CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I return to my room having reached one inescapable conclusion: Sebastian Cantwell must be flung into the same slime-filled man box already occupied by Dirk Ventura and Keola Kalakaua. For what reason besides sex would he have met privately with Tiffany Amber? I can’t think of a single possibility.
I toss my handbag onto the bed and sink beside it seconds later. Am I the only person in this archipelago not conducting a clandestine affair? Apparently so.
I suppose I could separate these sexual transgressions into categories. There are the adulterers, like Tiffany and Misty. And possibly Tiffany’s husband, Tony Postagino. Then there are the fornicators, like Keola and Dirk and Sebastian Cantwell. Maybe they should be considered less naughty. After all, none of them are married.
Then again, Dirk and Keola made those despicable bets. And Cantwell was forbidden by pageant rules even to
talk
to a contestant privately. Much less … you know. So those factors elevate their waywardness, in my humble opinion.
Again I sigh. I’m discovering that much dirty linen is aired during this murder investigation business. It makes a person feel positively scummy. I’m sure that’s part of the reason my father wouldn’t want me getting involved. He puts me on a kind of pedestal, which is both good and bad.
I take a bracing shower, and after that again feel ready to face the world. Which is good, because it’s barely 4:30 in the afternoon and this Ms. America has delving to do.
Wearing my blue paisley patio dress with spaghetti straps, I am so filled with resolve as I sit at the desk near the sliding glass doors that I barely glance at the yellow roses Mario Suave gave me. Since I’ve decided I must put off the Sebastian Cantwell matter until I can figure out how to handle it, there’s another puzzlement I will address, one I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. It’s the accusation Misty Delgado hurled at Magnolia Flatt this morning in the buffet line.
When I asked if you got the videotape you needed, I didn’t mean of
me
, you moron!
I want to know what Misty meant. And I want to know
now
.
I scan my pageant paperwork and before long my fingers are punching in Misty’s room number. A man answers. I presume it’s her husband but given what she’s been up to of late, I don’t know why I should. “May I please speak with Misty?” I inquire.
“She’s at the salon,” the man growls, and hangs up.
Lousy mood; has to be the husband. Can’t say I blame him, though. Time for my second salon visit of the day, though this time I don’t anticipate being the recipient of any services. Especially not at Royal Hibiscus prices.
The salon here at the hotel is called a spa, which I gather is what allows them to charge more. The brochure describing it makes liberal use of the nouns
retreat
and
escape
. As I enter, I conclude the designer must have been a real mosaic devotee, because it’s everywhere. Somebody’s also fixated on Buddha, whose sculpture seems to fill every nook and cranny. Tucked into one corner is a Spa Shop. I glimpse shelves groaning under the sort of brightly colored, beautifully shaped bottles that make my female heart sing. At the reception counter are sprays of orchids, and behind them women sporting the same lab coats as Clinique salesgirls. There’s less makeup on these spa women but they seem possessed of the identical superior attitude, like they’ve achieved Internal Peace to a degree that your rattled self can only aspire to.
Somehow I feel like I should speak softly, though I might not be heard above the fountains and piped-in New Age music. “Good afternoon. I’m Happy Pennington, the new Ms. America. I understand our Ms. Arizona Misty Delgado is here and I must see her on urgent pageant business.” I’m quite proud of that phrasing, which sounds both businesslike and pressing. It came to me as I rode the elevator down to the lobby.
The spa women look at one another. They’re virtual twins, of identical height, build, and skin tone, and both with long black hair slicked back into buns. “We do not disturb our clients during their restorative treatments,” one says.
“She could be in a transcendent state,” says the other.
“I understand completely,” I lie. “But I’m afraid I must insist. This concerns the tragedy our pageant has suffered.” I stole that phrasing from rose-giver Mario Suave’s own lips.
The faces of both spa women contort. One gestures to me to follow her into the sanctum sanctorum. Nothing like the specter of death to pry open doors.
We walk down a corridor, passing many closed doors and a few open ones, which reveal darkened interiors and empty massage tables. At one door the spa woman halts, knocks lightly, and pokes her head inside the small room. A moment later she moves aside, motions for me to enter, then closes the door behind her as she exits.
Misty’s Latina-goddess self is lying on her back on a massage table. I’m relieved to see she’s clothed, at least sort of, in a simple black bikini. A mask shades her eyes. But there’s no sunlamp shining on her, no nothing. She must be getting an invisible treatment because it looks to me like all she’s doing is taking a nap. She could do that in her room for free. Then I notice something small and dark on her belly. I inch closer and peer down at her perfect abs. Then, “Ewww!”
“Oh, you bumpkin, shut up,” Misty snarls.
“Is that a
leech
? Oh my God!”
“It’s medicinal.”
“It’s medieval! You’re letting it suck your blood?”
