Body Movers

by Stephanie Bond

  Carlotta’s heart began to beat faster, partly due to the nicotine infusion, partly due to the feeling that she was onto something. She puffed on the cigar, then exhaled in a frustrated sigh. “Are you going to help me?”

  June studied her for a few seconds, then leaned forward and used her cigar to gesture to the people around them. “Carlotta, most of the guys in here are decent fellas who come to hang out because their wives don’t want cigar smoke stinkin’ up the living-room curtains. But some of my customers—well, they aren’t the nicest people. Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

  Carlotta swallowed a mouthful of the martini, then shook her head against the sting of alcohol. “No. But this feels…necessary.” Besides, she was starting to get used to having “not nice” people in her life: a fugitive father, lurking loan sharks, a detestable detective.

  June lifted her glass. “Fair enough, darlin’. I’ll give you what you want. But you’d better watch your step. If your suspicions are correct, one dead girl is plenty enough.”

  21

  “M rs. Susan Harroway,” Carlotta read from the napkin on which she’d written the names that June Moody had given to her the night before, after the cigars had been smoked and another round of martinis exhausted.

  “Harroway is an old Atlanta name,” Hannah said, reclining on Carlotta’s bed in full goth getup and fingering the silver barbell piercing her tongue. “I don’t know a Susan in particular, but I’ve catered parties for various Harroways.”

  “I’ll ask Michael at the store. Maybe he’ll know something about her.” Carlotta worked her mouth from side to side. “But June told me the woman said the cigar was a gift, so that could mean her husband, her father, a brother.”

  “Or a boyfriend,” Hannah added.

  Carlotta frowned. “Not everyone cheats on their spouse.”

  “Sure they do, if they live long enough. Who else is on the list?”

  “Dr. Joseph Suarez. I looked him up in the phone book and he’s a plastic surgeon. His office is in Buckhead.”

  “A plastic surgeon in Buckhead? Ooh, big surprise.”

  “Michael mentioned that he had a friend who worked in a clinic where Angela got Botox injections. Maybe Dr. Suarez works there.”

  “Hmm. Next name?”

  “Bryan D’Angelo. June says he’s an attorney and I got the feeling that he’s a little shady.” She bit the end of her fingernail. “Maybe Liz Fischer knows him.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Wes’s attorney,” she said dryly. She hated the thought of calling the woman. Liz’s history with Detective Terry made her even less palatable in Carlotta’s eyes.

  “Do you have a beef with Liz?”

  “She was my dad’s attorney, too.”

  “Oh?” Hannah’s voice rose in curiosity, probably, Carlotta presumed, because she rarely mentioned her father.

  “What about Dennis Lagerfeld?” Carlotta asked to redirect Hannah’s attention.

  Her friend squinted, as if the name was familiar.

  “His is the last name on the list. June said he used to be a professional athlete.”

  “Oh, right,” Hannah said, nodding. “Receiver for the Falcons, maybe ten years ago. Man, he was fucking gorgeous. I wonder if all that muscle has gone to fat.”

  “There’s no obvious connection to Angela.”

  “They could have met anywhere—at a party, at the club, at a day spa.”

  “Or he could be a client of Peter’s,” Carlotta murmured. Mashburn and Tully prided themselves on representing the investments of athletes and celebrities. Part of the reason she had first begun collecting autographs when she was a teenager was due to the access her father had once had to famous people.

  “So what if you find out that one of these people does have a connection to Angela Ashford? Are you going to confront them, Nancy Drew?”

  “I don’t know.” Carlotta sighed. “I’ll cross that bridge if I get there.”

  “Any news on whether there’s going to be an autopsy?”

  “No. I haven’t talked to Coop since the funeral.”

  “What, you need an excuse to talk to the hunky undertaker? Step aside and let me at him.”

  Carlotta smirked. “You just want to have sex in a coffin, don’t you?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “You need help, you know that?”

  Hannah smirked. “So have you heard from the grieving husband?”

  Carlotta laid the napkin on her nightstand. “He’s called a few times.” Six, to be exact. “But I haven’t answered.”

