Show Business Is Murder Read online

  The decision wasn’t a hard one. Not in Braddock’s state of mind. Before they put something around his ankle, he put a rope around his neck. He climbed up on a chair and tied the other end of the rope to a sturdily mounted ceiling fixture.

  It’s Hollywood, he thought. Everybody’s got an act, and mine wasn’t good enough. I fooled nobody.

  Then he kicked the chair away.

  He didn’t fall very far, but far enough.

  He changed his mind in an instant. Too late. As he was choking to death, tearing at the inexorably tightening noose with clutching, helpless fingers, thrashing his legs about for a nonexistent foothold, he heard a rough, throaty voice not his own:

  “I’d help you loosen that knot if I could, but what can I do with these? I got no opposable thumbs, pal.”

  The last thing Braddock saw as the light faded was Java, sitting up on his haunches, holding out his paws.

  Taking a bow? Smiling?

  Blonde Moment

  ELAINE VIETS

  “KILLER,” SAID JASON the producer, as he admired the blonde in the blue dress.

  “Kill her,” is what Evelyn Blent heard.

  That’s exactly what she wanted to do. Kill Tiffany Tyler Taylor.

  It was Jason who gave Evelyn the idea to kill Tiffany. It was Evelyn’s grandmother who showed her how to do it.

  Tiffany. The little blonde was sitting at her new morning show set for the first time, but she looked like she’d been there forever. Breakfast With Tiffany the show was called, and the new set was created for her. It was all in shades of blue—sky blue and Dresden blue, peacock, azure, and sapphire—to set off Tiffany’s rich buttery blondeness.

  Blonde ambition, that’s what Tiffany was. Five-feet-two inches of simpering, slithering ambition. Tiffany was after Evelyn’s anchor slot. Evelyn knew it. There was only one reason why she’d get it. She was blonde.

  Whenever Tiffany Tyler Taylor walked through station KQZX, every man looked at her like he’d been marooned for a decade on a desert island. From the station manager to the mail clerks, the men stared at Tiffany with dazed looks and sappy smiles. But Evelyn knew the station manager—Mighty Milt, as his toadies called him—was the real problem. In TV, mistakes started at the top. If Milt didn’t treat Tiffany as his golden girl, that brown-noser Jason wouldn’t fawn over her.

  Jason was Evelyn’s producer, too, but he had only perfunctory praise for Evelyn. “Nice job,” he’d say. Or, “Thanks for covering that light plane crash. Nobody else would be on the scene at five A.M.”

  Certainly not Tiffany Tyler Taylor. She’d never trudge through a muddy field to get to the crash site. She’d mess up her little blue shoes.

  But Jason never looked at Evelyn in that same dreamy way. Even Rick, a cynical, sarcastic cameraman, stared at Tiffany and said with a lovesick sigh, “God, she looks good.”

  “She’s a poodle,” snarled Evelyn. “An empty-headed little nothing. What is wrong with you, Rick? You’ve never fallen in love with the talent before.”

  Rick shrugged. “Blondes are easier to light,” he said.

  Evelyn almost believed him. When the harsh TV lights hit Tiffany, her blonde hair glowed like molten gold. She looked like a blue angel with Meg Ryan bangs.

  Evelyn looked dark and a little angry on TV. Her brunette hair seemed to absorb light. Her olive skin created strange shadows. TV did odd things to her. If Evelyn gained a pound or two, the camera gave her a double chin and a pouchy stomach. That never happened to Tiffany Tyler Taylor. She always looked petite and perfect.

  Tiffany couldn’t get a scoop in an ice cream parlor. But St. Louis viewers were as dazzled as the fools at the station. In six months, Tiffany rose from feature reporter to morning show host. Now Evelyn was afraid that Tiffany would go after the ultimate prize—Evelyn’s own hard-won spot as six o’clock anchor.

  Already Tiffany had made two guest appearances on St. Louis’ highest-rated news show. Co-anchor Dick Nickerson threw back his head and laughed so hard at Tiffany’s mild (and scripted) joke about the weather that his comb-over flopped up like a pot lid. Dick got derisive letters from readers, calling him a drapehead. He didn’t care. Dick adored Tiffany.

  Nobody but Evelyn saw the hard little climber under that soft surface. Nobody but Evelyn heard Tiffany’s catty remarks.

