Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 03 - Buyer's Remorse

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “Where was it?” Alonzo asked.

  “Under my pillow.”

  Alonzo pulled out his cell phone and called the direct number to the FBI. “This counts as something suspicious happening at the inn.”

  Mitzy hung on Alonzo’s every word as he explained the broken platter, missing keys, and chunk of ceramic under Mitzy’s pillow. “Just put Backman on, will you?” he yelled. His face had gone red.

  “What is it?” Mitzy mouthed. “Give me the phone.” She put her hand out for his cell.

  Alonzo turned away from her to face the wall. She could hear his sharp intake of breath. He flung the phone on the dressing table with a harrumph.

  “What?” Mitzy asked “Tell me what they said.”

  “Voicemail. They sent me to her voicemail.”

  “Oh that’s right. She’s on her honeymoon, but there’s got to be someone else there that cares. You told someone, I heard you.”

  “Yeah. They ‘made a note.’ A note. For the love. Someone out there is threatening you, and they took a note.” Alonzo turned and crossed the room, his hands clenching and unclenching.

  “We’ve already called the police. They’re looking into it.” Mitzy reached out again, trying to touch Alonzo’s sleeve. He kept pacing.

  “Yeah, they took a note, too. I guess it’s up to you and me. I assume this is those guys from the scooter shop again. They obviously screwed up and killed the wrong woman. They made it to your office, and you were gone. They made it here, and you were gone. You’d better stick close so that they don’t find you the next time they try.”

  Mitzy was already filling her suitcase. “Will you walk me next door to Carmella’s?” she asked. But then she stopped. “Last spring they torched that house to stop me. They know it’s mine. I don’t want them to do something awful with Diego Jr. there. I can’t stay with your sister.” She set her bag down and dropped onto her bed again.

  “Then stay here. But switch rooms with me. I’ll keep staying here too. It’s imperfect, but better than nothing.”

  “It’ll do if we can’t think of anything better, but right now I just want to get out of here.”

  “Okay, babe. Let’s leave. I’ll take you for dinner somewhere across the river.”

  “Because murderers never cross the river?”

  “Yup. No one ever crosses the river.”

  They drove off into the evening, which Mitzy thought ought to have been a little darker and a little later to fit her mood. They crossed the Glenn Jackson Bridge over the Columbia River and headed into Vancouver, Washington. She felt safer here. Portlanders and Vancouver—what do you call someone from Vancouver? She wondered—they don’t cross the bridge willy-nilly. It’s a big deal.

  “Do you know where you are going?” Mitzy asked.

  Alonzo grunted.

  “Stay on the highway then and head North to Hazel Dell. There’s a great mini-golf course.

  Alonzo choked a little, “What?”

  “Here, turn at SR 500 and head to Hazel Dell. It will be worth it. Steak burgers and mini golf. The perfect hiding place.” Alonzo shook his head but followed her directions.

  Hazel Dell was in the Northeast corner of Vancouver. It was quiet and suburban, an aging area. Mitzy smiled a very small smile. No one was going to try and kill her while she played putt-putt with her boyfriend at a family restaurant on a Friday night.

  Alonzo polished off his burger, but Mitzy toyed with hers. The fear of being followed by a murderer had stolen her appetite.

  They went outside to the putt-putt course. The sun had set, leaving a biting chill in the air. They checked out putters and balls and started at the first hole.

  “This is much safer.” Alonzo took a swing at the air. “We could knock anyone out with one of these.”

  “That’s right.” Mitzy thumped hers on the putting green three times. “I dare any thug to try and get me while I have this bad boy.”

  Alonzo sent his ball into the wall so it ricocheted into the hole in one putt. “If I win you stay at my place. If you win I get to have you stay at my place.”

  “No bet. I’m great at this.” She made a feeble putt that sent her ball only half way to the corner of the dogleg. “No, I am great. I’m just off my game. Murder puts me off my game.”

  A lady in faux fur on the hole nearest Mitzy turned and looked, her mouth gaping.

