Diane Vallere - Style & Error 03 - The Brim Reaper (15 page)

“Nick Taylor, what a pleasant surprise. We miss you coming through the store to check on your collection. How are things going with your new launch?”

“Fine. I’ll be ready to start booking market appointments soon. How are things at Tradava?” he asked. I suspected the question was for my benefit.

“It seems everyone’s a bit overworked these days. We lifted the hiring freeze but can’t find the right caliber employee.” She looked at me briefly, as if gauging whether I could be trusted with the conversation.

“You remember Samantha Kidd, don’t you?” Nick asked. “She was the trend special—”

I cut him off with a kick to the shin and a sudden fit of coughing. I took a sip of water to make the coughing fit look real.

“I’m his showroom manager,” I said after I’d swallowed.

Mrs. Aguan studied me. “Samantha Kidd,” she said slowly, as if trying to place my name. I could tell the moment the connection clicked by the change in her expression. She looked like someone had shot a pulse of electricity between her ears. Her eyes popped open a bit wider, and her mouth went into an O for a second before she recovered.

I held out my hand. “Pleasure seeing you.”

She took my hand in a limp handshake and forced a smile. “Likewise.”

I smiled and focused on my coffee cup.

She waved goodbye and walked to the register at the front of the restaurant. I didn’t know if she’d heard any of our conversation before she approached us. If Nick was concerned about his reputation, holding hands with his showroom manager in a public bakery might not have been the best way to go. And as far as my reputation went, my own behavior probably looked less than professional. She’d never recruit me back to Tradava. Even if I applied for a job, she’d see that as me having no loyalty to Nick. It wasn’t the first time I found myself wondering if taking this job had been the right decision.

“Kidd, I know I asked you not to get involved. All things considered—”

“All things considered, Eddie helped me out when I had similar problems last year. Put yourself in my shoes, Nick.”

“I am. Eddie’s my friend too. But this isn’t about work, and it isn’t about my showroom. It’s about you. I want to protect you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’m not always going to be your boss, Kidd, and when that day comes, I want you to still be in one piece.”

The low flame that I’d felt earlier flickered inside me again. I didn’t look at Nick because I was afraid of what I’d read in his expression. With my heart racing, I took his hand again.

He turned his hand over and entwined his fingers with mine. The palm of his hand felt softer than I expected. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over my life line, my love line, and whatever other lines were etched into my flesh. The longer we sat there, the faster my pulse raced. I knew it would be hard working for Nick, but I didn’t know it would be this hard, this soon. I knew what I had to do and what I had to say.

“I made a mistake,” I said, my voice husky. I was willing to go out on that limb, to tell him that I should never have accepted this job. “I should have known better, but I didn’t, and now things are complicated …” My voice trailed off as he lifted my hand and pressed fingers to his soft lips.

“Kidd, don’t apologize. It’s not too late.” His eyes had deepened to a dark brown that threatened to absorb me.

I leaned my head back against the booth, my low ponytail pressing into the cushion. “But how do we—what do we—what’s next?” I asked.

“Tell Eddie you’re done. I’ll come up with something.”

“What does Eddie have to do with us?” I asked, with slow realization that maybe we weren’t talking about the same thing. Clarity pierced the fog of attraction that had clouded my mind only moments ago. “What are you talking about?”

“The homicide investigation. I’m glad you can see what a mistake it was to get involved, but it’s for the best.”

I pulled my hand away. “I wasn’t talking about the homicide investigation.”

“What were you talking about?

My temperature rose for completely different reasons than it had only moments before. “That’s what you got from this conversation? That I’m going to quit helping Eddie?”

“You said you should have known better.”

“About working for you. I should have trusted my instincts all the times you offered to give me a job to float me while I looked for something more suitable.”

“Your instincts told you to say no to working for me but yes to getting mixed up in a murder investigation? I’m telling you I’ll help you get out. What do your instincts say about that?”

“Nick, I don’t want out. I want the person who killed Dirk Engle to get caught.”

“The police are working on that.”

