Crushed Velvet (7 page)

When we reached the front door, I looked outside. A shiny black pickup truck pulled into the parking lot to Jitterbug. The logo for Special Delivery was on the side, and Rick Penwald was the driver. I whipped the door open. Vaughn was unprepared and the door whacked him on the forehead.

“Ow!”

“What?”

He rubbed his hand over the red spot. “Nothing. Why'd you open the door?”

“I saw someone I have to talk to.” I darted to the kitchen and threw a handful of ice into a towel, ran back, and thrust it at Vaughn. “Put this on your head. I'll be right back.” Before he could stop me, I was out the door and across the street.

“Rick!” I called.

He looked around the lot, his expression of confusion changing to recognition when he spied me. I jogged to where he was standing.

“Rick, hi. I don't know if you remember me from yesterday—”

“You're the fabric lady, right?”

“Yes. Poly Monroe.” I glanced down at the cup he held. It was the largest cup of coffee I could imagine, putting a Starbucks Venti to shame. “Is the coffee here any good?”

“I think it's an acquired taste. Keeps me awake on long drives.” He peeled back the plastic tab on top of the cup and raised it to his lips. I got a contact jolt of energy from the bitter scent. “Good seeing you,” he said.

“Wait!” I said. I put my hand on his forearm to keep him from leaving. “I wanted to ask you about yesterday.”

He squinted his eyes and the creases that were already etched onto his face deepened. “What about yesterday?”

“Can you tell me again how Phil arranged for you to make that delivery?”

“Phil called me up and asked if I could take care of it for him. He said he had something cooking in Los Angeles and he didn't want to blow it by leaving too early.”

“Were you already in LA?”

“What's with all the questions? I was here, at a poker game.”

I smiled, hoping to gain his trust. “Rick, Genevieve Girard is one of my friends. The police think she might have had something to do with Phil's murder, and I don't. I'm trying to figure out what happened so I can help her. I'm not trying to insinuate anything.”

He took another pull on his coffee and coughed twice. He set it in the back of his truck. Not only was it the only thing back there, but the black plastic liner of the bed of the truck was brand-new, much like the rest of the vehicle. It was a serious upgrade from the van he borrowed from Phil from time to time.

Rick shielded his eyes from the sun. The squinting lessened. “Phil called me early Monday morning and asked if I could make his delivery. He offered to pay me a thousand dollars. He told me where I could find the van. I made some bad bets Sunday night, so I figured if the van was there, great, I'd make up the loss. Phil said he'd leave the keys and the money with the manager of the motel where he parked. When I got there, the van was there, the keys were in the ignition, and there was a bank envelope on the driver's seat with my name on it and ten hundreds inside. I grabbed a cup of coffee at the diner next door and drove back.”

“You didn't look in the back of the van to make sure it was loaded?”

“I didn't even know what I was delivering.”

“Seems a little shady.”

“A thousand bucks under the table isn't a bad offer for a guy who lost more than that the night before. Sure, it was shady. Sometimes delivery jobs are like that. Phil told me I was picking up food and fabric. He said the van would be loaded when I got there. No reason to get involved.”

“Did you tell this to Sheriff Clark?”

“He knows what happened.”

I sensed that Rick was holding back something. Otherwise, how could it be that he'd driven the van with a murdered man in the back and he wasn't in custody, or at least being watched carefully as the main person of interest?

“If you're done with the interrogation, I really have to get going,” he said. His choice of words made it clear what he thought of me peppering him with questions about what happened.

“Sure.” I stepped back and let him get to his pickup. I waited in the lot while he threw the truck into reverse, backed out of the space, and peeled away, the temporary paper license plate on the truck barely legible. His tires screeched from accelerating too quickly. Why was he in such a hurry to get away from me? Was he late for a job, or had I been sniffing around for information that he'd rather keep to himself?

I returned to Tea Totalers and was pleasantly surprised that Vaughn's work ethic had kept him busy while I was gone. I rejoined him, and we finished. The interior of the café grew darker with each window we covered, until eventually, it felt like midnight.

“Do you know what time it is?” I asked Vaughn.

He checked his watch. “A little after four.”

That couldn't be. I walked past him into the kitchen and looked up at the clock. “When did it get to be four? Where's Kim?”

“I told her to leave. She's been at it as much as you have.
When I saw her bicycle outside, I offered her a ride home. She turned me down.”

“There's something odd about her,” I said.

“Because she turned me down? Nah, that's happened once or twice before.”

