Crushed Velvet Page 11

  “She told you this?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He stared at me for a couple of beats. “Ms. Monroe, remember what I said. Stay out of this investigation. If Ms. Matheson returns, have her call me. I’d like to talk to her, too.” Clark pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to me. It had numbers for the mobile sheriff’s office and Clark’s direct cell.

  I took the card. “I’ll give her the message.”

  I followed Clark around the back of the shop to the other side, and then to the front. He stood back and looked up at the façade. “Place looks different with that brown paper in the windows. Dark. Sad. Be a shame for San Ladrón to lose its tea shop.”

  “San Ladrón’s not losing anything. Once you catch Phil Girard’s murderer, everything will go back to normal.”

  Clark left out the front gate, and I locked it shut behind him. He wanted something to investigate? Let’s see what he found out when he started digging into Kim’s past.

  • • •

  I worked well into the afternoon. By the time I called it quits, my neck was sore, my shoulders were in a knot, and my stomach was empty. Kim hadn’t returned. I wondered if I’d ever see her again. I swept the unfinished hardwood floor and thought about what Clark had said.

  Five witnesses placed Genevieve in Los Angeles on Sunday night. If that was true, why hadn’t she said anything? And what had she been doing in Los Angeles in the first place? If she’d asked Phil to go to pick up dry goods, then clearly she hadn’t been planning to make the trip herself. So what was she doing there?

  She didn’t trust him.

  I’d assumed Genevieve didn’t know about Phil’s affair, but if she suspected something, she might have tailed him to get confirmation. And if that was the case, things wouldn’t look good for her. A lawyer could easily build an argument that the scorned wife murdered the cheating husband in a jealous rage. Genevieve might be able to claim temporary insanity, but for a woman who was innocent, insanity was a far cry from a desirable outcome.

  After I finished sweeping, I locked up the shop. I double-checked the front door, the back door, and all of the windows, remembering how the knob had turned easily in my hand that morning. I still didn’t know who had unlocked the door, but the contents of the refrigerator and the small bag of leftover croissants were missing. I looked up in the direction of Sheriff Clark. Had he been into the store before any of us were there, bagging and tagging Genevieve’s supplies, looking for evidence against her?

  I left the red wagon locked up inside Tea Totalers and drove back to the fabric store. There were three hours before Vaughn was due to pick me up for the movie, and since I didn’t know if Vaughn’s invitation included dinner, I thought it best to take Scarlett O’Hara’s lead and eat a little something before the date. I also thought it best to eat before getting dressed so I avoided any unfortunate spills.

  I made a quick salad from romaine and radishes, blended olive oil, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and oregano in a small cruet, and poured it on. I topped it with a handful of sunflower seeds and freshly grated mozzarella.

  It took longer to make the salad than it did to eat it. When I was finished, I stacked the dirty dishes in the sink. Then, feeling guilty, I rinsed them and moved them to the dishwasher. Still not enough for a full load, but the kitchen looked better. Now to transition from my current mental state into something more calm before I could begin to relax in his company. Calm meant sewing.

  I went downstairs to the sewing workstation and worked on the placemats. First I cut eighteen-by-twelve-inch rectangles from the fabric. I sandwiched batting between mismatched but coordinating pieces, pinned them together along all four sides, and free motion quilted the layers together by moving them in a random pattern while running the needle. I finished the edges with yellow seam binding. I had a stack of twenty by the time I was finished. I turned off all of the equipment and draped a long length of faded pink taffeta over the sewing machine.

  I headed upstairs to the apartment and found the kitties in the kitchen. Needles was swatting a crumpled piece of paper back and forth. Pins was hunched down, his head swinging from side to side, following the path of the paper. Even though he was still young, his face was contorted into one of concentration. Needles knocked the paper out of range with his small orange paw and Pins pounced. I turned around and found the trash can tipped over, leaving behind a banana peel, an empty orange juice container, coffee grounds, and the takeout bag from The Earl of Sandwich. I righted the bin and collected the trash, leaving the small wad of paper on the floor for the kitties to play with.

