Model Crime 1 (3 page)

“Feel free to cheer!” Donald called out through the bullhorn, which Eberhart had given back to him.

We all dutifully clapped as the plane taxied to a stop nearby. George let out a few wolf whistles, which made everyone standing around us laugh.

Some airport employees pushed a rolling staircase up to the side of the plane. Once it was in place, the door swung open.

“Check it out!” George said, poking me on the shoulder. “That’s Vic!”

I nodded, wondering just how pop-culture-clueless she thought I was. Anyone with a TV would have recognized Vic Valdez, with his trademark head of spiky black hair, his tall, lean figure, and his slouchy urban-punk style.

This time nobody had to tell the crowd to cheer. Everyone shouted and waved their arms, and I found myself swept along in the excitement, adding my own cheers to the rest. When I glanced over toward Sydney, I saw that she was probably the only person standing silently. Her eyes were trained on Vic, and there was a happy little smile on her lips that made my heart melt.

Vic spotted her, too. Leaning over the railing at the top of the rolling staircase, he blew her a kiss. Then he went back to waving at the crowds and the cameras.

After a moment another guy appeared in the doorway behind him. He was about Vic’s age and height but was twice as broad, with shoulders as wide as the plane’s doorway, and muscles upon muscles popping out of his tight white shirt. A huge grin stretched across his face beneath his blond buzzcut as he saluted the crowd.

“That’s Bo Champion, Vic’s best friend on the show,” George informed me. “The gossip columns in New York call him and Vic ‘Vicbo’ because they hang out together so much.”

“Oh, right,” Bess said. “I remember Syd mentioning him.”

As Bo and Vic started down the steps, stopping and waving every few seconds, more people started pouring out of the plane. Each of them stopped to wave and pose at the top of the stairway as well.

“That’s Pandora Peace,” George said as a pretty blonde dressed in a flowing sixties-inspired dress appeared. “She was on the same season of
Daredevils
as Vic and Bo. She was Vic’s showmance.”

“His what?” I said. “Is that some reality-TV term?”

“His showmance,” George repeated a bit impatiently. “You know—show romance. They flirted a lot and sort of became a couple by the end of the show. I heard it never went anywhere after that, and of course then he met Sydney. But it looks like they’ve stayed friends at least—” She cut herself off with a gasp. “Oh, and hey, check it out—there’s Dragon!”

I looked up. The latest person to appear at the top of the stairs was a young man with an enormous dragon tattoo on his face. “Let me guess,” I joked. “He got that name because he likes reading fantasy novels?”

George rolled her eyes. “He’s on the current season of
Daredevils
,” she said. “Apparently his goal in life is to be the white Bruce Lee. Syd said the producers insisted on making him part of the wedding party. Guess the ratings aren’t where they’d like them to be this season.”

“Ooh, look!” Bess put in. “There’s Akinyi. Guess she made it back from Bermuda.”

I glanced up curiously. Akinyi was even taller and thinner in person than she’d looked in her photo on Sydney’s PDA. She cut a striking figure in a skintight electric-blue catsuit that set off her gleaming dark skin and hair. Like everyone else, she paused and waved gracefully at the top of the stairs, turning slightly from one side to another to allow the cameras to capture her from every angle.

“And let me guess—that must be Candy Kaine,” I said as another tall, slender young woman appeared behind Akinyi. It was no wonder she and Sydney had been cast to play sisters. Their pale complexions and vibrant red hair matched perfectly, though Candy’s hair was cut into a stylish shoulder-length bob.

“Excellent deduction, detective,” Bess joked.

More people came out, but none of us recognized them, so we returned our attention to Vic. He was now within half a dozen steps of ground level, having stopped on almost every step for more posing and waving. The camera operators were filming the whole thing from every possible angle, with Hans Eberhart hurrying around to take the occasional peek through one of the lenses.

Then I saw the director hurrying toward the onlookers. “Come, Miss Marvin,” he called, gesturing toward Sydney. “You should be at the bottom to greet your man with a nice hug and kiss, hmm?”

“Oh.” Sydney blushed, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Um, okay.”

She allowed the director to hustle her over to the base of the stairway. Vic’s face lit up when she approached.

“There’s my beautiful bride!” he called out, hurrying down the last few steps. The crowd let out a collective “awww!” as he wrapped her in his long, skinny arms and kissed her.

“Sweet,” I murmured to Bess. “But Syd looks a little embarrassed, doesn’t she?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Bess whispered back, rolling her eyes. “Just imagine if you had a dozen TV cameras filming your next date with Ned!”

