Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 03 - Buyer's Remorse (5 page)

“Oh David.”
Fiona shook her head. “I really can’t talk about Lara. My heart is just breaking still.” Fiona slipped out of David’s embrace and went through the back door.

David glared at Mitzy. “Who do you think you are?” He asked with one hand perched on his hip.

Mitzy chewed her lip and considered the answer. “I sold Lara her house. I found Lara’s body. I want to find her family so I can get the earnest money back.” It was a stretch but she banked on David being real estate ignorant. His face relaxed a just a little.

“You want to get some money back to her family? Then why come in here attacking poor Fiona who did nothing but nurture that girl? I don’t get it.”

“Well…it’s just. I don’t know. I’m not a counselor or anything. I just started talking and a bunch of questions popped out. It’s like I got here and just wanted to know more about her.”

“Her life is none of your business. But if you want to leave the check here I can return it to her next of kin. And you can back off.”

“Legally I can’t do that. I need to get it to the next of kin. That’s all.”

“Her next of kin isn’t at Neveah’s Wardrobe. So you might as well just turn around.” He twirled his pointer finger and pointed at the exit sign. “Fiona did nothing but bless that girl and now this.” He tilted his head away from Mitzy and closed his eyes.

The drama at Neveah’s was thick and Mitzy had no intention of leaving. “Who is Neveah?” Mitzy asked.

Still looking away David shook his head, “Neveah is an ideal,” he said.

More drama.
“How many designers do you all carry?” Mitzy asked.

He pursed his lips, “We carry three designers regularly but sometimes order more.” He picked up the pearls that Fiona had been sorting and let them drip through his fingers. “Lara never loved this place. Not the way we do.” He sighed heavily. “Lara didn’t appreciate what she had here.”

“She didn’t?” Mitzy asked, leaning forward again, ever so slightly.

David turned his head and made eye contact with Mitzy, “Lara was a taker. She wasn’t a team player.” He clamped his mouth shut and flared his nostrils with a deep intake of breath.

“Are your designers all local?” Mitzy asked.

“Yes,” David said. “We have a very small carbon footprint. Everything we sell is designed and created in
Portland
.”

Mitzy wanted to keep David talking. She could tell he had something he wanted to say about Lara. His lips were pursed and one eyebrow cocked.
But why?
What was he trying to get Mitzy to ask him?

“Are the designers exclusive to your shop?” she asked.

“Of course,” David said, smirking.

Mitzy considered this. Supposedly this one little shop that was empty during the Christmas season in the popular shopping district of Hawthorne was successful enough to float four designers, and at least three employees. Somehow while working at this quiet store Lara had been able save up a substantial down payment for the condo. What piece of the puzzle was Mitzy missing? It didn’t make financial sense.

Mitzy turned around and searched the room with her eyes. Where was the cash cow hiding? She made her way back to the front counter still confused. Once there she noticed the computer tower on the shelf against the back wall. It wasn’t connected to a monitor, but it had a very loud fan. The Muzak that was playing had distracted her from the noise. It must be a server.

She smiled. “Does Neveah’s have an online store?” she asked.

David made a sniffing noise, “Of course. How would any business survive without an online presence? We ship our clothes all over the country.”

Mitzy thought he answered too quickly. Whatever he wanted to her to dig for she hadn’t hit yet. He hadn’t repeated his orders for her to leave either so she was sure that had been posturing. She decided to cut to the chase. “You aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but what if the deceased was awful?” she asked, looking away from him.

“Seriously,” he said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him nodding.

“Will there
be
a lot of people saying lies about how great Lara was?” she asked.

“I doubt it. Her boyfriend will, but they just fought all of the time. Her parents will but they weren’t on speaking terms. Fiona will, even though Lara was nothing but heartache to her. Fiona wanted to mother Lara, to help her. She was here, like, six years but Lara was totally ungrateful.”

Parents aren’t likely murder suspects, but boyfriends who fight with you a lot are. “Her boyfriend was awful, right? I’d hate to have to give him the money. Do you know how to get in touch with her parents?”

