Killing Cupid (A Jaine Austen Mystery) (17 page)

Chapter 28

T
he minute I left Tonio, I drove like a maniac to the bank to cash my paycheck. But I was too late. He’d already stopped payment.

Me and my big mouth.

Why couldn’t I have been smart enough to accuse him of murder
after
I’d cashed the darn thing?

I drove home, pretty much convinced Tonio killed Joy to stop her from going to the cops. And what about that joint checking account? For all I knew, it was worth a ton of money. Money that Tonio had access to the minute Joy died. Yet another motive for murder.

But what if I was wrong and Tonio was telling the truth? What if he didn’t kill her? I remembered Joy eating that chocolate with no ill effects while I was hiding under her desk during her tête-à-tête with Tonio. So whoever slipped the poisoned chocolate in the Godiva box had to have done it after Joy and Tonio had gone back to the party. And I had seen Skip yakking at Tonio most of the night. Was it possible they were together the whole time, as Tonio claimed?

As much as I hated the idea, I knew I’d have to give Skip a call.

Back in my apartment, after fortifying myself with an Oreo or three, I took a deep breath and dialed his number.

He picked up on the first ring. I could just picture him hovering over the phone.

“Jaine, how lovely to hear from you! But why haven’t you returned my calls, you naughty girl?”

I haven’t mentioned this until now because I wanted to spare you the gooey awfulness of it all, but Skip had been bombarding me with messages, most of them in baby talk, asking Prozac to come over for a play date.

“Sorry, Skip, but I’ve had a lot on my plate.”

“All of it organic, I hope. Ha ha.”

“Ha ha,” I echoed, forcing a chuckle, and then got down to business.

“I’ve got something very important I need to ask you about Joy’s murder.”

“Of course, my dear. I’ll be happy to answer your question.”

“Great. I need to know—”

“But only in person.”

“What?”

“I have to see you and your darling Prozac one more time. I’ve been missing you both so very much.”

“I already told you, Skip. Prozac’s not for sale.”

Prozac looked up from where she was lounging on my computer keyboard.

“Just let me see her this one last time,” Skip pleaded, “and I’ll answer anything you want to ask.”

“Okay,” I grudgingly replied. “But promise me. No caviar for Prozac.”

“You have my word of honor. No caviar.”

Then he urged me to hurry on over.

“I can’t wait to see my favorite gal,” he gushed. “And you, too, Jaine.”

I hung up, dreading the thought of taking Prozac with me to Skip’s Malibu manse. It seemed as if she’d finally forgiven me for the whole Diamond Collar Affair, and I didn’t want him to do anything to spark her sulk cycle all over again.

But on the plus side, at least the visit would give me a chance to return the collar.

I’d thought about mailing it to him, but was leery about trusting such a valuable bauble with the United States Postal Service, the same folks who’ve been known to deliver my Christmas cards some time around Flag Day.

I headed to my bedroom closet and reached up to the shelf where I’d hidden the Tiffany box behind a blanket.

Alarm bells started ringing when I saw the blanket had been moved.

Pawing behind the blanket, I found the top of the box. Then the bottom. But no collar.

Frantically I raced to the kitchen for my stepladder to do a thorough search of the shelf. Standing on the ladder, I tossed down every blanket, every sweater, and every shoe box in sight. But the diamond collar was nowhere to be found.

Dammit. Prozac had struck again.

She hadn’t forgiven me for taking away her collar. Hell, no. She’d been gloating because she filched the damn thing!

No doubt she’d stashed it away in a hiding spot of her own.

“Prozac!” I cried, storming out into the living room, waving the empty Tiffany box. “Where the heck is the collar??”

She gazed up lazily from where she was lounging on my keyboard.

I spent the next forty-five minutes ransacking my apartment, checking under pillows and seat cushions, inside old boots, behind P. G. Wodehouse, even raking through Prozac’s litter box.

All the while Prozac was following me around, delighted at my antics.

This is way better than
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Finally, in a fit of frustration, I whirled on her.

“If you don’t show me where you hid that collar, I swear you’ll never get another pizza anchovy as long as you live!”

She could tell I meant business.

After shooting me a filthy look, she led me into the kitchen and plunked herself down next to the trash can.

