Ms America and the Offing on Oahu (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 1) Read online

  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” —she 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.”

  A minute later, in the carpeted elevator, the night catches up with me. I kick off my stilettos and seriously consider sitting down for the ride to the ninth floor. Outside 915, I slip the key card into the slot. A tiny red light flares and the lock refuses to budge. I take the card out, make sure I have it pointed in the right direction, then slide it in again. Again the little red light.

  “Why?” I ask the door. “Why?” I lay my forehead against its unyielding surface before I realize there is a reason this key card isn’t working. This one isn’t mine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I’m a tad distracted remembering the other key card I have in my possession when the door is flung open.

  “Girl, again you can’t make that thing work?” Standing there in a long Bob Marley tee shirt, her hair held back by a headband and her face slathered with a cream mask, is my roommate, Ms. Mississippi, Shanelle Walker.

  She grabs the key card from my hand and shoves it in the slot. Not surprisingly, she too gets the little red light. Her eyebrows, devoid of cream, fly skyward. She hands me back the card. “Guess the magnetic strip died. Just like Tiffany Amber.” She gives me a wicked smile, then slams the door shut behind me, probably waking half the floor. She touches my arm with her index finger and makes a sizzling sound. “Oooh, you hot, girl!” She cackles and claps her hands. “You Ms. America now!”

  “I am not.” I throw my stuff on my double bed.

  “Yes, you are! With Tiffany cold as ice, it’s just a formality at this point. Since those dang judges didn’t have the good sense to put me in the top five, the only other one in that group with half a chance is Trixie Barnett and we all know Congeniality never takes the big prize.” She sets her hands on her hips. “I expect I know what the answer will be but I’ll ask anyhow. You didn’t poison Tiffany in that isolation booth, did you?”

  “Of course I didn’t poison Tiffany! Is that what people are saying?”

  “Not you per se but the poison part, yes, ma’am.” I see then that Shanelle’s been on her laptop scanning the same headlines Rachel is probably reading back home. “It’s only speculation but the experts all agree. Something like cyanide.” She hisses the word.

  I take in that detail as I whip the Ohio sash off over my head. I can certainly see how cyanide might mess with a girl’s appearance. That could expl
ain why Tiffany looked particularly nasty to the dancer who turned her over and ended up fainting.

  “And how will they ever figure out whodunit?” Shanelle goes on. “That girl had more enemies than Tupac Shakur. And any one of us could’ve slipped something vile into her makeup bag while it was backstage. That’s what everybody’s speculating, too. And that’s why the cops won’t let us go home. Not that I’m in any rush.”

  Given my last-to-see-alive status with regard to Tiffany Amber, I’m pleased to hear I have lots of company on the suspect list. I reach behind my back and start trying to unzip my gown. Shanelle gets behind me to help. Another thought comes to me. “Didn’t Misty Delgado room with Tiffany?”

  “Till she couldn’t take it no more and moved out.” Shanelle harrumphs. “Now that’s somebody I’d examine very closely if I was Oahu PD.”

  “It is suspicious how the two of them couldn’t get along and then that video of Misty shows up on YouTube.”

  “Right before the finale! And then during the finale Tiffany winds up dead.” Shanelle backs away, the zipper undone. “You wanna use some of my tea tree face mask? I’ll leave the jar out for you. Does wonders for your pores, girl.”

  At the moment it’s not my pores I’m focused on. With Shanelle in the bathroom and my gown only half on, I dig out the paperwork the pageant people gave us when we arrived. There it is, the sheet I was looking for. I lay it on the bedspread and run my finger down the list of names and numbers.

  Shanelle comes back into the bedroom. “I’d get some shuteye if I was you. You need to be fresh for tomorrow when they make the announcement.”

  I’m still hunched over the sheet. “What announcement?”

  “That you won!” She clucks and gets into her bed, the one nearer the sliding glass doors that lead to the balcony, then rolls away from me. “You’re the least enthusiastic beauty pageant winner I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s because I haven’t won any beauty pageants lately.” Although I have been lucky now in one regard. I’ve found exactly the information I was looking for.

  I disassemble the pageant version of myself—gown, helmet hair, pancake makeup—and dutifully get into bed, but end up passing the next hours in an agony of waiting. I know it is highly unwise to embark on my mission until the wee hours. And despite how exhausted I am, I can’t bring myself to get a wink of shuteye in the meanwhile. I toss and turn so much I yank the sheet off the mattress.

  Finally, at 3:48 AM, I allow myself to get up. Shanelle is either the best fake snorer in the western world or she truly is asleep. As quietly as I know how, I dress in my lime green Juicy Couture tracksuit and coordinating floral-print Keds and creep across our darkened bedroom, illuminated by only a slit of light between the pulled drapes, to grab both the key cards I have in my possession. One goes in one pocket, one in the other, so their magnetic strips don’t conk out right when I need them.

  I encounter no one on the elevator trip down to the third floor and no one in the corridor leading to number 328. No security guard is hulking outside the door, which I half expected. I walk past to suss out the situation. I don’t know what I think I’ll see. Yellow crime tape crisscrossing the door? None of that. But sure as day there is the telltale dust of fingerprinting all over the door handle.

  That will not faze your plucky heroine, who has planned ahead.

  I pull from my pocket both the relevant card key and a Kleenex tissue. I deploy the latter carefully across the door handle so it will be ready should I need it.

  Will I?

  The key card slips into the slot. A moment later a green light flashes and the lock releases. I twist the Kleenexed handle and presto!—I am inside the private lair of the late, unlamented Tiffany Amber.

