Danger in High Heels (9 page)

I nodded vigorously.

"What day did he come in?" Cartoon asked, consulting his own clipboard.

Buzz Cut scowled at him, clearly wishing his colleague took security more seriously.

"We're not exactly sure. Last week," I said.

"But it would have been after Wednesday," Dana added, noting the last air date of DWC.

Cartoon's eyebrows furrowed, a frown settling between them in an exaggerated motion as he stared down at his board, scanning entries. "Let's see… Thursday… I'm not seeing any unfamiliar names…"

I mentally crossed my fingers as he flipped to the next page.

"Friday… nothing that stands out…"

"It's possible," I said, having a light bulb moment, "that he might have come in with Irina Sokolov."

Cartoon flipped back a page again. "Okay, yes. I have Irina and passenger on Friday afternoon."

"Just passenger?" I asked, feeling my heart sink.

Cartoon shrugged. "Sorry."

Buzz Cut grunted, his lips turning up into a small I-told-you-so smile.

"You didn't happen to see the passenger, did you?" Dana asked, leaning over my lap again.

"Sorry. That would have been my lunch break. Bill, here, was the only one on duty then." Cartoon gestured to his military friend.

We all turned to Buzz Cut.

His mouth turned down into that straight line again.

"Please?" I pleaded. "Surely it's not against any rules to describe what a visitor to the UBN studios just looks like?"

He paused a moment as if mentally reviewing the handbook.

We all held our breath in silence, waiting for his reply.

"Fine," he finally said. "Though I don't remember much about the guy."

"Anything you can remember is helpful," I assured him, leaning forward in my seat, too.

"Dark hair, pale complexion, average features."

He was right. That wasn't much help.

"Anything distinct about him at all?"
Dana grasped. "A scar? A tattoo?"

The guy gave her a look. "What do you think this is, a Scorsese movie?"

She bit her lip.

"Look, he just looked like a normal guy," Buzz Cut told us.

"What was he wearing?" I grasped.

He took a deep breath, as if reaching into the recesses of his memory. "I didn't notice his clothes. But he was wearing a big diamond stud in his right ear. I noticed because my wife is always going on about how she wants a few more carats in her ring," he explained.

Well, it wasn't much to go on, but at least it was something.

As we'd worked on Sergeant Buzz Cut a line had begun to form behind us, so we thanked him for his time and did a U-turn, pulling back out of the studios on Cartoon's side and exiting to the tune of his, "Have a wonderful day!"

"So, now what?" Dana asked as we pulled away from the lot.

I shrugged. I'll admit, a dark-haired guy wearing an oversized earring wasn't a whole lot to go on.

"Maybe we should go to talk to Lana," I decided, "my friend in wardrobe." What with the murder, I never had gotten a chance to ask her about the alleged thefts on the set. I had no idea if one thing had anything to do with the other, but it was a bit of a coincidence both of them happening at the same time.

Dana nodded in the seat next to me. "Fine. But then let's get some lunch. I'm starving. I want pizza."

I glanced over at her. "Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.

She gave me a blank look. "What? A girl can't have a pizza craving every now and then?"

In the almost twenty years I had known Dana, I had never seen her have a pizza craving.

*  *  *

With the
Dancing with Celebrities
set still shut down, I took a chance that we might be able to find Lana at her boutique on Melrose. After circling a parking garage off Fairfax a dizzying number of times, we finally found a spot on the third level.

One elevator ride and three blocks of kitschy boutiques later, we spotted The Sunshine State, a bohemian shop whose windows were filled with imported saris, African inspired maxi skirts, and cute little white bodices with Eastern European flair.

As we approached, I watched the doors open and a woman emerge, tossing her platinum blonde Barbie hair over one shoulder as she tugged the hem of her mini skirt down over a pair of perfectly tanned thighs.

I felt my eyes narrow in recognition.

Allie Quick.

She must have felt my stare, as her gaze turned my way. It took her a moment for recognition to set in, but when it did, her eyes went round, her cherry red lips doing a mirror image in a perfect little "O".

"Ohmigod, Maddie! Is that yoooooou?" she asked, practically squealing the last part in dog whistle levels.

"Hi, Allie," I answered, as she attacked me with air kisses.

"Wow, it's been like forever, right?" she asked, her bimbo accent tinting her voice.

Here was the thing about Allie: she wasn't a bad kid. But she was a kid. She was like an exaggerated, twenty-five year old version of me - only cutesier, bubblier, and blonder. Words like "whatevs", "deets" and "totes" flowed freely from her lips, her nails were long and embellished with rhinestones, and ninety-percent of her wardrobe was some shade of pink. Her skirts were short, her necklines low, and her boobs a very healthy D cup. She looked like the ultimate dumb blonde, an act she played to the fullest to work male informants all over L.A. She'd graduated top of her class from UCLA journalism school, a position that I had thought would land her a gig on the
Times
staff. Instead, for some reason she'd decided to write for the
L.A. Informer
. I had a feeling it had less to do with a love of gossip and more to do with her feelings toward the managing editor, Felix. A fact I wasn't quiet sure how I felt about. There was a time when I would have thought Felix had feelings for me. Not that we'd ever indulged in those feelings (much), but I never quite got what Felix saw in her. (Beyond the D cups, that is.)

While Allie and I had crossed paths a handful of times, the years and managing editors between us had kept the term "friends" at a distance. It was more like we had a healthy tolerance for each other.

"How are you, Allie?" I asked.

"I'm totally great. Got this new story I'm working on. Very good stuff," she added, nodding and grinning in a knowing way.

"Hmm..." I mused. "That wouldn't happen to be the one where a dancer was killed on the set of
Dancing with Celebrities
, would it?"

