Undercover In High Heels

grabbing Ramirez’s cordless from the end table and dialing the one person I knew who just might know more than the cops.

“Felix Dunn, ” he answered. I could hear sirens and loud voices in the background.

“It’s Maddie. You’ve heard about the body?”

“Yeah, ” he responded, “I’m at the studios now.”

I held my breath. “Who is it?”

“No idea, love. Police aren’t releasing her name yet. But I saw Mia giving a tearful comment to Entertainment Tonight just now, so I know it’s not her.”

I let out a small sigh of relief. I could just imagine what Ramirez’s superiors would say if it had been the show’s star. (Not, mind you, that he wasn’t still on my shit list after the demolition of my Betsey Johnson.)

“Any luck with the PayMate site last night?” I asked.

“Some.” Someone shouted in the background, and I strained to hear what was going on. “I was able to get into their system, but the files are still all encrypted.”

“Can you read them?”

“Not yet. Honestly, I’m thinking the easiest way to find this guy is to catch him in the act when he logs in again. Now that I’m in their system, I can trace back to his address if he stays online long enough.”

“Really? You can do that?”

“You underestimate me, love, ” he said with a hint of humor in his voice. “Problem is, we’d have to know when he’s logging on.”

I chewed my lower lip, an idea brewing. “Hang on; I’m going to put you on speakerphone, Felix.”

After only three tries I found the right button to push on Ramirez’s phone, and the living room filled with the sounds of a Hollywood crime scene.

“Still there?” I yelled.

“Bloody hell, no need to shout, girl.”

“Sorry. Okay, hang on.”

I dug my cell phone out of my purse and dialed Information for Jasmine’s number. Only a 900-number under Jasmine’s Girls, but under her own name, Jasmine Williams, I hit pay dirt.

“Okay, I’m dialing Jasmine, ” I yelled at the speakerphone.

“I’m right here; no need to shout.”

“Sorry.”

I keyed in the number and waited while Jasmine’s phone rang on the other end. She picked up after the third one.

“Yeah?” came her high-pitched Barbie voice.

“Jasmine, it’s Maddie.”

There was a pause. “Who?”

“Maddie Springer.”

Nothing.

I sighed. If I ever got this chick to remember my name, I’d feel it was a life well lived. “The one who popped the boob and is now working with the police.”

I heard Felix snicker from the speaker.

“Oh right. You. Whadda you want?” she asked. I could hear her popping a wad of gum between her bleached white veneers.

“I have a favor to ask. That guy who logged on to see Veronika-could you call me at this number if he logs in again?”

“And why should I do that?” she asked. Pop, pop.

“Because it may lead us to Veronika’s killer.”

Jasmine snorted. “So?”

Gee, such a loving soul. My eyes roved the apartment as I racked my brain for anything I could barter with. Then they settled on the speakerphone.

“How about a free ad in the L.A. Informer?”

I heard Felix shouting, “No!” from the speaker.

“What was that?” Jasmine asked.

“Television. So, what do you think?”

“I don’t know…”

“Uh…okay, how about two months of free ads? Full-page, ” I added.

“Do you have any idea how bloody expensive that is?” Felix shouted from the speaker.

I covered the mouthpiece of the cell with my hand. “Relax, ” I whispered back at him. “I know you can afford it. Besides, think of the story you’ll get.”

Felix did a pained groan, but didn’t say anything.

“So, ” I said into my cell, “do we have a deal, Jasmine?”

“You promise, full-page?”

“Promise.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll call you the next time he logs on. But I’m warning you, I have no idea when it will be.”

“Thanks, Jasmine!” I said, flipping my Motorola shut.

“We got it, ” I shouted to Felix.

His groan filled the room. “You couldn’t have offered her a free subscription instead?”

I ignored him. “I’ll let you know the second Jasmine calls me. In the meantime, just be ready to track him.”

“This had better be one hell of a story, ” he mumbled. I heard more noises in the background and someone else shouting. “Listen, they’re moving the body. I’ve gotta go if I’m going to get any decent pictures.” Then he paused. “Oh hell.”

“What?” I pulled the sheet up over my shoulders to ward off the sudden chill in the air again. “What is it? What do you see?”

“You’d better get down here, Maddie.”

“Why? Felix, who is it?”

But he’d already hung up.

Shit.

I looked down at my tattered sundress. What were the chances Ramirez had anything in his closet in a size six?

I scooped my cell back up and dialed Dana’s number.

Luckily, Dana was up early, and I quickly filled her in on the morning’s developments. After the appropriate amount of “Ohmigod”s and “He ripped your Betsey Johnson!”s, she promised to pick me up in twenty minutes with a new outfit in hand.

In hindsight, I guess I should have been more specific about what kind of outfit. It wasn’t that Dana didn’t have good taste in clothes, just that she tended to have a little bit different taste than I did. Me, I wore clothes that made me feel confident, pretty, even sometimes a little kick-butt. Dana tended to wear outfits that either a) were made entirely of workout-friendly spandex or b) were cut low enough to cause car crashes on the 101.

I stared down at the dress in Dana’s hand as she walked in Ramirez’s front door.

“What is that?”

Dana looked from the scrap of fabric (which from here appeared to be both spandex and cut to the navel) to me. “What?”

I held it up to my body. It was a formfitting blue dress, hemline hovering somewhere just below my panty line, neckline plunging somewhere just north of that. “Seriously?” I asked, giving her the one-eyebrow thing.

“What?” Dana blinked innocently. “You asked for a dress.”

I did a mental eenie-meenie-miny-mo between a pair of Ramirez’s oversize sweats and the reject from the J-Lo Awards Dresses Collection. In the end, I slipped the dress over my head, hoping my barely Bs didn’t fall out of the neckline clearly designed for someone about two letters larger. I slipped on my pink heels, cringing just a little at how badly they clashed with the electric blue spandex, and grabbed my purse before hightailing it out the door and