Death of a Bachelorette Read online

  “You don’t mean that,” Dallas moaned. “You told me you loved me and wanted to marry me.”

  But Spencer just stared down at his plate, unable to meet her eyes.

  Meanwhile, Hope, who was still sipping her orange juice (at this rate, she’d be through with it by dinner), took time out to lob Dallas a smug smile.

  I could practically see the thought bubble over her head:

  I won! I won! Eat dirt, Texas bimbo!

  Dallas saw her smirking and went a tad ballistic.

  “Wipe that smile off your face, bitch,” she hissed. “If I can’t have Spencer, I’ll see to it you never will!”

  “Now, Dallas,” Manny said, taking a puff of his stink-bomb. “Be reasonable. Spencer’s made up his mind, and there’s nothing you can do. You know what they say. All’s fair in love and war.”

  Dallas’s eyes narrowed into angry slits.

  “As far as I’m concerned, Manny, this is war. If you think I’m going to show up in front of your cameras after this, think again. I’m done. Finito. Outta here. I’m going to call my father and have him send one of his corporate jets to pick me up.”

  Manny jumped up in alarm.

  “But you can’t leave the show! You’re under contract. I can sue you for walking out.”

  “Go ahead and sue,” Dallas snapped back. “Daddy can afford it.”

  “Damn!” Manny muttered, stubbing out his cigar and racing after her.

  Hope, meanwhile, was loving every minute of this.

  “I’m glad she knows, darling,” she said to Spencer. “I want everyone to know. I don’t want to keep our love a secret anymore.”

  Now that Dallas had gone, Spencer seemed to have crept out from under his shell.

  “Absolutely, darling,” he said. And with that, he took her hand in his and kissed it.

  “Well, whaddaya know,” Polly said. “Looks like the royal Brit really has fallen for the obnoxious twit.”

  By now, the crew was all set up at the pool to shoot Hope’s scene with Dallas. But production was called to a halt while Manny and Justin took turns standing outside Dallas’s room, begging her to return to the show.

  A good hour and a half passed as the negotiations waged on.

  Polly and I used the time constructively, playing Vending Machine Roulette (peanut butter crackers for Polly, Cheetos for me) and then hanging out at the patio, rehashing the details of my date from hell with King Konga.

  “My God!” she cried, as I described my dinner. “They actually expected you to eat the eyeball?”

  Periodically she looked over at Kirk, who was still sacked out on the pool chaise.

  Once again, I saw the longing in her eyes.

  “You have a thing for him, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, there goes my career as an international spy,” she said with a weak laugh. “We worked together on a couple of the earlier bachelorette dates, and he seemed like such a great guy. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s got a bod to die for. Have you seen his abs? The first time I saw them, I thought I’d died and gone to Calvin Klein Underwear Heaven.”

  And so we whiled away the time, eating stale junk food and discussing our anemic love lives.

  Later I would kick myself for not paying closer attention, but at the time I was only vaguely aware of what was going on around me. I heard Spencer on the phone with his mummy, saw Hope strutting around in a short terry bathrobe, looking quite proud of herself, and Kirk snoring on the pool chaise.

  All the while, Manny and Justin were taking turns cajoling Dallas out of her room.

  Finally, wiping sweat from his brow, Justin walked out onto the patio, triumphant.

  “Dallas says she’ll finish the rest of the show. But she insists on real steak for dinner each night. Not the airline crap.”

  “Okay,” Manny grudgingly conceded.

  “She says she needs a half hour to fix herself up.”

  And, indeed, a half hour later, Dallas returned to the patio, looking spectacular in an eensy yellow bikini, her tan a luscious shade of mocha, her glossy chestnut hair trailing in her wake.

  Hope took off the robe she had been wearing, revealing her tiny bod in a polka-dot bikini trimmed with ruffles. Her little chest was puffed up with so much pride, I almost expected her to be using it as a flotation device.

  The girls got in the pool to shoot the scene.

