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I SHOVED A fat straw through a plastic cup lid and sucked in a mouthful of cold papaya-ginger smoothie. My eyes drifted shut as I savored the sweet, creamy, pale orange concoction. When I opened them, Cheyenne O’Rourke was holding out my change, her plain adolescent face fixed in its customary bored stare.
The girl was on probation for second-degree assault related to an incident last spring. That meant she had to hold down a job, but no one said she had to like working at Janey's Place, Dom’s health-food joint. Sometimes when my biological clock howled like a rabid werewolf, I’d think of Cheyenne and feel a little better at not having added another sullen Long Island youth to the world.
Yet. I was thirty-nine. Theoretically there was still time.
I gave Cheyenne the cheeriest smile and thank-you I could muster, out of scientific curiosity to see if any degree of friendly human interaction would get through to her. Sexy Beast, getting a free ride in the straw bucket tote hanging on my shoulder, yipped merrily, tail wagging. (Yeah, I know, but he stayed in the basket and the store’s owner wanted to remarry me, so I wasn’t worried about getting tossed out of the place.) The girl slammed the money drawer shut and went back to picking at her neon blue nail polish. Experiment concluded.
I wandered outside and took a seat on the pretty, apple green bench parked in front of the store, flanked by flowering shrubs in big planters. It was about ten in the morning and pleasantly mild for mid-July, with low humidity and a light breeze. I let SB out of the basket but kept him on the leash. He investigated his surroundings, nose twitching, then jumped onto my lap to gaze longingly at my smoothie. Passersby paused to pet him and coo baby talk. SB has no idea why total strangers behave this way, but he accepts the fawning attention as his due.
This papaya-ginger smoothie was the only thing I ever ordered from Janey's Place, not being a health-food person myself. I’m more of a convenience-food person. My customary breakfast is Fruity Pebbles, and my favorite lunch is pizza and orange soda. Dinner is McWhatever or Chinese takeout. So you might be wondering about the smoothie, which is purported to soothe cranky bellies. I’d been introduced somewhat accidentally to this particular libation several months earlier, and dang if I hadn’t fallen in love with it. It’s like a milkshake without the guilt.
Okay, you got me. I don’t feel guilty for my junk-food habit. Life’s too short.
Janey's Place was tucked between a pottery gallery on one side and UnderStatements, Lacey Vargas’s lingerie boutique, on the other. The bench I sat on happened to be positioned next to the boutique. I couldn’t resist peeking through the display window to see if I could spot Lacey. My curiosity was piqued now that I knew she’d been the girlfriend of Tim Whatshisname, the man whose death had been caused by Sophie’s late husband, Ernie.
I detected movement in the store and squinted to see past the window glare. Lacey was ringing up a purchase for Maia Armstrong, a popular local caterer. I knew Maia well. She and I routinely referred customers to each other.
As I stared through the window, I felt a tugging on my cup. I looked down to see Sexy Beast licking my smoothie straw. I actually considered wiping off the straw and continuing to use it—for about a nanosecond until I recalled the last thing I’d seen him lick. My love for my pet only goes so far. I yanked out the straw and lobbed it toward the trash bin near the curb. It bounced off the lip of the bin and onto the sidewalk.
Crystal Harbor isn’t the kind of town where you want to be seen littering. I’d go from Jane Delaney the local Death Diva to Jane Delaney the local Litterer. So I got up and did the right thing as Maia exited the shop, toting a pale yellow shopping bag stamped with the elegant UnderStatements logo in gold. Maia was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties. Today her froth of Afro coils was held off her face with a narrow silver headband.
We exchanged cheek pecks and Maia sat on the bench to lift SB onto her lap. She bestowed scritches galore and unashamedly cooed baby talk until he rolled onto his back in adoring surrender. The caterer was one of SB’s favorite people, and not just because of her sweet nature.
“I know what you’re waiting for.” Maia reached into her purse for a small plastic bag, from which she extracted one of her homemade doggie biscuits. She baked them for her schnauzers, Bruno and Margaret, but carried around a supply to woo the local canine populace. She set SB on the sidewalk and made him earn his treat by sitting and shaking hands.
