Murder Can Be Messy

By Nancy Mangano

The stylish Los Angeles super sleuth Natalie North is at it again, busting adulterous, lowlife partners while always wearing a great pair of high heels!

To all outward appearances, Blake and Victoria Belmont are the envious Beverly Hills power couple. When PI Natalie is hired by the socialite Victoria Belmont to catch the magnetic Blake Belmont, the sole heir to the Belmont Beer fortune, with his billion dollar pants down, Natalie discovers Blake's double life. Natalie summons the help of her two wannabe spy friends, her boss Norton North, who happens to be her father, and Darren McAllister, her L.A. senior deputy district attorney love interest, to prevent the conniving Victoria from taking Blake for all of his worth. Can Natalie intercede and prevent Blake's billion dollar breathing body from becoming a billion dollar corpse?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477265024

Nancy Mangano

Nancy Mangano is a screenwriter, author, fashion journalist and social media beauty/fashion/style influencer. Nancy writes the Natalie North murder mystery book series (www.nancymangano.com) and the global online fashion/style/beauty magazine, Strutting in Style (www.struttinginstyle.com). With degrees in Communications and Criminal Justice, she has blended her love of writing and her interest in law enforcement into her novels and screenplays. Nancy has written two feature film screenplays: Pretties on the Prowl (a comedy/thriller) and Fatal Forgiveness (a drama). Nancy’s work has received several honors, including awards from the New York Book Festival and the Hollywood Book Festival for her most recent book, Deadly Decisions – A Natalie North Novel. She resides in Orange County, California and received the 2015, 2016 and the 2017 Best of Anaheim awards. In 2016 Nancy Mangano was inducted into the City of Anaheim Business Hall of Fame.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It took merely moments for Victoria Belmont to adamantly make up her mind. She would soon be a widow. The Beverly Hills socialite elitist sat alone on her pearl white living room sofa and bit angrily into her fast-food taco. Victoria’s lifestyle offered her endless nights of caviar, lobster and escargot, but now and again she went back to her little girl roots and preferred to dine on greasy, tasty slop. The spicy juice from the fifty-nine cent beef dribbled over her bottom lip. She wiped her chin with her tongue, and then washed the cheap Mexican food down with a sip of Dom Perignon. Blake Belmont was working late again, which Victoria translated as her pitiable excuse of a husband was feasting on a twenty-something, fleshy, naked tart. Victoria had noticed that Blake was working sixteen hour days for the past few months, yet never tiring. In fact, on the rare occasions when he was home, he pranced through the house in only his form-fitted briefs, his forty-five-year-old abs still as tight as when they were married, and a smug smile glued to his mouth. Victoria wanted to smack that arrogant grin right off of his conniving, yet fine-looking face.

Victoria tossed the last bite of taco into her mouth and then finished off the half-full glass of champagne in one chug. There was a time a glass or two of alcohol worked to drown out her thoughts of her two-timing bum of a husband. Nowadays, it took an entire bottle. She pet her primped toy poodle, Guinevere, nestled at her feet, and admired the purebred pooch’s lavender painted toenails. Guinevere resembled a frilly gift wrapped package; her soft black eyes and apricot coat offset the purple and pink lace bow stuck to the top of her head. Guinevere barked delicately, as if to say, Thank you for turning me into a princess puppy. Victoria cooed.

Victoria slurped a spoonful of chocolate pudding, and turned up the volume on her high definition TV. She listened intently to the six o’clock news anchor spilling a story on a lovelorn woman whose husband had tried three times to bump her off, each time unsuccessfully. A bearded man with stained, crooked teeth flashed onto the TV screen and told the viewers how he was offered a hefty sum of money by a prominent businessman to kill off the chap’s unwanted wife, and discard of her worthless carcass by tossing it off of a boat into the Pacific Ocean. The intended hit man droned on about how he had the entire flawless plot laid out, as if he were merely telling the viewers the sky was blue, before his conscience got the best of him, and he didn’t have the heart to carry out the fatal act. What the shady liar failed to reveal was that it was the Los Angeles Police Department who caught up to him and threw his sorry ass in the clink on conspiracy charges before he had the chance to unravel his ruthless, felony death scheme.

The delusional wife, who was spared from currently sleeping six feet underground, then appeared on the TV screen, trying desperately to clear her spouse’s name, claiming there is absolutely no chance that her well-respected husband wanted her hurt, let alone dead. The clueless woman ended her teary appeal by stating, Of course my husband loves me, he married me, and I wasn’t even pregnant!

Victoria reduced the volume of the newscast and made a mental note. She smirked.

