Panic Button (6 page)

“I hope that’s true.” It was a noncommittal sort of thing to say, but I was sincere
enough. For all her quirks, Angela seemed a nice enough person. If donating the charm
string eased her mind, so be it.

Even if it did just about kill me to think of how I’d cherish the charm string if
it were ever mine.

I walked her to the front door.

“Oh, here.” Before she walked outside, she reached into her pocket and pulled out
a check made out to me. It was for a sum considerably larger than the one we’d agreed
on for the appraisal. “Not a word of complaint,” she said, when I opened my mouth
to do just that. “You did a lot of work, and you did it in record time. I’m going
to get a chunk of money off my taxes when I donate this thing, and I wouldn’t have
known its real value if it wasn’t for you. The least I can do is share the wealth.”

I thanked her, and opened the door.

We were just in time to hear a dog bark.

“LaSalle,” I explained even though I was pretty sure Angela didn’t care. She turned
to head off down the street to the right and stopped in her tracks when the dog’s
bark turned into a long, mournful howl.

Angela swallowed hard. “Dog howling in the dark of night,” she whispered, “howl for
death before daylight.”

And with that, she walked away.

I didn’t wait to watch her go. Instead, I went into the shop, turned off the lights,
and told Stan it was time to get a move on.

“Let’s go get Swiss steak at that diner I like so much,” he suggested when we stepped
out of the shop and headed to the left. “It’s Wednesday. They’ve got rice pudding
for dessert on Wednesdays.”

I like rice pudding.

And no one tried to steal my purse once we were outside.

All in all, things were looking up.

Maybe Angela was right about the charm string all along. Now that it was out of my
life, maybe my bad luck would evaporate.

As if.

T
HE NEXT MORNING DAWNED BRIGHT AND SUNNY, AND
I was grateful. I’d had enough thinking about doom and gloom and bad luck. With the
help of a little sunshine, I could forget about curses and get my life back to the
way it was supposed to be—calm and button-filled.

I was humming a little tune when I got off the El, made my way to the shop, and stuck
my key in the door.

The song evaporated when I noticed a button lying on the sidewalk.

Remember what I said about the thrill of the button hunt? My head knew this was probably
nothing more than just a plastic button that had fallen off someone’s raincoat, and
still, my button-loving heart couldn’t resist. My fingers suddenly itching the way
they always did
when I was closing in on a new button discovery, I picked up the button and turned
it over.

The button was what we in the button biz call a small, that is, between three-eighths
and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and it was made of black glass. There was
a flower pattern etched into the glass and it was accented with gold paint.

These kinds of button were common enough back in the days when Queen Victoria was
mourning her Prince Albert. She wore buttons made out of jet, an organic mineral that
was expensive even back then, and the masses, eager to follow her fashion, copied
her by making buttons out of black glass. The glass was far less expensive than jet
and some would say just as pretty, though as a purist, I wasn’t convinced.

There had been a number of these small black glass buttons on Angela’s charm string.

Weird, and the weird got weirder when I realized there was another button lying on
the pavement not far away.

This one was a man’s shirt button and it wasn’t plastic, but mother of pearl. I knew
this for a fact because I automatically held the button to my cheek and it felt cool
in a way plastic never does. That meant the button was old, and an old button lying
on the sidewalk outside my shop—

I would like to say I stayed calm, but let’s face it, my life’s work—and my life—was
contained within the walls of the Button Box. I flashed back to the break-in I’d had
soon after I opened the shop and how the goons who’d engineered it had left my inventory
in shambles. All those happy thoughts I’d had earlier vanished and my stomach soured.
I raced to the door, tried the handle, and—

Locked.

My heartbeat ratcheted back, my breathing slowed.

“Security system,” I reminded myself. “You installed a security system after the last
break-in. Everything inside is safe and sound. Your buttons are fine.”

But that, of course, didn’t explain the old buttons on the sidewalk.

My eyes narrowed against the morning sunlight, I scanned the area in front of the
shop. Old Town is a popular tourist destination and usually bustling, but it was early,
and the other merchants who were my neighbors had yet to open for business. There
was no foot traffic, either, not yet, anyway, and I was grateful. That meant I could
be pretty sure that nothing had been disturbed. The black glass button had been on
the sidewalk to my left at about nine o’clock, the mother of pearl button had been
in the twelve o’clock position. Now, I realized there was a button at one o’clock,
too, and one at two, and another at three.

I hurried over to pick up those three buttons—two more mother of pearls and a brass
button with an eagle on it—glancing around as I did and realizing with a jolt to my
midsection that a trail of buttons caught the morning sunlight, a trail that led to
the alley that ran between my brownstone and the one next door.

Black glass, clear glass, steel, bone…

As much as I was tempted to bring order to the chaos and rescue the buttons from the
pavement, at this point, I didn’t bother to stop. I was too busy following the brick
walkway and the buttons scattered on it that led into the courtyard we local merchants
maintained as our private
spot to have lunch and take a breather. There was a park bench in the middle of the
tiny courtyard, and in a few more weeks when the days were longer and the temperatures
were a little warmer, each of us would contribute a potted plant and our little oasis
would be complete with color and greenery.

Of course, we’d have to get rid of the body first.

The thought struck like so many out-of-the-blue revelations do, but then, it was a
scenario no sane person expects to encounter first thing in the morning, or any other
time of the day.

I froze in my tracks, doing as quick and thorough an inventory of the scene as I was
able before the panic and horror set in as I knew they would.

Muddy Crocs.