  As I watched them swat the ball back and forth, my mind wandered to tonight.

  For the last three years I’d been in a relationship with Carson Cole, a financial analyst in Los Angeles. We’d gone from having drinks with friends, to hanging out, to living together. Soon after that, conversation turned to getting married. I guess that’s what life was like for a financial analyst. You project into the future and do what you need to do to stay on track with your expectations.

  Carson was a nice enough guy, and if I were judging in terms of previous generations, I’d go so far as to call him a good provider. He had a steady job and a steadier lifestyle. We fell into a routine dictated by the days of the week: Tacos on Tuesday, Wash on Wednesday. If Carson had anything to do with the Villamere Theater, he’d show movies from the thirties on the third Thursday of the month. I was glad he didn’t, because just thinking all of those TH sounds made me feel like Elmer Fudd.

  The truth was, I stayed with Carson longer than I should have because our relationship, like the rest of my life, was comfortable. Other friends who had wrestled with the same “what do we want out of life?” questions had either pursued promotions or marriage. I’d climbed to the top of the ladder at To The Nines looking for some kind of job satisfaction that I never found.

  I chalked my general dissatisfaction up to the fact that Carson and I were dealing with the realities of our lives now that we were officially among the working class. But while Carson embraced his professional life and emulated the senior advisors at his company, I was the opposite. I was restless, as if caught in a temporary world. There had to be more out there for me than designing cheap pageant dresses for a slightly shady shop in the heart of Santee Court in downtown Los Angeles. It was after I learned Great-Uncle Marius had left me the fabric store in San Ladrón that I saw things in a new light. I didn’t need the fast pace and urgent buzz of Los Angeles to feel alive. I needed something that felt uniquely me, something I could own.

  Once I decided I was going to move to San Ladrón, everything else in my life fell into place. I broke up with Carson, gave notice to Giovanni, and spent my first unemployed week moving my meager belongings into storage. It wasn’t until I packed up everything of mine from that shared apartment that I realized how little of “our” life was “me.” I said good-bye to Los Angeles, loaded what was truly important into my Bug, and drove to San Ladrón.

  Thinking of Giovanni reminded me that I hadn’t heard from him today. I didn’t know if it was good news or bad news. What I did know was that the surefire way to get on his bad side was to nag him about something he said he’d do. We’d struck a deal, and I knew I’d sweetened my end enough that he’d want to uphold his.

  I moved from the kitchen to the bedroom, stripped down and tossed my dirty clothes in the hamper, took a quick shower, and wrapped myself in a black dressing gown. When the steam cleared from the mirror in the bathroom, I studied my reflection. My fair complexion held a tinge of pink from the hot shower. I smoothed tinted moisturizer over my face and squeezed a blob of styling crème onto my palm. After rubbing my hands together, I raked the product through my hair and combed it away from my face with a wide-tooth comb. I pushed the back forward, found a deep part on the left, and tucked the left side behind my ear, shaping the ends into a curl below my ear. I swept th
e long front to the right side with my fingers and left it to air-dry in place.

  I used a sharpened pencil to define my thin brows, and I dabbed a dark cherry lip stain onto my lips. I finished with an eyelash curler and a coat of mascara. Needles wandered into the bathroom and meowed at me. I closed the lid to the toilet and he jumped up and nosed the belt to my dressing gown.

  “I’m going on a date with Vaughn McMichael,” I said in response to his meow. “You remember him, don’t you? He’s the one who found you in the Dumpster.”

  Needles meowed again. Three months ago I stopped worrying about becoming one of those people who talks to her pets. Now I worried about the kind of people who didn’t.

