Parfum

Crime Fiction by Kim Castle

The night her brother Jason flung himself off the 500-foot-high bluff, the full moon glowed a chalk white, hovering above the Pacific Ocean’s shimmering surface. Just before he leaped to his death, he probably heard the harbor lighthouse’s foghorn blasting out a low and steady moan.

Jodene Moore imagined his body plummeting down the cliff side, his arms and legs flailing like a rag doll. All the bones in his body shattered against the jagged rocks along the shore. Before the churning waves dragged him out to sea like a piece of driftwood, she wondered if he mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

Her mother’s sobbing dragged her back to the present. Our Lady of Sorrows cathedral’s vaulted ceilings amplified her mother’s raw weeping.

Jodene slumped beside her mother and father in the front pew. Her brother Jason slumbered in the open coffin, his delicate, ghost white hands resting together in his lap. Her mother Helen had pressed sharp creases in the sleeves of the Ralph Lauren dark blue suit and pale blue dress shirt. Salvation Army finds her mother had been so proud to discover. The dark blue tie with tiny light blue polka dots, neatly knotted at his neck, a hand-me-down from her father.

The scent of beeswax from the polished wood floors blended with the frankincense and myrrh incense burning in the priest’s golden thurible as he swung it over Jason’s body.

Her mother squeezed her eyes shut as if she could no longer bear the sight of her son’s dead body, tears ravaging a trail of destruction down her face. Runny mascara marked a black path down her cheeks and her red lipstick smeared down her chin. Jodene’s father Patrick patted her mother’s leg and murmured beseeching endearments.

Darling, please… Helen, my love… Dearest, stop now.

Jodene loved the sound of his voice, deep as a bass drum, and the quiet steadiness that never varied. Mad, sad, elated, he rarely lost his cool. Her best friend Ally said it was because he was a Taurus. Jodene believed it was because he had extremely disciplined self-control. His gnarled, tanned carpenter’s hand patted her mother’s frail and chalk white hand. His hazel brown eyes were red rimmed, and bags had appeared overnight.

Hundreds of her parents’ friends and family members had turned out for Jason’s funeral. They crowded into the church’s dark brown oak pews like a flock of fidgeting crows — black suits, black dresses, black shoes, black gloves and black hats. If black was worn to show respect for the dead, she wished she could have worn hot pink.

Each word of whispered conversations bounced around the mission’s high walls, that were built to enhance religious songs and priests’ sermons.

“Terrible tragedy. Only 24.”

“Smart boy.”

“Troubled, I heard.”

“Manic depression.”

“Such a bright future, cut short.”

“Suicide, wasn’t it?”

“Jumped off a cliff near Isla Vista.”

Since the news of Jason’s death only a week ago, Jodene witnessed her mother turn into an old woman. She picked at her food. She stopped cleaning the house. She didn’t attend church, work in her garden or sew. Instead, her mother slumped like a damp dish towel in a chair at the kitchen table, grief marking her face with puffiness around the eyes, her skin pale as a ghost, and new wrinkles etched on her forehead. Day after day, weeping into the gray and red wool sweater she had knitted for Jason when he was 12.

Jodene glanced at her father. If he had cried over Jason’s death before this, she’d never heard it or seen it. Grief stalked people like a predator, no matter how stoic or strong they were, pouncing on them and ripping out their hearts. Sorrow had captured her dad — the bloodshot eyes, the damp cotton handkerchief clenched in his right hand, and the quivering of his chin.  

Father Paul Kennedy scanned the crowd. He was lean as a professional basketball player, bald as an egg, and blessed with an operatic tenor singing voice that would have made Pavarotti green with envy. Everyone who ever sat in the front rows of his sermon had sore necks by the end of church services. The deep lines furrowed on his forehead were testament to confessions of a thousand parishioners’ sorrows, sins and celebrations.

An organist pumped out Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” signaling the start of the ceremony.

The priest raised his arms over her brother’s prone body. His long, white satin robe slinked across the wooden floor as he moved. Bowing his head, his hands came together in prayer and the wide sleeves edged in yellowish gold trim dropped and revealed his pale, skinny, hairless arms.

 He said, “Jason Moore, beloved son of Helen and Douglas Moore and cherished brother of Jodene Moore, may you receive the Lord’s blessing. The Lord blesses you and watches over you. The Lord makes his face shine upon you and is gracious to you.”

***

Jodene hated high school. She hated reunions even more.

She gunned her 1970 Porsche 911 T Sportomatic F-model. The sports car rocketed down the last stretch of 101.

Her car rumbled past the wrought-iron gates of the Montecito Country Club. The Mission-style adobe building rested on a knoll like an overfed and pampered cat. Above the ornate wooden doors, a gold and blue banner fluttered in the breeze: “LaMer High School 20-Year Reunion.”

