“Mia knows how to work a crowd, doesn’t she?” Deveroux asked, dabbing at the corner of his eye with a tissue.
I had to agree, the moment had been played for maximum effect. On the other hand, death threats did tend to be dramatic all on their own.
“I think she’s had work done, ” Jasmine said, picking at a long, red fingernail. “Did you see her eyes? Wider than the aisles at Barneys.”
I refrained from pointing out that Jasmine’s own eyes weren’t exactly a product of nature. Instead, I thanked Deveroux for his time (carefully making my feet as inconspicuous as possible), and left, taking the rose-lined pathway back to Jasmine’s Miata.
“Well, so much for Veronika’s mystery man, ” Jasmine said, shifting the sports car into gear. “So, do we track down Kylie next, or what?”
I turned to her. “We?”
“What?” She gave me an innocent look and shrugged. “This Charlie’s Angels thing is kind of fun.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She did, after all, have the car.
“Okay, fine. Let’s go question Kylie.”
Luckily, I had it on good authority (Star magazine) that Kylie spent every Monday morning at the Kitson Boutique on the trendy Robertson Boulevard. Twenty minutes later, Jasmine was circling the block to find parking and I was scanning the racks for Kylie’s perky blonde head. I spotted her holding a vintage style T-shirt up to her ample chest in the mirror.
“Hi, Kylie! Wow, what a coincidence. You shop here too?” I grabbed a studded belt, trying to look like a casual shopper as she spun around.
It took a second for recognition to dawn in her eyes. “Oh, yeah. You’re the new wardrobe girl, right?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. Maddie.”
“Riiiight. Sorry, I totally forgot your name. When I’m on the set, I tune stuff like that out. I have to be in a total concentration zone. You know they expect me to have all my lines memorized? Like, every week.” She turned back to her reflection. “What do you think of this shirt?”
“Very cute.”
She wrinkled her ski-jump nose. “You think? I don’t know; is it too young?”
Considering Kylie still looked like she should be shopping in the kids’ section, I decided that question was rhetorical. Instead, I got right to the point.
“I guess you heard about Dusty this morning?”
Kylie dropped the shirt and spun around. “Ohmigod, like, too totally sad, you know? I can’t even believe someone could do that. Way random.”
I hesitated to tell her just how un-random this was shaping up to be.
“I heard that you and Veronika were close. All of this must be so hard on you.”
Again Kylie did the nose-scrunching thing. “Um, sorta, I guess. We did lattes a couple of times. But she was kinda weird, you know?”
I cocked my head to the side, fingering a fur-trimmed jacket. “Weird how?”
“Well, she just kept talking about this guy she was dating and how they were gonna get married and move to Oregon. Oregon, of all places! I mean, I so did not get that fascination. There’s, like, not even any cool malls there. And it’s, like, totally rainy ’n’ stuff. Way FUBAR, if you ask me.”
I watched as she picked up another T-shirt: LITTLE MISS GIGGLES.
“So, um, was that all you and Veronika talked about?”
Kylie gave me a sidelong glance in the mirror. “I guess. Why?”
I picked up the belt again, trying to feign casual. “No reason. Just wondering if she might have confided something in you. Something that might help find who killed her.”
Something sparked in the back of Kylie’s eyes, and for a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of intelligence cross her face beyond her Tina Rey character. “Don’t the police think Mia was the real target?”
“No one’s really sure yet, ” I said, watching her carefully.
Kylie shrugged. “Well, Veronika didn’t say anything to me about someone after her, if that’s what you mean. Like I said, we just did lattes a couple of times. She wasn’t like my BFF or anything.” She turned back to her reflection. “Hey, what do you think about this top. Kitschy fun or just passé?”
I handed her a pink tee with a polka-dotted Chihuahua on the front. “Try this.”
She grabbed it and held it up to her chest. “Too cute!”
“Any idea why Veronika might have been in Mia’s trailer that night?” I asked, switching gears.
Kylie shrugged. “I dunno. That wrinkle-faced police guy asked me that, too. All I can think is that maybe she was borrowing a script or something. I know Veronika was always losing her copy. She tried to borrow mine a couple weeks ago, but I, like, totally needed it. I had, like, two whole pages to memorize!”
“Ouch.”
“No doubt. Hey, wanna hand me that belt? I’m gonna go try some of these on, ” Kylie said, grabbing her pile of T-shirts.
I did. Then I hung around the dressing rooms awhile, but I figured I’d gotten all I was going to out of Miss Perky.
Jasmine was just pulling into a spot out front as I exited the boutique. I slipped into the passenger seat of the Miata. “Perfect timing.”
“Are you done already?” Jasmine’s face fell (well, as far as a face-lift and chin implant would let it fall).
I nodded. “Either Kylie’s too stupid or too smart to say anything useful.”
“Damn.” Jasmine pouted. “Okay, well, where to next, Kate?”
I gave her a look. “Kate?”
Jasmine rolled her eyes at me. “Well, duh, if we’re doing the Angels thing, I’m clearly Farrah, so you have to be either Jaclyn Smith or Kate Jackson. And, honey, you’re no Jaclyn.”
I gave her a dirty look but considering she had the car, didn’t argue.
Only, the truth was, I wasn’t really sure where to go next. The fact that Veronika may have been blackmailing someone on the set threw a whole new light on things. The only problem was that secrets ran through Magnolia Lane faster than a Malibu wildfire. Her victim-turned-killer could be any one of the cast. I wasn’t even entirely ready to cross Kylie off my list. Sure, she seemed innocent enough, but I wasn’t completely convinced that the perky-ditz thing she had going on wasn’t an act. I mean, who could really be that blonde?
And what about Dusty? What was her connection to all of this? I had a hard time picturing her and Veronika in cahoots. Dusty loved her job too much to jeopardize it that way. The girl had lived for fashion.
And then there were the letters. After this last one, it seemed clear they were somehow linked to the murders. But I couldn’t for the life of me think how. Either this was the most bumbling killer ever, to have gotten the wrong target twice, or there was more going on here than I could figure. It was harder to follow than last season’s love triangle between Tina Rey, the electrician, and that hooker they killed off in the supermarket after her secret love child with the neighbor burned down Tina Rey’s house and hit her dog with a diaper-delivery truck.
“Let’s go visit Margo, ” I finally decided, remembering the orange scarf.
“Good plan.” Jasmine nodded. “I bet she’s in this up to her eyeballs.”
The only problem was that I had no idea where to look for her. “I don’t exactly have her address, ” I confessed.
“No prob, ” Jasmine replied. “Easy enough to get that.”
I raised an eyebrow at her (and, since my beauty regimen included L’Oreal night cream in lieu of botulism injections, my eyebrow actually went up). “You can?”
“Um, duh? Just pick up any map of the stars’ homes. Margo’s compound is always on there.”
“Compound?” Since when did TV supporting actresses make the kind of cash to live in compounds?
Jasmine gave me a sidelong look. “Um, yeah. Margo Walton? She’s freaking swimming in dough, that girl. She used to be a B-movie actress back in the eighties. She did, like, fifty of those high-school-sluts-being-chased-by-ax-murderers flicks. She’s still huge in Japan.”