Of course! The trash can! Prozac’s holy grail of leftovers—thanks to my landlord’s refusal to fix my garbage disposal. Home of old pizza crusts, moo shu pork slivers, and tuna shards. I can’t count the times I’d come home to find the trash can on end, Prozac sniffing around, trolling for snacks.

She’d probably hidden the collar there among her prized pizza crusts.

In a flash I was scrounging around in the garbage, plowing through each and every piece of trash. But, alas, I came up empty-handed. (If you don’t count a free cereal sample I’d thrown out by mistake.)

I was sitting there, feeling quite dejected, trying to get up the energy to wash my hands so I could eat my free cereal, when suddenly I heard the sound of a truck coming down the street.

Not just any truck. The garbage truck.

Omigosh! It was garbage day. And suddenly I wondered: What if Prozac hid the collar in a bag of garbage I’d
already
brought out to the curb?

I had to stop the truck before they carted it away!

Racing outside, I groaned to see the giant truck pulling up right outside my duplex.

I got there just as the automated arm of the truck was hoisting up my black garbage can.

“Stop!” I shrieked to the driver. “Let my garbage go!”

The garbage man, a wiry guy with a toothpick dangling from his mouth, looked down at me from the height of his cab.

“Say what?”

“Please put down my trash can. There may be a diamond collar in there.”

“A diamond collar?” he asked, shifting the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.

“Yes. From Tiffany’s. My cat threw it away by mistake.”

“Your
cat
threw away your diamond collar?”

“Actually, it’s hers, not mine.”

“You bought your cat a diamond collar? From Tiffany’s?” He shook his head in disgust. “Only in Beverly Hills.”

“No, no, it was a gift from an infuriating old codger who made me have a picnic lunch with his dead mother and got into a fight with a blind jazz pianist and offered me twenty-five thousand dollars for Prozac. My cat was mad at me for not letting her keep the collar, and at first I thought she’d forgiven me, but no way, she’s not the forgiving kind. Why, she once sulked for three straight weeks after I tried to give her a bath, something I’ll never try again, that’s for sure. Anyhow, she found the collar where I hid it in the closet and then she hid it somewhere else, and I’ve searched everywhere in the apartment even behind P. G. Wodehouse but it wasn’t there, so I’m guessing she stashed it in the trash because that’s where she always goes digging for snacks.”

As I may have mentioned, I tend to babble under stress.

The garbage man just sat there chewing on his toothpick.

Finally, he said: “The guy offered you twenty-five grand for some Prozac? Hasn’t he ever heard of generics?”

“Look, it’s all very confusing. Can’t I please just have my garbage back?”

“All right, lady.”

And much to my eternal relief, he released the can to the ground. “Just one more thing,” he called out as he drove off down the street. “You might want to try some of your friend’s Prozac. Sure looks like you could use some.”

Alone with my garbage, I wasted no time diving in.

Soon I was elbow deep in old pizza crusts and banana peels—not to mention Skip’s appalling soy-carob pie. I continued burrowing my way through all sorts of glop until at last, plunging my arm into a mass of sodden moo shu pork, I felt something hard.

With a small prayer to the jewelry gods, I pulled it up.

Hallelujah! It was the diamond collar, shards of moo shu pork clinging to its clasp.

Clutching it to my heart, I started up the path to my apartment.

Just as I was passing Lance’s place, he came bounding out his front door, looking springtime fresh in chinos and a gingham checked shirt, a pullover tied around his shoulders, very Ralph Lauren in the Hamptons.

“Jaine, sweetie,” he tsked, plucking a pizza crust from my shoulder. “You’ve really got to stop these between meal snacks. And a little deodorant wouldn’t hurt either,” he added, taking a whiff of my eau de garbage.

“I was just rooting around in the garbage for a diamond collar,” I explained.

“That’s nice, hon,” he said, lost, as he often is, in Lance World. “So how do I look? Marvelous, I know. You’ll never guess where I’m going. Donny’s taking me for a drive up to Santa Barbara in his new Porsche! Isn’t that exciting? Oh! There he is now!”

And indeed, parked at the curb right beyond my garbage can was a shiny silver Porsche convertible, with a James Dean–ish hottie behind the wheel.

“Ciao, sweetie!” Lance cried with a jaunty wave.

