Frosted Shadow - A Toni Diamond Mystery

by Nancy Warren

On his way out the door he kissed her, then held her away from him and gave her his bad cop expression. “You don’t go anywhere or do anything without letting me know. Understand?”

  She nodded but he wasn’t done.

  “That doll wasn’t for fun. Somebody wants you gone.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions. —Martin Amis

  The day of the awards banquet and gala was always crazy. This year, the energy was indescribable -- part manic excitement, part ghost-story fear.

  Most of the final day’s sessions centered on team building, sales techniques and positive thinking. They ended at noon so everyone had plenty of time to get dressed up, made up and hairstyled.

  Normally Toni always carried chamomile tea bags, which she’d brew as a calming drink and then run the bags under cold water and place them over her eyes. Nothing worked better for reducing the puffiness. But this trip she’d forgotten tea bags, so she’d gone to her emergency standby and borrowed a couple of stainless steel tea spoons from the hotel which she’d placed in the mini-bar fridge in her room.

  She wasn’t exactly sleeping like a baby since the trouble had begun and her eyes were telegraphing that fact.

  She stripped down to her robe, cleansed her face and applied a Lady Bianca rejuvenating face mask which, in twenty minutes would cleanse and refresh her skin. In lieu of cucumber slices or chamomile teabags, she placed the spoons over her eyes when she stretched out on the bed.

  Dream images were dancing behind her eyes as she coasted in that twilight state between waking and dreaming.

  She sat up with a gasp, her heart pounding and the spoons clattering to her lap, bits of kiwi green rejuvenating mask sticking to them like nuclear reactive pudding.

  Everybody lies.

  How could you distinguish truth from lies? Fake from genuine? Sometimes you had to be an expert to tell what was true and what was false.

  Or get the evidence.

  The list of Lady Bianca prize winners for the annual gala would be online by now. She’d be listed, she was certain, for her personal sales volume, even though her team wouldn’t win the division.

  In fact, every sales rep who had achieved a significant sales volume was listed, with their dollar amount of orders.

  She always perused the full list of hundreds of names, all of whom would be recognized at the banquet. She liked to know who was selling as well as she was, whose volumes were higher (not many) and who the up and coming stars of the organization were.

  She scrambled off the bed and called Suzanne and Ruth’s room. Luckily, Suzanne was there and answered.

  “It’s Toni. I don’t have my laptop with me, long story. Are the prize winners up on the website?”

  “Mmm-hmmm. And your two favorite ladies are in the prize circle this year,” Suzanne said, sounding excited.

  “You and Ruth?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s fantastic! Champagne’s on me, tonight. Listen, I need to borrow your laptop for an hour or so. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. I can borrow Ruth’s if I need one.”

  “Thanks, doll. I’m coming right over.”

  She was half way out the door when she caught a glimpse of herself and shrieked. Probably better to wash off the green mask before appearing in public.

  Five minutes later, cleansed and newly moisturized, she hit the stairs, ran down a flight and knocked on Ruth and Suzanne’s door. Ruth’s face was kiwi green, Suzanne’s was French-clay white. They hugged carefully, and she sped back upstairs with Suzanne’s laptop under her arm.

  “Come on,” she said as she waited for the old computer to boot up. Now that Suzanne was making so much money, maybe she could spring for a new laptop.

  At last. She logged onto the Lady Bianca website and used her password to get to the restricted part of the site for reps only.

  She scanned the list quickly, found her name, and then Suzanne’s and Ruth’s.

  More significantly, every single rep on Nicole’s team was in the upper sales level. Every. Single. One.

  The awards were based on how much wholesale product a rep purchased from the company. The idea was that the product would end up sold retail, but the rep would still be recognized even if the product sat in a garage gathering dust.

  “Damn, I was right,” she said aloud as she grabbed her cell and called Luke.

  “Hey,” he said when he heard her voice, his going low and sexy. “How you doing.”

