Cement Stilettos Read online

  I threw my arms out to catch her. Her dead weight knocked me backward two steps. My hands were sticky from her blood, blood that transferred onto my clothes. I let go and her stiff and cold body fell onto the floor, the sound muffled by the carpet where she landed.

  The phone on the desk started to ring. I stared at it for a moment, temporarily at a loss for which direction to turn. I had to call the police, but this was Nick’s place of business. I let his service answer and pulled my phone out of my handbag. The sight of the blood on my fingers made me woozy. I hit Emergency at the bottom of my lock screen. When the call connected, I reported the body and the location.

  There was nothing for me to do but wait. I wanted to clean myself but knew it was better for the police to see things as I’d found them. If evidence had transferred from Angela’s body to mine when she fell from the closet, I didn’t want to be responsible for it going down the drain of Nick’s sink.

  The phone on Angela’s desk rang on, fraying my nerves. The number was blocked and the service wasn’t picking up. Angela couldn’t do her job, but I could. I picked up the receiver.

  “Nick Taylor Designs,” I said. There was a pause on the other end. “Hello? You’ve reached Nick Taylor’s showroom. Can I help you?”

  “Kidd?”

  “Nick?” Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. I did not want to be the person to deliver this news. Not to him. Not now. Not ever.

  “What are you doing answering Angela’s phone?”

  “Nick—”

  “I thought you were going back to work. Why are you at my showroom?”

  “Nick—”

  “Is Angela there? Put her on the phone.”

  “Nick, I can’t. She’s dead. Somebody killed her and hid her body in the sample closet. Nick, I’m so sorry.” I didn’t realize that I’d repeated the last phrase three times or that I’d started to cry.

  “Kidd, get out of there.”

  “I can’t. The police are on their way.”

  “So am I.”

  We both hung up. The phone rang almost instantly. I picked up the receiver, expecting Nick again. The line was quiet. Just in case, I inhaled sharply to get my breathing under control. “Nick Taylor Designs,” I said.

  “Angie?” asked a male voice.

  “No. Who is this?” I asked.

  “Put Angie on the phone.”

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  The phone was silent for a few seconds and then the voice returned. “Your boyfriend is not a nice man. You tell him he better watch his step. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “You won’t get away with this,” I said. “The police will find you. They’ll arrest you for murder. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “Make sure you give your boyfriend the message.” Click.

  I dropped into Angela’s chair. I was still holding the receiver in my hand when the police arrived.

  After being attended to by the medical techs and then trading my soiled shirt, blazer, and leather leggings for generic blue scrubs, I was told I could wash and wait in Nick’s office. There was so much wrong with the past hour I didn’t know where to start.

  I called Tradava and left a message with the operator that I wouldn’t be returning to the store, and that if I was needed, I could be reached by cell. Autonomy was one small perk of working mostly independently in our small catalog department. The news would be public soon enough, and the likelihood of keeping my name out of it was slim. Nick had yet to arrive, or if he had, he was being kept out front, away from the crime scene.

  I heard someone approach. “Ms. Kidd,” said a familiar voice.

  “Detective Loncar.” I spun the swivel chair around and looked up at Ribbon, Pennsylvania’s senior homicide detective.

  Detective Loncar and I had first met after I’d discovered the body of my boss in an elevator at Tradava. Since then, we’d slipped into a comfortable co-existence. I’d learned about his marital problems, he’d learned about my fears of commitment. In the most unexpected, unencouraged, and often unwanted manner possible, he was sort of a father figure to me. My own father was out in California somewhere with my mom, enjoying retirement and the unencumberment of dependent children and mortgage payments (and people who use words that don’t really exist.)

  I wasn’t sure what to expect from Detective Loncar today. The last time I’d been involved in something like this, he’d been in Tahiti. It was a move so out of character that I feared he’d gotten a Queer Eye makeover while I wasn’t looking. I glanced down at his shoes.

  Nope, same Detective Loncar.

