Masking for Trouble Read online

  I pulled the cart of information forward, only daring to make eye contact with Cooper when I reached the front of the room. He winked. I set the cart next to Francine and sat in a vacant seat in the front row. She dug through her cart for a binder and flipped through pages and pages of reports.

  “I need a slide projector and a screen. And an extension cord. You didn’t bring one, did you?” she asked me. I shook my head. “Next time be prepared. Okay, who’s going to help me?”

  The proctor stood up. “Ms. Wheeler, this is a town hall meeting. There are protocols to be followed. We are not here to discuss the geographic mapping you have been conducting in Proper.”

  “If construction is started on Havetown, the citizens are at risk. Anybody who lives in that housing will be taking their lives into their hands every single day.”

  “You cannot just charge the front of the room to make your case.”

  “This meeting shouldn’t even be taking place! Paul Haverford is dead. Any plans to develop the west end of Proper City should have died with him.”

  The proctor spent the next thirteen minutes trying to regain control of the meeting. He finally gave up. Instead of hearing arguments for and opposed to the demolition of the Alexandria, the committee decided that the meeting would be rescheduled. People emptied out into the parking lot. Francine pulled her cart to the side of the room and a crowd formed around her. I scanned the audience for Bill Perth, but he was gone.

  Although the meeting had been cut short, I’d already learned far more than I’d expected. Bill Perth claimed to be a partner in Paul Haverford’s development deal, but I’d seen no mention of him in the paperwork I had at the store. Perth also claimed that Haverford said he’d take care of the conservancy. Interesting that Annette Crowley hadn’t shown up for the meeting tonight. She said that the issue had been resolved. With murder?

  And was what Francine Wheeler claimed actually true? Would construction on the Alexandria Hotel trigger an active fault line and put residents of Proper at risk? If so, then the argument about the future of the Alexandria boiled down to two things: money vs. safety. There were a whole lot of people invested in either pushing for or stopping the development of Havetown. And there was enough at risk that the stakes were high. Worth killing for?

  I let the majority of the attendees leave the room first, hanging back until Cooper had separated himself from the committee.

  “Wow,” he said. “These things are usually pretty boring.”

  “I guess I should thank you for making sure my first town hall meeting was something special.”

  “Your first one? From the cheap seats up front, it looked like you had something to do with the chaos. You said you’d met Francine, but why did she call you a colleague?”

  I looked down at my outfit, and then back at Cooper. “You know how I was dressed like a gangster the day we met? And at the planning office I was mod and today at the store I was a hippie?”

  “This has to do with your clothes?”

  “I wear costumes. Not just for Halloween, but for every day. Not masks, but the clothes. It started when I was growing up and my dad was raising me on his own. He didn’t have a lot of time away from the store to shop for me, so my school clothes came from our inventory. I guess I got used to it. When I met Francine, I was dressed like a park ranger. She was too, only probably for real. She must have thought my clothes were official and assumed that I was a fellow seismologist.”

  “Because you were dressed like a park ranger. But seriously, a park ranger?” He looked at me like he didn’t really believe me.

  “The rest of the year it’s more like an accessory here and there, but it’s our busy season at the store so I step things up a bit.”

  “Why aren’t you in a costume tonight?”

  “I am.” I glanced at my suit again. “This is my Normal Woman costume.”

  “Do you wear that one often?”

  “I’ve never worn it before in my life.”

  Cooper laughed out loud. We were close to the exit, and a few stragglers passed us. Cooper stepped to the side to make room for them to pass. “I’m surprised Hosh didn’t come with you. He usually likes these things.”

  I hadn’t expected Cooper to bring up Tak, but now that he had, I relaxed a bit. “I did ask him, but he had other plans.”

  “Like I said, he’s always got something going. You want to get a cup of coffee?”

  There it was again, a comment about Tak’s personal life. It reminded me that I didn’t know where I stood. I looked away from Cooper into the parking lot. One by one cars pulled out of their spaces. One of them was a maroon sedan, like I’d seen parked in front of Haverford Venture Capital the day I’d gone to see Paul Haverford. I guessed that it belonged to Bill Perth.

  “Margo?” Cooper said. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you. It’s going to be late by the time I get home and I think it’s best that I head back now.”

  “Okay, well, thanks for showing up. You brightened up the room, even if it was only for a little.” He smiled.

  I had the distinct impression that Cooper was feeling me out, trying to determine if I was interested in an actual date instead of the excuse of a town hall meeting. And I knew, very much so, that until I knew where things stood with Tak, any actions on my part would be for the wrong reasons. Cooper was nice and polite and interesting and attractive, but I wasn’t a juggler. I wished I’d been honest from the beginning so this awkwardness wouldn’t have taken place

  “Thanks for dropping off the maps today,” I said. I pulled my keys out of my bag and took a step toward the scooter.

  “Bye, Margo.”

