Silk Stalkings Read online

  “Yo, Frenchy, wait up,” Charlie called. She ran past Sheriff Clark without an acknowledgment and went outside.

  I looked at Clark and shrugged. He shook his head and walked out front. I found Genevieve’s keys and grabbed my beaded handbag from behind the counter. Sheriff Clark waited while I locked up the doors, and I said good-bye before trailing after Charlie and Genevieve.

  Sheriff Clark and Charlie had had a secret romance that fizzled over a miscommunication. It was probably just as well that they steered clear of each other. When I pictured them being a couple, I was reminded of what happened to the gingham dog and the calico cat.

  Genevieve, Charlie, and I were among the last of the people to reach the Waverly House. Volunteers from the historical society stood in front of a ten-foot-tall version of the Arc de Triomphe, fabricated for the evening by the employees of Get Hammered, the local hardware store, out of chicken wire. Green ivy and colorful flowers had been threaded through the wire. Couples walked under the arch to the luscious lawns behind the Waverly House, pointing at the gazebo, the white iron benches, and the brick pavers that had been carved with the names of each person who had made a donation when the building was in need of repair. They were trying on the location with their eyes, wondering how it would feel to celebrate a major event in the middle of all of this Victorian majesty.

  “Excuse me,” said a woman to my left. “Are you Polyester Monroe? Of the fabric shop on Bonita?”

  “Yes, but I go by Poly.”

  “What’s your shop called? Fabric Woman?”

  “Material Girl.”

  “That’s right.” She held out her hand and I shook it. “I’m Nolene Kelly. I’ve heard people say you were responsible for the transformation of the tea shop for tonight. Who knew you could transform a place with fabric,” she said.

  “I hope people will be inspired to try it themselves,” I said.

  “It’s a nice idea but it’ll be a hard sell. People around here aren’t used to making their own clothes or slipcovers or curtains.”

  “I had a lot of help,” I said modestly.

  “But it was all her idea. Wasn’t it amazing?” Genevieve chimed in.

  “It was very impressive. And the fabric—that was from your store?” Nolene asked. She tipped her head as she posed her question, and her dangly earrings set off a faint tinkling sound.

  “Yes.”

  “Before you moved here, you worked in a dress shop in Los Angeles, didn’t you?” It was odd to hear my recent history told to me by a stranger. “I’m afraid I’ve read up on your background. I’m the coordinator of Miss Tangorli, San Ladrón’s annual beauty pageant. Since you’re new around here, you probably don’t know much about it.”

  “You’re right, I don’t know much about the events of San Ladrón. This is my first time attending the Waverly House’s annual party.” I glanced around me. Genevieve and Charlie had migrated in separate directions: Genevieve toward the gardens, and Charlie toward a strange man who stood alone a few feet from the tea and juice station outside. He had a white ponytail and black leather blazer over a black T-shirt and black trousers.

  “Rumor has it there wouldn’t have been a party if it weren’t for you.” Nolene winked. “But I’m not here to spread rumors. I’m here to find judges. I’ve locked in two so far.”

  Immediately I felt awkward. “I don’t think I’d be qualified to judge a beauty pageant.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I have something else in mind for you.”

  Two

  She looked over my shoulder. “How about we finish this conversation at your shop tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure.” We agreed on a time and she hurried away.

  I looked around for my friends. Genevieve had been swept to the center of the crowd by people who wanted to congratulate her on her café’s contribution to the magical evening. Charlie and the strange man were huddled together alongside the building. I started to approach them. She looked my way, said something to the man, and they turned and walked the other direction.

  I closed my eyes, breathed in the night-blooming jasmine, and tried to place my great-aunt and great-uncle in the scene, as if a time-travel machine had been provided for the night. I felt a hand around my waist and heard a voice in my ear. “I was hoping to see you tonight,” Vaughn said. I opened my eyes and turned to face him.