As he scurried down the path, his blond curls bobbing in the breeze, I returned to my apartment, where the mood was distinctly less sunny.

“Prozac!” I growled, waking her from one of her gazillion daily naps. “Do you realize what hell you just put me through?”

She yawned mightily as I waved the moo shu–crusted collar in her face.

“What have you got to say for yourself, young lady?”

She looked up at me with wide green eyes.

Chapter 29

“J
aine, my dear. What took you so long?”

Skip stood at the front door of his Casa de One Percenters, a palatial hacienda in the hills of Malibu.

“I got held up with a few things,” I said, sparing him the details of my garbage dive.

It had taken me a good half hour to scrub myself—and the collar—clean in the shower. Another half hour to get dressed and lure Prozac into her cat carrier. And yet another forty minutes of non-stop wailing (from me—at the traffic) before finally making it over to Skip’s place.

Now he ushered me into a vestibule the size of my living room. The first thing I saw, hanging in a nook above an occasional table, was a framed oil painting of a cat who bore a remarkable resemblance to Prozac.

Miss Marple, I presumed.

Skip was kneeling on the floor, entranced with her doppelgänger.

“How’s my darling Prozac?” he cooed, eagerly unlatching the door to her carrier and gathering her in his arms. “Do you remember me, sweetums?”

Prozac took a disdainful sniff.

“Won’t you join me in the den, my dear?” Skip said to me, finally remembering I was alive. “I was just about to watch some home movies of Miss Marple.”

I followed him down a hallway along priceless Persian rugs, past rooms furnished with museum-quality pieces and velvet drapes straight out of
Gone With the Wind.

At last we arrived at his den, a wood-paneled affair with worn leather furniture and hunting prints on the walls. An old-fashioned projector had been set up on an end table facing a screen on the far wall.

“Do sit down,” he said, gesturing to a leather sofa, permanently indented with ancestral tush marks. “I had my housekeeper set out some snacks.”

There on a coffee table in front of the sofa was a platter of highly unappetizing munchies: celery sticks, radishes, eggplant puree, and some unidentifiable slimy white globs.

“Those are tofu balls,” Skip explained, following my gaze, “with carrot puree in the center.”

Lordie, where’s a barf bag when you need one?

“I made them myself,” he grinned proudly. “You’ll have to try one.”

Not without a court order.

“And look what I’ve got for my precious Prozac!” He held up a bowl of succulent white morsels. “Chopped lobster tail!”

Prozac’s eyes grew large with lust.

“Skip,” I protested. “You promised you wouldn’t feed her fancy food.”

“I promised I wouldn’t feed her caviar. You didn’t say anything about lobster.”

And before I could stop him, he had Prozac in his lap, hand-feeding her lobster tidbits.

Oh, hell. I’d never get her back on cat food now.

“Have some alfalfa juice,” he said, handing me a glass of murky green liquid.

“Yum,” I said, taking a nauseating sip.

Then I reached into my purse for the Tiffany collar.

“Skip, I’ve been meaning to return this to you.” I held it out to him, praying it didn’t smell of moo shu pork. “I can’t keep it.”

“Oh, but you must. I insist. You’ll make an old man very happy.”

He gazed at me with earnest watery eyes.

Oh, what the heck. I’d keep it. Whatever he paid for it was probably chump change for him. And after all my dates from hell with the guy, I deserved it.

“Thank you so much,” I said, slipping it back in my purse.

I was sitting there, trying to decide what to do with the money I got when I sold it—New car? New TV? Membership in the Pie of the Month Club?—when a stout, middle-aged gal with a cast-iron perm popped her head in the door.

“I’m leaving now, Mr. Skip.”

“All right, Yolanda.”

“I’ve got your dinner warming in the oven. Cheese-free, gluten-free vegetarian lasagna.”

No cheese? No meat? Gluten-free pasta? Talk about leeching all the fun from lasagna.

“See you tomorrow, Mr. Skip.”

And off she went (lucky gal), her footsteps echoing down the corridor.

As soon as she’d gone, Skip turned to me and winked.

“Alone at last.”

Oh, hell. I had to stop this love train, pronto, before it left the station.

