Homicide in High Heels (12 page)

Beside her stood two unfortunately familiar
figures in cheap, public-servant salary suits that stuck out like
polyester thumbs.

"Oh, great," I groaned.

"What?" Dana asked.

I gestured to Laurel and Hardy. "The
gruesome twosome beat us here." I quickly explained who they were
as a PA settled the pair of detectives onto two giant X's made with
electrical tape on the floor.

"Can we get makeup over here?" one asked,
eyeing Laurel's shiny forehead. The woman powdering Liz immediately
abandoned her subject and descended on Laurel.

"Am I okay here?" Hardy asked a guy sitting
behind a bank of monitors. "You can see me okay, right? I mean,
maybe I need to cheat toward the light more?"

"Is this guy for real?" Dana mumbled to
me.

"Unfortunately."

"And we're rolling in ten," the guy behind
the monitors said.

Hair and makeup abandoned the people on set,
and a pair of cameraman replaced them, one moving in close on Liz,
the other taking an opposite stance in front of the pair of LAPD
homicide detectives turned reality TV subjects.

"Marker. Speed. And…action," someone
shouted.

The director pointed at Hardy.

Hardy blinked at the camera. "Oh, me? Are
we…are we ready? I wasn't sure when I should start."

I thought I saw the guy behind the monitors
roll his eyes

Hardy cleared his throat and danced a bit
from foot to foot, trying to "get in character."

"So, Elizabeth DeCicco, is it?" Hardy asked,
intonating like he was in a school play.

"Yes, Detective," Liz said without missing a
beat.

"We need to ask you some questions about
your whereabouts on the day Lacey Desta was killed." Hardy pulled
out a small, spiral notebook. I'd bet my favorite Via Spigas it was
a blank prop.

He elbowed Laurel. "Your line," he
whispered.

"Right!" Laurel cleared her throat loudly,
her forehead starting to shine again despite the copious powdering.
"Uh, where. Were you. On the day. Of the murder." Her words came
out in a painful staccato like a stage-frightened kid at her first
grade spelling bee.

But again, Liz answered like a pro, almost
sounding like she was genuinely surprised at the questions. "Well,
I started the morning here at my boutique." She waved her arms
around her.

"And what time would that be?" Hardy jumped
in.

"It was early. I was preparing for the
semiannual clearance sale we have scheduled for Labor Day. All of
our jewelry and apparel is buy-one, get-one-half-off. We expect a
very large crowd, so if you're in the market for a new look,
Detective McMartin, I would suggest you come in early." Liz sent a
wink in Laurel's direction.

The mousey detective's cheeks pinked.

"The time we're most interested in is
between ten AM and eleven-thirty, Mrs. DeCicco," Hardy said, still
booming in a theater voice.

"I was filming. We all were. My fellow
Baseball Wives and I were doing a promotional piece for the
Network. I only have the entire cast and crew of the show to alibi
me out." She did another knowing wink at Laurel. "If you were
implying I needed one, Detective."

"Just routine questions, Ma'am," Hardy
assured her, sounding laughingly like a Dragnet character.

I looked around the set. People were milling
in every dark nook and cranny of the sound stage. PA's, makeup
artists, hairstylists, directors, catering, and, of course, the
wives themselves. How anyone could tell where everyone was at any
particular moment was beyond me. Fernando's salon was only fifteen
minutes from the studios, give or take for traffic. I wondered how
hard it would be for someone to slip away unnoticed for a half
hour?

But Hardy seemed perfectly satisfied with
Liz's response. "I'm sure your alibi—needless as it may be—is
sound," he assured her.

"Can you think. Of anyone who would. Want
Lacey dead?" Laurel asked in her unnatural staccato again

Liz's eyes went big and round. "Why I can't
imagine. Lacey was such a sweet—"

"Cut," yelled the director behind the
monitors. "You're blocking Liz's light!" He pointed at Hardy

Hardy glanced around at the lighting techs.
"Oh, sorry. I just thought you'd want to have my good side to the
camera. Should I be standing more over here?" He shuffled a couple
of steps to his left. "Maybe I need one of those spotlight things
of my own."

"Take it again from Laurel's last line," the
director said, ignoring the prima donna detective.

Laurel licked her lips and nodded, looking
like a deer in the spotlights.

"And…action!" the director said, pointing at
Laurel.

She blinked and took a deep breath. "Can you
think of anyone who would want Lacey dead?" she asked again

Again Liz did the big, innocent eyes. "Why I
can't imagine. Lacey was such a sweet girl. I can't imagine anyone
wanting to harm her."

"Thank you very much for your time," Hardy
said shutting his notebook.

"And…cut," yelled the director.

If I rolled my eyes any farther I'd be
staring at my roots. This was Laurel and Hardy's idea of
questioning a suspect? Ramirez was right. There was zero chance of
these two figuring out what really happened to Lacey.

Dana and I hung back while the cameraman and
lighting crew dispersed. Liz called again for hair and makeup, and
I spied Kendra and Beth come onto set, presumably to take their
turn under the rain of Laurel and Hardy's hard-hitting
questions.

I nudged Dana. "Let's talk to Kendra before
the dorknamic duo gets to her."

Dana nodded, leading the way to where to the
craft services table was set up. Kendra grabbed a bottle of water,
and Beth looked longingly at the plate of glazed donuts.

"Dana?" Kendra said, a note of surprise in
her voice as she looked up and saw us approaching. "And Maddie. You
found your sweater, I trust?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks, Kendra," I said, ducking
my head to avoid the words "liar, liar, pants on fire" being
written across my guilty features.

"I'm shooting
Lady Justice
in a bit,
so we thought we'd stop by and see how you're holding up," Dana
answered coolly, clearly much better at improv than I was. "I see
the police are here." She gestured to where Laurel was being
re-powdered.

Kendra snorted. "Trust me, they are no match
for our producers." She grinned, a wicked thing that confirmed my
suspicions—no one was asking the wives any questions they didn't
want to answer.

"Have the detectives questioned you yet?" I
asked the two. And, yes, I died a little inside using the term
"detectives" when it applied to Laurel and Hardy.

"No, they're shooting my interrogation
tomorrow afternoon," Beth told me.

"I'm up next," Kendra said, adjusting the
top of her blue silk blouse that perfectly matched the color of her
eyes. She'd matched it with a simple gray pencil skirt and a pair
of white pumps that looked like they'd never seen the grime of a
real L.A. sidewalk.

"The police seem to be asking some deep
questions," I lied. "They just asked Liz if she knew who would want
Lacey dead."

Kendra snorted. "I can't imagine it's a
short list."

"Did she talk about her life outside of
baseball? Mention anyone who stands out to you?" What I really
wanted to ask was did the
wives
talk about
their
lives, but that felt like a subject I had to tiptoe into
lightly.

Kendra just shrugged. "It's not like she was
my bestie, you know."

"Sure, but you must have spent a fair amount
of time together at baseball events," Dana pressed.

Kendra nodded. "I suppose."

Then Beth cut in, "God, she was always
around. It was almost like she was stalking us. Doing everything
she could to become one of us, you know?"

Kendra shot her a look. "We all attended
functions together," she enunciated quite clearly.

Beth looked down, a guilty look spreading
across her face.

I jumped on it. "That must have been so
annoying," I sympathized. "I mean, having an outsider always
tagging along with you, trying to join you, listening in on your
private conversations…"

"Just what are you implying?" Kendra asked,
her eyes narrowing.

"Nothing. Just that everyone has things they
don't want a stranger to overhear. Things they don't want the press
to get hold of, right?"

"Well, that's why we have the producers. To
screen what the press hears," Beth said.

If Kendra could have smacked her across the
face with a look she would have. "
My
life is an open book,"
she said pointedly. "That's why I agreed to do this reality
show."

"Oh, so is mine," Beth amended quickly. "I
mean it's not like I have secrets or anything."

Riiiight. I was beginning to like the theory
that Lacey had gained some blackmail fodder from the wives more and
more. Clearly these two were hiding something.

"Well, I guess now that Lacey's out of the
picture, you won't have to worry about your tagalong anymore," Dana
said, a wide, innocent smile on her face that said it was all fine
and dandy to talk ill of the dead among
girlfriends.

But as good of an actress as Dana was,
Kendra wasn't buying it. Her eyes narrowed again, turning into
fine, mascara rimed slits. "Look, I don't know who killed Lacey or
why, but I assure you it had nothing to do with us."

"Kendra!" a guy with a headset hailed her
from the center of the action in the fake boutique. "They're ready
for you on the set."

Laurel was freshly powdered, and Hardy was
standing on his X adjusting his microphone.

"I'll be right there," Kendra said. Then she
turned to Dana and me. "I don't know what your fascination with
Lacey is. She was a nobody in life, and she's a nobody in death.
Give it five minutes, and this whole thing will blow over. So I
suggest dropping it, okay?"

Why did I have a feeling I was not going to
get on her guest list to the stadium again?

I watched as she stomped to the set on her
spiky heels. Lacey might've been a nobody in Kendra's book, but she
certainly wasn't going to hurt the
Baseball Wives
ratings
any. I suddenly felt very sorry for Lacey. I'm sure she hadn't
envisioned getting her part on the show this way. All she'd wanted
to do was be in the wives club.

Then again, I was pretty sure she'd been
blackmailing her way in.

"You'll have to excuse Kendra," Beth said
coming up behind us. "This has all been very difficult on her."

I raised an eyebrow. "Difficult on
her
?"

"Oh, yes," Beth said nodding. "I probably
shouldn't say anything, but…"

I leaned in. Those words always preceded
something juicy.

"…but I guess Lacey's death has actually
been something of a relief to Kendra."

"Really?" I asked. While there was clearly
no love lost between the two, "relief" implied something a little
more sinister.

"Well, you know Bucky is her husband's
catcher, so you can imagine…" she trailed off.

Unfortunately, knowing about as much about
baseball as Ramirez knew about the spring Prada collection, I
couldn't imagine.

"Sorry, I'm not super baseball savvy," Dana
piped up beside me. "How does her husband being a pitcher make this
difficult?"

"Oh, sorry," Beth stammered. "I forget not
everybody's life revolves around the diamond." She sent us a shy
smile through her curls. "What I meant to say was when Bucky's game
is off, so is Blanco's. Bucky's his catcher, so it's up to him to
call the right pitches at the right time to Blanco."

"I see," I said, nodding alongside Dana.

"Kendra's just been beside herself all
season. Ever since Lacey came into the picture, Bucky's been, well,
distracted while he's behind the plate. It's like his mind just
isn't on his work, you know?"

"And this has been affecting Blanco's game?"
I asked.

Beth nodded vigorously, her curls bouncing
up and down on her head. "Unfortunately, yes it has. His season
started out with a bang, but then his game started being
hit-and-miss. I honestly think Kendra's dreaming if she thinks he's
still in the running for MVP. And now that Bucky's mourning
Lacey…well the whole situation has everyone turning into a bundle
of nerves, wondering how the distraction is going to affect the
team. Especially Kendra. Her husband is up for a new contract this
year, you know?"

I quirked an eyebrow her away. "No I didn't
know that." I wondered just how badly Kendra had wanted Bucky's
distraction out of the picture. I glanced back at Kendra in the
middle of her interview with Laurel and Hardy, suddenly seeing a
motive standing in those gleaming white pumps.

"When is their next game?" Dana asked.

"Tomorrow," Beth said. "The team management
is hoping they clear everyone by then." She cocked her head at
Laurel and Hardy. "It's not good for anyone to play under a cloud
of suspicion, you know?"

All the more reason for Laurel and Hardy to
wrap it up quickly. A situation that did not bode well for justice
for Lacey…but greatly favored her killer.

"So it looks like Kendra had a big fat
motive for wanting Lacey dead," Dana said, as we made our way back
to our golf cart.

I nodded. "Agreed. What I want to know is if
she has a big fat alibi."

"You think she did it?" Dana asked.

I pursed my lips together. "I'm not sure.
There's still the issue of the blackmail. Did Lacey have anything
on Kendra?"

Dana shrugged. "Maybe. But just because
Lacey was blackmailing someone doesn't necessarily mean that person
was the one who killed her."

"Good point." No matter where I turned it
seemed Lacey had made more fast enemies than good friends. Which
meant that there were just as many motives floating around as there
were shaky alibis.