  Vaughn was no stranger to black-tie functions. Tonight he wore a classic-cut black tuxedo with a white shirt and a gold silk bow tie that was slightly crooked. Without thinking, I reached up and straightened it. He put his hands on my hands and lowered them, then bent down and kissed me on the cheek.

  “The dress suits you,” he said.

  “What, this old thing?”

  He smiled and offered his arm. I threaded my hand through the crook of his elbow and he led me under the Arc de Triomphe to the gardens.

  “Nolene didn’t get to you, too, did she?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. She said she wants to come to the shop tomorrow to talk about a proposal. I’m kind of at a disadvantage. She knew a lot about me and I know nothing about her. What can you tell me about her?”

  “She works for Halliwell Industries, the fruit conglomerate of San Ladrón.”

  “‘Fruit conglomerate’?” I repeated. “You’re making that up.”

  “Halliwell Industries is the closest thing to one, if you ask me. Harvey Halliwell is a self-made millionaire, thanks to fruit. He brought exotic citrus to San Ladrón from China, Trinidad, and Japan. His lab is world renowned, and they’ve done some incredible genetic splicing between seeds, producing fruits that were otherwise rare in the United States.”

  “And Nolene Kelly works there.”

  “She’s the assistant to Harvey Halliwell, head fruit.” He grinned. “She mostly handles his personal business, but the annual Miss Tangorli pageant is her baby. Harvey turned the reins over to her a few years ago and she turned it into a circus. I’ve been trying to stay busy helping out tonight, but she cornered me. Next thing I knew, I’d agreed to judge her pageant.”

  I stepped away and studied his face. “You, a beauty pageant judge?”

  “I like to think I can recognize beauty when it’s in front of me.”

  I blushed, thankful for the midnight darkness, and looked away.

  “There’s a lot that I don’t know about San Ladrón,” I said. “First garden parties, now beauty pageants. And let me guess, your family has a stake in the pageant.”

  “Nope. As luck would have it, we don’t.”

  “Luck?”

  “I’m not sure what else to call it. When my dad first started investing in San Ladrón, Harvey was his business partner.”

  “When was this?”

  “In the seventies. They often didn’t see eye to eye on business decisions, and one day they flipped a coin to see if they’d stay together or dissolve the partnership. My dad won the coin toss and Harvey was out.” He flipped a coin from his own pocket into the air and caught it midflip. “Luck.”

  We walked along in the dark, studying the mix of orchids and hibiscus, breathing in the scent of the jasmine mingled with honeysuckle. The gardens had been tended to perfection, a gentle tangle of dark vines and long blossoms interspersed with low ground cover, and colorful patches of blossoms I couldn’t identify. Each separate patch of garden was like a story. Pinks and purples in one corner, blue and white in another.

  Most of the grass was trimmed low but interspersed with wide glass vases that had been countersunk into the ground and filled with water. Water lilies floated on them. Bright pink flowers appeared to float on the grass, and around the perimeter of the garden were tall cat-o-nine-tails, and tall purple flowers that waved in the gentle night breeze. A small white bridge had been constructed in the back of the historic mansion. It was a surreal impressionist experience, as if we were walking int
o a painting by Claude Monet. The gardeners who made this happen had achieved a floral wonderland I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams.

  “So Harvey started the pageant?” I asked as we stepped from one lily pad paver to another.

  “Yes. A couple of winners have gone on to be Miss California, and one won Miss America.”

  “We made pageant dresses at my old job,” I said, “but it sounds like this is on a different scale.”

  “Things have been gradually getting out of control. Last year a few of the contestants dropped out because their families couldn’t afford to keep up with the expectations.”

  “That’s a little silly, isn’t it?”

  “Hard to say. The pageant brings a lot of business to San Ladrón, and it’s one of the events, like the garden party tonight, that give us press outside our own bubble. Salons are booked to capacity and dress shops can barely keep up with the demand.” For the second time that night, he glanced at my dress. “I would think a dress like that would be very popular,” he said.

  “It’s not for sale.” I smoothed my hand over the champagne silk.

