Secrets and Stilettos (Murder In Style Book 1)

by Gina LaManna

  Besides the potential to help catch a killer, my plan had the added bonus of bringing business and attention to my mother’s shop. Because everything was so short notice, I had to be resourceful and use my God-given talents. I wasn’t sure I’d been given all that many talents, but I sure as heck could style anyone who walked through the door of my mother’s thrift shop for cheap, so therein lay the prize.

  “My name is Jenna McGovern—I’m a new resident in town, though I’ve spent many wonderful summers here. My Gran ran the flower shop Green’s, my mother lives over on Peach Street, and I’m a transplant from California.” I paused to grin at the crowd. “I was a stylist to the stars out in Hollywood, and you may have seen my work in magazines, at award shows, and on television.”

  I took a quick scan of the crowd as the doors opened in the back, and the entire Duvet bridal party scooted in a hair on the tardy side. I caught sight of Lana and Eliza, along with their mother.

  An unfamiliar face who I took to be the father-of-the-bride sat next to Brenda, his new wife. Mr. Duvet’s first wife, Bridget, sat on the other end of the table and shot him dirty looks. The rest of the gang: Patty, Becky, and a few others, filled out the Duvet party.

  Also present in the audience was the entire knitting club scooted up to one table. From it, Mrs. Beasley and June waved vigorously toward the stage. Sitting with the old ladies was Allie. Tonight she wore a scrunchie in her hair and a neon orange dress that was more latex than anything else.

  My mother and Sid sat next to the two ladies who’d been looking at chunky sweaters in her shop, and near them sat May and Joe, who had linked up with the rest of the fire department. I was startled to find Matt in attendance as well, watching me with interest while May sat looking furious next to him. Matt must have told her about my visit this afternoon. Whoops.

  By the time everyone had shuffled into their seats, I resumed my speech and smiled at the surprised grin on my mother’s face as I announced the prize. “As a welcome to town gift, I want to offer one free styling session and a two-hundred-dollar store credit to Something Old. Redeemable this month only—the rest of the fine print can be found somewhere else.”

  “How do we enter the contest?” Mrs. Beasley called. “Can I give the coupon to someone else?”

  “Um, sure,” I said. “To enter, all you need to do is answer the following questions. Stacy has put paper and pens on all the tables. Fill out your name, email address, and then write a short paragraph telling me why you’d like to win the prize. I’ll pick randomly at the end of the night.”

  Mrs. Beasley’s hand raised again. “What if I don’t have an email address?”

  “I know where to find you,” I said. “You can write your home address if you prefer.”

  “What if I live at my daughter’s?” Mrs. Beasley asked. “Can I write the address to June’s café? I spend more time there.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Any other questions?”

  “How long is a paragraph?” This came from my mother.

  “Mom, why are you answering the questionnaire at all?” I asked. “I’m your daughter. You can make me style you for free.”

  “Maybe I want to give the prize to someone,” she said, fluttering her eyes at Sid. “Just give me an answer.”

  “I don’t know, a sentence.”

  “A sentence is not a paragraph,” my mother said. “Is it a paragraph or a sentence?”

  “How about a five-paragraph essay?” Allie raised her hand and shouted the question at the same time. “Hi, my name is Allie, and I have a question.”

  “Allie, I know you,” I said, striving for patience. “And I heard the question. No essay needed. Just a quick line—”

  “Is a line the same as a sentence?” My mother interrupted. “Because you’ve said line, sentence, and paragraph so far, and it’s very confusing.”

  “I need your name and email address,” I said finally. “That’s all. Nothing more. Just write that down, fold it up—Mrs. Beasley, you can put whatever address you want—and we’ll go from there. Any last questions?”

  A few hands raised and I ignored them.

  “Great,” I said. “That’ll be all—let bingo begin!”

  I made my way down from the stage and ran smack dab into a grinning chief of police.

  “Don’t you just love town gatherings?” Cooper asked. “Blueberry Lake sure is something else.”