  I moved to the closet and rolled the doors to the side, exposing feathers, velvet, beads, and silk. Most of the clothes in the closet had belonged to my aunt. It was she who first taught me the importance of learning to make patterns by deconstructing vintage clothes. She’d been a collector herself in the fifties. She taught me that there was always a decade that went out of fashion, and that’s when you could get the best prices. She also taught me that fashion draws inspiration from the past, so what was out today would be in tomorrow.

  Among the truly important things I’d packed into my car and moved with me from Los Angeles to San Ladrón was my own collection of vintage clothes from the thirties. I scoured eBay, estate sales, and movie studio wardrobe liquidations for items in my price range. Once I accepted my working wardrobe of black, black, and black, I spent less on regular clothes and more on my collection. I told Carson they were inspiration for my job, but there was a reason I only bought ones in my size. I’d never had an opportunity to wear any of them, but tonight felt like the perfect opportunity.

  I selected a sheer black blouse with tiny white polka dots. It tied in a full bow at the neck, and had a series of pleats across the back. I tucked it into a black satin pencil skirt that fell three inches below my knees, a length that only worked with heels. Carson had complained when I wore heels because they made me taller than him. Vaughn was over six feet tall, so that wouldn’t be a problem. I added the diamond stud earrings my parents gave me when I graduated from design school and a simple tennis bracelet I’d found in Aunt Millie’s jewelry box.

  I slid the closet doors shut and the door caught on something black velvet. A cape. It was about twenty-four inches long and lined in a brilliant turquoise silk. A rhinestone clasp by the neckline kept it closed so it wouldn’t fall from the hanger. I undid the clasp and slipped the cape around my shoulders. The A-line cut swirled around me. I slipped on my black pumps—a comfortable style despite their pointy toe and three-inch heel—and looked in the mirror. I was only starting to get to know the glamorous stranger who looked back, and that’s how I liked it.

  Downstairs, there was a knock on the back door. Needles jumped down from the toilet seat and ran into the hallway. I followed. It was six thirty, too early for Vaughn to arrive. I moved to the kitchen and looked out the window above the parking lot. There were no cars other than mine. I took off the cape and left it on the kitchen table, then scampered downstairs as the knocking grew louder. I unlocked the door and pulled it open. Genevieve stood on the other side.

  Thirteen

  Her newly cut and colored honey-blond hair was plastered to her face and her clothes were damp. I looked at the lot behind her and up at the sky to see if I’d missed a sudden shower. There was no evidence of rain.

  “I know you’re probably wondering why I wasn’t at Charlie’s this morning. I appreciate everything you did for me, but I can’t stay there. Not now. Not after what I saw,” she said.

  “Come in. You’re wet. Why are you wet?”

  She ushered past me. “I was trying to sneak down the alley next to the Waverly House and I got caught in their sprinklers.” She used her index finger and thumbs to pinch the fabric of her shirt and pull it away from her body. A bubble of air filled the space between the material and her skin. When she let go, it looked like her shirt had been inflated. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Poly.”

  “Never mind that. Let’s get you upstairs and into some dry clothes.”

  “I don’t think I’ll fit in your clothes.”

  “Trust me. I have clothes you’ll fit in.”

  She followed me to the stairs. The kitties had followed me down. I scooped up Pins and she scooped up Needles. When she held him close to her, he wriggled around to get away from her wet shirt. She held him out in front of her, his body curling forward like a C.

  We went to the bedroom. I found a clean rose-pink towel and handed it to her, along with a white terry-cloth robe that had puffy moons and stars appliquéd onto it. “Take the wet clothes off. I’ll wait out here.”

  She went into the bathroom and shut the door, but kept talking. “If Charlie asks if you saw me, you can’t tell her anything.”

  “What happened with Charlie?” I asked. Last I’d heard, Charlie was as concerned with Genevieve’s disappearance as I was.

  “After she finished with my hair, she said we should go out. When I said no, she said she was going anyway, and she’d be at The Broadside Tavern if I changed my mind.”

  “The Broadside’s a rough bar, Gen. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to make it your new hangout.”