“Haven’t a clue,” David said. “Like it or not you’re going to have to see Hector. Like you said, he’ll probably be full of lies about how wonderful she was, so I wouldn’t trust him. He loved her, but I think he really hated her.” David rolled his eyes.

Mitzy looked at him. He did not flinch from her eye contact. That was what David wanted to tell her. He wanted her to think Hector was a worthy murder suspect.

“How can I get in touch with Hector?” Mitzy asked.

David pulled a card out of a rack of business cards and tossed it to her. “Bloody Ink” Hector was a tattoo artist. Mitzy looked up from the card and noticed, for the first time, the pigeon on David’s wrist. “Did Hector do your ink?” she asked.

David pursed his lips and pulled his cuff down. He did not look like he wanted to answer the question. Then he sighed, “Yes,” he said. “There was a time when Lara and Hector were part of our little family.” He turned back to the strings of pearls on the counter.

The little bell on the door jingled. Mitzy turned around. Two women in blue jeans and running shoes came in chatting loudly. David didn’t acknowledge them.

The chance for private conversation was gone. Mitzy pocketed the business card and left.

On impulse, Mitzy pulled out her cell phone. Pretending to text, she took a quick picture of David.

Then she hit the road for Hector’s tattoo parlor, Bloody Ink.

She did not have a lot of time to plan; the shop was just half a mile away. While she walked, she tried to figure out what she wanted to learn. She boiled it down to one simple question: Were Hector and Lara in love?

She entered the shop just a little bit nervous. She did not know a thing about tattoos and had never been in a tattoo parlor before. She didn’t even know if they were still called that.

A big bald guy with a beer gut was putting gauze over a thin woman’s arm. Mitzy hung back by the door. The big guy gave a list of care instructions and then rang up the purchase. As soon as the customer was gone, Mitzy stepped forward “Hi,” she said.

Hector looked at her. He looked her up and down, his eyes big and sad. “You look just like my Lara,” he said.

Mitzy bit her lip. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You know Lara?” he asked, sitting down on a stool.

“I didn’t know her. I found her body. I’m sorry.” Looking at Hector’s heart-broken eyes Mitzy could not say I’m sorry enough.

“What do you want?” Hector asked, furrowing his brow.

“I want to know who killed her. I want to know if she was killed because someone thought she was me. I want to know anything I can learn to get justice.”

Hector pushed a stool toward Mitzy. “Sit down. Talk. I don’t know anything but I can talk about Lara.”

“What was she doing in the condo that night? Was she meeting someone?
An inspector?”

“I don’t know. She was mad that week. Mad at the world. She wasn’t answering my calls.”

“So you didn’t get to talk to her before she died?”

“I tried to talk to her that morning, but she wasn’t in the mood. She didn’t tell me anything but to get lost.”

Mitzy started to say she was sorry again, but shut her mouth. Hector was a really big guy.
Much taller than Alonzo but at least as broad.
Well over 6 feet, and close to 300 pounds, if Mitzy was judging right. He could smash a head in easily. Did he look sad, or guilty? “Did you guys fight a lot?” Mitzy asked.

“No. We didn’t fight all the time,” Hector said. Hector was covered in ink.
Obviously a man with a high pain threshold.

His beard bristled around the collar of his gas station style button down shirt. His eyebrows met in the middle, over his blood shot eyes. It looked like he had been crying. The ink on his forearms was a faded blue muddle of mermaids and skulls. On his shoulder, just below the sleeve of his shirt he had what looked like a new tattoo. It was bright and red still.
A heart with an arrow that said Lara.

The walls of the small tattoo parlor were covered in sample art in plastic sleeves and pinned with tacks. Mitzy let her eyes wander the studio for a moment. Hector’s style was classic, anchors, hula girls, pigeons, the Sacred Heart, and various themes on the skull.

“I just left Neveah’s,” she said. “I was trying to learn something from her co-workers about her life. David gave me the card to for your shop. David said …he said you guys used to fight a lot.”

“We were fighting a lot this week,” Hector shrugged and wiped his eye with the back of his hand. “I didn’t think she should buy the condo. I wanted us to live in my place upstairs, but it wasn’t life or death, you know? I would have moved to her place. It’s just that we didn’t get it sorted before.” He choked on the next word and stopped talking.