  “I feel like I’m on a movie set!” I said, exasperated. “Is it always this hard to wrangle people? How does the mayor do it? How do you do it?”

  “Well—”

  “Rhetorical,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “Now, how about we grab a glass of punch and take a seat at an empty table with a view of the Duvet family?”

  “There’s no way I can convince you to just sit tight and play bingo nicely like everyone else on a Sunday night?” Cooper had grabbed two glasses of punch and a small stack of sugar cookies from somewhere. He handed a drink to me and took one look at my face. “I guess that’s a no.”

  “Did you get one of those for me?” I noted he hadn’t offered me a cookie. When he hesitated, I gave him a look. “You got four cookies for yourself?”

  “I’ll share if you play your cards right.”

  I found us a cozy little space tucked between an old gentleman who couldn’t hear and an old lady who couldn’t see. It gave us just the privacy boundaries we needed, as well as a good view of the Duvet family.

  Unfortunately, it also gave my mother a good view of us. She waved vigorously from across the room, and when I ignored her, she stood up and waved harder. Eventually, I waved back.

  “Good thing this isn’t a real date, huh?” Cooper said. “Seeing how your mom seems to be chaperoning the event.”

  “This is not a laughing matter,” I said. “I’m nearing thirty. She really needs to tone things down.”

  “She’s just excited you’re back.”

  “She’s excited I’m here with you,” I said, realizing I’d said too much. I’d piqued Cooper’s interest, so I had to come up with something quick. “I just mean you have a steady job, and you’re a man, so before you go strutting around like a peacock, just keep that in mind. The bar isn’t set that high.”

  “Shame,” he said with a wink. “I like a challenge.”

  That left me speechless, so it was a very good thing that Stacey Simone showed up at our table with a pile of entries from my spur of the moment giveaway.

  “That was very generous of you, Jenna,” Stacey said with a slight blush. “I hope you don’t mind that I entered myself. My sister’s getting married this summer, and I’d really appreciate some help picking out a dress. You know, on a budget.”

  “Anytime,” I said, waving a hand. “I hope you are chosen as winner, but if not, swing by. I’ll do it for free—you just buy the dress.”

  “Really?” She eyed me. “Will I look like...that?”

  “Like this?” I burst into laughter as she studied me. “Honey, you’ll look better. But yes, everything I’m wearing tonight is from my mother’s store.”

  “Oh, my,” she said with a gasp. “I’m going to announce that. Everyone is talking about your dress.”

  Stacey left in a flurry of mumblings to herself as Cooper leaned over to me. “I told you.”

  “Told me what?” I was already distracted thumbing through the stack of papers from the host. “Now’s not the time to lord things over me, Coop.”

  “I told you that you looked beautiful.”

  I froze, a stack of papers in hand. Forcing myself to gently set them on the table, I continued on as if he hadn’t said anything. “It’s not Lucy or Kiana or Brenda,” I said. “They write much too neatly.”

  As I filed the first of the notes to one side, I felt Cooper’s eyes stuck on me.

  “It doesn’t make it not true if you ignore me,” he said good-naturedly. “And you don’t have to get upset. Can’t a man tell a woman she’s beautiful without it being a come-on?”


  “I don’t know—I’ve never thought about it. Why would you do that?”

  “How the hell do I know?” he asked with a smile. “There’s a first time for everything. Now, slide your bingo card closer to me. You just got B7.”

  And so went the next twenty minutes: Cooper marking both of our bingo cards while I thumbed through cards and quickly sorted the “possibles” and the “nopes” into two separate piles. The nope pile was thankfully much larger than the possible one. The handwriting was distinct on all the notes that’d been in Grant’s bag, sort of fat, looping letters written in a precise hand. Some had a bit of wobble to them, as if the writer had been upset at the time of penning, or possibly they’d consumed a good portion of a wine bottle.

  “Holy smokes,” I said as one entry came up to be a near perfect match. “Cooper, look.”

  “I know!” he said, sounding excited. “BINGO!”

  “No, Cooper—what?!”

