Bury Me With Barbie (16 page)

The anniversary party was winding down. The guests had come and gone, most leaving behind gifts that ranged from bottles of wine and flowers to framed photos to add to the gallery of prints lining the living room walls.

When Darby saw that Liz was ready to kick off her shoes and sit a while with her niece and nephew, he pulled out his pack of Kent Golden Lights and lit a cigarette. Liz had been smoking all day, so it was clear no one was going to ask him to step outside.

P.J. couldn’t have been happier. She rose from the black leather couch she’d settled into and moved to Darby’s couch to catch the second-hand drift.

Lynne spoke up from a chair in the corner, where she had been watching everyone since noon, not saying much aside from murmuring that if someone might bring her a second slice of cake, she would very much appreciate it.

Stuart took off his jacket and tie and slung them onto an empty chair. He sat down beside Liz and held her left hand while she smoked with her right.

“Feels like a wake,” Lynne commented.

Her parents exchanged a quick glance.

“How so, honey?” Liz asked.

“I mean, all these people, all this food.” She darted a quick glance at Darby and P.J. “And relatives.”

“So, Sierra, how’s the magazine doing?”

Darby grinned. Only relatives and people at work called P.J. by her given name, and Darby knew how much she hated it. Even fewer people knew P.J.’s maiden name was Croesus because, like Madonna, she’d fancied herself a one-name wonder since high school.

“P.J., please, Aunt Liz,” P.J. said. “And the magazine’s doing great, thank you. I hired three more people to help me in our home office because I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately.”

Stuart perked up. “Anyplace interesting?”

“What’s the circulation up to now?” Liz asked.

“Half a million,” P.J. said, glad her aunt had buried her uncle’s question.

“That’s good,” Stuart said.

Liz smiled. “You happy with your staff of writers and photographers?”

“Getting better all the time. We’ve got some good people on board.”

P.J. took off her shoes and crossed her legs Indian-style.

“You should know, Aunt Liz,” Darby said, grabbing his wineglass off the coffee table. “You subscribe, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Liz said, “but I like to hear it from the horse’s mouth. It’s nice having a niece who’s done so well in publishing. Putting out a monthly periodical is tough.”

“I swear, it runs itself now, really,” P.J. said. “I’ve got twenty people, half of whom are always dealing with subscribers and shipments, five who do the layout and graphics, and five more who do whatever else I need them to. All I have to do is come up with my editorial column each month, sign off on content before it goes to press, and approve the online version.”

“Do your writers come up with ideas or do you?”

“It’s kind of a mix.”

Lynne spoke up from her corner, distressed that her mother was showing her cousin so much attention.

“I’ve been busy trying to identify the gene responsible for various neurogenetic disorders like paroxysmal chorea, myokymia, and spastic paraparesis. Our research—”

Stuart let go of his wife’s hand and faced his daughter squarely. “That’s nice, Lynne, but we haven’t seen your cousins in a few years, and we’re trying to catch up.”

Darby lit a second cigarette from his first and smiled uncomfortably, touching the top of his head self-consciously and wishing he had his Lakers cap on.

“You heard from Mom?” he asked.

Liz smiled at her nephew. “We spoke last week. She was thrilled to hear you were coming to the party.”

Lynne was ready to share again. “Your mom’s in France,” she said to Darby and P.J. “My mom’s right here.”

P.J. attempted to sound cheerful. “Yes, and aren’t you lucky? All you have to do is get in the car, and you’re here in less than an hour.”

P.J. stole a quick glance at Darby. Had something happened to their cousin’s mind? She had to be brilliant to be doing genetic research, but she was so socially awkward, she was an embarrassment.

Lynne wasn’t finished. “They have different dads,” she told her parents. “Sierra’s dad is Steve and Darby’s dad is Dirk. Aunt Angela is married to Dirk the jerk. No one knows where Steve is, but he’s probably dead. Only don’t call Sierra by her right name. Call her by her wrong name, P.J., because she always used to wear pajamas, even on Saturdays when the sun was shining.”