He attacked the biscuit with zeal, holding it down with his front paws and biting off portions. The thing looked a little like an oatmeal cookie, and probably tasted pretty darn good.
Maia put her hand on my arm, her expression caring. “I understand you found him. That couldn’t have been easy.”
“What? Oh, you mean Ernie Waterfield?”
She nodded and squeezed my arm.
“Well, really, we’re talking about bones. It was startling but not...” disgusting? gross? “It wasn’t so bad.”
“Poor Sophie. How’s she holding up?” She knew the mayor and I were pals.
I didn’t want to say too much. Maia was no gossip, but Sophie was a public figure, after all, and the rumor mill in this town, once it was fed a kernel or two, tended to grind away unmercifully at people and their reputations.
I offered Sophie’s own words. “It happened a long time ago. She’s doing fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Maia smiled with genuine relief. She noticed me peeking into UnderStatements. “You should go in. Lacey’s having a sale. Twenty-five percent off—even things that were already reduced.” She pawed through the white and gold tissue paper in her shopping bag, glanced around to guard against prying eyes, and showed me a plum-colored silk nightgown and matching robe. “I got these for half the original price.”
I agreed the set was gorgeous and gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Do you have anyone special in mind to wear this for?” Maia was unattached.
“Not really,” she said, but her shy grin told a different story. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
I couldn’t help it. “Anyone I know?”
“I’ll tell if you will.”
“Who, me?” I asked. “Sadly, there’s nothing to tell.”
“That’s not what I hear.” Maia leaned closer and lowered her voice as a trio of teenage girls strolled past, each glued to a phone. “Russell Appel says Dom’s been buying up every tulip in the store for months.” Russell was the local florist.
Tulips are my favorite flower, which Maia well knew. “I made him stop,” I said. “My house was beginning to look like a funeral parlor.”
“It’s so romantic, though.” Maia’s expression was downright gooey.
“Been there, done that. Dom and I have too much history.”
“But he’s so obviously in love. It’s adorable.” She seemed almost embarrassed to add, “And he’s rich. I mean, crazy rich. Not that that’s important.”
“No, of course not,” I said, and we giggled like schoolgirls.
“Well, I have to go.” Maia stood and checked her antique pendant watch. “I’m meeting with the Bergmans in ten minutes.”
“What are they having catered?” I asked, then answered myself. “Not Jenny’s bat mitzvah. Wasn’t she a toddler, like, last week?”
Maia smiled. “Time flies. Jenny wants a Doctor Who theme for the reception.”
“Good luck with that.” A final round of cheek pecks and scritches, and she was on her way.
I sucked down the last of my smoothie, let SB lick the cup, then tossed it and tucked the little dog into my tote.
What the heck. There was a sale, after all. I entered the comfortably cool, potpourri-scented lingerie shop, an oasis of silk, lace, and chiffon in hues from virginal white to surprise-him-at-the-door black and everything in between.
Lacey (her real name, no lie) was returning tried-on items to their proper racks. She gave me a bright smile and we exchanged greetings. She was in her early fifties and, to put it kindly, plain, from the homely face to the soft, well-nourished figure—not as plump as Sophie by a long shot, just your basic middle-aged spread. Her best feature was her dark blue eyes, which she played up with a tad too much makeup behind fashionably retro black eyeglass frames. Her wavy, brown hair fell just past her shoulders. She must get it dyed, but I’d never detected gray roots. Lacey Vargas was no beauty and doubtless never had been, but she did her best with what she had.
“Is it okay?” I indicated Sexy Beast in his straw-tote chariot.
Her smile froze in place. “Well, sure, as long as she stays where she is. We have a lot of delicate things here.”
I didn’t correct her on SB’s gender. I just thanked her and asked about the sale.
“It’s all reduced.” She swept her arm. “Everything in the store, and the best stuff is going fast, so you came just in time.”
