A Disguise to Die For (21 page)

“I DON'T KNOW
what time I'll be back in Proper, but stop by the restaurant when you close the store. I'll try to meet you there,” Tak said. I couldn't promise anything, so I thanked him and hung up.

My efforts to navigate Proper City via the bus had left me at the mercy of its every-twenty-minute schedule, and from a glance at the clock, I saw that I was between twenty-minute intervals. Besides that, I was now the temporary caretaker of one fluffy white bichon frise. I found Ivory's leash in a kitchen drawer and clipped it on, grabbed a bag of dog food, and then locked up Shindig behind me.

By the time I returned to Disguise DeLimit, the store was twelve minutes late in opening. A woman in a flowy floral dress and cowboy boots stood outside, staring into the windows at the sailor and
South Pacific
costumes. I said hello and unlocked the store while Ivory lifted his leg on
the front of the building. The woman stepped over the small puddle and followed me inside.

I flipped on the lights. The stockroom door was open the width of one cat. Seconds later a guilty Soot appeared with Styrofoam pellets stuck to his whiskers. He took one look at Ivory, hissed, and ran upstairs.

“I'm sorry I was late getting the store opened,” I said to the woman.

“Time is such an abstract concept,” she said. “Five minutes here, five minutes there. Not a big deal.”

I set Ivory behind the counter and prepped the register for a day of sales. The woman flipped through a rack of Hawaiian attire behind the window. She moved on to the picked-over wall of flapper dresses, and then to the display of clown clothes next to it.

“Please let me know if I can steer you in a direction,” I called out. “I'm Margo, and this is my family's store. Sometimes people like to wander and get ideas, and other times they know exactly what they want.”

“I'm a wanderer,” she said. She let the sleeve of a brightly colored muumuu fall from her fingertips and looked at me. “I'm Willow. I just moved to Proper a few days ago, and I'm thinking about throwing a small get-together for a few clients. After I saw the photos from the other costume parties people have had on the Proper City website, I thought dressing up might be fun. Help break the ice.”

I smiled. One of these days I'd meet the person who maintained the Get to Know Proper page on our website and I'd thank him or her. The photos that residents submitted of their parties showed off some of the best costume concepts we'd ever thought up. No way was I letting Candy Girls be the only game in town.

I welcomed the distraction of talking about costumes.
After building a barrier out of clown shoes to keep Ivory contained, I gave Willow my full attention. “If you're looking for costumes, you've come to the right place. We sell or rent. With rentals, there's a refundable deposit. If you rent and decide to buy, you can. If you buy and decide you wished you'd rented, well, I can't really do much about that after the fact.” I stopped talking long enough to realize that I'd just hit her with a lot of sales jargon in a short amount of time. “Have fun looking around. We just acquired the sailor costumes that you see in the window, and there's lots of other stuff in the back stockroom.”

Willow had a genuine look of curiosity about her. She pointed at the stockroom. “Anything back there that I don't see out here?”

Bobbie had mentioned the acquisition of ice cream shop uniforms, but I hadn't come across them yet. Who knew what else my dad kept back there in the disorganized mess?

“Aliens and G-men,” I said. “We just acquired a collection from a sci-fi collector in Area 51. There's the usual, the little green men and some government-type outfits, but also some unique items that were handmade.”

“Little green men! That sounds perfect. Is there any way I can see them?”

I looked at the stockroom door. Tak and I had made a little progress, but I wasn't comfortable letting a new customer get a behind-the-scenes look at the way we did business. Besides, there was the matter of the dead mouse that Soot had found, and the last thing I needed was for a customer to stumble upon one of those!

“I was going to work on a display of them today. If you don't mind waiting, I'll bring a sampling out front.”

“Take your time,” she said.

It occurred to me that a flowy floral dress and cowboy
boots was a good outfit for someone who wanted to appear nonthreatening. Soot must have thought the same thing. He wandered into the shop and brushed his fur up against Willow's ankles. She squatted and held her hand out for him to sniff. When he reached the same conclusion I had, he stepped forward and bumped his head into her open palm.

I left them alone and ducked into the stockroom, stacking several boxes onto the dolly. I added two white Tyvek suits that hung on hangers, and the single blue plastic suit that I'd gotten from the crime scene cleanup crew, and then wheeled the cart back out front.

“The boxes have heads inside, but this is a sampling of what someone could wear for the body of their costume,” I said. I handed her the hanging costumes and unfolded the flaps of the cardboard box. From inside I pulled out three papier-mâché heads: two with antennae that bobbled around the top, and one vaguely peach-colored headpiece designed to look like a classic
SNL
Conehead. Her eyes lit up and she picked up the Conehead. “I haven't seen one of these in forever. Do you have any more?”

I looked in the bottom of the box. “To be honest, I don't know. When I said this collection was a recent acquisition, I wasn't kidding. I drove them here two days ago.” I opened the next two boxes and peeked inside. Three more Coneheads.

“So far, there's four. Chances are good that there's more in the back. How many costumes do you need?”

“Eight, I think.” She handed me back the Tyvek suits on hangers. “This seems a little heavy for the kind of weather we're having, but this blue thing looks like it might be perfect. Do you have eight of them too?”

“That's a sample,” I said quickly. “I'd have to order them for you.”

“That's fine. I have a couple of weeks.”

“Great. Let me check for more Coneheads.” I moved the remaining two boxes off the dolly and wheeled it toward me. The wheels locked up. I moved it back and forward to no avail.

