CHAPTER THREE
“Were those policemen mean to you?” Trixie wants to know. She raced across the stage in my direction when she saw that I’d been sprung by Momoa and Company.
“Except for the part where they half accused me of murdering Tiffany, not really.”
Beneath her bangs, her auburn eyes widen. “Did they really?”
“Well, they kind of fixated on the fact that I argued with her in the isolation booth.” By this point it has occurred to me that I’m the last person to have seen Tiffany Amber alive, apart from the center stage twitching sequence witnessed by millions. That makes me, I know only too well, a “person of interest.”
Trixie and I amble toward the abandoned tiers. Mario’s disappeared along with the judges, the audience, and most of the girls. Only cops are still around in any number. “What’s been going on out here?” I ask Trixie.
“The policemen had to give smelling salts to the dancer who tried to turn Tiffany over. When they were talking to him, he fainted.”
“Wow. I wonder what spooked him so bad. I mean, apart from her being dead and all.”
Trixie edges closer. “I think there was something really awful about how her face looked. I mean
really
awful.”
“Like, grotesque?” I imagine being dead is never a good look but apparently there was more to it than that.
Trixie turns around to face the emptying auditorium. “They wouldn’t let her husband see her. He asked to. He said he wanted to say goodbye.”
I turn to follow Trixie’s gaze. Hunched over in the empty front row is a dark-haired man in a pinstripe suit. I take that to be him.
“They have two daughters,” Trixie says. “Three and five.”
“Oh, no.”
“Ava and Madison. They’re not here, thank the Lord.”
“Such little girls. That is so sad.”
Trixie’s eyes haven’t budged from the tableau before us. “Rex has been trying to comfort Tiffany’s husband but he keeps shooing him away.”
Rex Rexford is pacing the narrow space between the stage and the front row. In his customary white suit and pastel shirt, with his bouffant blond hair teased especially high for tonight’s festivities, he cuts quite a figure.
“He must be pretty broken up,” I observe.
“I wonder how long he was Tiffany’s pageant consultant?”
“I didn’t know till I saw him here with her that he’d gotten back in the business.”
“Speaking of being in the business …”
Trixie’s voice trails off but I know who she’s eyeing now. Sally Anne Gibbons is cruising the aisles, purveyor of pageant wear and sometime consultant herself. Maybe she’s gone native in the last two weeks because she’s outfitted in a muumuu. In fact, she’s filling it nearly to bursting. Like Rex, her coppery red hair has been arranged into a high-rise helmet-like coif for the occasion.
Trixie speaks again. “Do you think the policemen know how mad Sally Anne was with Tiffany about that gown mix-up?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure not going to be the one to tell them.” I’ve had quite enough of their piercing stares and probing inquiries, thank you very much.
Trixie leans closer. “Are you sure you don’t want to? It might deflect suspicion from you.”
I’m taken aback by that. “I don’t know that any deflection is necessary.”
“Oh, probably not, you’re right.” Trixie immediately backs off but I’m left a trifle alarmed. “Anyhoo,” she goes on, clearly trying to change the subject, “I’d love a beer and a burger but I don’t know if I dare risk it. What if we have to get back in our swimsuits tomorrow?”
“God, I hope not.” And so much for making the top five. I can’t imagine I’d pull that off again in a re-do. “What do you say we call it a night?”
Trixie needs no further encouragement to head backstage, where all us girls did our quick changes during the competition. Each of us has a little area, complete with lighted mirror, where we stash our outfits and cosmetics.
Trixie lowers her voice. “I have to admit I’m having an uncharitable thought.”
“It can’t be worse than any of mine.”
Her tone gets even more confiding. “Even after all this, I still kind of care who wins this thing. Isn’t that awful?”
“No. So do I.” Sure, having a corpse on stage put a damper on my competitive spunk, but it didn’t erase it entirely. Particularly since the stiff was Tiffany Amber.
“It makes me feel so selfish. Somebody’s dead, a mother of two no less, and I’m thinking about myself.”