“You really loved her?”

Hector just nodded.

“I told David that I had a check to give back to her next of kin. I don’t know why I lied. I just did not trust him. I want to find out what happened to her. I mean, it was at my condo and all, and I want to help. Obviously, anything I hear I will tell the police. I’m not trying to do anything on my own, but I just can’t let this rest.”

Hector nodded. “Like with that Mikhaylechenko guy, right? In the end, you got him. He’s serving time.”

Mitzy nodded. “So you heard about that?”

“I pay attention,” Hector said. “You caught that jewel thief and now you want to catch Lara’s murderer.” Hector picked up his iron and looked at it. It was a gleaming new machine and the thought of what it did to skin made Mitzy’s stomach jerk. “But this was murder. I bet the guy who did it is long gone already.” He set the iron back down. “She bought me that,” he said, letting his thumb rest on top of it for a moment.
“For our anniversary.
I did the stamp on her back, a nice Celtic knot, before we were together. I never would have done it if I knew I was going to love her.”

The big man’s grief was palpable. Mitzy sat in silence. By stamp, Hector must mean the tattoo that girls get right above their waistband. She had heard them called tramp stamps before. Mitzy’s foot tapped restlessly. Hector did not smash Lara’s head in on her patio. Not as far as she could tell.

“Go slow,” Hector said, looking up at Mitzy. “Go slow and be careful.” He stood up and walked to the door. “You really do look like her, you know? It’s not just the hair.”

Mitzy nodded.
“Yeah.
I know. I’ll be in touch. I’ll let you know if I learn anything.” She stood up and walked to the door. Hector reached out and opened it for her.

Fiona had loved Lara, but had been disappointed in her. Hector had deeply loved Lara, but they had been fighting. David was pissy about something and in the mood to shed suspicion on Hector. Had David loved Lara too and been jealous? She pictured David and his slim pants, buttoned up shirt and well styled hair. It seemed unlikely that he had loved Lara romantically. But he could have been jealous. Who did Fiona like better back at the office? Was there a sibling rivalry for the mother figure’s love and approval? Would envy be enough to make David get his fingers dirty smashing in a skull?

Early the next morning Mitzy and Carmella sat at the table in the kitchen of the inn with their coffee. The winter sky outside the windows of the chilly kitchen was still black.

The newspaper rustled in Mitzy’s hand as she turned the page. “The Tribune finally caught wind of the murder.”

“It took them long enough,” Carmella said, blowing into her coffee. “Twitter is already long over it.”

“Even at page two this article has the little Twitter storm beat for info,” Mitzy said. Much of it confirmed what she had learned the day before. What she really wanted though, was new information. “I had no idea they would be this interested in a workaday murder like ours. They’ve identified her as Lara Capet, twenty-five year old local woman, who was in the process of buying her first home. They go to great lengths to talk about how she had worked long and hard to save for it.”

“Do they say anything about her job?” Carmella asked.

“Nothing new.
She’s been at Neveah’s Wardrobe for about six years.”

“That weird little place on
Hawthorne
?
Has that been around for six years already?”

“You don’t strike me as a
Hawthorne
kind of girl,” Mitzy said with half a smile.

“I like Nick’s Coney Island Dogs.”

“I think it’s interesting that the news writer also thought she had quite a few bucks for a younger person. The reporters said the estimated time of death is
5 a.m.
Can you imagine? She lay on that patio dead for most of the day. I didn’t find her until late afternoon.”

Carmella nodded while she crunched her toast. She took a deep drink of her coffee and swallowed, “That is a long time. But the weather was
awful,
no one was out on their patios. And yours was the top, so there was no one who would look down and see her. Do they know why she was at the condo that morning?”

“No, they don’t even guess. They did interview her boss at the shop. And get this, they plug the designer, ‘Capet was wearing an Alice McNinch original design that was going to be released in the spring collection.’ I wonder why that was newsworthy.”

“Are they painting her as a dedicated employee?
Or as a thief?”