  “Did he leave messages?”

  “Just that he called and would like to talk to me.” In the last couple of messages, though, she’d detected a bit of desperation in Peter’s voice.

  “Are you going to call him?”

  “Probably,” she admitted. “Eventually.”

  Hannah held up a pack of menthol cigarettes. “Want a smoke?”

  “Yes,” Carlotta said, then moaned. “No. I have such a headache after smoking that cigar last night…of course, the martinis probably didn’t help.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t take me with you.”

  “You were working.”

  “Still.”

  Carlotta smirked as she reached for a cigarette. “I’ll take you back sometime—you’d love it. Everyone there looked married.”

  Hannah clapped her hands. “This is great. I thought when you gave up the party-crashing, you were going mainstream on me. But then you kissed a married man, and now you’re smoking again!”

  “I can’t afford to start smoking again. I’m already broke, and do you know how much cigarettes cost these days?”

  “Yeah,” Hannah said holding up the box of cigarettes from which Carlotta had taken a smoke. “I kind of bought these. And for someone who’s always broke, you always seem to always have money to spend on clothes.”

  Carlotta looked at her closet that was too full for the double doors to close. Designer bags and shoes, belts and coats, dresses and jeans bulged past the door frames. She thought of the money from her pawned engagement ring that was rapidly dwindling. “Too bad I can’t sell some of this stuff.”

  “You can,” Hannah sang. “eBay.”

  “Under the rules of Wesley’s probation, we can’t have a computer in the house.”

  “Oh. Bummer.” Then Hannah brightened. “I know a place—Designer Consigner, in Little Five Points. They’ll take all this name-brand crap off your hands.”

  Carlotta frowned. “For how much?”

  “You set your price, and they add a percentage. You get paid when it sells, and you know this shit will sell, like, instantly.”

  Carlotta picked up the purse she’d carried last night—last season’s Coach, but still in prime condition. And she had at least two dozen more like it, all different brands. Even if she could sell them for a third of what she’d paid for them, she could pay down her credit cards and maybe have her Miata fixed. The thought of being able to get rid of the dreadful Monte Carlo made her giddy.

  “Why don’t you load up a few things and we’ll take them in,” Hannah suggested.

  Carlotta narrowed her eyes. “You despise designer clothes. How do you know about this place?”

  “It’s next door to a place I shop, and the same people own it. Stop stalling.” She grimaced at the overflowing closet. “Good grief, Amelia Earhart could be in there.”

  Carlotta emptied the contents of the Coach bag on her bed, then went through her closet, choosing purses that she’d grown tired of but that were still in great shape, many of them protected by dust bags. Hannah began pulling out clothes in clumps. “How long has it been since you wore this?”

  Carlotta studied the fitted orange tweed jacket. “I can’t remember.”

  Hannah tossed it on the bed. “It goes.”

  “Wait a minute!”

  “Jesus, Carlotta, the closet rods are bowed. You couldn’t wear all this stuff in t
en years!”

  With a sigh, Carlotta relented and thirty minutes later, they were piling clothes and shopping bags of accessories into Hannah’s retro refrigerated catering van that was covered in graffiti.

  “When are you going to get this thing painted?” Carlotta asked.

  “It is painted,” Hannah said, clearly annoyed. “Some of the best graffiti artists in Atlanta live in my neighborhood and have left their mark on my ride.” She stepped back and gestured to the words Do yourself written in stylized white lettering, highlighted to look three-dimensional. “See the signature—Zemo. He’s huge. This van is going to be in the Smithsonian one day.”

  “Right,” Carlotta said as she rearranged the bags stuffed full of clothes. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “It smells like garlic in here.”

  “Last night’s gig,” Hannah said, closing the rear half-doors. “I made so many garlic rolls I swear this morning I crapped a clove.”

  “You really should write poetry.”

  “I just might someday.”

  Carlotta climbed up and swung into the cracked blue vinyl bench seat and slammed the door hard to get it to stick. When Hannah pulled away from the curb, Carlotta waved at a frowning Mrs. Winningham, then rolled down the window and lit the cigarette she’d been playing with for an hour.