We’re backstage now and pause to watch the cops huddled in Tiffany’s area. I can see they’ve already dusted for prints and bagged her items in clear plastic.
Trixie shudders. “This gives me the willies. I think I’ll go get my stuff.”
I nod, too distracted to answer. I can’t tear my eyes from what the cops are doing.
The show ends in short order, though, as they disperse and take Tiffany’s belongings with them. I gather my own things. Trixie calls goodbye to me from across the way and toddles out with the last few girls. I realize I’m alone backstage.
I’m not aware of deciding to go there but before long I find myself standing in what had been Tiffany’s area. It’s kind of a sty now, what with the dusting for prints. I see myself reflected in her mirror, all done up in my halter-style fuchsia gown with beaded bodice, my Ms. Ohio sash cutting across my body, every strand of my long brunette hair lacquered into place. Just hours before, Tiffany stood in that exact same spot, scanning herself for any imperfection. Yet in mere minutes she’d be dead. It gives me an eerie feeling to realize she had no idea.
Or did she? Who knows what was going on with her? Something had to be, something big, because tonight somebody killed her. I know it’s possible there’s some beauty-queen stalker out there who just happened to pick Tiffany as his first victim but somehow I don’t think that’s the case. I do know one thing for absolutely sure: Tiffany didn’t kill herself. If a girl like that got really depressed and wanted to end it all, she’d never do it like this. She’d wash her hair and polish her nails and get all dressed up and write a heartrending note on scented stationery and then down a bottle of pills, all in the privacy of her own bedroom. She’d never submit herself to that humiliating exhibition. And I am sure that Tiffany Amber wanted to win the Ms. America title tonight, and in that isolation booth she was doing her damnedest to make it happen. But something, someone, got in the way.
That undeniable truth gives
me
a sudden attack of the willies. I back away fast from Tiffany’s area and crash smack dab into a rolling clothes rack that hours before had been laden with evening gowns, no doubt one of them Tiffany’s silver number.
“Shoot.” I bend down to rub my foot, which slammed right into one of the rack’s low bars. That’s the last thing my stilettoed foot needed after hours of being stood on. I’m wincing and rubbing, rubbing and wincing, when I notice a hotel room card key lying on the floor next to the rack.
It’s not mine, I know that. Mine’s in my cosmetics bag; I just checked. I don’t know whose this one is. I wonder about that. And then I pick it up.
From backstage I wend my way out of the auditorium toward the main hotel building. It’s some distance away, along winding paths lined by hibiscus and birds of paradise and illuminated by a waxing moon and the tiki torches that are lit aflame every evening at dusk by a Hawaiian hunk wearing only a loincloth. He makes for a good show, too, I can tell you. The air is warm and sweet and I hear the surf pounding. It’s so late nobody is out. I pass only one couple, honeymooners by the looks of them, who are feeding bits of bread to the fat white and gold and orange koi in the stone-edged pond.
They look really happy. The couple, not the fish, I mean, though the latter appear reasonably cheerful, too.
Then a sound like a macaw shrieking pierces the night air.
Oh God. Here we go.
“Happy! Happy Pennington!”
I’ve barely turned around when my mother grabs me in a hug. She’s a tiny bird-like woman, Hazel Przybyszewski, but when she’s inspired she can lay on quite a grip. “That damn husband of yours told me you were all right but I didn’t believe him.” She pulls back a few inches and peers up at my face so intently that I’m thinking she could teach Detective Jenkins a thing or two. “I guess for once he was right.”
“I am fine, Mom, really I am.”
She lets me go, then fishes for a tissue up the sleeve of her floral dress. She’s a petite redhead, her hair so thin on top I can see her skull. Watching her, I realize she’s trembling. And for all her bravado, there’s a tear in her pale blue eyes. That’s when it hits me: tonight was hell for her. A mysterious death, a panicked crowd, her only child inches from mortal danger—it must have brought home to her in one agonizing rush all she suffered those long years as a cop’s wife.