“I’d have to say dedicated employee. The rest of the article has her sounding almost like a saint. Even Fiona only had good things to say about her.
Unlike our conversation yesterday.
I wonder why they didn’t quote David. He certainly had opinions to share.” Mitzy laid the paper down. She smoothed the crease flat. “I want to save this to show Alonzo.”

Carmella shrugged. She stood up, pushed her stool under the breakfast bar, and carried her plate to the sink. “I’ve got to get to the front desk. Are you coming back for lunch?”

“Not today. I’ve got to do something for those poor cats at my parents’ house. I completely forgot to go there yesterday.”

This time Carmella snorted, “Forgot?”

“Or lost nerve.
Whichever.
I’ll go there for lunch today and set the cats up with what they need. Enjoy yourself.”

“Yeah.
It should be fun. The rest of the bride’s party is checking in tonight.”

Mitzy smiled. This was going to be a good, crowded night at the hotel.

Mitzy pushed the door to her parents’ house open with her hip. Her arms were full of apology presents for the cats. “Here kitty-kitty,” she called. She set the bag of pet store stuff on the counter. The light on the answering machine was blinking. Mitzy grabbed a pen out of the jelly jar next to the phone and pulled a sticky note off the pad before hitting play.

The first message sounded like a pocket call. She thought she could hear her mom laughing. It lasted forever. Mitzy looked at her watch. It was almost two and a half minutes of muffled laughing. Mitzy tapped her pen against the counter in staccato. The pocket call finally ended.

The next message was different. “You’re not wrong.” The voice was breathy, also muffled. That was all it said and then the robotic voice said, “End of Messages.” Mitzy hit replay. She skipped the lengthy pocket call. There was the breathy voice again, “You’re not wrong.” The speaker said it so fast she almost didn’t believe she heard it right. The pencil in her hand was shaking. That message was not for her parents. She pulled out her cell phone and called Alonzo.

“Hey babe,” he said.

“I’m at my parents’ house to feed the cats, and there is a horrible message on the machine, and you need to hear it.” The words spilled out a mile a minute. She put the phone next to the answering machine and hit play again. The robot voice announced she had two messages and what time they were recorded. It began the pocket call and she skipped it. Then the robotic voice announced a call this morning at
11:30 am
.
Then the horrible breathy voice.

When it was over, she picked the phone back up.

“Slow down Mitzy, what was all that?”

“The message, from my parents’ answering machine.
Did you hear it?
The second one?”

“The short one?”

“Yeah, did you understand? The voice said I wasn’t wrong. I mean they said, ‘You’re not wrong.’ Why would they say that? Is it about the murder? How did they know to call here?”

“Didn’t the machine say that the call came at
11:30
?”

“Yes.”

“What time is it now?” Alonzo asked. Mitzy pulled the phone away from her ear and looked.
11:42 am
.
“Mitzy, its only
11:40
.
That call came ten minutes ago. Does anyone know you are there?”

“Just Carmella.
I told her I was coming here around lunchtime to take care of the cats. No one knows I am here.”

Alonzo was quiet. “I’m all the way out in Huddington working on the community center. I can’t get there fast. Just leave the stuff where it is, get in your car, and drive here as quickly as you can. Be fast and don’t get off of the phone, do you understand?”

Mitzy was already at the front door when he started his instructions. She had the house locked and her car door open before he had finished. “Okay, I’m driving.” Her breath was fast and caught at the top of her lungs. Her hands were still shaking.

“Keep talking until you get to the first big road then put the phone down so you won’t get pulled over, but leave it on.”

“Do you think it was the killer?” Mitzy whispered.

“Who else could it have been?” he asked.

Mitzy saw the first big intersection coming. She wished she had Bluetooth set up. She hit her speakerphone button while she had a second and tossed the phone on the dashboard in front of her. “What if it was a wrong number or a crank call, or what if it was for my parents?”

“Or what if it was the person who tried to kill you earlier but got the wrong person.
What if they followed you to your parents’ house and called you right before you walked in?” Alonzo asked. “You’re on the Mafia’s radar, babe. We’re not taking any chances.”

“The job site is busy right now. Tons of guys are here finishing the interior. Come to the trailer and set up your office. Just work here today with me. As soon as you get here, we’ll call the police. You didn’t delete the message, did you?”