Sophie had told me that Lacey and her late fiancé, Tim, came from working-class stock in New Jersey. That explained Lacey’s slightly nasal pronunciations, which turned all into awl and fast into fee-ust. Her obvious attempt to tamp down her native accent only drew more attention to it, like raising a pinky while sipping from a teacup. I had little doubt she was aware of the snide comments some of the highborn locals made about her.
They were the same comments they made about me, the lower-middle-class Death Diva weirdo transplanted almost by divine decree from a basement hovel on the South Shore to a Nimitz-class home right here in Crystal Harbor. The house I inherited has six and a half bathrooms, for crying out loud. There are a couple I haven’t even enthroned myself in yet.
Lacey and I were fish out of water in this rarefied burg, and the privileged locals made darn sure we never forgot it.
“What are you looking for today?” she asked.
“Um...” Any info that might shed light on Ernie Waterfield’s death and help get Sophie off the hot seat. “I’m not sure. Maybe a nice pair of panties?” I was aiming for the cheapest thing I could think of. UnderStatements was no bargain outlet, sale or no sale.
Lacey led the way to a rack filled with frilly dainties on tiny plastic hangers. “With this discount, if you’re getting the panties, you may as well go for the matching bra. Color?”
“I, uh, hadn’t thought that far.”
She winked. “Is it for someone special?”
I wished people would stop asking me that. “Maybe.” There was the sender of the tulips, of course. But he wasn’t the man who popped into my mind in that instant. Instead I pictured myself wearing nothing but a skimpy bra and panties, sitting on the back of a black Harley and hugging a lean, muscular—
“No,” I hastily said. “No one special.”
Sexy Beast gave a single bark. It sounded like, Liar.
Mind you, there hadn’t been an iota of hanky-panky between me and the padre, if you didn’t count what went on in my overactive imagination.
“No one special, huh?” She gave another wink. “That’s not what I hear.”
Oh brother. Did Dom have everyone in town on his payroll, pushing me into marrying him again?
“How about pink?” I said.
“Pink it is.” Instead of asking my sizes, she gave me a professional once-over and started flipping through items on the rack. I expected her to choose something in soft baby pink. Instead she held up a sheer, hot pink push-up bra and matching thong for my examination.
“Wow,” I said, then looked at the price tag. “Yikes.”
“Twenty-five off, remember.” Lacey steered me toward the fitting rooms.
Yikes minus twenty-five percent was still yikes, to my slender wallet at least. Unlike yours truly, most of the women who bought their frillies at UnderStatements did so because they could afford to live and shop in Crystal Harbor, not because a generous bequest had plucked them out of one of the poorest towns on the Island and deposited them in one of the wealthiest towns on the Island.
I found myself in the fanciest fitting room I’d ever been in, complete with silk wall covering, a brocade-upholstered bench, antique sconces, and a carpeted mini stage set in front of three-way mirrors. She hung the undies on a hook as I set my tote on the carpet, admonishing Sexy Beast to stay put. He yawned and curled up in the bottom of the tote, which was comfortably padded with a sweater that had belonged to his first mommy, Irene McAuliffe.
“What about, you know...” I indicated the thong. I was accustomed to buying my underpants in plastic-wrapped three-packs.
“Just try it on over your panties,” she said, closing the door. “Let me see when you have them on.”
I began shucking out of my denim crop pants and T-shirt. On the other side of the door I heard the slide of hangers as Lacey rearranged items on racks. Who knew how long I had her to myself? Another customer could come in at any moment. “So that’s really something, huh?” I called. “About Ernie Waterfield?”
The zing of the hangers abruptly stopped. Lacey sounded more Jersey than ever as she said, “I never did think that murdering scum killed himself out of guilt. That woulda meant he had a conscience.”
The victim of “that murdering scum” was, of course, Lacey’s long-ago boyfriend Tim. I dropped my serviceable white bra on the bench and released the electric pink one from its hanger. “The whole thing is a tragedy all around.”