  But before the cameras started to roll, Justin told Dallas: “Remember, you’ve got to play this scene as if you don’t know Spencer has chosen Hope. Like you still think you’ve got a chance.”

  “No problem,” Dallas said, lying back in the water and spreading out her arms.

  “Okay,” Justin called out to his cameramen. “Action.”

  With the cameras rolling, Hope plastered on a mask of false pity.

  “Poor Brianna,” she tsked. “She was very sweet, but not exactly the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.”

  Brianna, lolling in a chaise out of camera range, looked up, irritated.

  “So I guess it’s just between you and me,” Hope said.

  “May the best woman win,” Dallas replied.

  “Thanks,” Hope smirked. “I’m sure I will.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, honey.”

  With that, Dallas began flutter-kicking in the pool, making sure she doused Hope with her spray.

  “I don’t think Spencer’s going to marry you, Hope. In fact, I know he won’t.”

  Wow, Dallas was turning out to be quite the little actress. If I hadn’t known that Spencer was slated to propose to Hope, I would’ve sworn Dallas still had a chance with the guy.

  She stood up straight now and shot Hope a sly smile.

  “Cancel the wedding bells, sweetie. It ain’t gonna happen.”

  And for the first time all morning, I saw a spark of fear in Hope’s eyes.

  Was it possible that Dallas had figured out a way to reel in Spencer, after all?

  Chapter 13

  Manny’s plane had at last been repaired, and as soon as Hope had changed out of her bikini into shorts and a T-shirt, we headed to the airport to shoot her skydiving scene with Spencer.

  Leaving Brianna and Dallas to soothe their bruised egos at the mansion, the rest of us tooled off in a caravan of Jeeps and SUVs.

  Polly and I rode with Manny in his monster van, Kirk at his side in the passenger seat with two parachutes in his lap. Spencer and Hope sat behind them in the second row, thighs welded together, with Polly and me bringing up the rear.

  I couldn’t decide which was worse, being trapped in the van with the fetid smell of Manny’s cigar or having to listen to Hope blather about how she couldn’t wait to visit jolly old England and wondering if maybe Spencer could arrange tea with the queen.

  Did Hope have no empathy whatsoever? Didn’t she realize how hurtful this must be for Kirk?

  Apparently not, because she just kept on babbling.

  It was a short ride to the airport, thank heavens, and when we got there, Spencer and Hope were hustled into hair and makeup and then fitted with unflattering puffy jumpsuits that would have made ordinary mortals look like the Michelin Man.

  Hope and Spencer, however, actually managed to look good in them, their bodies annoyingly thin under all that fluff.

  Manny, in a burst of The Cutesies, had ordered a baby blue chute for Spencer and a pink chute for Hope. Now, with gritted teeth, Kirk helped Spencer and Hope put on their chutes, strapping them onto their bodies like backpacks, avoiding all eye contact with Hope.

  Hope had no trouble handling her chute, so Kirk’s time with her was mercifully brief. Spencer, on the other hand, was taking forever.

  Why did I get the feeling the guy was still figuring out how to brush his teeth?

  Finally, Kirk got him strapped in and went over the instructions for deploying the chutes.

  Given that I know absolutely nothing about the inner wo
rkings of parachutes, you’ll have to forgive my lack of techno-talk here. All I can tell you is that there were a couple of doohickeys they had to pull on the front straps—one to deploy the main chute, and another to deploy a reserve in case of an emergency.

  “Understood?” Kirk asked, when he was finished explaining.

  “Absolutely,” Spencer nodded. “I pull on my left for the main canopy and my right for the emergency canopy.”

  “No, no! It’s the other way around. Right for main, left for emergency.”

  “Brilliant!” Spencer replied, with an idiotic grin.

  “My God,” whispered Polly, who was standing next to me. “The guy has the IQ of a turnip.”

  At last the lovebirds were all suited up, and Kirk fitted them with their helmets. At which point, Justin, who had been busy yakking on his cell with his agent, reluctantly clicked his phone shut and called for action.

  The cameras started rolling as Spencer and Hope made their way up the steps to the plane.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Hope asked, her perky smile firmly in place. “It’s going to be so much fun!”