She parked her Porsche at the far end of the parking lot that sat on a bluff overlooking the sea. The Pacific Ocean’s aquamarine surface undulated like a giant waterbed. With a hushed roar, white, frothy waves curled onto the beach blonde sand a hundred feet below.

She had zero desire to see her former classmates, had never attended a reunion, but her best friend since high school, Alejandra (Ally to her friends) Roberta Higuera was hosting this year’s event.

“Please, Jodene!” Ally had said with her hands held together as if praying she’d agree. “I know how awful high school was for you. But that was 20 years ago. Having you there would mean so much to me. Just this one time.”

Ally had been her rock over the years. During the torment of high school. When both of her parents passed away within months of each other. The breakup of her marriage to “the disaster.” Even when the cops claimed Jodene’s husband’s death was “suspicious” and hounded her for months. How could Jodene say no?

She looked at her glove compartment where she kept an emergency supply of weed.

Maybe she shouldn’t.

She snapped open the lid and grabbed the joint. What the hell!

Lighting up the joint, she inhaled the burning weed. The drug flooded through her body, and so did the memories of high school.

***

“Tom Mundell. SIT DOWN!” Her favorite white eyelet summer dress her mother had hand sewn was too tight. Nothing new there. All her clothes were too tight. Her mother had put Jodene on every diet known to mankind. But her weight stubbornly stayed stuck at 180 pounds. Her roll of belly fat popped out of her cotton underwear – again.

September was usually a temperate 75 degrees in Santa Barbara. Today, the temperature sweltered at 90 degrees. Her English teacher, Mrs. Schwartz, had jammed a chair between the classroom’s heavy metal door and the steel frame, hoping (in vain) to encourage a breeze.

 Tommy flopped down on the floor and waved his arms and legs in the air like a break-dancer. His Nike Air Jordan 11 Space Jamsneakers squeaked on the white and gray speckled linoleum tiles. Tommy’s teenage stinky feet odor filled the air — sulfur, moldy cheese and rotten eggs.

“Get up!”

Mrs. Schwarz grabbed Tommy by the collar of his black T-shirt with the graphic of the “Pulp Fiction” movie with the actors John Travolta and Samuel Jackson pointing guns.

 “The principal’s office. Now.”

Next to her, Steve Nelson slouched over his desk. Blonde, pimpled, and fatter than her, he picked his nose and rolled the bugger in between his index and thumb finger, looking at in fascination. Gross!

The teacher perp walked Tommy down the aisle. She halted beside Jodene’s desk.

Mrs. Schwarz muttered, “motherfuckers.”

Jodene’s head whipped around to stare at her teacher, her eyes bulging in amazement. A born-again Christian, her teacher never swore.

Her teacher ripped a piece of paper from Jodene’s back. Before Mrs. Schwarz crumpled the note and jammed it in her skirt pocket, Jodene read the words, “Punch Me! I’m a Whale!”  

Heat raced over Jodene’s cheeks and face. Oh God. She hated how her pale skin flushed a bright red when she was embarrassed. She kept her gaze glued to the floor, hunched over her desk and whipped her hands over her cheeks. The pounding of her heart was so intense she wondered if it would pop out of her chest. Don’t cry! Don’t cry!

Mrs. Schwartz said in a very low voice, shaking with fury, stretching out each word for emphasis. “Whoooeverrrr diiiid thissss. Whennnn I findddd youuuu. Youuuu willlll beeee expelled.”

Someone shouted from the back of the room, “She IS a fat whale!”

A few other classmates chuckled.

Mrs. Schwarz threw back her shoulders, her chin rose, and her eyes narrowed. All 5 feet 2 inches of her trembled with anger.

She said in a clipped voice, “Another word… and you’ll join Tommy.”

All her classmates bolted upright in their chair as if they had been collectively electrocuted. A hush fell over the room. No one wanted to spend time with Principal Stewart. He would hold them hostage, boring them to death for hours, droning on about his favorite subject, anthropology. Everyone would rather tear their eyeballs out than spend time with him.

Mrs. Schwarz pushed the button on the school intercom.

 A tinny voice asked, “Yes?”

“It’s Tommy.”

They all heard the sigh.

“All right.”

A few minutes later, the school bell rang. Her classmates leaped to their feet and jostled each other to get out the door first. Away from possible sentencing. As Jodene stood, a fist punched her in her back.

A girl’s voice hissed in her ear, “Fatso!”

Cathie Connelly grinned at her like only a female vampire can do. Southern California tanned, blonde beauty straight out of Coppertone suntan lotion commercial. Trailing behind her was the other girls in Cathie’s clique, Paula Downey, and Donna Carpenter.

