Murder of a Barbie and Ken (26 page)

She had seen something the night of the Instant Gourmet party. What was it? It came to her in a flash, the nearly invisible container under the bed. She flew off the stool exclaiming,
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” She shoved the mattress out of the way and lay down on her stomach.

As Skye worked her head and upper torso under the bed, she heard the sound of the bedroom door closing, then locking. She tried squirming back out, but hands encased in rubber gloves clamped down on her back and a muffled voice said, “If you don’t want to end up like the Addisons, hand me what you’re reaching for. And don’t turn around.”

  
CHAPTER 21
  

Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorn’d
.

—Congreve

S
kye screamed Wally’s name. Immediately she heard footsteps pounding down the hall. Within seconds, the doorknob started to rattle and Wally shouted, “Skye, are you alright?”

The hands holding her down jerked away, but before she could wiggle out from under the bed, something big and extremely heavy was dumped on her back. The breath whooshed out of her, and she fought to inhale. As she struggled to free herself, she vaguely registered the tinkle of breaking glass.

The next sounds she heard were wood splintering and Wally’s voice as he removed the object pinning her to the floor. “Skye, what happened? Don’t move. I’ll call an ambulance.”

She scooted out from under the bed and sat up. Gasping, she managed to squeeze out a few words. “I’m fine. No ambulance.” She pointed to the shattered French door. “Follow.”

Wally hesitated, but Skye pointed again, and he took off running. After he left, she took a deep breath, felt no pain,
so presumably had no broken ribs. Maybe having extra padding in that area wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It had probably saved her from a serious injury.

She was pacing in front of the smashed bedroom door when Wally returned. “What happened?” she asked.

“I heard a car engine revving up as I came around the house, but since I didn’t have the keys to your Chevy I couldn’t pursue it.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No. How about you? Did you get a look at the guy?”

“No. In fact, I can’t swear it was a man. It could have been a woman. He or she disguised their voice, and with my head under the bed I couldn’t see anything.”

Wally moved closer to her. “Are you sure you’re okay? You scared the life out of me when I heard you scream.”

“Really, I’m fine. I just had my breath knocked out. What was on top of me?”

“The king-size mattress.” Wally pointed to the offending object, now leaning against a wall. “What were you doing under the bed?”

“Oh, in all the excitement I almost forgot! There’s a container under there. Can you get it?” No way was she going down there again.

Wally reached into his pocket and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. He shoved the huge four-poster bed out of the way as if it were weightless, retrieved the box, and set it on the dressing table.

Skye held her breath as he flipped open the hinged lid. Yes! It was full of small black plastic squares—the missing disks had been found.

Wally closed the box. “I’ll dust this for fingerprints, then turn it over to the county computer experts to look at.”

Skye frowned. “That could take weeks. How about after you fingerprint it, we ask Simon to see if he can’t open the files on his computer at the funeral home? I know the ones
at school and the PD are too old, but he just got a new system this summer.”

“Okay, we’ll see if he thinks he can do it without harming the disks. Otherwise, we’ll just have to wait for the sheriff’s department to get to it.”

Skye nodded her agreement.

As she was driving Wally to the mechanic’s to pick up his squad car, she asked, “How do you think that person knew we were at the Addisons’?”

“I don’t think he or she knew
we
were at the Addisons’. I think you were being followed, and your attacker was unpleasantly surprised to find out I was here, too.”

“That makes sense. Your car wasn’t parked out front. So, if they followed me, he or she would have no idea you were here.”

“It was probably the same person Frannie and Justin saw trying to break into your cottage yesterday.” Wally took out his pad and jotted down a note. “Do you know if they got a good look at the person?”

Skye shook her head. “They said they couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman because the person had on a bulky coat and a knit cap.”

“Too bad.”

Skye paused, considering, then said, “What if I had gone to the Addisons’ alone?”

“You might be dead right now.”

“Don’t say that to Mom or Simon.”

Wally snorted. “Do you seriously think they won’t figure it out for themselves?”