I laughed without thinking. “You can be done for the day, too, if you want,” I said.

“Do
you
want a ride home?” he asked.

I pretended to consider the question. “No, I don't think so. A precedent's been set for today. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I can't be here to help tomorrow. My father's expecting me in the office.”

“Sure, of course. I didn't expect you to show up every day just because I am,” I said.

“So you'll be here all week?”

“I don't know. I have to take care of things at the fabric store, too.”

“Did anybody ever tell you the side effects of all work and no play?”

“Maybe.”

“I have a suggestion. Tomorrow's Wednesday, and the Villamere Theater shows movies from the thirties on the third Wednesday of every month.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. That was where Babs performed her burlesque show.

“This week it's a Mae West movie,” he continued.

“I love Mae West!” I said.

“I thought you might. The movie starts at eight. How about I pick you up at Material Girl at seven?”

I was so distracted by the mention of the theater that it took me longer than it should have to realize Vaughn was asking me out on a date. “Will your car be done by then?” I asked. “If not, I can drive.”

“My car?”

“I saw it at Charlie's shop.”

“I have more than one car,” he said.

“Of course you do.” Maybe I should stop talking. Not talking seemed like a good idea.

“So . . . seven?” he asked again. This time he seemed less sure of himself.

“Seven sounds great.”

“Great. See you then.” He let himself out the front door.

A date with Vaughn. I caught myself smiling. I hadn't expected him to ask me out, especially not on the same day that I'd knocked him on the head with the door. It was a good sign that he didn't hold that against me. I think that's why I was smiling.

And then there was the movie: Mae West on the big screen. I took inspiration for the dresses I designed in my old job from the glamour of the thirties: Mae West, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers. Neither my ex-boss nor my ex-boyfriend had understood, though for different reasons. Giovanni was too cheap to produce dresses trimmed with feathers, fur, or exquisite beadwork. Carson simply lacked imagination.

I called Charlie. “Quick question. You said you found a flyer from the Villamere in Phil Girard's car, right? Do you still have it?”

“No. Why? What do you need to know?”

“It's about Babs. Do you know when her next show is?”

“Two shows every Sunday. You planning on going to one?”

“I thought I'd check her out. I want to know if she figures into this whole thing.”

“If Phil was in Los Angeles on Sunday, then she probably doesn't figure in at all. She's got shows at ten and twelve.”

“That doesn't mean she couldn't have taken off after her second show and gone to LA.”

“To do what? Murder her current squeeze? For all we know, he was the one keeping her in ostrich feathers and pasties.”

“That's what she wears?”

“That's pretty much what's left by the time her show's done.”

I had second thoughts about booking tickets if the show ended in ostrich feathers and pasties. I said good-bye to Charlie and locked up the tea shop.

I left out the back. Rush hour was full-on, and it would have taken longer for me to drive the four blocks to the fabric store than to walk them. Thanks to the renovation, I was beginning to feel pains in muscles I didn't know I had, and all I wanted was to go home and take a long bath.

I made it back to the fabric store in twenty minutes and went straight upstairs. Pins and Needles were asleep on the middle of the bed. I opted for a shower instead of a bath, changed into a pair of men's black silk pajamas, and poured food into the cats' bowl. After refreshing their water, I went downstairs to check things out at the fabric store.

The sewing machine sat idle in the corner of the store, surrounded by bolts of fabric that I'd been using at Tea Totalers. Two placemats were complete on the right-hand side of the machine, and the materials needed for another eighteen were on the left. I didn't have the energy to work on them tonight. My body was exhausted, but my mind whirred like a hundred sewing machines manned by workers on a deadline.

It was nice, working on the French fabric renovation for Genevieve, but it had put me a day behind on my own goals of opening the store. I consulted my list of things I'd hoped to accomplish this week: Replace the sign. Stock special velvet. Set up sewing area. Plan craft projects. Phil Girard's murder had derailed me from half of what I had left to do.

I opened a file that I'd started with craft projects for weekends. I liked to think that once I had the store up and running, I could set up an area where people could spend their afternoon learning how they could change their life with fabric. It was the kind of environment I'd grown up in,
and I wanted to create it for others. So far, the list was far from complete. Dog coats, tote bags, pillows, curtains, hats.

