Grand Theft Retro (Style & Error Mystery Series Book 5) (10 page)

“There’s a new guy at
Retrofit
. Pritchard Smith. He showed up on Tuesday. I don’t know his background, but he appears to have connections in the industry. Two days ago I followed him to Jennie Mae Tome’s house. He was talking about the private collection in the attic with somebody, but I could only hear one voice so I think he was on the phone. I got the feeling that they thought it was valuable, or that something was hidden in it.”

“Did you ask him?”

“He, um, didn’t know I was there.”

He studied me for a second, and then nodded once, indicating that I should continue. I gave him points for not following up on that particular point.

“My boss doesn’t know that I followed Pritchard. Nobody does. I didn’t think he knew I was there, either. I was supposed to be working on research while he was on his appointment, only I didn’t like that arrangement so I took it upon myself to become familiar with whatever was in the attic.”

“This was Wednesday?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Ms. Kidd, you’d get into a lot less trouble if you minded your own business, you know that, right?”

Let’s call that reason #6.

“My business—my job—is to work on this magazine. Thanks to the guy I’m working with, I was chained to a computer and he was looking at a highly sought after sample collection. Only, now it seems like he had an ulterior motive.”

“Let’s cut to the chase. You went to Ms. Tome’s house. Mr. Smith was at Ms. Tome’s house. You suspect him of stealing the clothes from her attic. Do you have anything to back this suspicion up? Or is this a case of you confusing workplace competition with burglary?” He balled up his napkin and tossed it on his plate on top of his uneaten cookies. That was just wrong.

“Here’s where things get weird. Pritchard threatened me in my office yesterday,
after
Jennie Mae was robbed.”

“So he wasn’t involved in the theft.”

“You’re not listening to me. Pritchard Smith threatened me, my family, and my cat. He’s out to get me.” This time, I looked him directly in the eye. “And then today, I found someone else—the director of an auction house—in my boss Nancie’s office. His name is Tahoma Hunt. You need to look into him, too. He’s tall, fit, dark skin. American Indian, I think. He had on a red knit hat, an army jacket, and a pair of camo pants.”

“Good thing you remembered what he was wearing. It’s not like he could change his outfit to blend in,” he said, scanning my sweat suit again.

“You’re going to follow up on everything I tell you, right? You’re not just asking me to tell you everything to indulge me, are you?”

“Ms. Kidd, it’s not my job to indulge you. It’s my job to determine what you know and to act on that knowledge if it relates to an open investigation. Now, where was your boss during all this?”

“I don’t know. Tahoma said the doors to the office were unlocked, but nobody was there. He was going through the bible of our project, and that’s highly confidential. I think I caught him by surprise. When I took the bible from Nancie’s desk, he seemed disappointed. He left even though he claimed he had an appointment with her. Whatever is going on is connected to this project but I don’t know what it is.”

“Tell me about
Retrofit
.”

“It’s a start-up fashion magazine. Internet only, at least at first.”

“There are people who read this?”

“Fashion is big business,” I said. “How long have you known me?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I’ve been back in Ribbon for two years and in that time I’ve worked for two department stores, a museum exhibit, and a runway show. All of which ended poorly. You told me once that you knew crime was on the rise in Ribbon when you took this job. Like it or not, the fashion industry is part of our city. There are factories here that designers can use. There are warehouses available for cheap. We’re a train ride away from New York City and a lot of people who work in the industry commute because the cost of living here is more reasonable.”

“Bringing new business to Ribbon should be a good thing, not an excuse for illegal behavior.”

“You’re missing my point. Fashion is big business and it’s a glamorous business. It draws all kinds of people, including the ones who see it as a way to get rich or get famous. Look closely at all of the crimes that I’ve been involved with. There’s a pattern there. Something is happening in our city and it’s attracting the wrong people.”

“This new job of yours.
Retrofit
. Why’d your boss set up shop here?”

“Same reason. You can run an online magazine from anywhere. We’re close enough to New York that we can make a trip to photograph designer samples or wander Manhattan to catch up on street style.”