  “I’m okay. Listen. Can you come upstairs? There’s something you’ve got to see.”

  “You sound serious. Does that mean it’s not you, naked?”

  “Not this time.”

  “On my way.”

  “See what I mean?” she said when Luke sat beside her on the bed, the laptop on his knees. “I think you should look at Melody Feckler’s bank accounts and credit cards. Look at that sales volume. There is no way she is selling that much product. I’m sure she’s the one who pledged ten grand to Nicole the day she was killed.”

  “And then popped her best friend?”

  “I’m positive she’s lying about how well she’s doing. That’s all. A couple of things aren’t adding up. Her clothes are cheap.” He gave her a funny look. “I mean, inexpensive. She always shares a room, except this time because she got it for nothing because her husband works for the hotel chain. And she’s the only one who would make that kind of commitment to Nicole on the spur of the moment.”

  He patted her on the back. “Good work. I gotta go but I’ll see you tonight. At the banquet.” He traced his fingertip along her hairline. “But you might want to wash the green slime out of your hair first.”

  She opened her eyes wide. “You’re coming to the banquet?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Are you bringing me a corsage?”

  He kissed her. “Don’t push your luck.” And he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  The phone rang as Toni was securing the last hot roller. “Honey, it’s me.”

  “Mama.” She juggled the phone around a stubborn roller. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “I’m downstairs with your shoes.”

  In the craziness she’d completely forgotten the shoes. “You’re here? Now?”

  “We have a surprise for you. Tiffany and I are staying over tonight at the hotel. We got tickets for the gala.” She lowered her voice. “In fact, there were lots of cancellations so tickets and a room weren’t a problem. They were even able to put us on your floor.”

  “Fantastic. Come on up.”

  But it wasn’t fantastic. She loved her mother and daughter too much to want them to be here where two murders had occurred. She took a deep breath. Only a few more hours of the conference remained. What could go wrong? The hotel was packed with police, extra security guards hired by Lady Bianca and a couple thousand sales reps. Toni didn’t plan to let her daughter or her mama out of her sight. So long as they stayed together they’d be fine.

  She opened the door to her two favorite women in the world, hugging them both.

  “Mama, you lightened your hair.” Again.

  Linda twirled and struck a model pose. “Platinum is the new blonde.”

  “And old is the new young,” Tiffany mumbled behind her so only she could hear.

  “Tiff and I put our things in our room, but I wanted to bring you your shoes.”

  “The ones with the see through heels, right?”

  “Tiffany knew which ones they were.”

  “The ‘Cinderella is a ho’ slippers.”

  She bumped her unruly offspring with a hip. “Those are the ones. One day, Goth will be a thing of the past and I will be able to throw at you all the one liners I’ve been saving up.”

  Tiffany snorted. “I can’t wait.”

  “Goth is the new black.” She said, backing into the room and putting the shoes
on the bed.

  “Goth is never having to say you’re happy.”

  “Goth to a flame,” Linda added.

  Her daughter laughed. “Good one.” Even Tiffany was grinning.

  “I have to go down early, but I’ll stop by on my way.” She wrinkled her nose. “Do you have a dress, Tiffany?” Last time she’d looked her daughter’s closet contained nothing but black jeans, shirts and sweaters, all either second hand or made of renewable resources like hemp or bamboo. No doubt with cruelty free cutting practices so the bamboo didn’t feel any pain.

  “I lent her one of my gowns,” Linda said.

  Toni couldn’t even imagine.

  “Don’t worry, her mama said brightly. “Tiffany managed to make it work for her.”

  When she walked to her mother and daughter’s room forty minutes later, with her hair curling around her shoulders, her cosmetics perfectly applied and her dress on, she wondered what she’d find inside.