I sat at the computer and pulled up my graphic files. In front of me was the sign I'd designed for out front. Material Girl, it said, the letters printed in a patchwork of fabrics that highlighted the offerings in my inventory. I'd had the logo painted onto a milky white plastic sign that was backlit with white tube lighting. After I'd gone through what had been left behind in the store and determined the fabrics with the highest worth, I'd photographed each of them and reprinted them in a flyer that I distributed around town. I used the same logo on my business cards and the promotional coupons I'd made up for the weekend. I wasn't happy with the
M
in
Material
so I searched for my phone so I could try out other options. When the photos came up, I scrolled to the most recent pictures. The second-to-last photo was the interior of the van with Phil's body alongside of the bolts of fabric.

I hadn't thought much about my fabric, but if it was in the truck with Phil's body, there was a chance someone at the fabric wholesaler knew something about the murder. It wasn't outside the realm of normal for me to call the fabric warehouse and follow up on the delivery.

I checked the time. It was a few minutes before six. I might still catch someone. I rooted around through scraps of notes and business cards on the desk until I found one for Mack's Fabrics. I called the number and got a recorded message.

“Hi, this is Polyester Monroe. I arranged to have twelve bolts of velvet picked up from you yesterday. I'd like to talk to someone about that delivery.” I was halfway through leaving my number when a voice came on the line.

“Hold on, gotta turn off the machine. Okay. I'm here. I close in seven minutes. You coming or what?”

“Is this Mack's Fabrics?”

“Yeah, this is Mack. Listen, you gotta get this fabric outta here. It's takin' up too much room.”

“I don't think you understand.”

“What don't I understand? You're Polyester. You ordered twelve bolts of velvet made up of ninety percent silk and ten percent polyester, like your name. You paid in advance, and you were supposed to get this stuff outta here yesterday. Am I warm?”

“Okay, maybe
I'm
the one who doesn't understand. I thought that fabric was already picked up.”

“Lady, I'm looking at twelve bolts of velvet. They have your name on them. If you don't pick them up by noon tomorrow, I'm selling 'em off to the highest bidder.”

“There must have
been some kind of a mix-up,” I said. “Didn't someone pick up the velvet from you on Monday morning? Someone from Special Delivery? Or Girard Trucking Company?” I pushed the papers around on the top of the desk, looking for the pink form Rick had given me, and then remembered it was in the pocket of the pants I wore yesterday. “I don't have the paperwork here. The driver's name was Rick Penwald. He said the fabric was already loaded in the van when he picked it up. Does any of this sound familiar?”

“Whaddaya think, fabric reproduces like rabbits? I just said the velvet's here. Been sittin' here since Friday.”

“So nobody came to pick it up on Monday?”

“Jeez, this is like talkin' to my wife.”

“Don't sell off the fabric. I want it.”

“Noon tomorrow.”

“I'll do my best.”

He hung up.

It didn't make any sense. How was it possible that Mack had my fabric—and since it was tagged with my name and had the specific fiber content that I'd ordered, it sure sounded like my fabric—when Phil had been buried under the very same fabric in the truck?

This new information raised a whole different set of questions, not the least of which was why Mack was acting like nobody had been to his warehouse. Because if nobody had, then where exactly had the twelve bolts from the back of the van come from? And how did they connect back to Phil?

If someone wanted to kill Phil when he was in Los Angeles, they might have followed him to the fabric district and jumped him while he was loading the van. Stacking the fabric on top of him would have served to hide his presence, but why would they have used the
wrong
fabric? Why would they have bothered with the fabric at all?

The fact that Phil's body was buried under fabric told me one thing: whoever killed Phil knew that he was going to show up at the fabric distributor. I already knew that Rick knew. He'd told me this afternoon. He could have murdered Phil and staged the van to fit his story.

For every detail that I didn't know about, there was one thing that I did. Fabric. I needed to see the fabric that had been in the van and find out for myself if it was what I'd expected to arrive in San Ladrón.

Depending on how close the weave was to what I'd requested, I would figure out in no time if it wasn't what I'd ordered. That was one of the benefits to growing up around material. My aunt and uncle had taught me the difference between weaves by the touch of my fingers. At first it was a simple identification game: close my eyes and name the fabric content. I mastered that at five years old. My mom thought it was cute, but Millie decided to cultivate my talent. We moved to the difference between pure fabrics and blends, and, when I mastered those, she challenged me to break down the fabric
content by percentage. That's how I knew the ten percent polyester in my velvet would increase the drape and help the material hold its color.

If given the chance to inspect the fabric that Sheriff Clark was holding, I could determine if it was what I ordered or not, but that wasn't what concerned me. What concerned me was whether or not there was an identifier like a warehouse name or a factory that would lead me to where exactly the fabric had originated, or whose hands it had passed through.