Lacey’s voice was tight as she said, “Look, no offense, Jane. I know you’re friends with the mayor and she was married to the guy back then, but if you ask me, that bastard got what he deserved.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for feeling that way,” I said. “You must have been devastated when Tim died. I know I would have been. Such a senseless death.”
“If it wasn’t for Colin, I think I would’ve gone totally off the rails.”
“Colin?” I said.
“Our son—I was pregnant when Tim died. Colin’s the image of his dad. When I look at him now, I think that’s how Tim Holbrook would’ve looked at thirty-four if he’d never met Ernie Waterfield. How’re you doing in there?”
Tim Holbrook. Why did I know that name? “Oh, fine, I’m just... um... just getting this thing on.”
The door opened, making me jump. Lacey’s gaze landed approvingly on my chest, which no longer looked like my chest. More to the point, it looked like my chest times two. My cups runneth over and then some. Then she looked down at the thong and almost managed to maintain a neutral expression. Almost.
“I need to do laundry,” I said by way of explanation. I’d kept my own underpants on as instructed—my old, white granny panties whose stretched-out elastic waistband covered my navel. Lacey’s gaze flicked to the mirror behind me, and quickly away. I possessed an okay rear end, but the sight of it encased in threadbare white cotton which was itself wedgied by a delicate pink silk thong? Not so okay.
Lacey placed more items on the hooks and set a pair of fuchsia high-heeled mules on the carpet. “These will complete the look.”
Before she could beat a retreat, I said, “I have to ask you something, Lacey. You said Tim’s last name was Holbrook?”
She nodded, a quizzical look on her face.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but... well, I’ve been performing a particular assignment annually for twenty years. Almost as long as I’ve had my business.”
“Your Death Diva business,” she said.
“If you want to call it that, yes.” I should just give up and make it my official title. It was how everyone knew me, and it was kind of catchy. “An anonymous client has paid me to deliver flowers—a big, expensive arrangement—to Timothy Joseph Holbrook’s grave in New Jersey every year on September twenty-fifth.”
Lacey went still, her sapphire eyes wide. “That’s my Tim. That’s the day he died.”
“I had no idea who he was,” I said, “only that someone wanted to pay his, or her, respects without being identified. So it wasn’t you who hired me?”
“No,” she breathed, and I believed her. She seemed genuinely surprised and perplexed. “I don’t know anyone who would’ve done that.”
“His parents?” I asked.
Lacey shook her head. “They never could’ve afforded it, and they died years ago. Never got over losing Tim,” she added bitterly. “It took years off their lives, I know it did.”
“What about you?” I asked gently, feeling ridiculous having this conversation in my current getup but determined to find out what I could, for Sophie’s sake. “You don’t get over a tragedy like that overnight.”
“What do you mean?” She looked wary, making me wonder whether Detective Hernandez had paid her a visit.
“Nothing, I just... I’m glad you found happiness with someone else,” I said, recalling what Sophie had told me about Lacey’s hasty marriage to Porter Vargas.
A lilting chime from the store’s entrance announced an incoming customer.
“I concentrated on raising my son, that’s how I got over it.” Lacey’s tone was all business. “Let me know if I can bring you anything else.”
And she was gone. I heard muted conversation as she greeted the newcomer.
So. Who’d been shelling out big bucks every September to have me deliver those elaborate arrangements to Tim’s grave all these years? I pondered that as I struggled into the forest green garter belt and matching fishnet stockings. I slipped my feet into the stiletto-heeled mules.
Holy cow. I pivoted to regard my image in the three-way mirrors, trying to ignore the granny panties—which wasn’t too difficult considering the show going on up top. I owned a handful of thongs and push-up bras acquired over the years, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the elegantly slutty ensemble I found myself in. The colors Lacey had chosen actually complemented each other. I could imagine Dom’s enthusiastic reaction, though he and I hadn’t been intimate since our divorce seventeen years earlier.
And yes, I was pretty certain how the padre would react too. Martin appreciated sexy outfits. Hadn’t he once declared a particular dress of mine “totally hot”?