I shuddered. “No thank you!”

“Hey,” George put in. “Do you guys hear sirens?”

Now that she mentioned it, I did. They were faint at first, but rapidly came closer. Soon everyone was looking toward the sound.

“What is this?” Eberhart muttered loudly. “If we have to redub this entire scene…”

The sirens came even closer, drowning him out. A second later a pair of police cruisers sped around the corner of the building and skidded to a stop at the edge of the airstrip.

Chief McGinnis of the River Heights Police Department climbed out of the first car. “Stop right there, everyone!” he blustered in his usual self-important way. “We’ve just received a tip that someone is trying to smuggle in stolen goods on this plane!”

T
he next few minutes were all chaos and confusion. Several people descended on the chief to protest, and there was much shouting and waving around of hands. Sydney looked horrified and perplexed. Vic seemed to waver between being outraged and tentatively amused, wondering aloud every few minutes if he was being punked.

But I watched the whole scene unfold with concern, knowing that whatever else this was, it was definitely no joke. Chief McGinnis doesn’t roll that way. He takes his job very seriously, even when he’s, um, not doing it very well. Trust me, I’ve learned that the hard way after solving a few too many of his cases for him.

Finally, though, Hans Eberhart and Ellie Marvin seemed to convince him that this was all some kind of mistake. Still, the chief insisted on sending a couple of his men up into the plane to check things out. They emerged minutes later, having found nothing suspicious, and soon the cruisers were on their way out.

“See? No biggie, dude.” Bo Champion laughed loudly and clapped Vic on the back. “They’re just not used to our brand of trouble out here in the sticks, yo!”

Vic seemed to settle on being amused rather than annoyed. “Okay, you’re right, bro,” he said. “But nobody better mess up this wedding for my gorgeous bride, or they’ll have to deal with me! Where are you, sweetie?”

He glanced around for Sydney, who came hurrying toward him. I bit my lip, noting the anxious look on her face. I guessed that so far, her dream wedding wasn’t unfolding quite how she’d imagined it.

“All right, everyone. That is enough of that, I think.” Hans Eberhart clapped his hands, his voice carrying over the hubbub even without the bullhorn. “Now we shall move on to the party, all right? Please follow Donald.”

Once again we found ourselves shuffled along like cattle. This time we ended up in a cavernous hangar at the edge of the airport’s grounds. Inside, a wooden dance floor and several enormous rugs had been laid over the concrete floor. The metal walls were draped with swaths of shimmery metallic fabric, and the high ceiling was festooned with what seemed like thousands of blinking, twinkling lights. Several dozen people were already inside, including a DJ pumping out dance music, a few uniformed cater waiters, and more guests.

“Ew,” George said, glaring across the room. “Looks like Deirdre squirmed her way in again.”

Glancing over, I saw that she was right. Deirdre was wriggling and shimmying in front of one of the cameramen who had just come in. I also recognized more friends and acquaintances from around town. “Looks like they invited all the wedding guests,” I surmised. “They must have wanted more people to fill up this huge place.”

Bess was staring around the hangar. “What are they trying to do, turn this place into a hot, happening nightclub or something?”

“A hot, happening nightclub in River Heights?” I couldn’t help being amused at the thought. “Yeah, it would really take the magic of television to make that happen!” I wrinkled my nose. “Too bad they couldn’t do anything about the smell of jet fuel. It reeks in here.”

“They probably figured it would be easy to film a party scene in this kind of space,” George said, pointing to several large cameras already filming the proceedings, including a couple on tracks overhead.

“But why have a party scene at all?” Bess asked.

Before any of us could come up with an answer, Sydney hurried toward us. She was arm in arm with Vic.

“Hi, guys,” she greeted us breathlessly. “I wanted you to meet Vic. Vic, these are my cousins Bess and George, and that’s Nancy.”

Vic grinned at us. He was surprisingly good-looking up close once you got past the wild spiky hair and weird clothes. “Yo,” he said. “Nice to meet you. Syd’s told me a lot about you guys.”

“Ditto,” George said. “I’m a big fan. But that won’t stop me from tracking you down and making you sorry if you ever hurt my cousin, dude.”

Sydney and I laughed, while Bess looked horrified. Vic just grinned and saluted. “I hear you, cousin,” he said. “And you don’t have to worry. I’d gnaw my own arm off before I’d ever hurt my beautiful lady.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Bess cooed.