“Of course not,” Mitzy said. “I should be there in about ten minutes.”

“Okay. I’ve got work to do, but I’m clipping the phone to my belt and leaving you on. Feel free to scream if anything happens.”

“Will do.”
It made her smile which helped relieve the tension a little. She wasn’t sure if she was shaking from fear or hunger, so she drove through Burgerville on the way to Alonzo’s work site and got a salmon salad for herself and a
Colossal
burger for Alonzo.

Alonzo took a huge bite of his burger and nodded his head in agreement. He chewed thoughtfully and then swallowed. After a gulp of soda, he answered her question. “Yeah,” he said. “We may have just overreacted. But that was one creepy message. If you are being followed and intimidated I’d rather they follow you
here.
There are a lot of guys here.
Big guys.”

Mitzy’s eyes followed his glance out the window. Two men were carrying a piece of plate glass on some kind of metal carrying thing. Their arm muscles bulged. “I agree. I’d rather work from your trailer than from my office just now. The trouble is
,
I’m following through with my plan for some time off. I’ve got nothing to sell right now and no one looking to buy. What will I do in your trailer all day?”

“Read a book?”

Mitzy rolled her eyes. “It’s hard to find the killer from your trailer.”

“You do not need to find the killer.”

“Of course I don’t need to. But can you think of something better?” She pulled her new
Macbook
out of her Birken bag and set it on the table beside her. She picked up the plastic salad dish and tossed it in the recycling. “I guess I could try to learn something more about the people involved. Google is bound to have an hour’s worth of work for me.”

“Or a whole day’s worth. Google away if it keeps you here. I’ve gotta get back inside.” He leaned over and kissed the top of Mitzy’s head.

She nodded at him and he left. Lunch had fortified her. She didn’t want to go back to her parents’ house just yet, but getting together with a friend to do a little more digging into Lara’s life sounded right up her alley.

Mitzy made a few phone calls. Joan agreed to meet Mitzy at the office, ASAP.

“It’s a pity about the murder,” Joan took a sip of her latte. “That new brick facade was going to increase property values. But with the murder…well. Good luck getting anyone to buy in that building.”

“That’s a bit callous. I’d think the pity is the murder and nothing else really matters.”

“Well of course the murder is all that matters, and yet, they spent a lot of money…oh, never mind. That was a rotten thing to say. It does feel like the last few years have been a constant string of bad news.
The murder, the floods, the hurricanes, the fires.
The economy.
Will the real estate market ever recover?”

“It depends on what you mean. We won’t have the soaring prices we used to have for a long time, if ever. But we won’t have the interest rates we had in the 1980’s either. We’ll come around to a balance. The day of the flipper is over, I’d say.”

“
More’s
the pity. I know, I know. The murder is the real pity. Did you see my new bag?” Joan held up a slouchy black leather messenger bag with heavy stitch work and dull ruby and clear crystals decorating the flap.

“Very wintry,” Mitzy said.

“That’s what I thought.
A little gothic Christmassy thing going.
It’s a local designer.”

“Of course it is. Where did you get it?” It looked to Mitzy like it could have come right off of the racks at Neveah’s.

“I got it online. Look at the lining, isn’t it luscious?” She flipped the flap over to reveal the vintage velvet paisley inside. Mitzy took a close look at the label.

“It is an Alice McNinch, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It is, but how did you hear of her?”

“That shop Lara worked at carries Alice McNinch. They said they had an exclusive line or something like that.”

“Over at Neveah’s? I’ve been there. They might have an exclusive. I confess I got mine from a resale shop.”

“Hmm.”
Mitzy rubbed the velvet lining with her thumb. “I wonder what this
Alice
knows about the business at Neveah’s.”

“Let me guess, you and I are going to get one more coffee for the road and find out?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Okay. But I’m going across the parking lot to the coffee hut and you can hunt for her digits.” Joan swung her bag onto her shoulder and pushed the door open.

Mitzy had now seen one person in her whole life carrying an Alice McNinch bag and zero people wearing her clothes, and the bag had been purchased resale. Lara couldn’t have made enough money at a store no one shopped at to save up her whole down payment.