Crushed Velvet (21 page)

My mind flashed to the garter belt Charlie had found in Phil's car. “What happened on Sunday?”

Her hand quivered as she took another sip of her drink. “He told me he reserved a room in Los Angeles. I reminded him that I had two shows booked Sunday night. I thought—hoped—that he'd wait until after my shows and we could drive to Los Angeles together, but he didn't come to the theater that night. When I called him, he told me he'd made other arrangements, that he'd met someone else. I couldn't believe it. The mistress—the exciting exotic-dancing mistress—gets cheated on with another woman.” She downed what was left of her drink.

“Do you know why someone becomes the other woman, Poly?” I shook my head. “Because sometimes you take what you can get. And now I'm back to being alone. No companionship, no affection. The only things I wanted.” Her hand shook as she held her glass to her lips for another sip.

“Is it true that you had someone from the theater drive you home Sunday night?”

“How do you know that?”

“I overheard some people at the Villamere talking.”

She waved her glass. “To be honest, I don't remember much of Sunday. I'm afraid after I spoke to Phil, I found the companionship I sought in a bottle of champagne. I started drinking before my first show. My second show is a blur. I woke up here the next morning with my sleeping pills open on the nightstand. I must have taken some. There was a pot of coffee brewing and a blanket and pillows were on my sofa. My manager tells me one of the ushers drove me home, but he wasn't here when I woke up.” Her voice shook as she talked, but instead of dropping her face into her hands, she raised her head like a queen and held herself proudly. I was surprised
to feel her strength, that of a woman who has fought to make a reputation for herself, and now spends her time balanced between living up to that reputation and living it down. She set the empty glass on top of a straw coaster on the table and looked directly at me. “I should have crawled back into bed and slept it off.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I don't like leaving my car in public parking lots. It's recognizable. People see it around town and they start rumors. I took a cab to the theater, but the manager wouldn't let me drive home until we'd had our weekly meeting.”

“How did you find out about Phil?”

“The same way everybody else did. On the local news.”

I thought about the morning I'd seen Babs at Charlie's Automotive. She'd been angry at Charlie for blackmailing Phil to keep quiet about their affair. Charlie hadn't known about Phil's murder. It made sense that Babs hadn't, either.

She dabbed at her eyes. “I know you're friends with his wife. I know you're prepared to hate me because I was the other woman. I'd like to thank you for giving me a chance to talk about him. It feels good to acknowledge my feelings out loud.” She stood. “But now I really must ask you to leave. I have some business to attend to, and contrary to what people must say about me, I don't always conduct business in my negligee.”

I stood, too. “Thank you for talking to me. I'll let myself out.”

I walked to the front door, scanning the row of trash bags as I went. The only way one woman could amass that much trash was to let it accumulate. According to what I knew about her performance and subsequent meltdown, she must have been at the tail end of sobering up when she showed up at Charlie's Automotive.

I hadn't expected to hear Babs tell me she loved Phil. From what I'd witnessed at Charlie's, and what I'd heard about her
from Adelaide and the usher at the Villamere, I'd expected to find a cold, calculating broad who had little regard for the marriage she was destroying. Instead, I'd found her to be just like every other woman I'd ever known with a broken heart. Had she become a recluse after hearing the news, returning to her home, shutting out the world, and grieving over her lover's death because she knew nobody else would acknowledge her feelings for him? Or was there something she was hiding that I still hadn't discovered?

I drove back
to Tea Totalers. The voile panels were where I'd left them, hanging from the curtain rod above the doorway between the kitchen and the front of the store. I checked around the interior and exterior for signs that Kim had come back after our argument yesterday. There were none.

While I was concerned over Genevieve's situation, I knew that taking care of her tea shop was as important as finding her husband's killer. If the shop folded while she was under suspicion, she'd have nothing to return to when this was over. I was down one helper and there was much work to be done. Not to mention the upcoming opening of Material Girl.

I didn't want to admit to anyone else that maybe there was a reason I was spending all of my time volunteering to help other people instead of focusing on my own needs. I was afraid that the store wouldn't succeed. I had watched the people around me make decisions that affected other people: Kim's impulse to fake an insurance policy because Genevieve was
helping her get past her DUI conviction and Vaughn's father interfering with Adelaide's annual Waverly House event, putting their son squarely in the middle of their tug-of-war. I'd watched Genevieve get taken away to the police station because she was the likeliest candidate for her husband's murder, and I'd watched another woman mourn the loss of the same man. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but it was life. I would always want to help other people. That was in my nature. But I could help them more if my own life had purpose.

