The fifth book in the Pauline Sokol series, 2006

“What the hell is wrong with my nose?”

I couldn’t help shout at my skuzzy boss, Fabio Scarpello, who had just suggested I get a nose job. A nose job!

I looked into the file cabinet to see as much of my profile as I could. Only things I could find in the metal were fingerprints galore and some brown stuff, which I didn’t want to even guess at.

Fabio was a pig in his office, and I’m sure in his private life (and not only with the setting, I might add), but he was the owner of Scarpello and Tonelli Insurance Company and gave me insurance fraud cases to investigate.

In other words, he was my only means of support.

I’d switched careers midstream, leaving nursing for snooping. Thing was, darling Fabio always gave me the medical fraud cases. Sure it made sense, but I wasn’t looking for sensible. I was looking to get out of that business! Being single and in my early thirties, I knew I couldn’t keep switching fields and have any kind of retirement. Besides, I loved the investigating. What a rush to solve a case!

I never let the reminder that murders occurred along the way even enter my head.

My heart thudded. Murders!

Oops. Truthfully, the M word did that to me since I’d come way too close to being one of its victims-several times.

I looked closer at the file cabinet. Fabio’s brown-stained reflection appeared. Yikes.

“No, you don’t need a nose job, doll. But that’s part of the business. Going undercover doesn’t always come easily.” He sucked on the wet, sticky end of his cigar and laughed. “Nope. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to earn some bucks. Besides, I thought any doll would jump at the chance to have something fixed.” His gaze ran down to my legs and back up to my chest-and stayed there. “Rather have a bo-”

“No!” I stepped back. Yuck. No way was I going to discuss my chest with him. “I don’t understand why I need anything done.”

He took a long pull on the cigar, coughed until his face was rotten-apple-colored, and grinned. “How the hell else are you going to get inside that plastic surgery clinic to do your job?”

I glared at him for a good fifteen minutes. Okay, maybe it was only for a few minutes, but it seemed longer. I knew what was going to come out of my mouth, but I really didn’t want it to. No way. I was not going to say…“I can go to Highcliff Manor as a-”

My insides dropped to my toes. I couldn’t believe what I’d nearly said. I’d almost offered my medical services, throwing myself back into a burned-out career.

Heaven help Pauline Sokol because I obviously couldn’t help myself.

Fabio walked to his desk and shoved a manila folder toward me. “One of my clients, a small company out of Rhode Island, reports an increase in plastic surgery submissions from this one particular clinic. Ones insurance shouldn’t be covering. Smells to high heaven.” He waved the folder at me. “Case number five for you, doll.”

“Stop calling me doll or you’ll be wearing that cigar in your ear-lit.” I stood firm, reached across the pile of old coffee cups and stale doughnuts on dirty dishes to grab the folder from his hands. I wish I had a nickel for every time I’d told him to stop calling me that, I thought as I grunted, looked at the file and started walking toward the door.

“Make sure you come up with a good reason to go to Highcliff. Those rich bastards are often smart. That’s how some got filthy rich while others got their dough from Mommy and Daddy. Newport, Rhode Island, is filled with money.”

I think he snorted, but my mind was on the file in my hands.

I had to come up with a plan to get inside the clinic? This was a new one. Usually Fabio handed me a case already in the works, where I went to investigate whatever he’d set up. This time, since I’d refused to get any part of me nipped, tucked, or mutilated, I was on my own.

But the bonus was that in Newport, being such a posh town, the fraud was exorbitant-and so would be my fee.

And I needed money like a sailboat needed the wind.

“I know!” my best friend and roomie, Miles Scarpello (Fabio’s nephew by adoption-thus Miles was a honey, as he lucked out of being from the same gene pool) yelled. “You can go to Highcliff as a rich bitch and then just get your ears pinned back…a bit.”

“Whaaaaaaaat!” I screamed, and ran to the mirror. I’d been holding Spanky, our joint custody shih tzu who weighed in now at seven pounds, so he jumped onto the couch in my haste. Spanky had adopted another “parent” in Goldie Perlman, Miles’s significant other, my other best friend and our third roomie.

Yes, they were both the best, and I could never pick one over the other.

I leaned closer and pulled back my hair. “Nothing wrong with my ears. Is there?” I leaned forward, “Oh, my,” I mumbled and moved my head from side to side. “And, besides, if I get any surgery, what kind of shape would I be in to work?”

He looked at me. “Your ears, nose, breasts and every inch of you is perfect, Pauline. There is nothing needing any kind of tucking or clipping.” He bit on a perfectly manicured nail.

I looked down at my fingers and groaned. Being a nurse had me in the habit of wearing my nails way too short. I tried to hide that fact with a bronze nail polish, but since I hadn’t been to the nail place in weeks, the bronze was now a dull gray and nearly chipped off.

“I guess I owe you a thanks for that comment, Miles.” I took one last look in the mirror, pulled a handful of blonde hair over my ears (just in case) and flopped onto the couch with a sigh. “How the hell am I going to get into that place? I’ve already checked their staffing needs. They’re full.”

Miles sat down opposite me, took off my fluffy pink slippers and started to massage my feet. Ah, the benefits of platonic male roommates. Amid the nirvana he’d set in motion, the door opened with a bang.

“Oooooooh! What a day this has been!”

I peeked over my shoulder to see Goldie dancing around with poor Spanky shaking in his arms while Goldie sang, “What a rare mood I’m in, folks!”

Miles stopped massaging and we both cracked up.

Goldie set Spanky down and sat on the edge of the glass and chrome coffee table. Today he’d worn Armani-from the women’s department. The only way I knew the designer was that I’d seen the camel jacket on Goldie’s bed and read the label. If he wasn’t almost a foot taller than my five-six, I’d have tried it on. He looked glamorous, sexy, and his light blond wig set off flecks of gold in his eyes.

Very cherry-colored lips smiled at us.

“What’s made you so happy, Gold?” I eased my feet off Miles’s lap and sat up, pulling my robe tighter. Not that these two lovers would have cared if my breasts hung out, but I came from a Polish Catholic family, and the day I had started kindergarten I learned what a “Catholic-school-induced” (CSI, as I now referred to it) conscience actually was.

Unfortunately, morality was my middle name.

Goldie gave Miles a kiss on the lips, leaned toward me and planted one on my cheek. “I nailed the sucker! I nailed the shit who was scamming Global Carriers Insurance Company for millions!”

Goldie, way more experienced than myself, also worked for Fabio and had been my mentor on many an occasion.