Masking for Trouble Read online

  Silently, he held out my helmet. I took it and left.

  * * *

  IT was well after nine when I got back to Disguise DeLimit. The night had been a bust. Sol hadn’t agreed to my plan, and Tak and I had split up before we were even together. On a scale of one to ten, today had been a two. I remembered spraying myself green and dressing up in an alien costume. Okay, maybe it had been a four.

  I let myself in through the back door. Soot sat inside like he was trying to catch me breaking curfew. I carried him upstairs. My dad and Don sat in the dining room with a series of maps laid out in front of them.

  “What are you two up to?” I asked.

  “Planning a road trip,” said Don.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Blues country.”

  “Chicago?”

  “Memphis,” said my dad.

  “Mississippi,” said Don.

  Suddenly the assortment of maps made sense.

  I scratched Soot’s ears until a low rumble emanated from him. “Dad, I think we might want to call someone about the mouse problem in the stockroom. Soot has been working overtime.”

  “We don’t want to put him out of a job, do we, fella?” He held Soot’s paw and jiggled it up and down.

  Soot wriggled around and jumped out of my arms onto the map. He swatted at a pen that sat on the table, and then flopped onto his side and stretched.

  “You have a good night?” my dad asked.

  “I’ve had better.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Nope. Good night.”

  * * *

  Sunday

  The next morning, I dressed in a pair of ripped jeans over black tights, a white T-shirt, and a black leather motorcycle jacket that said DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION on the back. I’d created the stencil myself and painted it on with Wite-Out. The letters had dried and cracked and a few had mostly peeled off. I clipped my wallet to a silver chain and hooked it onto my belt. The chain dangled down alongside my right thigh. I snapped on fingerless black leather gloves with silver studs and used a heavy hand on my eyeliner.

  I found my dad in almost the same spot where I’d left him. Instead of a map, he was studying the classified section of the newspaper. I filled the blender with blueberries, almond milk, kale, and protein powder, hit blend, and then poured it all into a large plastic Big Gulp cup.

  “Looking for a job?” I joked, peeking over his shoulder.

  “An apartment.” He closed the newspaper and folded it in half. “The last time we lived under this roof, you were just a girl. Now you’re grown-up. When you came back here after my heart attack, I know you wanted to be close at hand to take care of me, and I appreciate that, but maybe it’s time to find another place.”

  “You mean not live here anymore?” I asked.

  “It was just a thought.” He stood up. “You’ve been pretty interested in that old Alexandria Hotel, right? There’s an article in here about it.” He left the newspaper on the table and refilled his coffee, and then went downstairs to the shop.

  As if I needed this! On top of everything else, my dad was evicting me. I unfolded the newspaper and scanned the apartment listings, and then folded it closed again. I flipped through the rest of the newspaper until I found the article he’d mentioned. It was small bulletin in the Lifestyle section, about the hotel’s pending status as a historic monument. The conservancy was hosting a signature drive in order to gain more names on their petition. The event was being held all day in the parking lot outside of the hotel. It started in twenty minutes.

  I went downstairs and found my dad rooting through boxes in the stockroom.

  “I’m going to take the money from the safe and make a deposit. Okay?”

  “Sure,” he said. “You think anybody will want to dress up like a cigarette girl?” he asked, holding out a tray.

  “Give it a shot. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

  * * *

  DESPITE what I’d told my dad, I drove to the Alexandria Hotel first. I couldn’t justify the information I’d uncovered at the library with the person I’d met at Catch-22 with Bobbie. Annette was passionate about saving the Alexandria Hotel. I could respect that. But was there more here than a passion to save historic buildings? What had happened eight years ago when she and Paul Haverford went head to head over the historical status of the Peppermint House?

  I parked my scooter in the lot. Annette wrestled with a folding table. Her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and her bangs looked even shorter than I remembered them. Today she wore red cat-eye sunglasses and a triple strand of pearls over a floral cardigan and gray wool skirt. I joined her and grabbed one end of the table while she locked the legs into position.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’re Bobbie’s friend, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Margo. We met at Catch-22.”

  “That’s right. Have you signed our petition yet?” She picked up a clipboard and thrust it at me. Annette was not one to waste time on pleasantries.

  I took the clipboard and scanned over the form. The first available space was about halfway down the page.

  “The hotel sure has been in the news a lot these days,” I said. “I imagine it’s difficult to get people to separate the idea of saving the hotel from what happened here the other night. Is that good or bad for your mission?”

  “The recent publicity was the best thing that could have happened to the Alexandria Hotel. Now people are aware of it. They understand what’s at stake. Paul Haverford turned out to be my biggest ally.”

  “But I thought he was your opponent? He wanted to bulldoze the hotel and use the land to develop Havetown.”

  She straightened up and adjusted her glasses. “You misunderstood me. What I meant was, the best thing to happen to my cause was Paul Haverford’s murder.”

