Cardiac Arrest, page 9
“We’d better get moving if we’re going to make our appointments.” Summer got up from the computer and wrung out her towel on the carpet. “Maurice Georges gets pretty ticked off if you’re late.”
“You’ve been there?” Dorothy asked. If she recalled correctly, the girl had only been in Milano for a few weeks.
“I had my eyebrows done,” Summer said, as they walked out of the Business Center. “The place wasn’t any big deal. Way overpriced if you ask me, even for this town.”
“Ms. Sloan? May I speak with you, please?”
Jennifer Margolis caught up with them in the hall, her arms full of glossy Hibiscus Pointe brochures. “I really do need to talk to you.” She glanced at Dorothy. “Um, privately.”
“Sorry, Jennifer, can’t right now.” Summer pulled her car keys out of her bag as she walked.
“I’m afraid it’s very important,” Jennifer insisted. “I want to help you, Ms. Sloan.”
Dorothy detected a note of panic under the resident services director’s usual professional demeanor. Now that she thought about it, Jennifer always seemed somewhat stressed beneath the armor of her corporate uniform: navy blazer with Hibiscus logo, tailored khaki or navy skirt, white scoop-necked tee, and that little red tie.
“Like I said, I’m soooo sorry, Jennifer.” Summer didn’t sound sorry in the least. “Mrs. Westin and I have appointments downtown this morning.”
Jennifer looked at Dorothy for help. “It’s true, I’m afraid,” Dorothy said. “We’re already running late, in fact.”
“Oh.” The services director knew when to back down. “Well, please call or stop by my office, Ms. Sloan. At your earliest convenience,” she called after them.
“What do you suppose she wants?” Dorothy asked.
Summer shrugged. “I don’t know, but she sure is a pain. She’s been leaving messages on my grandma’s old answering machine. She kept saying they were for Ms. Sloan, so I just erased them.”
“I’m sure Jennifer knows your grandma passed on,” Dorothy said. “Those messages had to be for you.”
“I guess,” Summer conceded.
“It might be a good idea to find out whatever it is, don’t you think?” Dorothy suggested, gently. “Jennifer did say she wanted to help.”
“Maybe,” Summer said, as they stepped through the sliding lobby doors and into the sunshine. “Or maybe not. I don’t trust a lot of people, you know?”
Dorothy had gathered that. Luckily, Summer seemed to trust her. At least, Dorothy hoped she did. But was she making a mistake putting her own faith in this mercurial young woman? No, she told herself again, very firmly.
Summer went to get her car and Dorothy sat down to rest for a moment on the stone bench near the curb. She quickly gave up her spot, however, when a shaky, pale-looking resident and her caretaker emerged from a pink Tina’s Taxi cab.
That could be me, Dorothy thought, suppressing a shudder. She never failed to remind herself how fortunate she was to enjoy relatively excellent health. Except for that one little incident.
Dr. A had assured her that, as long as she was under his care, and followed his directions to the T, everything would be rosy. But now he was gone, just like that, in the prime of his life.
One could never predict what fate had in store.
Summer squealed up the circular drive in the Mini, nearly colliding with the pink taxi, and jumped out to help Dorothy into the car. Dorothy felt all eyes upon them as they zoomed out the exit to the perimeter road.
There were a few disapproving looks, she was sure. And maybe a fair number of envious ones, too. Dorothy sat back against the leather bucket seat, feeling a thrilling little rush of freedom.
She’d forgotten something she’d wanted to ask Summer last night. Now what was it? Oh yes.
“Did you happen to see Gladys and her friend Mary Lee late yesterday afternoon? Mary Lee is a very tiny blonde, a bit jittery sometimes.”
Summer frowned as she swerved to avoid a slow moving Lincoln Continental. “I don’t think so.”
“They were on their way from the Towers to the Gardens, maybe around four or four-thirty?”
“Oh, yeah,” Summer said. “They looked like Pooh and Piglet and they were slow as mud. I remember, I stopped to check out this gross, ugly duck guarding a bunch of eggs in the bushes, and I still had to pass them. That Gladys woman sure likes to talk.”