I tore the butcher paper down from one of the windows, careful to remove all of the masking tape that had secured the paper to the glass. I ran my hands over the voile, feeling the rough texture of the fleurs-de-lis woven into the texture between my fingertips. It was such an iconic French symbol, perfect for Genevieve's French interior. After removing the curtain rods from the windows, I tied ribbon bows around the wooden pole and rehung them. I replaced the curtains I'd made earlier in the week from the toile and tied them back with swags of Provençal.

The fabrics changed the interior of the tea shop. By the time I'd finished hanging all of the panels, I felt like I was in another country. The renovation spoke volumes about what could be accomplished by using fabric to change the appearance of a room, and in that moment, I knew if I could communicate that single message to the residents of San Ladrón, my store would be successful.

There was a knock on the front door of the shop. I pushed the curtains aside. Vaughn stood out front. I opened the door and he poked his head in. He was wearing a navy blue suit over a white shirt and paisley tie. His pants were narrow, ending in cuffs above cognac wingtips.

“You've been busy,” he said, scanning the interior. “Genevieve's going to love it.”

“That's what I'm hoping.” I stepped back and held the door open wider. “Are you here to work?”

“Not today. I have to take care of some business. If all goes as planned, I might have good news tonight. I know this is last-minute, but are you available for a celebratory dinner?”

“I can't celebrate as long as I know Genevieve is in jail.”

“My business has to do with her, too.”

“You found something? You know something?”

He held up a hand. “I can't say anything yet.” He leaned down and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

“What was that for?” I asked, surprised.

“I heard what you suggested to my mother. It's like you gave her a B-12 shot. She's full of energy and ideas and she's already contacted the media.”

“She deserves to have her party and Genevieve deserves to show off Tea Totalers.”

“And you deserve for people to know what your fabric store can do for them with the materials inside.”

“It's not too self-serving, is it?”

“Are you kidding? It's a perfect solution and nobody would have thought of it if you hadn't suggested it first.”

Embarrassed, I turned away from him and went inside. He followed and left the door open behind him. “Maybe I should have you come to my new apartment. I never even thought about using fabric in the interior. I've been absorbed in refinishing the molding and hardwiring the sconces.”

“You can't ignore the fabric,” I said. “All the molding and ambient lighting in the world can't provide the softness and texture of fabric.”

He ran his hand over the toile curtain, holding the panel open so he could see the countryside scene depicted in the print. “Fabric always seemed so feminine.”

“It doesn't have to be. Fabric is as personal as art. What one person responds to, another person doesn't even notice. It helps define people and can be used to create mystery.”

“Like how?” he asked. He let the curtain fall from his fingers and turned to me.

“Here's an example. When people think about black leather, they think biker, right? But put black leather on a sofa, and it becomes modern. Change the color to cordovan, hunter green, or cognac, and you get a men's-club vibe. If you want to be unconventional, instead of a black leather sofa, maybe you go with black leather curtains—and there's the mystery. In a curtain, the toughness of the leather is countered by the volume of fabric needed to create the proper drape. It would naturally soften the appearance, but you'd have to compensate for the heaviness of the black leather in the rest of the room with lighting, maybe a tufted chenille sofa, lots of throw pillows, fresh flowers.”

“Black leather curtains?” Vaughn said. There was an implied question in his tone. “Is that what you'd suggest for me?”

I tipped my head to the side and studied him. “I don't know what I'd suggest for you. I'd have to see this place you're fixing up and know what you were going for.”

“As soon as I get the circular saw out of the living room, you'll have a standing invitation.”

I turned away from Vaughn and looked at Jitterbug across the street. A black pickup truck pulled into a parking space facing me. Bingo! Rick Penwald got out of the cab and went inside.

“I need another cup of coffee,” I said. “Can you watch the store for a couple of minutes?”

He looked at his watch. “If you lock up, I'll join you.”

“No, I'd rather you stay here.” I took a few steps away from him. “Look around. Tell me if you think I forgot anything.” Before he had a chance to question my behavior, I was out the door and jogging through traffic.