  Chapter 25

  ANNETTE’S RUDENESS SHOCKED me no less today. I dropped the clipboard, and the pen came detached and landed by her feet. She bent down and picked up both, and then held them back out toward me. Annette was a woman with singular focus, and until my signature went on that page, she was on the clock.

  “Did you sign yet?” she asked.

  I believed in the preservation of our small town’s history. If there hadn’t been a murder attached to the historic hotel, I would have signed without question. So I did. I tucked the pen onto the clipboard and handed it back to Annette. She glanced at my signature, cocked her head, and then, as if satisfied, set it down on the table. She removed a pin from her cardigan and held it out to me. “Your token of appreciation.”

  “Oh, no thank you,” I said. “I can’t take your pin.”

  “I have two thousand of them in my car. I haven’t had a chance to finish setting up yet.”

  I took the pin. It was a small gold image of a building with red enamel decorating the façade. In a circle around the image were the words Preserve and Conserve. Our buildings are our future.

  I stuck the pin onto the collar of my white T-shirt. “Is the petition still necessary?”

  “I’m not taking any chances. It would be just like Haverford to find a way to shut me down from beyond the grave. That man has caused me nothing but trouble since the day I met him.”

  “This wasn’t the first time you and Paul Haverford had fought over property, was it?” I asked.

  “We fought all the time. It’s hard to believe that there once was a time when we saw eye to eye. These days it’s like countries at war trying to stake claim to our territories. Only I’m trying to protect the land around here. He wanted to exploit it for his own financial benefit.”

  “Have you spoken to Detective Nichols about his murder?”

  She looked surprised by the question. “I gave her a statement on behalf of the conservancy. ‘Despite the fact that Paul Haverford was pushing for zo
ning changes to Proper City that were diametrically opposed to the mission statement of the Clark County Conservancy, we deeply regret his passing.’” She straightened the edges of a few of the papers in front of her. “That sounds as good now as it did the day I said it to Detective Nichols.”

  “You don’t sound upset that he’s dead.”

  “That’s the way it is in the preservationist’s world. There’s a handful of rich developers who make a nuisance of themselves. Pretty soon, they all start to run together into one big enemy. One less enemy, one more saved building.”

  “Is that how you felt when he took ill during the fight for the Peppermint House out in Moxie?”

  Annette reached both hands up and adjusted her cat-eye glasses. “Just what are you getting at?”

  “He was going to win that round. The house was all set for demolition. And then he got sick. Funny timing. The demolition was first postponed and then canceled. And you took a six month hiatus from your position as president of the historical society.”

  She pushed her cat-eye glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger and looked out at the parking lot. A couple of cars headed our direction. She focused her attention on the items on the table, straightening the edges and lining up the pens.

  “People are starting to arrive. I have to finish setting up.” She left me by the table and went to her truck.

  Behind me, the sound of tires on gravel announced the arrival of either helpers or petition signers. I turned and looked. A stream of cars was driving toward the parking lot. Annette returned to the table with a blue plastic tub. She pulled a stack of blank forms and a bag of pins from inside and then set the tub under the table. She separated the forms into smaller clumps, and clipped each to a different clipboard. By the time the newcomers arrived at her table, she’d become a one-woman force of nature for change. I doubted that she even saw me leave.

  Halloween season being what it was, the bank had extended their hours of operation to include Sundays during the month of October. I kept to narrow streets off Main Line Road instead of fighting traffic. That was one of the benefits of driving the scooter. I might not be able to go faster than thirty-five miles an hour, but during rush hour, I could get from point A to point B faster than any car on the road. I parked, locked my helmet to the seat, and went inside.

  Marilyn Robinson was the only teller at the window. She smiled brightly, I assumed, because of her recent change in relationship with my dad. I braced myself and approached.

  “Another big deposit?” she asked. “This is probably it, though, right? Tomorrow is go time.”

  I pulled the stack of checks, cash, and credit card slips from the inside pocket of my motorcycle jacket. “This should be the last deposit until after it’s all over. Between last minute customers and deliveries, I won’t have a lot of time for errands.”

  She fed the bills and checks into her machine like before. They fluttered like angry butterflies trapped in a net. A number flashed onto her small screen, and she punched the number into a machine in front of her. Her fingernails were long, dark, and expertly manicured. She used the tips of them instead of the skin of her fingertips, letting off a series of clicks and clacks as the two made contact with each other. After a few minutes, she hit the big key and a long slip of paper ejected out of the top.

  “I see Annette got to you too,” she said. At my confused look, she pointed to her lapel. A small gold pin just like the one I’d gotten this morning punctured the fabric.

  “It seemed like a good cause,” I said. “I’d rather we preserve our history than bulldoze what we have and build a new landscape.”

