Killer Pancake Part 17

"You are Mrs. Schulz, then?" inquired the soft-voiced woman at the desk. The pink mohair materialized as a dress around a voluptuous body. "How did you say you were going to take care of your charges today?"

"Uh ..." I fumbled with the slippery opening to my pocketbook. What charges? "I need a cab," I said uncertainly.

"We'll call one for you," Ms. Mohair a.s.sured me breathily. "We just need your credit card."

I guess it had been a long time since I'd taken a cab. I thought they took only cash. I handed her my Visa.

"What happened to Nick?" Dusty demanded.

I was suddenly aware of being wet and very cold. "I have no idea. Dusty? Could I get a ...?"

"A what?" she asked. "What happened to Nick?"

"I don't know." My teeth chattered. "One minute I was standing at the counter, the next he was cras.h.i.+ng out of that blind above the store entrance-"

"The blind?" She was incredulous. "He fell out of the blind? What in the world was he doing up there?"

The woman with the soft voice reappeared with my credit card and a paper slip and I signed. For what, I wasn't quite sure. What had happened to Marla's coupon? "We can take you back now, Mrs. Schulz. Let's get you a dry robe," she said intimately, ignoring Dusty, "and put those damp things in our dryer. Shall we?"

It sounded good. In fact, it sounded wonderful.

"Gosh, Goldy," said Dusty, "are you sure you want to do your facial now anyway?"

"Oh, I ..."

Competing voices invaded my brain. I'm so sorry, Claire. I'm so sorry I couldn't figure anything out.

I'd made this appointment with Hotchkiss Skin & Hair because I was trying to discover why and how Hotchkiss was copying or stealing from Mignon, and if the fierce compet.i.tion between the cosmetics companies could extend to killing people. Behind the reception desk, I saw first one, then another woman scurry down a far hall. Both wore lab coats. But I felt unsteady. Stay here, where all was unknown? Or ask Dusty for a ride back to my van? Tom would certainly want to know what was going on. With sudden resolve, though, I decided to stay. I would manage, I would have this facial, I would call a cab. And I would tell Tom all about what had happened at the department store. But a question nagged. "Dusty," I said, "what in the world are you doing here?"

She pressed her lips together and relieved me of my purse and the paper bag. Then she leaned in close and whispered, "Reggie Hotchkiss wants to hire me. I mean, he's promised. We just had a meeting. You know, I just have to get away from Mignon. That place is crazy. Come on, I'll take your stuff back."

"Mrs. Schulz," said the soft-voiced woman, who had materialized once again at my side, "just look at what a mess you are." She took my arm with surprising firmness. A s.h.i.+ver with a life of its own went through my wet clothes. What a mess, indeed.

Dusty said she'd bring my stuff to my room when I was in the robe. The pink-mohair lady led me down the hall, where she put me in a small chamber that had the antiseptic feel of a doctor's examination room. Instead of an examining table, however, the middle of the room boasted an enormous reclining chair. It was probably the throne where you got your facial. Large, imposing machines sat next to the chair. Ms. Mohair handed me a green hospital-type gown that tied in the front. She said in that soft, whispery voice, "Somebody will be with you momentarily." Then she was gone.

Ravel's Bolero was being piped incongruously into the professional-looking s.p.a.ce. I stripped off my damp clothing and hung it on a hook, stepped gingerly across the black and white linoleum, and pulled a couple of paper towels from the dispenser over the sink. After what I'd seen fall from Nick Gentileschi's pocket, I was paranoid about my own s.h.i.+very nakedness. Who was watching? Oddly, the room held no mirrors. I glanced up at the ceiling-no cameras that I could discern-then chided myself for being ridiculous. I cinched the warm hospital gown around my middle, patted my damp hair with the paper towels, and took a deep breath.

Within moments a short, ponytailed woman of about twenty-five swished into the room. She was carrying a large plastic bag.

"These are yours," she announced. "Your friend had to leave. Your purse and department store bag are inside. They're wet."