  Cooper reached over and grasped my hand, raising it high for the crowd to see. “Our newcomer has bingo!”

  “No, no, I don’t,” I said, hiding under the curious attention from the rest of the room. “I think I made a mistake.”

  “I didn’t,” Coop said, and then began reading the numbers aloud.

  When he finished, everyone cheered.

  “Please come up and claim your prize!” Stacey announced. “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Jenna McGovern! Now, ladies—take a look at her outfit. Everything she’s wearing is from Bea’s thrift shop. Aren’t we all excited to find out the lucky winner to tonight’s surprise giveaway?”

  A distinctly female cheer rose up from the crowd. Meanwhile, Cooper had somehow stood and guided me toward the stage, giving me a pat on the back and a word of encouragement—along with a light shove—up the stairs while he waited behind.

  I gave him a deadly stare as I stood straighter and forced a smile through Stacey’s mock oohs and ahhs as she fawned over my red dress. It was a pretty fabulous red dress, I had to admit, which got me in the spirit of things until I spotted a huge problem. My new number one suspect had stood at her table and was headed toward the exit.

  “Great, thanks,” I said. “I’ll announce the winner later. It’s lovely reading all the responses, and thanks for this—ah, thing. What is the prize?”

  “Meat!” Stacey said. “You’ve won a nice ham.”

  “A ham,” I echoed, holding an oddly shaped piece of meat that I had no idea what to do with. “Right—thanks. Well, I’ll just be headed back to my seat. Carry on bingo-ing!”

  “Not so fast!” Stacey gripped my shoulders with her talon-like manicure. “Gentlemen, a little birdie tells me that Jenna is single! Jenna, can you confirm?”

  I leaned reluctantly into the microphone and gave a smile that I hoped ended this interview. “I’m ah—single, but not mingling. Thanks, Stacey.”

  With that, I scurried down from the stage and fell into step with the waiting cop.

  “You really know how to kill a party,” Cooper said, and then hesitated. “Poor choice of words, sorry.”

  “Dark humor, I get it,” I said, distracted as we wormed our way back to our seats. “A cop thing.”

  “Right. With how much you refuse to leave this situation alone, you’ll have a badge soon, too,” he said. “Why are you in such a frenzy? Take a seat. Have a cookie—I’ll share.”

  My phone began pinging nonstop with messages, so I looked down and found a plethora of texts, mostly from people in the room:

  Allie: Your shoes are great. Your boobs look awesome.

  Sid: Does this single and not mingling mean you’re taken?

  Sid: Look at you and Cooper! Does this mean you’re a couple?

  Sid: Cutexfrjekawltr

  Sid: Whoops. I mean cute;;;;

  Sid: CUTE!!!!

  Sid: A real partnership is just that—team work! Look how well you and Coop are working together!

  Sid: I knew you’d just love living here.

  “Why’s your stepfather texting you about me?” Cooper asked, shifting uncomfortably.

  “Why are you peeking over my shoulder?” I shielded my phone from him. “It’s my mother, obviously. When she married Sid, she learned how to text. It’s still a novelty.”

  “Allie—”

  “Don’t comment on her texts,” I said “Come on, my suspect is on the run. Think we can slip out unnoticed?”

  “Seeing as you’re holding a gigantic ham and are currently the center of attention, I’m going to say no.”

  I glanced around the room, and sure enough, surreptitious glances followed my every movement. I swore that when I breathed, the entire room followed suit.

  “I’m going anyway,” I said. “Will you watch my ham?”

  “Not a chance,” he said. “Leave the meat behind—I have a better idea.”

  I set the ham on the table and ignored the conversation that broke out between the man who couldn’t hear and the woman who couldn’t see. It was like a bad rendition of Who’s on First.

  Cooper’s plan was to loop his arm around my waist and guide me out of the auditorium with his hand on my lower back. I considered elbowing him to keep his space, but I refrained for two reasons. One, if this was some sort of undercover police work, I didn’t want to spoil things. Two, he felt nice against me.

  When we exited into an empty hallway, Cooper’s hand dropped at once and he took a step away.

