Button Holed (14 page)

“Buttons, sure.” I should have known someone as well trained as Margot wouldn’t let any grass grow under her feet. She zipped off and came back in a jiffy, holding the small leather briefcase I knew contained the buttons I’d given to Kate for her consideration. “Kate called. The night she was killed. I was still here, and she’d already left and when I heard the phone ring . . . Well, I checked caller ID and when I saw it was her, I didn’t answer. I was already off the clock that day. She left a message, said she’d forgotten those buttons she was supposed to get back to you and said I should drop whatever I was doing and run them over. On my night off!” Margot sniffed.

I took the briefcase from her and gave myself a mental kick in the pants. This investigating stuff wasn’t as easy as it looked on TV, and I wasn’t going to find out anything if I didn’t take it easy, take my time, and get the assistants to talk.

Stalling for time, I snapped open the case.

The buttons I’d given Kate were mounted just as they would be if I was taking them to a show for sale or entering them in a competition, on what we in the business call trays, nine-by-twelve-inch white, acid-free matt board. Normally, I would have just slipped each tray into a heavy plastic sleeve to prevent the buttons from rubbing against each other. For Kate, I’d used the plastic sleeves, then wrapped each tray in velvet and set all three trays in the briefcase. No, I was not playing favorites. In fact, this was the way all my most prized buttons traveled.

As I knew they would be, all the buttons were present and accounted for, and I closed the case and wondered what a real detective would do next. That lasted maybe half a second before I reminded myself that I wasn’t a real detective; I was a button dealer. Buttons were, are, and will always be the only thing I know how to talk about.

I looked from Margot to Sloan. “I found a button in my shop, and it doesn’t belong to me. I thought Kate might have left it there.”

“Kate didn’t even remember to take those buttons with her when she went to see you the other night,” Margot said with a look toward the briefcase. “You really think she would have brought buttons of her own?”

“You really think she’d have any? I mean, any that weren’t attached to clothing?” Sloan didn’t need to elaborate. The unspoken words hung in the air between us. Like Hugh, Margot and Sloan believed buttons were for nerds.

And Kate Franciscus was anything but.

Another dead end. And another chance to prove I wasn’t going to give up. I sat down, the better to send the message that I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “So if Kate didn’t drop that button, maybe one of you did the day you were at the Button Box.”

“A button?” Blake appeared out of the back room, her short-cropped hair a mess and smudges of dirt across her cheek. Clearly, as third in line, she’d been given the less tasteful of the cleanup and packing tasks. I could only imagine what poor little Wynona would be left to deal with. “You’re not serious, are you?” Blake dragged a garbage bag behind her. She plopped it down in the middle of the living room floor. “Buttons aren’t exactly our thing.”

“But one of you might have lost it off a piece of clothing.” I was prepared; I had a photo of the button with me, and I slipped it out of my purse and showed it all around. “It’s an unusual button, probably handcrafted. If it was on one of your suit coats or purses or—”

Margot leaned over for a better look.

So did Sloan, who sneered. “It looks like somebody made it out of some old tree.” She didn’t need to elaborate. Clearly, handmade was akin to so-not cool.

“Like any of us would buy anything like that.” Blake rolled her eyes.

“If it doesn’t belong to one of you . . .” I glanced at the assistants gathered around me. “Maybe you’ve seen it someplace? Maybe someone else would know? How about Wynona?”

“Wynona!” I didn’t realize names could be associated with tastes until I heard the sour twist Margot gave this one. She answered me, sure, but she was looking hard at Blake when she did. “Wynona isn’t with us anymore. Is she, Blake?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” Blake threw up her hands. “How was I supposed to know the girl wasn’t on the up-and-up?”

“She wasn’t?” I sat up. Sure, it had nothing to do with buttons, or more specifically, with the button I needed to learn more about, but this was definitely interesting. I leaned forward, and because I knew Margot would take the lead, I looked her way. “What happened?”

The smile she threw at Blake was scorching. “Blake didn’t do a background check like she was supposed to.”

Blake flopped down on the chair opposite mine and crossed her arms over her chest. “When Shawna got sick, we needed another assistant fast. You didn’t expect me to do the things we had Shawna doing, did you?”