Victoria thought back to her wedding day fourteen years prior, Blake Belmont an heir to a liquor fortune, certain to provide Victoria the lavish lifestyle she so desperately craved. Belmont Beer was a sales smash; the pale lager garnering a worldwide distribution. The company was started in the Midwestern United States by Blake’s paternal grandfather, and was to be inherited by Blake’s father in the natural succession of generational life. As destiny would have it, Blake’s father fell over dead from prostate cancer at the young age of fifty-two, which left Blake the eldest living descendant in the Belmont blood line. Blake’s father’s going away gift to his only child was the billion dollar beer empire. Blake adored his fated fortune.

Victoria, on the other hand, had been raised by a single mother on a waitress’s salary, who made extra money working as a housekeeper cleaning rich people’s toilets and cooking their four-course meals. Victoria met Blake when her mother was hired by Sadie Belmont, Blake’s mother, for one summer’s work while the Belmont’s fulltime nanny flew back to England for a family emergency. Victoria was a willowy girl, eighteen-years-of-age at the time, with shoulder-length, glossy chestnut hair; the natural wave in her tresses appearing as if she had spent hours in a salon chair. Her unblemished skin provided the perfect canvas for her heart shaped face. Victoria’s luminous hazel eyes told of an unspoken naiveté, a freshness that pulled Blake Belmont into her almost magical charm.

There was a time Blake found Victoria’s inexperience refreshing, but it seemed to Victoria that now Blake found her simply dull.

As a girl, Victoria loved her mother dearly, as her mom worked tirelessly day after day to keep a roof over her and Victoria’s heads. But Victoria fell hard for Blake Belmont. The difference between Victoria’s mother and Victoria’s husband was that her mother could only cover Victoria’s size eight feet in Payless shoe store footwear, while Blake was able to decorate Victoria’s feet in expensive Steve Madden pumps, and Steve Madden shoes were exquisite.

The first few years of Victoria’s and Blake’s marriage were standard; not blissful, but not bad. Their sexual combustion never exploded to the firework level that Victoria had read about in romance novels, but her and Blake’s intimate encounters were sensual, soul-filling, and satisfying. Or so she thought.

The next few years passed along uneventfully. Victoria had asked Blake for a child on numerous occasions, and Blake would joke in his playful, masculine voice, You’re the only baby I need, baby. Victoria lapped Blake’s words up, but deep down she sensed Blake couldn’t be troubled by little rug rats running around. Blake fancied fast cars, fast jets and for the past few years, Victoria was convinced that he favored fast women. The words diapers, bottles and sleepless nights would never be written on his pleasure list.

Victoria glanced up at the four feet by five feet painted wedding portrait of her and Blake, hanging on an adjacent wall, advertising their true love to each invited guest whom they welcomed into their home. Victoria wore her lavish wedding gown with a virgin innocence. Blake appeared regal in his stylish black tuxedo. Now, as Victoria studied the picture, she noticed there didn’t seem to be even a mere spark of a twinkle in Blake’s sultry, strong eyes. He actually appeared empty of any sentiment at all, while Victoria wore the smile of a woman excited to be entering the world of the wealthy.

She flashed Blake’s picture the evil eye, certain his late night work schedule translated into him spending an evening with his buttercup of the week. He most likely took his floozy to an elegant, five-star restaurant for dinner, while Victoria sat home alone eating oily take-out food. Thoughts of Blake lying in some luxurious hotel suite, his naked man parts out to play with some giggly tramp half Victoria’s age, sent a siege of hatred racing through Victoria’s veins.

Victoria stared harder at her wedding portrait. She took a bite of chocolate pudding, but spit it out, her stomach too knotted up to inhale in anymore food. She whimpered as she scowled at the marriage photograph, taken during happier days. Victoria paused, then scooped up a whopping amount of pudding with her bare hand and heaved the slimy dessert straight at the painting; Blake’s handsome face now covered by a wet, chocolate hunk of goo. From Victoria’s perspective, Blake looked better wearing the thick brown custard than he ever looked wearing his Giorgio Armani three-piece pinstriped suit.

Guinevere licked Victoria’s fingers clean. Victoria used her cloth napkin to wipe speckles of chocolate pudding drops from the fur surrounding Guinevere’s lips, shaded with a pale pink lipstick. She blew the pup a peck kiss and cooed.

Blake had unleashed the dreaded divorce word two times throughout his and Victoria’s marriage, but both times, Victoria pooh-poohed the threat away. Victoria made a vow before God, her family and her friends to stand beside Blake for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. Victoria would stay loyal to her words. Luckily for Victoria, she never made a promise to not murder her sleazy, son-of-a-bitch spouse, if he chose to gorge on the sexual pleasures of younger flesh.

Blake may find Victoria boring, and a bit unworldly, but Victoria was a smart woman. She would not allow herself to be Blake Belmont’s fool any longer. Blake Belmont might not want Victoria, but Victoria Belmont wanted Blake’s billions, and she was hell-bent that she was going to get the payoff that she felt she justly deserved.

