The Fashion Police (Amber Fox Mystery No 1)

by Sibel Hodge

  ‘What are you doing here on a Saturday? Do you live here?’ I said to Hacker as I sat down, swiveling around in my chair to face him.

  ‘I’ve got no life. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m just conscientious.’ I opened the box and stuffed a piece of pizza in my mouth. ‘Yum, double pepperoni. I need brain food.’

  ‘Do you know what’s in that? Refined wheat flour, E numbers, processed cheese–’

  I pressed my hands over my ears when he got to the processed cheese part. Processed cheese didn’t sound like real cheese and it tasted so good. ‘Can’t hear you.’ Then I realized that I couldn’t eat with both hands tied up, so I took one hand away, pressed my uncovered ear against my shoulder, and resumed eating with the other hand until I got a neck ache.

  ‘You’re crazy.’ Hacker shook his head at me. ‘I know who EF is, by the way.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Enzo Fetuccini.’

  ‘And who’s Enzo Fetuccini?’

  ‘He’s the boss of a big mob family in the USA.’

  ‘How do you know it’s the same EF?’

  ‘I’ve been checking out Longshore Holdings. They’re owned by another company, who are owned by another company, who are owned by Enzo Fetuccini. They covered their tracks pretty well, but not good enough. Fetuccini was in Sing Sing prison serving twenty years for murder, money laundering, and tax evasion.’

  ‘You said “was”. When did he get out?’

  ‘Six months ago.’

  ‘Interesting. Also, by the way, I’ve got something for you to look at.’ I pushed the pizza box away and handed him the USB flash drive. ‘I found it in Heather’s apartment.’

  He plugged it into his computer and pulled up the files as I settled myself next to him, my eyes glued to the screen. We sat like that for a minute, astonished at what we were seeing. Whirling around, I grabbed the paper spreadsheets we’d found at Fandango’s office, and held them up to compare the entries to the financial spreadsheets on the screen.

  Hallelujah! We finally seemed to getting somewhere.

  ‘It fits,’ I said. ‘The spreadsheets on the USB are the same as the paper spreadsheets, except they mention Enzo Fetuccini by name instead of by his initials EF.’ I sat back, thinking about this. ‘So, Fetuccini pays Fandango five hundred payments of ten thousand pounds each, all within the last six months, for fashion designs that can’t be worth that much.’

  Hacker looked at me. ‘Are we back to money laundering?’

  ‘Maybe. Obviously, Fetuccini has got a prior history of it, but something still doesn’t feel right.’ I pulled out the note I’d found in Heather’s office desk. ‘This note says CB £5 Million. I found reference to someone called Carlos Bagliero in Heather’s apartment, and that would fit with the note. It looks like this CB is paying the same amount of money for whatever it is, as Fetuccini is. Are they paying for the same thing, and if so, what?’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Maybe. Can you find out who Carlos Bagliero is?’

  ‘Sure.’ Hacker’s fingers got to work on the keyboard.

  ‘Oh, and Heather seems to have disappeared. I’m wondering if she made any withdrawals from her bank account lately. She may have done a runner, or she may be dead.’

  ‘Maybe she’s scared and lying low somewhere.’

  ‘I wonder what happened to the ten thousand pounds Fandango took out of his bank account the day he went missing. There was no trace of any money at his home or office.’

  ‘Fleeing money. He probably took it and run.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not a lot of cash in the scheme of things. If I was going to run, I’d have taken a lot more than ten grand. Did you find out anything about Tia?’

  He stopped mid-tap. ‘I can’t find any birth certificate for anyone named Tia Fandango.’

  ‘I think she could be adopted.’

  ‘It’s possible. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘That’s weird.’ I looked at the spreadsheets again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tia told me this ridiculous thing, and it looks like she was right.’

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘Tia told me she had this feeling about pasta, and her dad was being held in an Italian restaurant somewhere. I think she’s wrong about the restaurant, but Fetucinni is the pasta connection. Maybe she really is psychic after all.’