I caught Rick inside the brightly colored shop. He was at the coffee and creamer station, pouring sugar into an otherwise dark-as-black beverage with one hand, stirring it with the other. He didn't see me coming, and judging from the look on his face when he recognized me next to him, he wasn't happy to see me.

“I need to ask you a couple more questions about Phil Girard,” I said.

He pulled the stirrer out of the coffee, ran it through his lips, and tossed it into the trash. “I don't have to tell you anything.” He turned and left. I followed behind and caught up with him by his truck.

“Your story has more holes than a bolt of netting. I know you didn't tell me everything the other day.”

Rick opened the driver's-side door and set his coffee in one of the cup holders. He slammed the door and turned to me, pointing a finger in my face much like that hammer man from Western Extermination that Charlie had mentioned a few days ago.

“You need to mind your own business,” he said.

I stood to my full height and looked him square in the eye. “I'm sure Sheriff Clark would like to know that your business doesn't even exist anymore. I called information and they said Special Delivery was a fly-by-night operation.”

He stared up at the sun and squinted his eyes. I waited for his next move. We were in a public parking lot with plenty of people around us. He wasn't going to get away without telling me something. Rick took a deep breath and blew it out of his mouth. His breath was bitter from the coffee.

“Delivery jobs were few and far between before they all but dried up. I didn't need the expenses of maintaining the business, so I let everything lapse: phone, fax, office. I took jobs that paid cash, and when I did find work, I bought the magnetic sign and borrowed vehicles from friends. I used up the invoices I had left. When they ran out I bought generic ones from the office supply store and stickered my logo on them. I made ends meet.”

“What happened on Sunday?”

“Like I told you, I was at a poker game. Drank too much, lost a lot of money. Crashed on a friend's sofa. Phil's call woke me up. He asked me to come to LA, get the van, and
make the delivery here. He said he had something big cooking that he didn't want to blow.”

“How'd you get your car back?”

“I got a ride into LA from a buddy of mine. He dropped me off, I got a cup of coffee, and I drove the van back.”

“Does Sheriff Clark know all this? Has he questioned you? Because I can't see him taking your friend's word on all of this.”

“He knows everything I just told you,” Rick said with a smile not unlike the Cheshire cat's. “Sheriff Clark was the buddy.”

Gone was the
angry truck driver who seemed to be avoiding me, and in his place was either a regular guy who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and just wanted to get on with his life, or a very wily man who had set things up so he was untouchable.

“Why didn't you tell me that from the beginning?”

“It's none of your business.”

“But you or Sheriff Clark could have told me—”

“Like I said, Phil was a friend of mine. He helped me out. I don't want to believe his pretty little wife killed him any more than you do, but it seems as though that's what happened.”

There wasn't much I could say to Rick to prove he was wrong. I had nothing other than my blind faith in Genevieve, and even though mountains of evidence pointed in her direction, I still knew she wasn't a murderer. I said good-bye to Rick and stood away from his truck as he backed out of the space and drove away.

Something wasn't adding up. I waited by the crosswalk for the light to change and strolled absentmindedly across the street when it did. When I got back to the shop, Vaughn was gone. Both the front door and back door were locked. I checked the Dracaena plant for the keys, but they weren't there. I wasn't surprised that Vaughn had left, and considering there was a killer out there framing Genevieve for the murder of her husband, I appreciated that he'd locked up before he had. Still, it put a damper on my work for the rest of the day.

I drove back to Material Girl. Boxes were stacked by the back door: more inventory. I dragged everything inside and pushed it up against the wrap stand to be dealt with later, then locked back up behind me and headed out to Charlie's. As I approached her shop, I saw Sheriff Clark talking to her in her office.

I pressed my back against the front exterior wall like a cat burglar in a comic strip and tipped my head to the side, straining to pick up pieces of their conversation.

“You're sure? Tonight?” he asked.

“I'm sure. This whole thing with Frenchy has been keeping her busy.”

“Speaking of which, thanks for your help with that.”

“Don't mention it.”

I peeked into the window. Charlie crossed her arms over her chest.

“I mean it. I don't want word to get out about what I did. I have a hard enough time in this town.”

I hadn't wanted to believe that Charlie was selling out our friend, but judging from what I heard, Charlie and Clark weren't at odds with each other. Her betrayal stung like an unexpected shock of electricity. I stormed into the auto shop and went directly to the office just as the sheriff reached up and swept Charlie's thick black hair off her shoulder.

“Just what the heck is going on here?” I demanded.