“Yes, she certainly does. Did you see anyone else on the walk?”
Summer shook her head. “Sorry, couldn’t tell you.”
Well, nothing new there. Her story matched up with the one Mary Lee had told her and Ernie at dinner last night.
“Why were you asking about those two, anyway?” Summer said.
“No reason, really.” Dorothy shut her eyes as they zipped through a yellow light. “Simply keeping tabs on Gladys’s whereabouts.”
And yours, she declined to add. Just in the very unlikeliest case I’m wrong.
Chapter Thirteen
“Welcome to Maurice Georges,” the redhead in the funky glasses greeted Summer and Dorothy, from behind her giant, egg-shaped desk. The whole place reminded Summer of a retro spaceship.
“Do you ladies have appointments?”
“I’m here for a leg wax at ten thirty,” Summer said. “And Dorothy’s getting her hair done.”
The receptionist, who wore a white salon coat with “Suki” stitched above the pocket in sparkly blue thread, consulted her appointment book. “Will you be having a color treatment today, or just a cut and style, Mrs....?”
“Westin.” Dorothy seemed mesmerized by the endless white-blue waterfall behind the egg desk.
“The works,” Summer put in.
Dorothy’s eyes snapped away from the waterfall. “It was just a cut and style, wasn’t it?”
“I may have added a few things,” Summer said.
The receptionist nodded. “I’ll let Melissa and Toinette know you’re here.”
As soon as Suki stepped behind the frosted water wall, Dorothy frowned. “I’m sure that wasn’t our agreement, dear.”
“We need to stretch our time out.” Summer pointed to the appointment chart on Suki’s tablet screen. “See? The Rivera-Jones party doesn’t arrive ’til eleven.”
Dorothy sighed.
“You didn’t get any cancellations in the nail lab, did you?” Summer asked the receptionist when she returned.
“Afraid not. We’re always booked solid on Thursdays.”
Summer turned to Dorothy. “That’s when Mia always gets her mani-pedis, Grandmother.”
“Such a nice girl,” Dorothy said, playing along. Suki raised her superthin eyebrows.
Whoops. Summer remembered the way Mia had cursed at her coming out of Dr. A’s office that morning. She probably wasn’t so nice.
“She told us about this place, actually,” Summer said.
“Wait, you’re a friend of Mia’s?” Suki looked at her tablet again. “Maybe we can squeeze you in, if...”
“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Summer said. She didn’t want to get caught in all these teensy fibs once Mia actually showed up. “We’re more like acquaintances, actually. From really long ago. Um, pre-school.”
“It’s sad about her poor fiancé, isn’t it?” Dorothy said. Summer breathed a sigh of relief at the change in subject.
“Tony? He was a regular here, too,” Suki said. She was getting much chattier now. “I know a lot of the ladies are going to miss him. He used to come in sometimes with his business partner.”
“Was his business partner’s name Eduardo, by any chance?” Summer asked.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Suki said. “Do you know him, too?”
Oops again. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned Eduardo.
“We’ve seen him around town,” Dorothy said quickly.
“That guy is so particular, he never lets any of the stylists touch his hair,” Suki said. “He swears by the guys down at Manny’s. They have a whole Italian barber shop thing going over there.”
“Ms. Smythe? Mrs. Westin?”
Bummer, Summer thought. Melissa and Toinette had arrived to take them for their appointments, just when things were getting interesting. She and Dorothy had gotten some decent info out of Suki, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to push things. Way too risky, with Mia about to show up.
Dorothy looked supernervous as Toinette led her away to the hairdressing station and fitted a teal drape around her shoulders. “Have fun,” Summer called, as she followed Melissa into one of the waxing rooms. Her friend really could use a more up-to-date style.
The wax didn’t take long. For all the extra bucks, Summer had expected some fancy lotion or powder, at least, to take the redness down. Milano was just a wannabe L.A.
“Would you like a glass of wine while you wait for your grandma?” Melissa asked.