  “I’m glad I had a chance to see you tonight,” Vaughn said. “The dress looks even better than I imagined it would. And before you ask, yes. I’ve imagined you in that dress.”

  He slipped his fingers down to my own fingertips and raised my arm. He twirled me like Sheriff Clark had twirled the woman on the street, then brought my arm down to my side. The couple in front of us moved and we stepped forward so as not to hold up the crowd.

  “The pageant used to be called Miss Orange Blossom, but the city wanted to change the name because people kept confusing it with Pasadena and the Orange Bowl. The city planners wanted something that related to San Ladrón history, which meant citrus. Harvey made his first million when he brought Tangorli trees to San Ladrón, so it became the Miss Tangorli pageant.”

  “What is a Tangorli? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s a tangerine-orange-lime hybrid. Harvey first brought the tangor—a tangerine-orange hybrid—here from China in the early seventies. His lab spliced the seeds with a lime to create the Tangorli. It has the sweetness of a tangerine but a hint of sour from the lime. Surprisingly refreshing. This whole town was built on the citrus trade, but most of the fields were plowed under for development. Harvey bought twenty acres of land out by San Ladrón Canyon where the original citrus fields were, turned the soil, and planted the seedlings that his botanists grew in the greenhouse. He ended up with the first crop of Tangorlis in the country.” Vaughn chuckled. “I’ve seen pictures of him from back then. He believed in his crop and wanted everybody to know him as the man who brought Tangorlis to town. He wore orange everywhere he went: his car was orange, his clothes were orange, he even dyed his hair bright orange. He made arrangements to underwrite the whole pageant if the city would rename it.”

  “And just like that, the city agreed?”

  “No. They listened to proposals from everybody who had a suggestion. You know Ladrón means ‘thief,’ right? That’s the only reason they didn’t want to go with ‘Miss San Ladrón.’ Too much risk of negativity attached to our city. Unfortunately, after the pageant boosted the fruit, Harvey went from being a millionaire to a billionaire.”

  “Doesn’t sound too unfortunate for Harvey,” I said.

  “In a way it was. Rumor started that he stole the tangor seeds from China and people referred to him as a thief anyway.”

  “And you said he was your father’s first business partner?” I hadn’t known Vaughn for long, but I knew anything that pertained to his father was a touchy subject.

  He nodded. “Most people remember how my dad inherited a small sum of money and how he turned a string of good investments into his business. Some of those investments were him and Harvey.”

  “But you said they didn’t see eye to eye. What did they disagree over?”

  “What do any business partners disagree over? Money.”

  I sneaked a look at Vaughn and gauged his expression. I knew he had been raised with money. He knew I had not. It was a subject that had come up between the two of us on more than one occasion and kept me wondering if time spent with Vaughn was time wasted. I didn’t know if I’d ever fit into his world. I only knew I didn’t want to ever become so comfortable that I took money for granted.

  I changed the subject. “So, garden parties, beauty pageants, and men in orange. Anything else I need to discover about this town?”

  “Wait a couple of weeks. I’ll take you to Gnarly Waves, our very own water park.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. Independently owned and operated since 1971. Best corn dog in the state. Good onion rings, too. And the only place you can get a Tangorli Creamsicle.”

  “Sounds righteous,” I said with a laugh.

  The couple in front of us moved along the path. I started to follow them, and Vaughn’s hand shot out, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to the left under a weeping willow tree. I stumbled slightly. He reached out and caught me around the waist and pulled me closer to him.

  The hanging branches, covered in white blossoms, swayed ever so slightly in the midnight breeze. Now that we were off the path of the other partygoers, we were partially hidden. I put my hands around Vaughn’s neck. He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. I felt exposed by his public display of affection. I looked to my left to ensure that we were alone.

  But we weren’t. On the path, also partially hidden, but this time by the blooming ground cover, was the thin man with the white ponytail Charlie had been talking to earlier. He was engaged in a heated discussion with a man with bright orange hair dressed in an orange tuxedo.