  He turned around and grabbed the back of a chair on casters and rolled it toward me. He sat down. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his thighs and folded his hands together. I waited. He finally looked from the floor up to my face.

  “I don’t like this one,” he said.

  “I don’t like any of them.”

  He sat up in his chair. “Angela di Sotto was the daughter of a woman rumored to be a mob mistress. Nobody has ever linked Angela to the business, but she has recently been seen in the company of Jimmy the Tomato, and that raises questions. I know one of my men took your statement. What I need to know is if you can tell me anything that’ll give me a direction? I’ve seen a lot of crime in this city, and the department has been doing what we can to dissuade the mob from moving in, but I gotta say, I never expected a mafia princess to show up dead in a shoe store.”

  “Showroom,” I corrected. It was my first contribution to the conversation, except for the not-liking-murder thing, which was sort of a no-brainer. “I already told your officer this, but right after I found the body, the phone started ringing. I called 911 and made the report, but after I hung up, I kept thinking this is Nick’s business and if someone was trying to reach him, it was poor form for me to let the phone go unanswered.”

  “Mr. Taylor told me he spoke to you.”

  “He’s here? Where?” I stood up and looked over Detective Loncar’s head.

  “He’s in the parking lot. I can’t let him in here. He’ll potentially corrupt the crime scene. We have to go over everything before we let him, or anybody else, in.”

  “Or let me out. I can’t leave, can I?”

  He looked at my blue scrubs. “That’s not what you were wearing when you found Ms. di Sotto, is it?”

  “Scrubs? When have you ever seen me wear scrubs?”

  “Where are your clothes?”

  “One of your officers took them. He put them in a plastic bag and said I’d get them back after they were analyzed for forensic evidence. I’m not going to say something insensitive about how my pants were leather and should be kept free of chemicals that might damage them. I’m not going to tell you that my jacket was wool and my shirt was Egyptian cotton and both might be ruined if you don’t treat them right. I don’t care if I ever see that outfit again. But I do want my other bootie.”

  “Why’d my officer take one of your shoes?”

  “I was trying on samples when I saw the puddle of blood coming out from the closet. I didn’t stop to put my bootie back on.”

  “I’ll have one of my officers look for it.”

  I sat back down and studied Detective Loncar. His Tahiti tan had faded and creases that came after too much sun lined his face. Dark circles showed under his eyes. His thinning hair was cut short and slightly longer on one side than the other, like he’d done it himself with a pair of trimmers. All this time I’d held out hopes that his trip to Tahiti had been a reconciliation with his wife. It saddened me to think he was still on the outs with her.

  “Detective, there was a second call after Nick and I hung up. It was a man. He asked me to put Angela on the phone and when I asked who he was, he said to give Nick a message. He said to warn him to watch his step.”

  “What step?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Loncar looked angry. “This isn’t the time to play games, Ms. Kidd. If you know something, you tell me. Now.”
r />   “You think I think this is a game? You just told me Nick’s office manager was involved with the juice man for the local mafia. Now she’s dead. What part of that sounds like a game?”

  He glared at me.

  “You said tomato. My mind went to juice.”

  He stood up and pulled a card out of his wallet.

  “I already have your card,” I said.

  “Take it anyway.”

  I followed Loncar out of Nick’s office to the main portion of the showroom. The bright lime green walls were too cheery for what had taken place here. People shouldn’t be capable of murder in a lime green room filled with modern furniture and designer shoes.

  Loncar approached the officer who had taken my clothes and said something to him. The officer pointed to my bootie, sitting alone on top of Angela’s desk. Loncar put his hand in a plastic bag and picked it up, turned it over, and examined the sole. He looked at me and shook his head, and then turned the plastic bag inside out with my bootie inside.

  Nick stood on the sidewalk outside the showroom. He saw me and came closer. I put my open palm on the inside of the window. He pulled his glove off his hand and placed it opposite mine. I had an uncomfortable sense that this was what it would be like if I ever had to visit Nick in jail, but quickly dismissed the thought. Nick was too good to do anything to end up in jail. If one of us was to be the future incarcerated in this relationship, we all knew it was me.

