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

  That’s why she’s Ms. Congeniality, I decide. She makes everyone around her feel fabulous regardless of the transgressions they recently committed.

  “My Lord, you’re like Nancy Drew!” she says when I pause to take a breath. “I adore Nancy Drew. That’s why I couldn’t sleep and walked past Tiffany’s room a gazillion times. Well, go on, tell me what you found in there.”

  By this point I’m spilling all, like a repentant sinner. Trixie’s eyes bulge when I get to my theory about Tiffany and her chip-eating husband doing the nasty pre-pageant.

  “But it couldn’t have been him,” she says. “He didn’t get here till after the pageant started. He even missed the parade of states.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I overheard the policemen talking about it after they interviewed him.”

  We stare at one another. No words are necessary. We both know the implications that follow this revelation: Tiffany had a chip-eating man who wasn’t her husband in her hotel room with her. And not just in her room, either. In her bed.

  Even more damning. And bedeviling.

  “What about her laptop?” Trixie asks.

  I shake my head. “What laptop?”

  “She was on it constantly. That’s partly what made Misty Delgado move out. She said the clicking of the keys got on her last nerve. Truthfully, I think there was more to it than that.”

  “There wasn’t a laptop in there. The cops probably confiscated it. There could be tons of valuable information on her hard drive.”

  “Clues,” Trixie breathes.

  Exactly, I’m thinking. Which is why I am most peeved that the laptop is beyond my reach.

  At least at present.

  A couple walks past, the first people we’ve encountered since my corridor confessional. Their appearance brings me back to reality. “We look suspicious out here,” I say.

  Trixie nods. “And I suppose I should try to grab an hour of sleep. You, too.” She grabs my arm. “But I don’t know how I’ll be able to! It’s so exciting now that you’re on the case.”

  I demur but she’ll have none of it.

  “You are! You’re going to solve Tiffany’s murder, I just know it. And then you’ll be the heroine of the Ms. America pageant and even if you haven’t already been awarded the title, which you probably will have been, you’ll win then.”

  I’m breathless listening to her, not to mention wildly daunted by the task she describes. Part of me does wonder, too, if she was being totally on the up and up when she explained why she was out in the hallway like I was, also breaking the stay-in-your-room rule. But I’m too stupefied to deal with that right now. I get back to my room, which I reenter without incident, armed now with the correct key card. Inside it’s as if I never left. Shanelle continues to produce the same low rhythmic snore she was generating an hour earlier but snorts suddenly when there’s a knock on our door.

  “I’ll get it,” I chirp, hoping she’s too dazed to notice that I’m dressed and vertical. I pull it open. “Trixie, you should be—”

  The admonition catches in my throat as I see that it’s not Ms. North Carolina darkening my doorstep.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Indeed, this personage is the cosmic opposite of Ms. Congeniality.

  “Detective Momoa,” I stammer.

  “Ms. Pennington,” he intones.

  I am at this point speechless.

  He is not. His eyes run down and then up my lime green velour tracksuit without a flicker of appreciation. “I see you’re up and about early.”

  “I am.” In desperation I’ve again resorted to Witness Stand mode.

  “Why is that?” he asks.

  “I couldn’t sleep?” I clear my throat. “I couldn’t sleep,” I repeat more definitively. “The events of last night were most disturbing.”

  “Have you left your room since you reentered it last night?”

  I’m glad I got the lying out of my system when I told Trixie I was on my way to the gym because my intuition tells me that would be unwise now. “As a matter of fact, yes. That’s why I’m dressed. I’ve just come back from a walk.” He might have seen me in the hallway, after all. Oh God, I hope he didn’t see me in Tiffany’s hallway.

  He narrows his eyes. “You disregarded the instruction to stay in your room?”

  “Well, I knew I couldn’t sleep. And that I’d be careful.”

  He doesn’t look convinced. “Where did you go?”

  “Up and down the corridors. It’s the hotel version of mall walking. You know, indoor exercise.” I hold up my right foot, hoping the floral-print Ked in which it’s encased will serve as convincing proof of my aerobic intentions.

