Suede to Rest (23 page)

“I'll be fine. I have the kittens to protect me.”

“I want you to call me if anything happens.”

I walked him to the back door and locked both locks after he was gone. If anyone came to find me, I didn't want to hear them. Now that Officer Clark had looked inside the ivory box from Vaughn, my feelings about the contents had morphed from nuisance to ambivalence to curiosity. I carried it upstairs and set it on the bed. I carried the kittens into the bedroom with me, pulled off my riding boots, wiggled my toes, and tipped my head back, rolling it from side to side to work out the kinks in my neck.

I moved the pile of ivory ribbon to the comforter. The gray kitten pounced on the frayed edge, flopped onto his side, and pulled it to his mouth. He chewed on it and shook his head when it hit him in the face. I pulled the ribbon from around the box and dangled it above him, then dangled the other end in front of the tabby. He swatted at me and tiny claws scraped my hand like the pins and needles in the box in the wrap stand where I'd found the hidden coin. I pulled my hand away, above them both, and slowly lowered it to pet each on the head. “Pins and Needles. I think I just found your names,” I told them.

I turned back to the box and removed the lid. White tissue paper fluttered up with the lid. I wondered if the McMichael family bought ivory boxes and white tissue paper in bulk. Inside the layers of tissue was something made of champagne silk. I flipped both layers of paper back and reached inside. It was a dress.

But it wasn't just any dress. It was the dress I'd sketched in the back of the turquoise journal from the wrap stand. I lifted it by the beaded shoulders. The beadwork was exquisite, exactly as I'd sketched it. Spirals of clear bugle beads covered each shoulder by the sweetheart neckline, right above cap sleeves. The champagne silk wrapped to one side and fell in a long cascade to the floor, pooling on the rose-colored Oriental rug.

I looked back inside the box and found a thick white envelope with my name on it. I set the dress on the bed, and then changed my mind and set it back in the box so the kittens couldn't mistake it for a play toy. I pulled the sheet of paper out of the envelope.

Dear Poly,

I found your sketch the night we had our Waverly House dinner in your store. My mother knows a seamstress who works out of a house a few blocks behind Bonita. I hope you don't mind that I had it made up as a surprise for you. If you ever decide you want to wear something other than black, you now have a dress.

Sincerely,
Vaughn

I set the card on top of the dress. I didn't want to feel the warm, cozy sensation that radiated from the center of my chest, through my arms, to my fingertips, leaving them tingling, but I did. I wanted to be angry at Vaughn. From the first moment I'd met him, in the back room of the fabric store, I'd wanted to find a reason to dislike him. If talking to Carson had been hard, then acknowledging the generosity of Vaughn's gesture, after accusing him of attempted assault, was going to be darn near impossible.

I picked up the card and read it again, then turned it over. There was a postscript on the back.

PS: While I would have liked to use fabric from your store, there was no way to do so without spoiling the surprise. This fabric came from a store in the Los Angeles garment district.

I dropped the
card and it floated to the floor a second time. It caught on the side of the duvet cover and hung by one corner, like a leaf stuck to the hem of a dress. I stepped backward and thought about what it might mean. Vaughn had been to a fabric store in Los Angeles since he'd met me. He could have bought the damask.

I sank onto the bed. What did I really know here? Someone wanted me gone from San Ladrón. For a variety of reasons, it could be anybody. It could be Carson, who wanted me to come home, but I knew he wasn't responsible for the murder. It could be Mr. McMichael, who wanted me to sell the store. It could be Charlie, who had secret ties to the McMichael family, or Ken, who wanted his commission, or the bullies at Dukes. For all I knew, the Senior Patrol had rivals and Mr. Pickers was a casualty of
West Side Story: Senior Edition
. I couldn't afford to keep guessing at random. I had to figure out who had the most to lose by me keeping the store, and what Mr. Pickers knew that had made him a victim in the whole situation.

I could go through the apartment, but the murder didn't have anything to do with the apartment. It had to do with the store. And while I'd thoroughly cleaned the store, swept years of dust and neglect into countless piles of dust bunnies, there was one place I'd left relatively untouched. The closed-off room where Aunt Millie had been murdered.

The only time I'd gone back into the room after that first day when I'd met with Ken was when I was looking for the tabby kitten, who I now called Needles. I'd been creeped out by being there, and I'd been distracted by my fight with Carson, and after the kitten had run farther into the darkness of that area, I'd set out the can of cat food and thought I'd revisit him in the morning. The vandalism had changed my priorities.

Was it possible someone knew I was back there, that the vandalism had been a distraction so I wouldn't explore that room too much?

I grabbed the flashlight from the dresser and scampered downstairs in my stocking feet. The two thousand candle watts sliced through the darkness. After I hit the light switch I turned off the flashlight but carried it with me to the door that separated me from the back room.

