Diane Vallere - Style & Error 03 - The Brim Reaper (7 page)

Absentmindedly I tore the ad from the paper and folded it down to a handbag-sized bit of flotsam. I flipped through the rest of the newspaper, looking for something a little deeper to sink my teeth into. Between the automotive and the sports pages I found the arts section. New movie openings this weekend, a touring performance of
Romeo and Juliet
coming to town, and an article: “Hollywood Comes to Ribbon.” It was about Hollywood memorabilia that had been tagged for local display.

Hollywood memorabilia.

I leaned forward and read the article with interest.

Few celebrities find themselves in Ribbon, Pennsylvania, but that is exactly where film star Hedy London plans to be next Thursday. London, 70, star of noir films
The Reaper Wore Red
and 
Murder After Midnight
, has entered a partnership with local retailer Tradava to license a collection of millinery under her name.

London was discovered on the pages of a men’s magazine in the early sixties. She pouted in a way that would have made a pin-up girl proud and caught the attention of an entrepreneurial film director who was casting roles in his homage to the noir 
Murder After Midnight
. The moment Hedy London appeared wearing a translucent silk negligee trimmed in marabou, the audience was enraptured.

In the months following the movie’s launch, she was never seen in anything other than vintage-inspired styles, thus launching a fashion frenzy for all things retro, and solidified London’s ties to the fashion community.

Most people thought it was a publicity stunt. Cameras followed her to the grocery store, the mall, the dry cleaners, waiting for the inevitable photo opportunity of her with her guard dropped. They were disappointed. Hedy London was never out of character. Slowly but surely the public accepted that this was who she was. Soon after, the fashion magazines followed suit, styling models in her likeness to showcase the glamour.

I looked at the byline.
Ribbon Times
staff reporter Carl Collins’s article was more of a love letter than a hard-hitting piece of investigative reporting. I scanned the rest of his article. He went on to say that London’s style became bigger than her acting talent. Fashion designers sent hommages to Hedy down the runways. In the fickle world of fashion and entertainment, she seemed untouchable.

It wasn’t until she was paired to work with a renegade director who decided to use her for his own publicity stunt that the glamorous life of Hedy London encountered trouble. He cast her in a dystopian love story and dressed her in a set of pasties and a pair of torn, acid-washed jeans.

After a very public argument that culminated in a pricey lawsuit, Hedy London’s name was removed from the picture. Her career trajectory reversed. She could have been the next Kim Novak, but instead, she never acted again.

Hedy London now resides in Hollywood, California, where she has become a respected member of the film preservationists’ society. She is loaning a portion of her priceless collection to the Ribbon Museum of Art in an exhibit funded by Tradava, which will coincide with the launch of her collection of hats.

It didn’t take Columbo to recognize that I had a piece of said priceless collection nestled next to the butterfly collection I’d amassed when I was eight that still resided in an old cigar box on a shelf in the garage.

I checked the clock. It was shortly after four. The detective hadn’t called back. He probably hadn’t gotten my message, so there was no point waiting around for him. I needed to buy cat food and something for dinner. I showered and dressed quickly in a Go-Go’s concert T-shirt from their Talk Show tour and a pair of faded boot-cut jeans. I piled on a couple ropes of pearls, pulled on an olive-green army jacket and a beret, and stepped into olive suede boots. I drove to the grocery store and picked my way through the pet section for food for Logan.

Only one teenager, pierced on her eyebrow, nostril, and lip, worked the checkout counter. My cell rang while I stood in the line and I fished it out. The word Detective flashed up on the screen.
Mental note: edit Loncar’s contact information to minimize anxiety attacks when he returns calls.

“Hello?” I answered, though I knew who it was.

“Ms. Kidd? Detective Loncar.”

“Did you get my message?” I asked.

“Are you at your house?” he asked.

“I’m at the grocery store.”

“Let’s see if I understand this. You have evidence to a murder investigation at your house and you’re at the grocery store. Is that right?”

“It’s not evidence, per se,” I said. I let two teenagers go ahead of me in line and turned around to see if anyone else was close by.

Someone was. Dante Lestes.

Dante was the brother of a local boutique owner. He had pale skin, dark brown eyes, juicy red lips, and tattoos of flames from his wrists to his elbows. He smelled like cinnamon and wore black leather like he’d been born in it.

The grocery store checkout line got about ten degrees warmer.

Today, Dante wore a green bandana knotted over his head babushka-style. The last time I’d seen him, his hair had been cut into a buzz that made him look more like a security guard. He’d let it grow out since then. Black hair stuck out the back of the bandana. His face had a couple of days’ beard growth. The motorcycle helmet that dangled from his wrist held a bottle of transmission fluid and a couple of canisters of film.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

“Ms. Kidd? Who are you talking to?” the detective asked.

“Hold, please,” I said into the phone, and then held it against my chest so the detective couldn’t eavesdrop. “Maybe you should go in front of me too.”

He raised his eyebrows but stepped past me and put his stuff on the conveyor belt.

“Hello, Detective?” I dropped my voice. “Sorry about that. I’m here.”

“At the grocery store.”

“Yes.”

“Does this have anything to do with my investigation?”

“The grocery store? No, I was out of cat food.”

“Does the
evidence
have anything to do with my investigation?”

“We don’t know if it’s evidence.”

There was a deep inhale on the other end of the phone, followed by an exhale of the same force.

Dante held out a hundred-dollar bill to pay for his purchases. I suspected by the way he ignored the cashier’s subtle attempts to flirt with him that he was listening to my conversation.

“Ms. Kidd, what was it that you called me about?” the detective asked.

“A hat.”

“Where did you get this hat?”

“The museum.”

“Where in the museum?”

“The admissions office.”

“When?”

