Matchpoint (9 page)

“Why do they want to skin him alive?” I asked. Spencer had given me the general idea, but I was betting Bridget had all the juicy details. She did half the books in town and got the lowdown sometimes even before Grandma.

“Where have you been?” Lucy chimed in. “Rosalie Rodriguez changed her Facebook status to ‘involved with Spencer Bolton.’ ”

“That can’t be,” I said. “Spencer is fifteen years younger than Rosalie.”

“Spencer likes them older. Didn’t you know that?” Bridget asked.

I didn’t. I only saw him with supermodels, and they were all young.

“I think you’re mistaken,” I said. I turned to Grandma to see what she thought, but she was busy slicing a piece of monkey bread to go with her coffee.

“Spencer has had a whole slew of older women,” Lucy explained. “Not me, though. That bee hasn’t buzzed anywhere near this honeypot.”

I tried to imagine Spencer with a slew of older women. I don’t know why the thought made me so upset. Maybe because I had always imagined him with young women, prettier than me.

“I’m prettier than Rosalie Rodriguez,” I said, aloud. I clamped down on my lip. It was too late. They looked at me, each with one eyebrow raised. “I didn’t mean that,” I said.

“You are
much
prettier than Rosalie,” Grandma said.

“Holden thinks you’re prettier,” Bridget said. “And he’s the best-looking man in town. Maybe the best-looking man in Southern California, if you don’t count Los Angeles.”

Holden was good-looking, but I didn’t know if he thought I was prettier than Rosalie. I didn’t know what he thought about anything. Our relationship was in a low-lying trough.

“What happened when Rosalie changed her status?” I asked Bridget, steering her back to the original path of our conversation.

“The other five women he was involved with on Facebook saw red. They all discovered each other when they wrote horrible things on Rosalie’s page,” Lucy said. “It was the catfight to end all catfights.”

“ ‘Catfight’ is a sexist term,” Bridget said.

“Fine,” Lucy said to Bridget. “It was a bitchfest. Is that better?” She turned to me. “Half of the women are married, too. Did you know that, Gladie? They didn’t care. They made a real show of it. They didn’t want to lose Spencer, and they didn’t care if they lost their husbands while trying to get him back.”

I felt dirty. Spencer was upstairs in my bed, watching
reality TV and baseball reruns. Meanwhile, middle-aged women were hunting him down on the streets.

“What kind of show did they make?” I asked.

“Well, they set his car on fire for one,” Bridget said.

“And they ransacked his house and cut up all his Armani into handkerchief-sized swatches,” said Lucy.

I found it hard to believe that they could commit crimes against the police chief and face no repercussions, but maybe Spencer thought he could handle it on his own. That would be typical for his ego.

“And they called his brother in the middle of the night and threatened him when they couldn’t find Spencer,” Grandma said.

“Spencer has a brother?” I asked.

“I heard Rosalie was found outside his apartment in the middle of the night, crying and begging him to make love to her right there on the street,” Bridget said.

“Yikes,” I said.

“Men are worthless souls who suck the dignity out of women,” Bridget said. “I brought her a box of chocolates this morning to make her feel better, but her sister told me she had gone out.”

“At least she’s going out again,” I said.

“She went out with her entire set of Rachael Ray knives,” Bridget explained, taking a piece of monkey bread. “See where I’m going with this?” she asked with her mouth full.

“The dentist,” Lucy said, her voice low and thick with awe. “Gladie, was the dentist stabbed?”

“Well …,” I started. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to discuss Dr. Dulur’s face. “I think there was a knife involved.”

“Gladie, do you want to go out with Bridget and me to the lake?” Lucy asked. The subject of Rosalie’s knives and Spencer’s misadventures seemed to have run its course. “They say the cult is meeting there this afternoon
to do some kind of salutation ritual to their aliens, and the Cannes Astronomy Club is going to protest. It should be a hoot.”

“It might do you good to get out,” Bridget said.

“Maybe I could manage seeing a few aliens,” I said. The fresh air would be nice, I figured. Besides, I could use a break from Spencer.

“Good, come with us,” Bridget said.

“Not a good day for the lake,” Grandma said, startling us. “After sunset, it should be okay. But wear a rain hat.”

“It’s not supposed to rain, Zelda,” Bridget said.

“I didn’t say it would rain,” Grandma said.

Grandma shooed Bridget and Lucy away while I cleaned up the foil pans. I told them I would come along in a little while after I got things taken care of at the house. Grudgingly, I made a plate for Spencer. It occurred to me that I could starve him out of my room, but no matter how much I hated him, I didn’t want him to meet up with Rosalie’s set of Rachael Ray knives.

Upstairs, Spencer was lying in my bed, hugging a family-sized bag of chips and watching
Family Guy
on TV. He pointed at the screen and laughed out loud. “Vagina boob,” he squealed. “Vagina boob!”

I handed him the plate of food. “You are regressing, Spencer.”

“This show is hysterical,” he said, accepting the plate.

“Regressing when you were already five to begin with. You are amazing.”

