CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“I’ve been doing this on and off since I was a teenager,” Hector confides after I’ve semi recovered. “I’ve always been fascinated by women’s clothes. I bought a pair of pantyhose when I was 13 and wore them under my pants. It was hard to take them off the days I had gym class. Shall we order a bottle of champagne?” he asks as a server cruises past. “This is a big day for me, telling you all this.”
Hector orders a bottle of the good stuff, speaking in a slightly higher voice than I’ve heard him use before. I have to say, if I didn’t know Hector was Hector and I saw and heard him like this, I’d have no trouble believing he was a woman. A somewhat husky square-shaped woman, but that occurs in those of us with two X chromosomes all the time.
“What happened to you?” he asks when he takes in the scrapes on my arms that my concealer can’t quite hide.
“Oh”—I decide to keep it simple—“I took a tumble in my high heels.”
He nods knowingly. “Stilettos can be the devil to walk in.”
“I have to ask, Hector. Does your wife know about this?”
“Remember I told you we understand each other? She just wants me to keep it private.”
“You’re not really doing that, though, if sometimes you drive up to the Hotel Roca in your Maserati as yourself and sometimes you drive up as—”
“I’m always myself. This is just the other side of me. I get to escape the whole macho Latin thing and try something else. But no, I never come here dressed like this. I change upstairs. And I’ll change again before I leave. I have a different credit card, too.” He looks pleased at having thought of every detail. “It’s a game, you know? Who will guess? Who will I fool?”
“You would’ve fooled me if I hadn’t recognized the dress.”
He leans closer. “I didn’t want to fool you, Happy. I wanted you to understand me. Like my wife does.”
Our champagne arrives. I am sufficiently rattled that even though it’s noon on a weekday I wouldn’t mind a glass.
“To truth. And to trust,” Hector adds. We toast. “Somehow I felt I could trust you, Happy,” he goes on. “I hope I wasn’t mistaken.”
“You weren’t.” Secretly I will admit to a certain disappointment. I was hoping for a revelation of a more homicidal nature. “Since we’re being truthful, Hector, could I ask you a personal question about your half sister Peppi?”
His expression grows somber. “I’ve been thinking about her more than I expected to. I told you we weren’t close.”
“Still, you’re related by blood. That’s got to mean something.”
“It does. More the older I get.”
“I know I shouldn’t listen to gossip but some people are saying that Peppi had a drug problem.”
He grimaces. “Gossip can be so malicious!”
“So it’s not true?”
He sighs. “There is truth to it. She was addicted to painkillers. It was years ago. She used to dance for the Heat and she took a fall and that’s when it happened.”
“Years ago,” I repeat. “So did she go to rehab or—”
He nods. “I have to give her credit for that. She kicked the habit. My father admired her for it, too. In the music business he ran across all sorts of people who couldn’t kick it. Peppi could.”
I sip my champagne. Hearing this, it’s hard to believe Peppi’s murder had to do with her addiction.
“You know a great deal about me now,
querida
,” Hector murmurs. “Does it change the way you feel?”
I think about that. “It’s a lot to take in but not really.”
“You’re so open-minded.” He gives my hand a grateful squeeze. “The way you’re reacting is giving me the confidence to tell Consuela.”
I ask a really stupid question. “Do you think she’ll react the same way I have?”
“She’s so unpredictable. That’s what’s so marvelous about her. I’ll just explain and ask her one simple question. Who does it hurt? I’ve told you and now I feel closer to you than ever.” He leans close. “I must ask,
querida
. Will you go upstairs with me?”
It’s safe to say I’ve never received a proposition like this in my life.
“It would be new for me,” Hector goes on. “Making love to a woman dressed as a woman. You know what I mean. In fact, it might be new to you, too.”
A little too new. I squeeze Hector’s hand. “Maybe next time.”
On my way back to Mario’s—for now I must collect my baggage and relocate to the dull and boring pageant hotel—I realize that I’m 95 percent convinced Hector did not strangle Peppi. Not only did he exhibit genuine emotion at her passing but according to Detective Dez he did not return to the Hotel Roca’s lobby last Friday until he checked out for good, which was after Peppi’s time of death. It’s possible he snuck out of the hotel via some hidden route but that seems a stretch.
I also buy his explanation of Peppi’s drug problem. That sounds plausible.
While I was chatting with Hector, I remembered something else: that at the Sugarbabies party Iris told me she chatted by phone with Peppi the day before Peppi was killed. I call Iris to ask if she remembers exactly when that call occurred.
“I keep a log of phone calls,” she tells me. “In my line of work, you have to.”
I wait while she searches.
Then, “Yes,” Iris says. “Peppi called me at 1:47 p.m. one week ago today.”
Right after the orientation lunch, when Consuela reported having witnessed Alice and Peppi fighting outside the ladies room at the pageant venue. An argument that flared up, according to Alice, because she felt “betrayed” by Peppi, so much so that she pulled out of judging the pageant because she “just couldn’t stand to be around her.” “Did Alice Dilling ever ask if Peppi was your source on the bulimia story?” I ask.
“No.” Silence. Then, “You’re not saying—”
“No, no,” I assure Iris. But while I’m not saying it, I am thinking it.