CHAPTER TWO

She cowered on the side of the bed, wedged near the wall, and attempted to slide her petite figure under the master bed frame. His heavyweight footprints played turbulent against the hardwood floor, the intensified volume of each crushing step a sure indicator to Mirabelle that she was most likely due for another black eye. The panicked woman had promised her monster of a husband that she would spruce herself up today and look for work. Two years had passed since Mirabelle had a job, outside of her modest home, that is. She had been employed as an accountant for a major retail chain, until the department store filed for bankruptcy and closed approximately one-quarter of the nationwide stores, the owner having no other option than to lay off a vast number of low seniority, permanent staff.

Mirabelle Sage was axed from the payroll.

Her domineering spouse had left her the key to her white Chevrolet Malibu before he left for work this morning, the times she was able to come and go from their meager home determined by Lester and whatever plans he had on their agenda for the day.

Lester Sage forever taunted his wife of eight years, belittling her every move, from her pathetic housekeeping skills to her abysmal, monotonous sexual performances. The barren wench was good for nothing, not even womanly enough to bless Lester with a son of his own.

Lester rarely controlled Mirabelle’s actions through verbal words, as tugging on her waist-length black hair or smacking her with his closed fist hard upside her head was a far more effective way to get his desires across to her and ensure his fancies were carried out as precisely as he had dictated them to be achieved.

Mirabelle slid her small body under the bed and held her breath, as the amplified, clodhopper noise of Lester’s hard soles smacking against the uncarpeted floor told Mirabelle that her fiend of a husband had entered their bedroom.

Mirabelle, come out from under the bed! his baritone voice ordered.

Lester’s wife softly inhaled the smelly, musty air and captured a breath by quickly closing her mouth. She lay stiff.

Mirabelle winced as Lester’s massive hand grabbed her around her left ankle and yanked her frightened body out from under the bed, dragging her face-up across the hardwood floor as if she were a mere Raggedy Ann doll. The intense throbbing ache in her right hip as her body bounced across the wood was a warning to Mirabelle that within the next few hours, a purple, painful welt the size of a grapefruit would desecrate her tender, olive skin.

An image of Mirabelle, her battered and bruised body sitting in a police station, a forensic specialist capturing the horrific wounds embedded on Mirabelle from the same tormentor who promised to care for her, lit up in her head.

Lester released his grip from Mirabelle’s leg and wrapped a wad of her flowing, dark tresses around his fist, intertwining various strands of locks through his strong fingers. He pulled with such intensity that a portion of Mirabelle’s hair detached from her scalp and clung to Lester’s hand. Lester shook his wrist and released a roaring chuckle as the clump of hair landed directly on top of his shoe. He kicked his foot high in the air, Mirabelle watching from the corner of her eye as her gorgeous mound of hair was flung across the room. Lester brought his elevated foot swiftly down, his hard heel landing smack dab in the center of Mirabelle’s abdomen.

Mirabelle let loose an agonizing wheeze, her body writhing in angst.

Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Lester laughed.

Lester ran a hand through his mustard colored, voluminous head of hair and bent down close over a petrified Mirabelle, as she lied speechless across the stony, hardwood surface.

You were supposed to go find a job today, Lester reminded her.

Mirabelle remained silent, trying not to gag from Lester’s breath that reeked with a rancid trash stench.

Mirabelle attempted to stand. Lester plummeted his wife back to the ground and turned her limp body over onto her stomach. He pressed her dainty face into the floor.

Say something, bitch! he exclaimed.

I was just about to get ready. I have a job interview scheduled at three o’clock today.

Lester forced all of his weight from his two-hundred pound body into his right foot and used the deadly tool to kick Mirabelle onto her back, her compact facial features peering up at him, empty of all emotion.

Lester’s fragile wife stared hard onto a nine-inch blade, the cutlery held a mere two inches from Mirabelle’s right cheek.

Make yourself useful to this household and find yourself a high paying job, Lester said.

Mirabelle flinched. I’m trying, honey.

Not hard enough!

Lester slapped his unoccupied hand across Mirabelle’s opposite cheek.

Mirabelle’s shaky brown eyes clung tight to the knife. She stifled the tears that were begging to ooze free.

Get up and go cook me something to eat, unless you want that pretty little face of yours sliced up, Lester ordered.

Lester pressed the smooth side of the weapon onto Mirabelle’s cheekbone. He held the lethal kitchen utensil over Mirabelle’s face for a good thirty seconds, a scary reminder of who actually held the power in their deranged relationship.

Mirabelle lay motionless and experienced a jagged pain cut through her brain as an overwhelming desire to crucify her bastard of a husband singed deep through her bowels.