I pushed the door open. To the left of me were the bookcases—white laminate, filled with plastic tubs of trim, buttons, snaps, tassels, and more. Each tub was labeled with Aunt Millie's handwriting on a white index card that had been taped to the plastic with clear packing tape. The edges of the index cards that extended past the tape had turned yellow, but under the tape the cards were still white. Straight ahead of me was a bin that held large bolts of decorator fabric like the ones out front. I trained the flashlight on the outline and, unlike the first time I was back there, I really looked at it. That was it. That was where she had died. In this back room.

My dad told me that Mr. Pickers had found my uncle next to her body. That meant at a time shortly after the murder, Mr. Pickers had been in this room.

Of course. Mr. Pickers had seen something. He knew something. But what?

My dad told me Mr. Pickers had been drinking pretty heavily that time. He'd said the only reason he went into the store was because he'd seen something the night before—a monster?—and he'd come back in the morning to check it out. People had dismissed his story as that of a drunk. But he'd been right. Something had happened at the store the night before. And he'd been the one to comfort my uncle the next morning. Maybe, just maybe there was a different reason he'd paid special attention to this part of the street. And maybe someone knew Mr. Pickers's story wasn't the hallucination of a man who'd had one too many glasses of bourbon.

I struggled to pick up a bolt of cotton from the floor. It was too heavy for me to put back on the table, so I dragged it to the wall and propped it between rolls of navy-blue and powder-blue silk that guarded the perimeter like sentries. The stiffness of the cotton was at odds with the delicate nature of the silk, but the shade of blue complemented the other two colors. Together, the three colors reminded me of the ocean.

I moved the flashlight over the rest of the fabrics, at least ten different shades of silk. I moved closer and looked at the labels.
Rare—from Germany
, said the sign that hung over the stock.

That's odd. Germany wasn't known for its rare silks. Silks came from exotic locals like India and Thailand. Not that it couldn't have come from Germany, or that my aunt and uncle couldn't have discovered it in an unusual fabric district on one of their trips, but still, it seemed off.

I noticed a small gold disc on the floor under the bolt of blue cotton. Another charm? I scooped it up and looked at it. No, it was a button. I studied the elaborate
W
at the center of it—the logo from Ken's blue blazer. It must have fallen the day I'd first met him here. I put it in my back pocket to give to him later.

But Ken hadn't been back here that first day. And if he hadn't been back here that day, then when had he been back here? And why?

To look for the bracelet.

I pushed the button in my pocket and searched my recent memory for questions that fit this answer. All along I'd thought of Ken as my friend. We'd known each other since high school. His wife had invited me over for dinner.

But Ken had been responsible for the utilities being on. He had a set of keys to the store. He had access to my car, he'd been here when I found Mr. Pickers, he had warned me about being friendly with Charlie, and he was one of Carson's investors.

And he'd been pressuring me to sell from the minute I'd arrived.

I heard a sound from the store behind me. I spun around, the flashlight beam bouncing off of walls and fixtures. Spools of ribbon lined these shelves. Some were velvet, others were beaded. An entire row was filled with fringe in every color, from cotton ball white to peacock blue to coal black. But spools of thread and fringe were of little consolation.

A figure in a black, zip-front sweatshirt with the hood drawn into a tight fit around his head stood in front of me. Backlit by light from the store, his torso was distorted like a villain in a comic book. I stepped back, away from him.

“I know it's you, Ken. I just don't know why.”

“You should have taken the offer, Poly. None of this would have happened if you'd taken the offer,” he said.

“You wanted me to sell the store so badly you killed Mr. Pickers to scare me off? To give me a reason to sell?” I asked. “What kind of commission did you think you'd get from the sale?”

“It's not commission I'm after. It's closure. Ten years of closure. Ten years of living with a secret. Tom Pickers saw me ten years ago. He's the only person who could place me here. Nobody listened to him. Crazy old man telling stories about a monster in black robes.”

“You had ten years to get closure. Why now?”

“As long as your uncle kept this place boarded up, I was safe. Nobody knew what was in here. And nobody believed Pickers anyway. Then you came along. I thought you'd sign some paperwork and get out of my hair, but you didn't. You got ideas about reopening the store. If you started asking around, people would have talked to you. Pickers would have talked to you.”

“And told me what? I've read his account of what happened. This whole town has.”

“This town was willing to write him off as a drunk. But you—you wanted something to believe in. If he told you what he saw the night the store was robbed, you would have figured it out.”

“You couldn't have been here the night the store was robbed. It was our graduation ceremony. There wasn't time. Once the ceremony was over we had half an hour to change and get to the dance. You were there. I remember. Everybody else was in a suit and tie, but you wore your football uniform under your gown,” I said. The details of that night stood out like glow-in-the-dark craft paint on black velvet. I'd played them over and over in my head because that was the night my aunt had been murdered.

