Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Revenge

He cut his eyes to her Daisy Dukes. “I’m not complaining.”

She gave a silent groan. She knew she shouldn’t have picked this outfit. She wasn’t used to displaying so much skin. “Just thought I’d blend in.”

A grin spread across Chase’s features. “You stick out like a sore thumb, Poole. But in a good way.”

What did that even mean? “Glad you approve.”

At least she wasn’t wearing a halter top. Her modest boobage was safely tucked away. Which was just as well. She wasn’t wearing enough denim to cover her entire butt. Chase might get an eye twitch trying to take it all in.

Then again, he wasn’t exactly a conservative dresser either. His tight buns were shrink-wrapped inside a pair of faded jeans and his muscular torso stretched a white cotton T-shirt to within an inch of its life. Classic but effective. If you’ve got it, you better show it. And Chase definitely got it. His dark hair curled down to his shoulders, accentuating chiseled features, a square jaw and chocolate eyes. The man was one mean man machine.

The only concession to whimsy was a cowlick that refused to stay put, dangling provocatively across his brow. Ever since she met the guy she’d been tempted to tame that cowlick. So far she’d been able to tamp down the urge. But if he kept checking out her butt like that, all bets were off.

They followed the gravel footpath that led round the house and she watched the structure morph from Victorian to twenty-first-century modernism. Unlike the facade, the rest of the house was all steel and glass. The second floor cantilevered over the first floor like a glass box, and the third floor jutted even further out, creating a futuristic effect. Pretty cool and just as outlandish as the family who now rented the place for the summer.

There was a flurry of police activity, and Chase moved inside with a sense of purpose that reminded her of Moses parting the Red Sea. She followed in his wake, glancing at the pool area that stretched out behind the house. The moment she stepped inside the dining room, the touristy fun stopped.

Right there, in the center of the dining room table, like some Roger Corman movie prop, sat the head of Shana Kenspeckle. The reality star’s eyes were closed, an apple was stuck between her bleached teeth, and a note was glued to her forehead.

Odelia gasped at the sight. She’d seen Shana’s face so many times, on TV and in the magazines, that to see it without its body was surreal. It was almost as if the woman had stuck her head through a hole in the table for some magic act. Any second now she could open her eyes, smile that enigmatic smile of hers and shout, ‘Just kidding!’

But judging from the funereal atmosphere, and the grim-faced expressions of the uniformed officers stalking about, this wasn’t a scene from some horror movie. This was reality. And then it struck her: whoever had killed Shana Kenspeckle hadn’t just wanted to get her out of the way. They’d wanted to humiliate and debase her. Whoever the killer was had hated her.

Staring at the head was a short, paunchy man with hair like Doc Brown in Back to the Future . She recognized him as Abe Cornwall, the county coroner. In spite of his funky appearance he was a dedicated professional.

“So what have we got?” Chase asked.

“A dead body, a head and a weird note,” Abe grumbled.

“Weird note?”

“One of the uniforms is Lebanese-American. She said it’s the worst Arabic she’s ever seen. As if the killer entered a few random lines into Google Translate and decided to call it a day.”

“So it’s not terrorists?”

“Unless Al Kida is a terrorist, I doubt it.”

Chase stared at the note. “Gotcha.”

Abe was right. Whoever had written this note had wanted to make it look like Al Qaida was behind the murder, but had managed to botch the claim.

“What about time of death?” asked Chase.

“Judging from lividity and body temperature I’d say she died between three and four last night.”

“Body temperature?” Odelia asked. “Where’s the body?”

“In the bedroom.”

“Cause of death?” Chase asked, cool as a cucumber. As a former NYPD detective he’d probably witnessed his share of gruesome crime scenes.

“My best guess is that she was drugged in her sleep, most likely with a chloroform-type substance, and then killed by decapitation with a meat cleaver or a similar tool. I’ll have to check the lungs to be sure about the chloroform.”

“She wasn’t killed before they chopped off her head?” Chase asked.

Abe shook his head slowly. “Nope.”

“Pretty gruesome,” said Chase.

“Yep.”

She followed the coroner and Chase down the corridor that led from the dining room to a suite of bedrooms. Like the rest of the house, the corridor was all-white: white hardwood floor, white stucco walls and white ceiling. Small prints of sailing boats were the only decoration. They passed several officers, who nodded a greeting, then shook their heads in warning. Uh-oh.

She walked into the bedroom. The body was still where the killer had left it, though someone had removed the bed sheets. The moment Odelia caught sight of Shana, she thought she was going to be sick. The woman’s famous curves were clad in a red chiffon nightgown, and judging from her position she’d been fast asleep when the killer had struck. She was lying on her side, her double-D chest facing them, and if it wasn’t for the fact that her head was missing, she could simply have been fast asleep.

“This is just too horrible,” she muttered, her stomach acting up.

“Maybe you should step outside for a minute,” Chase said.

He was right. She might be a hard-nosed reporter, but she suddenly felt as sick as when she’d had to dissect that frog in high school. She quickly walked out, leaving Chase and Abe to discuss the finer points of the murder. She’d get the details later. Right now she needed fresh air. Lots of fresh air.

She passed through the dining room, turning her head away from Shana’s head, and stepped out onto the deck. Placing her hands on her knees, she took in big gulps of air, trying to convince her stomach to hold down her breakfast. It would be bad form to chuck up in the Kenspeckle pool.

She glanced up when two beige ankle boots appeared in her field of vision. They belonged to Shayonne Kenspeckle, one of Shana’s older sisters.

“I’m… I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said between swallows.

Shayonne nodded and darted a disapproving glance at her Crazy Cat Lady shirt and her Daisy Dukes. “Thank you. Who are you?”

“Odelia Poole. Special consultant to the Hampton Cove PD.”

Shayonne gave her a cursory handshake, barely touching her skin. She was the spitting image of her sister, only with slightly coarser features, and instead of straight hair her dark hair was curly, with blonde highlights. She was dressed in a Dior top that announced she was the ‘Sexiest Woman Alive,’ a pair of cropped jeans, and designer sunglasses pushed up into her ‘do.

“I was the one who found… the head,” Shayonne said, closing her eyes and pressing long purple fingernails against her forehead, her lips trembling.

“I’m so sorry.”

She opened her eyes. “Do you think they’ll come for me next?”

“Who will?”

“Al Qaida. Isn’t it obvious? We’re being targeted by these terrorists.”

“Oh, you mean the note. That was just a ruse, Mrs. Kenspeckle.”

The woman stared at Odelia. “A ruse? What do you mean?”

“The killer tried to make it look like terrorists were involved, but they’re not.”

“They’re not?”

“No. We’ll have the note translated, but it looks like it’s a fake.”

Shayonne clasped a hand to her ample bosom and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I thought we were under attack. That I would be next.”