Undercover in High Heels (17 page)

“Are you all right?” one of the reporters shouted to her, shoving a Channel Two microphone in her face.

Mia sighed loudly, her eyes downcast. “Physically, I am unharmed. Though, emotionally, the day has taken its toll on me.”

“Where did you find the latest note?” a representative from Cable Twelve asked.

“This morning I arrived on the set to find this note in my trailer, pinned to my pillow, ” Mia said, holding up a piece of plain white stationary.

“What does it say?” shouted Channel Two again.

Mia’s bottom lip quivered momentarily. Then she cleared her throat, lifted her head, and began to read from the paper. “ ‘Veronika and Dusty were only the beginning.’ ” Her voice faltered, fear clearly evident on her pinched features as she continued. “ ‘You’ve eluded me thus far, but no more. I will have you, Mia Carletto. Make no mistake about it, ’ ” she said, looking directly into the camera. “ ‘You’re next.’ ”

A frenzy of flashbulbs went off, the reporters prac
tically peeing their pants over this kind of news. I could see Ramirez’s posture tense in the background as the clamoring mob of newshounds surged forward. Mia’s publicist put an arm around her, ushering her back into the trailer as questions flew through the air one after another, ranging from “Are you hiring a bodyguard?” to “Who does your hair?”

“Mia knows how to work a crowd, doesn’t she?” Deveroux asked, dabbing at the corner of his eye with a tissue.

I had to agree, the moment had been played for maximum effect. On the other hand, death threats did tend to be dramatic all on their own.

“I think she’s had work done, ” Jasmine said, picking at a long, red fingernail. “Did you see her eyes? Wider than the aisles at Barneys.”

I refrained from pointing out that Jasmine’s own eyes weren’t exactly a product of nature. Instead, I thanked Deveroux for his time (carefully making my feet as inconspicuous as possible), and left, taking the rose-lined pathway back to Jasmine’s Miata.

“Well, so much for Veronika’s mystery man, ” Jasmine said, shifting the sports car into gear. “So, do we track down Kylie next, or what?”

I turned to her. “We?”

“What?” She gave me an innocent look and shrugged. “This
Charlie’s Angels
thing is kind of fun.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She did, after all, have the car.

“Okay, fine. Let’s go question Kylie.”

Luckily, I had it on good authority (
Star
magazine) that Kylie spent every Monday morning at the Kitson Boutique on the trendy Robertson Boulevard. Twenty
minutes later, Jasmine was circling the block to find parking and I was scanning the racks for Kylie’s perky blonde head. I spotted her holding a vintage style T-shirt up to her ample chest in the mirror.

“Hi, Kylie! Wow, what a coincidence. You shop here too?” I grabbed a studded belt, trying to look like a casual shopper as she spun around.

It took a second for recognition to dawn in her eyes. “Oh, yeah. You’re the new wardrobe girl, right?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. Maddie.”

“Riiiight. Sorry, I totally forgot your name. When I’m on the set, I tune stuff like that out. I have to be in a total concentration zone. You know they expect me to have all my lines
memorized
? Like, every week.” She turned back to her reflection. “What do you think of this shirt?”

“Very cute.”

She wrinkled her ski-jump nose. “You think? I don’t know; is it too young?”

Considering Kylie still looked like she should be shopping in the kids’ section, I decided that question was rhetorical. Instead, I got right to the point.

“I guess you heard about Dusty this morning?”

Kylie dropped the shirt and spun around. “Ohmigod, like, too totally sad, you know? I can’t even believe someone could do that. Way random.”

I hesitated to tell her just how un-random this was shaping up to be.

“I heard that you and Veronika were close. All of this must be so hard on you.”

Again Kylie did the nose-scrunching thing. “Um, sorta, I guess. We did lattes a couple of times. But she was kinda weird, you know?”

I cocked my head to the side, fingering a fur-trimmed jacket. “Weird how?”

“Well, she just kept talking about this guy she was dating and how they were gonna get married and move to Oregon. Oregon, of all places! I mean, I so did not get that fascination. There’s, like, not even any cool malls there. And it’s, like, totally rainy ’n’ stuff. Way FUBAR, if you ask me.”

I watched as she picked up another T-shirt: LITTLE MISS GIGGLES.

“So, um, was that all you and Veronika talked about?”

Kylie gave me a sidelong glance in the mirror. “I guess. Why?”