  Back in the van, I’d handed Spencer a list of bon mots to use in the scene, little gems like, “I’m already flying high with you, Hope. This is just icing on the cake.”

  But naturally, all he said now was, “Brilliant!”

  Once they’d boarded the plane and the door slammed shut, Manny’s ancient pilot, matchstick dangling from his mouth, gave a thumbs-up from the cockpit and took off.

  Minutes later, the plane was hovering in the air above us.

  Of course, on a quality shoot, they’d have a special aerial photographer shooting close-up footage of the jump, but on this Grade Z production, Manny had settled for having his ground cameramen use zoom lenses.

  The plane door now opened, and Spencer appeared in the doorway, resplendent in his blue jumpsuit.

  We watched with bated breath as he jumped. For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Had he pulled the wrong doohickey? Or had his mind simply gone blank?

  But then, a collective sigh of relief could be heard among the crew as Spencer’s baby blue canopy billowed open and he began floating to the ground.

  Now it was Hope’s turn.

  Silhouetted in the doorway of the plane, she waved to the cameras below.

  When she took her plunge, I felt no fear. If nothing else, Hope was a smart cookie. I was certain she knew which doohickey to pull, and that she’d operate the chute with the expertise of a pro.

  Wrong. Major league wrong.

  I stared up in the sky, waiting for the chute to open and a pink canopy to appear. Seconds passed. More seconds. And still no sign of the canopy.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Manny shouted.

  “It looks like she’s trying to pull the controls,” one of the cameramen shouted, “but they’re not working.”

  Indeed, Hope seemed to be writhing in mid-air.

  And then, before our horrified eyes, the future Countess of Swampshire was hurtling through space, plummeting to her death.

  Chapter 14

  The entire Paratito Police Department (two guys in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian-print shirts) showed up at the airport to investigate. They quickly determined that someone had tampered with Hope’s pink parachute, cutting the cords to both the main chute and the emergency canopy.

  Kirk, eyes wide with panic, swore that both chutes were in perfect working order when he checked them in his prop shed that morning at around 9:00 AM. So whoever tampered with the chutes had to have done it sometime between 9:00 AM and a little after 1:00 PM, when Kirk went to get them for the shoot.

  We all returned to the mansion, where one of the cops, a skinny young guy with enormous brown doe eyes, headed off to the prop shed, a small building on the rear grounds of the mansion, to dust for fingerprints.

  My estimation of the Paratito PD took a nosedive when I saw a pamphlet sticking out from his back pocket called Fingerprinting for Dummies.

  Ouch. Not exactly the FBI, were they?

  The other cop, Paratito’s chief of police, a paunchy guy who looked vaguely familiar, commandeered Manny’s office and called us in, one by one, for questioning.

  When it was my turn to be grilled, I found him sitting behind Manny’s desk, his gut pushing up against the drawers, his hairs plastered to his head in an inventive combover. And then I realized who he reminded me of: King Konga.

  Indeed, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the octopus-eating king.

  Across the room, Manny’s tropical fish frolicked in their tank, and I wondered if he’d leap over and grab one to snack on.

  “Ah, Ms. Austen,” he said, getting up to shake my hand. “I am Tonga, the chief of police. What a pleasure it is,” he added, “to meet my future sister-in-law.”

  Say what??

  “My brother, King Konga, has told me all about you. And I see he did not exaggerate,” he said, giving the me a none-too-subtle once-over. “You will make a perfect Wife Number Twelve.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sakes. This had to stop.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be marrying your brother.”

  “That’s what they all say,” he said with a jolly chortle. “But in the end, Konga always gets what he wants.”

  Yikes, I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “But, of course, before you can marry Konga, we have to rule you out as a suspect in this unfortunate murder.”

  And for a crazy instant, I had a hard time deciding which would be worse: being accused of murder or being shackled to Konga for the rest of my life.

  Actually, that murder charge wasn’t looking so bad.

  “Where were you,” he asked, “between nine this morning and one this afternoon?”