She dropped the bag lightly by the wall and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her white lab coat. She frowned as she a.s.sessed me. She wore little makeup over an acne-scarred face that was quite plain. I don't know why I found both of these physical aspects surprising. But her whole appearance, from the tightly pulled ponytail to her white stockings and white tied shoes said technician rather than beauty queen.

"Your hair is wet too," she observed. She strode efficiently to a cupboard, retrieved a warm, folded towel, and handed it to me. I thanked her and rubbed the towel over my scalp. "But you did not make an appointment for hair," she said with a slight, scolding shake of the head.

"This towel's fine. My hair is just ..." Well, my hair. No amount of money lavished on it was going to change that unstylish ma.s.s of curls into anything. "Let's just start with the face today, okay?"

And start she did. While Bolero played in the background, the white-coated woman, whose name was Lane-short, crisp, efficient, fitting her persona-told me we were beginning the process with a thorough cleansing. Her fingers energetically ma.s.saged thick, creamy stuff onto my face which she then wiped off with a warm, wet towel. This was followed by a fruity-smelling toner, which she applied in simultaneous swipes across the left and right sides of my face.

"Okay!" she said when the toner was turning my face into what felt like a dry Popsicle. "I'm going to start a list of all the products you should be using for your face. For starters, Wizard cleanser and pore-closing toner."

"Well, er, how much do they cost?"

She waved this away. "We can just put it on your card."

"I'm sorry, I need to know."

She consulted a sheet. "Thirty-six dollars for a ten-ounce bottle of cleanser." Impatient. "Forty dollars for a twelve-ounce bottle of toner."

I didn't mean to gasp, but I did anyway. I saw Arch going shoeless for the rest of his life. "But that's even more than Mignon! And I thought they were the most expensive."

Lane pursed her lips, then announced: "We are the most expensive. Do you want to improve your skin or not? We are the best. You'll see real results if you work with these products."

I mumbled something along the lines of "Okay."

Lane slapped down the pencil on her tray. "Let's go to the next step, then."

She turned on one of the imposing machines next to the chair. I became more nervous when she a.s.sured me that the machine was for brus.h.i.+ng. Or, as I thought when Lane stroked my face with electric brushes attached to hoses that ran to the machine, it was sort of like getting a shoe polish for the face, minus the shoes and the polish.

When she was done, Lane gave me a disapproving, suspicious look and ordered me to close my eyes. Having learned my lesson from my Mignon makeover with Dusty, I closed my eyes without argument. Lane placed a wet cloth over my closed lids, levered the chair back, and turned on a rumbly machine that she told me was for steam.

"I'm taking your clothes to the dryer, and I'll be back in twenty minutes," she said. Her white nurse's shoes squeaked toward the door. "Relax."

Left to steam, my thoughts, and Bolero, I tried to unwind. I tried to think about what it was Maurice Ravel was setting to music. Unfortunately, all I could hear was the crash and thud of a vehicle hitting Claire, the shatter and crack as Nick Gentileschi fell out of the department store's blind.

When Lane returned, she whipped the cloth off my eyes, turned off the steam, and retrieved what looked like a small magnifying gla.s.s from her pocket. I recoiled. My face had never been examined at close range.

"I'm going to turn off the light," she declared bluntly, "and a.s.sess the amount of damage you've done over the years to your skin."

By the time I'd managed to stammer, "Do I have to?" the overhead light was off, a purplish light had winked on, and Lane's magnified eye was accompanied by tsk-tsk noises a la Sherlock Holmes. She flipped the lights back on, donned plastic gloves, and picked up a needle.

"Wait, wait." I sat up quickly. "I thought women came in to have facials because it was fun and relaxing. Sort of like having a ma.s.sage."

"You're going to look so much better," she a.s.sured me. "We need to get rid of those blemishes." She brandished the needle.

"Please, no," I said feebly. "I have a real problem with ... needles."

Lane's countenance was that of a nurse with an unpleasant but utterly necessary medication.