“But they don’t know any more than we do. They don’t know about the collectors, they don’t know about Cat’s hat-jacking, they don’t know about—”

“Kidd, for someone who says she’s been turning everything over to the police, you sure have a lot of information in your back pocket.”

“I don’t need a lecture, Nick.”

He leaned back and ran his hand over his hair. “I think it’s time we went back to the showroom.”

“No, Nick, I think maybe I’m done for the day.” I stormed out of the diner.

I drove home at breakneck speed. I tried to call Eddie but there was no answer. I pulled into my driveway and ran to the front door. “Eddie? Eddie!” I yelled.

I tossed my handbag onto the side table by the door like I always did, only it dropped to the floor. The table was missing. I took a couple of steps inside and tripped over a chair.

Everything had been moved, everything had been cleaned. It was as if I’d been ransacked by the Merry Maids, who’d left the place better looking than when they arrived.

“Eddie! Are you here?” I shouted though the front door, my new greeting replacing the “Honey, I’m home” routine from yesterday. He didn’t answer. I looked for a note of explanation as to where he might be or skid marks on my carpet indicating that he’d been dragged out against his will, but there was nothing. The house was clean once again, so he’d been there at least long enough to tidy up after last night. It looked nice. Homey. He’d even put a mason jar of flowers on the kitchen table. I didn’t know where the flowers had come from. Maybe the next-door neighbor.

Housekeeping efforts notwithstanding, his absence was unsettling. I circled around with nervous energy, not able to sit and relax. Every time a car turned on to my street I hopped to the windows, hoping it was Eddie. Between the drive-bys I checked the answering machine and my cell phone, hoping I’d somehow missed a message. No such luck.

There was nothing left for me to do but dole out some ice cream and wait. I pulled the rocky road out of the freezer and retrieved a clean bowl from the dishwasher. When I opened the ice cream container, I found a piece of paper curled up inside.
Was going stir crazy. Had to get out. No worries, am incognito.

He was mocking me. He was mocking my cooking abilities. He was mocking my predictable ice cream cravings.

Mental note: find a way to indicate that I’m not domestically incompetent.

Mental note #2: have some ice cream first.

I sat at the kitchen table and massaged my temples while thinking back over the day. I’d gotten distracted by Dante and Cat, by Nick and Tradava. But before all of that I’d met with Dr. Daum. What had he said? Dirk Engle was dead because of the exhibit.

But the exhibit was still going to open. That meant the murderer wouldn’t stop now.

But there was a flaw to Dr. Daum’s logic. If someone was after Dirk Engle, it would have been easy to find him at his store. Why come after him at the museum? The fact that he was found at the museum was curious. As in not good. As in his death had less to do with his own business and more to do with the missing hats. And that meant Eddie was in trouble, especially since he’d been the one to find the body and remove one of those hats from the museum. Even though I’d made sure it had been turned over to the police, chances were the murderer didn’t know that.

I grabbed a pen and scribbled notes across a fresh sheet of paper.

Dirk Engle: Victim. Milo Delaney Business Manager. Hat store owner

Christian Jhanes: I-FAD chairman. Museum director.

Hedy London: Film star. Costume collector. Hat designer.

Then I thought about Dr. Daum’s casual mention of Milo Delaney and how he’d changed the subject after introducing it to our conversation. I remembered how angry Milo had gotten when asked about Hedy London. I wrote
Milo Delaney
again. It seemed as though he was the piece that sat squarely in the middle of the puzzle. Something was missing though.

I turned to my computer and typed
millinery exhibit, Ribbon, PA, curator
into Google
.
It was on page 3 that I found an article in the
Ribbon Times
online edition. “Local Boutique Owner to Consult on Hollywood Exhibit.”

I was surprised. “Local” was a generous description of the thirty miles between the cities of Philadelphia and Ribbon, but calling Dirk Engle a local boy gave the article a hometown spin. I clicked the link and started to read.

Turns out, “local” wasn’t a generous description after all.

The picture featured in the article about the exhibit was not of Dirk Engle. This article was about Vera from Over Your Head.

18

“Ace” reporter Carl Collins seemed to have taken special interest in the Hedy London exhibit. I read the article.