“And look where trying to dodge a little work got you,” Sloan crooned. “Sweet little Wynona wasn’t all that sweet after all. She had a taste for jewelry.”

“Pearls, specifically. Antique and valuable,” Margot said. “Too bad they were Kate’s.”

The day I’d met her, Wynona was painfully shy. The thought of her as a thief . . .

It didn’t jibe. “Are you sure?”

“Kate was.” This from Margot, who nodded. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have fired the little twit.”

Another spot of news. “When?” I asked.

While Margot was still thinking about it, Blake piped up. “The day after we came to see the buttons.”

“The day before Kate was killed,” I mumbled.

Margot, Sloan, and Blake exchanged glances, but they left it to Margot to speak. “You’re not saying—”

“A single thing.” I made that clear by getting to my feet. “I don’t know anything about pearls, and I sure don’t know anything about murder. Buttons are my business.”

“She was hopping mad,” Sloan threw in.

“Kate?” I asked.

“Wynona.” As if reliving the scene, Sloan narrowed her eyes. “Wynona looked innocent enough, all right, but after Kate called her in for a meeting . . .” She shivered. “I was here when Wynona walked out of the back room Kate used as an office. She had tears streaming down her cheeks, and she was so damned mad, her face was on fire.”

“Maybe she was just embarrassed at having been caught,” I suggested. “Or grateful? After all, Kate apparently just fired her; she didn’t have her arrested.”

“Or maybe she was mad enough to kill her!” This from Blake, whose eyes shone with excitement.

I wasn’t so sure she was on the right track. “Wynona doesn’t exactly strike me as the murderous type.”

“And she hadn’t even started yet when Kate did all that stuff with security.”

I turned to Blake who’d dropped that bombshell. “Security? Like . . . ?”

Blake glanced at Margot, who gave her the go-ahead with a gesture that pretty much said it didn’t matter anymore what anyone knew. “A month or so ago,” she said. “Of course, Kate has always had security, but she hired another couple guys. And she had us screen her calls more thoroughly. Margot, you asked—”

“What was up, that’s right.” Margot nodded. “And Kate told me that with the wedding coming up, she couldn’t be too careful.”

“She was afraid of someone,” I said. “Who? Was there anyone who didn’t like Kate?”

Blake laughed. “What you should be asking is if there was anyone who liked her. It would be a hell of a lot easier to find that out, and your list would be a lot shorter.”

It reminded me of what Hugh had said: plenty of people wanted Kate dead.

I asked them what I’d asked him. “Who?”

“Who hated Kate?” Margot looked at her coworkers. “Well, all of us, for starters, but then, that’s no big surprise. You don’t get bossed around day and night by a woman who thinks she’s God’s gift to the world and not get just the teeniest bit resentful. But like I told that cute cop, that doesn’t mean any of us killed her.”

“What you mean to say is that it doesn’t mean any of us . . .” Sloan pointed a finger between Blake and herself. “Neither of us killed her. What about you, Margot?” Her smile was as brittle as ice. “Were you still pissed at Kate because you wanted time off to go visit that boy toy of yours in San Diego and Kate said—”

“That was business, and once she explained to me how she couldn’t spare me before the wedding, I understood. It was nothing to get mad about.” Margot’s words were convincing enough, but the muscle that jumped at the base of her jaw said otherwise. “The way I remember it, Sloan, you were a little miffed at Kate yourself. You were the one—”

“I didn’t use her stupid lipstick.” Sloan’s smile dissolved in an instant, and she booted the garbage bag just for good measure. “And even if I did, she didn’t have to mention it in front of Hugh and the rest of the production staff. You know she only did it because she’d heard that I was thinking of applying for that administrative job Hugh has available. Kate wanted to make sure I couldn’t leave, and she figured if she made me look incompetent, Hugh wouldn’t touch me. Right in front of all of them . . .” She turned my way to explain. “Right in front of everybody, Kate said I was lucky to be working for her, because I was so untrustworthy, anybody else would have canned me on the spot. How ridiculous is that? If she was looking to fire anybody . . .” Her gaze swung to Blake, who instantly turned the color of the ashen walls.