  Hacker gave me a sly grin. ‘I don’t know about psychic, but she’s definitely cute.’

  I smiled. There seemed to be a bit of romance in the air. I hoped Tia didn’t turn out to be one of the bad guys.

  ‘There’s another file on this USB.’ He closed the spreadsheets and clicked on another icon. A document with three lines of numbers came up. The first two lines had six numbers and the third line contained eight numbers.

  I leaned forward, concentrating on the screen. ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘It could be anything.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a code. How are you at cracking codes?’ I asked.

  He grinned. ‘I like a challenge.’

  ‘Also, Fandango had a wife called Samantha James.’ I handed him the slip of paper with her address on it. ‘Here’s her address.’

  ‘I didn’t find anything about a wife.’

  ‘Can you try again? I need to dig up something I can use.’

  ‘I’m on it.’ Hacker typed up a storm, sending the keys jumping and bouncing.

  ‘I think we need to look into Fandango’s phone calls, as well.’ I stood up. ‘I’m going to go try to speak to the wife.’

  14

  Samantha James lived in a sleepy Hertfordshire village called Little Hadham. I programmed her address into the Lemon’s GPS and followed the instructions, which were given by an irritating, computer-generated voice.

  Twenty minutes later, I arrived at a modest, ivy-covered, eighteenth-century cottage. It looked like Samantha had done alright for herself. My footsteps crunched over the gravel as I exited the car and knocked on her door.

  A small woman in her late forties answered the door. She had red-rimmed eyes and a wispy bob, and there was a washed-out look about her.

  ‘Hi, I’m looking for Samantha James,’ I said.

  She leaned on the door frame and wrapped a shapeless grey cardigan around equally shapeless jogging bottoms. ‘I’m Samantha.’

  I tried to hide my surprise. She couldn’t have looked less like a flashy fashion designer’s wife if she had tried. ‘I’m investigating the disappearance of Umberto Fandango. Can I ask you a few questions?’

  ‘I told the police everything I know.’

  ‘I’m not from the police. I’m from his insurance company. It’s standard practice to do our own investigation.’

  She pulled the door open and shuffled back. ‘You’d better come in.’

  The cottage was tastefully decorated with antique furniture. Heavy drapes hung at the windows, blocking out most of the light. I followed her into the farmhouse-style kitchen, which had an Aga stove in the center of the room that radiated heat like a furnace.

  ‘Take a seat.’ She indicated one of the chairs that was clustered around a small table.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked as I sat down.

  She hesitated for a moment, composing herself. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘I understand that you and Umberto were married, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you still married?’

  ‘We got married nineteen and half years ago. We were only together for a short time, six months or so, and then we separated.’

  ‘I know this is difficult, but would you mind telling me why you separated?’

  After much hesitation, she finally said, ‘It was a mutual decision.’ She glanced down at the floor and fiddled with the cuff of her cardigan.

  ‘He came to the UK around about the same time you got married. Did you know him when he lived in the States?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘How did you me
et?’

  She let out a soft sigh and sat down in the chair next to mine. ‘We met in a wine bar.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘We got married six weeks after.’

  ‘Wow. That seems awfully sudden.’

  She looked up sharply. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘I’m not implying anything.’ I smiled, trying to put her at ease. ‘I just think it’s a bit strange that you only knew him for six weeks before you got married.’ I studied her body language, waiting for an answer. She crossed her arms in front of her and turned away from me. I was pretty sure that she was being deliberately misleading. ‘Why didn’t you get divorced?’

  ‘We were actually just about to. I hadn’t had any contact with him since we separated, but then out of the blue, he called me the day he disappeared and…’ She trailed off, gazing out the window.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He wanted me to sign the divorce papers.’

  ‘Did you?’

  She kept her gaze out the window as she answered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did you meet him to sign the papers?’

  ‘At his office.’

  This was growing more and more interesting. ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About six o’clock.’