  “Between you and me, Paul Haverford’s plans for Proper were far from being green-lighted. He had too many loans and made too many investments. His business partner filed a lawsuit against him for half ownership of the LLC, and don’t even get me started on his problems with the zoning board. I was as surprised as anybody when he went public with his plans.”

  “Why would he?” I asked. At her confused look, I clarified. “He made a lot of enemies when he announced what he was planning on doing. Why say anything before it was official?”

  “Nobody knows for sure, but my theory is that he was trying to force someone’s hand. The additional press would attract other investors, and once they were on board, he would have had a lot more ammunition to take to the zoning board. Think of the additional tax revenue that would come into our city. Think of the tourists. You and me, we might like the small town feel of Proper, but the city council could have a lot more power with that kind of money at their disposal.”

  “But then why would he have trouble with the zoning board in the first place? If that’s the case, wouldn’t they ignore everything else and approve his application?”

  Marilyn handled the money and credit card slips as if she was a robot on autopilot. Drawers opened and closed, bills were paper-clipped together, and blank slips were fed into her machine to print out the totals. All the while she kept up a steady stream of conversation.

  “The only thing the city council cares about more than money is reelection. Havetown represented a sticky wicket for them. Bring in more tax dollars and change the face of Proper City, or maintain the status quo until after the elections. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

  She picked up the checks and tapped them to line up the bottom edges, clamped them together with a metallic pink binder clip, and set them in a small cash drawer below the counter. When she was finished, she click-clacked a few more keys on her machine and then fed a deposit slip into it. After it had circled through the printing feature, she handed the slip to me.

  “I guess your dad will be at the big party tomorrow?”

  “We haven’t talked much about it. Did he say something to you?”

  “To me? Why would he say something to me?” she asked.

  I shrugged. Apparently she wanted to talk about dating my dad as much as I did.

  “Tell your dad I said hi, would you?”

  “Why don’t you tell him yourself the next time you see him?”

  “Who knows when that’ll be?”

  Before I could think of another question to ask, my phone buzzed with a message. Almost immediately, it rang. I looked at the display. “This is him now. Are we done?”

  She nodded. I excused myself and turned away from Marilyn.

  “Hi, Dad,” I answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the bank.”

  “Forget the bank. You need to come back to the store. Right now.”

  “Okay. Is everything okay?”

  “Margo, I don’t know what you got yourself involved in, but Detective Nichols is here and she wants to talk to you.”

  * * *

  DETECTIVE Nichols was dressed in her standard outfit: black pantsuit, white collared shirt. Today she’d added small gold hoop earrings. Her hair was parted on the side and tucked behind her ear. Unlike at the opening night at the Alexandria Hotel when she’d slicked it back and passed for a man, today it hung in waves on either side of her face. Any softness that her hair conveyed was quickly countered by the appearance of her gun on her belt.

  “Ms. Tamblyn, I’ve recently been made aware that you’ve been spending time at the Alexandria Hotel.”

  “That’s where Halloween was going to take place.”

  “Yes, but you knew your store was being barred from participation.” She held up a piece of paper encased in a clear plastic sleeve. Immediately I recognized the logo of Haverford Venture Capital on the front. It was a copy of the document Paul Haverford delivered to the store the day he was murdered. The same document I’d torn up and thrown on his desk.

  “You only recently took over the day-to-day running of Disguise DeLimit, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “After your father ran it successfully for forty
years.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Six months after you took over, you’re facing a lawsuit that’s going to threaten the future of the store. Aren’t you?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Help me understand. Why did you go to the Alexandria Hotel on Monday night? That was a private party for the businesses that Paul Haverford owned.”

  “That party has always been the pre-party for the businesses involved in Halloween. Paul Haverford never said I couldn’t attend.”

  “Why have you continued to return to the Alexandria over the course of the next several days?”

  “I’ve taken an interest in the hotel’s history.”

  She studied me for an uncomfortable moment, and then turned to one of the officers with her and held out a hand. He reached into a bag and pulled out another plastic bag. This one contained several long sticks that looked like candles. Painted on the side in stenciled white lettering were the words: Caution: Explosive.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s dynamite. We found it buried next to the foundation of the Alexandria. If someone had lit it, there’s a strong possibility that it would have damaged the building.”

  “Detective, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to get dynamite and set it off.”

  Just then a loud BOOM! came from the stockroom.

  Chapter 26

  WE ALL JUMPED at the sound. The stockroom door opened and a cloud of smoke poured out. Emerging from the smoke was Kirby. He looked as surprised as I felt. Nichols and the two uniformed officers went into the stockroom.

  “Oh, hey, I didn’t know anybody was out here. Did I scare you?” he asked.

  “Kirby, what were you doing in there?” I asked.

  “Experimenting. Remember how we talked about having something extra to go with our costumes? Upgrades?”