She said, "The receptionist reported you claimed you were terribly upset about your skin. Now you say you're unsure about buying products, and you don't want to have a facial. Are you certain you came in here really wanting to improve your appearance? Or is there some other reason you're here?"

Paranoia reared its unattractive head again, and I succ.u.mbed. "It's why I'm here," I said meekly, and slumped back in the chair.

Lane poked and I shrieked. Again I got the displeased-nurse routine. Blemishes, she said as she poked again. I felt blood drip down my forehead. Lane dabbed at it. She put down the needle and, with two plastic-gloved fingers, squeezed the skin on my nose with all her might. I screamed again. At least with a dentist you got anesthetic.

Lane sighed reprovingly and brought the gloved hands to her abdomen. "Are you going to let me finish my work or not?"

"Not," I said decisively, rubbing my poor, bent nose. The area above my nostrils felt as if it were on fire. My will-my entire desire in life-was now focused on getting out of Hotchkiss Skin & Hair.

"Do you just want your masque now?"

"Will it hurt?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed, then said, "No! Of course it won't hurt."

Lane had no credibility with me anymore. But I didn't think a masque could be too bad unless you let it dry and it became more like a theater mask. Or maybe the masque would get to be like those masks they use in horror flicks to suffocate people.... Lane tapped her foot. Yes, I told her, I was desperate for the masque. She swabbed on some more thick, creamy stuff, draped towels over my face, and left. Oh, thank you, G.o.d, I said as I pulled the towels away and rubbed the cream off. Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me a chance to get out of here. I didn't want a masque, I didn't want a facial, I certainly didn't want any makeup.

I tiptoed over to my damp shoes and eased my feet inside. The rubber soles squished noisily as I headed for the door. I can't escape in this robe, I realized with dismay. But how in the world would I find the dryer where they'd put my clothes? I retrieved the big plastic bag, grabbed the sack with Frances's purchases, and put it in my purse, which I snapped shut. Clutching my purse, I peeked out in the hall. It was empty. I again thanked the Almighty and began to sneak past closed doors toward the back of the mansion. At each door I listened, but heard only silence, the buzz of the machines, or the low murmur of the facialists as they tortured other clients.

My whole problem, I thought as I moved from door to door down the hall, is that I am not a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t. If I'd been a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, I would have endured all that pain for beauty. Then again, if I'd been a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, I would have stayed in my first marriage.

At the last closed door on the hall, I stopped. It was a wider door, the kind that usually goes to some kind of utility room. Inside a machine methodically whirred and thudded. A dryer.

I opened the door and whipped inside a tiny room that held what looked like a closet and a pantry covered with louvered doors. The door squeaked closed behind me. Shelves in the closet held neatly arrayed towels, uniforms, and large bottles of what I a.s.sumed to be cosmetic stuff. I creaked open the louvered doors and was rewarded with a washer and dryer. Above them and on each side were shelves filled with a much more haphazard a.s.sortment of stored items. These I ignored as I squeaked open the dryer door and reached in for my clothes. They were warm but still slightly damp.

Someone was coming. I nipped into the pantry and pinched my fingers closing the door. I don't know why I was so afraid of being discovered aborting the facial, but I think it had something to do with the needle. The person who had come in was humming. I eased in behind a couple of white lab coats. Something like animal fur brushed my neck. Through the louvers I could see the hummer reaching for the bottles on the shelves. The fur began to tickle my neck. Sweat broke out on my cheeks. The hummer tapped the closet door shut with her foot and strolled out.

I creaked the door back open and reached behind me to s.n.a.t.c.h the fur away from my neck before I sneezed. No luck. A tiny but powerful convulsion escaped my lips and left my eyes watering. That would teach me to walk for blocks in the rain. Cursing and sniffling, I stepped out of the pantry clutching the fur thing. Wait. It was a wig, sort of a frosted blond affair. I tossed it down on the dryer, retrieved my clothes, and quickly dressed. As I was about to leave the room, my eyes slewed over to the wig again. Hairpieces frightened me, by and large. They were too much like dead animals. But I had seen this wig before.