“Wanna donut?” Cathie asked, offering Jodene a chocolate-covered donut. Like a pitcher throwing a fastball, she hurled the snack at the front of Jodene’s dress. For extra effect, Cathie took her hand and smeared the gooey dough and chocolate down Jodene’s chest and stomach ruining her favorite dress.

She searched for Mrs. Schwartz, hoping she had seen Cathie in the act. No such luck. Her teacher stood outside the classroom, her attention on her discussion with the principal and Tommy.

As Cathie sauntered away in her pink velour track suit (Jodene’s parents could never afford the Juicy Couture brand) Cathie’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter. Donna and Paula passed her desk, darting amused glances at her, and snorting into their hands. A trail of the pungent skunk-like scent of marijuana lingered in the air.

Jodene gripped her books to her chest, hoping to hide her stained dress, and ran to the gym to change clothes and wash her dress. Her mother had spent hours sewing it for her and would be heartbroken if she saw the stained material.

She hid in the farthest bathroom in the girl’s locker room.

Her best friend Ally found Jodene curled in a fetal position on the icy linoleum floor. Her long auburn red hair had fallen into her face, damp with tears.

“Chiquita.” Ally said. She kneeled on the floor next to her. “Sarah told me what happened.” Ally’s liquid brown eyes filled with sympathy, as she pulled Jodene’s long bangs away from her face and said in a gently, teasing voice. “A red head with pale skin and freckles should never cry.”

Ally tore off some toilet paper and handed it to Jodene.

She dabbed her tears and blew her nose.

“Is my face covered in red blotches?”

Ally nodded.

After a few minutes of making comforting noises, patting Jodene and grumbling about what jerks the three girls were, Ally said, “You have to report them.”

“No one will believe me.”

“You have to stand up to them!” Ally hit her clenched fist on her thigh. “Have you told your parents?”

Jodene snorted. “You know my parents have no time for me. All their focus and time is on taking care of my brother. He’s either so manic he thinks he’s going to be a big rock star like David Bowie or he so depressed he wants to jump off the nearest cliff.”

“How many times has Jason tried to kill himself now?”

“I’ve lost count.”

“Manic depression sucks.”

“Mostly it sucks for me.”

“You’re like an orphan. I wish my family could adopt you.” Ally handed her another strip of toilet paper. “Just avoid those bitches. It’s only a few more weeks before we graduate.”

Jodene hid her face in the tissue paper and dragged in a few ragged breaths. Feeling calmer, she said, “I just don’t understand why they hate me.”

“They hate how smart you are. They hate that your brains got you into their private school. Not daddy’s money.”

“Your daddy’s money got you here, but you’re not mean to me,” Jodene said.

“Well, I am a minority according to our principal.”

“But your family owns half the town!”

“My family has been in Santa Barbara centuries before the white man arrived to steal our haciendas. They did not count on my great grandfather. A wily bastardo.” Ally said.

“Last week was the worst.”

“Throwing you in a trash can. So shitty,” Ally said. She grabbed Jodene’s upper arms and shook her. “Don’t let them get you down. You’re stronger, smarter and tougher than they’ll ever be.”

Jodene stiffened her shoulders and stood. Jodene dried lingering tears on the sleeve of her dress.

“Get changed.” Ally said. “We’ll go to lunch at the cafeteria. My treat.”

Mature oak tree shaded the lunch area where Cathie, Donna and Paula held court on one of wooden benches in the shadiest areas. Cathie flicked her glistening, long, blonde hair away from her face and shot a flirty, dazzling white smile at her boyfriend, the All-Star Varsity Football quarterback, Jim Hanson.

Someday I hope she dies a gruesome death.

Her phone rang. Ally.

 “I’m here,” Jodene said.

“Tastefully an hour late, “Ally said with a chuckle. “They’re here too. You OK?”

“The doobie helped.”

“Oh…my…God. Stop the planet. You smoked grass?”

“Yes… It helped.”

“Chiquita.” Someone blew a party horn in the background.

“I won’t stay long.”

“If you change your mind, I’d understand.”

“My first reunion. My last one.”

“They were awful to you.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said.

“Still.”

“I’m fine.”

“Ok. See you in a minute.”

***

The air was warm, velvety and clear as she walked across the parking lot. She breathed deeply in an attempt to still the butterflies dancing and twirling in her stomach. As she neared the clubhouse, ocean mist stroked her face as if trying to comfort her. The building’s white stucco walls glowed in the hot, summer sun. A blue and gold banner strung above the entrance doors read, “Welcome Gauchos of 2004!” Boston’s “Peace of Mind” blasted out of the overhead speakers.