“Just water’s fine, thanks.” When the technician left, Summer slipped back into her lime capris, then grabbed a clean folded robe from the silver cabinet in the corner of the room and threw it over her T-shirt.
“Here you go.” Melissa looked confused, as she came back with a glass and a bottle of Perrier. “Are you having another treatment this morning, Ms. Smythe?”
“Yes,” Summer said. “But I’ll find my own way there, okay? I need to make a quick stop in the ladies room first.”
“Oh, sure,” Melissa answered. “It was nice meeting you.”
As soon as the technician was gone for good, Summer went straight to one of the ginger-scented, Zen-style dressing rooms and grabbed a towel from a bamboo shelf. So much for the spaceship theme. Maybe they hadn’t finished redecorating yet from the salon’s previous incarnation.
She wrapped the towel around her head like a turban and stopped by the stylists’ area to check on Dorothy. Her friend was enthroned on a salon chair with her hair clipped up in a zillion silver foils, looking even more worried now. “Relax, you’re going to look fabulous,” Summer assured her.
“We’ll see.” Dorothy didn’t sound very optimistic. “Why do you have your hair in a towel, dear? It’s not even wet.”
“Shh,” Summer said. “This is my disguise. I can’t have Mia or her friends recognize me at the party on Saturday, right?”
“Smart thinking,” Dorothy said. “I guess I won’t have to worry about anyone recognizing me right now. Or ever again, possibly.”
“Nope,” Summer said, cheerfully. “See ya later.” She chose a trashy magazine from the hanging rack behind the heat lamp and headed for the cave-like nail treatment area, behind a funky, silver-bead curtain.
Two of Mia’s friends were settling into the egg-shaped pedicure chairs, gabbing away, and another girl was already seated at a manicure table, looking impatient. Summer quickly took up her surveillance position at the drying bar. Hopefully her home polish touch up from five nights ago looked just done. She spread out her fingers and checked out the chipped neon coral polish. Not really. One nail didn’t have any polish left at all, thanks to the disgusting amount of chlorine in the Hibiscus Pointe pool.
On the other hand, any less chlorine might make things a lot more disgusting.
“Sorry I’m late, guys.” Mia burst through the silver beads and dropped down at the second manicure table. The technician who’d been surreptitiously filing her own nails underneath it snapped to attention.
From her vantage point at the dryer bar, Summer finally got a decent look at Dr. A’s fiancée. Mia Rivera-Jones was definitely attractive in a Florida-rich kind of way. The deep tan, the heavy gold jewelry, the seemingly casual, shapeless designer sundress, the Bermuda basket purse with the scrimshaw dolphin on the lid—the girl practically dripped money.
“French today,” she told the manicurist in her nasally voice, holding out her already perfect nails. “And make sure you do the extra top coat this time.”
“So how are the plans going for Saturday?” one of her friends asked.
“Everything’s set for the party,” Mia answered. “I’m leaving everything in Tatiana’s hands so I know it will be perfect. The funeral stuff, though...” She gave an exaggerated sigh.
“When is that going to be?” her friend at the next table asked.
“And do we have to go?” added one of the girls from the pedicure chairs.
“Danielle!” The curvy girl beside her laughed. “You are soooo rude.”
Danielle shrugged. “Hey, I never liked the guy. He was a cheating, lying—”
Whoa, cold. Summer’s mouth dropped open, but she quickly shut it.
Mia didn’t seem bothered by her friend’s opinion. “The service is Monday.” She lifted her left hand to inspect the manicurist’s filing job, nearly blinding Summer with her massive diamond engagement ring. Now that was a rock.
“But get this,” Mia went on. “Tony’s family just got here from Italy, and the wake starts tomorrow night. They’re really old school, and I think they expect me to put in an appearance at the funeral home before the party, too. Can you believe that?”
“Well, you are the grieving almost-widow, babe,” Manicure Girl said. “So you’d better play the part, or—” She suddenly noticed Summer. “Excuse me, what are you staring at?”
“Are you eavesdropping on us?” Danielle asked. “How incredibly tacky.”