The submissive wife had been demeaned to her explosion point, finally ready to battle back and plunge herself into a better life.

Mirabelle vowed that in the near future, she would spit in Lester’s disgusting face, vomiting up all of the negative, horrendous tortures she had endured at the not so loving hands of her treacherous partner.

Lester permitted Mirabelle to stand. She inched her assaulted body into the kitchen, removed a frying pan from the cupboard and mentally plotted the step-by-step movements that she would roll into place to eventually untie the last fragment of the knot still binding her to her marriage vows and to her miserable, scum of a husband.

She shivered, terrified at facing her future alone yet rejoicing that she now felt strong enough to face her fears and invite some glorious sunshine back into her bleak, stormy life.

Lester’s bass snores honked from the bedroom to the kitchen. Mirabelle breathed easy, certain to be granted a few minutes of peace as Lester hopefully drifted off into an unsettling nightmare, retribution for the endless eight year nightmarish hell that Mirabelle had suffered at the sadistic actions of her unbalanced excuse of a husband.

CHAPTER THREE

Natalie glanced at her watch and sighed. Sure, Daddy. I’ll meet with your client.

Thank you, Norton replied with a sense of relief.

Do you have any specifics?

Just the usual. Mrs. Belmont suspects her husband is having an affair, and she wants tangible proof. I’ll leave the gathering of the facts to you.

Have you met the woman? Natalie asked.

Only over the telephone when she called to make an initial appointment. You were out of the office at the time, and Amy transferred her call to me.

Did Mrs. Belmont’s tone of voice come across as a scorned woman?

She sounded delightful, actually.

Natalie smiled. Am I to assume you will be out of the office the rest of the day?

How was I to know your mother’s car would break down?

You probably unhooked an engine wire yourself!

I don’t need calamities to occur in order to spend time with your mother.

She’s still warming to you?

She runs hot and cold. I can’t read the woman, Norton said, shaking his head.

We’ll see if I can read Mrs. Belmont.

She mentioned that her husband is Blake Belmont, the heir to the Belmont Beer fortune.

Natalie’s eyes opened wide. He’s guilty! Natalie said with conviction.

Be fair, you don’t know the man, Norton said.

Los Angeles magazine ran an article on the power couple a few months back. Blake Belmont is relatively young, rich and gorgeous. That’s a lethal combination for a male.

Make sure you appear neutral when you meet with his wife, Norton ordered.

And I assumed my day at I Pry, Inc. was going to be ordinary. Natalie giggled.

Norton North had opened the I Pry Inc., private investigations agency ten years into his career as a Los Angeles police officer, when a near fatal heart attack caused him to reassess his law enforcement future. Norton had been informed by his doctor that he was destined to live the remainder of his life with a serious heart arrhythmia, which translated into Norton being required to live a clean life consisting of daily medications, minimal stress and indulging in a diet made up of bland foods. Knowing the rigors and pressures of patrol cop street work, Norton felt it best to say goodbye to the Los Angeles Police Department and, after a lengthy recuperation period, hello to I Pry, Inc., Norton choosing instead to earn his living through private investigatory work.

When Norton first opened the door to his Santa Monica PI agency, he cashed in on his criminal justice expertise. Norton nosed around in cold case murders, credit card fraud, identity theft and missing persons cases. To Norton’s surprise, Norton received numerous pleas from jilted persons to catch their lying, no good, cheating partners in the act of immoral frivolity. As Norton worked alone, day after day, snooping into people’s meandering messes, he discovered he was excellent at tracking down adulterous creeps. Although Norton had made his living solving illegal cases, he found himself mesmerized with the world of civil cases, aka adulterous lowlifes. Norton surmised his fascination with non-illegal cases was because in the element of illicit sexual romps, to the disrespected partner, the act of infidelity was truly criminal!

Thus, Norton began to specialize in unfaithfulness, and he became so on target with unveiling two-timing twits that he earned the reputation of the best private detective in the greater Los Angeles area.

A few years into the miserable marriage business, Norton’s own marriage began to spiral, until his sacred union with his wife Vera went kaput. Norton had become so entrenched in the environment of untrustworthy mates that Norton’s suspicions spilled over onto Vera, and he deduced that Vera must be partaking in the sins of forbidden flesh, since it seemed to be the constant menu of many Southern California couples who solicited Norton’s services. Norton’s runaway imaginings caused him to grip onto his wife with the suction of a stalker, and Vera, quite frankly, demanded her right to breathe easy. Norton never fully recovered from his divorce to Vera, his wife of twenty-seven years and his ex-wife of four years, as she was still the only female in Norton’s atmosphere that revved up his raging testosterone.

Natalie joined her father as an apprentice PI over three years