  “Were you walking with Ms. Barnett?”

  I’m thinking he has phenomenal intuitive powers until I remember that I answered the door saying her name. “Part of the way,” I respond.

  He performs the minutest nod I’ve ever seen in my life. Then, “Have a good day,” he says, but somehow I get the feeling he doesn’t really mean it.

  I close the door and lean my forehead against it. Oh God. I don’t know what he knows except that now he knows that I know that he’s watching me. Oh God.

  “Who the hell was that?” asks Shanelle. She sounds aggrieved, and justifiably so, since it’s like 5:18 AM.

  I don’t have to produce an answer because the room phone rings. “I’ll get it,” I announce and race to the nightstand. “Hello?” I say into the receiver.

  “Happy Pennington?”

  On the other end of the line is a snarky female voice immediately recognizable to all of us involved in the Ms. America pageant. It’s really too bad the bigwigs let her come to Oahu. She’s the receptionist at headquarters in Atlanta and the crankiest individual ever to man a phone bank.

  “It’s Magnolia Flatt,” she drones, without waiting for me to confirm my identity. “Mr. Cantwell wants to see you in his suite here at the Royal Hibiscus. Pronto.”

  “Mr. Cantwell?” The owner of the pageant, the chairman of the board. Hope rises in me, jostling for space alongside terror and the aforementioned stupefaction. In the last few hours I have heard two people ascertain that I will win the Ms. America title now that Tiffany Amber’s final interview is being conducted at the pearly gates. Maybe this is it, my moment.

  Or maybe not.

  “He’s not exactly in a good mood,” Magnolia adds. I hear something crash behind her. “I wouldn’t make him wait.”

  Sadly, it does not sound as if he’s in the frame of mind to be dispensing tiaras. I groan as I hang up the receiver.

  Shanelle is sitting up in bed, looking grumpy. “What is up, girl? We got more nocturnal activity than a whorehouse in Biloxi.”

  “Oh, Shanelle, I have no idea what is going on.” I slip the memo pad I pilfered from Tiffany’s room out of my waistband and put it and her key card into my makeup bag. “I have to go out and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” The way this morning is proceeding, I’m likely to find myself breakfasting in the Honolulu pokey.

  Minutes later I discover that you can’t ride the regular elevator up to the penthouse suite at the Royal Hibiscus. You must be accompanied by a hotel minion who escorts you to a private elevator which whisks you up untold stories until the double doors open onto a sky-high tropical Shangri La.

  Floor to ceiling windows abound in every direction, offering a panoramic view of glittering Oahu below. The furnishings are beyond luxurious; they look like they were purloined from the island’s most splendiferous sugar plantation. There’s a grand piano in one corner, a giant palm tree in another, and exotic flowering plants throughout. I don’t know much about Ming vases but I suspect there are a few here, among silk-shaded lamps in the shape of dragons and gold-flecked paintings that depict Chinese men waging ancient battles and water lilies floating lazily on murky water.

  I clamp my jaw shut before it can drop open. But I needn’t have worried, for nothing dashes an awestruck mood quite like the sudden heaving into view
of one Magnolia Flatt.

  Every time I see that girl, I get an overwhelming compulsion to offer beauty advice. Fortunately I’ve never acted on it, because I’m sure she’d slug me. But the fact remains that Magnolia would be a much more attractive female if she recognized two irrefutable truths: that the latest fads do not suit pear-shaped body types, and that when it comes to makeup, less is almost always more. Especially at the crack of dawn. As it is, only Cleopatra had a heavier hand with eyeliner and I don’t think even the Queen of the Nile slathered on pink eye shadow.

  Not to mention that Magnolia never can grasp that snarling at her fellow humans lessens her appeal. “So you decided to show up,” she snaps. “He’s this way.”

