A Disguise to Die For (18 page)

He scanned the room. White metal shelves lined the perimeter, with boxes stacked on top and garment bags hanging below. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the organization, just a general sense of put-it-in-the-back-ness that kept the off-season merchandise out of view and allowed the costumes in the shop to stand out. Aside from my dad, Kirby, and now me, nobody really knew what we had in our inventory at any given time. Judging from the condition of the stockroom, I was willing to bet that maybe none of us had a clear picture of the scope of it.

“I have an idea,” Tak said. “Do you have a tape measure and a notebook?”

“Sure.” I found both by the register and brought them back. Tak asked me to hold one end of the tape measure. He measured the length of the walls, the height of the ceiling, and the depth of the shelves, and wrote all of the numbers into the notebook. I watched, assisted, and waited while he worked. He appeared to have a plan in mind, and far be it from me to interfere with a plan.

After taking the last measurement, he retracted the tape measure and set it on top of the first box we'd unstacked. “I don't want to tell you how to run your business, but if you reorganize this back room, you could pick up a pretty substantial amount of storage space.”

“Our store has functioned with this room as our stockroom for over forty years now. What makes you so sure your way is better?”

He rested his elbow on the top of the box and smiled. “Like I said, I don't want to tell you how to run your business. But if you want, I can help you.”

“Might as well hear you out. It's not like I have any better offers.”

He drew a couple of lines on the notebook and then added some notes. I moved around the box and stared over his shoulder. Within seconds, he'd rendered the stockroom.

He set the notebook down and measured the width, height, and depth of a few of the boxes from the trailer and then added some additional notes at the bottom of the page. It quickly became apparent that his way was better than ours, in terms of storage optimization.

“How'd you learn how to do that?” I asked.

“What, sketch?”

“No, walk into a room and figure out how much will fit when it's organized.”

He set the notebook and pen down. “It's something I've done since I was a kid. Spatial relations, math variables, calculations, they all come naturally to me.”

“So you parlayed your natural aptitude for math variables into a job at the district attorney's office.”

He looked serious. “How'd you know about that?”

“Word gets around.” I smiled. “I don't remember who told me.”

“After I got my engineering degree, I landed a job in the planning division of the DA's office.”

“Organizing their stockrooms?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“No, really, what do you do?”

“Mostly process applications for variances and rezoning. I enforce county codes and applicable laws. Sometimes I get to review plans for ordinance regulations, and I work
closely with other engineers, architects, contractors, developers, and property owners on procedures.”

“So that's how you ended up solving Don Digby's property line dispute,” I said, half to myself.

“I forgot about that.”

“Do you have any other talents I don't know about? Besides assessing small spaces at a single glance?”

“And making fried rice,” he added.

“Yes, there is that. So, math and fried rice. You must be popular at parties.” As soon as I said it, a flash of Tak dressed as Charlie Chan popped into my head. I didn't get the feeling that Tak was part of Blitz's crowd, and even Grady had said that Blitz invited Tak to his party but never expected him to show. I still didn't know what he'd been doing there. And if it wasn't in some official district attorney/spatial relations capacity—not that I'd know what that was—then I didn't know why he'd attended. Which put me back to where I was this afternoon, not sure exactly why he was going out of his way to spend time with me.

“I've known the Mannerses and the O'Tooles my whole life. My dad likes to play the slots and Grady's dad owns a casino in the old part of Vegas, so, in time, I was thrown in with that group.”

“But you're older than they are,” I said. “Aren't you?”

He grinned. “Older, wiser, better-looking . . .”

“I see Grady isn't the only one around here with a healthy dose of self-confidence.”

“I'm kidding. I'm more like a friend of the family, I guess. My dad's restaurant is popular, so people accepted me.”

Even though we had a lot of work ahead of us if we were going to implement Tak's plan, I pulled out a box that was packed full of Styrofoam wig heads and sat down on top of it. “I grew up here in Proper. How come we never met?”

“My parents moved here while I was finishing up my master's degree. That was about ten years ago.”

“Where'd you live before that?”

“I was born in Hawaii.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you want my GPA or transcripts? Because I can arrange that if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

I stood back up. “I didn't mean to interrogate you,” I said. “I was just curious.”

“You're trying to figure out why I was at Blitz's party, aren't you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” I turned my back to him and pretended to be busy with one of the boxes.

He tapped me on the shoulder until finally I turned around and faced him. “What?”

“You should be happy I
was
at that party. Otherwise your friend Ebony would be in a lot of trouble.”

“HOW DO YOU
keep knowing what I'm thinking?” I asked.

“Because you're easy to read. It's refreshing to meet someone who is so comfortable being exactly who she is.”

In the past week I'd worn elements from go-go dancer, cowgirl, clown, and sailor costumes, and today I sported ladies of the '80s suspenders. I didn't know who I wanted to be until I woke up in the morning, and I dressed to suit that mood.

“I think you have me mistaken with someone else,” I said.

“Margo, you're so busy watching everybody else that you never noticed me watching you. I knew there was something different about you, but I didn't put my finger on it until I saw you at Blitz's party.”

“I was checking out the costumes to make sure everything turned out okay.”