Lacey had brought a shortie kimono into the fitting room, a deliciously delicate confection made of the thinnest forest green silk. Against my better judgment, I looked at the price tag. Ah, only $890—after the discount. I should buy two, they’re small, yok yok.
I pushed my arms through the sleeves, letting the robe slip off one shoulder and striking a variety of pinup poses in front of the mirrors.
The conversation outside cranked up in volume. I emitted a groan as I recognized Nina Wallace’s voice.
“Four and a half months,” Nina said. “My due date is Thanksgiving, isn’t that just perfect? I threw away all my old nursing bras years ago, thought I was done with all that.” Her tinkling laugh carried clearly.
Yeah, go ahead and laugh, lady, I thought. The whole town knew her husband was not the father of her unborn child. Her husband knew it too, but he was standing by his wife for the sake of their two teenage daughters.
The door chime trilled again and another female voice joined the mix. Lacey’s sale was pulling in the customers, all right. I’d been lucky to grab a little private time with her. A few moments of muted conversation followed and then Nina’s voice rang out loud and clear—as long as I kept my ear plastered to the door.
Oh, please. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.
“I was only eight years old when Ernie Waterfield supposedly killed himself,” Nina declared, “but even then I knew there was something fishy about it.”
Sure you did, I thought. A regular little savant.
“And how could Sophie not have known about him before they got married?” she continued. “Unless she didn’t want a normal, hetero man for a husband. There are women like that, you know. I’m not saying the mayor’s one of them necessarily, but you have to wonder.”
I had it on good authority that Nina, currently the president of the Crystal Harbor Historical Society, intended to unseat Sophie during the next mayoral election. Clearly she meant to take advantage of any opportunity to sully her opponent’s name—a venerable Crystal Harbor tradition.
The newcomer spoke. Her voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Do you have any theories about who might have killed him?”
I almost guffawed when Nina said, “I hate to speak ill of anyone, particularly an elected official, but I feel a responsibility in this case to share my misgivings. I personally would not be surprised if it turns out Mayor Halperin did away with her husband.”
“What do you base your suspicions on?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but Ernie’s mother bribed Sophie—thirty million is the figure I heard—not to divorce her son once she realized he was a homosexual. And she got remarried shortly after his supposed suicide, so who knows? Maybe she got tired of keeping up appearances with her gay husband and decided she wanted a real marriage plus the money. It’s a credible scenario, is all I’m saying.”
I pulled the robe closed, tied the sash belt, and yanked open the door. Who the heck did Nina Wallace think she was, spreading a rumor like that around town? Had she no shame?
As if I hadn’t learned the answer to that one long ago.
I stalked right over to her, teetering on the four-inch stilettos and weaving around a rack of shapers (your grandma’s girdle by another name), ignoring everything and everyone else in my determination to shut down her rumor-mongering ASAP.
Nina looked as ladylike and put together as always, in a sleeveless floral maternity tunic and white capri leggings. If anything, her baby bump only emphasized her otherwise trim figure. She sported a glowing midsummer tan and a new, short hairdo, her dark hair sleek and feathery around her pretty face.
I got right in that pretty face, my finger wagging. “You have no right to spread vicious rumors like that, Nina. It’s irresponsible and self-serving. First you paint a picture of a happily married fruit fly, then in the next breath Sophie Halperin is a greedy, scheming murderer. Well, which is it? You can’t have it both ways.”
I towered over petite Nina in my ridiculous shoes. I was surprised to see her rear back, her silver-gray eyes wide in alarm. The Nina Wallace I knew was ballsier than that.
“And who are you?” the new customer asked.
I wheeled on the woman and spat out my name, about to admonish her for stoking the gossip mill. Only then did it begin to dawn on me what was going on here. My gaze flitted from the familiar-looking woman, who held a microphone, to her companion, a sturdy young man hoisting a big camera on his shoulder.