  It was a breezy, cloudless spring day and she couldn’t stave off the pang of sadness that Angela had been dead for mere days and the world had marched on, with hardly a pause. She wondered what Peter was doing—if he’d returned to work yet, sold Angela’s car, spread her ashes, ordered her grave marker. Would he order a double headstone, with thoughts of someday being buried next to his young wife, or was he already thinking ahead to inviting another woman into his life?

  Like her.

  “Why can’t you let it go?” Hannah asked, wrestling with the huge steering wheel with one hand, holding her cigarette in the other.

  “What?”

  “You know what—Angela Ashford’s death. Everyone but you thinks it was an accident. And if it was an accident,” she said lightly, “doesn’t that sort of clear the way for you to get back with the love of your life?”

  Carlotta flicked ash out of the window. “I suppose so.”

  “Well, I’m no shrink, but either you think Peter killed her or you’re conflicted about your feelings for him and are going to some pretty extreme lengths to avoid the situation altogether.”

  Carlotta studied the cigarette she held, asking herself why people did things that they knew would hurt them eventually, and if she had a particular propensity for self-destruction. She took a long draw, then exhaled. “Well, like you said, you’re no shrink.”

  Hannah frowned and replied by leaning forward and turning up the volume on the radio, blasting Marilyn Manson into the cab for the short ride south into Little Five Points.

  Carlotta felt torn over shutting out her friend, but she was already so confused about Peter, she was afraid that talking about him, that putting words to half-baked feelings, might send her into an emotional abyss. What if she did give in to years of pent-up longing and allow Peter into her life…and into her heart? Would he tire of her after he felt he’d paid penance for abandoning her? After all, how much did they really have in common now?

  She slid her gaze sideways at Hannah, the tongue-pierced, stripe-haired, smoking and cursing bondage queen…with a heart of gold. Her best friend, but would Peter accept her and her eccentricities? And how would he feel when he discovered that she herself had had a couple of, er, misunderstandings with the law? And she doubted that Peter’s boss, Walt Tully, would look kindly upon him taking up with the daughter of the man who had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from their clients, the man responsible for an embarrassing asterisk on the company records.

  So what could she really ever be to Peter—a pastime…closeted?

  “This is it,” Hannah said, throwing the van into park.

  Carlotta looked up and took in their eclectic surroundings. The people and shop owners in Little Five Points prided themselves on their individuality. Antique book-shops, organic restaurants, futon stores, bike shops, alternative-music stores, hip T-shirt shops. The theaters and playhouses and trendy eateries had caught on with the younger Buckhead crowd determined to prove that they were get-real cool despite their black American Express cards, so the clientele was slowly changing from students with pocket change to young professionals with loads of disposable income. Ergo, next door to a retro used-clothing store called Rebound Rags sat Designer Consigner.

  They loaded up armfuls of bags and clothing and headed for the door. Carlotta felt a little sheepish to be taking her personal items in to hock—it smacked of desperation. Her mother, she thought, would be appalled at the notion of Carlotta selling her clothes—consignment stores and yard sales were too pedestrian for the Wrens.

  Embezzlement, bail skipping and child abandonment, on the other hand, were acceptable.

  She followed Hannah into the store that was remarkably well merchandised for a consignment shop. A petite Asian woman with a sleek bob and wearing a Chanel suit as well as anyone Carlotta had ever seen looked up from a table where she sorted items that, presumably, the two women standing in front of her had just brought in.

  “I’ll be right with you,” the Asian woman said in a clear, cultured voice.

  The two customers turned and Carlotta blinked in surprise—one was Tracey Tully…er, Lowenstein. Mrs. Dr.

  “Carlotta,” Tracey said, her voice chilly. “How utterly bizarre to see you again so soon.”

  “Hello, Tracey.” A flush blazed its way up Carlotta’s neck as she saw Tracey take in the bulging shopping bags she and Hannah held. Humiliation washed over her.

  Tracey gestured to the dry-cleaner bags of clothing stacked on the table. “My friend Courtney and I were just dropping off some items for the Women Helping Women clothing drive.”