  Tiffany was lounging on one of the queen-sized beds. Her make up was her usual black and white, but she’d toned down the drama, at least, and had slicked on some colored lip gloss. As Linda said, she’d made one her grandmother’s dresses work for her. The plain black, figure-hugging dress with its plunging neckline was eye-popping when her mother wore it.

  Tiffany had slipped a white T-shirt underneath it and since she was much taller than her grandmother, the dress stopped above her ankles. With black leather lace-up boots, a peace symbol on a leather cord necklace and her black nose stud, she had indeed made the dress her own.

  She was all ready to go, and using the interval before the banquet started to read a book called Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century--On Earth and Beyond.

  “Oh, honey, you look wonderful,” Linda said, emerging from the washroom.

  She regarded her reflection in the long mirror on the wall. The light cast back the glitter of silver from her gown. This was an important banquet and everyone was encouraged to dress up, but even for Toni the gown was a little flashy. In the store, it hadn’t seemed so – sparkly -- as it did now, and she’d loved the profusion of diamonds across the low-cut bodice. “Is this too much?” Toni asked,

  Tiffany looked up from her book. “Are the oceans polluted? Is global warming destroying the planet as we know it?”

  “Don’t get above your raising, Tiff,” Linda Plotnik warned, shaking a finger at her mouthy grand-daughter. To Toni she said,. “Of course it’s not too much. You look dazzling.”

  “Pot, meet kettle,” Tiffany said, and went back to her book.

  “You should be proud to have such a gorgeous mother.”

  “Grandma, haven’t you ever heard that less is more?”

  “Not in my world, honey. When you’ve been as poor as your mom and I have, you know that more is more.”

  “Oh, shoot,” Toni said. Clapping a hand to her hair. “That reminds me. I forgot my tiara. I’ve got to go back and get it. Well, wish me luck. I’ll see you after the presentations. Save me a seat for dinner?”

  “You bet honey. We’re so proud of you.”

  “You rock, mom.”

  She was smiling as she emerged into the corridor and headed toward her room.

  She stopped with a gasp.

  A man in a hotel uniform was coming out of her room, closing the door behind him.

  “Excuse me? Can I help you?”

  The man turned and she recognized him.

  “Thomas Feckler? What were you doing in my room?”

  “Dropping off your suicide note.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I live by a man's code, designed to fit a man's world, yet at the same time I never forget that a woman's first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.” —Carole Lombard

  “Suicide note? Are you out of your mind?” Then she saw the knife in his hand, long and wicked, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw the answer to her second question.

  She turned and ran, not for the room where her daughter and mother were, instinct screamed, but for the exit door to the stairs, cursing her tottering heels. She didn’t get far before he grabbed her arm. His fingers had some kind of surgical glove covering them but even through the latex, she could feel how hot his hands were.

  “I don’t think you should run. Or scream. What if your mother or your daughter came out to see what was going on?”

  Her heart hammered and she stopped dead. How could he have known? But, of course, he worked for the hotel chain. Which was how he’d so easily found his way into her room. “They have nothing to do with this.”

  “And why don’t we keep it that way, hmm?”

  She nodded. Licking her lips and tasting the raspberry flavor in the lipstick.

  He twisted her arm behind her back and pushed the tip of that monstrous knife against her lower back. “Now, we walk. If we pass anyone, you act normal.”

  She snorted. “Or what? You’ll kill me?” Did he think she was stupid? With that knife, he wasn’t planning to cook for her.

  “Or I’ll add your daughter and your mother. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “I did everything I could to warn you away. This is your own fault.” He brandished the knife at her as though she had any doubt what he meant by ‘this’.

  “You mean, my murder.” Let him hear that word.

  “Nicole wouldn’t listen either.”

  “Do you really think there’s any way you’ll get away with a third murder?”

  He shook his head, giving her a little, knowing smile that gave her the creeps. “You’re not going to be murdered. You’ll commit suicide.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Mmm. It’s very sad. You and Nicole had that huge fight, everybody saw you. Then you killed her. You even discovered the body and, as everybody knows, half the time it’s the murderer themselves who pretends to discover the body.”