  Mitzy sighed and lowered her voice. She gave it another feeble putt and the ball knocked into the far wall and then rolled almost back to start. “I should be talking to Fiona again. Not golfing.”

  Alonzo stood impatiently with his ball in his hand. “It’s mistaken identity. What could Fiona know?”

  “I think something is wrong at Neveah’s. What if I’m wrong about the murder being mistaken identity—”

  “The message said you weren’t wrong.”

  “I know, but what if I was wrong? What if this other murder has created an opportunity for the Mafia to get revenge?”

  “Too far fetched.”

  “To a sane person it’s far fetched. But to a lunatic?” She finally got her ball around the corner and close to the hole. Alonzo looked at his watch so she picked her ball up and walked to the next hole.

  “You can’t do that,” Alonzo said.

  “You’re bored. We’ll make this quick.”

  “You go first this time.”

  Mitzy hit her ball and it sailed through the obstacle, hovered at the rim of the hole and then sunk.

  Alonzo rapped his putter against the green and pushed his ball back and forth.

  “I told you I was good.” Mitzy smiled a little. “We’ve only been together for what, 9 months? There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” She waited while he took his turn. It took him three hits. “This is the volcano hole, honey.” Mitzy indicated the obstacle in front of them, “You need to be strong and take a risk to get it in. No pussyfooting around. No second-guessing. You’ve got to go with your gut.”

  “Any more clichés for me?” Alonzo said, taking another putt.

  “Just one.” Mitzy slipped her arm though his and snuggled close, “Trust me. Something isn’t right at Neveah’s and I think we should find out what it is.”

  Alonzo pulled his collar up. “It’s starting to rain,” he said.

  Mitzy flipped up her hood. “You’re not a native, are you?”

  “I am.” He stood up a little taller in the cold mist.

  “Then man up. A Portlander can putt-putt in the rain.” As she said it, the other two families headed inside. The cold mist began to sputter. She stood with her putter in the electric light on a dark December night with Alonzo, rain splattering her hood.

  Alonzo groaned and gave his putter a sharp whack on the volcano hole.

  Alice McNinch showed up at Neveah’s with her eyes wide open. Mitzy wanted to know why Neveah’s employees lived high on the hog, so she was going to find out.

  She watched David ring up a customer. The customer was buying a vest. Just one. There wasn’t anyone else in the store. As she walked across the sales floor, watching David work, she added up the cost of his outfit in her head. Fifty dollar v-neck t-shirt. His earring looked like a real diamond, but she couldn’t be sure. His wristwatch had a subtle elegance, but Alice didn’t know if it was the one Joan had seen.

  David stepped away from the counter after handing the customer her bag. One hundred dollar jeans, if not more. The supple leather of his pointy-toed shoes screamed Italy. Alice looked away for a moment. David was well dressed, but Alice thought, maybe he had a lot of credit card debt.

  David sauntered over to Alice. “Hey darling,” he said, kissing her cheek. “What brings you to the wrong side of the tracks?”

  She fingered the shoulder of the nearest garment, “I don’t know. I kind of just wanted to come. I’m a little shook up about Lara.”

  “Oh, I know,” David looked at her with big brown puppy eyes, “You two were close. Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead, but boy. I don’t know
how you did it.” He leaned against a rack of clothes and crossed his feet at the ankle. “Losing a friend is hard, even if she was cra-zy.” He drew out the word crazy but continued to give Alice a look of sympathy.

  “Yeah,” Alice said. She felt the bile rise inside of her. David didn’t care that Lara had been murdered. He didn’t care at all. “How’s business been? I know they mentioned Neveah’s in the news. Has it kept people away?”

  David shrugged, “Business has been better, sure. But it’s not completely dead. Whoops, sorry,” he said with a cat-like grin. “Why don’t you come in the back and sit down. Have a cup of coffee or something?” David straightened up again and nodded toward the office.

  “I might as well,” Alice said. It looked as though David was done talking about Lara. He had stepped back to a rack of clothes that needed to be rehung. If customers had tried on that whole collection today then business hadn’t been too slow.