George shot her a look. “Are you kidding?” she said with a smirk. “I’ve seen every episode of
Daredevils
. Chewing his arm off is nothing compared to what this guy has done!”

That made all of us laugh. “Touché,” Vic said, his grin wider than ever. “I guess that means you’ll just have to trust me when I say I’d do anything to make Sydney happy.”

“Vic!” someone shouted from nearby. “Hans wants you for some close-ups.”

“Coming!” Vic called back. Throwing his arm around Sydney, he leaned over and planted a kiss on top of her head. “Be back soon, love,” he said, then disappeared into the crowd.

Sydney gazed after him with a sigh. “Isn’t he great?” she said. “Having him here makes this whole crazy wedding-planning thing a little less…”

“Crazy?” Bess supplied helpfully.

Sydney shrugged. “I was going to say aggravating,” she said. “But crazy works too!”

Soon one of the TV people dragged Sydney off too, leaving the three of us to fend for ourselves. “Now what?” George said.

“I was thinking I’d call Tonya,” I said, referring to the switchboard operator at the local police HQ. “I want to find out what kind of tip they got about that plane. It must’ve sounded pretty serious if it sent Chief McGinnis running out here in person.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” George said, swaying to the song the DJ had just put on, a fast-paced hip-hop number. “Even Chief McGinnis isn’t clueless enough not to know about this whole TV-production thing.”

“Of course not,” Bess put in. “Syd mentioned that they had to get all kinds of permits to shoot here in town.”

George ignored her. “Anyway, my guess is he was hoping to get his ugly mug on TV too. For all we know, he made up the whole story about that tip!”

I doubted that. Chief McGinnis might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was pretty honest. And like I said before, he takes his job very seriously. He wasn’t going to change that for a few minutes of TV fame.

Sticking my hand in my purse, I realized my cell phone wasn’t in there. Drat. I belatedly remembered that I’d never put it back after charging it the previous night.

Before I could ask my friends if I could borrow one of theirs, I noticed Sydney’s two model friends, Akinyi and Candy Kaine, hurrying toward us. Candy was in the lead, a big smile on her pretty face.

“Hi! Are you guys the other bridesmaids?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the pounding music.

“That’s us,” Bess replied. “Three of them, anyway. There’s one more floating around here somewhere. I’m Bess, and this is George and Nancy.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Candy, and this is Akinyi.”

“Hello,” Akinyi said, though she seemed a little distracted. Close up, she was more impressive than ever. I tried to estimate just how tall she was—six two? Six three?

Candy elbowed her in the ribs. “Chill out, Kinnie,” she said cheerfully. Then she rolled her eyes at us. “She’s been worried about the lighting since we got here.”

Akinyi frowned at her. “Do not mock me, girl. The lighting in here is atrocious!” she said in a voice lightly tinted with some kind of exotic accent. Now that I thought about it, I vaguely remembered Bess or maybe Sydney mentioning that Akinyi had been born somewhere in Africa before coming to the U.S. as a child. “I’ll be lucky if I show up on camera at all.”

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Candy told us jokingly. “She’s just cranky because she had to fly straight through from her shoot in Bermuda.”’

“Yeah,” George said. “I can see how traumatic it must be to be forced to go to Bermuda.”

Akinyi shot her a strange look, not seeming to get the joke. “My skin tone doesn’t work well in low light,” she said. “I’ll probably look terrible in this dark place!”

“You’ll look fine,” Candy reassured her. “I’m the one who should be worried. I’m so pale, I’ll probably look like a ghost who’s haunting the party!”

We all chuckled, and even Akinyi cracked a smile. It made her look slightly less exotic but a whole lot prettier. “My friend is right,” she said, sounding a bit more relaxed. “Never mind me. I’m sure Syd has already told you I’m the most neurotic person she knows.”

“Not at all,” Bess said. “She has only great things to say about you. Like how you helped her learn her way around New York, and how much she enjoys being your roommate…”

We all made polite small talk for a few minutes after that, mostly about Sydney and the wedding. Then I noticed Hans Eberhart winding his way toward us through the crowd.

“Hello, everyone,” he said when he reached our little group. Bowing toward the two models, he added, “Ladies, it is wonderful to have you involved in this production. Please, enjoy the party, and do feel free to circulate.” He waved his hand around the room. More people had arrived, though I didn’t recognize most of them. I wondered if some of them were TV people dressed up to look like guests.