“But your website has to do with old fashion.”

“That’s right. Nancie came up with a niche target: repurposing vintage pieces into current styles. We were ranked in the top twenty-five up-and-coming style websites last month.”

“Tell me about this project.”

Detective Loncar was a master of interrogation. The first time we’d been alone in a Q&A type situation, I’d tried my hand at keeping my mouth shut. When that failed, I’d moved on to selective truths. Eventually, he’d found a way to win my trust and I’d spilled the beans. His expertise lay in his minimal conversational approach. If he’d gone into Freudian psychoanalysis instead of police work, I suspected he’d ask me to tell him about my mother.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the
Retrofit
Seventies bible. I set it next to Loncar’s plate and tapped the cover. “This is a mock up of what we’ve been working on. Nancie made this. She’s been selling ad space to fund it, and she asked Pritchard and I to find interesting content for our editorials.”

“What about your boss? What does she say about all of this?”

“I haven’t seen Nancie in days.”

“You find that suspicious?”

“She said she had meetings with advertisers around the clock.” I hadn’t given much thought to Nancie, but Loncar had brought up an interesting question. Nancie had been MIA since before the theft. If I was so certain that there was a connection between the Seventies project and the theft, what made me think she
wasn’t
involved?

Chapter 11

FRIDAY
,
EARLY
EVENING

“Ms. Kidd, I want you to walk away from this project,” Loncar said.

“With all due respect, this is ‘project’ is my job. It’s the first real job I’ve had since moving to Ribbon. It’s not like I haven’t been trying, either. You have no idea how hard it is for a former fashion buyer to find work these days.”

“You could always move back to New York City,” he said.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“It would sure make my life easier.”

We both stood. Around us, a team of busboys in white aprons cleared the empty tables. I adjusted the hem of my sweatshirt and looked at Loncar. “Thank you for listening to me.”

“Ms. Kidd, it’s my job to listen to you. Anybody else and I’d give the info to one of my rookies and have them follow up with a few phone calls to try to locate this Mr. Smith. But you have a track record, so I’m going to follow up on this myself.”

Implied but not said (by him): I sure hope this isn’t some kind of a joke.

Not said but thought (by me): I really wish it was.

We went our separate ways: Loncar to the door marked Stairs and me past the front desk and out to the parking lot. The dead taxi was parked at the edge of the lot under the sign advertising room rates.
$39.99 Internet special, includes HBO and Breakfast Buffet
. No wonder the detective hadn’t checked himself into the Westin.

I drove to my house, parked the dead taxi in the driveway, and went inside. The first thing I did was find a suitable hiding place for the
Retrofit
bible. (I stuck it in the pantry behind the Bran Flakes.) Next, I finished the second half of my hoagie and most of a bag of potato chips and then changed from my sweats into a cream ribbed poor boy sweater, long, rust suede maxi skirt, and a cropped brown and rust paisley vest trimmed with an elaborate silk cord that knotted in the front. I took the Phillies baseball hat off, scrunched some mousse into the ends of my hair, and pulled on a crocheted cap like the one Allie MacGraw wore in
Love Story.
There were times to lay low and there were times to be seen. This was a time to be seen. I finished off the rest of the potato chips and then got into my car. I let the car idle for a moment while I dug around in my bag for my cell phone. I called Eddie.

“Yo,” I said. “How’s Logan?”

“Hello to you, too. I don’t know what you’ve been feeding your cat, but he’s been making good use of that litter box.”

“Did he poop out anything interesting?” I asked.

“Dude.”

“The vet said the only way he’s going to feel better is if whatever he ate isn’t in there anymore. Maybe he ate something he shouldn’t have?”

“I love your cat, but I’m not going to go through his poop.”

“Point taken. But does he seem peppier?”

“He should be. He’s gotta be a couple pounds lighter by now. Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

“Not yet. Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

“Dude, you’re the one who handed over your cat and told me not to contact you.”

“Yes, but you’re the one who downed two thousand calories before lunch. Now ask yourself: which one of us is acting more out of character?”

