Pampered to Death by Laura Levine

Diet Nazi marched off to her interrogation, I couldn’t help but think of that ugly scene at lunch and Mallory’s threat to ruin The Haven. Had Olga strangled the demanding diva to keep her business afloat? She sure had the biceps for it.
    Then, as I looked around at the others, I realized they all had motives to kill Mallory. Harvy, sitting on a settee with Kendra, was trying his best to look grief stricken, but the minute the cops were gone, his first words of mourning to Kendra were, “You’re not going to stop payment on my check, are you?”
    “No, of course not,” she said, shooting him a funny look. I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking: That maybe Harvy had bumped off The Mad Cow to save his salon.
    Then again, Kendra might very well be the killer herself. Just that afternoon she’d said she was in Mallory’s will. Maybe she got tired of being her sister’s lapdog, and decided to cash in on her inheritance.
    Clint Masters had joined us, looking quite refreshed from his “nap.” Like Harvy, he’d given a halfhearted performance of a grieving friend for the cops. But now that they’d left, he was on the phone with his agent, yakking excitedly about an upcoming movie deal.
    Gone was the haunted look I’d seen in his eyes. With Mallory dead, no one (except maybe the friendly folks at Frederick’s of Hollywood) need ever know about his penchant for ladies’ underlovelies.
    Rounding out our crew of suspects was Cathy, who was parked at my side as usual. But for once, she wasn’t bubbling with happy chat. Mallory’s murder seemed to have put the fear of God in her.
    “Omigosh,” she moaned, eyes darting around the lounge. “One of you is a killer!”
    “Oh, please,” Kendra said. “Mallory had an enemies list as long as her hair extensions. Maybe the cook killed her. Or the maid. Or the masseuse. Especially the masseuse. Everyone could see Mallory was making time with her husband.”
    She was right, of course. Who’s to say Shawna hadn’t strangled Mallory herself and then pretended to discover the body?
    “It might even be one of the townies,” Kendra suggested. “Over the years, Mallory’s alienated just about every shopkeeper on Main Street. Or maybe someone from Hollywood drove up and bumped her off.
    “For all we know,” she added, pointing at Cathy, “it was you!”
    “Me!” Cathy blinked, stunned. “You’re crazy!”
    It did seem like a zany idea. Cathy was the one person in this joint who actually seemed to like Mallory. But maybe she figured Mallory’s autographed cocktail napkin would be worth more money on eBay if Mallory was dead. A pretty flimsy motive for murder, but it was the best I could come up with.
    After Cathy’s outburst, we all just sat there in an uneasy silence, waiting to be questioned.
    One by one, the others were called in.
    Finally it was my turn.
    The cop who ushered me into the dining room was a tall good looking dame with pouty lips and a body that wouldn’t quit. And her partner was no slouch in the looks department, either. Craggy and tan, he looked like he’d just come from a GQ photo shoot.
    For the purposes of this narrative, I’ll call them Brad and Angelina.
    But their looks were the last thing on my mind when I stepped into the dining room. For the first time since I’d shown up at diet hell, I actually smelled something delicious!
    I looked over at the table Brangelina had commandeered for their investigation and saw two humungous, half-eaten deli sandwiches. Hers looked like roast turkey and ham. His, roast beef and swiss. Both had bags of chips and pickles.
    “Hope you don’t mind if we eat while we do this,” Brad said. “We didn’t get a chance to have lunch.”
    Was he kidding? It was all I could do not to hurl myself at their chow and make a run for it.
    But somehow I managed to contain myself.
    They started with some routine questions about my name, age and occupation, all of which I answered staring fixedly at their