“I told you, it wasn’t my fault,” she said. “Kate shouldn’t have blamed me for Wynona.”

“But she did, didn’t she?” Margot leaned in close, challenging Blake. “Did she threaten to fire you, too, Blake? Is that why you were grumbling about her that morning and saying how much you would like to see her—”

“I never said dead.” Blake popped out of her chair. She was a hair shorter than Margot, and when she folded her arms across her chest and tipped her chin up, her eyes spit fire. “I said I couldn’t believe how narrow-minded she was.”

“And Kate heard you and reamed you out.” Sloan joined in the fray. “And you just got madder and madder at her. When I saw you at lunchtime that day—”

“I said I was thinking about quitting.”

“Maybe you decided quitting wasn’t a good-enough revenge.”

“That’s just crazy.” Blake stomped away. “It’s all just crazy.” She poked a thumb into her chest. “I sure didn’t kill her. I don’t know about you two.”

“Well, I didn’t, either,” Sloan huffed.

Margot pulled herself up to her full height. “I’m not even going to say it. I shouldn’t have to.”

I was feeling a bit like a preschool teacher caught in the middle of toddlers in tantrums. Bad enough these three were going at it; worse, if they were so busy sniping at each other, they couldn’t give me any useful information.

“I’m sure you told the police all that.” Yeah, that was me, sounding a little too chipper and so worried this was going to turn into a full-scale melee, I didn’t care. “They must have asked you.”

“The cute cop did.” First Margot, now Sloan. What cop needs social skills when he can get by on his looks? If we ever had another semi-civilized conversation, I’d be sure to mention it to Nevin. “He asked about alibis, too.” Her smile inched up a notch. “I have one. I was at dinner with my cousin who lives here in town. What about you, Margot? Blake? Were you able to tell him you had an alibi?”

Margot’s cheeks turned pink. “I was at the hotel. Alone.”

“I went to dinner,” Blake grumbled. “And I was alone, too, which pretty much proves I didn’t do it, because if I did, I would have come up with a better alibi than that.” She swung her gaze to me. “Right?”

I couldn’t say. But then, with my ears ringing and my head spinning, it was kind of hard to get a grip. Instead, I hung on tight to the briefcase with my buttons in it and headed for the stairs. If the assistants wanted to eat each other alive, at least I wouldn’t have to watch.

I was back in the glorious marble foyer when Kaz walked out of a back room.

“No luck,” he said.

So maybe my head was still spinning from all the infighting upstairs. I gave him a questioning look.

“With security,” he explained. “You heard what that one assistant said—”

“What surprises me is that you heard.”

“Does it?” He grinned. “You didn’t think I was going to miss out on something like that, did you? I was on the stairs, listening, only then that one chick said something about security, and I figured I’d help you out. You know, to show you what a great guy I am.” He winked.

I stayed strong. “And you found out . . .”

Kaz held the front door open for me. “Pretty much nothing. Kate Franciscus added some extra people to her security staff. That part was true. But nobody knows why and there was never any trouble. So . . .” We were on the stoop in the punishing sunlight. I slipped my sunglasses out of my purse and put them on just as Mike Homolka dashed to the bottom of the steps and snapped a few shots.

Kaz took my arm, and we walked to the sidewalk. “Told you you needed protection.”

“I really don’t,” I said, and in my head, I had all the reasons why I didn’t lined up. I was going to tell him that I was a big girl and I could take care of myself. I was going to point out that Kate was the one who’d obviously been in danger and there was no reason for me to worry about my safety. And if Kaz didn’t back off even then, I was all set to mention that a woman who’s been betrayed by the man she thought she could depend on has got to learn to fend for herself.

Too bad I never had the chance.

But then, that was because a twelve-speed mountain bike careened around the corner and headed right for me.

“Watch out!” Kaz yelled and pushed me out of the way, and it was a good thing he did. Instead of slamming right into me, the bike swerved. The front tire grazed my right leg, and the driver threw out an arm.

The last thing I remembered was bouncing off the curb and landing in the street.

Chapter Nine