  “Eeuww, are you really eating a bacon sandwich for lunch?” said Tiffany, pointing at Evelyn’s BLT. “Bacon has nitrates and nitrites. And it’s bad for your skin.” Evelyn could feel the zits popping out on her face like dandelions after a rain.

  “Bacon makes you fat,” Tiffany said, staring at Evelyn’s waistline until she felt her gut plop over her belt.

  “That’s why I stick to salads,” she said, smugly. She tapped her green-heaped plate with her fork. Then Tiffany stuck her knife in Evelyn’s back. “But I suppose a mature woman like yourself doesn’t have to worry about her figure.”

  “Mature” was not a compliment in television. Tiffany had called her old and fat. No one else heard the insult.

  Another time Tiffany suggested that Evelyn get some blonde highlights in her dark hair. “The lighter color around your face will make you look ten years younger,” she said. “Go to Mr. John. He’s the best colorist in the city. You’ll look so natural.”

  No one heard that little dig, either.

  Only Evelyn heard Tiffany on the phone to her stockbroker every afternoon before the markets closed. Only Evelyn seemed to catch Tiffany calling her agent. That’s when Tiffany dropped all pretense of being the city’s sweetheart.

  “I don’t know how I can live on a lousy two-hundred-fifty thousand a year,” St. Louis’s sweety pie hissed. Evelyn would love to have that quote on tape. She’d play it for all the Tiffany fans who said, “She’s so down-to-earth.”

  Evelyn saw red when she heard how much green the gold-digging Goldilocks was trying to pry out of the station. Evelyn didn’t make near that, and she’d been at the station ten years.

  It was time to have a talk with her mentor, Margaret Smithson. Evelyn would demand to know why she was underpaid and underrated. Margaret would make things right.

  Evelyn’s anger boiled and seethed as she marched across the newsroom. It burst like a geyser when she opened Margaret’s office door, and she spewed out a stream of hot words.

  “Stop it!” Margaret said. “Evelyn, you must stop this stupid jealousy.”

  Evelyn felt like she’d been slapped. Margaret looked small and stern in her smart black suit. She weighed about ninety-five pounds, and most of that was her mop of dark hair. But Margaret was tough. Right now, she turned that toughness on Evelyn.

  “Your petty jabs at Tiffany are getting back to the wrong people. I’m warning you. They’ll come back and bite you in the ass.”

  “You’re on her side, too,” Evelyn said. She knew she sounded whiny.

  “I am not,” Margaret said. Even when she was angry, Margaret was striking. She had black hair, dark blue eyes, and pale skin. Evelyn often wondered why Margaret wasn’t on camera. But Margaret preferred to be a special projects producer. Everything she touched turned to Emmy gold. The lustrous statues lined the shelves above her desk.

  “I’m on your side, Evelyn. But you’re making yourself look bad. It’s contract renewal time, and I have to tell you: Milt is talking about making Tiffany the six o’clock anchor. I think I can head him off, but I don’t know for how long if you keep undermining yourself. Milt wants team players.”

  “It isn’t a team. It’s a support system for Tiffany,” said Evelyn, bitterly.

  “See, that’s what I mean,” Margaret said. “How many times have I told you? Success in television is by the numbers. Right now, Tiffany has them. Viewers will tire of her professional cuteness. They always do. Then Milt will decide she’s overpaid and dump her. She’ll be gone soon. Sit tight and keep your mouth shut.”

  But the next morning, while Tiffany was doing a live remote in front of City Hall, a yellow blur of fur raced by her and
ran into Market Street. The whole city saw Tiffany run after the dog and rescue it, just before it slipped under the wheels of a truck. In case anyone missed the dramatic rescue, it was shown on the six and ten o’clock news.

  The following morning, Tiffany was on the set with the little yellow mutt. Saved and savior looked remarkably alike. Both were small and perky, with yellow hair and floppy bangs. Both oozed cuteness. The mutt licked Tiffany, and Tiffany smooched the dog. Evelyn couldn’t decide which one she wanted to kick first.

  Evelyn nearly choked on her breakfast eggs when Tiffany announced a contest to name the dog. She lost her appetite totally three days later when Tiffany said she’d received two thousand e-mails and faxes. Evidently, viewers also thought Tiffany looked like her dog. The winning name was Tiffany Too.