Charlie and Sheriff Clark looked horrified. I turned my
attention to Charlie. “I can't believe you. All along you've been feeding him information? When you said you were trying to expand your social circle and that I was a good influence on you, was that all crap?”

She turned to Sheriff Clark. “Later, Ryan. This is going to take some time.”

Ryan? I looked around for a third person. Clark walked past me. “Ms. Monroe,” he said, nodding his greeting. I followed him.

“Sheriff Clark, why didn't you tell me you were Rick Penwald's alibi?” I said to his back.

He stopped and turned around slowly. Behind me, I heard Charlie come out of her office.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“He's Rick Penwald's alibi. There was a poker game on Sunday night and Rick got drunk and lost a bunch of money. He crashed on Sheriff Clark's sofa. Phil called Rick the next morning and asked him to make the delivery. Guess who gave Rick a ride into Los Angeles so he could drive the van back?”

Charlie looked at Clark with fire in her eyes. Any anger she'd directed toward me shifted to him.

“You jerk,” she said. “You should have told me.”

“Charlie—”

“Get out. And find another mechanic to rotate your tires.”

Clark didn't move right away. The tension between them was so palpable I felt as uncomfortable as if I were naked and wrapped in thick, itchy burlap. After several tense seconds, Clark stormed out of the middle bay. He turned left, the opposite direction of the sheriff's mobile unit, and disappeared from sight.

Charlie cursed. She turned around and punched her fist into a heavy boxer's bag that hung outside of her office. I'd always wondered exactly why it was installed there, and now I knew. She went into the small powder room in the corner and slammed the door.

I didn't care how long Charlie camped out inside her powder room; I wasn't going to leave until I had confirmation of what I suspected. Only, the longer I sat there, waiting for her to come out, my suspicions changed to something even less believable than her backstabbing Genevieve. But I needed to hear her say it. I needed to hear her tell me the truth.

After seventeen minutes, I approached the door to the powder room and rapped my knuckles on the outside. “Charlie, it's Poly. I'm not leaving until you come out here and talk to me.”

“I knew there was a reason I installed that exit through the powder room,” she said from behind me.

I whirled around. She set a flask of Chianti on the floor and pulled down the doors to each of the bays. The room darkened significantly. She locked the front door and flipped her sign from
Open
to
Closed
, picked up the Chianti, and went into her office. “If you're planning to join me, bring a couple of glasses from the cabinet next to Eddie.”

Along the back of the auto shop was a large metal file cabinet. Hanging on the wall next to it was a poster of Eddie Van Halen. I opened the panels on the top of the cabinet, pulled out two glasses, and slid the panel shut. I carried them to the office and held them in one hand, resting against the door frame, staring at her.

“It's not what you think,” she said.

“You and Clark are a couple? For real?”

“Okay, it
is
what you think. Give me one of those glasses.”

I extended the glasses and she took them both and filled each about halfway. I sipped at one. She poured hers down her throat and refilled her glass.

“How long have you known?” she asked.

“About ten minutes.”

“That long, huh?”

“It explains why Genevieve asked you to do something when Clark took her away. She must have figured it out. How long has this been going on?”

She shook her head. “About a month, I guess. He had a dead battery and I gave him a jump. One thing led to another. When Frenchy's thing happened, I thought I could run interference. Keep him distracted so you could find the real killer.”

“That's why you kept saying to leave Clark to you.”

She nodded. “I even asked him about Rick. No, you know what I did? I told him when you found out Rick's business wasn't real. I helped the bastard. He made a fool out of me, and I don't like looking like a fool.” She slammed her glass down on the desk.

“Nobody likes looking like a fool, but Genevieve's situation is a little more dire than that.”

“Are you any closer to finding out who murdered the cheater?”

“Right now I'd settle for finding out
why
someone murdered the cheater. Every single thing I find points to Genevieve.”

“My money's on this Rick dude.”

“I told you, the sheriff is his alibi.”

“For what? Clark gave him a ride to the city and took off. Nobody knows what happened next.”

“Charlie, you're involved with him. Do you really think he'd cover up for a potential murderer?”

She twisted in her chair and hung one leg over the arm. “No. He wouldn't. I'm looking for a reason to be even more mad at him than I already am, but that's not one.”

“I think it's totally fine for you to be mad at him. In fact, I encourage it. He's after Genevieve, and she didn't do this.”