  I thought about the timeline. ‘You may have been one of the last people to see him alive. Who else was there?’

  ‘Just his assistant, Heather.’

  ‘Did you see anything strange? Was anyone hanging around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you in his will?’ I asked.

  She stood up, walked to the window and stared out again, her shoulders drooping. ‘He told me a long time ago that he’d made arrangements for me in his will.’

  ‘Do you know what the arrangements were?’

  She whispered something inaudible.

  ‘Pardon?’ I said.

  ‘I was in his will as long as we remained married,’ she said, her voice so quiet that I had to lean forward to hear her.

  Oh, boy. It just kept getting deeper and deeper.

  ‘Do you know where he kept his will?’

  She shrugged. ‘No.’

  I gave her a minute before I changed the subject. ‘This is a lovely house.’ I looked around the kitchen. ‘Did you buy it yourself?’

  She turned back to me, her eyes wandering slowly around the room. ‘No, Umberto bought it for me.’ Her voice was wistful.

  ‘Did Umberto have a daughter when you met?’

  She stared at the floor for a while as if debating how much to tell me. ‘Yes.’

  I let that sink in for a minute. ‘How old was she?’

  ‘She was six months old. Her name was Tia.’

  ‘Do you know who her mother was?’

  ‘No, he never told me.’

  I stared at her in disbelief. ‘OK, let me get this straight in my head. You met Umberto nineteen and a half years ago when he had a six month old daughter, but you don’t know who the mother was. You got married after just six weeks, and you only stayed together a few months. Then you had no further contact with him until the day he disappeared.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you think that sounds a bit…odd?’ I asked. She didn’t answer. I wasn’t really expecting her to, so I plowed on. ‘How do you know that Tia was really his daughter?’

  She leaned against the window for support. ‘Look, he loved Tia. It was obvious to me that she was his daughter.’

  ‘Didn’t Tia’s mother ever contact Umberto?’

  ‘No. Not that I knew of, anyway.’

  A chill ran through me. ‘And you didn’t think that was also strange?’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go out. I have a relative in the hospital who is very ill, and I need to get back to them.’

  I took that as my cue to leave, and followed her out the front door. I wasn’t ready to end the interview, but short of pinning her down, holding her in a headlock, or applying my thumb-screw technique, I didn’t have much choice but to leave. I had a feeling she was a troubled soul with problems of her own, and I needed to keep on her good side. I also didn’t think this would be my last visit to see her.

  I headed back to the office, mulling over what Samantha had told me, trying to make sense of things. In the end, I gave up and called Brad.

  ‘Speak,’ Brad said.

  ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,’ I said, faking a posh accent.

  ‘Foxy, what’s up?’

  I filled him in on the latest and then said, ‘I think Fandango may have kidnapped Tia when she was a baby.’

  ‘I’ll get Hacker to look into it. If that’s true, then someone must’ve been looking for them. But why would Fandango be involved with the mob? ‘

  ‘Maybe Enzo Fetuccini or Carlos Bagliero found out what happened and blackmailed him into doing something illegal.’

  ‘That’s a possibility, but it doesn’t explain Fandango’s disappearance, or that of his fashion collection.’

  The cogs spun around in my brain. ‘Perhaps whoever Fandango kidnapped Tia from found out and killed him for payback.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they have contacted Tia?’

  ‘Maybe they’re waiting for the right time.’ I slammed the brakes on when I saw the mob goons pull out of a side road in front of me. They sped down the road on the same route I’d taken earlier that morning. ‘Oh, my God!’ I hit the accelerator and kept a sneaky distance between their vehicle and mine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m following the mob goons. I think they’re heading to Heather’s apartment.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid. Wait in the parking lot and I’ll meet you at her place.’

  As it turned out, waiting wasn’t an option. I parked on the road opposite her apartment to keep an eye out for the goons and for Brad. As I watched the parking lot, I spotted her BMW in the lot along with the goons’ SUV. I hadn’t exactly hit it off with the Ice Queen, but I still didn’t want to see her get hurt.