  The maroon car was still in the lot when I pulled out. I turned right, and then took an immediate left on the next street. I cut the engine and walked the scooter into a U-turn until I sat hidden by a row of shrubbery. I turned the engine off and parked the scooter, and then got off and crept forward until I had a clear view of the maroon sedan.

  Fourteen minutes later, the lights to the car flickered. Bill Perth approached it and got inside. He pulled out and turned right. I ran back to the scooter, hopped on, and took off after him.

  If home is where you park your car, then Bill Perth lived in one of the smaller houses in Christopher Robin Crossing. Named after the characters A. A. Milne had created, the development included streets like Piglet Lane and Eeyore Drive. I’d spent a little time here recently, when a client of the store had been murdered and I’d gotten involved in finding the killer. What I knew was that these houses didn’t come cheap, and the owners controlled a large portion of the wealth that flowed through Proper. If Bill Perth lived here, he probably wasn’t scrounging between sofa cushions to find spare change.

  I followed him through the entrance to his development but felt too inconspicuous to stop, so I turned the opposite direction from him. Lucky for me, he left his car parked alongside of the curb of 241 Eeyore Drive. The address was easy enough to remember. I looped around the lot and headed home with far too many things on my mind to sleep.

  * * *

  Saturday

  The next morning, I dressed in a white shirt, navy blue jacket, skirt, tights, and shoes. I knotted a turquoise neckerchief around my throat and pinned a small flight attendant cap to my head. I found a set of gold wings in my accessory box and pinned them to my lapel. The kitchen—the whole house—was suspiciously silent. I tapped on the door to my dad’s bedroom. There was no answer.

  “Dad? I’m heading out early. I’ll be back before the store opens.” I rapped my knuckles on the door again. “Dad?”

  This time the door eased open. The bed was still made.

  He hadn’t come home from his date.

  Chapter 20

  THERE WASN’T A therapist in Nevada who would take my calls at seven in the morning, and this time I required more of a response than “Meow.” I
did the next best thing. I called Bobbie.

  “If you’re calling about yoga, you’re too late. Half an hour ago I was totally calm and now these darn bears are making me crazy.”

  I’d never heard her get angry toward the bears and her reply temporarily sidetracked me. “What did the bears do?”

  “I’m trying to make them costumes and it’s not exactly working. I thought it would make for a nice window display.”

  “I could help you with that if you want,” I said. “But first, you have to meet me for breakfast.”

  * * *

  BOBBIE was already seated in the diner across the street from Money Changes Everything when I arrived. She wasn’t alone. Teddy bears in various stages of dress filled the booth with her.

  “I will not admit that I can’t do this,” she said.

  “They’re not—terrible,” I said.

  “They’re not great either.”

  “I’ll make you a deal. You play therapist for the next hour and I’ll make the costumes.”

  “I’m your friend, Margo. If there’s something you need to talk about, just tell me. You don’t need a therapist.”

  “I need confidentiality. I need to know that what I tell you won’t go any farther than this booth.”

  “Honestly, Margo, you didn’t require this level of confidentiality in sixth grade. What gives?”

  What she lacked in patience was countered by the army of teddy bears that surrounded us. Willow Summers may have had a bunny, a bird, and a cat, but it was hard to top a diner booth filled with teddy bears. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I just jumped in.

  “My dad is dating. For the first time in my life he’s dating, and Tak might be cheating on me, and Bill Perth had a silent partnership with Paul Haverford, and Francine Wheeler thinks I’m a seismologist. Halloween is in two days and Ebony still hasn’t found a place for the party. And Soot keeps bringing dead mice into the store and I think Detective Nichols wants to arrest me.”

  “Is that all?”

  “The ghost of Pete Proper may have followed me out of the Alexandria Hotel the other night, but that’s the least of my worries.”

  She stared at me for a couple of seconds. “You are one mixed-up chick.”

  “I resent that!”

  “In about twenty seconds you covered everything from your dad’s love life to a paranormal entity, and I can’t get past the fact that you lied to me.”

  “About what?”

  “About you and Tak. He can’t cheat on you unless there’s a collective ‘you.’ Is there a collective you?”

  “There’s a collective you. We. Us. Whatever. Yes. I lied to you, but you can’t get upset about that right now. You promised!”

  She picked her phone up from the table and tapped the screen a few times. “I agreed to that, what, like three minutes ago?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Fine. When the alarm goes off, I’m back to being your friend and we will discuss this. But there’s no way we can cover all of your issues in the next fifty-seven minutes, so as your temporary therapist, I’m making the executive decision to table all discussion of Tak until I’m off the clock.”

  “I should have made an appointment with a professional.”

  She crossed her arms and sat back against the booth.

  “Okay, fine. Ever since the murder at the Alexandria Hotel, I feel like Detective Nichols is after me. So far I’ve found”—I looked up at the ceiling and counted names—“six suspects.”

  “You’re opening with the murder? I thought for sure you’d open with your dad dating.”

  “I’m going to save that issue for Soot.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Talk me through the murders.”

