Who's Kitten Who? (24 page)

Chapter 13

“When the mouse laughs at the cat, there is a hole nearby.”

—Nigerian Proverb

I
know that line,” I told Betty. At this point, my voice sounded as strained as hers. “It’s from a horror film called
The Fly
that was made in the mid-eighties. It was loosely based on a classic movie with the same title that was made in the 1950s.”

“That explains why the woman’s voice sounded familiar,” Betty commented. “She’s probably someone famous.”

I concentrated hard for a few seconds, then snapped my fingers. “Geena Davis,” I announced.

“The actress who played the President on that television series?”

“That’s the one. She starred in
The Fly
with Jeff Goldblum. And she said the famous line. I believe it was also used in the promos for the film.”

“What do you think that phone call means?” Betty’s voice still sounded pinched. “Do you think it was a joke? Or a wrong number?”

“Probably one or the other,” I replied. “Somebody must have been playing a trick on a friend, except he dialed your number by mistake.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed.

I knew she didn’t believe my explanation for a minute. Neither did I. I was certain that her initial assumption—that she’d just received a threat—was correct. And I suspected that even though she was the one who’d gotten the call, its message was directed at me. The person behind it had decided the best way to scare me away from the investigation was by threatening someone I cared about.

The question was, who
was
that person?

I thought hard about which of the people on my list of suspects knew that Betty and I were friends. The entire cast and crew of the Port Players, of course. The two of us had arrived together at every single rehearsal, since we drove to the theater in the same car. In addition, we usually gravitated toward each other during breaks, sitting together and chatting. That meant Lacey, Kyle, and everyone else involved in the production, from Derek to Jill to the members of the chorus to the stage manager. Aziza too, since I’d told her myself that Betty was the one who’d gotten me involved in the first place.

It was possible that Ian Norman knew Betty and I were close, even though he’d never met her. All it would have taken was a casual comment from his roommate, Kyle—something about the new cast member, meaning me, who’d been brought in by one of the regulars, Betty Vandervoort.

Gloria Stone also knew that Betty and I were friends. She’d mentioned it herself when she’d found me talking to her assistant at her weekend house in the Bromptons. And thanks to my good buddy Anthony Falcone, she knew I was poking my nose around Simon’s murder.

Any one of them could have tracked down Betty’s telephone number. She was listed in the Norfolk County phone book, for heaven’s sake. And it would have been easy enough for anyone to record the famous line from a DVD.

Whoever had made this call, however, had specifically chosen a threat.

A wave of utter despair suddenly swept over me. I wished I could talk to Nick about what was going on. But of course I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk to Nick about anything.

Forrester? I thought of him next, since he was as interested in who’d killed Simon as I was. However, I certainly didn’t want to make any moves that could be interpreted as encouraging his crush.

Falcone? Another dead end.

At the moment, I realized, I was pretty much on my own when it came to this unofficial investigation of Simon Wainwright’s murder.

Except for Betty, of course. She was in on it too. As of a few minutes ago, this was one point that had been made perfectly clear.

I tried to push aside the uneasiness Betty’s mysterious telephone call had left behind. Either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, I had the perfect distraction: my dinner with Forrester Sloan, only twenty-four hours away.

Merely thinking about going on a date with Forrester practically made me break out in hives. My buddy Suzanne, meanwhile, saw the appearance of someone new in my life as an exciting challenge.

In fact, she showed up on my doorstep, unannounced and unexpected, early on Saturday afternoon. The minute I opened the door, I felt as if I’d been ensnared by the posse of gay guys from
Queer Eye
. She was carrying a pile of dresses in her arms, with four different pocketbooks and three pairs of shoes balanced on top.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Preparing you for the harsh world of dating,” she replied firmly. “Jessie, you have no idea what it’s like out there. Fortunately, help has arrived.”

“It’s not really a date,” I insisted.

She didn’t appear to have heard me. Not if the way she came barreling into my living room like a member of a SWAT team was any indication.

“Okay, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us,” she announced. She draped the dresses across the back of my upholstered chair, then gently placed the shoes and the bags on the seat.

Predictably, Max thought the idea of turning the living room into a dressing room was great fun. My Westie thrived on anything new and exciting, and he pranced around gleefully like the party animal he was. Tinkerbell also thought all the commotion signaled playtime. When a satin ribbon floated to the floor after coming loose from Suzanne’s fashion treasure trove, she pounced on it and began toying with it as if it was the best invention since catnip. Lou, however, perceived anything out of the ordinary as a potential threat. He treated the mound of accessories and clothing from Suzanne’s closet as the enemy. He began growling at the colorful collection of fabric and leather, meanwhile keeping a safe distance away.

“Calm down, Lou,” Suzanne instructed matter-offactly. “This is all for a good cause, I assure you.”

I wasn’t any more convinced than my Dalmatian. In fact, I was tempted to growl at the mountain of alien clothing myself.

“O-kay,” she announced, rubbing her hands together. “The clock is ticking, so let’s not waste any time.”

“Actually,” I told her, doing my best to remain calm, “I thought I’d spend the afternoon catching up on my reading. I’ve got a stack of veterinary journals that—”

“Not today,” she replied firmly. “We have to get your hair cut, find a decent manicurist, buy you some makeup…”

That last word made me cringe. I’ve never been big on makeup. Whenever I put on lipstick, I get this smudgy line around my mouth that makes me look as if I’ve been eating tomato sauce. As for eye makeup, I usually rub most of it off before I’ve even left the house. It’s not until I glance in a mirror and see a raccoon staring back at me that I realize what I’ve done.