  Thank heavens I had Polly as my alibi!

  “I was on the patio and at the pool with Polly, the production assistant. We were together the whole time.”

  “That’s what she told me,” he said with a broad grin. “Which means you’re in the clear. The engagement is still on!”

  Engagement? What engagement?

  “I must introduce you to my wife. She knows several excellent recipes for octopus glands.”

  “Sounds fab,” I said, scooting out of the room, wondering how long it would take me to book a flight back to L.A.

  * * *

  Back in Sauna Central, I found Prozac stretched out in bed watching Godzilla the waterbug strolling across the room.

  I blinked in disbelief. Back home, Prozac hunted down anything that moved. Birds. Mice. Dustbunnies.

  And now she was just sitting there, doing nothing.

  “Why on earth aren’t you chasing that awful bug, Prozac? What happened to your killer instinct?”

  Prozac gazed up at me lazily.

  It’s back in L.A., with my bacon bits and decent living conditions.

  If Prozac wasn’t up for the job, I’d have to do it myself.

  By now, Godzilla had come to a halt, standing in the middle of the room as if daring me to stomp on him.

  I have to admit I was more than a tad squeamish at the thought of bug guts all over my floor. But I took a deep breath and forced myself to do it.

  Wham went my foot.

  Needless to say, I missed by a mile, and Godzilla scampered off under a nearby baseboard. If he had fingers, I’m sure he would have been giving me one.

  It was all most annoying, and I was just about to console myself with a Mars bar I’d picked up in my latest round of Vending Machine Roulette, when Polly came bursting in my room.

  “Did you hear the news?” she said, her ponytail aquiver with excitement. “They’re taking Dallas down to police headquarters for further questioning! Omigosh,” she cried, racing to my window, “there they go now!”

  I hurried over to join her at the window. Down on the grounds below, I watched as the skinny cop struggled to drag a handcuffed Dallas to the official police Jeep. Writhing and tossing her hair extensions, she screamed, “Wait till my d
addy hears about this. He’s going to sue you people for everything you’re worth!”

  Which, I guessed, was approximately five coconut shells.

  Finally, the police managed to get her into the backseat of the Jeep, the skinny cop at her side.

  “I can’t say I’m surprised,” Polly said as they drove off. “Dallas practically announced she was going to kill Hope. Remember how she said, If I can’t have Spencer, you never will?”

  “I remember. But it doesn’t make sense. If Dallas was the killer, why would she announce her plans to everyone? You’d think she’d be a lot smarter than that.”

  “Honey, Dallas is a bachelorette. Not an MIT grad. And besides, guess what they found shoved way back in her closet, wrapped in one of her teddies? A wire cutter! The police have bagged it as the possible murder weapon.”

  Once again, I had my doubts. Why wouldn’t Dallas toss the wire cutter into the bushes? Why bring it back and hide it in her own closet?

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been framed.

  Oh, well. There was nothing I could do about it. And on the plus side, at least this meant the production would be over and I could leave the island, thereby avoiding any future contact with my potbellied beau, King Konga.

  “I guess this means the end for Some Day My Prince Will Come,” I said.

  “Yeah, and Manny’s inconsolable. Keeps talking about how it was cut off before it even had a chance.”

  “Does that mean we can all go home?”

  “Afraid not. The cops say we all have to stay here in Paratito until the case is officially solved.”

  Gaak.

  That could take forever, I thought, remembering Fingerprinting for Dummies.

  “Well, gotta go check on Manny’s latest shipment of pastrami,” Polly said, heading for the door. “There’s been some sort of delay, and Manny’s having a snit fit.”

  With that she scooted off, leaving me alone in my misery.

  I could not possibly stay in this bug-infested hellhole one more day than necessary. And with my confidence in the Paratito PD being absolutely nil, I made up my mind then and there to snoop around on my own and speed up the murder-solving process.

  In the meanwhile, I dug into my Mars bar, making sure to leave absolutely no chocolate bits on the floor to tempt Godzilla from his lair.