“I’d say it’s a toss-up.”

I put the car into reverse. “Call me if anything happens and give Logan a kiss for me. Right on top of his head between his ears. And tell him that I’ll pick him up as soon as I can.”

“I don’t think he minds it here so much. I put Cat Scratch Fever on repeat this afternoon, and tonight we’re watching Val Lewton’s
The Cat People
.”

“I think maybe when this is all over you should get your own cat.”

Another call beeped through. I pulled the phone away from my head and checked the display. It was Nick. I hadn’t called him back after his “if you want to” message. I wanted to, no doubt about that, but I was afraid to pull him into this. I let the call go to voicemail and felt only marginally guilty.

I said goodbye to Eddie and left my driveway. Traffic was lunch-hour heavy, and it was hard to tell if it was my imagination or an actual fact that someone had followed me. I drove to the strip mall where Nick’s studio was located and cruised past, but didn’t stop. I spent five minutes in an automatic car wash at the corner of the parking lot, and then patronized the Dairy Queen drive-thru and treated myself to a vanilla shake. If Pritchard was following me, he’d see me doing all of the things I usually did. I wanted him to believe everything was exactly the same.

I drove with my milkshake to the parking lot out front of
Retrofit
, finished the shake, and then got out and pretended to fuss with something in my trunk. After about a minute, I shut the trunk and headed inside, as much for appearances sake as for my own personal agenda.

The front doors were locked. I let myself in and went past the lobby to my cubicle. It looked just like it had yesterday. No daggers in the middle of my desk. No threatening messages written on my cabinets. My laptop docking station sat empty like I’d left it. But despite the appearance of normalcy, there was an eerie sense of quiet in the building. I set my handbag down on my desk chair and went down the hallway to Nancie’s office. The portable wall dividers were slightly crooked, but that wasn’t what alerted me that something was wrong. It wasn’t until I reached her doorway that I saw what caused my sense of alarm.

Unlike my office, that appeared to be in much the same state that I’d left it in, Nancie’s was the polar opposite. It was empty.

File cabinets had been yanked open, their drawers cleared of information. Closet doors hung wide, showcasing bare shelves. The laptop, docking station, mouse pad, and wireless keyboard, all gone. Even the waste paper basket had been cleaned out.

I left Nancie’s office and checked the boardroom, the coffee corner, and the supply closet. By the time I came to Pritchard’s cubicle, I wasn’t surprised by what I saw. It was empty, just like everything else.

Despite the fact that my office had remained intact, it appeared as though
Retrofit
had left the building.

Chapter 12

FRIDAY
NIGHT

I returned to Nancie’s office and double checked the cabinets. All signs that this office had recently been in use were gone. Even the carpet had been vacuumed. What had caused her to leave? My note? Or something more ominous? Had she been threatened, too? Or had she befallen an even worse fate than threats?

Or maybe it hadn’t been fear that chased Nancie out of the office but a need to disappear.

Four months of working with Nancie had put her outside the scope of my suspicions, but she could have been the one on the other end of Pritchard’s phone call. I’d seen her level of dedication when it came to the success of
Retrofit
, and I’d experienced her drive in the face of the challenges of growth. Another person might have been happy with our accomplishments in such a limited time. But Nancie wanted more. The idea of the magalog had come from left field.

She’d been so gung-ho about bringing Pritchard on board and had cautioned me to stay put in the office while he did his thing in the field. Maybe they were working together. I’d bought into Nancie’s passion about
Retrofit
when I first came to work with her and I didn’t want to believe that she had a hidden agenda, but to ignore the possibility in light of the ransacked office and the theft at Jennie Mae Tome’s house felt obtuse. I backed out of the office slowly. When I’d entered, I hadn’t paid much attention to the clean desks out front that the interns used. They’d been taught to clear them each night, and the revolving door of unpaid help kept anybody from making their space overly personal. In fact, I remember Nancie instructing a few of the college students to respect the fact that the desk was only theirs for the time that they occupied it.