I picked it up and examined it. Who had been wearing this monstrosity? Where had I seen her? A memory began to resolve itself. Before the Mignon banquet. I'd seen someone in the garage. A woman, dressed in bright yellow. Yes, I could see her striding purposefully toward the door, then sticking her head out the service entrance and demanding to know what was going on when Tom and I were trying to tend to Julian.

Then I remembered something else: Claire frowning when she recognized someone at the banquet. My saying, What? And her frustration. Her saying: Oh G.o.d. And then Dusty, the next day, saying: We saw you. We recognized you. Man, you are going to get into so much trouble.

Yes, I had seen this wig. Slender, good-looking Reggie Hotchkiss had been wearing it when he sneaked into the Mignon Fall into Color Banquet. It was at that banquet that he'd probably picked up the ideas he needed for his autumn catalogue. I just didn't know what else he'd done there. Run down the very successful sales a.s.sociate of a rival firm?

I tossed the wig back on the shelf. I slipped out the utility room door and saw illuminated red letters at the end of the hall: EXIT. Ten steps to freedom. No alarm went off as I pressed the door bar, landed on a concrete step, and inhaled cool, rain-dampened air. Here behind the Hotchkiss establishment, a ragtag lawn and overflowing rosebushes ran the length of the pink and blue picket fence. A rusty-hinged gate interrupted the fence between the brambles at the far end of the yard. Praying that I wasn't being observed, I walked across the wet gra.s.s, lifted the latch, and felt a rush of light-headed relief as I escaped into an alley.

Steam misted off the streets of the Aqua Bella neighborhood. Sunlight struggled to cut through the thickly humid air. To the west, clouds lifted along the foothills, leaving trails of creamy fog snaking between dark green hills. To get oriented in the Denver area, the key is to remember that the mountains are always to the west. The mall was situated between the Rockies and me, so I started off at a moderate westward jog down the sidewalk. I hop-scotched over s.h.i.+ny patches of puddle. Behind me, I could almost imagine Lane's terse, businesslike voice screaming, Stop that unmasqued woman!

But I was in no mood for entanglements. I panted and b.u.mbled along. How could I have walked this far? I touched my forehead. It was still bleeding. Someday, I thought, Marla and I would have a good laugh about my Hotchkiss makeover masquerade.

By the time I slipped behind the wheel of my van, I thought I was going to have a heart attack myself. As I drove back to Aspen Meadow, I inhaled deep yoga-exercise breaths. Claire Satterfield had been dead for three days. Nick Gentileschi had tumbled out of the blind today. His body hadn't even twitched when it landed.

How long had he been dead? And then there was Reggie Hotchkiss, who had spied at the Mignon banquet, under cover of wig. In addition to all that, tonight I was catering a chi-chi dinner for a couple up to their wealthy ears in the imbroglio: Claire's presumed lover, Dr. Charles Braithwaite, and Charlie's wife, Babs, the woman Nick Gentileschi had been covertly photographing in the Prince & Grogan fitting rooms.

How did I get myself into these situations?

When my van chugged off the interstate at the Aspen Meadow exit, the rain clouds had cleared and left an immense bluer-than-blue sky. I pa.s.sed the country club, where sunlight glinted off the roof of the Braithwaites' greenhouse at its high point on Aspen Knoll. It was from there that the guests would finish munching their fudge cookies and watch the Fourth of July fireworks display over Aspen Meadow Lake. Which would give me some time to do some snooping around in the infamous greenhouse.

I swung the van up to our house and saw that Julian had returned and left the Range Rover at a slight angle in the driveway. I parked in the one available spot on the street. When I hopped out, Sally Routt, Dusty's mother, was outside, pulling weeds. Her son Colin was on her back, snuggled into one of those corduroy baby-holders. I didn't see Dusty, which was probably just as well. I couldn't take any questioning on how the Hotchkiss facial had gone. Besides, I needed to phone Tom. I called a greeting to them, but Colin seemed fascinated by the ma.s.s of long-stemmed purple fireweed. Colin was so thin and tiny, it was hard to believe he was three months old. As he reached for a monarch b.u.t.terfly on a fireweed stem, his little hand was dwarfed by the b.u.t.terfly's dark, outstretched wings. Deprived of his target, his head of gleaming strawberry-blond hair bobbed in my direction. Poor, sweet child, born too early, to a family that could scarcely manage to take care of him. I felt my heart squeeze inside my chest.

