CHAPTER ONE

Diva—8 Points

Jayne Marple, one half of the Elsinore Detective Agency, stared in disbelief at their client Vanessa Harding. Vanessa’s age was anywhere between Medicare and death.

Femme fatale extraordinaire, she lounged in bed, surrounded by marabou feathers, ice packs, a carton of menthol cigarettes, and a box of dark chocolates. As she dropped ashes over the head of Tutu, her little dog, Jayne thought the animal resembled an oversize tangerine powder puff.

She tried not to stare at Vanessa’s bleached-blond hair and ample bosom, displayed and arrayed in a silk negligee with a diamond pendant dangling between her breasts.

Jayne’s partner, in both business and pleasure, Arnolda Palmer, or Arnie, as she was known to friends, was staring. “Arnie,” Jayne said, kicking her in the ankle.

She snapped to. “Mrs. Harding—”

“Vanessa,” she cooed in a husky voice. “Call me Vanessa, Arnolda dear, after all, we do have a working relationship, don’t we?”

Arnie nodded with round eyes and a silly grin, and again, Jayne wanted to kick her. “Mrs. Harding,” Jayne said, “we’re very sorry your ex-husband, David Harding, broke in last night and tried to hurt you.” She studied a recent photograph. “How did he come to have the house keys?”

“Hurt me?” She tugged on marabou feathers to expose a red, chafed throat. “That idiot tried to kill me! If it hadn’t been for that car alarm going off and the lights in the yard going on, he would’ve murdered me. I guess I forgot to change all the locks after our divorce,” she added. “And now, some of my jewels are missing!”

“We don’t want him to be able to break in here again. Did you call the security people?” asked Arnie.

Vanessa assumed the look of a little girl, twisting a blond curl around a jeweled finger. “Oh, Arnie, I forgot,” she said in a baby singsong voice. “Could you pwease do that for me now?” She pulled a paper out of her cleavage and squinted at it. “These numbers are so small.” She pointed to an enormous, old-fashioned push-button phone, pink with rhinestones and French poodles painted on the receiver. “Isn’t my phone so pretty?”

Jayne sniffed and shot Arnie a look.

Arnie took the phone in one hand and made a “What can I say?” motion with the other.

Jayne walked over to a wall of photos, all framed with sparkly crystals and gemstones. Vanessa embracing celebrities from the past. Vanessa in a flowing gown with a tiara on her poufy hair. Four different wedding photos, showing Vanessa at various ages, smiling provocatively as she clutched the arms of her willing marital victims. Vanessa poured into a gold lamé gown, embracing a very famous blue-eyed Italian singer.

“What a pretty daughter,” said Jayne.

Vanessa stopped listening to Arnie long enough to hiss, “I don’t have a daughter, that’s me.”

“Miss St. Patrick’s Day Parade Queen, 196—”

“Yes, well, that was a long time ago,” she snapped. “The date doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a great honor to be chosen as the queen,” Arnie said smoothly. “I didn’t know you were Irish.”

“Maloney was my maiden name. One hundred percent Irish, that’s me. County Cork.”

“Delightful. Isn’t it, Jayne?” Arnie asked.

“Absolutely fantastic,” she said, trying to find any resemblance between the dewy-eyed, red-haired colleen in the picture to the dyed blond in the bed, with her mean Botoxed face, huge goldfish lips, and wide eyes stretched like a taxidermist’s owl. She could not stand Vanessa Harding. The woman reminded her of the mean girls in high school who’d made fun of Jayne’s six-foot height, and being a jock. They also had guessed correctly she was gay and they were brutal about it, leaving nasty notes on her desk and pointedly avoiding her in the locker room during gym class.

“Did you marry the same man twice?” Jayne stared at the face of David, younger and with more hair.

“Twins,” Vanessa chuckled.

“Excuse me?”

“I married twin brothers. That’s Donald’s picture you’re looking at. I married Donald about five years before David. In between, I dated Frank Sinatra. What a guy.” She paused, sighing, and Jayne expected a drumroll.

“Twins?” Jayne repeated.

“What can I say? I liked their faces. I had hoped that David would have a better personality than Donald. I was wrong. Donald was outgoing and a divine dancer and a great kisser. But he was a con artist. Always had a scheme going. Always borrowing money and getting into trouble with the mob and the cops. He was very good at finding out stuff about people.” The diva stubbed out her cigarette vigorously in a flamingo ashtray.

“And David? Jayne asked.

“David was more solid, quiet, and romantic—or so I thought. He kind of bored me after a while. Very nervous guy.”

“May I borrow these pictures?” Arnie asked. “For our investigation.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Vanessa said.

“David and Donald aren’t exactly alike,” Jayne commented. “David’s chin is more pointed, although they both have diamond-shaped faces.”

“Really?” Vanessa coughed and Tutu growled. “I never noticed.”

“May I ask why you’re so sure that it was your ex who broke in last night? It was dark in here and you—”

“I, what?”

“Do you wear glasses?”

“I most certainly do not.” The diva scowled.

“Okay, copy that.” Jayne needed escape. Vanessa Harding was getting on her nerves. “Arnie, I really should get home and set up for our game tonight,” she said.

“Game? What game? Can I play?” Vanessa broke into a wheezy laugh.

“Scrabble,” Arnie told her.

“Word games?” Her face fell, not far, but it shifted, Jayne noted with amusement. “I prefer other…entertainments.”

“Give me a break,” Jayne muttered under her breath.

“What did you say, Jill dear?” Vanessa asked.

“I said, I’m going home to cook steak. For the snacks tonight.”

Arnie coughed. “Good idea, Jayne.”

Vanessa inspected Jayne with a skeptical look and lit another cigarette. “Are you still on hold, Arnie, with the company?”

“They’re checking your files,” she said. “Do you have an inventory of your jewelry and what’s missing?”

“Somewhere.” She waved her hand in the direction of a French provincial desk.

“The police will want to know if you filed a report,” Arnie said gently.

“Will they?” She inhaled deeply and coughed. “I know I’m missing a huge sapphire I was going to have set into a brooch, a pair of diamond earrings, and an emerald ring that belonged to my mother. She turned to Jayne. “How long have you been Arnie’s assistant?”

“A while. Since I retired from being a full-time golf pro.”

“Golf pro? How interesting. You sure are tall enough.”

Jayne raised her eyebrows. “It was very nice to meet you, Vanessa, but I’ve got to run. I hope you get all your issues sorted.”

“Likewise,” Vanessa said, stubbing out the cigarette in an empty candy box.

“I’ll let myself out,” Jayne said.

“See you later, Jayne,” Arnie said. Arnie’s forehead glistened with sweat. Being left alone with the black widow spider was going to make her sweat buckets, Jayne thought. Serves her right for taking on such an outrageous client.

On the way out, Jayne paused to open a few drawers in the hallway armoire. Parking tickets, receipts—and whoa. A small, pink .38 Smith and Wesson lay under a stack of lace hankies stinking of musk perfume.

“How appropriate, baby pink,” she said to Tutu the pup, who had followed her downstairs. “Too bad the ex-husband missed this last night.”