Maybe that’s the betrayal Alice referred to. Maybe Alice believed it was Peppi who told Iris Flower about her bulimia. Close friends like Alice and Peppi do confide secrets like those in each other. Maybe on the day in question Alice got wind that Peppi was chatting with Iris Flower and thought she put two and two together. After all, I know that Iris’s source on the bulimia story is Ned Silver. But Alice doesn’t.
I drive the Durango into Mario’s gated community, once again wishing I didn’t have to leave. Then my mind returns to Alice Dilling.
Was that imagined betrayal sufficient motive for Alice to kill Peppi? It may have been. After all, not only was Alice humiliated when the story came out, but her restaurant cratered. And it’s possible that in her mind it was all because someone she considered a close friend betrayed an intimate confidence. People have killed for less. And for all that Alice has seemed nice to me, and I have been sympathetic toward her over her bulimia problem, Ned Silver describes her in extremely negative terms. He called her a “viper” and a “tyrant.” It’s easy to imagine somebody like that committing a crime of passion.
Then a shocking idea hits me. Maybe the reason Alice pulled out of judging the pageant was because she knew she was going to kill Peppi and she wanted everyone to think she was nowhere near the venue when the murder occurred! If so, she achieved that goal.
I take a steadying breath and collect my thoughts. So while I can cross Hector and Nameless Drug Thug off my suspect’s list, and am close to erasing Consuela as well, Alice remains on it. Along with Jasmine and Alfonso. I still have so many unanswered questions, including why Peppi was going to those sex parties. And as of this afternoon I have to devote myself to the Teen Princess of the Everglades pageant as well as to my investigation. I am going to be one super-busy beauty queen.
Mario’s Z8 is on the driveway when I get back to the house. He’s in the workout room whaling away on the punching bag. He calls out to me as I walk past.
“Hey,” I reply. I try not to stare at his pecs. Shirtless, pumped-up Mario is even more delectable than fully clothed, calm Mario. And that’s saying something.
“How are you feeling today?” he asks me.
“Pretty good. I guess the only real casualty from last night is my stiletto.”
“Sounds like a shopping trip is in order.” He grabs a towel and starts to wipe down. “Mariela can tell you where to go.”
I bet she will, too.
“By the way,” he goes on, “I’ve given her the okay to participate in the pageant. I guess I’m susceptible to begging after all.”
“It’s hard to resist when it’s coming from your own daughter.”
“Her mother, too.” Mario sighs as he slings the towel around his neck and holds on to it with both hands. “She and I had quite the talk this morning.”
I think of how he was punching that bag. “How did it go?”
“She’s angry with all the people she shouldn’t be angry with. You, for telling me what Mariela was up to before telling her—”
“I did try to reach her first, just so you know.”
“I don’t doubt it. And me for suggesting that she’s setting a bad example for our daughter by having an affair with a married man.”
Ouch. Not that I don’t agree with him.
He goes on. “It’s bad enough that Consuela was lying to me, telling me she wasn’t seeing anybody. But to instruct our daughter to lie to me?” He clenches his jaw. “I’ve known for a long time what Consuela’s capable of but it’s still going to be hard to forgive that.”
“Maybe Consuela will do some things differently now.”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t look convinced.
It hits me then that Consuela has no shot with Mario romantically, and maybe she hasn’t for years. It doesn’t matter that she’s Mariela’s mother.
“I need to keep more of an eye on Mariela,” Mario is saying. “I need to be more of a parent instead of a friend.”
“You can be both. Probably more of a parent is better.”
“Will you check what’s on that camcorder? If anything’s on there, I want to know about it but I don’t want to see it.”
I promise I will. I hesitate, then, “You were right to worry that I might not be able to judge Mariela fairly, Mario. I shouldn’t have beaten you up for that.”
“At this point I could care less what happens at that pageant.” He steps closer. “But I was wrong to lash out at you for what you were saying about Consuela. Though I still don’t think she murdered Peppi Lopez Famosa.”
“I don’t think she murdered Peppi, either. I wish I knew who did.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“So you don’t object to my sleuthing anymore?” I say it lightly but I mean it seriously.
And Mario takes it that way. He steps closer still and speaks with solemnity. “There’s not a single thing about you that I would change, Happy.”
We gaze into each other’s eyes. We’re only inches apart. It’s breathtaking being so near to him. I have to force myself not to stare at his mouth but I don’t think it’s much safer to focus on his naked chest.
Looking down, he reaches out and takes my arm, then turns it so it faces palm up. With his other hand he strokes the bruised skin. I could fall over it feels so good. And I’m not even wearing high heels.
“I didn’t ask you to be a pageant judge so you’d give Mariela a crown,” he murmurs. “I asked so you’d have to come to Miami and I’d be able to see you again.”
I can’t say a thing. So he goes on speaking, this time raising his head and fixing those soulful brown eyes on mine.
“And it was no accident I was in Vegas when you were. I went so I could see you. My producer was ready to kill me. She had to scramble to find something to shoot. But I didn’t care.” His eyes flick down to my lips.
“Mario—”
He leans closer. He’s going to kiss me, my mind screams.
I lay my hand on his chest. Later when I think about it, I don’t know how I found the strength to stop him. My voice comes out in a strangled whisper. “You don’t want to do exactly what you’re mad at Consuela for.”
He stops. He straightens. As he turns away, I see real pain in his eyes. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” he tells me.
I force myself to walk away from him. I don’t know how I will, either.
