Death of a Bachelorette Read online

  “What happened to the ham in my ham sandwich?”

  A delicate belch from Prozac.

  It was yummy. A little on the salty side, though.

  Manny chomped down furiously on his cigar.

  “If that cat doesn’t stop poking around where she doesn’t belong, there’s going to be another murder on this island.”

  “I’m so sorry, sir. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  I started to beat a hasty retreat when Manny called out to me.

  “Hold on a minute. Now that you’re here, I need to talk to you.

  “Sit,” he said, gesturing to a chair across from his desk.

  I plopped down with Pro in my lap, praying she wouldn’t reach out and nab the kosher pickle on Manny’s plate.

  “I suppose you know that Hope’s death means the end of Some Day My Prince Will Come,” Manny said with a pained sigh.

  “Yes, Polly told me.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “Everything was going so well. The network was even talking about picking up the show for another season. And now it’s all over because that little idiot had to get herself killed.”

  “Do you have any idea who could have done it?” I asked.

  “Why, Dallas, of course,” he said, with a wave of his cigar. “Who else? She practically threatened to kill Hope in front of all of us.”

  “Did you actually see Dallas going over to the prop shed?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t see her going to the prop shed. If you remember, I spent most of the morning trying to convince her to shoot that damn scene in the pool with Hope. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have done it after I left her. She was supposedly in her room for a half hour changing into her bikini for the pool scene. Maybe she raced out to the prop shed and cut the cords on the chute then.

  “Oh, well,” he sighed. “The show’s over, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Now I need you to write a press release about how devastated we all are at the loss of our beloved bachelorette. You know the drill. Some chatter about how Hope was a shining star, a ray of sunshine. How we all loved and respected her, blahbitty blah blah blah. Got it?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. Although it would take all the writing skills I possessed to turn Hope into a ray of sunshine.

  “And one more thing,” he said as I got up to go. “I just got a message from King Konga. He wants you to go harpoon fishing with him tomorrow.”

  Harpoon fishing? With Konga? Was he nuts?

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s just say I had a very uncomfortable dinner with him the other night, and I don’t want to see him again.”

  “But you’ve got to go!” Manny growled, taking an angry puff of his cigar. “I can’t risk alienating the locals. Not in the middle of a murder investigation.”

  “Sorry, Manny. But I’m not about to endure one more minute with that paunchy polygamist. Never. Nada. Ain’t gonna happen.”

  A calculating gleam shone in Manny’s beady eyes.

  “I’ll pay you five hundred dollars.”

  Well! If he thought I was the kind woman who’d sacrifice her dating principles for filthy lucre . . . he was absolutely right.

  “What time tomorrow?”

  And so it was that I slunk out of Manny’s office with absolutely no pride. No dignity. No principles whatsoever.

  But on the plus side, at least I had that Eskimo Pie.

  Chapter 17

  Juggling Prozac in my arms, I fished the Eskimo Pie from my purse and somehow managed to unwrap it as I headed up the stairs.

  Not an easy feat, but I’m always highly motivated when there’s chocolate-covered ice cream at stake. And given my upcoming date with King Konga, I needed all the chocolate-covered ice cream I could get.

  I looked down at Prozac, busy licking melted ice cream from my thumb.

  I still couldn’t get over her escape from Sauna Central. How the heck had she done it? The room was practically hermetically sealed.

  But all thoughts of Prozac came to a halt when I reached the second-floor landing and heard voices coming from Brianna’s room. Considering Hope was dead and Dallas was in jail, I wondered who Brianna could be talking to.

  So I wandered over to her room to take a peek.

  There she was, propped up in bed, her computer on her lap, skyping with someone who sounded like a news reporter.

  “Yes, it’s been quite a shock,” Brianna was saying, with all the solemnity of a pallbearer. “Hope was such a beautiful person, inside and out; we’re all grief-stricken by her loss.”

  Here she actually managed to work up a tear or two.