“The night Dirk Engle was—” I looked at Dante. He had paid for his film and transmission fluid and made no secret of the fact that he was still watching me. The checkout girl scanned my three cartons of ice cream. I handed her a twenty and turned my back on Dante. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone.

“Are you still there?” I asked tentatively.

“Ms. Kidd, I think it’s safe to call it evidence.”

“Okay. I thought it was better to leave that up to you.”

“You say you have it at your house? Same address that we have on file?”

As much as I didn’t like knowing my address was on file with the police department, now didn’t seem to be the time to quibble. “Same address,” I confirmed.

“I’ll send a car over,” Loncar said.

I carried my bag filled with ice cream  and cat food out of the store.

Dante leaned against my car. He scanned my outfit as I approached and then looked at my face. “Interesting conversation,” he said.

“That was my uncle,” I lied. “He’s going to help me rearrange my garage.”

“Good luck with that,” he whispered in my ear, and then left.

I watched the back of his black leather jacket, decorated with orange and red flames like his tattoos, as he walked toward the motorcycle at the far end of the parking lot.

I piled the bags into the trunk and slammed it shut. Dante pulled on his helmet and straddled his bike.

Was it coincidence that Dante was shopping at the same grocery store as I was at that exact time? Or was it a sign, like the falling track lighting and the forest-green fedora with the knife through it? Was the universe sending me a message?

I hadn’t seen Dante for months. Not since Nick returned from Italy and I perfected my good girlfriend impersonation. What did it mean—if this
was
a sign, was it the equivalent of Caution: Sharp Turns Ahead?

Nothing was random about Dante, which meant there was a reason he’d popped back up in my life. I wanted to know what it was. I flipped my hair, balled my fists, and closed half the distance between us before noticing the white pickup truck barreling in my direction.

8

The only thing that stopped a string of profanities from spilling out of my mouth was the image of Nick hanging his head out of the window of his truck, calling my name. Dante peeled out of the lot. I looked back at Nick, who had diffused a perfectly good streak of determination.

“Yo, Kidd! Can you hold up a minute?”

I thought the glare in my eyes was probably doing justice to my annoyance factor, so I said nothing but pulled into another space. By the time I reached his truck he’d gotten out and was leaning against the door. The sun danced in his deep brown eyes. When he smiled, his dimples deepened. I was going to have to figure out how to stop noticing things like Nick’s dimples and the crinkles around his eyes. I needed a distraction. Where did Dante go? I missed him already.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“Hoagie store. It was a guess.”

“I don’t eat that many hoagies,” I said, crossing my arms.

“I found you here, didn’t I?”

“I wasn’t here for a hoagie. I was at the grocery store.”

“Out of ice cream?”

Darn him. “Actually, I thought I would make you dinner tonight. To say thank you for the job. You know, before I actually start working for you on Monday?”

“You’re cooking?”

“What? I can cook when I want.”

He smiled. “That sounds great. There’s only one problem—I need you to meet me at the store tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday!” I blurted before thinking.

“I know. A sample collection arrived today. I wasn’t expecting it until Monday. If we can get everything unpacked, priced, tagged, organized, photographed, and set up online, I can book a couple of appointments for the end of the week. The sooner I can get orders, the sooner I can submit them to Italy. Every day will cost me delivery time, and I can’t afford that. Not when I’m starting out on my own.”

It took a second for me to process what he said. About a year ago, Nick had bought his distribution rights from the company who had backed him. The retailers who stocked his collection had taken markdowns and liquidated what they owned in Nick Taylor inventory. His plan was to scale back the number of accounts he sold to. In short, he wanted creative control over his product.

He really did need someone like me to help him or possibly risk missing an entire season of business. During the time Nick was laying the groundwork for his business plan—establishing credibility and contacts with fashion editors and living in Italy for six months to establish contacts at the factories of his choice—he’d managed to help me out of a pickle or two. He didn’t like when I ended up in dangerous situations. Truth is, I didn’t particularly like the danger part either.
I could sit this one out,
I thought.
I can let Detective Loncar handle the murder of Dirk Engle, and I can pay Nick back for his understanding by helping him get his dreams off the ground.

“What time to do you want me to be there?”

“Can you do noon?”

“Okay, noon tomorrow. Anything I should know before then?”

He looked surprised that I’d asked. “I’ll bring you up to speed tomorrow. As for tonight, remember: you haven’t started working for me yet.” He kissed me goodbye and drove off the lot.

I drove home, dropped off the ice cream and assorted groceries, and retrieved the hat from the shelf in the garage and put it in a cardboard box. I sealed the box and carried it to the front porch.

I carried Logan outside and set him down on the welcome mat. He lowered his head and sniffed around, a few feet at a time, until he padded to the base of the porch swing and jumped up. I joined him.

“I’m going to turn this hat over to Loncar and be done with this whole murder.”

“Meow.”

“And after tonight, I’m going to be professional and do a good job for Nick.”

“Meow.”

“And I’m not going to spend any time thinking about Dante.”

“Meow.”

“Maybe the universe is playing a cruel joke on me. Maybe the next man I talk to is going to lead to a long, lasting relationship.”

Just then a brown sedan pulled into my driveway. I didn’t recognize it. The driver’s side door opened and Detective Loncar stepped out.

“Forget I said that,” I said to Logan. He jumped down from the swing and meowed at the front door.

The detective wore a brown suit with a white shirt and another wide tie. If he’d asked my opinion I would have suggested something a little more this century, but he hadn’t, so I didn’t. As he approached, I couldn’t help but notice that he was favoring his left foot.

“Hi, Detective,” I said brightly.

He climbed the three stairs that led to the porch and faced me.

I stood up and put my hand on the top of the box that held the hat. “You look nice. Do you and your wife have a date?”

“Is that the evidence?” he asked.