Skye pursed her lips. He was right. Well, this would be a good test for Simon. He claimed he had changed, that he didn’t mind anymore when she got involved in investigations. Now was his chance to prove it.

After dropping Wally off, Skye drove home. The plan was for Wally to pick up his cruiser, take the box to the police station and dust it for prints, then call Skye. Meanwhile,
she was supposed to get in touch with Simon, and see if he thought he could get the disks to work in his computer.

Skye took a quick shower when she got home. While she waited for her hair to dry, she called Simon. He thought he could open the files on the disks and had an hour between appointments at three o’clock. Skye looked at her watch. It was close to two-thirty already. She hoped Wally would be finished looking for prints by then.

The phone rang while Skye was reapplying her makeup. Wally was ready. He’d meet her at the funeral home.

Simon was already at the computer when she arrived, Wally standing over his shoulder peering intently at the monitor. Neither man turned when Skye walked in.

“Have you found anything?” She nudged Wally over so she could see what was on the screen.

“Hard to say.” Simon shrugged. “These are definitely Barbie’s Instant Gourmet records.” He pointed to the printer on his desk. “I’ll make printouts so you and Wally can start going over them.”

Wally and Skye moved from behind the desk and sat in the visitors’ chairs. They grabbed the pages and scanned them as the printer started to spit them out. The sheets were still being churned out at a steady rate a half hour later when Simon had to leave for his meeting.

When the printer finally stopped, Skye sat back and rubbed her eyes. At first the words and numbers had made no sense, but gradually she began to understand. “A couple of these women really mortgaged their souls to Barbie and Instant Gourmet. Once they realized what they had done, I could see how they might want her dead.”

“What a scheme. Barbie gets these women to sign contracts agreeing to purchase anywhere from a hundred to a thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise every month, and then it’s their problem to sell it to other people.” Wally stood up and stretched. “If you couldn’t find anyone who wanted to buy the stuff, the cost could add up real fast.”

“Did you notice that beside the initial investment, there were things like shipping charges, advertising fees, and territory restriction tariffs?”

Wally nodded. “Yeah. They were out a pretty penny before they even had a chance to try to sell the product.”

“I’ve read about scams like this, and always wondered how people got sucked into them.” Skye started to sort the pages into piles.

“Everyone wants to get rich quick,” Wally said, and then asked, “What are you doing with those?”

“Arranging them according to the amount of money involved and length of contract. This group on the left spent the least and signed up for the shortest period of time allowed, six months. The middle stack spent less than ten thousand dollars and had single-year contracts. The bunch on the right committed themselves to five years, and I need a degree in higher mathematics to figure out just how much money they owed Barbie.”

“Smart.” Wally patted Skye on the back. “Our suspects no doubt come from the last group.”

“That would be my guess.”

“Then let’s make a list.”

Skye rummaged in her purse until she found her calculator, then she picked up the pile of papers she and Wally were interested in and started to assess which of the women Barbie had snookered the worst.

She and Wally had just finished adding up the columns of figures when Simon returned.

“Hi.” Skye looked at her watch. It was past six o’clock. “Sorry, it looks like we’re going to have to miss our dinner date.” She would have to change clothes and the restaurant was forty-five minutes away. No way could they make their seven o’clock reservation.

“I kind of thought that might be the case, so I canceled it.” Simon kissed her on the cheek and took a seat behind his desk. “How’s it going?”

Wally tapped the notes in front of him. “We’re finally making some progress on this case.” He explained to Simon what they had found in Barbie’s records and concluded, “We have it narrowed down to Joy Kessler, Lu Ginardi, and Hilary Zello. Over the last couple of years, they’ve paid Barbie and Instant Gourmet between twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars each, and they still have three years left on their contracts.”

Simon whistled. “I know all three of those women have wealthy husbands, but that’s a lot of money to come up with.”

Skye had been silent as Wally and Simon talked, but now she said, “And don’t forget they each had other reasons for hating Barbie and Ken Addison.”