  Of course, those tears were as phony as her boobs, but she was giving a very convincing performance of someone who actually gave a damn about Hope’s death.

  Major props to Brianna’s acting coach.

  The reporter was now asking about Dallas.

  “It’s true Dallas is being held by the police,” Brianna said, “but as far as I know, she’s not been formally charged with Hope’s murder . . . Do I think she did it? I have no idea.

  “In this country,” she said, channeling Atticus Finch via Jayne Mansfield, “we’re all presumed innocent until proven guilty—a theme I will be exploring in great depth in the Pomona Playhouse’s upcoming interpretive production of The Crucible, where I’ll be portraying Angry Townswoman Number Three. True, it’s not a very big role, but to quote the late great Konstantin Stanislavski, ‘There are no small parts. Only small actors.’ ”

  Stanislavski? Brianna knew about Stanislavski? I figured the only Russian she knew was black, with an extra shot of vodka on the side.

  She smiled modestly as the reporter wished her the best of luck.

  “My pleasure,” she said, managing to cram in the dates of her upcoming production of The Crucible before signing off.

  If the bottom ever fell out of the acting market, she had it made as a PR lady.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, clicking off her computer and catching sight of me in the doorway. “Can you believe I was just skyping with Access Hollywood? I’m going to be on the news tonight!”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “And I’ve got three hundred twenty-six new followers on Twitter!”

  “Super.”

  “Oh, look,” she said, noticing Prozac in my arms. “You brought your kitty! Isn’t she the sweetest thing ever?”

  At which point Prozac began doing a little acting of her own, purring and batting her baby greens, giving the impression that she was actually the sweetest thing ever.

  Talk about a world-class performance. That cat could give lessons to Stanislavski.

  “And you’ve got an Eskimo Pie!” Brianna exclaimed. “Mind if I have a bite? I’m starving!”

  Of course I minded, but I had to play nice if I wanted to squeeze any info from her.

  “Not at all,” I said, handing it to her.

  Would you believe she scarfed the whole thing down in two gulps?

  I gritted my teeth in annoyance.

  “Sorry,” she said, with an apologetic smile. “Being on TV makes me hungry.”

  And the really aggravating thing was that she probably wouldn’t gain an ounce.

  “It’s all so exciting!” she burbled, licking the ice cream from the wrapper. “My agent says the offers are rolling in! I’ve got auditions for two TV pilots. And a Wonderbra commercial!”

  “So,” I said, easing the conversation away from Brianna’s Wonderbra gig and back to the murder, “do you think Dallas killed Hope?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Dallas is a spoiled brat, but I doubt she’s a killer.”

  “Any idea who might have done it?”

  “Maybe Justin,” she said with a shrug. “Now that Hope’s dead, he’s free to take that movie directing gig that he wanted so much.”

  Point well taken.

  “Sorry to cut this short,” she sai
d, picking up a dog-eared script. “But I’ve really got to learn my lines for The Crucible.”

  “Right. Sure. Of course.”

  “My agent’s going to fax me the pilot scripts tomorrow. I can’t get over how much media attention Hope’s murder is getting. Of course, I’m sorry she’s dead,” she said, plastering on her pallbearer face for an appropriate nanosecond, “but things couldn’t have worked out better if I’d won the contest myself!”

  Yes, things were certainly working out well for Brianna.

  Which made me wonder: Was it possible that Brianna had bumped off Hope as a career move?

  Had the buxom bachelorette executed the ultimate Hollywood power play and actually killed for a part?

  Chapter 18

  I woke up the next morning, dreading my harpoon fishing date with Konga.

  “Can you believe I sold my soul for five hundred bucks?” I asked Pro, who was busy clawing my chest.

  Absolutely. When do we eat?

  As if in answer to her command, I heard a timid knock on the door. I opened it to see Akela fleeing down the stairs, Prozac’s bowl of fish on my doorstep.

  With a leap worthy of Superman, Prozac zipped down from the bed and within seconds had her nose buried in the bowl.