  “The owner is one of my regulars. I thought I’d say hello.”

  “Charlie didn’t tell me you two went out last night,” I said.

  “She never saw me. I went inside and saw her talking to that cop. I left before they saw me.”

  “Charlie was talking to Sheriff Clark last night?”

  Genevieve cracked the door. “Yes. I thought I could trust her, but not after that.”

  I set up a collapsible drying rack from the closet and draped Genevieve’s wet clothes over it. Charlie hadn’t mentioned anything about talking to Clark, and that made me suspicious. I believed Charlie was a good person, but she had her own agenda, and in this case, there was a very good chance her agenda was at odds with Genevieve’s.

  “Let’s get you something to wear,” I said.

  “This is fine.” She fingered the ends of the terry-cloth robe.

  I turned to face her. “What time is it?”

  “Almost quarter to seven.”

  “Vaughn McMichael is due here in fifteen minutes. I hardly think it’s in anybody’s best interest for you to be sitting around in a bathrobe when he arrives.”

  “Why is he coming here?”

  “We’re going out.” At her confused look, I continued. “On a date.”

  “You and Vaughn? Poly, that’s great.”

  “It might be great, but we don’t have time to sit around talking about it. You’re about a size eight or ten, right?”

  “Twelve. I’m curvy.”

  “Curvy is good.” I reached into the back of the closet, where I’d discovered a pocket of clothes Aunt Millie had made in the fifties when she went through her Brigitte Bardot phase. “Try this,” I said, and handed her a black wool jersey tunic and cropped pants.

  “I can’t wear that,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “It would get stretched.”

  “It’s jersey. It’s meant to be stretched. And here it is, hanging in a closet. Take it.” I pushed the hanger at her. “And then you have to get out of here.”

  She slipped the pants over her legs and closed the side zip, and then turned around and pulled the tunic over her head. I handed her a length of fabric to belt it. “It fits,” she said, surprised.

  “Of course it fits. It looks great on you, too. One of these days, when this is all over, you can come over and we can play dress-up.”

  Genevieve’s eyes dropped to the floor. She tugged at the hem of the tunic, and then dropped her hands to her sides. Both fists balled up and released twice before she spoke. She seemed to be fighting with something
inside her, an impulse to confide in me or an impulse to run away.

  “Gen, the sheriff wants to talk to you. It’s routine. There are things he already knows about that you need to explain. I know you’re scared, but he knows you didn’t poison Phil. Avoiding him is only making matters worse.”

  “Poly, I was there, in Los Angeles. When Phil said he was going to head out Sunday night so he could get a head start, I was so mad. But then I started thinking about what it was he wanted from me, and I got a crazy idea. I thought if I could do something spontaneous like surprise him at the motel, we wouldn’t fight. He’d realize we could have what we used to have. You know, put the spark back into the relationship or something.”

  I waited for her to go on.

  “I found the name of the motel on our online bank statement. I rented a car and drove to Los Angeles. I even bought champagne with a credit card and stopped in the lobby of the motel and told the man at the front desk who I was and that I wanted to surprise my husband. How stupid could I be?”

  “What did you do?” I asked quietly.

  “I tapped on the door to his room. He said it was open. When I went inside, it was obvious he wasn’t expecting me.”

  “Obvious?”

  “He was already naked and he had one of those premade Christmas bows . . . down there.”

  As much as I wanted to know what happened, I wished she hadn’t put that visual in my head. Phil had a more than generous amount of body hair. And what kind of woman goes for a premade Christmas bow?

  “What happened?”

  “He accused me of spying on him. I freaked out. I said I might as well have been spying on him because he was obviously cheating. I threw the champagne at the wall and the bottle broke. It was loud. The people in the next room came out to see what was going on. I ran out of the room and left.”

  “You came home?”

  “No. I was shaking so badly I couldn’t drive. I booked a room at a Best Western and left early Monday morning—really early, before rush hour. I was on the road by six.”