I picked up the belt again, trying to feign casual. “No reason. Just wondering if she might have confided something in you. Something that might help find who killed her.”

Something sparked in the back of Kylie’s eyes, and for a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of intelligence cross her face beyond her Tina Rey character. “Don’t the police think Mia was the real target?”

“No one’s really sure yet, ” I said, watching her carefully.

Kylie shrugged. “Well, Veronika didn’t say anything to me about someone after her, if that’s what you mean. Like I said, we just did lattes a couple of times. She wasn’t like my BFF or anything.” She turned back to her reflection. “Hey, what do you think about this top. Kitschy fun or just passé?”

I handed her a pink tee with a polka-dotted Chihuahua on the front. “Try this.”

She grabbed it and held it up to her chest. “Too cute!”

“Any idea why Veronika might have been in Mia’s trailer that night?” I asked, switching gears.

Kylie shrugged. “I dunno. That wrinkle-faced police guy asked me that, too. All I can think is that maybe she was borrowing a script or something. I know Veronika was always losing her copy. She tried to borrow mine a couple weeks ago, but I, like, totally needed it. I had, like, two whole pages to memorize!”

“Ouch.”

“No doubt. Hey, wanna hand me that belt? I’m gonna go try some of these on, ” Kylie said, grabbing her pile of T-shirts.

I did. Then I hung around the dressing rooms awhile, but I figured I’d gotten all I was going to out of Miss Perky.

Jasmine was just pulling into a spot out front as I exited the boutique. I slipped into the passenger seat of the Miata. “Perfect timing.”

“Are you done already?” Jasmine’s face fell (well, as far as a face-lift and chin implant would let it fall).

I nodded. “Either Kylie’s too stupid or too smart to say anything useful.”

“Damn.” Jasmine pouted. “Okay, well, where to next, Kate?”

I gave her a look. “Kate?”

Jasmine rolled her eyes at me. “Well, duh, if we’re doing the Angels thing, I’m clearly Farrah, so you have to be either Jaclyn Smith or Kate Jackson. And, honey, you’re no Jaclyn.”

I gave her a dirty look but considering she had the car, didn’t argue.

Only, the truth was, I wasn’t really sure where to go next. The fact that Veronika may have been blackmailing someone on the set threw a whole new light
on things. The only problem was that secrets ran through
Magnolia Lane
faster than a Malibu wildfire. Her victim-turned-killer could be any one of the cast. I wasn’t even entirely ready to cross Kylie off my list. Sure, she seemed innocent enough, but I wasn’t completely convinced that the perky-ditz thing she had going on wasn’t an act. I mean, who could really be
that
blonde?

And what about Dusty? What was her connection to all of this? I had a hard time picturing her and Veronika in cahoots. Dusty loved her job too much to jeopardize it that way. The girl had lived for fashion.

And then there were the letters. After this last one, it seemed clear they were somehow linked to the murders. But I couldn’t for the life of me think how. Either this was the most bumbling killer ever, to have gotten the wrong target twice, or there was more going on here than I could figure. It was harder to follow than last season’s love triangle between Tina Rey, the electrician, and that hooker they killed off in the supermarket after her secret love child with the neighbor burned down Tina Rey’s house and hit her dog with a diaper-delivery truck.

“Let’s go visit Margo, ” I finally decided, remembering the orange scarf.

“Good plan.” Jasmine nodded. “I bet she’s in this up to her eyeballs.”

The only problem was that I had no idea where to look for her. “I don’t exactly have her address, ” I confessed.

“No prob, ” Jasmine replied. “Easy enough to get that.”

I raised an eyebrow at her (and, since my beauty reg
imen included L’Oreal night cream in lieu of botulism injections, my eyebrow actually went up). “You can?”

“Um, duh? Just pick up any map of the stars’ homes. Margo’s compound is always on there.”

“Compound?” Since when did TV supporting actresses make the kind of cash to live in
compounds
?

Jasmine gave me a sidelong look. “Um, yeah. Margo Walton? She’s freaking swimming in dough, that girl. She used to be a B-movie actress back in the eighties. She did, like, fifty of those high-school-sluts-being-chased-by-ax-murderers flicks. She’s still huge in Japan.”