Mia glared in Summer’s direction, her eyes blazing as brightly as her diamond. “Who are you?”
Summer tossed her head, nearly undoing the towel. “Do you mind? I’m reading my magazine,” she said in her snottiest voice, rattling the pages toward Mia. Whoops, upside down.
“I thought this was a private party reservation,” Dr. A’s former fiancée said to the manicurist.
“You know what? I’m done here.” Summer stood up. “And I won’t be coming back.”
Yeah, she could pretty much bet on that.
Flinging aside the silver bead curtain, the long strings brushing her face like creepy tentacles, Summer exited the nail cave and dumped her towel and spa robe into the nearest bamboo basket.
With luck, Dorothy’s hair would be done before Mia and her gal pals made it to the front desk.
Still clutching the wrinkled magazine, Summer returned to the stylists’ area and dropped into an orange fiberglass waiting chair. It was about as comfortable as her Grandma Sloan’s couch with the plastic still on it. And just as ugly.
Dorothy’s makeover was in full swing. “So what do you think?” Summer asked, when Melissa twirled around the salon chair.
“I think it turned out great,” the stylist answered. She gave Dorothy a hand mirror to view her new haircut from the back. “The shorter layers really suit you, and the softer gray is perfect for your complexion.”
Dorothy stared at herself in the mirror. “Do you really think so?”
“Oh, yeah,” Summer said. “You look mucho hot. Wait ’til Ernie gets a load of the new Dorothy Westin.”
Her friend’s face flamed red. “Please!” she said. “Ernie is married. And he won’t notice anyway, I assure you.”
Summer grinned. “Oh, I think he will.”
* * *
Dorothy was too exhausted to eat in the dining room that night. A few hours downtown with Summer drained as much energy as back-to-back stress tests on the treadmill.
Still wearing her outfit from that morning, though not quite as well pressed, she stood at the refrigerator, staring at the near-empty shelves. Mr. Bitey wound around her ankles, meowing his complaints over the lack of potential treats.
“Sorry, fella,” Dorothy said. “Celery sticks à la peanut butter or cranberry juice with stale graham crackers, I’m afraid.”
Mr. Bitey appeared less than impressed.
She had just removed a pint of moldy strawberries from the top shelf and dumped them in the disposal when her doorbell rang.
Oh, no, she thought. Please not Summer. They’d had a very productive day, but she needed a break.
Warily, she checked through the peephole. To her surprise, Ernie stood in the hallway, holding a large, white plastic bag and a bouquet of colorful flowers.
Dorothy quickly touched her hair and opened the door. “Why, Ernie, I certainly didn’t expect to see you this evening. Please come in.”
“Thanks, but I can’t stay.” He handed her the flowers. “These are for you.”
“They’re beautiful,” Dorothy told him. “I’ll put them straight into a vase.”
“Oh, and this is for you, too.” Ernie followed her into the kitchen and set the bag on the counter. “Barbecued ribs, corn bread, coleslaw and mashed potatoes from Bertha’s Bar-B-Q.”
“My favorites!” Dorothy said. “Thank you.”
Ernie shrugged. “Grace and I ordered in tonight and we thought maybe you’d like something also. A little bird—well, a tall, blonde one, actually—told me you had a busy day.”
That little bird could outchatter a magpie. “Busy is putting it mildly, I think,” Dorothy said.
“Well, sounds as if you lady detectives got a lot accomplished,” Ernie said. “And if you ask me, sleuthing really becomes you, Dorothy. You look especially nice tonight.”
Dorothy felt herself blushing like a girl at her first dance. “Thank you, Ernie, but I bet Summer put you up to that. The new ‘do’ was her idea, I’m afraid.”
“She never mentioned it,’ Ernie said.
“Oh.” Dorothy flushed again.
“Well, good night, Dot,” Ernie headed toward the door. “I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night,” Dorothy said softly, as he let himself out. Then she hurried to the door and stuck her head out into the hall. “Ernie, wait! Speaking of haircuts, I just heard about a wonderful Italian barber shop downtown called Manny’s. Why don’t I make you an appointment?”