Allie blinked, playing innocent. "Whatever would give you that idea?"

"You called my boyfriend 'Dancing Death,'" Dana said.

Allie beamed. "Cool alliteration, right?"

Dana narrowed her eyes.

"Speaking of Ricky," Allie said, completely ignoring the steam about to burst from Dana's ears. "How is he taking all of this? I assume he's maintaining his innocence? Rumor has it he's holed up in his Malibu estate. That true?"

I shook my head at her. "Uh-uh. No way. You're not getting a story out of us."

She shrugged. "Can't blame a girl for trying, right?"

That was debatable.

"What were you doing in Lana's store?" I asked, gesturing to the boutique behind her.

"Oh, you know. Just following up on a story."

"About the thefts on the DWC set?" I asked.

Allie paused. "Wow, you seem to know all about my stories already."

"Felix told me you were on it."

"He did, did he?" she asked, her face a blank.

"Coincidence that the thefts occurred just before Irina died?" I asked, feeling out what she might know.

But her freshly spray-tanned face remained a blank. "You know, it's been great seeing you again," she said, sidestepping the question as she looked down at her cell phone. "But I've gotta run. Felix is taking me to this new restaurant, Tapas Mexicana, tonight, so I can fill him in on all my
gory
details." She emphasized the word for my benefit. "So I'm off to get a fresh pedi. Wouldn't do to arrive looking shlumpy, would it? See you ladies later!" she called, holding her phone up as she practically skipped past us toward the parking garage we'd just come from.

"You don't think that shlumpy comment was directed at me, was it?" Dana asked, looking down at her sweats.

I was such a good friend that I didn't answer that question. "Come on, let's go see Lana," I said, instead, pushing through the boutique's front doors.

A girl with pink hair in tall spikes and three earrings in her nose stood behind the counter, folding colorful silk scarves. A blue one caught my eye, and I wondered if it would be wrong to do just a little shopping while we were there.

"Welcome to The Sunshine State," she said. "Anything in particular I can help you find today?"

"Actually, we were wondering if Lana was in?" I asked. "I'm a friend of hers from college," I explained.

The girl nodded, her hair, I noticed, not moving an inch. Impressive. "Sure. She's in the back. Let me just go see if she's free."

I thanked her and watched her disappear through a storeroom door, then snuck a glance at the price tag on the blue scarf. It was in the 'painful' range, though not totally into Top-Ramen-for-a-month territory. I momentarily weighed the necessity of two college funds. I mean, wasn't one doctor in the family enough?

"Maddie, is that you?"

I turned and saw Lana standing in the storeroom doorway. She was wearing a long, flowing maxi-skirt, a skin-tight T-shirt, and a red version of the scarf I'd seen her assistant folding. To cap it off, she wore a pair of white clogs on her feet that were big, clunky, and looked to be carved from actual wood. Honestly? Not shoes I would ever be caught dead in, but somehow on Lana's tall, lean frame the eclectic outfit worked. While her cheeks had lost their twenty-something baby fat, her hair was the same mass of shiny black curls I remembered from college, and her green eyes sparkled with genuine pleasure as she came in for a big hug.

"Ohmigod, Maddie, it's been too long," she said, enveloping me in an embrace that smelled like peaches.

"Agreed," I said, returning the hug. "You look great."

Lana grinned. "Thanks. This whole outfit is from a new collection I'm designing. Even the shoes," she said, modeling the clogs.

"They are certainly one-of-a-kind," I said truthfully.

Lana ushered us into her private office in the back of the store, offering us seats on a comfortable velvet sofa and cups of herbal tea. After we caught each other up with the cliff-notes versions of what we'd been doing since college, I got down to the point of our visit.

"We wanted to ask you about the
Dancing with Celebrities
set," I said.

Lana nodded solemnly. "What a tragedy, right? Poor Irina."

"I don't suppose you noticed anything odd going on that day?" Dana asked. "Anyone on the set that didn't belong there or anything different in Irina's demeanor?"

"No." Lana looked at Dana, squinting her eyes for a moment. "You're Ricky's girlfriend, right?" she asked.

Dana bit her lower lip but nodded.

"I thought so. I knew I recognized you." She paused suddenly looking uncertain what to say next. Hallmark didn't exactly make a sympathy card for those whose boyfriends cheated on them then killed the other woman to cover up the crime. "I'm so sorry. This all must be very difficult for you," she finally settled on.

Dana cleared her throat, looking about as uncomfortable as Lana. "Thanks" she said.

"You were on set the day she..." Lana trailed off.

"We were actually there to see you," I told her.

"Me?" Lana's eyebrows rose. "Why?"

"We heard you'd had some wardrobe items stolen."

"Right. The thefts." Lana's back stiffened, and I could see a distinct shift in her mood.

"Can you tell us about them?"

Lana cleared her throat. "Well, it seems minor now in the face of..." She trailed off gesturing Dana's way. "You know. But, what did you want to know?"

"When was the first one?" I asked.

Lana looked off into space for a moment, searching the archives of her brain. "Last week. It was the shoes Irina had worn the week before in the tango number. Purple, strappy, rhinestones on the sides."

"So it was Irina's costume that went missing?" I jumped on the link.

Lana paused. "Well, hers was the first. But the missing items weren't limited to her things."

Drat. There went my connection.

"Anyway, the shoes weren't a big deal, since she'd already performed in that costume, and you know no costume gets used twice. But it was kind of annoying, you know? Like, I knew I had put them with the rest of the pieces, but suddenly they were gone."

"You said this was the first. What happened next?" Dana asked.

"Well, a few days later, after Kaylie did her waltz number, her headpiece was gone."