  “But why –”

  “Guilt of course. You can’t live with yourself any longer. How appropriate that you’re going to throw yourself on this knife.”

  She stared at the thing in horror. Its blade was particularly shiny, even in the dim light of the hallway. And very long.

  A weird sound came out of her mouth. One she wasn’t proud of.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s not the same knife that killed Nicole. You needed something longer. A sword would be better -- very Roman -- but you’ll manage with the industrial carving knife.”

  She felt sick. Bile was rising into the back of her throat. She swallowed it down.

  She thought of her mother and daughter only a couple of doors away, who would be emerging very soon. She couldn’t let them run into this madman.

  She walked along with him as quickly as she could. They passed the elevators and she couldn’t figure out their destination.

  Thomas Feckler? Thomas Feckler a murderer? It didn’t make sense. “But Melody. How could you do that to Melody? Nicole was her friend.”

  “I love my wife.” If he’d ever spoken a truth, she knew that was it. There was a ring of sincerity in the words. “I’d do anything for Mel. Anything. I’d die for her.”

  “Even kill for her?”

  “To protect her. Only to protect her. That woman,” he spat out the words, “with her smarmy ways, ‘I love you so much, I know you can be a star’ all she wanted was her own success. She didn’t care about Melody. But Mel fell for the line. She kept buying more and more product. At first I supported her. She was so happy and excited about her new business. But her sales weren’t keeping up with her overhead. I tried to explain but she wouldn’t listen. She’d fallen under her spell. She was like one of those princesses in the fairy tales who are enchanted by an evil witch.” No question who the evil witch was in his story.

  “I finally sat her down one day and told her we were in danger of losing the house, but she kept telling me I had to have faith in her and believe in her and her busin
ess. It was making me crazy.”

  No kidding.

  “Then I overheard her on the phone with Nicole – they used to talk all the time on the phone – she didn’t know I was home. It was obvious from her end of the conversation that Nicole was describing ways to get money without me finding out. After that I started reading all her emails and –”

  “But that’s like reading someone’s mail. It’s private,” she burst out without thinking.

  He jabbed the knife, not hard, but enough that she felt the fabric of her dress tear and the sharp blade against her side. “Nothing should be private between a man and his wife.”

  “So, Melody knows about how you’ve killed her mentor?”

  He looked highly insulted. “That’s different. I have to protect my wife. Besides, Nicole kept saying she should divorce me if I wasn’t supportive. That woman was evil. I had to stop her.”

  “And stop Melody from spending all the family money and leaving you.” Toni had no idea why she couldn’t put a cork in it, but nerves and panic seemed to have an unfortunate effect on her mouth.

  “Once Nicole’s influence was removed, I knew Melody would see reason.” The Melody she’d seen recently, who spouted Nicole’s lines like a recorded message didn’t seem any different than she’d always been, but by dint of biting her tongue, Toni managed not to blurt out that observation.

  “The ten thousand was the last straw, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded briefly.

  “Did Nicole help Melody get a company credit card too?”

  He snorted. “She already has one of those. No, she went to bat for Melody so she could have her limit raised by another ten grand.”

  “My God.”

  “Exactly.” He shook his head and his perfectly cut hair fell back into precise order. “I am not a violent man, but we’re going to lose our house. I’ve spent years at the hotel, working my way up. I could be a hotel manager one day. But not if I go bankrupt.” He stopped to drag in air, he sounded breathless, as though he’d been sprinting. “I can’t lose it all. You should see our garage, it’s so full of make up and creams and promo items you can’t even move. Haven’t parked a car in there in two years. Nicole talked her into buying thousands of sampler packs last year and then they changed the colors. Boxes of those things.” He was getting seriously worked up. Beads of sweat dotted his hairline and his voice was rising. She could feel the tremble go all the way through the knife.