“What reasons?”

“Joy and Hilary are involved in some kinky sex fantasy club, and from what I overheard, it seems that Ken was the one who seduced the group into having those types of parties. He didn’t exactly make them participate, but he played on their fear of being uncool and ‘small town’ if they refused to take part.”

Wally’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “How did you find out about this?”

Simon said, half to himself, “These people are amazing. I would never have guessed.”

Skye told the story of her discovery, explaining about Frannie and Justin, and why she had had to follow them. While she was owning up, she threw in the fact that Nate Turner and Quentin Kessler had caught her and Frannie, and threatened them.

“And when were you going to mention this to me?” Wally demanded.

“I wasn’t.” Skye looked him in the eye, daring him to make a fuss. “There was no reason to ruin peoples’ reputations unless it turned out to be relevant to the murder. Since it now seems relevant, I told you.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to the house alone,” Wally grumbled.

“Maybe.” Skye shrugged. “At the time, it seemed the right thing to do. I couldn’t let Frannie and Justin go by themselves. It wasn’t a police matter, so I didn’t feel right about involving you, and Simon was busy with a wake. Who did you want me to call? May, Charlie, or—hey, I know, Bunny!”

Skye waited for Simon to chime in on Wally’s side, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

Wally let the matter drop. “How about Lu Ginardi? Weren’t she and Barbie best friends?”

“That’s the point. Besides the money, Barbie hurt her on a personal level. How would you feel if your best friend cheated you out of thirty thousand dollars?” Skye paused, reflecting on what she knew about Lu. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I think Lu should be our prime suspect. I’ve been out of high school for more than fourteen years, and she still hates me for something that happened when I was a freshman. She’s clearly someone who can hold a grudge for a long, long time. And don’t forget she had an affair with Ken, which might have been her first attempt to get back at Barbie for swindling her.”

Simon looked surprised at this bit of news, then said, “Still, you can’t rule out the other women.”

“No, but look how the Addisons were murdered. Lu is by far the strongest of the three women. She was quite an athlete in high school.”

“Joy and Hilary are no weaklings,” Wally offered. “They both belong to the health club. I see them nearly every morning when I work out.”

“If only we had a better idea of the time of death,” Skye said. “Between thirty minutes and three hours is such a long period. If we could narrow it down, we might be able to do better with eliminating some alibis.”

“I’ll go pull the file and see where Joy, Hilary, and Lu
claimed to be during that time.” Wally stood and picked up the box of disks. “I’ll give you a call and let you know who was where.”

Simon and Skye waved him away.

Skye took a deep breath. “Before I forget, I’ve got something to tell you.”

Simon eased back into his chair. “Yes?”

She explained about her close call at the Addisons’ earlier that day, and about the person Justin and Frannie had seen at her cottage the day before, concluding with, “So it looks like I might have made someone uncomfortable.”

Simon’s left eye gave a single twitch, then not a muscle moved in his face. Finally he said, “You’ll have to be extra careful.”

She nodded, relieved he had taken the news so well. After a moment she stood and asked, “Want me to make an omelet or something for dinner?”

“That won’t be necessary.” He came around the desk and put his hand on her waist, guiding her out of the funeral home and toward his house across the street. “I’ve made other arrangements.”

He unlocked the front door and stepped back so she could enter first. There was a trail of rose petals leading from the foyer into the dining room. The table was set with delicate china, sparkling crystal, and sterling flatware. Candles stood in silver holders on a crisp white linen tablecloth.

Skye exhaled a long sigh of amazement, then turned, and asked, “When? How? What?”

“I’m glad you like it.” A laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “Let’s see. When—as soon as I saw how much paperwork you and Wally would have to wade through. How—I called someone I know who’s trying to get a catering company started. And what—a nice romantic dinner for two—”

She threw her arms around his neck and her lips smothered his last words.

A few seconds later, a sudden noise from the kitchen
caused her to jump. “What was that?” Skye’s heart was pounding. She wasn’t sure if it was from passion or fright.