Trellises sagged under the weight of jasmine vines, bursting with white blossoms. The tiny flowers’ scent flooded the air and dusted her nose with its sweet, pungent aroma.

‘Jodene!”

Ally waved to her from a round table draped in a tablecloth so dazzling white guests would need sunglasses to sit there. The centerpiece overflowed with yellow roses, blue lupines and white jasmine, mirroring their high school’s colors. She slid into the seat beside her friend as Ally said to the two other women seated at the table, “Penny, Joy, do you remember Jodene Moore?”

Penny, according to her name tag, a skinny woman with short, black, kinky curls like a poodle and Joy, a blonde (fake), with long hot pink nails (fake), and absurdly long black eyelashes (fake); it was a wonder the woman could see through them.

The women acknowledged her with nods and polite smiles touching their lips, but their eyes widened like characters in a kids’ cartoon. The one where the main characters are in such comical shock their eyes bulge, pop out of their sockets, and bounce onto the floor.

Ally chuckled. “I can see that you both are in shock,” she said. “Jodene had an undiagnosed low thyroid. When her doctor put her on meds in college, she lost 60 pounds and has kept it off!”

Joy said, “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You look amazing. You’re as tall and skinny as a runway model.”

Penny nodded and glanced at Jodene’s gown. “Hot pink satin looks fantastic with your red hair, freckles and fair skin.”

Jodene glanced at Ally. “I’m a chemist. Ally chose the gown. She’s the fashionista.”

“That’s a Donna Koran gown,” Ally tilted her chin towards Jodene’s gown. “I wear a lot of her line and Balenciaga for work. My clients expect it.” Ally said, not telling the others she was the top real estate broker on the entire Central Coast. Celebrities and the local elite fell over each other for her time. She loved her job and told Jodene her wily great grandfather passed down his hard ball negotiating skills to her. She raked in over seven figures annually.

A group of people danced across the lawn in a Congo line. Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine’s “Conga” blasted from the boombox a man at the front of the line carried on his shoulder.

Joy swiveled her head behind her, looked back around and leaned closer. Nodding her head towards the Conga line, she said,  “Can you believe that’s our prom queen?

“Cathie Connelly is here!” Penny’s eyes widened as if Joy had announced Nicole Kidman. Her head whipped around. “Where is she?”

“At the head of the line,” Joy said, pulling the bowl of salted peanuts closer.

“Holy train wreck, that’s Cathie?” Penny asked. “What happened to her?”

“I heard her husband dumped her for a younger woman,” Joy said. “Like other desperate, delusional 40-year-old woman, she thought a facelift would make her look 20 again.”

Penny tutted under her breath, shaking her head. “Oh God. She looks like a ventriloquist’s puppet.”

Ally motioned to Jodene with a wave of her hand, “Chiquita, can you pass me the charcuterie board?”

Jodene passed the plate to her friend, the wooden plate loaded with cured meats, cheeses, fruits, nuts, crackers, and hummus. She said, “I read in the paper her ex’s tech startup crashed and burned.”

“She’s not getting much in the divorce,” Ally said, between munches on some burrata cheese and crackers. “She shouldn’t even be out there dancing. Madre de Dios! She’ll have a heart attack.”

Jodene laughed at her friend’s goofy sense of humor. “Dancing the Congo isn’t going to give anyone a heart attack!”

“I’m serious!” Ally blew air out of her nose like an angry bull and glared at her. “She suffers from irregular heartbeats.”

If Jodene had been a dog, her ears would have pricked to attention.

“How do you know that?” Jodene said.

“I go to monthly lunches at the Santa Barbara Women’s Club. Cathie is member. She has to take her blood thinners meds with her meal.”

Joy shook her head, her mouth tight and said, “Well, her addiction to chocolate doesn’t help either. My husband is a partner at a corporate law firm and we’re always throwing parties for his clients at our house. Every time Cathie and her ex came, she ate ALL the chocolate truffles. And they were Cote D’Or. 400 dollars a box!”

“She probably still has bulimia.” Ally said. “How else can she eat like that and stay so thin?”

About 40 classmates began writhing and twisting to “I Don’t Wanna Know” by Mario Winans.

“Oh, I love this song!” Joy said, “Penny, let’s go dance!”

Joy pulled Penny up and dragged her towards the dance floor.

The sleeve of Ally’s scarlet red gown had fallen off her shoulder.

“I think you might be drunk,” Jodene said.

“Bueno.” Ally belched and sipped more wine. “I’m exhausted. All day, I showed properties to a spoiled, entitled Montecito fresa.” She chomped on a cracker like a pit bull, taking its frustrations out on a toy poodle. “Nothing made that gringa happy.”

Ally gazed at the dance floor and her eyes widened. She muttered a swear word under her breath and said, “God, is that Paula Downey?”