  Sebastian Cantwell, I will tell you, is a bit of a legend around Ms. America parts. He’s richer than God for one thing, very good at running through rail-thin Asian wives for another, and kind of a daredevil—crashing racing boats and sinking yachts and once burning down a wing of one of his mansions in England because of a science experiment gone tragically awry. He’s not the youngest stud on the farm but nevertheless persists in wearing a blond ponytail. I suspect he thinks it makes him look rakish. In the corporate-titan world, it probably does. We contestants love him because not only did he buy the Ms. America pageant when it was foundering like one of his ill-fated boats, he put his own money into the cash prize, making it the biggest haul a beauty queen can win.

  The penthouse suite has a library, believe it or not, and that’s where Sebastian Cantwell is ensconced. He rises from behind a desk as big as a helipad and I see that despite the early hour he’s decked out in a suit and tie. He takes one look at me and barks an order at Magnolia. “Coffee.” To me he says, “How long will it take you to become presentable?”

  “Uh … half an hour?”

  “Acceptable.” He signals that I should sit in the chair in front of his desk. “Damnable business about California,” he observes as I comply.

  Unless the west coast has been hit by a massive seismic shock, I assume he’s referring to Tiffany Amber by her state association. “You can certainly say that.”

  “I had an idea she was trouble.” He steeples his fingers and cocks an eyebrow. “You didn’t kill her, did you, Ohio? Because if you did, all bets are off.”

  “I did not kill her, sir.” I start to get excited. What bet could he be talking about but one?

  He observes me while tapping his index finger on a crimson leather blotter. “I told those bloody detectives they won’t find the murderer in our lot. Look outside the pageant, I told them. That’s where you’ll find your man.”

  I nod. I heartily approve of his viewpoint even if I don’t entirely agree with it.

  “So you’ve won,” he tells me.

  It’s so abrupt, I don’t get it. “Excuse me?”

  “You need me to spell it out for you. Fine. You won the final interview. You might not have if California had a chance to answer but she didn’t, did she?

  “So you won, Ohio. You’re Ms. America. Title, prize money, year of service, roses, tiara …” He waves his hand. “The whole kit and caboodle.”

  I’m going to start hyperventilating, I just know it. “I’m thrilled and honored, sir. That’s incredible. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. But don’t let me find out you’re lying about this murder business, either.”

  I can see how that would be a dealbreaker. “I won’t. And I’m not.” I try to catch my breath. I wish this victory sounded more set in stone but I guess this is as definite as it’s going to get. I sure hope Detective Momoa starts sniffing around elsewhere. What if he keeps pestering me and Cantwell decides it’s not worth the brain damage having his new Ms. America be suspected of murder most foul in the isolation booth?

  Magnolia interrupts these distressing thoughts by reappearing with a porcelain coffee set.

  “Too late now,” Cantwell informs her. He rises from his chair and to me says, “Chop, chop. The press conference is downstairs in half an hour. It’s already past eleven on the east coast and I want a new headline for the noon broadcasts.”

  I bow and scrape a few more times and then bolt from the suite. Ms. America cannot accept her crown and scepter wearing a Juicy Couture tracksuit, regardless of its timeless appeal.

  I have one thought as I race to my room. Fighting with Tiffany in that isolation booth turns out to have been the best thing I ever did. I was never fiercer or more determined than when I exited that booth and look what it got me? My first national title.

  I know Tiffany’s not in her grave yet. But if she were, she’d be rolling over.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I am happy to report that my first press conference as a national beauty pageant winner comes and goes without a single disaster. I think that’s pretty impressive given that I hadn’t slept all night and was still in kind of a daze over the fact that I’d won.

  Jason waylays me the second my stilletoed feet step off the dais. “Hey, Ms. America.” His smile is as bright as neon. He gives me a soft kiss on the lips, about the most we can swing given that reporters and pageant people are still milling around the banquet room. “I told you you’d win! Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” I grin. I’ve been grinning a lot in the last few hours.

  “You look pretty darn hot, too.”

  I must agree. I’m wearing a “ladies who lunch” suit, a bright pink Jackie O affair with a sweet little collar and three-quarter-length sleeves and big cloth-covered buttons and a slim knee-length skirt. Unlike Jackie’s, mine is accessorized with a rhinestone tiara. I bought the suit for the preliminary interviews with the judges, which calls for a classier look than other competition events. Like swimsuit, for example, which demands skin and spray tan and little else.

