Chapter 19

I left Detective Romero in the house and returned to the car. Wilson sat behind the wheel with a very pasted, smug grin on his face. While I had been inside talking with Crystal and Detective Romero, Wilson had been in the backyard sipping tea with Alicia Mae and was bursting with news.

“I don’t know about you, Old Gal, but I found out a few things that blonde ice queen of a personal assistant wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

“Crystal?” I asked. “Like what?”

“Like Lacey wasn’t the only one carrying on with Chad.”

“C-C-Crystal and Ch-Chad?” I choked on the names. “They had a relationship? A physical relationship? How did you find that out?”

“Alicia Mae.”

“Alicia Mae? How could she...”

“According to her, when Zoey traveled, which has been a lot lately, Crystal kept Zoey’s bed warm with her fiancé.”

“Alicia told you this?”

“Not in those exact words, but when a four-year-old sees two people sleeping in the same bed together, she understands something’s going on.”

I laughed. “No wonder Crystal doesn’t want me around. She was afraid I might pick up on her extracurricular activities.”

“And that’s not all. It gets better. So much better.”

“Go on,” I said.

“It appears our little Alicia’s a bit of a pickpocket. Evidently, when Zoey was away, and Crystal would come over, Alicia would go through her purse and take things.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.” Wilson reached into his pocket and took out a small, round, plastic pink caddy. She thought it was candy, but turns out, it’s—”

“Birth control pills?” I grabbed the pill caddy from Wilson’s hand and opened it to see how many pills remained. The caddy was half full.

“She thought they were bitter, and don’t worry she didn’t take any, but she gave them to Mariposa.”

“Mariposa?” The name was familiar, but why?

“Her doll. The one she and Heather used to have tea parties with. Alicia keeps the doll in the playhouse. It was a gift from her mother. But wait, it gets even better.”

“What?”

“Right after Crystal moved into her room, Alicia Mae went through the trash, and she found this.” Wilson took a blue and white pregnancy test tube from his pocket and held it out for me to see. “It’s positive.”

I grabbed the stick and stared at the positive plus sign. “You’ve got to be kidding. Crystal and Lacey were both having affairs with Chad, and they’re both pregnant?”

“Or one of them is anyway, considering Lacey’s no longer in the picture.”

We rode in silence, Wilson driving much slower than his usual breakneck speed, the both of us wondering who killed Lacey.

Finally, it was Wilson who spoke. “My bet’s on Crystal. I think she found out Lacey was pregnant and figured if Zoey knew about the baby it’d mess up Zoey big time. So Crystal killed Lacey.”

“Which takes care of one mommy-to-be, but what about the fact Crystal’s also got a bun in the oven?”

“I doubt Crystal plans to tell Chad or Zoey for that matter. Unlike Lacey, I don’t see the Ice Queen settling for a home and marriage. For Crystal, I think the pregnancy had to come as a big surprise, and something she may intend to take care of. But Crystal knew Lacey was out for more than just Chad’s baby, and she needed to stop her.”

Wilson had a point. Crystal had admitted she was at the Pink Mansion for dinner the night Lacey and Zoey were running lines, and had made it very clear to Detective Romero that she left early. But what if she hadn’t? What if that was all a lie?

“You think Crystal took the doll from the house, and instead of going home snuck into the backyard, then waited until it got late and she heard Zoey and Lacey say goodnight? And then she triggered the doll’s cry box to make a whining sound and waited for Lacey to come out of the house and hit her over the head with the doll and killed her?”

“Exactly. Crystal knew Zoey had to be up early the next morning. All she had to do was wait until Zoey went to bed and Lacey came outside. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Crystal slipped Zoey an extra sleeping pill, put it in her food to ensure she got tired early. Once Zoey heard what she thought was a cat-like sound, Crystal turned on the spa’s bubblers to attract Lacey’s attention, then snuck up behind her and hit her over the head with the doll. The perfect crime. Even Lacey didn’t know who killed her.”

“Except Crystal didn’t take the doll, and she’s too detailed to have left it behind.”

“She might have panicked.”

“Not Crystal. She’s cool under pressure. She would have picked up the doll, and she wouldn’t have dropped the squawk box on the trail.”

“Then who?” Wilson asked.

“Kelsey maybe. I get the feeling Detective Romero likes her for the murder. If she suspected Lacey was trying to break up Chad and Zoey, unlike Crystal whose ticket to success is Zoey and would do anything to protect her employer, Kelsey may have thought the future of the band was threatened by Lacey, and killed Lacey herself.”

“Why not Chad?” Wilson asked. “He had everything to lose if Zoey found out.”

“Chad has an alibi. He claims he was at a recording studio that night, and until Romero finds out differently, Chad’s off the hook.”

Wilson pulled the Jag into the drive. “Of course, there’s always the possibility its none of them. Much as I hate to agree with my sister, it could be some random stalker looking to make a name for himself. Maybe someone followed Zoey home one day or bought one of those Hollywood Star Maps for sale on every corner. It’d be easy enough to locate her home, notice it backed up to the park, hike up the trail, and come in through the back gate. At that hour, anyone stalking Zoey would have seen Lacey in the backyard, thought it was Zoey, and killed Lacey by mistake. They did look a lot alike.”

“But what about the doll and the cry box?” I asked. “A stalker’s not going to have access to Zoey’s dolls.”

“Not unless somebody gave it to them,” Wilson said.