Everything I'd learned about the murder of Phil Girard was scattered around me in a patchwork of information, like pattern pieces that needed to be assembled into a garment. It was up to me to figure out how they all fit together.

I changed back into my sailor pants, top, and sneakers and found the kitties, who were far more interested in the sock they swatted back and forth in the living room than in my theories about Phil's murder. I got down on my hands and knees and gave each of them a kiss between their ears, told them where I was going in case of emergency, and locked up behind me.

Outside, I turned left, walked the length of the sidewalk past the gas station on the corner, and turned left again. Two blocks later I was at the sheriff's mobile unit. Sheriff Clark sat at his desk eating a Snickers bar. When he saw me, he let the uneaten portion slide back into the wrapper and neatly tucked the plastic around the candy. He couldn't have shown more care if he was a vampire looking to conceal evidence of his bite marks.

“Ms. Monroe. What brings you to my doorstep?”

“Do you still have my fabric?” I asked.

“Like I told you, your fabric is currently part of my homicide investigation. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I can't let you have it.”

“Would it be possible for me to examine it? Just a swatch?”

“While I appreciate the gesture, I think our technicians can handle that.”

I detected a note of sarcasm. I lowered myself into the chair across from him and folded my hands on the desk in front of me.

“I spoke to the man who runs the fabric warehouse where I was to pick up my fabric. His name is Mack. He said my velvet is still in Los Angeles. He described it well enough for me to know it's what I ordered, which means what Rick delivered here
isn't.
So I'm trying to figure out how that's possible, that my fabric is there when we all think my fabric is with you.”

Clark picked up a pen and wrote something on the corner of his desk calendar. He moved the Snickers bar on top of his notes so I couldn't read them.

“Don't you find any of this suspicious?” I asked.

“When you hired Phil to make this pickup, did you arrange it through his company? Fill out an invoice? Pay by credit card or check?”

“I hired him with a verbal agreement and paid him in cash. That's what he wanted. Why?”

“Seems to me this story about your fabric, if it's true, has nothing to do with Mrs. Girard.”

“Yes! Exactly.” I sat back and placed my forearms on the chair, my hands wrapped around the end of the armrests. “I'm glad you understand.”

“What I understand is that you've brought me a story intended to throw suspicion away from Mrs. Girard. You have no proof that this story is anything other than that—a story.”

“That's why I want to see the fabric, Sheriff. If you let me see it, I can tell you if it's really mine or not. If it's not, I can try to figure out where it came from.”

“Ms. Monroe, I can assure you we're looking into every lead we have, and that includes your fabric.”

“Does it include the fabric distributor where the fabric was picked up? Because I personally think it's a little weird that somebody let twelve bolts of fabric show up here and it turns out they're not the right ones. Those people are
opportunistic. If they knew what happened, they wouldn't admit to the error. They'd sell off my fabric to someone else and wash their hands of the mix-up.”

“So you're saying you conducted business with shady businessmen.”

“There are people in the fabric industry who are less than honest, yes. I happen to know this because I worked for one of them. Until I get my store up and running, I have to rely on the contacts that I have.”

Clark glared at me.

“There were crates of food in the back of the van, which means someone picked up a delivery. Did you look through the food? Was any of it suspicious? Maybe the food suppliers were the ones who did this. Did you know there's a food distributor named Topo di Sali who's pressuring Genevieve to sell out? Maybe Phil met with him. Maybe negotiations got out of hand. Have you talked to him?”

“Ms. Monroe, are you finished?”

“And what about Rick Penwald, the driver? He should be your main person of interest. He drove the van that had Phil's body in it. He must know something.”

“I can assure you we have a list of suspects and we're pursuing each of them.”

“Does that list include Babs Green?”

Clark leaned forward. “What does Babs Green have to do with this?”

“She was having an affair with Phil Girard.”

“Did Mrs. Girard know about it?”

“I don't know. Why?”

“I imagine a wife might get angry when she finds out her husband is having an affair.”

“I hope you see there's more to this murder investigation than a case of ‘angry wife offs husband.'”

“And I hope you were paying attention when I said I wasn't going to discuss the case with you.”

I felt a sneeze coming on, and I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop it. “As long as I'm here, why don't you let me take a close-up picture of the velvet so I can use it in my promotional materials?”

“Why would you want a close-up of velvet that wasn't your velvet?”