“Okay, so what do we got?” she said, sounding like a female Kojak.

“Rick says Phil called him early Monday morning and asked him to come to LA to pick up the van. If that's true, then Phil was alive early Monday morning. Clark dropped Rick off and left. Rick found the keys in the ignition, money on the driver's seat. He bought a cup of coffee and drove
back, and that's when I found Phil. Genevieve's produce was in the van, and the fabric was on top of Phil.”

“What doesn't make sense is why he'd have the wrong fabric,” she said.

“That could have been a mistake. Phil's body was under that velvet. And there were a couple of crates of produce in there, too. And the jug of tea. All of that suggests that something happened after he picked everything up but before Rick got behind the wheel of the truck to make the delivery. So, let's see. Phil packed the truck. Phil called Rick and asked him to make the delivery. And then what? Rick said Phil claimed he was on to something big in Los Angeles.”

“You're sure it wasn't a woman?” Charlie asked.

“Both Babs and Genevieve said something that makes it sound like it was, but Phil was no Prince Charming. I'm not even sure how he got two women, let alone three.” I chewed my lower lip and looked at the black-and-white cat clock on the wall of Charlie's office. The eyes of the cat moved from side to side, marking off the passing seconds.

“So whatever happened to Phil happened between him calling Rick and Rick showing up,” Charlie said.

“It's like someone heard him call Rick. If somebody was watching Phil they would have heard him make those arrangements. It would be perfect timing for a murderer. Murder him and put him in the van. You already know someone's going to show up in forty-five minutes to courier the body to another town.”

“I'd say it was genius, except it seems a little spontaneous. If Phil hadn't made that phone call, then the opportunity never would have presented itself.”

“You're right,” I said, dejected. “The other thing that bothers me is Rick. Why did he care so much about getting my signature on the paperwork? He acted totally normal. If you knew you were delivering a dead man with your cargo, would you act totally normal?”

“I like to think I don't know the answer to that question, not being a murderer and all,” Charlie said.

I ignored her sarcasm. “We're still missing something. I just don't know what.”

I said good-bye to Charlie and went out front. Across the street, a long truck with a wooden flatbed was parked in front of Material Girl. Two ladders were propped against the front of the store and men in hard hats stood on each ladder.

“Hey!” I called, jogging through the traffic like Frogger. A man stood by the truck, a hand keeping his yellow hard hat on his head, staring up at the men on ladders. He jumped when I put my hand on his arm, and his hard hat tipped to the side.

“You never called me back. What are you doing?” I asked.

“It's your lucky day. We finished our last job early. I had the permits for your job in the truck, so here we are. Should be done in about forty-five minutes.”

“By ‘done,' what do you mean?”

“All traces of the old sign down, new sign up and wired. Done.”

“So I'll actually have a sign by the time I open on Sunday?”

“That's what you wanted, right? Don't you think you're cutting it a little close?” he said with a wink.

“Don't even go there.”

I walked around the block and let myself in through the back door so as to avoid interrupting the hard-hatted men out front. I couldn't blame the interrupted schedule, or the rain, or the murder for not opening on time. This was it. Even if it was all coming down to the wire, it would be ready. I'd open on schedule, and I'd cross all of my fingers and toes that customers would show up.

The sound of the power saws cutting the remaining exposed bolts away from the façade of the store was uncomfortably loud. I put my earbuds in and cued up some Ike and Tina Turner. I grabbed one of the bolts of velvet still wrapped in plastic and dragged it across the floor to the wrap stand.
I cut the plastic open and lifted the velvet out of the wrapper. When I turned around, the foreman was standing by my back door. His lips moved but I couldn't hear him. I pulled the earbuds out and let them dangle around my neck.

“We're all done out front. You wanna come see?”

“Give me a minute to move the rest of this fabric.” I went back to the stack and strained with the weight of another roll while moving it to the wrap stand.

“Jeez, lady, take it easy. You're going to throw out your back if you keep that up. You gotta lift with your knees, like this,” he said. He crossed the store, wrapped his arms around the navy velvet, and hoisted it up. He stumbled forward a few steps, and then tripped over the bottom of it. The bolt fell out of his arms and landed on the floor. “Heavier than I expected.”

He kept talking, but I didn't hear anything he said. I was too focused on the small, plastic-wrapped package that had fallen loose from inside the tube of velvet and rested on the exposed concrete floor.