“If you don’t want a cake, may I suggest our doggie bags?” Jeff said. He pulled out a small bag dotted with black paw prints. “We fill it with treats for your guests. Each treat is beautifully prepared.”
They were, too. The display case’s pastel bonbons were delicately iced and decorated. They were all canine treats: doggie doughnuts, Barkin-Robbins ice-cream cones, lady paws, and pupcakes—miniature cupcakes with sprinkles. Each doggie delicacy ran between one and three bucks.
Tammie was pawing through the racks of dog clothes. “I need a special outfit for my doggie on his day. Ooooh, this is perfect.”
She pulled out a blue sweatshirt embroidered with PRINCE. It had a matching bandanna with a silver crown. Tammie shoved the dog’s head and front paws into the shirt. The outfit hung on him.
“Ooh. It’s too big.” Tammie stuck out her lower lip in a pout. She also stuck out her chest, giving Helen a look at more cleavage.
“It will have to be tailored,” Jeff said.
“I can take it to Evie, the seamstress,” she said. “The party’s this evening, but if I pay extra, she’ll fix it. But that’s sooo stressful. You’ll decorate the doggie bags?”
“Certainly,” Jeff said. “We’ll put colored ribbons on the bags. Does your party have a theme color, such as red or blue? Or would you prefer a rainbow assortment?”
“No rainbow,” Tammie said. “I don’t want anyone to think my dog is gay.”
“My dog is a diesel dyke,” Jeff said sweetly.
“My Princey needs his hair done for the party,” Tammie said. “How can I have him groomed if we have to go to the seamstress? I want this party perfect but I can’t take the stress. I just can’t.”
“We have a delivery service,” Jeff said. “We can pick up your dog or take him home, or both. Do you want to leave him with us now for grooming? Helen will bring him back to your home for a small fee.”
“No, silly, he has a fitting at the seamstress’s, remember? It’s ten o’clock now. Can your girl pick him up at noon? He has to be back home by four. The party is at six and Prince needs a nap before his big night.”
Jeff checked the date book. “No problem. Jonathon can take Prince.”
Jeff pronounced the name with awe. Jonathon was the prima donna assoluta of the Lauderdale grooming world. He was famous for his towering rages, which made him suddenly pack up his case of supersharp scissors and move to yet another grooming salon. He’d been at the Barker Brothers for six weeks now, and Jeff gloried in the groomer’s full date book.
“Good,” Tammie said. “I’ll just go back and meet the groomer.”
“No!” Panic smothered Jeff’s pride. “Jonathon hates visitors.” The star’s contract guaranteed him no personal contact with salon customers, and he’d quit other grooming shops when it had been violated.
But Tammie the gym rat easily outdistanced the sedentary Jeff. There was a shriek and a yelp from the grooming room, followed by an anguished cry: “I am an artist. I cannot work like this.”
His precious Jonathon was in distress. Jeff sped to his rescue. “Coming!” he shouted. Helen followed.
The star was majestic in his outrage—and his outfit. He wore a flaring royal purple satin disco suit.
Jonathon’s vintage seventies suit was outshone by his magnificent mane, streaked seven shades of blond. It was the envy of any woman who entered a beauty salon. Helen had never seen a hint of dark roots. She suspected Jonathon did his own hair at home with a complicated system of mirrors. Helen had no idea when Jonathon had the time. His own body rivaled Tammie’s for gym-produced perfection. He had a cleft chin, a chiseled Roman nose, and the tiniest feet Helen had ever seen on a six-foot man. That was probably why his purple platform shoes didn’t look like concrete blocks.
“Every great artist has a temperament,” Jeff soothed. “Everyone at your party will recognize a Jonathon cut.”
Tammie craved Jonathon’s cachet. Jonathon’s complexion lapsed into a light lavender. The crisis was averted.
“Helen will stop by your home at noon to pick up Prince,” he said, and deftly directed her out the grooming salon door.
The boutique’s bell rang.
“Helen, would you get that customer, please, while I talk to Jonathon?” Jeff said.
Two more birthday cakes and ten pounds of treats later, it was time to pick up Prince. Tammie and her husband, Kent Grimsby, lived about ten minutes from the Pampered Pet. Helen drove the shop’s hot pink Cadillac, a florid gas guzzler from the seventies known as the Pupmobile. She didn’t like pet pickups. The car was long as a hook-and-ladder truck. Helen was driving with a fake license in another name. She was on the run from her ex and the court in Saint Louis and had to stay out of government computers. Driving with a fake license in a huge hot pink car in the crazed Florida traffic was no way to keep a low profile.
But she couldn’t tell Jeff what was wrong. Instead, Helen drove as slowly as a seventy year old. The car felt unnatural at this funereal pace. Outraged SUVs honked and roared around her as she steered the house-sized pink Pupmobile down U.S. 1.
How did I ever get reduced to this? Helen thought.
She pulled the Pupmobile up to the kiosk at the Stately Palms Country Club. The ancient white-haired guard napping inside didn’t notice its long, lurid form. Helen tapped lightly on the horn, and the guard waved the Pupmobile through. She wondered why he was there. The old guy wasn’t even ornamental.
The Grimsby mansion looked like a convention center constructed on cost overruns. Helen expected a marquee in the yard to say: “Appearing this week—”
She parked the Caddy in the circular drive and rang the doorbell. No one answered. Hmm. Must be out of order.
Helen knocked hard on the dark polished front door. It swung open.
Odd. Usually a maid or housekeeper did door duty in the posh homes. Some even had British butlers.
“Hello?” Helen stepped into the entrance hall. “Anyone home?”
The double living room was decorated like a Palm Beach funeral parlor. Huge gold mirrors reflected tapestries, taupe fabrics, tassels and fringe. The gloomy urns could hold several loved ones.
The house was designed to show off the Grimsby dough. Helen could not imagine the owners really living in the place. She couldn’t see Tammie eating popcorn and watching a movie or Kent drinking a beer and barbecuing in the backyard. Did megamillionaires drink beer and watch movies?
“Hello?” Helen said, and tiptoed through the living room. Now she was in a dining room that seated twenty. The table looked like a mahogany runway. The candelabra could have lit up a castle. Over the sideboard was a painting of Tammie in an evening dress. She looked like a nineteenth-century robber baron’s wife. The painting was signed with a flourish—“Rax.”
“Hello?” A little louder this time. The last thing Helen wanted was to be arrested for breaking and entering.
The breakfast room was next. Helen was sure she’d seen it in an old
Helen grew more uneasy as she went through a country kitchen the size of a French province. The video room was bigger than the local multiplex.
“Anyone here?” The silence was unnatural. Did she have the right time?
Helen checked her watch. It was 12:02. Tammie might have acted like an airhead, but that party was important to her. She wouldn’t forget Prince’s noon hair appointment.
Maybe Tammie was taking a nap, recovering from the stress of party planning. Helen wandered through a labyrinth of halls hung with murky British landscapes until she found the master bedroom. The canopy bed looked like it slept six starlets. The miniature canopy bed next to it could hold one Yorkie. Both were empty. So was the master bath. The white terry robe on the door belonged in a hotel.
“Tammie? Prince?” she called. No one answered.
Now Helen was seriously worried. She eyed the bedroom phone. Maybe she should call Jeff. Maybe she should call 911. No, she couldn’t bring in the police. They’d ask awkward questions.
Helen kept searching for signs of life.
The French doors in the master bedroom opened onto the pool, which was slightly smaller than Lake Okeechobee. Gaily striped awnings—no, wait, Tammie would never have anything gay—sheltered umbrella tables