  Throwing on my jeans and a T-shirt, I left Prozac belching fish fumes and trudged down to the patio for breakfast, where I was so nervous about my upcoming date, I could barely finish my cardboard corn muffin.

  I looked around the breakfast table—at Spencer sipping his tea, Justin on the phone with his agent, and Manny, surprisingly chipper for someone whose show had just gone down the drain, scarfing down real eggs and bacon.

  Polly sat at my side, staring dreamily at Kirk, whose bloodshot eyes darted nervously around the patio as he glugged down some coffee.

  For the most part, the crew was silent and edgy, the chatter subdued. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of tension in the air.

  After all, if Dallas was innocent, there was a killer among us.

  I’d been meaning to nose around and ask some questions yesterday afternoon, but Manny had kept me busy writing press releases, updating his Facebook page, tweeting about Hope’s death, and penning an angry letter to his dry cleaners about some missing buttons on a Tommy Bahama shirt. Any minute now, I expected to be ghosting his memoirs.

  “Why so glum, hon?” Polly asked, as I pecked at my cardboard muffin.

  I told her how Manny had bribed me into going harpoon fishing with Konga.

  “He’s paying you five hundred bucks?” Polly said. “Heck, I’d go harpoon fishing with Konga for five hundred bucks.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” I assured her. “Not if you’d seen him. Remember? The guy has six teeth and three hairs, and a belly the size of a beer barrel.”

  “He does sound pretty deadly,” she conceded. “Oh, well. Just wear plenty of sunscreen, and try to think of the payola at the end of your harpoon.”

  And bolstered by those words of encouragement, I headed up to my room to change for my date.

  I decided to wear the grungiest capris and tee I’d brought on the trip, figuring if I looked bad enough, maybe Konga would dump me as Wife Number Twelve.

  Luckily it was a soppingly humid day and my hair was a certified frizzfest. I would not even attempt to tame it, nor would I bother to put on makeup.

  I was just stepping out of my jeans to change into my grungy capris when I felt the crackle of a piece of paper in one of my jeans pockets. Then I remembered the fax I’d filched from Manny’s office yesterday—the one from the cable network producing Some Day My Prince Will Come.

  Now I took it out and read it. To the best of my recollection, it went something like this:

  Dear Mr. Kaminsky:

  Thank you for sending us footage from your proposed

  reality show, SOME DAY MY PRINCE WILL COME.

  Unfortunately, we’ve decided to pass on it, as it does

  not live up to our standards of watchable TV.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Amanda M. Washton

  Director of Development

  PS. Thanks also for the box of Cuban cigars,

  but because neither I nor anyone in my family smoke,

  I will be returning it to you under separate cover.

  Holy mackerel! Manny had been lying all along! There was no network deal. He was shooting the show on spec, hoping someone out there would buy it. And yet he pretended it was already a done deal. Not only that, he’d gone on and on about how much the network had loved it.

  Why had he told all those whoppers? To get the crew to do the show in first place? To pump his flagging ego?

  How pathetic.

  I checked and saw that the fax was dated a few days before Hope’s murder. And yet he continued to shoot. I guess he planned to finish the show and shop it around to some other networks. But now that wouldn’t be possible. Hope’s death had killed any chance of his show getting picked up.

  Which seemed to let him off the hook as a murder suspect.

  And yet, I couldn’t help thinking: If Manny had lied about the network, was he lying about Hope’s murder, too? Was it possible he had a motive to kill her, after all?

  If so, what on earth could it be?

  Chapter 19

  I don’t know if you’ve ever read Dante’s Inferno. (I haven’t, but I’ve Googled it, which is practically the same thing, right?)

  For those of you not in the know, it’s a gruesome little tale about the Nine Circles of Hell, chock full of demons, torture, suffering, and pain.

  I only bring it up because I’m certain that if Dante were alive today, he’d be whipping out his quill and writing about the Tenth Circle of Hell: Harpoon Fishing with King Konga.