“It's not just that. You're aware of everything around you. Do me a favor. Close your eyes and describe this room.”

“Why?”

“Indulge me,” he said.

He seemed to have earned something by way of redesigning our stockroom, so I closed my eyes and kept a hand on the box next to me. “There are white metal shelves mounted to the walls around the perimeter of the room. Boxes filled with wigs and costume accessories are stacked on top of them. Most of the boxes are labeled in black marker. Nobody likes to reach up, so the boxes up top are things that we don't sell very often. Under the shelves are more boxes. We used to keep fairy-tale characters on the back-left side, and I think they're still there because I saw Little Bo Peep's cane on the floor. And two nights ago, Soot caught a mouse back here, but I don't know where it could have come from.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. “How was that?”

“Now close your eyes and tell me what you remember from Blitz's party.”

Whether it was the relative privacy of the stockroom or the fact that Tak had been nothing but nice to me since arriving, I didn't know, but I did as he asked. The memory was tangible, as if I were standing inside the fire hall smelling the circulating appetizers of roast beef with horseradish dressing.

“There were clusters of people around the interior. Rockford, Nancy Drew, and Kojak. Tom Swift was showing Miss Marple how to work his rocket pack and the Bob-Whites were dancing.” I remembered spotting Tak at the back of the fire hall and appreciating his costume. “You were there, but you weren't talking to anybody. Charlie's Angels were by the door and Columbo was talking to Veronica Mars.” My eyes popped open. “But that's not possible.”

“Why?” Tak leaned forward.

“Because Grady told me he was Columbo, and the person I saw talking to Veronica Mars wasn't Grady.”

“Maybe there were two Columbos?”

“No. Grady gave me a list of who wore what and Columbo wasn't on the list. When I asked him about it, he said that was his costume. I'm pretty sure if another Columbo showed up Grady would have asked him to go change.”

“Why did you ask Grady about the Columbo costume?”

I felt stiff and awkward as a new thought about Grady filled my mind. “I—I needed to know who was Columbo, that's all,” I said.

“What just happened?”

“Nothing.”

Tak and I stared at each other in silence. If I was as easy to read as he claimed, then he would have seen that I'd thought something that I didn't want to share.

The information about the trench coat found balled up in the kitchen of the fire hall was the one significant clue that said someone other than Ebony had been back there. The trench coat went with the Columbo costume, but now . . . now it didn't make sense. Grady had made a big deal of saying he was Columbo, and he'd wanted to know why I wanted to know. Had he planted a double at the party, someone to impersonate him while he snuck away and killed his friend-slash-rival?

I broke eye contact first and turned away from Tak to think it through. If what I suspected was true, then Grady could have been anywhere while the fake Columbo was out front. He could have murdered Blitz and left out the back, traded trench coats with the double, and reentered the party in time to be questioned by the police. His double could have disappeared long before anybody noticed.

Nausea twisted my stomach and triggered a wave of dizziness. I put a hand on the box next to me to steady myself.

“Are you okay?” Tak asked.

“I'm fine. Let's get to work.” When I turned back to face him, he showed confusion and hurt. I put my hand on his arm and looked up at his face. “I can't talk about this right now. I'm sorry. It's not because I don't trust you”—okay, it was a little, but I didn't say that—“it's that I'm scared for Ebony and . . . and . . .” I grappled for the next thing to say, but couldn't figure out how to express what I was thinking without telling him everything. “Please,” I added, immediately aware that it didn't fit the situation.

He picked up the notepad and stared at his sketch for a few seconds. “Here's what I had in mind,” he said. He stood next to me and pointed out his plan for reorganizing the shelves to accommodate more merchandise. When he finished, he turned back to face me. “If you want to go ahead with this, I can start moving the merchandise so you'll have a place to store these boxes.”

I agreed. One by one I sliced through the packing tape and peeked inside. Not only had we gained several alien costumes, but also an array of dark suits with government identification clipped to the lapel and a couple of cardboard models of scientific equipment that would make great backdrops for the windows. Three of the boxes were filled with panels that fit together to depict a laboratory. Another box held fog machines and jugs of the juice that went in them. I filled one of the machines and plugged it in. While the machine warmed up, I snuck out to the shop and squirreled Soot into the stockroom with me. I set him down when a cloudy layer of fog crept across the floor, and I ducked behind one of the larger boxes.

“What the heck?” Tak said. Fog swirled around his
ankles. Soot walked over to him and Tak jumped like he'd seen a ghost. When he recovered, he looked from side to side and finally saw me peeking around from behind a stack of boxes. I stood up and stepped away from my cover. I switched the fog machine off and smiled.

“You don't grow up in a costume shop and not learn to enjoy the props,” I said.

“It must have been fun growing up in this world. I bet your parents threw the best parties in town.”

“It's just my dad and me. My mother died when I was born. Ebony started looking after me when I was five, and she's been the closest thing I've had to a mom ever since.” I'd surprised myself. Usually I didn't like to talk about my family to strangers, but with Tak, something was different.

He didn't say anything at first. He didn't offer to hug me like guys I'd dated who saw that admission as a cry for consolation. I liked him a little bit more for that. He reached up and held on to the bracket to one of the metal shelves.