  A week later, Milt sent out a memo that Tiffany and Tiffany Too would be featured at the Fair Saint Louis on the Fourth of July. Tiffany would be the dayside anchor, then do color commentary on the fireworks that night.

  Every year, some two million people sweltered on the St. Louis Riverfront, under the Gateway Arch. The temperature and the humidity were in the nineties—if the city was lucky. Sometimes, it was a hundred degrees or more.

  The staff complained about covering the three-day fair in the broiling St. Louis sun, but they knew it was a career showcase. For four years running, Evelyn had been the dayside anchor and nightside commentator. This year, Milt’s memo demoted her to a lowly reporter. She’d be trudging through the almost liquid heat to interview boring people who said things like, “We’re having a wonderful time. There’s nothing like this in Festus.”

  Milt gave that sneaky, simpering blonde Evelyn’s assignment at the fair. Soon she’d have Evelyn’s anchor slot, too.

  Evelyn told her mentor Margaret that she felt sick and wanted to go home. She wasn’t lying. Her stomach heaved when she read Milt’s memo. She barely made it to the restroom before she threw up.

  Evelyn had to save her career before that fair-haired fathead took everything from her. She felt hot angry tears. This was dangerous. She couldn’t be seen crying in the newsroom.

  She ran to her BMW and started driving anywhere, nowhere. She didn’t want to think. But Evelyn’s driving was not aimless after all. She found herself on Christopher Drive, the road to Granny’s house in the country. Granny was common sense itself. She’d help Evelyn.

  Granny was the last real grandmother in America. No facelifts and hair dyes for her. Granny had a comfortable flour-sack figure and crinkly gray hair.

  Granny’s little white house had yellow plastic lawn ducks and red geraniums. It was surrounded by acres of Missouri woods. Across the street was a horse pasture. Subdivisions were creeping up the road, but you couldn’t see them yet.

  Granny had grown up on a farm in Tennessee, and she loved to talk about old-time remedies from her girlhood. As a teenager, Evelyn was disgusted when Granny told her that country people used to tie moldy bread to a bad cut to cure the infection.

  Later on, Evelyn realized they were using a primitive form of penicillin.

  Of course, not all of Granny’s old-time remedies were useful. Evelyn didn’t believe a pan of water under a bed would break a fever, but it did no harm.

  Granny ran outside when she heard Evelyn’s car and gave her a comforting hug. Evelyn breathed in her grandmother’s old-fashioned violet sachet. Granny’s kitchen was perfumed with the warm sweetness of fresh-baked blackberry pie.

  “You’re too thin,” Granny said, which made Evelyn feel better. You could never be too thin on TV.

  “And how’s my other favorite TV girl?” said Granny.

  “Who’s that?” said Evelyn, as she felt her insides go dead. Had that tinselly Tiffany seduced her Granny?

  “The little blonde who rescued that dog,” Granny said. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

  “Too bad there’s nothing in it,” said Evelyn.

  “Evelyn, is that the green-eyed monster I see in your eyes?” said Granny.

  “No,” Evelyn lied.

  “Then have some homemade pie and tell me why you’re dropping in on me in the middle of the day,” Granny said.

  “Because I haven’t seen you in awhile,” said Evelyn. She couldn’t tell Granny the real reason. Not now. Not after she knew Granny was a Tiffany worshiper.

  Granny cut a big slice from the blackberry pie cooling on the rack. Warm purple juice oozed out on the plate and dripped on the counter, but Granny ignored it. She was staring out the window.

  “Those new people have their white horse in that pasture again on a sunny day,” Granny said. “They know that field’s full of rue plants. I’ve told them and told them, but they won’t listen to me. Damn yuppies think I don’t know anything. If that horse suffers, it’s their fault.”

  “What’s wrong with rue?” asked Evelyn.

  “It’s poisonous to white animals, especially in the sunshine,” said Granny. “Grows right there.” She pointed to some weedy-looking plants by the pasture fence.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Evelyn said. “Why would they poison only white animals?”

  “Don’t know, but they do,” Granny said. “Poison white people, too.”

  “Come on, Granny, plants don’t discriminate,” said Evelyn. She wondered if age was eroding Granny’s sharp mind.