Considering Mom would have freaked if she caught my preteen self watching those kinds of movies, I had to admit I’d never seen Margo outside of her Nurse Nan scrubs. I looked at Jasmine, wondering exactly how old she was. “You’ve seen her films?”

Jasmine nodded emphatically, doing a U-turn and heading back toward the 2. “Love ’em. I used to get this guy logging into the Web site from Japan, BigWu22. Dude was totally into that stuff. Wanted me to put on the leg warmers and tease my hair and everything. I totally channeled early Margo.”

I looked up at the giant dyed-red mass of hair moussed within an inch of its life atop Jasmine’s head, wondering how on earth she could tease it any higher. Or balance on her chicken legs if she did.

Fifteen minutes later we were on Hollywood Boulevard, cruising past the Mann Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame. “This guy looks good, ” Jasmine said, pulling the Miata up to a curb where an Indian guy in a lawn chair sat next to Groucho Marx’s star, holding up a sign that read, S
TAR
M
APS
, $10. She jumped out
and, after exchanging a few words and a few dollars with the guy, hopped back in the car.

“Bingo, ” she said, unfolding a photocopied map. Since we were sitting in a Miata, the smallest car they made outside of the circus, the unfolded map filled the entire interior. I scanned the road lines for little red stars indicating the houses of Hollywood’s most famous residents. I resisted the urge to suggest a detour when I saw Orlando Bloom lived only a few blocks away.

“Right there!” Jasmine shouted, pointing a red nail at a spot in Bel Air. Two inches north of Sunset were the printed words M
ARGO
W
ALTON
.

I loathed admitting it, but Jasmine had done good.

She put the car in gear and shot out into traffic, weaving in and out of the lanes as she took Sunset west to the 405. Unfortunately, the traffic gods were not with us today and, as soon as we hit the freeway, we were stuck in a virtual parking lot.

“Shit, ” Jasmine swore, and flipped on the radio, cruising through stations until she found one promising a traffic report. Apparently a high-speed chase had gone through earlier and police were still cleaning up the tack strips and mangled cop cars that had resulted.

I slunk down in my seat, watching the smog layer hover over the city as we inched forward. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t filled it since that cup of coffee this morning.

“Got anything to eat in here?” I asked, opening the glove box. “A Snickers bar, candy, anything?”

Jasmine gave me a look like I’d suggested she was smuggling dead bodies in the trunk. “Candy? You think I got this body harboring candy bars in my glove box?”

“Oh puh-lease. We both know you got that body from Dr. 90210.”

Jasmine gasped. “I did not!”

I gave her a “get real” look.

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Okay, fine. I’ve had a
little
work done.”

I snorted, but refrained from comment as my stomach did another unholy moan. “Look, this traffic isn’t letting up. Let’s pull off somewhere and wait it out. Preferably somewhere with a drive-through. I’m starving.”

Jasmine shoved her purse at me. “I think there’s a couple of Tic Tacs in there.”

I opened her red leather clutch and rummaged through a collection of lipstick, compacts, and concealer that rivaled even mine, until my fingers wrapped around a case of green Tic Tacs. I ate one. Then another. I popped a handful of them in my mouth and crunched loudly.

“I’m still hungry.”

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll pull off at the next exit.” I swore she shot my midsection a look that said I could do with a
little
work, too, but I ignored her, downing another handful of Tic Tacs instead.

Ten minutes later we inched our way onto the off-ramp. One thing that can’t be beat about L.A. living: you’re never more than two blocks away from a Big Mac and fries. My stomach did one more groan (this one I’m pretty sure was of glee) as Jasmine parked next to the Dumpster behind the Golden Arches. I led the way inside and ordered a Quarter Pounder with cheese and large fries from the pimply kid behind the counter. Oh, and a strawberry shake. And an apple pie.

Jasmine looked down her sculpted nose at me and
ordered bottled water and a side salad—no dressing. Apparently she wasn’t scheduled for another lipo round for another six months.

We ate in silence, mostly because I was scarfing down my food with an appreciation that would have made Ronald McDonald proud. It took only ten minutes and we were back out in the parking lot, me rubbing my full belly with the kind of satisfaction that only an apple-pie chaser can provide. Personally, though, I still thought Jasmine looked a little hungry.

I was about to offer her the last Tic Tac when a loud pinging sound erupted from the Dumpster next to us.

I jumped, Jasmine and I both doing mirrored “what the…?” looks.