Ken advanced toward me. “That silly old man, keeping an eye on this store for all of these years. Telling everybody about his drunken hallucinations. I got away with it, too. Half this town still thinks Vic McMichael was behind the robbery. If I could have sold him the store when your uncle died, those rumors would be as good as cast into metal. He would have been paying me in more ways than he ever could have known.”

A fire ignited my chest and a patchwork of memories came together the way pattern pieces formed a jacket. “Why, Ken? I have a right to know what happened.”

“You have no rights. Nothing. If you'd have gone along with my plan, if you'd have sold the store and gone back to Los Angeles, things might be different. Tom Pickers would be alive today and you'd be alive tomorrow,” Ken said. Black gloves covered his hands, a combination of Lycra and rubber, with a Velcro band around the wrist. “But this way works, too.” He flexed his hands once, twice, and advanced toward me.

I looked at his hands closing and opening into fists. I stepped backward and stumbled when my foot hit the base of the wooden fabric bin. I stepped to the left. Ken came closer but stopped two steps away from me and laughed. I listened for sounds from outside the store—sirens or voices—but if they were there, the doors that blocked us from the outside world would keep them a secret. I was alone. With a killer.

“Some kids get cars when they graduate. Some get a watch. First day of senior year my dad offered me half of the real estate agency. I'd been working with him after school for a year. I knew I'd make peanuts on the kinds of starter houses around San Ladrón. I also knew the value of this building. I knew if I could cause a string of bad luck here, your aunt and uncle would either sell or the store would go bankrupt. Vic McMichael owned half of the street by then. I knew how valuable this property was before they gave me my diploma.”

“But we were friends, Ken. You used to come to the store when I worked here on weekends. What happened?”

“You're right, I did. That's when I first heard your aunt and uncle talking about money being tight. I asked my dad about this stretch of property and he said he had a buyer interested in the whole strip. I went through his office and found the file. Vic McMichael had been buying up property on this strip for years. Once he owned the block, he'd stand to make a lot of money in the sale.”

“He didn't own the whole strip then.”

“No, he didn't.” He chuckled. “A couple of other people wanted to hold on to their properties. Until the robbery. That changed a lot of minds.” A smile took over Ken's face. “I didn't know which store I was going to hit first. I came here to figure out how to get your family to sell. When I heard them planning the big sale for our graduation weekend, I knew I had a perfect opportunity. All that cash in the register. Plus it would shake up the other stores on the street. They'd think it could have been any one of them.”

I searched my mind for memories of that night. “We had a half day of school and then we went straight to the ceremony. The dance was that night. There wasn't time.”

“Sports teams had photo ceremonies during the break.”

“That's why you wore your football uniform under your graduation robe. You're the monster Mr. Pickers saw,” I said. I felt cold and sick, my stomach twisted into a knot at the idea that the man in front of me had murdered my aunt and then shown up at a graduation dance and pretended to be my friend.

Ken wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. “She wasn't supposed to be here. I hired those two thugs to rob the place. I told them it would be empty. But at our graduation ceremony when I asked you where your aunt was, you told me she stayed behind at the store. I had to get her out of the picture or everything would have fallen apart. I didn't have a choice. I cut out after the ceremonies and came here.”

“The robbers said nobody was at the store.”

“That's because I got to her first. I didn't plan to kill her. I wanted to scare her. But then I remembered that bracelet she always wore. When I demanded it, she said it was hidden someplace I'd never find it. That's when I hit her. If I hadn't had to get back to graduation, I could have searched the place and gotten her body out of the store but there wasn't time. I dragged her behind one of these fixtures and left.”

He stepped toward me and I moved to the left. I reached a hand out for balance. My hands were on the edge of the wooden bin of fabric, guiding me along like a tentative ballerina might rely on a barre for balance. A splinter of wood from the fixture cut my thumb. I choked back a curse and kept moving.

“You killed Mr. Pickers because you were afraid he'd remember you?”

“The day you arrived, when I saw him on the street, I knew he was going to tell you what he remembered about that night. He's been watching this store for ten years hoping to understand what he saw. You might have figured it out then, I don't know. I couldn't give him the chance to talk to you. Mr. Pickers was an old man. When he died, what he saw would have died with him. His murder should have scared you off. You were supposed to want to sell, to get away from this store that's tainted with murder. You weren't supposed to stick around and start asking questions.”

“If you wanted me to leave town, why did you damage my car so I couldn't leave?”

He shook his head. “I've got friends in very low places, Poly. I told them to make trouble for you and make sure it didn't come back to me. I couldn't believe they vandalized your car. You were supposed to be gone and they gave you a reason to stay.”

“What about Charlie's shower?”

“A warning.”

“And the bolt of fabric that almost fell on me outside the door?”

“Nice bit of poetry with that, don't you think? Good thing Duke's having his roof worked on. The truck with the ladder was already in your neighborhood. Cost me a couple hundred to get them to do the job.”