  “I’m going to try not to take offense about how quickly you moved away from me,” I said, nodding toward the gap between us. “Do I smell?”

  “Yes,” he said, and then quickly added. “Good. You smell very good, I mean. Trust me, if you want to stay friends, it’s better if I stay away from you.”

  I felt my cheeks flame red. “What was that all about then?”

  “People will think we left for some private time,” he said simply. “Your mom will make sure nobody follows us.”

  “I don’t want people thinking I’m making out with you!”

  “Gee, you know how to build up a man’s confidence.”

  “It’s not you that I have a problem with,” I admitted. “It’s the making out bit. Plus...”

  “You broke up with Matt this afternoon,” Cooper said knowingly. “I see. You don’t want him to get the wrong idea.”

  I scowled. “Stay out of my love life. I didn’t break up with anyone. There was nothing to break.”

  “I thought you didn’t have a love life to stay out of.”

  “I don’t! Just—look at this,” I said, grouchy. “I’ll clear the air about us making out later, even though the damage will already be done.”

  My phone pinged seven more times, confirming the damage was currently worsening. Gossip spread through this town like a wildfire, burning anything less than interesting in its path. I silenced my phone and refused to think about Matt. Hopefully he hadn’t fallen prey to the gossip fires of Blueberry Lake, and if he had, I’d set the record straight tomorrow.

  “Look,” I said, pulling out the note I’d clasped into the pocket of my faux-fur jacket. I gave it to Cooper. “Now compare that to these photos.”

  I pulled out my phone and flicked through the photos of the notes I’d taken, ignoring the bar of texts pinging across the top.

  “I’m assuming you’d like me to ignore the fact that you shouldn’t have these photos at all,” Cooper said lightly, glancing between the phone and the sheet of paper in his hand. “Or the fact that none of this would be admissible in court.”

  “Come on,” I said. “The handwriting is a match. And we know that Patty dated Grant at one point. Doesn’t it make you want to question her at the very least?”

  “I’ll admit, I’m intrigued.”

  “From the sounds of the letters—they started out sweet and then turned sour. Lovers quarrel gone wrong?”

  “There were five letters in total,” Cooper said, squinting as he searched his memories for them. “The first three must have been from when they were romantic with one a
nother. They’re—”

  “—very descriptive,” I finished. “The fourth letter sounds melancholy, and in the fifth, she threatens to kill him. Let me talk to her first before you do. She’ll be more willing to open up to me.”

  “Did you just hear yourself?” Cooper stared at me in amazement. “She threatened to kill someone, and you’d like to talk to her alone?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Maybe, but it’s not like you can’t stand right around the corner with your handy-dandy gun and listen.”

  “Handy-dandy gun,” Cooper echoed faintly.

  “Or whatever,” I said. “Come on, we have to find her.”

  “I am not agreeing to this unless you promise you’ll stay within hearing and firing distance,” he said. “End of story.”

  “Don’t shoot anyone!”

  “I’m not planning on it, but I’m not letting another murder happen on my watch, either.”

  “Fair,” I said, and stuck out a hand for us to shake on it. “Now, I have an idea.”

  Chapter 18

  “Aha, there you are,” I said, kicking open a subtlety placed back door that led to the alley. “Found you.”

  Patty looked up at me and grinned. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “No, but I did win a ham. I had to get away from the mobs of people out to congratulate me.”

  She gave a snort of laughter. “Long way from home, aren’t you?”

  I knew instinctively that she meant Hollywood, and it was true I’d considered Los Angeles my home for a long, long time. But that was beginning to shift, I realized. Home was a more liquid concept to me now, seeing as I had virtually nothing left to tie me to the West Coast. If anything, my only ties were here now.

  “I don’t know,” I said, loud enough for Cooper to hear. He’d tucked himself just behind the door to the alley. I’d left it open a crack as I’d slipped out, though it was virtually impossible for Patty to tell in this darkness. “I’m starting to like it around these parts. Never thought I’d say that.”