When I came through the security system, I smelled simmering onions, cooked potatoes, and ... cigarette smoke. The latter seemed to be drifting down from the second story. At least it's not has.h.i.+sh, I thought grimly as I took the stairs two at a time. In the spare bedroom at the front of the house, I found Julian sitting hunched over in the maple rocking chair I had used to rock Arch when he was an infant. Smoke curled from an unfiltered cigarette in his hands. His foot tapped the floor as he pushed back and forth. A small pile of ashes lay at his feet. He had not noticed me.

I said, "I'm back. What's going on?"

He didn't look around. His voice was morose, resigned. "Not much. I read your note and marinated the fruit. I cooked the potatoes and onions for the cuc.u.mber soup too." His face twisted. "Did you find out any-?"

"Not yet. Actually, there's some more bad news." I sat down in the old love seat that now belonged to Scout the cat. "Want to hear it?"

"I guess."

"Nick Gentileschi died at the store. He had an accident."

Julian's eyes opened in terror and disbelief. "What? The security guy? What happened? Does Tom know? What kind of accident?"

"Oh, Julian ..." I sighed. "He fell out of one of those blinds. I don't know more than that. I was just about to go call Tom. Want to come down?"

He seemed suddenly aware of the cigarette he held and tapped ashes into his palm, "I'll be down in a little bit. Listen, Goldy, I'm sorry-"

"About what? I'm trying to help you-"

"It's just that I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'm not going to get hurt. Now, I know you probably don't want to talk about this, but do you think you're going to be up to helping me with the Braithwaites' party?"

His "Sure" was anything but. I walked pensively down to the kitchen. Before I could call Tom, the phone rang. It was Arch. He rarely called from the Keystone condo because the Jerk, who lavished money on himself, complained about any extra dollar Arch cost him. The only exception to this rule was on those rare occasions when John Richard had done something-failing to show up was one of his favorites-that made him feel guilty. When John Richard was. .h.i.t by a rare attack of conscience, Arch would get loaded down with gifts he would never use. In fact, when my son came home from one of these weekends toting a new mountain bike, skis, or Rollerblades, I knew there'd been trouble.

I gripped the phone and tried not to sound panicked. "What's wrong?"

"It's not about Dad, don't worry. He's asleep in the other room," he said in a low voice. "I think he had too much to drink at lunch. He's having a nap."

"Too much to-" I let out an exasperated breath. "Arch, do you need me to come and get you?"

"No, Mom, I'm cool. Please, don't get hysterical. We're going to walk to the fireworks up here."

"I am not hysterical," I said through clenched teeth.

"Listen, Mom. I'm just calling to see how Julian's doing."

I sighed and thought of the slumped figure in the upstairs bedroom. "Not too great."

"Did you find out anything about Claire? Has Marla gotten out of the hospital?"

"Arch, I just got home myself. I'll call you as soon as Tom figures out what's going on. And I was just about to call Marla."

"You know, I really do think Tom is great," Arch a.s.sured me. Except I didn't need to be rea.s.sured.

"Arch, why are you telling me this? You sound as if you're in some kind of trouble. Did Dad hurt you? Please tell me."

"Oh, Mom. You take everything so seriously. It's just that I didn't want Tom to think that I thought he was a pig or anything. I would never call him that."

"He knows."

"And I didn't get to say good-bye to him because he left so early, and then Frances Markasian was waving that knife around later, and well, you know."

"So everything is okay?"

"Yes, Mom! I was just sitting here thinking about Tom and Julian, and Marla, that's all."