“My dad and I aren't talking right now. He doesn't understand what happened with my job at the DA's office. There's some questionable activity going on there and I didn't want to be a part of it, so I resigned. My boss wouldn't accept my resignation, so it's on the books as an unpaid leave.”

“What does your mom think?”

“My mom wants me to be happy. And she wants my dad to be happy. And she wants us all to get along, which might never happen. To him, quitting is a sign of a poor work ethic. You just don't do it. He thinks I should put my nose to the grindstone and barrel on through, regardless of what's going down.”

“Do you think whatever's happening there is illegal?”

“No, but I think there's some stretching of the law, and that makes me uncomfortable. It was best for everybody if I left and they found someone better suited for the job.”

Tak's story was oddly comforting. It made me feel less alone in my struggle to help the two people I loved the most. It also let me see that he was an ordinary guy with ordinary problems. Suddenly, it didn't seem so important to keep everything to myself.

“Would you like to go out to get some dinner?” I asked suddenly. “No strings attached and we don't have to talk about anything important.”

He reached up and tucked his longish black hair behind his ear and then smiled. “I'd like that.”

*   *   *

TEN
minutes later, Tak and I shared a booth at Catch-22, a restaurant that boasted twenty-two different ways to serve fish. For a seafood restaurant in the middle of the desert, it was surprisingly popular. Tonight the featured “Catch of the Day” was shrimp, so I ordered the Salvadorian shrimp salad, and Tak ordered his shrimp Cajun style. We filled the time between ordering and the food arriving with chitchat that came surprisingly easily. Despite the fact that it was the two of us out to dinner, there were no first-date nerves. Still, I couldn't help notice the looks we attracted from the other diners in the restaurant. I figured only about half of them were due to my ladies of the '80s suspenders and side ponytail.

“How's your dad?” Tak asked.

“He's steady. The doctors said they might release him by the end of the week. The only reason they haven't yet is because it's his second heart attack in two weeks and they want to be sure he's stable. I want him to come home, but I hope things calm down before he gets here.”

“Does he know about everything that's been happening?”

“He knows Blitz was murdered at the party and he knows
something's up with Ebony. But she's not involved. Detective Nichols is being stupid if she thinks she is.” As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. “I didn't say that because she's your girlfriend. I really mean she's wrong if she thinks Ebony is involved.”

“Detective Nichols isn't my girlfriend,” Tak said. “She was, but it's—we're—we broke up.”

“Oh,” I said, clearly losing the ability to converse.

“I—you thought I'd say yes to a date with you if I had a girlfriend?”

“This is a date?”

“I thought it was. Isn't it?”

All of a sudden, everything I'd thought about feeling not-a-date natural went out the window. I ran my tongue over my teeth to make sure there was no lettuce caught between them and reached for my glass of water. I accidentally knocked it over. Water and ice spilled out on the table toward Tak, drenching the side of his shirt and the leg of his pants. Several patrons looked our way.

“I'm sorry,” I said, and handed him my napkin. He blotted the fabric and then motioned for the waiter.

“Can we get a second glass of water over here?” he asked.

“That's not necessary,” I said.

“I'll be right back,” said the waiter.

“Margo, it was a glass of water. I don't think the conservationists would be all that upset over it, so you shouldn't be either.”

I barely heard him. “That napkin isn't going to do any good. I'll be right back.” I slid out of our booth and headed toward the hostess station. As I reached the counter, I looked to my left and saw Amy Bradshaw sitting alone in a booth in the back corner.

That was either highly coincidental or she was there because of us. I grabbed a stack of napkins from the bar and took them back to Tak. “These should help.”

“That's the beauty of living in the desert,” he said. “The air's so dry out here the water already evaporated.”

“Great,” I said, barely paying attention. “Can you excuse me for a second? I saw someone I know and I want to say hello.”

He looked at me as if I were crazy.

I handed over the napkins and took a circuitous route to Amy's table so she wouldn't see me coming. She was drinking a glass of wine when I reached her, and as soon as she recognized me, she choked on it.

“Amy, isn't it? Nice to see you again,” I said. I pointed to myself. “Margo Tamblyn, from the costume shop.”

“I know who you are.”

“Great. I wasn't sure if you'd remember me. You were a little flustered the day you came into Disguise DeLimit.”

She set down her glass and looked from side to side. “What are you doing here?”

“Probably the same thing as you. Having dinner. If you haven't already ordered, the Salvadorian shrimp salad is pretty good.”

“I'm having the scampi.”

“Okay, well, maybe next time.” As awkward as it felt, standing in the aisle next to Amy's table, I couldn't help thinking about how very possible it was that she was involved in the vandalism on Ebony's car or, even worse, in Blitz's murder. And if she was, then she wasn't going to get away with it. She turned her head toward the window—dismissing me, I imagined—and folded her hands in front of her. There was no ring on her finger.

Bingo.

I slid into the booth opposite her. “I'm not going to join
you, if that's what you're worried about. I'm just curious. What happened to the engagement ring you were wearing when you came to Disguise DeLimit on Sunday morning?”