  Alice helped herself to the office. She poured herself some coffee in a Neveah’s mug and looked around. David had shuffled her off to the back room to end the conversation. But maybe she could make good out of it.

  She sat down at the computer first and nudged it awake with the mouse. It was open to the internet shop. She scrolled through the items available online. A number of hers were there. A few items were marked out of stock, but not many. Perhaps Neveah’s was quick to update their website, and take down the listings when things sold out. Or maybe the out of stock items were just there to make it look like things were selling. Internet marketing wasn’t Alice’s strong suit. She did her best with her resale shop but it seemed like a lot of guesswork.

  She scrolled back up to the top of the screen and moved away from the computer. She knew from Lara that none of the employees made much more than minimum wage. She knew that at least her items were marked up more than 200%. So there was some profit to keep the business running.

  She hesitated to open the files. Who knew when Fiona would pop in again? The back door beckoned her. The dumpsters were just outside. What was Fiona throwing away? What was she recycling? Alice opened the door and went outside to search.

  The dumpsters served the stretch of four stores that made up the building Neveah’s was in. She approached the garbage dumpster, but the smell made her change her mind. The recycling would be cleaner.

  She propped open the big plastic lid and leaned into the huge recycling dumpster. There was a lot of crushed cardboard. She shifted it and looked at the labels. One was hers. There were a number with no labels. There was a whole stack tied together with twine.

  Alice pulled the stack out and untied it. The labels were mostly removed but one had a shipping to label on it. It had been sent to Neveah’s. And one had most of the return address label still on it. It was from Idaho.

  Alice sucked in her breath. There were seven boxes tied together, all exactly the same size. The labels that had been removed were torn off of the same spot. As far as Alice could tell they were from the same sender and used to contain the same thing.

  Neveah’s was a local shop for local talent with a huge green agenda. What was being shipped there on a regular basis from Idaho? Alice ripped the address label off of the box. She was about to toss them all back in when she thought better of it. She stacked them back up and tied them as they had been before she pitched them into the bin. Then she shuffled some of the other boxes back on top of them.

  Whatever the address meant, Alice was sure she didn’t want Fiona to know she had it.

  Alice went straight to Mitzy’s office.

  Mitzy had convinced Joan to come downstairs and have a morning coffee with her. She didn’t want to be in her office, not with the recent break in and broken platter, but didn’t want to hang around the inn all day.

  Alice came in to the office breathless. She pulled a chair out from the desk and sat down with Joan and Mitzy. “I went to the shop and had a look around.” She pulled the label out of her pocket and set it on the desk.

  Mitzy picked it up and read it. She raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s from the recycling at Neveah’s. She had a stack of boxes tied together. Most of them had all of the labels removed but one was still there that said they went to that shop and one of the boxes had this on it.”

  “And? She gets boxes from Idaho.”

  “Yeah. But she’s a huge green advocate. She only sells the work of local designers. What’s she getting shipped in from Idaho?”

  “How big were the boxes?” Mitzy asked, fingering the label.

  “They were flattened but I think they were about shoe box size.”

  “Does Neveah’s sell shoes?” Mitzy asked.

  Alice paused and thought. “Yes. They do have a small selection of shoes.”

  “Hmm. Well it looks like whoever makes the shoes is in Idaho.” Mitzy smoothed the label out on the desk. “She’s hiding it, it sounds like. But I don’t know that importing shoes from the next state over is quite what we are looking for.” Mitzy tipped her head back and rolled it from side to side with a little pop.

  Alice bit her lip, “But what if it’s not shoes? What if it is something else?”

  “If it was something bad, would it have a return address on it?” Joan asked. “You don’t put a return address on your shipment of heroin.”

  “That’s a good point.” Mitzy tapped the label with her pen. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “It might be nothing, but what if the box the address came from was nothing. Nothing but regular shoes that are supposed to come from Portland but really came from Idaho. And what if the rest of the boxes had the shoes with something hiding in them?” She smiled and leaned forward in her chair. “What’s inside the toe of a shoe?”