Friends of the Ribbon Museum of Art were notified by private newsletter of an upcoming exhibit at the museum. The unnamed exhibit was described as “cinematic treasures on loan from a high profile collector,” and is to be funded by local retailer Tradava. Vera Sarlow, owner of the hat shop Over Your Head, was mentioned as a consultant, indicating that the exhibit features hats [editor note: Sarlow could not be reached to verify details about the exhibit]. Additional names mentioned in collaboration with the exhibit were Christian Jhanes, former I-FAD faculty member, and Thad Thomas, assistant director of the Ribbon Museum of Art. Dr. Daum, recently retired director of the Ribbon Museum of Art, will stay on in a consulting position per a unanimous vote by the board of directors. The exhibit is expected to open as part of the museum’s fall calendar.

I wished I had that sheet of names I’d printed from Christian’s computer, but, thanks to Thad, I didn’t. I typed “Thad Thomas” into Google and searched. There were more than 5 million hits, seventeen alone on LinkedIn. I narrowed my search: “Thad Thomas director.” That filtered the hits down to 4.9 million. I continued adding words: “assistant,” “museum,” and “Ribbon.” By the time I layered in “Frowick Gallery,” I was down to one.

It was a mention of his post as assistant director of the museum. I clicked on the link and found myself staring at a thumbnail image of Thad next to Christian Jhanes. Below the picture was the caption
Assistant Director and Former Chair of Fashion Marketing
. I returned to Google. There were no other hits for Thad Thomas. It was as though he’d appeared out of thin air.

I climbed the stairs and took a long bubble bath, during which I stared at the ceiling. After climbing out and drying off, I dressed in a cashmere hoodie and a pair of black leggings and flopped on the bed, no closer to answers.

Logan hopped up next to me, settled in next to my thigh, and purred. I’d been neglecting him.

“What do you think is going on here?” I asked.

He looked at me with wide amber eyes and meowed.

“Am I missing something?”

I heard a faint sound from downstairs. Logan stood up and jumped off the bed, crouched low, his tail getting fat. He started toward the door. I followed him down the stairs. When I reached the bottom step, I froze. There was a man in my living room.

Afternoon sunlight bounced off his shiny, bald head. His arms held a large bag stuffed with objects.

I was being burglarized.

A shiver ran down my spine as I wondered if he had heard the bathwater running upstairs or was even aware that I was in the house.

Logan rubbed against my ankles and I stiffened, hoping our movement hadn’t alerted the intruder to our presence.

I reached for a pillow from the sofa and eased it out of its case. I wrapped each end around a wrist and slowly, quietly, crept behind the intruder. He bent down. I threw the pillowcase over his head and pulled the cotton tight.

“Don’t move!”

I kneed the back of his legs. He dropped the bag and lost his balance. He hit the floor. I lost my balance and fell into the bag he’d dropped. Shoe boxes spilled out of the top.

“Dude, get off me!”

He pulled the pillowcase off his head and looked around.

“Eddie? Why are you creeping around my living room?”

“I couldn’t stand sitting around here anymore. I had to get out.”

I repositioned myself so the corners of the shoeboxes weren’t digging into my ribs.

He rubbed a hand against his shaved head. “I told you I was incognito. The tapes from the museum showed a guy with floppy blond hair. It was easier than messing around with Ms. Clairol.”

I leaned back against the sofa and took a longer look at him, noting the contrast between the smooth head and the three days’ growth of beard. “It works on you.” I scanned the piles of bags and boxes on the floor. “What’s all this?”

“I went shopping.”

“You bought shoes?”

“I bought Vans.” One by one he opened the boxes and pulled out sneakers decorated with wild prints: checkered, plaid, camouflage, floral. “Eighteen pairs. I couldn’t stop. I’ve never bought eighteen pair of anything at one time before, and that counts boxers that are packaged in threes.”

I stood up, pulled him from the floor, and hugged him.

“Dude,” he said, clearly taken aback.

“Sit down. There are a couple of things you need to know.”

I told him about Milo Delaney, Christian’s telephone conversation, the list of collectors, and Vera’s involvement with the exhibit. It has been a very busy day and it hadn’t even gotten dark yet.