The Fashion Police (Amber Fox Mystery No 1)

by Sibel Hodge

  ‘What happened to the plant pot?’ Brad stared at the pieces of broken clay scattered across the floor.

  ‘Tia hit Tracy over the head with it.’

  Brad smirked.

  An hour later, we’d searched every inch of my apartment, including my knicker drawer, and we’d come up with nothing.

  Brad held up a pair of black, cheeky knickers with the words ‘Are you feeling naughty?’ embroidered on the back. He turned to me, swinging them around. ‘Are you?’ His steady gaze held my eyes until I looked down at the floor, embarrassed.

  ‘Am I what?’ I gulped.

  ‘Feeling naughty?’

  I grabbed the knickers out of his grasp, managing to steer him away from the top shelf of my bedroom cupboard where my vibrator was located before it gave him any ideas. I am a hot blooded female, after all, and I didn’t trust myself any more.

  ‘Don’t you ever tidy up?’ Brad looked glanced around my messy kitchen and into the living room.

  I quickly lunged around, snatching up cushions littered on the floor, flinging them on the sofa in an almost equally untidy pile. Next, I hurled bowls and plates in the dishwasher. ‘Yes, see, I’m tidying up now. At least it looks homey and lived in with a bit of clutter, not like your place, which looks like the invisible man lives there. Anyway, the oven is spotlessly clean and tidy.’

  Brad opened the oven door. It creaked from lack of use. ‘It’s only clean because I scraped off that plastic mess inside it. Do you actually use the oven?’

  ‘Not apart from that one time I cooked the pizza.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t count then. Have you thrown anything out recently?’ Brad asked.

  ‘The rubbish.’

  He looked at my overflowing bin. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, that was next on my list.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve thrown out two pairs of damn fine sneakers, which were nowhere near past their sell by date, but I don’t think the Goon Girls take a size six.’

  ‘Have you moved anything lately?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘And nothing is missing?’

  ‘Double nope.’

  ‘Strange,’ he said.

  ‘Stranger than fiction.’

  ****

  I dropped Brad back at the office and drove to my parents’ house. I needed to ask Dad for a bit of advice, plus it was Thursday, which meant Mum would be cooking her regular lunch for Suzy as she did every week, and my mum’s cooking was pretty great.

  I’m not sure exactly how I missed out on her cooking genes when the stork dropped me off, but I even had trouble boiling an egg. I was pushing thirty-six now, and a girl could only live on junk food for so long before she turned into a blimp.

  There was only one thing for it. I needed to wake up and smell the health food, or the coffee, or whatever the saying is. I desperately needed cooking lessons, especially if I was going to live with Romeo.

  Oh, my God! Where had that thought suddenly popped into my brain from? Had my subconscious made my mind up to move in with him when I was asleep last night? Part of me really wanted to. Part of me wanted to get married and have lots of little Romeos running around. But then my scary thought process took over, and I thought about the ‘what ifs’. What if he wasn’t the right one, what if we ended up hating each other, what if he couldn’t deal with me squeezing the toothpaste out from the middle of the tube, what if I couldn’t deal with him being so tidy? Romeo’s two-bedroom house didn’t even have a dirty sock left on the floor or the top left off the shampoo bottle, and that was so not normal. What if he ran off and left me with the little Romeos, and I couldn’t cope? What if I was really meant to be with Brad? What if I couldn’t trust my own judgment anymore? There were so many ‘what ifs’ out there, it felt like they were pressing down on my brain, and maybe, eventually, they’d squash the life right out of me, and I’d turn into a shell of my former self, like poor Mrs. Clark.

  ‘Have you got room for another one?’ I wandered into my parents’ warm, steamy kitchen, which was scented with spices.

  A beef casserole sat on top of the oven while Mum pottered around, piling up roasted potatoes in a dish and emptying broccoli from a steamer. ‘Hi, honey. Of course we’ve got room.’ Mum abandoned the food preparation and gave me a hug.

  Suzy sat at the breakfast bar, nails freshly done, hair perfectly coiffed, and clothes perfectly tailored. ‘Hello.’ She turned her cheek so I could kiss her.