A petite blond woman, 5’1”, weighing about 100 pounds, and thin as a eucalyptus branch, teetered on the dance floor in her black leather stilettos, painted-on black leather pants, and a silk halter top in a beige and black zebra print.

“She looks hard as nails,” Jodene said. Paula wiggled her nonexistent butt to Kylie Minogue’s “Love at First Sight.”

“Did you know just out of high school she bagged a rich Texas oilman twenty years her senior?”

“I don’t keep contact with our classmates like you do.”

“Five years ago, her gravy train kicked the bucket. Left her with a hefty chunk of change. She’s burned through the old fart’s money. Now it was open season on another man with a king-sized bank account.”

“Oh crap.” Jodene said. “She’s waving at you!”

“She’s pulling Donna over here,” Ally said. Her eyes widened, and she flicked a panicked look at Jodene.

“Double crap,” Jodene said.

Donna was still blonde, still athletic, still skinny, but there was a hardness in her once sparkling aquamarine blue eyes, and premature wrinkles and dull, gray skin that whispered ill health, alcohol and domestic abuse.

Paula and Donna sauntered over and plopped into the vacant chairs across from Ally and Jodene.

“Ally! We wanted to come say howdy doody to you! And who’s this pretty gal? Paula asked, smiling a lopsided grin at Jodene, a cracked edge in her voice that told of too many cigarettes.

“I’m Jodene Moore.”

Paula coughed and pounded her chest. Her plastic surgery manufactured eyes bulged like a fish caught on a hook. She wrapped her arm around Donna and leaned on her as if the shock was so intense she might fall down otherwise. She waved her cigarette (even though a sign at the club’s entrance had clearly stated NO SMOKING), a few ashes flying close to their faces.

“Woowee! Y’all have changed,” Paula said. “You were a chunky thing in high school.”

Paula’s breath hit Jodene’s nostrils like a leaking sewer. Too much tequila, tobacco, and cocaine.

“What’d we call her?” Paula looked over at Donna and squinted through her smoking cigarette.

 “Orca-The Killer Whale,” Donna said.

“If that’s all you’ve got to talk to me about, just go,” Jodene said.

Donna leaned forward on her elbows, her chin pulling back. She looked over at Paula. “She can’t tell you what to do!”

Jodene’s nose picked up Donna’s perfume scent, drifting in the air. Chanel number 5. Molecule formula.. 12-carbon aldehyde, 2-methylundecanal, C-10 aldehyde, C-11 aldehyde, and C-12 MNA. Essential oils… Jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, and iris.

“You were a piece of shit then. And you’re still a piece of shit,” Paula said, pulling some flecks of tobacco from between her teeth.

Gloves off. “Cut the crap with the Ms. Perfect act,” Jodene said, her jaw clenched as she spit out the words between gritted teeth, “Everyone knew about your bulimia. We heard you puking in the bathrooms.”

Paula’s shoulders tensed, her lips puckered, and her bloodshot-eyes narrowed like a rattlesnake about to strike its prey. She said, “You were just jealous. You — “

 “I heard you sniff perfume for a living,” Donna said, interrupting Paula. She probably was hoping to avert a cat fight between her and Paula. What fun it would be to yank out Paula’s hair extensions.

Paula pursed her lips, deepening the marionette lines etched around her mouth“Are you one of those sales people at Macy’s who hands out free samples?”

 “I’m a fragrance chemist, you moron.”

“A chemist makes perfume?” Paula said, her fake eyelashes quivering as she squinted at her in astonishment as if she’d just learned the earth was round.

“I was born with hyperosmia.” Jodene said.

The women had same uncomprehending blank stares and puzzled frowns on their faces they had during their high school math classes with Mr. Stevenson.

“I have heightened sensitivity to smells.” Jodene said.  “Most people are born with around 40 million olfactory neurons in their brain. I have over 80 million.”

“What Jodene isn’t saying is she very, very good at her job, “Ally said, “She’s so good she designs perfumes for Tom Ford.”

Paula’s cheeks flushed and raised her chin like a displeased queen ready to lop off someone’s head. She said, “My husband Dean owns people like Tom Ford. Besides, everyone knows Tom is nothing but a homosexual drug addict that dresses anorexic men and women.” 

Ally’s gaze drifted over to Jodene and locked onto her mouth. Her brown eyes widened, her jet-black eyebrows jumped and her shock red painted mouth dropped open.  Uh oh. Her friend knew what the twitching tic at the side Jodene’s mouth meant and could almost read Ally’s mind… She’s gonna blow like Mt. St. Helena!

