Homicide in High Heels by Gemma Halliday Page A

some dirty
laundry you wouldn't want to air on network television."
    "It's also great blackmail fodder."
    "Okay, so how would Lacey find out?" Dana
asked.
    I pursed my lips together. "Through
Bucky?"
    "I don't know," Dana said. "It seems like
those guys are all pretty tight. I can't imagine him sharing that
kind of pillow talk."
    "Well maybe it wasn't pillow talk
that got her the information. More like girl talk."
    Dana raised an eyebrow. "You think one of
the wives told Lacey her husband was doping?"
    "Not necessarily. But Lacey worked for Liz,
and she was at a lot of the same events as the wives. It's possible
she overheard them talking about it."
    Dana nodded. She looked down at her watch.
"I've got an hour before I have to be on set. Plenty of time to
catch up on some girl talk of our own."
     
    * * *
     
    While Baseball Wives was a "reality"
TV show, Dana found out through a few well-placed calls that they
were actually shooting on the Sunset Studios lot today. According
to her agent's assistant's assistant who was dating a PA on the
show, several of the Baseball Wives favorite haunts were actually
located inside studio walls for convenience purposes. Kendra's
elegantly furnished parlor where she hosted intimate get-togethers,
which often turned into knock-down, drag-out cat fights, was
actually a re-purposed sitcom set. The gourmet kitchen where Beth
was known to mix up the girls' night cocktails, famous for
loosening the ladies' lips, did double duty as a celebrity cooking
show set. And today the wives were on the set of Liz's Bellissima
boutique…only this version was not on Melrose. Apparently filming
in the actual location required such a number of permits, not to
mention extra security and local police efforts to control curious
tourists, that it had been more cost effective for the producers to
build an exact replica of the boutique within the studio walls.
    After Dana showed her credentials at the
guardhouse, we swapped out my minivan for a golf cart—the studio
lot's preferred means of conveyance. We quickly made our way to
Studio 4B, home of Bellissima 2, and slipped in the warehouse
doors, unnoticed among the myriad of sound guys, PAs, wardrobe
consultants, and makeup artists rushing around like an underpaid
yet fabulously dressed army. In the center of the commotion was Liz
DeCicco, being simultaneously powdered by a makeup artist, sprayed
by a hairstylist, and miked by a sound guy.
    Beside her stood two unfortunately familiar
figures in cheap, public-servant salary suits that stuck out like
polyester thumbs.
    "Oh, great," I groaned.
    "What?" Dana asked.
    I gestured to Laurel and Hardy. "The
gruesome twosome beat us here." I quickly explained who they were
as a PA settled the pair of detectives onto two giant X's made with
electrical tape on the floor.
    "Can we get makeup over here?" one asked,
eyeing Laurel's shiny forehead. The woman powdering Liz immediately
abandoned her subject and descended on Laurel.
    "Am I okay here?" Hardy asked a guy sitting
behind a bank of monitors. "You can see me okay, right? I mean,
maybe I need to cheat toward the light more?"
    "Is this guy for real?" Dana mumbled to
me.
    "Unfortunately."
    "And we're rolling in ten," the guy behind
the monitors said.
    Hair and makeup abandoned the people on set,
and a pair of cameraman replaced them, one moving in close on Liz,
the other taking an opposite stance in front of the pair of LAPD
homicide detectives turned reality TV subjects.
    "Marker. Speed. And…action," someone
shouted.
    The director pointed at Hardy.
    Hardy blinked at the camera. "Oh, me? Are
we…are we ready? I wasn't sure when I should start."
    I thought I saw the guy behind the monitors
roll his eyes
    Hardy cleared his throat and danced a bit
from foot to foot, trying to "get in character."
    "So, Elizabeth DeCicco, is it?" Hardy asked,
intonating like he was in a school play.
    "Yes, Detective," Liz said without missing a
beat.
    "We need to ask you some questions