No one said a word for one distressing moment. Then Liz bit her lip, got up, and left the room.

Another beat, and Stuart was up, heading out of the living room after her.

Darby looked at P.J., who was staring at their cousin. How could she be a research savant, yet be so unaware of what she was doing and saying?

When he couldn’t catch his half-sister’s eye, Darby looked at Lynne too.

The room buzzed with absolute silence.

Lynne had her back to the front picture window, and dust motes floated around her head in the filtered brightness like corpses of fireflies.

Across the street, a man walked a black Newfoundland and a woman pushed a baby stroller.

Lynne yanked up the sleeve of her peach eyelet blouse and rubbed the inside of her left arm. A series of small, horizontal, healed cuts started near her wrist and ticked their way up her forearm.

The man with the Newfoundland disappeared from view and the woman with the stroller began crossing the street.

Finally, Lynne looked up at her cousins and gave them a ghoulish smile.

“I didn’t take my meds today.”

Caresse took her jacket off and smiled at Ann, who was on the phone.

She stared at her own phone, willing Todd to call her. It was all up to him. She had given him her direct line. Maybe he’d call, maybe he wouldn’t. All she knew was that if she stopped waiting, he would call sooner than he would if he sensed she was pining away.

After entering a handful of engagements and wedding announcements into the system, Ann was finally off the phone.

“That was a long call. What’s up?” Caresse asked.

“Let me ask you something,” she said.

“Okay. Shoot.”

“If an armed robber entered your home around nine and you had already fallen asleep for the night, and you’re married, right?”

“I’m with you so far.”

“Your husband sees the guy enter, but he doesn’t wake you up, right? He slips out the back and runs over to the neighbor’s house to call the police. Do you keep sleeping?”

“The question is, what’s wrong with the husband, not waking his wife up and getting her out of there?”

“He can’t. The bedroom is upstairs, and he and the robber are both downstairs. The guy thinks he should just get out of there and notify someone. So would you just keep sleeping?”

“Sure, if the robber was quiet.”

“Well, the wife wears earplugs when she sleeps, but I’m sorry, I just think I would have known something and woken up.”

Ann elaborated that a pizzeria in Paso Robles had been robbed and the suspect decided to enter the home to hide from the police, who had been called to the scene.

“How far from the pizza joint did they live?”

“About a block. County SWAT and the Paso police showed up and tried to get him to surrender.”

“Well, I’ll bet she woke up by the time SWAT was on the scene. Did he take the lady hostage?”

Ann was laughing. “I don’t even think the robber knew she was upstairs!”

She logged on to her computer and started typing furiously. Now that Ann was in story mode, Caresse knew there would be no breaking through. From out of left field, Todd crept into her mind again. She wanted to ask Ann about him to see if she could find out more. Ann knew Todd and might have a clue what was up, and Caresse was all for filling in the blanks at this point. Sighing, she decided to tackle the pile of community releases stacked in one of her trays. The fliers and notices would be turned into tiny blurbs regarding upcoming events that required no special fanfare. Factual and dry, the notices were easy to write. It took no special effort to cull the “who, what, where, and when” out of them.

Caresse caught movement in her peripheral vision, so she stopped typing and looked up. Rhea and Nibbles from Culture, Lifestyles, and Entertainment approached her desk with purpose written on their faces. They had obviously had a before-work fashion conference, because they wore complementary pieces from the same Liz Claiborne mix-and-match coordinate set. Rhea was garbed in a pastel blue and pink plaid jacket with a baby blue dress and Nibbles wore the same plaid in skirt form with a baby blue shell and cardigan.

“You guys still shopping together?” Caresse wondered.

“That’s not why we’re here,” Nibbles announced.

“You’re coming to The Graduate Sunday evening,” Rhea informed her, as though she already knew Caresse was sans plans.

Caresse glanced over at Ann to see if she was catching all this, but she was locked in a world where only County SWAT could get an alleged robber to surrender.

“I’m going to The Graduate Sunday evening?” It was always best to repeat what they said so they stayed on-topic.