I found that camera and its bright light aimed at me as I tugged my robe tighter, belatedly recognizing Miranda Daniels, a TV reporter with the popular cable show Ramrod News. Hers is the kind of shrill “investigative reporting” that seeks out the most lurid angle of every story, inventing one when necessary. The show is not my preferred viewing. Okay, maybe once in a while if there’s nothing better on.
This, I realized, was why Nina had pretended to be terrified of me. She’d been playing to the camera.
Miranda perked up at the mention of my name. “You must be the Jane Delaney who found Ernest Waterfield’s skeleton.”
“Talk to Jane,” Lacey murmured as she slunk through the doorway to the back room. “She knows a lot more about all this than I do.” Clearly she wanted no public association with a sordid story like this, particularly on a sensationalist show like Ramrod News.
Nor did I, especially in my current state of dishabille. Granted, the naughty undies were concealed by the robe, but still. I cast a longing look at the door to the fitting room, but Miranda and the cameraman had deftly shifted position to block that particular escape route.
Miranda shoved the mic in my face. “Tell us how you discovered the skeleton, Jane.”
My heart tried to crawl up my throat. “I, uh, I just looked under the tree and there it was.” My chuckle sounded like an asthmatic chicken.
“What were you doing in the cemetery immediately after a major storm?” she asked.
I glanced at Nina, silently praying for help. Yeah, right. She looked like a cat teasing a trapped chipmunk. “I... can’t reveal what I was doing there that afternoon.” Miranda’s eyebrows lifted toward her bleached roots. I swallowed hard. “I mean, it’s... it’s classified information.”
“Classified?” A mean little smile. “Sounds mysterious.”
“It has to do with my business,” I said. “I respect my clients’ privacy.” As the reporter opened her mouth to pursue this line of questioning, I tried in vain to scoot around her. “You know what? I really don’t think I want to say any more.”
“What kind of business brings you to cemeteries at all hours?” she persisted.
There was that hateful mic again, inches from my nose. An angry flush stung my face. “I’m the Death Diva, okay? I’m the damn Death Diva. I do stuff to dead people, and I have no intention of talking about it.” And yeah, maybe I could have worded that better.
Miranda plowed ahead. “You seem pretty certain Mayor Halperin had nothing to do with her first husband’s murder. What about the bribe she accepted from Ernie’s mother?”
“It wasn’t a bribe, for crying out loud, it was a gift.”
“Thirty million?” Miranda showed me her sharp little teeth again. “That’s some generous mother-in-law.”
“It was three million bucks,” I said. “I don’t know where Nina got that thirty million figure. Now, could I please—”
“You seem to know quite a lot about this strange case, Jane.” Miranda edged closer as I tried to melt into a rack of lace negligees. “Have you shared your insights with the Crystal Harbor Police Department?”
Nina cocked her head as if to say, Good question, Jane. Have you?
“All right, I’ve had enough.” I shoved the mic, and Miranda Daniels, with just enough force to make her back off. In that instant Sexy Beast appeared, barking like a, well, like a real dog. He attacked Miranda’s leg, sinking his little fangs into her slacks and hanging on for dear life, snarling and scrabbling for purchase. Protecting me again, the sweet, deluded little fur-ball.
“Get this thing off me!” Miranda shrieked, trying to shake off the tiny poodle, who clung to her slacks with... rabid? can I say rabid? not in the, you know, diseased sense... Okay, whatever, with rabid canine determination.
“Don’t you dare hurt my dog!” I yelled, while attempting to grab SB, no small feat as he was jerked this way and that, firmly attached to the hem of Miranda’s no doubt very expensive ivory silk slacks. “If anything happens to Sexy Beast, I will sue you and your horrible show back to the Stone Age!”
The cameraman took his eye off the viewfinder just long enough to quirk a questioning eyebrow at me. Yeah, so I’m metaphor-challenged, what of it?
Finally I managed to catch SB on the upswing and pry his jaws from the reporter’s pants. I tucked him under my arm and, sweaty and thoroughly disheveled, sprinted back to the fitting room.