Spencer inspected the food. “I didn’t think you were going to wait on me.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I just brought you food.”

He shoveled a fork into his mouth. “Delish. You’re a woman after my own heart.”

“No, I’m not. I’m at least twenty years too young for that.”

“Meow,” he said with his mouth full.

“No. No, meow. There’s no meowing. I’m not meowing. I’m stating a fact.”

“Sounded like meowing.”

“You’re not going to put this on me, Mrs. Robinson. You’re the one in hiding.”

“Mrs. Robinson was the old one,” he said with a smirk. “I’m the young one. The Dustin Hoffman character.” He squirmed, his smirk gone. “Why are you looking at me like that, Pinkie? You’re making me nervous.”

Grandma walked into my room, behind me. “Dolly,” she said, “this arrived for you. It’s short notice, but you can’t get out of it.”

She handed me a fancy linen envelope. “You can’t get out of it. I made the match, and she wants to thank me by making you one of her bridesmaids.”

“Bridesmaid?” I asked.

“You can’t get out of it,” she repeated. She turned her attention to Spencer. “Don’t incite Gladie. She’s easily excitable.”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” he said, his smirk back.

“I’ve got business,” Grandma said to me. “I’ll see you when you get back. Take a pen.”

Grandma left, and Spencer got out of bed. He pulled off his sweatshirt, and my eyes bugged out, traveling from his wide, muscular chest down to his chiseled abs and the line of dark hair that started at his belly button and went down to below his sweatpants, which now hung loosely at a precariously low level on his hips.

“I’m going to hop in the shower,” he said, turning and giving me an eyeful of the top of his firm butt. I was pretty sure my heart stopped, and I really hated Spencer for that. “See ya later,” he said, and went into my bathroom.

I got my purse and searched for a pen next to my bed.
“The bed is filled with crumbs!” I shouted. “Were you rolling around in the chips or something?” I heard the shower start. I dusted off the sheets, but I couldn’t make any headway and gave up. That’s when I noticed Spencer liked to shower with the door open. “The door! The door!” I yelled, and slammed it shut. I rubbed my eyes. Nope, I couldn’t get the vision out. Now I wouldn’t be able to focus all day. Maybe not for the next year.

“Hey, Miss Burger, is this a bad time?”

I screamed and jumped back. Sergeant Brody was at my threshold in full police regalia.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, out of breath.

“We need you to come with us, Miss Burger. We need you to walk us through the scene of the crime.”

The pain in my tooth suddenly came roaring back.

SERGEANT BRODY put me in the back of the police car and turned it in the direction of Bliss Dental. “Easy listening or top forty?” he asked me, turning on the radio.

“Don’t you have to listen to the police radio?” I asked.

“I need a break,” he said. “It’s been crazy in town since the wackos showed up.”

“The townspeople seem to be up in arms,” I said.

“I don’t know what they want from us. It’s not like we can do anything about it. The cult members have all the right permits.”

“So you turned off the police radio?”

“The town’s gone berserk,” he explained. “The police radio doesn’t make sense anymore.”

To illustrate, he turned it on. Screams blared from the speakers. “Nutcases in the trees by the lake!” one man yelled. “Sex! Sex Sex!” yelled another until he was interrupted by “For the love of God, use a porta-potty, you freaks!” Then, several shouts of “Aliens in Sector Three!” And finally came one desperate cry from a man, obviously in tears, “The horror! The horror!”

“Okay, easy listening,” I said.

Sergeant Brody flipped a switch, and Neil Diamond replaced the mayhem. “I can’t wait until the aliens show themselves so these wackjobs will leave,” Brody said.

“Are the aliens going to fly out of the mountain to take the end-of-worlders to other worlds anytime soon?” It was a question I never thought I would ask.

“The sooner the better,” he said. “I don’t care if a killer virus takes all of us unworthies, or if we are lasered to ashes by Martians, like the culters say, depending which group you talk to.”

“It makes eating organic redundant,” I said.

“I’m glad I won the coin toss. I’d much prefer to handle the No-Face Case instead of the cult.”

“Do you have any leads on the No-Face Case?” I asked. Another question I never thought I would ask.

“A couple guys in the station think coyotes did it. I’d say that’s a long shot.”

“Uh,” I said. I couldn’t believe Spencer took that moment to go AWOL. It looked like poor Dr. Dulur’s murder would never get solved.

“The walk-through shouldn’t take too long,” he said. “Just point out all the highlights, and I’ll take notes.”

The throbbing in my tooth came back with a vengeance. My hand flew to my face, and I scrunched my eyes against the pain. It was agony. That’s how I knew we had arrived.

The exterior of the Bliss Dental building showed no evidence that a grisly murder had happened inside only a few hours before. It looked like business as usual with three cars in the parking lot. I recognized Belinda’s Toyota. It comforted me for whatever reason.

Belinda, along with the other Bliss Dental employees—Nathan and Holly—sat in the waiting room. Holly flipped through a
Cosmo
while Belinda inspected flowerpots and Nathan stared out into space.