  I rammed a can of pepper spray in one pocket of my combats and a stun gun in the other pocket, and hurried across the road. Glancing around one more time, I ran up the fire exit stairs to Heather’s floor two at a time.

  Adrenaline pumped through my body and my heartbeat rattled in my chest. As I slowly tiptoed toward Heather’s door, I developed a sudden case of nervous, bubbling guts.

  I could hear the Japanese couple belting out ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ on a karaoke machine inside their apartment. I pressed my ear against Heather’s door, trying to make out any sounds from inside, but it was impossible to hear anything over a Japanese Cyndi Lauper.

  At that moment, Blobby Goon pulled open the door.

  ‘What the fuck!’ he said as I came ear to face with him.

  I gave him a dazzling smile. ‘Er, I was just passing. We’re taking karaoke requests. You look like a Blues Brothers kind of guy.’

  Steroid Goon appeared in the background. He had a bandage wrapped around his head. Tufts of hair poked out between the strips of white material. He narrowed his eyes at me.

  ‘Well, nice talking to you. Bye.’ My legs suddenly sprang to life, and I took off running full blast back down the corridor.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t make it very far before I felt my arm being yanked from behind. I turned around as Steroid Goon dragged me back toward Heather’s apartment and tried to dig my heels in the carpet, but I couldn’t get any traction on the threadbare surface. A searing hot pain shot through my shoulder as he pulled me into the apartment and forced me onto a chair at the kitchen table. My eyes darted around the room as I rubbed my shoulder. I was looking for any signs of Heather. Had they already killed her and dumped her body? I looked at their hands. No sign of blood. I took that as a good sign.

  ‘I was only joking about the Blues Brothers. No need to get so grumpy.’ I stared Steroid Goon in the eye. Blobby Goon stood next to him and crossed his arms, doing his best menacin
g impression. I eyed his beer gut and snorted.

  Blobby Goon sucked his stomach in. It didn’t make much difference.

  ‘I know you,’ Steroid Goon said. ‘You’re that crummy insurance investigator, Amber Fox.’

  I didn’t exactly agree with the crummy part. ‘While we’re doing introductions, who are you?’

  ‘Sally,’ Blobby Goon said. ‘And he’s Tracy.’ He pointed his head toward his beefed up companion.

  Tracy slapped Sally over the back of the head.

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. ‘Tracy and…Sally!’

  Two pairs of black eyes glared at me.

  ‘You mean you’re named after a couple of girls?’ I couldn’t hold back a nervous laugh.

  Sally shuffled on his feet, looking uncomfortable. ‘Sally is short for Salvatore.’

  I glanced at Tracy. ‘What’s Tracy short for?’

  ‘It’s not short for anything,’ Tracy said.

  I could almost feel his pea-sized brain whirring away beneath the surface, wondering where I was going with this. ‘Did your parents want a girl? Did they dress you up in pink little dresses and make you go to ballet lessons?’

  Sally blushed, looking embarrassed. I wondered if that had actually happened to him. ‘Well, Amber Fox sounds like a porn star.’ He looked pretty pleased with himself for thinking that up on the spot with no outside help.

  ‘Does not,’ I said, outraged.

  ‘Does,’ Sally said.

  ‘Actually, I think the correct term is porn queen,’ Tracy said to Sally.

  Sally scratched his head. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tracy nodded. ‘I know because of those awards they have on television.’

  ‘What awards?’ Sally scratched his head again.

  While they were having this peculiar discussion, I took the opportunity to glance every which way around the room, looking for a possible escape route.

  ‘The Porn Queen Awards,’ Tracy said.

  I stood up. ‘This conversation is getting to be a big, fat yawn, so I’ll be off now if you don’t mind.’

  Tracy shoved me back into the chair. ‘OK, porn queen, where is it?’

  ‘Where is what?’ I said.

  ‘You know what.’ Sally folded his arms, glaring daggers at me.