  I stared at her cheek. ‘Nice blusher.’ I bumped her shoulder with mine. ‘Hey, sis. What’s up?’

  Suzy looked at the arm of her beige, silk shirt, making sure it hadn’t been rumpled in any way. ‘I’ve always hated that expression. What does it mean, anyway?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘How are the voices?’ she asked me through tight lips.

  ‘They’re getting louder.’ I grinned.

  ‘So,’ she studied her French manicure, ‘has anyone tried to kill you lately?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, yes. A couple of mafia guys called Tracy and Sally.’

  She glanced up abruptly. ‘I hear what you’re saying; I just wonder whether you do. Do you seriously expect me to believe that two men from the Italian mafia with girls’ names are trying to kill you?’ She shook her head and spoke softly to herself. ‘Didn’t you have to pass a mental evaluation when you joined the police force?’ she asked as Dad walked in.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m sure that when you were a kid, you must’ve been body-snatched and turned into a Triffid, and you’re really being operated by remote control from planet Zyborg. It’s the only thing that makes sense.’

  ‘Come on, tuck in.’ Mum sat down at the island next to Dad, ignoring Suzy and me like nothing fazed her.

  After we’d devoured all the food, apart from a few lumps of broccoli I left on my plate, Suzy and Mum cleared the dishes and began washing up.

  I turned to face my dad. ‘You did a police exchange visit with the FBI once, didn’t you, Dad?’

  ‘Yes, that must’ve been about twenty years ago. It was fantastic.’ Dad’s eyes lit up, reminiscing.

  ‘Did you spend any time with the witness protection department?’

  ‘I did indeed. Now, there was a department who could organize things.’

  ‘How did the program work?’ I asked.

  ‘It was amazing the lengths they went to giving people completely new identities. They didn’t leave a stone unturned. The protection program provided new birth certificates, social security numbers, passports, jobs, even fictitious information about the witnesses past.’

  ‘Would they go so far as to stage the death of a witness?’

  ‘Why are you asking about this?’

  ‘I think that Umberto Fandango was in the witness protection program.’

  ‘Wow.’ Dad thought about this for a moment. ‘Actually, now you mention it, I remember there was this one case while I was visiting them. Some mafia boss was on trial for murder – I can’t remember his name now – anyway, this mafia boss was in a tailor’s shop, and a couple of hoods from a rival family came into the shop at the same time. The mafia boss shot them in cold blood in front of the tailor. Apparently, the tailor managed to get away and approached the FBI.’

  ‘What happened?’ I rested my elbows on the island, feeling a chill run through me.

  ‘Well, obviously the tailor was the prime witness in the case, but he would only agree to testify if he was entered into the witness protection program. If my memory serves me correctly, I think the tailor had a wife and small baby at the time. Yes, it’s coming back to me now. The mafia boss ended up getting convicted based on the tailor’s testimony and was sent to Sing Sing prison. But there was a leak in the FBI office. The mafia found out where the tailor’s safe house was and tried to assassinate him and his family in retaliation, but they only succeeded in killing his wife. That’s when the FBI stepped up their protection.’

  ‘How?’ I asked, re
alizing that I was chewing the corner of my bottom lip in anticipation.

  ‘The top level of command in the FBI staged the death of the tailor and his daughter and secretly provided them with new identities. Rumor had it that they even provided him with a top class plastic surgeon to change his appearance. It was the first of its kind for the program at the time.’

  ‘Was Carlos Bagliero the name of the tailor?’

  ‘Yes!’ Dad slapped the palm of his hand on the island, making me jump. ‘Yes, that was it. You know, I often wonder what happened to him.’

  And that’s when I stopped listening. Pulses in my brain flickered to life, tying together all the pieces of information as I stared at the floor, drowning out Dad’s voice while I processed it all.

  I felt light headed. Oh, my God. Fandango hadn’t been stealing Tia away from a mob family; he’d been protecting her from them.

  ‘Your phone’s ringing.’ Dad held out my mobile.