“So anyhow, Skip,” I said, in my most businesslike voice, “about Joy’s murder—”

“Must we talk about that now? Can’t we watch
The Adventures of Miss Marple?
I really wanted you to see it.”

“Okay, sure,” I sighed. The guy’d just given me a diamond collar. The least I could do was sit through some movies of his dead cat.

So for the next fifteen minutes I watched Miss Marple napping, scratching, and playing with a ball of yarn.

Eat your heart out, Steven Spielberg.

“Look,” cried Skip excitedly, just as I was about to embark on a little nap of my own. “Here she is, using the toilet to make poo poo.”

And indeed, there on the screen was Miss Marple, sitting on a toilet seat, doing her business.

“That’s amazing!” I said.

Prozac looked up from her lobster bits and eyed the screen, unimpressed.

We continued to watch Miss Marple in action—wearing a Santa hat, dressed in a kitty tutu, and sitting behind the wheel of Skip’s Bentley. Somewhere in the middle of one of Miss Marple’s antics, Prozac gobbled up the last of the lobster bits and started yowling for more.

“Is my precious princess still hungry?” Skip asked. “Let Daddy get you a refill.”

“Please, Skip,” I said as he started to get up. “She’s had more than enough.”

Prozac shot me a dirty look.

“A little more won’t hurt her,” Skip said.

And before I could stop him, he’d turned off the projector and was out the door.

I glanced down at the vegan munchies on the coffee table. How totally unfair that Prozac was getting lobster tails and I was stuck with those ghastly tofu blobs. It had been ages since I’d scarfed down my Quarter Pounder (I mean, Southwest Salad) at McDonald’s, and by now I was starving.

No way was I about to dig into the tofu blobs, so I rummaged around my purse and was thrilled to discover half a Hershey’s bar stuck in a tissue packet.

Just as I was unwrapping it and plucking a piece of lint off the
H
, Skip came back with Prozac’s lobster.

He took one look at the Hershey’s bar and froze dead in his tracks.

“My God!” he cried. “Are you crazy?”

Then he sprang to life, wrenching it from my hand.

“Don’t you realize this is poison?” he said, waving the chocolate bar in my face.

Okay, that did it. I’d had it up to here with this health nut.

“For your information,” I said, grabbing the Hershey’s bar right back, “I happen to eat chocolate all the time, and I’m perfectly healthy.”

“Who cares about you?” he screeched. “I was talking about Prozac. Chocolate is poisonous to cats. That’s how poor Miss Marple died. Some idiot fed her chocolate!”

He stood there, eyes popping, the veins on his temple pulsing, his face flushed with fury.

And suddenly I flashed back to my first date with Skip at the steak restaurant, when Joy came over to our table and rambled on about how much she’d adored Miss Marple, how she’d fed her tuna and caviar and truffles. Omigosh! When Joy said she’d fed Miss Marple truffles, had she meant the chocolate kind? From her Godiva box?

Was it possible that, however unwittingly, Joy had killed Miss Marple?

Clearly Skip had been cuckoo over his dearly departed cat. Cuckoo enough to have killed Joy to avenge Miss Marple’s death?

One look at his wild eyes and throbbing temples convinced me that he was.

When Joy bragged about feeding Miss Marple those truffles, she’d undoubtedly signed her own death warrant.

Skip was watching me closely now, as if he realized he’d said too much.

I had to get the hell out of there, but I couldn’t leave without Prozac.

Skip had her firmly in his grasp, back on the sofa, feeding her lobster bits, cooing to her in a high-pitched keen that made me feel sick inside. I couldn’t risk grabbing her; Lord only knew how he might harm her in a struggle.

Somehow I had to convince him I suspected nothing, and then break away to call 911.

“I’m so sorry about Miss Marple,” I said, trying my best to sound soothing. “I don’t blame you for being upset. And you’re so right. I’ll never eat chocolate in front of Prozac again.”

The tension seemed to drain from his face.

“So sorry I raised my voice, my dear,” he said with an apologetic smile.

Thank goodness he seemed to be mollified.

“Ready for more Adventures of Miss Marple?” he asked.

“Absolutely. But first, I need to use the powder room. That alfalfa juice just zipped right through me.”

“Of course. It’s the third door to your left.”