She whips off the mask. “No, I’m letting it sing me a serenade. Of course I’m letting it suck my blood! That’s the point.”
“How vile!”
She jolts upright. I see now that she has four leeches on her and none of them has budged, despite her sudden movement. Of course not, I realize: they’re attached. “Leech therapy has been performed since the time of Hippocrates,” Misty informs me. “They’re placed on reflexogenic points, like in acupuncture. For your information, I’m getting my blood detoxified.”
“What, they suck it up and then they spit a better version back in?”
“No, you hillbilly, their saliva releases an enzyme into the bloodstream.”
“How do you know they’re not giving you something else besides that enzyme? Like, for example, bacteria?”
She screws up her face. “I don’t think so. These are medically trained leeches.”
So they have little MDs from Leech U? I’m not buying. Apparently my face reveals my skepticism.
Misty lies back down and replaces her mask. “There’s no point explaining to you. You’re incapable of understanding.”
I am; it’s so true. All I know is that Misty has leeches attached to her body that are growing more engorged by the second. One of them sloppily tumbles off, fat as a bumblebee. It reminds me of Sally Anne Gibbons after her third Mai Tai. “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I’ll get to the point.”
“I’ll be amazed if you have one.”
“You said something this morning in that fracas you caused in the buffet line
—
”
“That was no fracas. And none of it would have even happened if that fat-assed yokel Magnolia Flatt hadn’t slammed into me with her overloaded breakfast plate.”
My recollection of events is that Misty pitched into Magnolia, but my cause will not be served if I dispute the point. “Be that as it may, you said that Magnolia didn’t get you the videotape you needed but instead got the videotape of you and Dirk Ventura. What did you mean by that?”
Misty lifts the mask off one eye. “
This
is urgent pageant business?”
“Yes, it is,” I declare forcefully. “So what did you mean? What videotape did you need?”
She replaces the mask. “I plead the fifth.”
“Come on, Misty. That tape of you and Dirk made YouTube’s top ten. Everybody already knows the whole story. There’s nothing to hide anymore.”
“Top seven,” she corrects.
“There you go. So just tell me. How did you even know that Magnolia was videotaping?”
“Because I saw her. During the preliminaries she was videotaping constantly. How is it possible you missed that?”
I have no idea. I think maybe I’m not always as observant as I should be. That will have to change if I hope to figure out who killed Tiffany Amber.
Misty goes on. “It just didn’t make sense. There were professional cameramen shooting all the contestant events. There was no need for a know-nothing like Magnolia to videotape a single frame. Then one day I saw her in the hotel business office staring for hours at YouTube. I put two and two together.”
“So what was the tape you told her you needed?” I watch Misty purse her lips. “Misty, what was it?”
For a while she says nothing, then all of a sudden she rips off the eye mask and bolts upright with such speed one of the leeches goes flying. I step aside just in time to avoid being slimed. The creature plops unceremoniously onto the floor.
But the real show is Misty and the diatribe into which she’s launched. “Listen, you supposed Ms. America you, I don’t have to tell you a damn thing. If it weren’t for that effing videotape, I’d be holding the title.” Her mouth twists. “You’re a poser and nothing more. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cantwell takes the crown out of your clumsy hands within the week. So don’t get too comfy-cozy wearing it.”
“Don’t blame me you didn’t win, lady. It’s nobody’s fault but your own that that videotape even exists. Nobody ordered you to sleep with Dirk Ventura.”
“Tiffany was having an affair, too!”
“You know about that?” I ask before I realize it’s no surprise that Misty knows. Misty was with Dirk Ventura. For all I know, Misty may not only have supported Dirk putting Keola up to seducing Tiffany, she might have come up with the idea. Because if Tiffany were found out, she’d be knocked out of the competition, and the way would be clearer for Misty to win the crown.
“It didn’t hurt
her
to have an affair!” Misty hisses. “Look where she got!”
I eye her dubiously.
“I mean before she died, you imbecile. Her sleeping around didn’t keep her from getting in the top five.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “What’s your problem with Tiffany, anyhow? You hate her when she’s alive, you hate her when she’s dead. What’s up with that?”
Misty leaps up from the table and leans into me, jabbing her finger at my nose. I see the two remaining leeches clinging to her belly for dear life. “Tiffany Amber was a lying, scheming bitch, exactly like Sally Anne said. I hate having anything in common with that double-wide Sally Anne but in this case I have to agree with her. Tiffany thought she was better than everybody, better than you, better than me, better than all of us. Well, she wasn’t. And just like Sally Anne, I’m glad she’s dead.”
Without further ado, Misty grabs the two leeches, one in each hand, plucks them from her skin, dumps them onto the floor, and wipes her bloody fingers down her naked belly. Then she stalks from the room, not even bothering to grab a robe.
I’m thinking that if she’d performed at that level in the talent competition, she might have made the top five, even with the Dirk Ventura videotape.