Drat. He was going to shut me out of his investigation. “Good night, Sheriff.” I headed to the door, and then turned back around. “One more thing. When you finish up with the velvet that isn't my velvet, feel free to give me a call. Maybe I'll be willing to take it off your hands, since I have a fabric store and you don't.”

Sheriff Clark had his elbows on his desk calendar and his fingers steepled in front of him. Before he had a chance to say anything else, I added, “Maybe this investigation is none of my business, but fabric is. So before you say anything,
that's
what I'm minding.” I turned around and stormed out.

The streets were almost empty. I walked quickly to Charlie's Automotive and tapped a rhythm of beats on the glass door, followed up with a phone call and a text. The text was answered first.
We're around back.

Charlie's Automotive was exactly what you'd expect an auto shop to be: an austere, exposed brick and concrete area with three pits for getting under cars, and two walls of tools to do whatever it was that needed to be done. Calendars of half-naked firemen shared wall space with images of Rosie the Riveter and Eddie Van Halen.

What most of San Ladrón didn't know was that Charlie kept a small oasis behind her auto shop. It was the size of a gardening shed, about eight feet by ten feet, whitewashed on the interior and outfitted with wooden benches that lined the walls. Decorative wicker baskets filled with plush Egyptian cotton towels, shower gels, and moisturizers sat below the benches, and framed pages from a 1970s mechanic's calendar featuring pastel drawings of women posing behind
blankets, towels, and nightgowns hung on the walls. What Charlie exposed to the world in the form of don't-mess-with-me toughness was countered by what she kept in the back, her place to get away from it all when she needed to.

The only reason I knew about her private quarters in the back was because she'd offered me use of them when I first showed up in San Ladrón. My unpopularity at the time had inspired the destruction of her property. Until tonight, I didn't know what she'd done about it. I rounded the corner and saw the door of her shed propped open with one of her combat boots.

“In here,” she called.

Inside the shed, Genevieve sat in a chair with her hair wrapped in a turban of plastic. She faced the wall. Charlie stood by a small sink, running her hands under water. A pair of clear plastic gloves sat on the edge of the sink. A small boom box sat on the floor, playing The Stray Cats.

I pointed at the boom box, at Genevieve, and at Charlie. “Do I want to know what's going on?” I asked.

“Charlie convinced me I need a new look,” Genevieve said. “She's giving me a cut and color for the low price of organizing her invoices. Plus she let me pick the makeover music.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Until ten minutes ago I didn't know rockabilly was French.”

“What?” Genevieve asked, turning her head toward Charlie.

“Nothing.” Charlie picked up a white plastic kitchen timer from the bench next to the sink and twisted the dial as far as it would go. “You can relax now. We rinse in fifteen.”

“What?” Genevieve asked again. A ratty, faded towel was draped over her from neck to thigh. She reached a hand out from under the towel to the plastic that covered her ear and Charlie swatted her hand back down.

“Sit. Relax. Wait. Got it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Genevieve said with a salute.

Charlie turned to me. “Is this a social call?” she asked, her voice low.

“Not exactly. How's she doing?” I asked, pointing at Gen. Her head was tipped back against the top of the chair and her eyes were closed.

“Better. She stopped crying around noon. I gave her a couple projects in the office and told her to lay low. I expected her to be a real pain in the butt, but she didn't bother me once.”

“Did she talk about Phil?”

“Nah. Every time she came close to bringing him up, the sniffles started. I put a moratorium on four-letter words that start with P. That seemed to help.”

“Good, I think. There's definitely more going on than I originally thought. Can we talk outside?”

“Frenchy—yo!” Charlie called across the room. Genevieve rolled her head to the side and opened one eye. “Stay put. We'll be right back.”

Genevieve nodded and closed her eye.

I followed Charlie through the door to the yard outside. The sun had dropped, but streetlights illuminated the stretch of Bonita that ran between the auto shop and the fabric store.

“I don't want to leave her alone for long,” she said. “Is that cool with you?”

“Sure.” If I was going by the timer Charlie had set for Genevieve's hair, I figured we had about ten minutes, max, before we had to head back. I cut to the chase and told Charlie about my phone call with Mack, the fabric distributor and how he claimed to still have my velvet order.

“I thought your velvet was in the back of the van on top of Frenchy's husband?”

“That's what I thought, too. That's what we all thought. But this guy described the fabric he has in Los Angeles, and it's mine, right down to the content.”

“So what does Clark have?”

I shrugged. “For all I know the factory produced a double order. Clark won't let me see it, so I'm in the dark.”