  “The day I went to confront Haverford, he was arguing with another man. I found out last night that the man is Bill Perth. He claims to be a silent partner in Havetown, says that he and Haverford had a verbal agreement about the property. He’s pushing for the demo of the hotel and the construction timetables to move forward even though Paul Haverford was murdered. That’s a pretty hefty motive, right? If the development goes through, now it’s all in his name.”

  “First he has to prove this verbal agreement. That’s not going to be easy.”

  “I know. Okay, next there’s Francine Wheeler. She works for the county in the geology department. She’s a real dynamo. I found her testing the ground around the hotel Wednesday morning. She says that end of Proper is on top of a series of active fault lines, and if the hotel is leveled and construction starts, we’ll set off a chain reaction that could cause people to die.”

  “She said that? People would die?”

  “Maybe not right away, but she claims to have maps and charts and tests to back it all up. She is a very determined woman. She might have killed Haverford in order to stop Havetown from going forward. You know, sacrifice the one instead of putting the many at risk?”

  “That’s not really her decision to make.”

  “Exactly. But if she did . . . I mean, she could have. She was at the Alexandria Hotel two days after the murder. She said she was running tests, but maybe she was making sure she didn’t leave any evidence behind.”

  “Who else?”

  I chewed my lip for a moment. “Your friend Annette Crowley.”

  “From the conservancy?” She leaned forward. “Did you find something out about her?”

  As pure of intention as Bobbie appeared to be, she enjoyed gossip as much as the next person. “I found an article from eight years ago. Before you volunteered for them. The historical society was trying to save the Peppermint House in Moxie. According to the article that I found, they had all but lost their chances because they couldn’t afford to fight the rich title holders.”

  “That happens all the time, Mitty. There’s no money to be made from a building that gets historical status, but depending on where the building is, there’s lots of money to be made by developers.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. The head of the company she was fighting took ill. He backed off, the historical society won, and Annette took a six month leave from the board.”

  “She fought a long battle and won. Maybe she just needed a break.”

  “Bobbie, the man who owned the Peppermint House was Paul Haverford.”

  “No way.”

  “Way. And remember what she said to us? ‘The Alexandria Hotel is no longer an issue for the conservancy.’ Why not? And the other thing she said: no more Haverford, no more problem. It’s like she knew that the issue would die with him.”

  “Mitty, I know you’re looking for suspects, but be reasonable. The next thing you know, you’re going to say you suspect everybody who was at the pre-party.”

  “Not everybody.” A waitress came over to our table and dropped off a plate of waffles in front of me and a plate filled with scrambled eggs, sausage links, toast, and hash browns in front of Bobbie.

  “What? I know what you like so I ordered when I got here.” She cut her sausage into small rings, speared one, and popped it into her mouth.

  I was going to need more than yoga to offset the caloric intake of a daily breakfast of waffles and smoothies. I used the back of my fork to spread the whipped butter across the surface of my waffles. As it melted, it pooled into the small squares, releasing the cozy fragrance of sweetness. We both stopped talking long enough to make a dent in the food in front of us. Two bites into the second half of my waffle, I set my fork down.

  “Sol Girard has a motive,” I said quietly.

  Bobbie finished chewing her toast and washed her mouthful down with orange juice. I took her silence as an opportunity to keep talking. “He put all of his money into property out on the west end of Proper. He was planning on building low income apartments. It would have been in direct competition with Havetown. According to the planning
office, if Havetown happens, Sol’s property will lose all value.”

  “He would lose everything?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Huh. Sounds like you have some solid suspects. Why do you think Detective Nichols is after you?”

  I told Bobbie about the argument I’d had with Paul Haverford when he came to Disguise DeLimit, how I’d torn up the contract and left it scattered across his desk, and how I’d obliterated the elevator security camera with Silly String from my spider costume.

  At that moment, Bobbie’s phone broke out in an instrumental version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Money Changes Everything.” Several patrons of the diner turned to find out where the noise was coming from. She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.

  “Time’s up.”

  “But we didn’t make any progress. I’m no closer to knowing who committed murder.”

  “I think this is all too dangerous,” she said. “You need to take what you know to Detective Nichols and let her handle it. She’s the police. She’s equipped to handle murderers. You’re not.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said I would listen and not judge. I said nothing about helping you find a murderer. Now, spill. It’s time to pay the piper.”

  Chapter 21

  IT FELT GOOD to tell Bobbie about my secret relationship with Tak, even if the relationship was less than I’d initially thought. Just the act of confessing that it had existed, that we’d set up clandestine meeting spots over the past few months, brought a glow back to the whole thing. And since Bobbie and I had been friends through elementary school, junior high, and high school, it felt like we were right back in the Proper City High library, whispering to each other about our prospective prom dates.

  The subject got stickier when I brought up Cooper. “Twice now he’s said something about Tak playing the field. And last night, I felt guilty about going to the town hall meeting with Cooper, so I texted Tak and he said he already had plans. Does that mean he’s seeing other people?”