Chapter 15
“Debbie Lee wasn’t really a nice person?” I sling Bubbles Bilini’s words right back to her in the form of a question right here in Hanalei Bay.
“Well, that’s the understatement of the century,” she says, licking melted blue raspberry shave ice off her knuckles, her mouth already turned into a bright blue cave that looks like she’s been chewing on a Smurf.
I try not to chuckle. For as much as I thought Bubbles was just leaning into some dumb blonde routine, I’m starting to think not only is her innocence genuine, but she’s actually sharper than every single person who’s ever underestimated her.
And that’s saying something, because I’m pretty sure that list includes her own husband, her co-hosts, Debbie Lee, and up until about five minutes ago, me.
The two of us are walking along the shoreline where the waves lap at our ankles and the sand is packed firm and cool.
The three of us, if you count Coconut, who’s tagging along for the ride in Bubbles’ tote bag, looking happy as can be while observing the water from this safe, dry—and might I add, bubbly vantage point.
A family is building an elaborate sandcastle nearby, complete with a moat that keeps filling with seawater and collapsing, much to the shrieking delight of two kids who’ve decided destruction is more fun than construction.
Further out, a catamaran glides past with its sails catching the wind, and tourists wobble on paddleboards in the shallows like baby deer learning to walk.
Coconut pokes her head out of Bubbles’ tote bag, surveys the beach with feline disapproval before retreating back into her fabric cave.
“I mean, she was brilliant at her job,” Bubbles continues, her voice losing some of its usual brightness. “But she was also...” She trails off, searching for the right word.
“Mean?”
“Oh, she was downright cruel. Like, she enjoyed it. She really did enjoy watching people squirm.” Bubbles takes a bite of her aggressively blue shave ice, the inside of her mouth glowing like a deep-sea creature.
“You know what I love about The Spice Is Right? The gossip. That’s really why people watch.
They want the recipes, sure, but they stay for the piping hot tea we spill about our lives. ”
“Gossip is my favorite reason to watch the show too,” I admit with a grin. “So, spill it. What’s the real tea behind the scenes? And bonus points if you’ve got any memories of Debbie Lee to share while you’re at it.” It’s worth a shot.
“Oh, I love bonus points. We can all use them in life, you know.” She bites into her cone and loses a few inches in a frosty landslide. “Where do I even begin?”
“How about with Cozy and Debbie Lee?” I suggest. Bonus points for me if she takes the bait.
Bubbles’ eyes light up with relief as if she’s been holding these secrets way too long. “Cozy and Debbie Lee? Oh, they hated each other. Like, actively hated. Cozy would smile for the cameras and then the second we wrapped, she’d say the most vicious things about that poor woman.”
A seagull dive-bombs for a fish offshore, coming up empty and squawking its displeasure at the ocean’s lack of cooperation. I’m about to start squawking myself if Bubbles doesn’t spill the piping hot tea soon.
“What kind of things?” I ask, aiming for casual girlfriend energy and hope nothing about my face is screaming PLEASE CONFESS. Not that I want her to be guilty. Not that I want any one of them to be guilty. I just don’t want Lani to be guilty—because I happen to know she’s not.
“Well, Debbie Lee kept threatening to replace Cozy with someone younger.” Bubbles shrugs.
“She said her ageless beauty brand was getting stale, that viewers wanted fresh faces.” Bubbles lowers her voice even though we’re alone.
“But the real issue was this wellness retreat thing Cozy did a few years ago. It went really badly. Like, people got hurt badly, and there was a settlement. Debbie Lee had all the paperwork. We’re talking photos and everything. ”
My brain catalogs this while my face does its best to stay sympathetic. “Oh, wow, that’s awful.”
“And Cozy knew Debbie Lee was sleeping with Gary.”
I nearly drop my shave ice. “Wait, what?”
“Oh yeah.” Bubbles nods vigorously. “Gary and Debbie Lee had a thing. Cozy pretended not to know, but she knew. She told me once when she’d had too much wine. Said she didn’t care because their marriage was an arrangement anyway, but I think she cared more than she let on.”
A wave crashes against the rocks near the pier, sending spray into the air that catches the sunlight and creates about a dozen fractured rainbows—sort of the way my mind is fracturing right now trying to process what I just heard.
“What about Doreen?” I ask, steering her gently toward the next suspect.
“Oh, Doreen.” Bubbles sighs. “Poor Doreen. Debbie Lee was going to fire her. Actually fire her from the show she built. Doreen started that show in her own kitchen five years ago. It was her baby. And Debbie Lee was planning to bring in some twenty-something food blogger and make it look like Doreen’s fault the ratings were slipping.
I guess she was going to replace her with someone younger, too. ”
I’m sensing a rather youthful theme.
“That’s horrible.” But I already knew that.
“It was. Doreen was furious. I’ve never seen her that angry. She’s usually so calm and practical, you know? But she told Tom that she’d rather...” Bubbles stops, her expression suddenly uncertain.
“Rather what?”
“She said she’d rather see Debbie Lee dead than be humiliated on national television.” Bubbles looks at me with wide eyes. “But she didn’t mean it. People say things they don’t mean when they’re upset, right?”
“Right,” I say, though I’m mentally adding death threat to my growing list of evidence. At this rate, I’m going to need a binder.
We walk in silence for a moment, passing a couple holding hands and trying to look romantic while a persistent rooster chases after them demanding a treat in the form of dropped food.
“Debbie Lee was sleeping with Tom, too,” Bubbles adds matter-of-factly, and I nearly gag on my tongue.
“What?” I riot so loud, about ten birds take flight over the Pacific. “Doreen’s husband Tom?”