  “Do you know who that man is?” I asked.

  “That’s Harvey.”

  “No, I mean the other man.”

  “I don’t think so. A lot of people come to San Ladrón for the night. That’s how the Waverly House gets exposure to new business.”

  A silver chain hung down on the side of the ponytailed man’s pants. He lit a cigarette with a chrome lighter, then flipped it closed and tucked it into his pocket. After he inhaled, he raised the hand that held the cigarette and pointed at Harvey with his fingers, the orange tip of the cigarette—that so perfectly matched Harvey’s outfit—bouncing around in the darkness as he did so.

  “I don’t think they know we can see them,” I said.

  Harvey raised a glass to his lips and drank. The other man seemed to be waiting for a response. A few seconds passed. Harvey lowered his glass and took a step backward. He stumbled a few steps, dropped the glass, and crashed to the ground after it.

  The man with the ponytail looked stunned. He bent down and reached into Harvey’s orange tuxedo jacket.

  “He’s robbing Harvey,” I said. I stepped out from the cover of the tree. “What are you doing?” I called. The man with the ponytail looked up at me. He turned around and fled. Vaughn and I ran to Harvey. He was still on the ground, but he appeared conscious.

  “Help me,” he croaked.

  I hiked my dress up and moved to his side. “Do you have your phone?” I asked Vaughn. “Can you call the police?”

  Vaughn already had his phone out. I knelt down and felt Harvey’s wrist. His pulse was uneven, but it was there. “Sir, can you hear me? I’m Poly Monroe and we’re going to get help.” He tried to lift his head but winced in pain. “Don’t move. Don’t do anything. Can you talk? Can you tell me your name?”

  “Harvey,” he said. “Halliwell,” he finished. His fingers wrapped around my wrist and he looked at me with watery blue eyes. “He’s not far,” he said.

  “Who? The man who was talking to you?”

  He closed his eyes and was silent. I wanted to find out the identity of the man and what they’d been talking about. I wanted to tell him to check his pockets and see what was missing. But mor
e than any of that, I wanted to make sure he was okay. If Vaughn and I hadn’t stepped off the path at that point, we might never have seen Mr. Halliwell drop to the ground. Who knew what might have happened if we hadn’t come along? Vaughn took off down the path.

  I’d been trained in basic CPR and knew it was best to keep Mr. Halliwell talking. “Sir? Can you tell me where you live?”

  “Why? So you can rob me while I’m recovering?” he said. He struggled to sit up.

  I put my hand on his orange lapels and gently pushed him back down. “Please don’t try to move. Help is on its way.”

  “I’m a tougher old coot than he thinks I am.” He pushed my hand out of the way and sat up. “Gonna have to slip me more than a mickey to get me out of the picture.”

  I looked around for someone—anyone—else, and was surprised to discover that I was alone with the injured man. Many of the attendees had migrated to the opposite end of the gardens or inside for one last glass of champagne, but the Waverly House had been planning to leave the grounds open all night. Guards and volunteers had been stationed around the exterior of the property. Adelaide would be manning the yard, greeting people, circling through, making connections with potential donors, young lovers, and families.

  So where were they all?

  Mr. Halliwell reached for a cane that I’d mistaken for a branch of the tree behind him. He held it in front of himself, pushing me backward. I was torn between restraining him—or at least trying to, since I had no idea just how tough an old coot he really was—and letting him leave. As far as I knew, there was no law against him leaving before paramedics showed up, though I didn’t know why he’d want to do such a thing.

  “That’s what happens when you let someone bring you a drink. They’re all out to get me. Me and my money. You probably are, too. Now get out of my way.”

  “Don’t you want to wait until the police arrive and fill out a statement? They’ll need it to find the person behind this.”

  “Missy, this town has been out to get me for years, and the leader of the pack is that man’s father.” He pointed the end of his cane in Vaughn’s direction. “If he ever succeeds, the joke will be on him.”