  I suspected we’d be able to hear each other through the glass, but as if by mutual agreement, neither of us spoke. We stood there, two hands separated by a storefront window.

  Loncar came over and told me I could leave. Yellow plastic crime scene tape had been attached to the door to the sample closet and wrapped around Angela’s desk. The closet itself had been sealed.

  I hobbled out of the shop behind two uniformed officers with Loncar behind me. The scent of cured sandwich meat hung in the air. The number of cars in the lot had doubled thanks to curious customers who had come to the strip mall for hoagies and stayed for a story to tell tonight at dinner.

  “Ms. Kidd, how did you enter the showroom?” Loncar asked.

  “I have a key,” I said.

  “I thought you gave that back?” Nick asked.

  “I made copies.”

  Nick frowned. Loncar pointed to the door. “One of you two needs to lock up so we can seal the door.”

  “But how is Nick supposed to get back in?” I asked.

  “Mr. Taylor,” Loncar said to Nick even though I’d asked the question, “I hope to be able to release your showroom to you tomorrow, but until you hear from me, nobody is to go in. Not you, not your...,” now he looked at me, “not Ms. Kidd. I don’t care if Imelda Marcos shows up. If you haven’t heard from me personally, then you don’t go through that door.”

  “I’ll do anything I can to cooperate.” Nick looked at me. “So will Ms. Kidd. Right, Ms. Kidd?”

  “Detective Loncar already knows everything I know.”

  Loncar stepped away and pulled out his phone. Nick took off his overcoat and draped it around me. “What were you doing here?”

  “I came by to get the file on the factories. You said Angela had it and since I agreed not to use Vito’s, I thought I could find a replacement this afternoon.”

  Loncar stopped and turned around. “Did you say Vito?”

  “Yes. Why?” I said.

  He walked back. “Vito Cantone?”

  This time Nick spoke. “Yes. Why?”

  “What business did you have with Vito Cantone?” Loncar asked Nick.

  “He wanted me to consider moving my production to one of his vacant factories. Why?”

  Loncar looked at me. “Did you know this?”

  I threw my hands in the air. “I didn’t even know the man’s last name! Why is that important?”

  “Because Vito Cantone was Angela di Sotto’s last boyfriend.”

  5

  Monday evening

  “That little man from this morning used to date Angela? But he’s so old!” I said.

  Loncar’s expression tightened up. His mouth pulled into a little knot and his forehead creased. “Vito Cantone is a year younger than me.”

  “No way,” I said quickly. “I thought you were my age.”

  Nick tucked his chin and stifled a smile.

  “Mr. Taylor,” Loncar said, ignoring me, “I’m going to need to speak to you about Ms. di Sotto. How’s tomorrow morning?”

  Nick looked at the officers sealing the door to his store. “Pretty sure my schedule is wide open.”

  They coordinated a time and place and Loncar left. I wrapped my arms around Nick’s torso and laid my head on his chest. “I didn’t expect them to make you stand out here. I should have. Shouldn’t I have known that? If they’d let you into your own business or if they’d keep you out? After all this time, I should know that, right?”

  “Shhhhh,” Nick said. “Let’s get out of the cold.”

  I shrugged out of Nick’s coat and climbed into the truck, and then pulled the coat over me like a blanket. I hadn’t looked at a clock while waiting inside Nick’s showroom, so I was surprised to discover from the clock on Nick’s dashboard that it was after six. I hadn’t had a meal since breakfast and my nerves felt it.

  “Sit here and warm up. Your convertible will take a lot longer to heat up than my truck. Come here.” He pulled me across the front seat and shifted his coat so it covered both of us.

  “Angela was always nice to me. When did you hire her?”

  “Last year, after my dad broke his hip. It was around the same time he moved in with me. She was a godsend—taking care of things when I couldn’t.”

