“Hard to say with Alexa,” I told him. “You better just give her a call and find out.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No problem,” I said.
Alexa wasn’t home when I dialled.
I nibbled my nails for a long time after talking to McCracken. It sounded to me like Robin could turn out to be an easy solution for the police. I would have to make sure that didn’t happen.
I knew Robin hadn’t had enough time to kill Mitzi. But I didn’t even need to know that—I knew her.
Alvin, considerate as always, had laid out a few more issues of Femme Fatale with Mitzi articles for me. He’d added a note, suggesting I might find them amusing.
Mitzi, it turned out, had an annual feature, “Mitzi Picks the Glitz and Mitzi Picks the Zitz.” These issues, Alvin mentioned in his note, were hard to come by, as someone had already stolen them from the library. Lucky for me (he said) he had friends.
“Mitzi’s Glitz” turned out to be a mix of svelte men and women with impeccable style sense and verve and hectares of spare cash for clothes. A dozen glitzers in all, but no real surprises. The wife of a department store magnate, a bakery magnate and a magazine magnate. And, of course, the magnates themselves, indistinguishable in white tie. A CBC cultural guru. A model whose furry eyebrows, pointy cheekbones, and pouty lips were on every second cover of Femme Fatale. A real estate developer. A classical guitarist. An actress. A former Prime Minister. Mitzi had burbled on in praise of their superb taste and élan.
Who gives a shit, I thought. But the real fun stuff was reserved for the “Zitz”. Poor old Zitz. Just minding their own business and then one day, one too many cream puffs and, poof, they’ve made the list.
Jo Quinlan and Deb Goodhouse were way down on the Zitz list at numbers 11 and 12. Still, they were on it. No wonder there weren’t any copies left on the local stands.
I’m not a person who cares about appearances, my own or others, but still I was surprised Jo Quinlan would have let herself be photographed wearing those particular spandex shorts and that halter top. Particularly in profile. Although from the gas barbecue in the background, the tongs in her hands and the look on her face, it appeared the scene was her own backyard and the photographer had just stuck his nasty little camera over the fence.
“Massive Media Menace” was the caption over Jo’s photo. Underneath it read: “Try mud-wrestling, dear, you already have the wardrobe, and leave the screen to those who don’t fill every inch of it.”
Still, Jo Quinlan got off better than Deb Goodhouse. Or “The Goodhouse Blimp”, as Mitzi dubbed her. The rear view shot of Deb Goodhouse walking up the stairs of the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings had a cartoon string drawn around her ankle. The angle of the camera had enhanced the rear expanse. “Is our Princess of Polyester full of hot air or worse? Will she rise in the House and float through the ceiling? If looks could kill, she’d be six feet under,” the commentary read.
The articles featured pictures of Mitzi too. Looking much better than the last time I had seen her. Emaciated, with blood-red lips and a crow’s nest of black hair. All in black with bare shoulders, black gloves past the elbow, black hose and pointed black spike heels. The photo of Mitzi floated without background, a judge, ruling without mercy on fashion crimes.
Somebody had taken revenge on Mitzi. Just a glance at these articles told me there would be a long list of candidates. Not to mention the hundreds of others who must have suffered at Mitzi’s hands. I hoped the police would do a good job of checking out Robin’s competition. If not, I decided I’d have to do it myself.
Alexa was home this time when I called to warn her.
“Oh good, Camilla,” she said. “I was just about to call you. Edwina wants us all to have dinner at her place. Six o’clock…”
I interrupted. “I had no choice but to suggest you might be willing to get a call from this cop you used to know in high school. Sorry. But you can always take your phone off the hook.”
“A policeman? Oh, not Conn McCracken, was it?”
“Yes, look, I’m sorry….”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much, just how were you.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you were so so.”
“Oh, Camilla.”
“And I told him that Greg died.”
“That’s all?”
“What did you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. Did he ask how I looked?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, he might call you and you can tell him how you look yourself.”
“Oh, Camilla.”
“Gotta go, I hear the dreaded Alvin approaching.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” Alexa breathed. “Does he still have all his hair?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“For God’s sake, Camilla,” she said and hung up.
The only good thing about being the boss is making up rules and then changing them without reason or warning as you go along. So when Alvin crashed back into the office, dropped his bags, and snarled something about how can you stand all those fucking tulips all over the place, I beamed as I picked up my jacket and opened the door.
“So long, Alvin. There’s plenty to keep you busy. I see about fifty linear feet of filing on the floor. By tomorrow, I expect to be able to see the pattern of the carpet.”
His wail followed me down the stairs. “Don’t you want these panty-hose?”
Three
After twenty years or more, the tall respectable husbands collected by my sisters had begun to settle into middle age and to develop creeping hairlines, baby paunches, and minor peculiarities, some easier to adjust to than others. Take, for example, Donalda’s husband, Joe, each year withdrawing more and more into a world of his own, of golf and fishing and imaginary trophies. Or Edwina’s Stan with his collection of dribble glasses, plastic dog turds and fake vomit. I wish I had some kind of coin for every time I encountered a whoopee cushion in the passenger seat of Stan’s Buick LeSabre.
“Better take it easy on the baked beans,” he always said.
I suggested to Edwina that perhaps Stan was developing Alzheimer’s and should be locked away for his own protection, but I noticed she still kept sending him to pick me up for family get-togethers. This dinner was no exception.
A hand mirror lay on the passenger seat as I opened the door.
“Would you mind moving that?” Stan said.
As I picked up the mirror, it screamed with laughter and kept on laughing after I threw it on the floor.
“Perhaps you should get your hair done more often,” Stan said, between his own screams of laughter.
“Perhaps you should get a life, Stan,” I suggested, not laughing but giving some thought to screaming myself.
HAHAHAHAHAHA, howled the mirror from the floor, just before I picked it up and chucked it out the window.
Stan was still sulking when we reached Nepean and pulled into the driveway, which I think Edwina vacuums twice weekly.
“Aw, Camilla, the girls would have gotten a big kick out of that at dinner,” he said.
“Like hell,” I told him.
If