  The other woman smiled tightly without making eye contact, as if Carlotta and Hannah might qualify as some of the women who needed help.

  “Well…what a coincidence,” Carlotta said, lifting her chin. “So are we.”

  She ignored Hannah’s strangled noise as she lifted the shopping bags to the table. After she jerked her head meaningfully, Hannah did the same with the bounty she’d carried in.

  From the top of one of Carlotta’s bags, Tracey plucked a nearly mint Kate Spade leather hobo bag from two seasons ago. “Yes, underprivileged women will appreciate these items, even if they are hopelessly dated.” Then Tracey made a face. “This stuff smells like garlic.”

  Carlotta smiled through clenched teeth as the woman carelessly tossed the expensive purse back into the bag.

  “You’re very generous, ma’am,” the salesclerk murmured to Carlotta.

  Carlotta tried to keep smiling as the woman gathered up the bags and disappeared with them in a back room. There went the extra cash she’d hoped to have.

  When the salesclerk returned, Tracey snapped her fingers, as if she were talking to a servant. “I’ll be needing a receipt so I can deduct this from my income taxes. I’m a doctor’s wife and in our tax bracket we need all the deductions we can get.”

  Hannah coughed, disguised her muttered “bitch” as a wheeze.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the salesclerk said, then she smiled at Carlotta. “If you’ll write down your name and phone number, I’ll give you one as well.”

  Not that it mattered in her tax bracket, Carlotta thought miserably.

  Tracey snatched the receipt from the woman’s hand, then turned to Carlotta. “Now that Angela is gone, I guess I’ll be seeing you at the club.”

  Carlotta frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tracey tossed her hair. “I mean, it’s pretty clear that you and Peter Ashford are going to pick up where you left off…if you ever stopped.” She gestured toward the back room where the salesclerk had taken the shopping bags. “You’re probably giving away all your old things because you think that Peter
is going to buy you whatever you want now. Poor Angela, not even cold in her grave.”

  Anger flared in Carlotta’s chest and she struggled to keep her voice steady. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, it’s not just me talking,” Tracey assured her with a cocked hip. “After you made a spectacle of yourself at the funeral and the way that Peter fawned over you afterward in front of everyone, trust me, everyone is talking.” Then Tracey smiled meanly. “But considering the way you were raised, no one is surprised.”

  Carlotta flinched as if she’d been slapped, but Hannah apparently wasn’t nearly so traumatized. “Mrs. Dr., how’d you like my pointy-toed boot up your charitable ass?”

  “We’re leaving,” Tracey said, looking them up and down with contempt as she and her friend made their way toward the entrance—but not without a parting shot. “Really, Carlotta, you’ve gone to the dogs.”

  Hannah lunged toward them, but Carlotta grabbed her arm. Still, it was enough to send Tracey and her sidekick scrambling out the door.

  When Carlotta turned back to the salesclerk, the woman had a faint smile on her face. “Sorry about that,” Carlotta murmured, then bent to write her name and number on the receipt book.

  “They have history,” Hannah added unnecessarily.

  “So I gathered,” the woman said, her dark eyes shining. She extended the receipt she’d written to Carlotta. “Thank you very much for the donation.”

  “You’re welcome,” Carlotta said, feeling guilty as hell as she took the slip of paper.

  When their hands brushed, a strange look crossed the woman’s face. She clasped Carlotta’s hand. “Wait.”

  From the sharp tone in the woman’s voice, alarm blipped through Carlotta’s chest. “What is it?”

  The woman had turned Carlotta’s hand palm up and was studying it, a crease between her perfectly arched brows. Carlotta glanced at Hannah, who only shrugged. After a few awkward seconds had passed, the woman looked up.

  “I don’t mean to worry you,” she said quietly, “but you are facing danger.”

  Carlotta squirmed. “Why would you say that?”

  The woman’s cheeks turned pink. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I have a gift…for seeing things. When I touched your hand, I felt danger. Do you have a big, strong man in your life to protect you?”