  “Do you think she was trying to tell me something when she sent me out to meet you?”

  “No, I still think that was a mix-up. I asked her to send those pictures to you and then you called her. I could see that it looked to her like I wanted you to join me.”

  “But while you and I were at the factory, someone came here and killed her. And then hid her body in the sample closet where you would have found her.” I shivered and Nick put his arms around me. “Do you think her murder had something to do with your shoe company? Is someone going to come after you next?”

  “I don’t know what to think right now.”

  I leaned against him. “What kind of a person would shoot someone in broad daylight and then put them in a closet? Who would be so bold as to think they would get away with that?” I asked.

  “A bad one.”

  We were both quiet for a moment. The interior of the windows grew foggy from our breathing. I reached forward and pressed my thumb into the condensation, leaving a small oblong fingerprint through which to see.

  “Do you know how to reach her family?”

  Nick was silent for a few seconds. “Yes,” he finally said. “Her mom died when she was young, just like mine did, but one time she mentioned she had family in West Ribbon. I don’t think they were close.” We sat in the relative warmth of the truck, both of us staring at the fogged-up window.

  “What happens next?” I asked.

  “I don’t know the full implications, but for now, I’ll have to move any appointments on the showroom schedule. I could rent a suite at a local hotel and use it as a temporary showroom, but with the samples locked up here, I don’t know if there’s much of a reason to reschedule. I’ll have to hire a new showroom manager, but that can wait. Right now, let’s talk about you. Tell me about your first day back at Tradava.”

  I wasn’t surprised by Nick’s not-so-subtle attempt to steer the conversation another direction. I’d long ago learned that his concern sometimes trickled into overprotective zone, and the murder of his assistant at his showroom had to have left him feeling guilty. Nick never liked when I got involved in police matters, and this time the police matter involved him. But there was something else tonight. Something he wasn’t saying. He was holding back and I didn’t know why.

  “You don’t want
to talk about Angela?”

  “Kidd, I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for Angela in the last minutes of her life, or what it was like for you to open that closet and have her body fall out. I’m doing my best to change the subject.”

  “To be honest, I don’t feel much like talking about Tradava right now. Do you mind if we just sit here quietly?”

  He bent down and kissed my cheek. “Of course I don’t mind.”

  Half an hour later, warmed to the core, I climbed out of Nick’s truck and into my coupe. It was in remarkably good shape for a car from the late nineties, thanks to the difficulties of driving around New York City during the nine years I’d lived there and the convenience of writing a monthly check to pay for covered parking. I postponed our tentative plans for dinner and drove home. I wanted to shower and curl up in bed with my cat. Nick understood.

  The next morning I woke to my ringing cell phone. I unplugged it from the charger and answered, my voice still thick with sleep.

  “Hullo?” I said.

  “Kidd? I can’t believe you held out on me. I thought we had an agreement. Did yesterday mean nothing to you?”

  I sat up. Logan lifted his head and meowed in annoyance. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Carl Collins from the Ribbon Times. You found the body of Angela di Sotto and you didn’t call me? I’m hurt, Kidd. I’m half tempted to pull the plug on our interview.”

  “Carl. Hold on.” I set the phone down on my pink sheets and rubbed my hands over my face. After three deep inhale/exhale breaths, I picked the phone back up. “Okay, I’m back.”

  “Are you still in bed? It’s six forty-five. How long do you normally sleep?”

  “I get up at seven forty-five like a normal person.” Eight. Eight-ish. Eight thirty if I showered the night before. “What kind of a person calls at six forty-five?”

  “Answer a couple of questions for me and I’ll let you get back to your beauty sleep. I know Angela was found dead in Nick Taylor’s showroom but the cops are playing this one close to the hip. When did she die? How did she die? You knew her. Was there any evidence of illness prior to her death? Or was it a suicide? Pills. Overdose. Was that it? Did she tell you anything before she died?”