  “Toes,” Joan said.

  Alice shook her head. “No, when you pull them out of the box, what’s inside the toe?”

  “A bunch of paper.” Mitzy chewed on the end of her pencil. “And what could you hide in a bunch of paper?” she asked.

  “Anything you want.” Alice said.

  Mitzy nodded. “If you were getting something expensive and illegal shipped to you, you’d want it to come to a business address instead of your home because then it’s, I don’t know, it’s not you. You could say you know nothing about it.”

  “Not if it is hiding in your shoes,” Alice said.

  “Ooh!” Joan said, “If you have something illegal and expensive shipped to your store hidden in the toe of your shoe you could claim you didn’t know about it and you could lay the blame on an employee!”

  “Especially if the employee has a lot of unexplained cash lying around,” Mitzy concluded. “Thanks for this label. It may be very important.”

  Alice grinned. “Anything for Lara!” She looked at her watch, “I’ve got to run. I have a ton of work to get done. I’m glad to think I may have helped out.”

  The mess of computer bits still on the floor was bugging Mitzy. Another glaring example of her recent bad decisions.

  “Joan, I’ve got to get rid of this junk.” Mitzy kicked a tangle of cord. It rolled under Joan’s chair.

  “I can’t help. I’m sorry. I’m meeting a client soon.”

  “I’ll call Ben. He’ll come take care of it.” Mitzy reached under Joan’s chair for the wire.

  “Why would he help?” Joan asked.

  “Oh, um, I just thought of him. That’s all. It couldn’t hurt to ask.” Mitzy dialed his number.

  Joan put her jacket on and waved to Mitzy. She had her own work to get done, much to Mitzy’s disappointment.

  “Hey! Ben,” Mitzy started, “Do you have a little time to help me out today?”

  “I can’t Mitz, this isn’t a good time.”

  “It’s not a big job, I just want to get rid of all this computer junk.”

  “Jenny and I are going out of town.”

  “Where are you going?” Mitzy could hear papers shuffling in the background.

  “I can’t say,” Ben said. Mitzy heard something like th
e sound of a car door shutting, “Listen, I’ve got a plan made and I’ve ordered some really good stuff. We’re going on a long weekend, and I won’t be able to get back until Thursday next week.”

  “That is a long weekend.” Mitzy really wanted to know where he was going.

  “No, we’re just going for a few days. But when I get back I’ll have a ton of work to do.”

  “I’m glad someone is busy.”

  “I’ll be back around next Thursday. Just leave everything where it is. I’ll take care of it. Is that all you needed?”

  “You don’t have any time at all today?”

  The rustling paper stopped. “Okay, Mitzy. Something is wrong. What is it?”

  “Someone broke my platter. Lara Capet’s killer may have keys to everywhere I go, and the police don’t seem to care.”

  “This is exactly why Jenny doesn’t want me working for you,” Ben said.

  “I suppose it is. Well, sorry to bother you.”

  “It’s okay. But, if you’re being threatened …” he trailed off.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “If you are being threatened and you need me, just call.” Ben made his offer in a deep manly voice, which was just the laugh Mitzy needed to cheer her up.

  “Enjoy your long weekend,” Mitzy said.

  “Okay,” Ben said.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay I’ll come down. I’ll be there this afternoon. Can you manage alone for a few hours?”

  “I’ll find something to do.” A wave of relief washed over Mitzy. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” Ben said.

  Mitzy put her cell phone back in her purse. She knew how she could spend a few hours. She could go see Hector again. But first she’d get Alonzo.

  Mitzy drove out to Alonzo’s worksite to beg his company for a long lunch break.

  “I feel like I want to tell Hector about what’s been going on,” Mitzy said.

  “About the cat?”

  “No, about the threats,” Mitzy rubbed her knuckle up and down Alonzo’s arm absently as she spoke. “He is so heartbroken about Lara. Don’t you think he’d want to know that it might not have been about her? It seems like it would be a comfort to know people didn’t want to see your lover dead.”