“It's caught on something,” Willow said. “Hold on.” She bent down and picked up a chain with a shiny round medallion hanging from it. “Does this go with one of the costumes?” she asked, holding it up.

Ebony's lost medallion! I glanced at the ceiling and gave a silent thank-you to Saint Anthony. “That's Ebony's favorite necklace,” I said, forgetting that Willow didn't know who Ebony was. “She said it was missing. I guess it fell off when we unloaded the boxes.”

“She'll probably be happy to get it back. I don't think that's just any old necklace. That looks like a talisman.” At my confused look, she continued, “A good luck charm or, more likely, something that comforts her.”

“That's exactly what it is to her. How'd you know? Most people think it's just a necklace.”

“I can tell from how the brass is shiny at the base of it that she probably rubs it regularly. Most people who have a favorite piece of jewelry become so accustomed to it that throughout the day they take a subconscious inventory to make sure it's where it should be.”

“I've never heard that before,” I said.

She blushed. “It's my theory.”

“Do you always make up theories about people and what they wear?” I asked, wondering what she thought of my tuxedo T-shirt.

“It's kind of my job. I'm a counselor,” she said.

“Like a shri—psychologist?” I asked.

“I'm not licensed like that. But sometimes people need people to talk to, and I try to provide a safe, confidential place where they can.”

“Do you have a lot of clients?”

“I don't have any,” she said. “I moved here from Texas, where I lived for the past twenty years. Time for a fresh start,” she said. I sensed that there was more that she wasn't telling me, but it felt too personal to pry. “I rented a small bungalow at the edge of Proper City where I'll meet with clients.” She pulled two textured, dirt-brown business cards out of her wallet and handed them to me. “Word of mouth helps, so if you know anybody who wants to talk, give them my card.”

I ran my thumb and forefinger over the texture and read the lettering.
WILLOW SUMMERS
, read the card, and underneath, in italics, it said
TALK IS CHE
AP
. A phone number followed.

“Thank you. I might,” I said, and tucked the cards into the pocket of my trousers.

“If you don't, then plant them.”

“Excuse me?”

“The cards. They're made from recycled paper and they're infused with seeds. Bury them in the dirt and you'll get the beginnings of a houseplant.” She smiled. “Some people might prefer to talk to a houseplant than to talk to me. I figure it's good to have options.”

Willow Summers had such a pleasant disposition that I was tempted to tell her all about Ebony on the spot. But I didn't. Instead, I wheeled the cart into the stockroom and loaded it up with three more boxes. We had to open only two to find the remainder of her Coneheads.

She reserved the heads for rental and ordered several of the blue plastic suits for pickup. I made a notation and promised to call her when they were in. Already the alien costumes were proving to be a nice addition to our collection.

As soon as she left, I called Ebony's cell to tell her that I'd found her medallion. She didn't answer. I tried the
landline at Shindig, but I already knew that she wouldn't be there. Which meant Detective Nichols might be closer to getting that arrest warrant than I thought.

*   *   *

BY
the time Kirby showed up at three, I was eager to leave the store. In addition to Willow's rental, I sold a dozen boas to a group of ladies who stopped in after a luncheon. I'd long ago learned never to underestimate the shopping power of a group of women who were powered by champagne and shrimp cocktail.

“Hey, Margo, any word on Jerry?” Kirby asked.

“He's coming home tomorrow,” I said.

“That's great! That means things can get back to normal around here.”

“Normal, right.” If normal meant Ebony in jail for a murder she didn't commit and my dad selling the store so he could travel the country.

“Are you going to leave when he comes back?”

“I don't think that's a good idea. He has to learn to take it easy.”

“Oh, okay, sure.” Kirby's shoulders dropped. He walked past me and put his dune buggy magazine and keys into a cubby behind the counter.

I was taken aback by his reaction. As far as I'd figured it, he and I had gotten along just fine since my father's heart attack. Maybe he didn't like me telling him what to do. If that was the case, he'd have to get over it sooner rather than later. I didn't have time to get into that conversation because I'd been waiting for him to show up for hours. Now that he was here, I could finally get out of the store and try to help Ebony.

“I meant to tell you, I talked to Varla. She's stoked about the discount and the background. She asked if I could take
measurements of the window so she could start working on something,” Kirby said.

“Why don't you tell her to come and see it for herself? She can still take measurements, but it might help to see it in person.”

“You want me to ask her to come here?” He turned beet red.

“Don't you think that makes the most sense?”

“I guess so.”

“Great. Call her now if you want. I need to head out for a bit and I don't want to wait until it's too late.”

He perked up. “You're going out? Sure, I'll take care of everything.”

I scanned the store for a project to delegate, but Kirby was already opening the boxes that he'd carried inside. “If I'm not back by seven, are you okay closing up?”

“Yep.” If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Kirby liked working in the store a lot more when I wasn't around. Was I such a bad boss? I shook it off, grabbed my keys, and left.

*   *   *

I
took my scooter this time and drove directly to the house of Linda and Black Jack Cannon. The same black town car sat in the driveway as before. I parked the scooter and walked up the sidewalk, preparing to knock on the front door. I adjusted the hem of my tuxedo T-shirt and stood straight. The door was answered four seconds after I rang the bell, something I knew only because I counted out the Mississippis to help calm my nerves.

Linda Cannon answered the door herself. Today she was elegant in a light blue skirt suit set off with deep blue earrings, necklace, and ring set in gold. Her blond hair was up in a French twist and her lipstick looked freshly applied.