George was grinning like a fool. “Hi, Mr. Eberhart!” she said, her voice oddly high-pitched and breathy. “It’s so awesome to meet you! I’m probably your biggest fan. I’ve seen your first film,
Fall from Grace
, like, a million times—I even had the opening scene as my computer wallpaper for a while. And of course I watch
Daredevils
every week, and…”

Bess and I traded an amused look as she rattled on. George generally likes to play the world-weary cynic. It was rare—and sort of entertaining—to see her go all fangirly.

She was still chattering eagerly at the director when I saw someone else approaching the group. I recognized him as one of those anonymous extra people who’d emerged from the plane behind the celebrities.

“Ah, there you are, darling,” Akinyi greeted the newcomer fondly, leaning down to kiss him on the forehead. She had to lean
way
down. The guy was at least six inches shorter than she was, and maybe four or five years older. He was thin and stoop-shouldered, with receding mouse-brown hair, round rimless glasses, and skin so pasty it looked as if it had never seen sunlight. Akinyi took his arm and glanced around the group. “Please let me introduce my boyfriend, Josh Kochman, everybody,” she said proudly. “He’s a very talented screenwriter.”

Whatever I might have expected a fashion model’s boyfriend to look like, Josh wasn’t it. Akinyi introduced all of us, but Josh did little more than nod hello before turning all his attention toward Eberhart.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” he said. “As Akinyi said, I’m a screenwriter, and I was really hoping to talk to you about my latest project. It’s a sort of horror-humor-suspense-love story with a twist, totally retro in an art-punk kind of way. The story begins with a beautiful woman who turns to a wisecracking scientist for help after nearly being killed by a swarm of genetically altered beetles….”

“Come on,” Bess murmured in my ear. “I think it’s time to take his advice and circulate. Otherwise I have a feeling we’ll be hearing the whole screenplay.”

I nodded. Dragging along the rather reluctant George, we excused ourselves and wandered off, leaving the models and Josh with the director.

“Now what?” George said.

“Now I call Tonya and see what she knows,” I said. “Can I borrow a phone?”

Bess pulled hers out of her handbag. “Do you really think there’s a mystery here, Nancy?” she asked. “I mean, the police tip is a little weird, and so is that RSVP. But these
Daredevils
guys do seem pretty wild—what if they really are the ones behind this?”

“Then I’m going to bust them so Syd can relax a little,” I said, already dialing.

Unfortunately, the person who answered told me that Tonya had the day off. I left a message for her to call me the next day, then returned Bess’s phone.

“So much for that,” I told my friends. “Come on, let’s go find Sydney. I want to ask her if she and Vic have any enemies that they know of.”

Finding Sydney in the airport-hangar-turned-fake-nightclub proved to be easier said than done. We swam through the crowds of people, but there was no sign of her distinctive red hair.

“There’s that Donald PA guy,” George said, pointing. “Maybe you should ask him where Sydney is. He seems to be in charge of keeping track of everything and everyone around here.”

“Maybe later. He looks a little busy right now.” I grimaced, noting that Madge, the foul-tempered assistant director, appeared to be haranguing the PA again. He nodded a few times without speaking, then hurried off and disappeared while Madge stalked off in the direction of one of the camera operators.

My friends and I wandered toward the temporary dance floor, where Pandora Peace was doing some kind of elaborate interpretive dance in her bare feet, not seeming to notice or mind that she was out there all alone. She wasn’t lonely for long, though—as we watched, Bo Champion and Dragon ran out and starting dancing with her. Bo and Pandora were soon laughing and goofing off, each of them throwing in more and more outrageous dance moves to try to one-up each other. Meanwhile Dragon stayed a little apart, dancing athletically while his eyes shot around toward the nearest cameras.

At that moment I finally spotted Sydney. She was standing off to one side with Deb, now joined by Candy, watching the action on the dance floor.

“There’s Syd,” I told my friends. “Let’s go talk to her.”

We made our way toward the trio. Before we got there, I heard a commotion from the dance floor. Glancing that way, I saw Vic being pushed out onto the floor by Madge, the ill-tempered assistant director. He was laughing and protesting loudly that he didn’t feel like dancing. But Bo waved to him.

“Get out here, bro!” he called. “Show the people how it’s done!”

“Oh, all right!” Vic exclaimed as Madge backed off. “If you insist…”

With that, he broke into a series of gravity-defying dance moves, jumping and spinning around to the beat. Bo and Dragon joined in, while Pandora clapped along nearby. The activity was attracting lots of attention all through the party, and people crowded closer for a better look, blocking Sydney from my view.