“It’s for Jenna’s going away party, and you’re invited,” Nibbles sniffed, as if she would have preferred otherwise. Obviously, something was at play that put Caresse in the game.

“Okay,” she said slowly, waiting for the other pump to drop.

“We’ve set you up on one more date for your Personal Ads Valentine’s Edition story,” Rhea said, rolling out the title with emphasis on each word.

They had to know that if she had a date Sunday, she would have to scramble to turn the story in and have it proofed by Tuesday.

“You’ve set me up on one more date?”

Rhea and Nibbles exchanged glances like Caresse was stupid.

“That’s what Rhea said,” Nibbles affirmed.

“His name is Nick and he’s a friend of Bree’s,” Rhea said. “He’s a stockbroker. Got wads of cash. You’ll like him.”

“If he’s so great, why don’t one of you hook up with him?”

“Oh, we’ve got dates, honey,” Rhea laughed.

“So be there at eight,” Nibbles said.

“Wait. If you’re setting me up, this has nothing to do with answering personal ads.”

The women glanced at each other.

Rhea was disdainful. “You can always pretend you met through the ads. You can pretend, can’t you?”

“I’ll bet she pretends all the time,” Nibbles said in a stage whisper.

The brats ran away from her desk, satisfied that they had ruined her day. She glanced over at Ann, who was still lost in conversation. It was time to log on to the Best Barbie Board to see what was up.

It was a good thing she did.

The Barbie killer had taken another victim—BBB member Zivia Uzamba from Las Vegas.

It was the weekend of February ninth, and P.J. was basking in the fact that her husband, Heath, was away on business. Tucked high up in the hills of Burbank, their home overlooked a city where entertainment industry professionals sped around in their BMWs, made deals, and went to various studios for tapings and recording sessions.

P.J. had married into money because she was pretty enough, smart enough, and thin enough. She’d met her husband in a bar when she was only twenty-two and he was forty-four. The age difference didn’t matter a whit. What mattered was that she now had a five-million-dollar home, the means to publish a monthly magazine and manage a staff, and total freedom from the time she got up in the morning until she went to bed at night.

Her white cockapoo, Chao, sat at her feet as she studied her face in the upstairs bathroom vanity. The round bulbs bordering the mirror’s frame cast a golden glow around her face and shoulders. Peering closer, she noticed a zit on her forehead and frowned. She didn’t get it. Makeup caused zits, and she was quick to remove hers when she returned from the anniversary party. She bent down and searched the cabinet for her economy-size jar of Noxema. Taking a towel, she tossed her head forward and wrapped her hair in it. Then she thrust her head back to finish creating her terrycloth turban. The lid came off the dark blue jar easily, and she readily dug into the pungent goop with her fingers. She smeared patches of it across her forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. It stung, but she waited it out, sitting on the toilet seat while her pores opened up.

The smell of Noxema reminded her of Christmas pine, but she didn’t want to think about the past holiday season. Heath had been gone most of December, handling matters regarding his food packaging business, making it home only on Christmas Day to give her what she’d told him she wanted—a series of Silkstone Barbies for her lighted display cabinets downstairs. She’d also received something she could have cared less about—another diamond ring, this one commemorating ten years together.

She had never had a memorable Christmas growing up, and she hated those who had—the kids who got every toy on their list, the girls who got all the Barbies they could ever play with without begging, whining, or cajoling their parents. She thought about her cousin Lynne and the conversation she’d had with Darby on the way home from Venice.

“You’re always saying you can do whatever you put your mind to,” he’d said quietly, after she’d parked her car in front of his apartment. “But did you ever consider that maybe you go after doll collections because you can’t have Lynne’s inheritance? Kind of like eating, but never feeling full because of something else? Or eating to push down feelings that are too painful?”

“No,” she said. “In the case of your stupid food metaphor, if you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have issues with what I eat. I kill the women I choose to kill for their dolls. I kill the bitches because they’ve been rude, and I hate them. I enjoy going in and taking what I like.”