nathan described the perpetrator as
big
. Well, have you seen Belinda?”

Belinda was bigger than most, but I didn’t know if she could overtake the dentist. “Belinda is not that big,” I said.

Spencer crossed his arms in front of himself and closed his eyes. “Let the professionals handle the case, Pinkie. We’re on it.” He was insufferable, especially when he was trying to prevent me from working a case.

“And how about Dr. Dulur and the cult?” I asked. “Have your professionals looked at that angle?”

Spencer opened his eyes. “The cult?”

“Dr. Dulur was a member and trying to be the leader. He was in some kind of battle for the leadership.”

“I can’t imagine Dr. Dulur as the leader of a cult,” he said. “He looked like a Bee Gees reject. He was more disco than transcendental.”

“Dr. Dulur wasn’t all that he seemed,” I said. “According to Rosalie, he was sadistic. He broke her son’s arm.”

Spencer sat up straighter in bed. “According to Rosalie? Did you talk with her?”

“Why? Does that frighten you?”

Spencer’s jaw clenched and made a grinding noise. “Don’t worry about the No-Face Case or Rosalie. I’m working on it, and I will have it wrapped up sooner or later, so you can stop your
investigating
.” He bent his fingers into the air-quotes sign and made a squishy face. He got me so mad.

“Did you just do air quotes?” I demanded.

“I might have. Something wrong with that?”

“No. Nothing. It’s just that I didn’t figure you for the air-quotes kind of guy.”

Spencer cocked his head to the side. “What kind of guy is an air-quotes kind of guy?”

“I don’t know. Let’s forget it.” I turned over and buried my head deeper in my pillow.

Spencer tugged at my shoulder. “No. What kind of guy?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said anything. Tell me.”

I sat up and stared him down. “Panty wad.”

“Panty wad?” he asked.

“Yeah, the panty-wad kind of guy.”

“Pinkie, you wound me.”

“
Sorry
,” I said with air quotes, and lay back down, rolling over.

I DOZED through two
Family Guy
episodes. In the middle of one, Spencer whispered in my ear that he promised to be out of my room as soon as possible. He was almost apologetic and very nearly vulnerable. Who would have thought women would be Spencer’s weakness?
He had turned from predator to prey, and he couldn’t handle it.

I took a shower to clear my head. With so much chaos in town, I had become disoriented. I couldn’t make out what was important anymore. Holden, the cult, the mayor’s donkey, Dr. Dulur, Rosalie, Spencer. They had all infiltrated my life in one way or another, and I felt forced to deal with them. But I was only one woman, and a tired one at that. It was time to prioritize.

I let the warm water wash over me, and as I shampooed, I realized that matching Belinda with someone who wasn’t an idiot should be my first priority, and coming a close second was proving her innocence. The rest would have to fall into place after I had Belinda taken care of. After all, she had come to me for help. She was my first real matchmaking client, and I wasn’t going to let her down and have Grandma disapprove of me forever.

I had already planted the seeds of doubt in Spencer’s mind about Belinda’s innocence. I mean, he hadn’t arrested her or anything, so I didn’t think he was sure about her being the murderer. Now I needed to get her to reveal her alibi, and we could move on and let the “professionals” find the No-Face Case killer.