I seize her in a hug of my own. She clutches me briefly then pulls away. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” A deep breath and a swipe of the nose later and she’s more composed.
In fact, I note with some regret that she’s totally back to normal.
She throws out her arms. “I thought you were going to wear the strapless white chiffon gown! What’s with the hot pink? You know I don’t like those neon colors, even for the so-called”
—s
he draws quotation marks in the air
—
“ ‘sexy’ pageants.”
“This gown is fuchsia, not hot pink. And it did get me in the top five.”
She raises her index finger in the air. “Maybe so, young lady, but did it get you to number one? I ask you that.”
“Nobody got to number one! They haven’t named a winner yet.”
She harrumphs. “Because of the spectacle that California girl put on.”
“Mom …” I lower my voice. “She’s dead.”
My mother rolls her eyes as if the smart money knows the whole thing had been a ploy for attention. “If you’d worn that white gown it wouldn’t matter if she was dead or alive. You’d have won.”
“Happy!” That comes from a distance. It’s Jason’s voice, calling from ahead.
When he joins us, I’m reminded that the man I married seventeen years ago—exactly half my lifetime—is still a hot guy. Dark curly hair, worn a little long just like when he played football in high school, with a slight olive tone to his skin and full sexy lips …
True, he’s not at his playing weight anymore. Too many hours watching the game on TV instead of being out on the gridiron himself. Still, in a suit and tie with the mechanic’s grease gone from his fingernails, he can turn a female head or two.
“Congratulations!” He grabs me in a lip lock. I can just imagine my mom rolling her eyes. “Top five!” he says when he finally lets me go. “Good stuff. Rachel’s stoked, too.”
“Really?” I wipe a lipstick smear from his mouth. “You talked to her?”
“She called me when she saw a news flash on the web about the California contestant.”
I hear that and the green-eyed monster pays a visit. Backstage I checked my cell for messages. None from Rachel. Why didn’t my daughter call
me
?
Part of me knows why.
“By the way, everybody thinks she was poisoned,” he adds.
“Poisoned, eh?” My mother clucks her tongue. “I wonder what she did to provoke that.”
Jason winks at me over my mother’s head. Sometimes my mom’s insights drive us both crazy, but clearly tonight he’ll let it all slide.
“Let’s head back,” I suggest, taking my mom’s elbow to lead her along the path.
Jason falls in step behind us. “Anyway, you did really great, Happy. You should totally win. Do you know how they’re gonna decide now who did win?”
“No. And I didn’t really feel I could ask.”
My mom moves ahead and Jason comes close to whisper in my ear. “I wish I could stay with you tonight.”
I smile at him. “I do, too. But the competition’s not really over.”
“I could protect you.” His dark eyes grow serious. “We don’t know who killed that girl. I don’t like the idea of you being here alone.”
“I’m not alone. I’ve got Shanelle.” My roommate, Ms. Mississippi. I’ve only known her two weeks but already I love her.
“Shanelle’s great, but …”
“Don’t worry.” I cock my chin at my mom, up ahead. “And don’t say anything to make her worry.”
He makes a zipping motion across his lips as we arrive at the main hotel building. The open-air lobby with its central court of palm trees and tropical flowers is deserted save for the macaw who sounds just like my mother.
I catch up to her. My mother, I mean. “Do you want me to ride in the cab with you back to the Lotus Blossom?” The Royal Hibiscus is where all the pageant people are lodged but it’s a bit rich for most of the families, including mine.
“We don’t need a cab,” Jason says. “We brought the rental.” He limits himself to a sedate peck on my cheek then glances at my mom. “I’ll go get the wheels,” he tells her and sets off.
My mother watches Jason go.
“How did you two get along tonight?” I ask her.
She sighs heavily. “I suppose he was all right.”
From my mom, with regard to my husband, that’s high praise. I wait with her till Jason returns with the car then kiss her soft powdery cheek. “Sweet dreams.”