  “I mean really white people, like blondes. It won’t hurt dark-haired types like you,” Granny said. “And that’s no old wives’ tale. It’s a scientific fact. If white animals eat rue, celery, and plants like that, then stand in bright sunlight, they can get real sick.

  “But a chestnut horse can eat the same plants and nothing happens. Dark-haired animals and people don’t get sick. The plants are only poisonous to very white people and white animals.”

  “What happens?” asked Evelyn.

  Granny loved to describe symptoms. “Their face, throat, and eyelids swell up,” she said gleefully. “They get dizzy and stagger around like they’re drunk.” Granny staggered around the kitchen, clutching the purple pie knife to her chest.

  “Happened to your Aunt Virginia,” she said solemnly.

  Evelyn tried to picture her stout gray-haired aunt staggering. “When?”

  “When Virginia was a young girl. At the Cedar Springs church picnic,” Granny said. “I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but Virginia was a little bit of a thing then, and had platinum-blonde hair down to her hips. Wild as a March hare, too. Some boy dared her to eat a plant in a field. Your Aunt Virginia saw a brown horse eating it and figured it was safe. But it was rue. Her throat swelled up terrible. That girl liked to died. Couldn’t get Virginia to touch anything green again, not even a plain old lettuce salad.”

  Evelyn could see another little blonde eating a salad, then going out into the sweltering Fair Saint Louis sunshine. She could see her white throat swelling and closing up, and the blonde staggering and dying just before the paramedics arrived.

  Then Evelyn saw herself taking back the fair assignment that was rightfully hers.

  Granny had given her the solution to the Tiffany problem after all. In fact, she’d served it on a plate.

  “What’s this phenomenon called?” Evelyn asked.

  “Photo . . . photo . . . photo-something,” Granny said.

  Photosensitization.

  “A pathological sensitivity caused by eating certain plants that are not ordinarily poisonous,” Evelyn’s researches at the library revealed.

  “A form of light dermatosis,” said one old book that was a virtual manual for poisoners. Evelyn couldn’t risk checking it out, so she stole it from the library, burying it in her briefcase. At home, she read the section on photosensitization over and over, gloating over each sentence.

  “Its symptoms are an inflammatory swelling of the ears, face, and eyelids, with throat and lung disturbances, dizziness and a tendency to stagger,” the book said. “When, in rare instances, death follows, it is due to mechanical asphyxia from the swelling
of the nose and throat.”

  Death would be nice, Evelyn thought. But she would settle for seeing the golden girl swell up like a red balloon. Maybe she’d pop, right on camera.

  Evelyn giggled, but it was not a cute Tiffany Tyler Taylor giggle.

  Her researches only got better: Rue and celery, especially the green leafy parts of celery, were rich in furanocourmarins. The name alone was enough to make you turn red and swell.

  Some people were supersensitive to them. They’d get a horrible sunburn-like reaction. The lighter-skinned you were, the more intense the reaction. Especially if you went out into the sun.

  And if you were taking a drug like Coumadin, it further intensified the reaction, Evelyn read. Lots of people took the blood thinner Coumadin. It was also the main ingredient in rat poison.

  All Evelyn had to do was make a nice salad with rue and celery, then spice it with a little rat poison. Not enough to make a brunette sick. Just enough to blow up a little blonde.

  It was so easy.

  Evelyn knew where to get the rue plants. The pasture near Granny’s was filled with them.

  Evelyn knew how she would serve them, too. She’d make a field greens salad, then add the rue. It was a field green, too. When people were chomping baby oak leaves and stuff that looked like it had been raked off a lawn, who’d notice some rue? Then she’d sprinkle on green celery leaves for color. Everyone used celery.

  A cheese dressing would disguise any bitter taste. I’ll make raspberry vinaigrette with Gorgonzola, she thought. I’ll add walnuts and dried cranberries to make it nice and healthy.

  For everyone but Tiffany.

  For good measure, she’d Cuisinart a little rat poison and add it to the dressing. It would blend in with the herbs and spices. She’d calculate exactly the medicinal dose for a small woman—divided by three salad eaters. Sun, celery, rue—and rat poison. Tiffany would rue the day she went after anything of Evelyn’s.