  Never in my life had I spent a more ghastly afternoon.

  I drove over to the tribal village, where I was met by Konga, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a necklace strung with rotting teeth.

  Suma, his Number One Wife, stood at his side, glowering.

  It seemed she would be our chaperone on this date. Which, frankly, was a bit of a relief. At least Konga wouldn’t be trying any hanky panky.

  Suma had packed a picnic basket, which she shoved into my hand to carry as we headed down to the water. While I carried the basket, Suma hoisted three massive harpoons.

  The only thing Konga had to carry was his pot belly.

  Trekking down what seemed like miles on a rocky path, I happened to notice a tattoo of Konga’s grinning face on Suma’s upper arm.

  Yikes. It was bad enough she had to look at the guy every day. To have to wear him, too, seemed like the ultimate punishment.

  At last we reached the water.

  “There’s our boat,” Suma said, pointing to a canoe resting up against a sand dune. “Now push!” she commanded me.

  Together Suma and I shoved the canoe to the water, Konga not lifting a finger, just whistling a happy tune and fiddling with his tooth necklace.

  After loading the picnic basket, the harpoons, and Konga onto the canoe, Suma and I climbed on board and shoved off—Konga sitting at the head of the canoe, me in the middle, facing him, and Suma bringing up the rear.

  I assumed we’d all be rowing, but I assumed wrong.

  Suma and I manned the oars, while Konga lounged up front, snacking on crunchy round things, which I prayed weren’t eyeballs.

  It was a blisteringly hot day, the temperature and humidity in the high nineties, and not a hint of a breeze on the glassy blue sea.

  Within seconds I was drenched in sweat.

  My God. This was worse than Sauna Central.

  All the while I rowed, sweat dripping from my every pore, Konga was lounging in his loincloth and tooth necklace, staring at me admiringly.

  “I like my women strong,” he said, chomping on one of his munchies.

  Soon he was regaling me with highlights from one of his favorite TV series, Gilligan’s Island.

  “That Mary Ann, she is a groovy chick. Lik
e you.”

  This accompanied by a most unsettling wink.

  “One thing I do not understand, though,” he mused, his brow wrinkled in thought. “It says in the theme song that the passengers set sail for a three-hour tour. Which means they couldn’t have brought any luggage. So how,” he asked, like Steven Hawking puzzling over a black hole, “did they have enough clothes to last for the three years they were stranded on the island?”

  That was a mind bender, all right. I could just imagine the fun conversations I’d be having with this nincompoop once we were married.

  “How?” Konga pondered. “How did they do it?”

  “Black magic!” Suma muttered. “Evil Americans,” she said, shooting me the stink eye. “They practice it all the time.”

  Oh, please. I only wished I practiced black magic. The first thing I’d ask for would be a margarita and a one-way ticket back to L.A.

  At last we’d rowed out far enough to go fishing. But before we tossed any harpoons, it was time to break out our picnic lunch, lovingly prepared by Suma.

  By now I was starving, and could not wait to chow down.

  Suma passed out the food, handing me a banana leaf, inside of which I found a particularly noxious-looking fish, white and slimy, eyeballs still intact.

  I waited for her to hand out forks and knives, but I waited in vain. She and Konga begin tearing into their fish with their bare hands.

  “Eat hearty,” Suma said to me, her leathery face wreathed in a wicked smile.

  I bet she purposely chose this Quasimodo of fishes, knowing full well it would revolt me.

  And it worked. One look at that fish, and I totally lost my appetite.

  Somehow I summoned the courage to pick off a minuscule piece and pop it in my mouth. Oh, gaak. Talk about slimy. It was like mucus with bones.

  “You no like your food?” Konga asked, staring at my uneaten fish.

  “Oh, no! It’s yummy. I’m just eating slowly to make it last.”

  How the heck was I going to get through this meal without eating this damn snotfish?

  Then I got an idea.

  “Look!” I cried, pointing at a spot off in the distance.