Free Murder's Last Resort by Marta Chausée

“Here, Luzi, Luzi, Luzi—” but I didn’t.
    Instead, I reached into my tote and pulled out my latex gloves. David had exited the bathroom and walked out onto the oversized deck, perhaps thinking that Luzi was there, taking some air.
    I slid on the gloves and opened the bi-fold doors of the closet in the dressing area. All seemed to be in order. But wait—not quite. There was a foot in a high-heeled, sling-back pump sticking out below the hanging clothes. I stared at the foot. I stared at the shoe, buttercup yellow, calfskin, in pristine condition. I pushed the hangers aside to get a better look. I had to know whose foot it was.
    Luzi’s! Ugh. Ugh. Eeew. There he lay, a vision in yellow, with a fetching plastic bag over his head. I let out a scream that no one heard.
    I ran into the bedroom, panic crawling over my skin like a thousand tiny spiders, and yelled for David. Over and over, I yelled but he heard nothing, as he had closed the sliding glass doors behind him.
    “Dave, Dave, get in here,” I yelled, as I pushed the heavy doors open and ran onto the patio.
    He turned, saw me crying and came running to help. “Maya, what is it?” he asked, his voice rising in panic with mine.
    “Vacaar’s in the closet, dead,” I gasped. “Call security. Call the police.”
    He made the calls and I sat at the foot of the bed, shaking, while David looked into the closet to satisfy his own curiosity.
    Who knew Vacaar liked to cross-dress while practicing auto-erotic asphyxiation? Poor Vacaar! Caught red-handed, as it were, with his head in a plastic bag and his neck in a noose fashioned out of his own black leather belt.
    Before I had run off screaming, a quick glance had confirmed the rumor that short men can be full of big surprises. No wonder Mona stuck to him like wallpaper . Was that rigor mortis or was he that happy to be in Mona’s shoes? Would she be more bothered by losing her Albanian stallion or by the fact that he had come and gone in her new Charles Jourdans?

Chapter 21
     
     
    Enderly and I waited in the living room until Wells and Koenig arrived. If I thought Enderly was on edge before this, now he was wound up like a chipmunk on coke. Nothing I could say would calm him. I could have used some calming myself. I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking, but it didn’t help.
    Dave paced back and forth in front of the sofa, muttering to himself, until the two men arrived. He took them upstairs and I followed, standing near a corner of the bedroom, while the three men huddled in front of the closet doors. After a few moments, they moved into the bathroom to look around, so I went over to the closet. I had a ghoulish need to take another look at Luzi.
    “Mrs. French, just what in tarnation do you think yer doin’?” Tom Koenig’s voice boomed from behind me.
    I jumped like a Florida sand flea. Was I disturbing the scene of a crime? I turned around, feeling guilty, though I had done nothing wrong.
    “I—I’m sorry, Sergeant Koenig. I just had to see these shoes again. They’re beautiful and I’ve never seen this particular style—”
    He interrupted me with a peculiar look on his face, “Are you sayin’ you’ve got a yen for those shoes? Well, you can forget about it. They are evidence,” he said, enunciating each word of the last two sentences, as if he were speaking to a belligerent teenager.
    “I do not have a yen for those shoes,” I said, feeling indignant. “I merely have an interest in their design. They’re far too large for my tiny little feet.”
    He looked down at my feet and relaxed a little. “Okay, but I still have a few questions for you and Mr. Enderly,” and motioned for me to go back to the bedroom and sit.
    While Rick called his investigative team, Enderly and I told Tom our stories—that we had been called to be here at 3:00 p.m. by Mr. Luzi himself. Koenig frowned and took a labored breath. If he would have had a gator tail to match his belly, it would have