Undercover In High Heels

Dana slowed as we approached Coronado, a tree-lined street set into the natural hillside flanked with a hodgepodge of oversize homes fairly bursting from their modest-sized lots. Most were set behind manicured lawns with mature, blooming foliage, and driveways sporting BMWs and racy-looking Italian sports cars.

Dana parked in front of 1342, a faux-Mediterranean villa set behind a row of neatly clipped palm trees.

“This is where Veronika lived?” Dana asked, gaping at the near mansion. “ ’Kay, I know how much a stand-in makes. Twenty bucks says she had a sugar daddy.”

Considering her prenatal state, that wasn’t a bet I was willing to take.

“Come on; let’s go talk to the neighbor.”

We locked the car and walked up the flagstone pathway to the house Ricky had indicated, just to the right of Veronika’s. This one was done in an English Tudor style, with exposed wood beams running diagonally across the stucco face. Dana knocked on the solid front door, which was opened two beats later by an older woman in a pastel blouse with little Scottie dogs running across it. She held a TV remote in one hand, and I could hear static in the background.

“You here to fix the cable?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at us. “ ’Cause it’s been busted all morning.”

“Uh, no. Sorry, we’re not from the cable company.”

“Then I don’t want whatever you’re selling.” She started to close the door, but Dana was quicker.

“Actually we worked with your neighbor, Veronika. On Magnolia Lane.”

“Oh?” The woman paused. “Oh, you’re TV folk?” She brightened up, standing a little taller. Then she squinted her eyes at Dana. “I don’t remember you. Were you on last season?”

“No, I’m an extra.”

“Oh.” Her interest waned again.

“Anyway, ” I jumped in before we lost her, “we were wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions about Veronika.”

The woman snorted. “Hmph. That tart. She thought she was really something. You know, when I heard she was gonna be on the TV, I went and baked her a pineapple upside-down cake, just like the one I seen them make on the Food Network. Anyway, she ate the whole thing, and when I asked if maybe she could get me that Mia’s autograph, she just laughed at me. Said Mia wouldn’t give the likes of me the time of day. Can you believe the nerve of that girl? Prima donna.”

I hated to say it, but Veronika was probably right.

“Do you know if Veronika was dating anyone?” I asked.

Her wrinkled cheeks parted in a smile. “Well, I don’t know about dating, but I do happen to know that she went out with that hunky gardener fellow from the show. Now, he gave me an autograph.”

“Yes, he told us that you might be able to help us.”

“He mentioned me?” She smiled so widely I feared her face might crack.

Dana nodded. “Uh-huh. He said you knew everything that went on on this street. That we could just ask you.”

The woman laid a hand on her chest and blushed. “What a nice young man.”

“Isn’t he?” Dana gushed.

I rolled my eyes.

“He said that you told him you’d seen Veronika come home with a man…the night before he met you…?” I prompted.

“Oh, yes.” She nodded vigorously. “Now, I’m not one to spread rumors-I keep to my own business, you see. But I’ll tell you I seen a man go in with Veronika late at night, just about when Jay Leno come on, and he didn’t come out until the ladies from The View had their first guest the next morning.” She nodded sagely. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure what they were doing.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Did you recognize him?” I asked. “Maybe from the show?”

She pursed her lips together. “No, I don’t think so. But it was dark. And the next morning I just got the faintest glimpse of him. But, ” she said, leaning in, “I will tell you he wasn’t the only one.”

My ears pricked up. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. Men were always going in and out of that place.” She gestured next door. “Girls too. It’s like a cheap motel, that house. Complete den of iniquity. I tried to get the neighborhood association to fine the owner, but she just claimed she had a lot of friends. I’ve got a mind to call that gal on channel four who does those neighborhood grievance reports.”

“So, Veronika doesn’t own the house?”

“I knew it, ” Dana mumbled.

“Goodness, no. She just rents a room. She moved in a few months ago. That place had been going south long before then.”

“Do you know the landlord’s name?”

“Ask her yourself, ” she said. “She just got home a few minutes before you pulled up.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, and, uh, tell that nice young gardener fellow I said hi.”

I eyed Veronika’s house as the woman closed her door and went back to her cable-guy vigil. A lot of friends, huh?

“Maybe we should go pay our condolences to the landlord, ” I suggested.

Dana followed as I picked my way over the moist lawn and up the gravel-lined pathway to the front door. The home itself was a pale adobe-colored stucco, with white columns flanking the front door and large, flowering birds- of-paradise in glazed planters on the porch. The front windows were all closed and shaded behind heavy curtains. Unless you knew someone was inside, there’d be no way to tell.

I rang the bell beside the imposing front door and waited while footsteps approached from inside. Two seconds later I heard the sound of a lock being thrown and the thick door swung open.

“Yes? What do you want?”

I stared, blinking as I took in the woman’s liposuctioned thighs encased in tiny spandex shorts, her obviously man-made chest barely contained by a little red crop top, and those familiar collagen-enhanced lips, the likes of which I’d last seen six feet high on a billboard above the Taco Bell on Pico.

Jasmine.

Chapter 10

Jasmine put a manicured hand on her hip and raised one eyebrow (which, of course, due to regular Botox injections, did little to change the expression on her placid face). “Well?” she asked.

I swallowed. “Hi, Jasmine.”

She cocked her head to the side, one finger twirling a lock of dyed red hair. “Do I know you?”

“Maddie, ” I supplied.

Still nothing but a blank stare on Porn Star Bar-bie’s face.

“Maddie Springer. Richard’s ex-girlfriend.”

More blinking. “Oh, right. You’re the chick who stabbed that girl’s implant.” She crossed her arms protectively over her double Ds. “What do you want?”

“We, uh, we’re friends of Veronika’s, ” I said, stretching the truth just a little. “Your neighbor said that you lived here together?”

“She was my tenant. I own this place.”

Dana did a low whistle. “Business must be very good.”

Jasmine smiled (which, with her highly lifted face, was something akin to the Joker in Batman). “Very. I’ve got a billboard up on Pico.”

“I noticed, ” I mumbled. “Veronika rented a room from you?”

“More like worked for me. I run a twenty-four-hour Web cam. Veronika was one of my girls.”

Mental forehead smack. “Veronika was a cyber-sex girl?”