  Now, lest you think I am a scofflaw or an idiot, allow me to disabuse you of both notions. Not only do I consider myself an upstanding citizen, I am one. As a cop’s daughter, I have the utmost respect for the law. What I’ve decided in this case is that I’m not breaking any laws. I am simply taking advantage of the opportunity presented by my auspicious discovery of the key card. Until it opened Tiffany’s door, I didn’t know for certain that it had been hers. True, given where I found it, I had my suspicions. And that’s why I’m taking this risk: should I need to deflect suspicion from myself, as Trixie put it, maybe a little preparatory sleuthing will yield a clue I can use to point the cops in another, more profitable direction.

  Not to mention that I’m damn curious, which is harder to rationalize.

  I stand in the dark and ponder how to proceed. Of course, I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m looking for. I guess the closest I can pinpoint it is: something weird. As I ruminate on what that might constitute, I notice an odd smell. It’s subtle but it’s there. I move forward a few inches, my nostrils working as furiously as any beagle’s. What is that? I’ve smelled it before but never in hotel rooms. More like in back yards. Is it … citronella? Like those candles people burn to keep mosquitoes away? Why in the world would Tiffany’s room smell of citronella?

  Okay. That qualifies as weird.

  Buoyed by that discovery, I move further into the room. I realize as my eyes adjust that this room is exactly like Shanelle’s and mine, no surprise. The drapes to the balcony have been left open and I’m not touching them. I’m leaving everything just the way I find it. So no lamps can go on. As it is, I’m getting some illumination from the moonlight through the sliding glass doors.

  One thing I ascertain immediately: Tiffany Amber was a pig. Clothes, makeup, magazines are strewn everywhere. Some of the mess can no doubt be blamed on the cops but I don’t think all of it can. For example, the bedclothes are totally rumpled, as if she had some hell of an afternoon nap.

  I glance at the items dispersed on the credenza near the flat-screen TV: empty water bottles, a tabloid or two, a few wilted leis, squeezed tubes of sunscreen, Oahu tourist brochures, newspapers. I see one newspaper has been folded open and something circled. I peer at it. It’s the foreign-exchange rates and Tiffany, or somebody, circled the Japanese yen. I wonder if she and her husband were planning to continue on to Japan from here. Makes sense; they’re already partway across the Pacific.

  Further on I come across a few items I expect all the contestants imported to Oahu: Firm Grip and B-vitamin complex. Firm Grip is like hair spray for the derriere. You spray it on your behind and it makes your swimsuit cling to your skin so you can avoid the embarrassing spectacle of spandex creeping up your butt cheeks during competition. No doubt Tiffany had one can in her makeup bag and a spare left here. And as for the vitamins, it’s been drummed into all of us that B complex with added B6 counteracts bloating, the bane of swimsuit competition.

  Yet … what is that I see in the trash bin underneath the desk? Potato chips? A ginormous bag of them, bigger than would even fit in the minibar? I reel backward. I find it impossible to believe that Tiffany Amber was downing potato chips. Given the calorie count and how sodium contributes to water retention? No way.

  So how did those get in here?

  I turn again toward the bed, its bedclothes so tumbled the comforter is dragging on the carpet. Who makes a mess with a bed and also eats potato chips? Sometimes at one and the same time?

  A man, that’s who.

  I wonder. Maybe Tiffany broke the no-man-in-the-room pageant prohibition. Maybe she was mattress dancing with her hubby this very afternoon, just prior to the finale. Somehow the notion that Tiffany flouted the rules does not shock me. She seems the type—arrogant, uber confident, snotty.

  I edge closer to the desk. Anything of interest? No sirree. A memo pad near the phone with nothing written on it. But my beady little eyes detect that it has the imprint of writing. My morals being in a weakened state at the moment, I slip it into the waistband of my sweatpants.

  The rest of my investigation yields nothing. I also note that by now it’s 4:49 AM. Type A’s will be out in force soon, getting in their jogs before dawn, right next to jetlagged travelers in searc
h of java.

  It’s time to skedaddle.

  I redeploy the Kleenex to exit Tiffany’s room in case the cops get the urge for another bout of fingerprinting, then sprint away from her doorway the moment I’m in the empty corridor and slow to a respectable pace as I point toward the elevator bank. My heart is jumping like a drop of water on a hot skillet but I must say I am proud of my amateur sleuthing, despite the fact that it hasn’t exactly provided clarity on who sent Tiffany to the great beyond. I am basking in the glow of my flawless performance when I turn a corner in the corridor and sideswipe … Trixie Barnett.

  She’s in a tracksuit, too, and her chin-length copper-colored hair is held back by a headband.

  “What are you doing here?” I manage.

  “What are you doing here?” she parrots.

  We stare at one another.

  She caves first. “This is my floor. I’m in 351.”

  I deliver my prepared line, though I feel like a real schmuck lying to Trixie. “I’m on my way to the gym.”

  Trixie giggles. “You are not. You’re going back and forth past the door to Tiffany’s room. I’ve done it a bunch of times myself. Am I right?”

  Yes, I could lie to Trixie again. But somehow it feels wrong. Plus I’d really love to talk to somebody about the tidbits I’ve gleaned. And Trixie is the most trustworthy soul among my island acquaintance.

  It comes out in a gush. “Well, I admit, I did go past. A few times. And then”—brief hesitation—“I went in.”

  She shrieks. “You what? How did you get in?”

  “Ssshh!” I drag her behind a potted palm and explain while Trixie oohs and aahs, exhibiting not a scintilla of disapproval of what some people might consider breaking and entering. Indeed she appears awestruck at my investigative prowess.