 “You haven’t changed a bit. Vicious as ever,” Jodene said. She gripped her wineglass stem so hard she was surprised she didn’t break it in half. She took a sip of Cabernet Sauvignon to hide the twitching at the corner of her mouth. Don’t react. She’s not worth it. She eased the goblet back onto the table. Her hand shook. “Didn’t I read Dean divorced you?”

“At least I didn’t kill Dean when he divorced me,” Paula said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jodene asked.

“I heard you killed your husband,” Paula said.

The former prom queen and head cheerleader’s gaze scanned Jodene’s face for a reaction. Something flickered in the woman’s watery grayish blue eyes, something as cold and dark as the Bible’s warnings about Satan and the pit of burning hell.  

Ally slammed her hand down on the table and glared at Paula. “That’s a horrible accusation and not true.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Paula had the smug, satisfied look of a house cat that just ate the family parakeet and the guinea pig. A balloon floated past their table, and flew into Paula’s face. She swatted it away with her heavily ringed hand.

Donna sat down and clapped, like a child excited to open her Christmas presents. “Do tell,” Donna urged Paula.  

“One of my best friends in college was the prosecutor investigating his death. The cops said Jodene’s husband’s death was suspicious.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he was a hard-core alcoholic, OK? He died of liver failure.” Jodene said, working hard to keep her voice matter a fact. “There was absolutely no evidence I was involved in his death.”

“Oh ho!” Paula said with a chuckle that was gleeful. “You are a sly one! I bet he’s not the first person you offed.”

“Maybe we’re next!” Donna giggled into her margarita. She hiccupped and grabbed a white table napkin and blew her drippy nose into it. Jodene would give anything to heave them both into the pool and hold them under the water for a few seconds.

“Ladies, sorry to interrupt, but can I steal our prom queen and our lovely Donna to dance with us?” Two men stood by the table with goofy grins that looked cute and charming at 18, but creepy at 40.

“Greg!” Paula leaped off her seat and hugged him. Their high school All Star quarter back that all the girls had huge crushes had been tall, dark and handsome as Christopher Reeves in Superman. The thief of time had stolen those good looks and replaced them with a man with a beer belly hanging over his belt, a shiny bald head, and a frizzy gray beard and mustache.

The other, shorter man with eyebrow hairs so long and bushy they could be used for hair wigs for cancer patients, leaned over to Donna and said, “Shall we dance?” Hairy Eyebrows extended his hand to Donna. She giggled like she was 17 again, stuck out her long fake nailed fingers and he pulled her to her feet.

Paula shot one last glare at Jodene and Ally. “See ya later alligators.”

Ally smirked. “I think she meant that literally.”

They both laughed.

“You were ready to blow,” Ally said. She glanced at her with a look of surprise.

“I hate those bitches.”  

“Putas! I hope they burn in eternal hell,” Ally said.

Jodene chuckled. She loved when her friend’s hot Latin temper flared and she swore like a truck driver. And she hoped Ally was right.

***

A few hours later, having had enough of the party, Jodene made her escape and headed to her car. Cathie stood next to her Porsche.

“Hey,” Jodene said.

“Ally told me about your car.” Cathie said. She bent and ran her hands along the aqua blue hood. “It’s a beautiful car.” She straightened and turned to her. “These classic cars are worth, what a 100 grand?”

“What’s it to you?” Jodene said. “Are you hoping to get another loan like in high school? Mooching my lunch money and never paying me back.”

Cathie crossed her arms over her chest as if she were cold.

“My boyfriend Guy and I are getting married in two months.”

“I heard.”

“You probably also heard I’m broke. You could afford to give me a small loan.”

“Are you crazy, Cathie? You were a piece of shit to me.”

With her key in her hand, Jodene turned to get in her car.

“Guy said he won’t marry someone who carries debt.” Cathie clutched Jodene’s arm. “I just need 10,000 to pay off my debts. That’s nothing to you.”

Jodene shrugged Cathie’s hand off. “Why the fuck should I care?” Her fists clenching against her side. All she wanted to really do was punch the woman in her bloated trout lips.

A smile flickered on Cathie’s lips, her head tilted, and she gazed at Jodene with a knowing glint in her eyes. “It’s a shame your brother isn’t here to celebrate your success.”

A sudden premonition of dread zipped down Jodene’s spine.

“I went to the beach party the night your brother committed suicide.” Cathie did finger air quotes around the word suicide. “I dropped my silk scarf on the trail and went back for it.”

Jodene’s pulse raced, flashes blurred her vision, and there was a pounding in her ears. She suddenly remembered a red scarf on the bush near the trail leading to the cliff where her brother jumped. She had wondered who had left it there.

“My mom would have killed me if she found out I lost it.”

“What are you talking about?” Jodene couldn’t breathe. 

“I saw you. You were up on the trail near where your brother jumped.”