Suzanne leaned forward and scrutinized my face in a manner that made me extremely uncomfortable. “When’s the last time you had your eyebrows done?”

“It’s been a while,” I admitted. “Like never.”

She shook her head sadly, as if she was too disappointed in me to speak. “Maybe we should start by trying on the dresses. That will give us a solid base to start from.”

Why someone needed “a solid base” to go out and eat a cheeseburger with a guy who’d coerced that particular someone into doing so was beyond me. But I could tell by the determined gleam in Suzanne’s eye that she wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

Still, I couldn’t resist gasping in horror when she held up the first dress she’d brought.

“You actually expect me to wear that?” I cried.

“It’s Donna Karan,” she replied. I got the feeling there was a “Don’t you know
anything
?” hiding somewhere in that sentence.

The fact that it had a designer label sewn into it didn’t make it any less weird. And it wasn’t even the big, bright flowers splashed all over it that troubled me. What I really had a problem with was the huge fake flower that was glommed onto the shoulder, a floppy pink thing the size of a cabbage.

The dress was also short. So short that I couldn’t imagine wearing it while sitting at a table unless the restaurant happened to have extremely large napkins.

“Don’t you have anything with a little more fabric?” I hated the pleading tone I heard in my voice.

“There’s nothing wrong with showing some flesh,” she insisted.

“It’s dinner, not an orgy,” I pointed out.

I don’t know why I even bothered. I could see how fixated Suzanne was on her task for the day: making me presentable—at least, in her eyes. Frankly, I found her doggedness a bit intimidating.

Even so, I nixed the next two without even trying them on. One looked like a large blue rubber band. The other had ruffles. I happen to have a very strict policy about ruffles.

I was about to make the outrageous suggestion that I wear something from my own closet when she held up the last dress. I had to admit, it wasn’t bad. It was plain black, for one thing, without any ruffles or flounces or other geegaws that were likely to make me want to spend the entire evening hiding in the ladies’ room. It also looked as if it would cover enough of my person to allow me to move like my real self instead of a robot.

“I guess I could try on that one,” I said.

I slipped it on, surprised by how good the silky lining felt. It was almost as sensuous as flannel.

“What do you think?” I asked Suzanne, planting myself in front of her with my arms held out.

She smiled. “You look like Audrey Hepburn. Go find yourself a mirror.”

Frankly, I’d always identified much more with Katharine Hepburn. And it wasn’t only because she happened to have graduated from the same institution of higher learning Suzanne and I had both attended, Bryn Mawr College. Still, when I checked the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom closet door, I had to admit that I looked like someone who was about to go on a real date, if not an actual
Roman Holiday.

Not that I fell into either category, of course.

“So?” Suzanne demanded when I returned to the living room.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m the new Audrey.”

“We’ve got our dress!” she proclaimed triumphantly. “Which means we’ll go with these shoes and this purse…” She glanced at her watch and frowned. “Goodness, I didn’t realize it was so late! We’d better go. Jaimee hates it if his clients are late. He’s always saying his time is much too precious to waste. And, believe me, you want to stay on his good side. When it comes to tress distress, he’s the absolute master.”

“Who’s James?” I asked.

“Not James. Jaimee. J-A-I-M-E-E. And he happens to be the best hairstylist on Long Island, as far as I’m concerned. He owns Hair Explosion of London.”

Why a place of business that wasn’t actually in London had
London
in its name was beyond me. Frankly, it seemed like a good way to confuse the customers.

But I didn’t push it. I didn’t even comment on the fact that the exterior of Jaimee’s establishment was painted to look like a giant Union Jack. The dazzling red, white, and blue facade was enough of a statement to incite a second revolution.

I just hoped I didn’t come out of there looking all punky. Or like a character out of an Austin Powers movie.

I was somewhat reassured by the fact that, inside, Hair Explosions of London looked like an ordinary hair salon. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for Jaimee, since he didn’t fall into the ordinary category at all. His hair was yellow. Not blond—yellow. And through the magic of gel or flash-freezing or some other mysterious process, it stuck up in a hundred different directions, kind of like crabgrass. Oddly enough, it complemented his bright turquoise silk shirt, which had full sleeves the likes of which I hadn’t seen since my last pirate movie.

“So what are we doing today?” Jaimee asked in a lilting, obviously American voice once he’d gotten me into a chair.

I noticed he was talking to Suzanne, not to me. I hate being ignored. Especially when the future of some of my favorite body parts, like my hair and my fingernails and my eyebrows, is on the line.

“A cut, definitely,” Suzanne replied thoughtfully. She hovered behind me with her arms folded across her chest, studying my reflection in the mirror. “I think we’ll go with some highlights too.”

“Honey is very popular right now,” Jaimee cooed. “I think honey highlights would look great on her.”

“Honey highlights sound perfect,” Suzanne agreed. “And we have to do something about her eyebrows.”

“Goodness, yes!” Jaimee exclaimed, reacting as if someone had just brought up the topic of global warming or something similarly horrific. “And definitely a facial. I’d suggest an apricot scrub. And what about a lip waxing?”

“That’s a given.” Suzanne was nodding her head furiously.

“Wait a minute,” I interjected. “What’s that last thing you mentioned?”

Jaimee leaned forward so his nose was practically touching mine. “Sweetie, we have
got
to do something about that mustache.”

“What mustache?” I demanded. “I don’t have a mustache!”

“Right,” he muttered. “Neither does Fidel Castro.”

“Isn’t this getting expensive?” I asked meekly. What I actually wanted to have done to me or not done to me clearly held no sway. So I thought maybe the threat of not being able to pay for all the treatments on Jaimee’s list would give him pause.