I grabbed my purse and headed out the door as calmly as I could. Then as soon I was in the hallway, I dashed into the first room I saw.

At first I thought it was a child’s room, with a pink canopy bed and bins of toys everywhere. But then I saw a plushly carpeted scratching post and realized the walls were lined with framed photos of the cat I’d seen in the vestibule. An open closet door revealed tiny cat outfits hanging from the rod.

Good heavens, the room was a shrine to Miss Marple!

But I couldn’t stand around pondering Skip’s obsession with a dead cat.

I had to get help.

I whipped out my cell phone. But just as I was about to call 911, the phone rang.

Damn. Of all times for someone to call.

I checked the caller ID but didn’t recognize the number.

“Who is it?” I snapped, pressing the TALK button.

“It’s me. Lance! Oh, Jaine. The most horrible thing has happened.”

“I can’t talk now, Lance.”

I didn’t have time to stand around listening to a tragic tale of how he got a stain on his Ralph Lauren sweater.

“But, Jaine. I’m in jail!”

“Jail??”

“Yes, it turns out Donny’s a kleptomaniac. All those gifts he gave me were stolen. And so was his new Porsche. I got arrested as an accessory to Grand Theft Auto, and I need you to come and bail me out.”

“I will as soon as I can, but right now I’m trapped with a killer and I’ve got to call the cops.”

“Trapped with a killer? That’s awful! If you make it out alive, you won’t forget to bail me out, will you?”

“No, I won’t forget.”

“And would you mind bringing me a turkey wrap from the Urth Café, hold the mayo, no chips?”

Arggh! It would serve him right if I let him rot in custody.

“Gotta go,” I snapped, clicking him to oblivion. Then, with trembling fingers, I called 911. My heart was in my stomach as I waited for them to pick up. It was taking forever. Why, oh, why did I have to live in a city with so many emergencies? I just prayed they wouldn’t put me on hold. I was standing there waiting for an operator to come on the line, imagining Lance giving fashion tips to his cellmates, when suddenly I felt the phone being ripped from my hand.

I whirled around to see Skip standing there, madness gleaming in his watery blue eyes.

With surprising strength, he hurled the phone across the room. It landed with a crash behind the scratching post. I was certain he’d broken it.

Then I glanced down and saw what looked like a giant hypodermic needle in his hand. Cripes, that thing looked dangerous. And something told me he wasn’t there to give me a flu shot.

“This was
her
room,” he was saying. “Isn’t it beautiful? Nothing was too good for Miss Marple. She was the love of my life. And that bitch Joy took her away from me.”

His face flushed with rage under his ghastly toupee.

“I brought Miss Marple with me to Joy’s office one day when I was having new photos taken,” he said, his eyes glazing over at the memory. “Joy said she’d play with her while I was in the photo studio. That night Miss Marple got sick. She died before I could even get her to the vet. I had no idea Joy fed her anything.

“For months, I just assumed Miss Marple’s death was an unexplained tragedy. But then that night in the restaurant when Joy bragged about feeding Miss Marple truffles, my heart stopped. I remembered those Godiva truffles in Joy’s office, and I realized that dreadful woman had poisoned my precious angel with her chocolates!”

He smiled now, a soft faraway smile.

“So you see, I had to kill her.”

“Of course, you did,” I clucked in false sympathy, wondering how the hell I could make it past him without getting stabbed by that godawful needle.

“I was afraid you figured it out,” he said. “Tonio called and told me you were snooping around. He was lying to you, of course. We weren’t together all night at the Valentine’s party. Tonio left me for about ten minutes to go to the men’s room. But he was so frightened the police would try to pin the murder on him, he begged me to give him an alibi. I was only too happy to oblige, since I was the one who put that poisoned chocolate in Joy’s Godiva box. While Tonio went to the men’s room, I hurried across to her office, tossed out the other chocolates, and slipped in my little poisoned gift. I wanted Joy to die just like my poor Miss Marple did.

“I thought I got away with it. But now you know the truth. So it’s time for you to go. The same way Joy did. And Nancy Ruth.”

“Nancy Ruth?”

“My wife. We were married fifty-two years. Enough was enough.”

No doubt about it. The guy was a certified fruitcake.

“It won’t hurt much if you don’t struggle,” he said, waving the giant needle.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked.