Homicide in High Heels (13 page)

"Well promise to keep me posted," Dana said
as we pulled up to Studio 6D, where she was filming that afternoon.
"
Justice
calls!" She hopped out of the cart with a little
wave.

"Will do!" I promised. Then I navigated the
golf cart back to the front of the studio parking lot where my
minivan awaited me.

I checked my cell. No calls or text from
Ramirez. I resisted the urge to call home to see how things were
going. Partly because I didn't want to hear that he had just put
the children down for a nap, cleaned the entire house, pressed and
folded the laundry, and baked a loaf of bread from scratch. Not
that a worry Ramirez made a better mom than I did was niggling at
the back of my head or anything.

Instead, I decided to indulge the niggling
in my stomach, reminding me that I'd skipped lunch. I navigated my
way through the noon traffic-clogged streets around the studios,
avoiding the trendy delis and hotspots. Instead I pulled up to one
of my favorite out-of-the-way burger joints, Chubby Burger,
ordering a double bacon cheeseburger with curly fries, onion rings,
and a thick chocolate milkshake. Hey, being an investigator burned
a lot of calories, right?

I was halfway through my meal when my cell
trilled to life in my purse. Wiping my fingers on a napkin to blot
out
most
of the grease, I picked it up and saw Marco's name
flash across the screen.

"Hello?" I said, swiping it on.

"Madds, darling, where are you?" Marco's
voice came over the speakerphone

"At lunch."

"Fabulous. Where?"

"Uh…" I looked around myself. "New place.
Trendy. I'm sure you've never heard of it. Anyway, what's up?" I
asked, glancing guiltily at my pile of calorie laden onion
rings.

"We're taking you shopping," Marcus said in
a voice that broached no argument.

Not that I wasn't going to try broaching a
little.

"I'm not sure I have time to go shopping
right now, Marco." Not to mention the fact that his supersized
party meant my bank account was sporting a mini-sized balance.

"Nonsense," Marco answered. "Dahling,
everyone
has time for
shopping
."

I couldn't help a small grin. "Okay, okay,
you're right. What is it I'm shopping for?"

"Birthday outfits of coooourse," Marco,
responded, drawing out the vowels with gusto that would make an
opera singer jealous. "Your little darlings will be the stars of
the show on their big day, and they need to look it!"

While I could've argued with him, I had to
say that I wasn't entirely opposed. Part of the fun of having
babies was dressing them up in little too-cute outfits. And a
birthday was a great excuse to do just that. I nodded agreement.
"All right, fine. Meet me at the Beverly Center?"

"Perfect! Be there in ten!"

I snuck a furtive glance at my half-eaten
cheeseburger still sitting on my plate. At least a bouncy jaunt
around the mall would burn down some of those calories. Besides,
some retail therapy was exactly what I needed to get my
investigative muse kick-started. So far I was having a hard time
connecting any dots between Lacey's death and the baseball crew. At
least any that contained enough evidence for that warrant.

The truth was, any one of the players or
wives could have snuck away to add poison to the tanning solution.
Fernando had said Lacey had a regular tanning date. It wouldn't
have been a hard thing for someone to have found out when. Which
left means and opportunity wide open.

And then there was motive. Clearly if Lacey
had been blackmailing someone, that was great motive to want her
gone. However, if Kendra was afraid her husband's game was
suffering because Lacey was around, that was a great reason, too.
For that matter, any of the Baseball Wives might have wanted Lacey
gone if she was signing on to the show and they thought she might
upstage them as the top players' girl.

Which led me back to Bucky himself. While I
was having a harder and harder time putting the grief-stricken
boyfriend in the role of killer, it wasn't outside the realm of
possibility he was faking. Let's face it, he wouldn't be the first
killer to fake grief. And Marco and Ling were right—most of the
time it was the boyfriend whodunit.

All of which left me with motive as wide
open as means and opportunity.

I tossed the rest of my burger and made sure
I didn't have any little bits of onion rings stuck in my teeth.
Then I pointed my car in the direction of the Beverly Center.

* * *

After circling the garage a mere fifteen
minutes I found a spot near Macy's and, via text messages, quickly
located and caught up to Marco at the Little Lovin' baby boutique
on the sixth floor, sandwiched between Godiva and The Body Shop.
Firmly telling myself that a chocolate dipped strawberry was
not
the perfect dessert to cap off my burger, I made my way
into Little Lovin', where I spied Marco pawing through a rack of
christening dresses.

Standing beside him was Ling, wearing a
sequined tube top, hotpants, and platform heels. She was holding up
a purple onesie with a fuzzy monster on it. I would've laughed at
the juxtaposition if I didn't have a sinking feeling that purple
fuzzy thing was going on one of my children.

Marco looked up and spied me first. "Maddie,
my love, you will not believe the fabulous things we've already
picked out for your children."

I glanced at the purple thing. "No."

Marco waved my dissention off. "But you have
to see it
on
, darling."

"See it on?" I asked, hoping Marco hadn't
kidnapped my children for this excursion.

"The models." Marco gestured to a row of
dolls on a shelf by the dressing room doors.

"You're kidding?"

Marco shook his head. "Isn't it clever?
Look, they have all different hair colors, eye colors, skin tones.
Now you can shop for baby without bringing baby!"

"It look okay on Caucasian Baby, but I think
it look way better on Hispanic Baby," Ling said, holding her purple
onesie up against a doll with dark hair and cafe-latte skin. "You
think maybe you wanna to spray tan your guys before the party?"

Marco got a look of glee in his eyes.
"Ohmigod, that would be so fabu—"

"No!" I said, empathically. "I am not spray
tanning
babies
!"

Marco's shoulders sagged. "Killjoy."

Ling sighed, putting the purple thing back
on a rack. "I guess dying the hair is out then, too."

"They hardly have any hair!"

"Okay, what do you think of this?" Marco
asked, holding up a teeny tiny white suit with Zebra striped lapels
and a pair of matching zebra booties.

"I think it probably belongs to a teeny tiny
pimp," I told him honestly.

Marco swatted my arm. "Maddie, animal print
is
so
in this season!"

"I like this one better," Ling interjected,
holding up a red, velvet suit that looked like it belonged on a
dwarf Santa Claus at his junior high school prom.

Before I could protest, Marco shook his
head. "Oh, honey, that will never work."

I did an internal sigh of relief.

"It totally clashes with the fuchsia taffeta
in Livvie's bloomers."

So much for relief.

"Okay, okay," I said, halting the madness.
"Marco, I will concede that you are the party planning expert
here."

"Thank you," he said, beaming from ear to
ear.

"However, who among us is the fashion
designer?"

Marco's smile faltered. "You."

"Correct. Which means I'm taking over
choosing the twins' outfits."

Marco opened his mouth to protest, but must
have seen the serious-as-a-heart-attack look on my face, as he
quickly shut it. "Fine," he conceded, sending a wistful look toward
the teeny tiny pimp outfit. "But just promise me one thing."

"What?" I hedged.

"Make sure they coordinate with the
peacock's feathers. We can't have our guests of honor clashing with
our exotic petting zoo!"

Heaven forbid.

* * *

Once we'd shopped till we'd almost dropped,
I had the most adorable pink and blue matching outfit for the twins
that were still in the realm of tasteful, yet flashy enough that
they didn't "clash" with any of Auntie Marco's plans. We celebrated
our fashion victory with iced mochas at the Coffee Bean, where I
caught Marco and Ling up to speed on the investigation, telling
them about the laughable "interrogation" Laurel and Hardy had done
in the fake Bellissima boutique.

"The real one's on Melrose, right?" Ling
asked. "I've been there a couple of times."

"What did you think?" I asked, only having
experienced the "reality" version of it myself.

"Pricey."

"That sounds like Melrose."

"Yeah, but her stuff is way overpriced. Hey,
I don't mind paying for quality, but her stuff is junk."

I felt a frown pull between my brows. The
replica version of the store hadn't looked like it was populated
with junk. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, my friend, Laquisha, bought a
handbag there, and the lining ripped out in a week."

"What kind of bag was it?"

"Louis Vuitton."

Marco choked on his latte. "Dahling,
Vuittons are not
junk
."

"Yeah, well my grandmother in China sews
higher quality 'Vuittons,'" Ling said, doing air quotes with her
acrylic fingernails.

"Are you sure it wasn't a high end replica
of some sort?" I asked. "I can think of a handful of designs that
are very similar to a Vuitton."

Ling shrugged. "Laquisha said it was the
real deal designer."

"Well, did she take the bag back?" I
asked.

"You bet your skinny butt she did!
Laquisha's no fool. She asked for a full refund. I told her to go
for pain and suffering compensation, too. She almost lost an
earring down that ripped lining."

"What did Liz do?" I asked.

Ling shrugged. "She gave her the refund,"
she admitted. "She said it must have been a manufacturer defect.
But I tell you, Laquisha wasn't buying it. She said those ladies at
that boutique were profiling."

"Profiling? Like, racial profiling?"

Ling blinked at me. "What are you talking
about? Laquisha is white."

"Oh, I, uh, didn't mean…" I stammered.

But Ling waved me off. "No, profession
profiling. Like, give the stripper the defective bag 'cause she
won't know the difference."

"Wait—how would they know she's a stripper?"
Marco interjected.

Ling gave him a get real look. "What do I
look like I do for a living?"

Marco and I looked down at her hotpants,
hair extensions, and platform shoes.

"Point taken," he mumbled.

"Anyway, that's one place I refuse to shop
on principle," Ling said, sipping at her coffee.

I sipped too, making a mental note to visit
the real Bellissima soon myself.

* * *

By 6 o'clock I was shopped out. I turned my
car in the direction of home, tuning in to KIIS FM as I inched my
way through the traffic on the 405. Until Ryan Seacrest started
talking about the "Tanning Salon Murders." Ugh. I switched it off
and cued up an audio book instead.

I finally pulled up to our little bungalow
in West Hollywood almost an hour later. I pulled into the driveway,
turned off the engine, and sat there staring at the front door of
my house. How wrong was it that I almost wished to hear sounds of
screaming children or see sticky handprints all over the windows?
Why I dreaded coming home to a clean, tidy house and happy children
was a heavy enough question to make me consider therapy. I shook it
off and got out of the car, forcing my pumps up the front
walkway.

"I'm home," I called turning my key in the
lock and walking across the threshold. As expected the living room
was clean, the play yards organized, and nary a stray crumb or toy
was in sight. I was beginning to worry Ramirez was keeping the
twins caged up all day.

"That you, babe?" I heard Ramirez's voice
from the kitchen. Which, as I stepped toward it, smelled
suspiciously like tamales.

"Yep. Where the kids?" I asked.

"Playing in their room."

I paused, listening for sounds of shrieks,
squeals, or screams. Nada. "Did you drug them?"

"What?" Ramirez gave me a funny look.

"Nothing," I mumbled. I peeked in the oven
and found two trays of delicious smelling Mexican food. "You
cooked, too?"

Ramirez grinned at me. "Oh, I'm not brave
enough to take on tamales," he said. "Mama stopped by with a couple
of trays earlier."

Ramirez's mother was known as "Mama" to
everyone, young and old alike. She was round in the middle,
wrinkled in the face, and had the skills to cook a feast for a
crowd of a hundred on twenty minutes notice. If this woman ever
went on a cooking show, she'd mop the floor with the
competition.

"Smells like heaven," I told him
honestly.

"Heaven will be ready in ten minutes."
Ramirez crossed the kitchen and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
"How was your day?"

"Well, let's just say I feel like I'm
spinning my wheels and not much closer to knowing much of
anything." I told Ramirez about our busted visit to the stadium,
and our conversation with Beth, pointing out an excellent reason
Kendra might have wanted Lacey dead. Unfortunately I didn't have
any excellent evidence to procure any kind of excellent warrants.
"And," I added "I have a sinking feeling Laurel and Hardy aren't
finding any either."

"Why's that?" Ramirez asked.

I recounted the almost comical scene Dana
and I had witnessed on the set of the
Baseball Wives
. Only
when I finished Ramirez certainly wasn't laughing. In fact he
turned to the fridge, pulled out a beer, popped the top, and downed
half of it in gulp. "And I'm the one on suspension," he mumbled. I
could see that tell-tale vein in his neck threatening to bulge, so
I quickly changed the subject.