“Yep. And, of course, Doreen knew about it too. She confronted Debbie Lee about it the night before filming started. I heard them through the wall. Our rooms were right next to each other. Doreen was saying something about betrayal and professional ethics, and Debbie Lee just laughed—that ice-cold laugh she had. I guess we’ll never hear it again now, will we?
Unless, of course, we caught it on tape.
And if we did, we can listen to it until the cows come home.
And I don’t even know where the cows live. ”
I’m starting to doubt I know where I live.
Debbie Lee had an affair with both Cozy and Doreen’s husbands? I’m starting to wonder if Bubbles is a reliable narrator—and whether she knows the definition of the word affair.
The afternoon sun warms my shoulders, and my shave ice is melting faster than I can eat it, leaving sticky trails of color running down my hand.
“No wonder these poor women were looking for some relationship counseling. Their marriages are in the chipper.” I wince. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“No, that’s okay. We’ve all had a rough go of it as of late.” She casts a steely glance toward the water.
“My ex-husband cheated on me, too,” I offer with a sigh. “Hence the ex part.”
“Oh Jinx, I’m so sorry to hear that.” She glares harder at the ocean like she’s considering tossing someone in it. Here’s hoping it’s not me.
“Speaking of husbands,” I say, trying to sound casual despite the bomb that just fell in my lap, “Gary, Tom, and Cam all seem pretty tense these past few days.”
“Oh, they’re just men.” Bubbles’ expression shifts into something harder to read, part sadness and part resignation.
“But we’re determined to rebuild. If the Spice Girls are anything, we’re dead set on making lemonade out of lemons.
Even the really sour ones that you wish you could just throw away.
Or in our case, I guess we’re making banana bread out of, well, you know, poisonous banana bread. ”
“And your husbands? How are they coping?”
“They’re trying their best, I suppose. Gary’s been checking his phone constantly, sweating even more than usual because of the heat. Tom has been having these intense phone calls. I assume it’s legal stuff. And Cam...”
She trails off, and I see tears forming in her eyes.
“Hey,” I say gently. “Are you okay?”
“I’m afraid I’ve saved the juiciest bit of gossip until now, and that’s because it concerns me.” She sniffs into the wind. “Cam’s having an affair.” She says it flatly, matter-of-fact, like she’s commenting on the weather.
“Oh, Bubbles,” I take a step back to get a better look at her. “I’m so sorry to hear it!” And I genuinely mean it. “Are you sure? Maybe there’s some mistake?”
Again, it does beg the question what her definition of the word is.
She shakes her head. “I’ve known for a while. I pretend I don’t because that’s easier than dealing with it. But Debbie Lee knew too, and she had proof. Photos, emails, everything. She was going to leak it right before his re-election campaign.”
“How do you know? Did she tell you these things?”
“Worse yet, she told Cozy. And we all know what a gossip that woman is.”
Cozy is, as far as I can tell, the unofficial mayor of the rumor mill, the gossip Olympic gold medalist, and a personal hazard to anyone keeping a secret.
It’s clear Debbie Lee knew what she was doing when she told her.
I press my lips together for a moment.
“The funny thing is,” she goes on. “I’m not even that hurt about the affair anymore.
I’m hurt that he thinks I’m too stupid to notice.
That everyone thinks I’m too dumb to see what’s right in front of me.
” She looks at me, and for the first time, I see the sharp intelligence behind the ditzy blonde act.
“I notice everything. I just pretend I don’t. ”
A paddleboarder falls off his board with a splash, comes up laughing, and climbs back on with determination.
“Debbie Lee had something on all of us,” Bubbles continues.
“Cozy’s wellness scandal, Doreen’s career, my use of Cam’s mayoral connections for filming permits, which, yeah, I did that.
I don’t really think that’s a crime. And, well, maybe someone got food poisoning at one of our shoots because we skipped a health inspection.
Debbie Lee had the emails. The voice memos. That witch had everything.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds like a lot.”
She waves it off. “At least we’re in paradise. And our husbands are bonding more than ever. They didn’t always get along so well.”
I bet they get along. Birds of a cheating feather flock together.
If Bubbles is right, then those dirty rats deserve each other.
“Well, I’m sure they’ve found plenty to keep themselves entertained with on the island.”
A rooster runs past us, crowing at the top of his lungs with the urgency of a man who just remembered he left the stove on.
“Do you think...” Bubbles starts, then stops. “Do you think roosters here are angrier than roosters back home? Because I swear every single one I’ve met has been absolutely furious about something.”
I laugh despite the homicide hanging over our head. “I think Kauai roosters are just more honest about their feelings. The mainlander variety tend to bottle it up. Hawaiian roosters let you know exactly where you stand, which is usually in their way.”
“That makes sense.” Bubbles nods solemnly, as if we’ve just solved a profound mystery about poultry psychology.
I look at her, really look at her, and see a woman who’s been playing dumb to survive, who’s noticed everything but pretended to notice nothing, who’s been protecting herself the only way she knows how.
A woman who asks about angry roosters but also catalogs every secret, every affair, every suspicious meeting between three desperate men who thought no one was paying attention.
In short, Bubbles is paying attention.
She’s been paying attention all along.
And somewhere between the gossip and the shave ice and the waves crashing against ancient lava rocks, I realize Doreen and Cozy both had means, motive, and opportunity.
Which means I’m either looking at two potential killers—or I’m missing something so obvious it’s currently standing right next to me, eating shave ice with a stolen cat in her purse.
Bubbles’ shave ice topples to the sand, and she cackles into the wind like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Or maybe it’s the kind of laugh you give when you think you’ve gotten away with murder.