  ‘Yo,’ Hacker said to me when I flipped it open.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ I said with urgency.

  ‘You bet I have. I manipulated the facial recognition software program you suggested, and you were right. Umberto Fandango and Carlos Bagliero are the same person. Fandango underwent extensive plastic surgery so the transformation was really amazing. I’ve finally managed to crack into the security system at the FBI’s top secret computer files. Fandango was in the witness protection program after an attempted assassination of him and his family twenty years ago. Fandango–’

  ‘Did you find out who paid Heather?’ I cut him off.

  ‘Yes, as I said before, the five million pounds paid into her Swiss account came from a front company. I’ve finally traced who is behind it.’

  ‘Who?’ My stomach fluttered with anticipation.

  ‘Lennie and Lonnie Cohen.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said. That was the last thing I expected to hear.

  ‘I’m positive.’

  ‘But why did Heather’s note refer to CB?’ And then the fluttering turned into an excited bubbling as the realization punched me in the face. ‘Everyone knows Lennie and Lonnie Cohen as the Cohen Brothers. That’s why it said CB. I know where Fandango is,’ I said, more to myself than Hacker.

  I hung up and ran out the front door, leaving my family gawping in my wake.

  26

  I threw myself behind the wheel of the Lemon, stabbed the key in the ignition so hard that I was surprised it didn’t snap, and floored it. The suspension groaned as I crunched the gears and screeched around corners, yelling at cars to get out of my way.

  I knew the who, what, and how of this case, I just didn’t know the why. And I would have to get that information from Fandango.

  I crunched the handbrake on while the Lemon was still in motion, skidding to a stop outside the Cohens’ warehouse. I jumped out and jogged around to Samantha’s warehouse. My hands shook as I fumbled with the open sesame tool, trying to insert it into the lock. ‘Damn.’ I dropped it on the floor.

  Three attempts later, I pushed the door open and rushed inside.

  ‘I know you’re in here, Umberto,’ I said, approaching the rolled up carpet next to the fridge. I waited for a sound or a movement, any kind of sign that I was right, but I could only see the rise and fall of my chest and hear the sound of my heavy breathing. ‘Umberto.’ I kicked the carpet.

  My foot connected with something hard inside it. I heard a yelp.

  I unrolled the heavy carpet until it was laid out straight, coming face to face with a disheveled Umberto in the center of it.

  ‘D…don’t kill me.’ He clamped his quivering hands over his face.

  ‘I’m not going to kill you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ An eye appeared as one hand slid down, and he stared at me with suspicion.

  ‘I’m an insurance investigator. I’m not allowed to kill people, although sometimes I do get the urge.’

  ‘How do I know you’re really an insurance investigator and not a member of the mob who’s been sent to track me down and kill me?’

  ‘If I was going to kill you, I would’ve just come in here and shot you through the carpet, or I would’ve killed you the first time I met you.’

  Fandango thought about that for a few moments, keeping his wary gaze on me. ‘Good point.’ He sat up.

  I parked my backside down on the carpet next to him, tucking my legs underneath me. ‘OK, let’s start at the beginning. Tell me why you got involved with smuggling the diamonds for Enzo Fetuccini.’

  He ran a shaky hand through his hair. Eventually, he took a deep breath and began. ‘I was a tailor, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t have anything to do with the mob. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and then boom! My life is ruined. This guy came into my shop one day with a few bodyguards, looking for a fancy shmancy suit. I didn’t have a clue who he was. I thought he was an actor or something. So I measure him up, then I go out the back of the shop to find some material samples, and I hear the doorbell jingle.’ He shook his head. ‘I can still hear it now, you know. It haunts me. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and somewhere in my head, I can hear it jingling. I came out of the back of the shop, and two other guys had come in, dressed in some cheap suits. The next thing I knew, Mr. Fancy Shmancy shoots these two guys in the head. I nearly crapped myself on the spot, believe me. It was like The Godfather.’ His eyes grew wide. ‘I ran like the wind, out the back of the shop to my house. I drove my wife and baby daughter over two hundred miles to a motel in New York. We holed up there for a few days, trying to decide what to do. Eventually, I went to the FBI.’