  “So.” He lowers his voice. “Now that the competition’s officially over, think we can celebrate in private?”

  I give him a sly wink. “I don’t see why not.”

  His smile gets wider.

  “But it has to be later.” The grin fades. “Mr. Cantwell says I have paperwork to sign. The contract, I think.”

  “You sign that baby fast. The quicker you do—”

  “The quicker I get the prize money. I know.” I can’t believe it. A quarter of a million dollars. It’s a mind-boggling amount of cash. It’s more than our house is worth. That makes something occur to me. “You know what? Maybe you can go after your dream now.”

  “You’re right!” He rubs his hands together. “Flat-screen TV, baby. HD, 47-inch widescreen—”

  “That’s not what I meant, Jason.”

  He looks confused.

  “Pit school! You’ve been talking about it for years.”

  “Well … sort of.” He frowns. “It’s a lot of time away from home.”

  “The point is, now we can afford it. And the timing’s good because I’ll be away sometimes traveling for the pageant.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Most people who do the training don’t get a NASCAR job anyway. So it’s kind of a waste of time.”

  I slap him playfully on the arm. “Since when is bettering yourself a waste of time?”

  He narrows his eyes. “You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you? I saw that Mario Suave guy giving you the eye.”

  “He was not!” Was he? Kind of a flattering idea. “Anyway, remember when I researched pit school on the web?” I’m the one in our family who does the legwork. “If I recall, there was a program in North Carolina that lasted for twelve weeks or so. And it cost something like twelve grand.”

  “Which is a ton of money. We could get six flat-screens for that.”

  “We only need one flat-screen.” Actually, we don’t even need that. “I was just thinking that with Rachel giving me guff now about applying to private universities, we have more than enough to cover pit school, too.” Not that I’m happy about Rachel’s attitude. And she knows it. Which is why she’s not calling me much.

  But if I’ve learned one thing from
how my mother pushed me into pageants, it’s not to make your child do what you couldn’t yourself. That’s a recipe for resentment.

  Jason gives me another soft kiss. “Let’s talk about it later.”

  “Okay. It’s just that I’m so excited. This prize money means that everyone in this family can take a few steps forward.”

  “Right now the only steps I want to take are into Best Buy, to see what’s up with flat-screens.” He kisses my forehead. “See you later.”

  I watch him go. I guess my husband isn’t the most ambitious guy I ever met. But he’s just such a darn good mechanic! He could make something more of himself, I know it. I bet that if he pushed through pit school, he could get a job with NASCAR.

  I turn to exit the banquet hall and end up barreling into Trixie. Like me, she’s showered and dressed and looks a lot better than she did at 4 AM.

  She grabs me and squeals loud enough to wake the dead. “Happy, Happy, Happy, I just heard and I am so happy for you! Whoops, I knocked off your tiara.”

  I sense the thing sliding leftward. It feels like the Titanic on my head. “Now I know why Queen Elizabeth practices wearing hers before big occasions.”

  Trixie continues to talk with a bobby pin between her teeth and both her hands righting my crown. “I should get a job doing horoscopes. I predicted you’d win and what do you do? Go and win.” She steps back, beaming. “You’re on straight now. I’m so happy for you. Let’s celebrate by eating real food.”

  “I could stand getting my breakfast drink but after that I have to see Mr. Cantwell and sign the paperwork.”

  “Ooh!” she squeals again. “Well, I’m going to eat like a pig and then be a saint after 10 AM.”

  We head for the hotel’s casual café, where Trixie selects a lemon poppyseed muffin the size of a newborn’s head. The girl behind the counter looks at me and asks, “The usual?”

  “Please.”

  Trixie and I sit at the counter to watch my morning concoction being concocted. Pineapple juice, strawberries, a banana, a dash of vanilla extract … Then, “Is wheat germ good for anything but fiber?” Trixie asks me.