A melting glacier moved slowly down Jodene’s back. A chill sent tremors through her body, as she said between frozen lips, “I wasn’t there.”

 “Just 10,000.”

“No way.”

“I promise, cross my heart, swear to God, I will never tell anyone what I saw that night.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. My brother was always depressed, suicidal. He jumped off the cliff. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Is this how you’re going to play this?” Cathie’s eyes widened with the same pleading, desperate look as a dog left too long in a shelter.

“I was at the beach party,” Jodene said. “You were dead drunk. You must have imagined it.”

“I’m going to the police,” Cathie said in a high-pitched voice, each word spit out through tight lips, “I’ll tell them you pushed him.”

Cathie spun around and stomped away across the asphalt. Her high spiky heels tilted on the cracks in the asphalt pavement. One sleeve of her dress fell off her shoulder. Her sobbing was so loud it echoed across the parking lot.

Jodene got in her car and her hands were shaking on the steering wheel and her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe. Inhaling deeply, she opened the box of chocolate truffles she had been handed as a party gift. She plopped one in her mouth. The intense chocolate flavor exploded in her mouth.

As she nibbled on the raspberry truffle, an idea hit her like someone had dropped a microscope on her head. Firing up the Porsche’s powerful engine, she smiled as she considered it. Jodene burned rubber out of the parking area. The speedometer read 80 mph.

A few days later, back at work in her perfumery lab at her company’s facility, Julia unlocked the cold storage chemical cabinet. She looked over the various vials and bottles, and thought about each one’s potential: Acetone, benzaldehyde, benzyl acetate, benzyl alcohol, camphor, diethyl phthalate, ethanol, ethyl acetate, limonene, linalool, methylene chloride, stearate, tonalide, galaxolide, musk ketone, musk xylene and paraben.

The possibilities were endless.

***

“What’s up?” Jodene asked Ally. Her friend had called her and demanded Jodene meet her at the Miramar Beach Bar, immediamente.

Jodene lived nearby, so in under five minutes, she walked to the restaurant. She slid onto a blue velvet sofa across from her friend. A low, dark brown coffee table huddled between them, decorated with a white ceramic vase jammed with sprays of creamy white jasmine and bright orange poppies. From the restaurant’s deck, guests soaked in the endless coastline, the shimmery aquamarine ocean and a few miles offshore, the fog hugging the ocean’s surface. Waves crashed, foamed and retreated on the breakwater rocks below them.

“News flash!” Ally said with barely restrained glee. Her friend looked around, scanned the people slumped in white canvas sling chairs lined along the deck’s glass wind barrier, checking if there was anyone nearby who could overhear her.

“Cathie’s dead.” Ally said. Her eyes widened and her voice was laced with morbid fascination. 

“Dead!” Jodene did her best to sound surprised. “And you know this because…” She brushed away crumbs left on the table’s surface to hide the grin flickering on her mouth.

The wind whipped strands of Ally’s heavy black hair into her face, and she pushed her bangs back with her usual fire-engine red manicured fingers. Her mouth quirked to one side; she shot Jodene a knowing look.

“You know how connected I am,” Ally said.

“I didn’t know you were close with the cops.”

A server, hot and handsome as a young Brad Pitt, appeared. “Ladies, can I order you something from the bar?”

His breath reeked of coumarin, ester, and aldehyde molecules. Smoking and drinking on the job. Under that angel face lurked a bad boy.

Ally looked at him with a flirtatious smile. “Can I order you?”

Oh god. How embarrassing. Why did Ally always act like a horny 20-year-old?

Unfazed, he smiled at her friend. He’s probably heard that line a hundred times. “I’m not on the menu. But I can take your order for drinks or snacks.”

They both ordered the house red wine and agreed to share a small oven fired pizza with pesto sauce and toppings of sun-dried tomatoes and basil.

“So, which cop told you this news,” Jodene said. “I told you I dated Todd!”

“Todd….?

“Todd Merritt,” Ally said in chiding tone as if Jodene should remember the name of every one of her rotating door of men. “He’s the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office detective. Remember when I was thinking about becoming the broker for the house on Eucalyptus Hill.”

“The ghost house? Jodene said. “You asked him out as I recall.”

Ally blushed and got a coy look on her face. “He was a bucking stallion in the bedroom.”

“TMI!” Jodene said, “Just tell me about Cathie.”

Ally rolled her eyes at Jodene and huffed, “You’re such a prude.”

“Why did he tell you if you’re not seeing him anymore?”

“He thought I was close friends with Cathie!” she chuckled and said, “Isn’t that sweet?”

“He probably was hoping you’d sleep with him again.”

“Possibly,” Ally laughed. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I know you won’t say anything.”

Jodene nodded.

