Undercover In High Heels

I did a sweep of the street, searching for teenagers giggling behind trash cans at their prank. Nothing. The only sign of life was Mrs. Alvarez’s cat licking its privates on the hood of my neighbor’s Chevy. Doing one more icky squirm, I unlocked the door and quickly slipped inside my apartment.

Instinctively, I dialed Ramirez’s number. Then, remembering how our last conversation had gone, I hung up after the first ring. The way we’d left things had been a little tense. Okay, fine: tense was sugarcoating it. But suffice to say I wasn’t altogether sure Ramirez would be happy to hear from me. Especially now.

If his superiors were angry before, I could just imagine how they felt after this morning. Forget Hollyweird duty. Ramirez would be lucky to get a job ticketing illegally parked cars on the Promenade.

And it was all because of me. Okay, so I hadn’t actually killed Veronika, but thanks to his girl-whom-I-refuse- to-actually-call-my-girlfriend, Ramirez was in the really wrong place at the really wrong time. I wasn’t sure if forgiveness would even be on the table after this.

And calling him about a dead squirrel wasn’t likely to improve his mood.

Instead, I made a mental note to buy him one of those singing Hallmark cards (did they make one that said, I’m sorry I ruined your career and a starlet showed up dead on your beat?) and grabbed a pint of Ben & Jerry’s from the freezer. I polished off the entire thing standing in my kitchen.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the phone rang.

“Hello?” I asked, half expecting it to be PETA, interrogating me about my curbside roadkill.

“Oh my God, Maddie, don’t tell me it’s happening again, ” Mom screeched.

“What’s happening, Mom?”

“Maddie, I just heard about the young woman on that show you’re working on. Is it true? Is she really dead?”

I debated the merits of lying, but remembering the way Felix was snapping pictures, I thought it unlikely that I could keep this one from her. “Yeah, it’s true.”

“First the shootout-”

“Misunderstanding.”

“-and now this?”

“It’s that Mercury in retrograde. It can be a bitch, ” shouted Mrs. Rosenblatt in the background.

“Maddie, please tell me you’re carrying your pepper spray, ” Mom said.

I sighed. “Mom, I’m fine. I don’t need pepper spray.”

“I could always look for one of Ollie’s guns, ” Mrs. R offered.

“No!” I closed my eyes and did a silent mini meditation. “Okay, fine. I promise I’ll carry pepper spray to work tomorrow. Happy?”

“I’ll be happy when your life stops making headlines.”

Join the club.

“Just be careful, Maddie, ” Mom said. “And I’ll see you on Sunday.”

“Sunday?” I asked before I could stop myself.

There was a pause. Then Mom groaned. “Oh, Maddie, don’t tell me you forgot about Sunday.”

“Of course not, ” I lied, racking my brain. In my defense, a dead actress and a dead rodent all in the same day did funny things to one’s memory.

Mom sighed again. “Connor’s birthday party.”

Oy vey. I had forgotten. Connor was my cousin, Molly’s, youngest spawn, just turning one and already known in our family as the Terror. The last time I’d visited, he’d spilled grape juice on my favorite white espadrilles. The time before that it was a half-eaten lollipop in my Kate Spade. And the time before that, he bit me. Seriously. Right on the ankle, like a little dog. Not something I was looking forward to again.

Especially in light of the fact that when I’d first gotten the invitation, I’d stupidly asked Ramirez to go with me. Now that I was on his shit list, I was going to have to endure Molly’s brood, the Terror, Mom hinting at my own biological clock ticking like a time bomb, and my Irish Catholic grandmother’s stories about how she had already birthed seven kids without anesthesia by the time she was my age. All alone.

Sigh.

“I’m not sure I can make it, Mom. I think I have something else to do that day.” Like wash my hair. Or clean my belly-button lint.

“Maddie!” my mother admonished.

“Okay, fine. I’ll try to be there for the Terror’s birthday.”

“Maddie!”

Oops. “I mean, Connor’s birthday.”

I could feel Mom’s frown through the phone. “You have a gift, right?”

“I have to bring a gift?”

The frown deepened and was accompanied by a low sigh. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow after work to go shopping.”

Great. Dead bodies, roadkill, and Toys “R” Us. Could this get any better?

I decided I’d better hang up before I tempted fate with that particular question.

“Sorry, Mom, I’m going through the canyon.” I made fake whooshing sounds. Yeah, I know, I’m a terrible person for lying to my mother. “I think I’m losing you.”

“I’ll pick you up at five!” she yelled as I hit the off button.

I spent the rest of the afternoon alternately watching the reporters on E! flock like vultures to the story of Veronika’s murder, and trying to concentrate on the Pretty Pretty Princess designs for Tot Trots. Between shots of Mia’s trailer and Magnolia Lane press photos, I added a mini heel and tiny pink bows to the patent-leather Mary Janes. But my heart wasn’t really in it. And by the time I watched them wheel Veroni-ka’s body out in a human Hefty bag, I’d abandoned the kiddie shoes and was glued to the TV.

Granted, I hadn’t even really known Veronika. In fact, I think I’d spoken only a total of three words to her yesterday, when Dusty had asked me to fetch her for a fitting. But she’d been about my age, single. I wondered if she lived alone. If she’d had any plans for the weekend that would now go unfulfilled. Compared to strangulation by panty hose, the Terror suddenly didn’t seem so bad. Poor thing. Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time. I wondered how Mia felt about all this. Did she feel at all responsible that her stalker had offed the wrong person?

Knowing Mia, probably not. Probably she was just pissed that a pair of panty hose were ruined.

I ordered Chinese, eating it in front of the television while watching Entertainment Tonight. So far there wasn’t any new information beyond what Felix had told me that morning, though I did notice a couple of photos of Mia’s trailer that were suspiciously from Fe-lix’s vantage point.

On the ten-o’clock news, the chief of police finally held a press conference, though it was filled with mostly, “We have no information on that, ” and, “We can’t comment at this time.” I scanned the background for any glimpse of Ramirez.

The truth was, I had kind of hoped that Ramirez would call me. Besides the fact that my coworker was found murdered this morning, he had to know I was dying to hear about Veronika. Okay, poor word choice. But it felt weird that he hadn’t at least called to make sure I was okay.

And there was the fact that the last time we had spoken we’d been fighting. I hated fighting. I hated leaving things like this, because a teeny, tiny part of me, the part that freaked at the mention of the Cabana Club, worried that maybe he wouldn’t call. Ever. Maybe this was it. He wasn’t going to forgive me.

Maybe this time I’d actually gone too far.

Chapter 6

The next morning my alarm clock began playing “Good Day Sunshine” at exactly 6:00 A.M. I rolled over and smacked the snooze bar. Ten minutes later, “Pretty Woman” blasted through my apartment. I whacked the snooze again.