Green sweatpants.

Pink tee. Even before I’d scanned my way from the feet of the still form up to the
head, I knew I was looking at Angela. I suppose it was a good thing I recognized the
clothes she’d worn the night before, because her face was so blue and bloated, I might
not have known it was her otherwise.

Then again, I never would have mistaken the charm string. Or at least what was left
of it.

A good portion of the string was still wound like a python around Angela’s neck, tight
enough to leave bruised impressions of the buttons on her skin, snap the old string,
scatter buttons all around, and choke Angela to death.

I swallowed down the sudden sour taste in my mouth and reached for my cell phone,
another revelation pounding its way through the fog of horror in my brain.

It looked like Angela was right about the bad luck after all.

“Y
OU KNEW THE
victim.”

I’d been so busy staring into the depths of the glass of water a uniformed cop had
given me as soon as he walked me into the workroom of the Button Box and sat me down,
I didn’t even realize anyone had come to stand next to me.

When I looked up and saw it was Nev, I couldn’t have been more relieved. I resisted
the urge to jump up and throw myself into his arms.

Partly because that uniformed cop was still there, and I didn’t need to start a host
of rumors running rampant through the department.

Mostly because we weren’t at the throw-myself-into-his-arms stage of what we had of
a relationship.

Nev was the consummate professional, and something of a Type A personality. I did
not hold this against him. When it came to my work, I was a Type A, too.

“I thought you were working afternoons.” While that cop standing in the doorway between
the workroom and the shop made a phone call, I took the chance and touched a hand
to Nev’s. His smile was warm when he briefly closed his fingers over mine.

“I am,” he said. “But when the desk sergeant heard where the body was found, she remembered
that I’d worked the case here when that actress was murdered, and she gave me a call.”

“I’m glad.” The cop was done with his call, and I
dropped my hand into my lap and Nev backed away. I wished he didn’t have to. There
was something about his calm, reassuring presence that helped thaw the ice in my veins.
“She was…” I couldn’t see the courtyard from there, even if my back door was open,
but I looked that way, anyway, closing my eyes against the memory of Angela’s swollen
face. “She was a customer of mine,” I told Nev. “The one with the…” My words choked
against the painful ball of emotion in my throat. “She’s the one who brought me the
charm string.”

“The lady you told me about the other night.” Nev pulled another stool up to my worktable
and perched on the edge of it. He was a tad over six feet tall, and even seated on
the tool, his feet touched the floor. Not mine. Mine dangled. “I remember what you
said when we had that drink the other night. You said Ms. Morningside, she was the
one who believed in—”

“Curses. Yeah.” It didn’t seem so funny now. In fact, just thinking about Angela’s
fear and the warnings she’d seen in the crows and the howling dog made a shiver skitter
up my back. I wrapped my arms around myself and the gold cardigan I’d worn that day
with blue jeans. “Angela came in last night to pick up the charm string. There was
supposed to be a tea today at the Ardent Lake Historical Society. Oh, really, someone
needs to call and tell them,” I added and I suppose, in some way, thinking about the
tea satisfied the need in me to concentrate on the mundane, even in the face of murder.
“They’re going to make tea and bake cookies and before they do all that—”

“Not to worry.” Without even checking to see if the
other cop was watching, Nev patted my hand. “We’ll take care of the phone calls.”

The reassurance satisfied my need for structure, even in a situation that was all
about chaos. “Angela…” I sniffled. “She was so excited about presenting them the charm
string, and so happy to be getting it out of her life.”

I hadn’t even realized I’d started to cry until Nev handed me a white cotton handkerchief.
I dabbed it to my eyes. “She showed up here a little after six last night,” I told
him because I knew he was bound to ask sooner or later and I figured we might as well
get it over with just in case I fell to pieces. “She picked up the charm string and
left. She went…” I thought back to all I remembered about the night before. “When
she left the store, she turned to her right, in the direction of the alleyway. Stan
and I left just a couple minutes later, and we went to our left. If we’d gone the
other way…”

There was no way I wanted to think about how things might have been different. If
I did, I’d only feel worse.

Nev understood. “It’s not your fault,” he said.

I shrugged. “I know. It’s just that—”

“That it’s not your fault.”

He was right, and I admitted it with a fleeting smile. It was the first I’d smiled
since I walked into the courtyard and found Angela’s body, and the muscles in my face
felt stiff and uncomfortable, but even that felt better than the painful knot wedged
between my heart and my stomach.

Maybe Nev realized how close I was to falling to pieces. That would explain why he
kept things professional and to the point. I didn’t hold it against him. But
then, I knew what he knew: if he was going to find out who murdered Angela, he had
to get on the trail of the killer, and fast. At this point in his investigation, I
was the one best able to help.

“Did she say anything to you?” he asked. “About anyone following her? Or about anyone
who might have been angry at her? Anyone she might have been afraid of? Did she act
peculiar in any way?”

I’d already shaken my head before I stopped to reconsider. “She didn’t call to tell
me she was on her way here, and the day before, she told me she would. I know that
seems like a small thing, but I don’t think Angela was the type who made promises
she didn’t intend to keep. And then when she did get to the shop last night…well,
it was pretty obvious that she was upset,” I told Nev. “Her eyes were swollen like
she’d been crying, but when I asked her about it, she said it was because of her allergies.
She was a mess, too. It’s hard to believe seeing her the way she’s dressed now, but
the first time I met Angela, she looked like the poster girl for how women should
dress for success. Something was definitely wrong.”