“Todd thinks Cathie’s death is suspicious.”

“Thinks or knows?”

Ally whispered as if other guests might hear her intel. “They found an empty box of Cote d’Or chocolates next to her. He suspects someone injected poison into the truffles. But the autopsy report didn’t show any signs of toxins.”

“He sounds like your typical overly zealous cop who see criminals everywhere.” Smoke blew from the restaurant’s grill exhaust carrying the scent of cooking ground beef.

“He said some poisons can absorbed by the body before a coroner does an autopsy,” she said.

“Can you even buy that chocolate here?”

“There is only one place on the Central Coast that sells it. A little boutique at the corner of Calle de Gatos and State Street.” Ally said. “The shopkeeper said the person paid with cash! So gauche. That’s why he remembered it. The customer wore a black hoody, leather gloves, dark glasses, and a face mask.”

“That’s seems suspicious.”

 “Come on, Jodene. It’s Montecito. More celebrities live here than cockroaches,” Ally said. “The owner just assumed it was some movie star who didn’t want to be recognized.”

“Did he know if it was a man or a woman?”

“No,” Ally said, “But, you’ll find this is kind of funny. The one thing he did remember is the person had a lot of freckles on their face.” Ally wiggled her eyebrows at Jodene, her voice filled with teasing, “Maybe it was you!”

Jodene laughed, but it came out in a strangled, false note like when she had a sore throat and gurgled salt.

Their eyes met and held. Ally’s brown eyes widened, darkened, her eyebrows shot up half her forehead, and her mouth fell open in a perfect O shape.

A few tables away, white porcelain plates filled with food slipped off a server’s tray and shattered on the hard patio tiles.

Jodene’s heart beat pounded in her ears louder than the crashing waves against the harbor rocks. Air caught in her throat; she struggled to breathe and the ground seemed to sway under her.

Ally turned her head and watched a seagull gliding along the ocean’s surface. “Sometimes, people murder for good reasons.”

Jodene opened her mouth to speak, but Ally threw up her hand like a traffic cop.

Ally swept her arm to the Santa Ynez Mountain range, a mix of dark gray shale and rust red and tan sandstone then to the shimmering blue Pacific Ocean, whitecaps chopping the smooth surface and in the distance, fast moving sailboats and yachts skimming its surface.  “When I look at this coastline, and the beauty of these mountains. I think of my ancestors.”

She caught Jodene’s gaze and said, “American white men came here when all this land was Mexico’s. They said this was their land,” She spat on the ground. “They stole our land and killed my people. But my great grandfather, Eduardo Rodriguez y Higuera. I’ve told you what a wily and crafty bastardo he was. A lot of greedy gringos disappeared. We are proud of him. Proud to keep our land. To have prospered in the white man’s world. Yes, we have blood on our hands. But it’s righteous blood. This is a secret I have never have revealed to anyone outside our familia.”

Her brown eyes darkened to almost black, and she clenched her fist against her heart, “You are familia, Jodene.”

The tense muscles in Jodene’s neck and shoulders relaxed. She inhaled the warm sea air as if gulping in the sweetness of life and her friend’s loyalty. She closed her eyes briefly and fell tears gather.

Jodene was lightheaded with a joy and relief, raised her glass and tilted it towards Ally. “Here’s to best friends forever.”

Ally’s big brown eyes widened, shimmering with tears. A smile quivered on her lips and her hand trembled as she clicked her wine glass against Jodene’s. “Best friends forever.”

Wisps of fog swirled over the deck and the light dimmed as if someone had drawn a gray curtain over the sun. The steep cliffs of the Santa Barbara Channel, visible only minutes before, were shrouded in dense mist. The Point Conception Lighthouse blared a warning in a low-pitched, mourning blast.

---

Bio: Kim is currently a graduate student in the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing program with a specialization in Pop Fiction and completion and her first mystery novel. She is an active member of Mystery Writers of America and an avid reader of detective and mystery books. 

A native Californian, she graduated from California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. 

She received my Associate Arts degree in Journalism from College of Canyons, where she served as the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the college newspaper. While in these positions, she won The Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACA)’s “Best Feature Story” and “Opinion piece.”

After graduation, she worked as a radio news reporter and a TV news reporter and producer at an NBC affiliate. She received awards for my specials on the environment, health, and underserved people and communities. 

For the last 20 years, she wrote for senior level corporate executives with many of my articles featured in industry and business magazines such as Forbes, Fortune, PC magazine, and Logistics Quarterly. 

While working as the Director of Marketing and Public Relations for The Indonesian National Botanical Garden, her articles appeared in travel magazines such as Garuda Indonesia airlines in-flight magazine,Colours.

Most recently, “Connections” magazine published her art and article.

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