  ‘And they put you in the witness protection program?’

  ‘Yes. Mr. Fancy Shmancy turned out to be Ricardo Corleone, this big mafia Godfather, and the guys he’d killed turned out to be from the Rossi Family, a rival mafia gang. Apparently, Corleone thought Rossi was disrespecting him by selling his drugs in the Corleone territory. I didn’t know what to do, but the FBI convinced me to testify. They said they’d protect me, and I believed them, so I gave evidence against him. Corleone was put away for life, and I went back to the safe house in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘But there was a mole in the FBI?’

  ‘Corleone had someone on the inside of the FBI. His guys found out where we were and tried to kill us.’ He glanced up at me. ‘They killed my wife.’ His lips trembled and his eyes shone with unshed tears.

  Even twenty years after it had happened, I could still hear the bitterness and hurt in his voice.

  ‘I’m really sorry.’ I reached out to touch his arm, hesitated, and then changed my mind. No gesture would repair the damage caused to him.

  ‘An FBI agent was shot, too. That’s when the director of the FBI stepped in and suggested I leave the States. They arranged a plastic surgeon to change my looks and gave me a whole new identity. I became Umberto Fandango.’

  ‘So you began a new career as a fashion designer, and who would think to look for a guy on the run in the middle of the public eye.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Enzo Fetuccini was also serving time in Sing Sing prison for murder. I’m guessing he discovered something about you from Corleone, and when he got out six months ago, he started blackmailing you.’

  ‘I don’t know how Fetuccini found out that I was Bagliero, but he told me he would turn me over to the Corleone family if I didn’t do what he wanted.’ Fandango’s forehead wrinkled with worry. ‘I didn’t have a choice. The mob has people everywhere. If I didn’t go along with it, I was a dead man.’

  ‘Why didn’t you inform the FBI?’

  ‘Because things were different this time. Tia wasn’t a baby anymore, she was a grown woman. It would mean that she would have to go through what I went through twenty years ago. She would have to change her life completely, and I know how hard that is. I didn’t want her life to be ripped apart and turned upside down, so I went along with it. Fetuccini wanted me to smuggle diamonds i
n with my fashion collection, and I just had to accept it.’

  ‘Who supplied the diamonds?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never met the guy. A package of diamonds would be delivered to my office by courier, and I would hot fix them to my fashion designs with glue. Some of the clothing would have rhinestones on them, and they would go out to legitimate customers. The clothing with the diamonds on would be shipped to Fetuccini, who paid for the designs as if it was a genuine order. I then had to leave that money in a package at the rear of our offices to be collected by the diamond supplier.’

  ‘So, you never saw the supplier?’

  Fandango rubbed at his forehead. ‘No. After everything that had happened in the past, I didn’t want to know.’

  ‘And somehow Heather found out what you were up to and wanted a cut for herself?’

  ‘Heather worked for me for years. I didn’t know she had a drug problem until a few months ago when I found some drugs in her locker at the office. She broke down and admitted it, promising she would get help if I let her carry on working for her. Of course I agreed. I didn’t want her life to be ruined because of drugs, too. But instead of getting help, she found out what was going on and thought she could score a large amount of cash.’

  ‘She arranged to sell the fashion collection, diamonds and all, to the Cohen Brothers behind your back,’ I said.

  ‘Right. She staged a robbery when she knew there would only be me and her in the office. About half past six in the evening, Lennie and Lonnie Cohen burst in with guns, wearing Obama masks. She goes straight upstairs with the tall one.’

  ‘Lonnie.’

  ‘Yeah. Heather and Lonnie load up his van, while the short one keeps me in the office at gun point.

  ‘That was Lennie.’

  ‘I thought I was going to die again,’ his voice cracked.

  ‘How did you know it was the Cohen brothers if they wore Obama masks?’

  ‘They’ve got a warehouse next door. I’d seen them there before, and I knew who they were. I could tell their voices a mile off. Plus their difference in height was pretty distinctive, too. And they called each other by name when they broke in.’