Harrowing Hats

by Joyce; Jim Lavene

  I ran and threw myself on him, hugging him tightly. I told him about Andre and Eloise. “I know it was bound to happen. I know she didn’t love him. But it’s still not fair.”

  “I know. It never is.” He hugged me back and we kissed for a few minutes.

  “But now we know who killed Cesar.” I pulled myself away from him and straightened my gown. “It had to be Bernardo. He’s got everything, Chase. The girl, the business. He used the hat pin to throw everything at Andre. I’m telling you, it has to be him.”

  “And I’m telling you, he has an airtight alibi for the time Cesar was killed.”

  “What could it possibly be? He probably just had someone lie for him.”

  Chase smiled. “The reason I haven’t told you about his alibi is because he wouldn’t want everyone to know. Bernardo isn’t a bad guy. Women like him, that’s all. Eloise and he have been together for a while—then Andre suddenly decided she was his Aphrodite. It was Andre who was out of place.”

  “What about Eloise and Cesar?” I demanded. “And what do you mean you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want everyone to know?”

  “Cesar was always the one who used women and dumped them like dirty laundry. He set his sights on Eloise because she was in love with Bernardo. Cesar tried to seduce Belle, too. He had a thing for all the tarts.”

  “All the more reason for Bernardo to kill him.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you where Bernardo was. But I better not hear it from Daisy and Bart by the time I reach the other end of the Village.”

  I couldn’t believe he was insinuating I couldn’t keep a secret. I was keeping his secret and the secret about the Templars getting their comeuppance that he didn’t even know about. “That’s fine. Maybe you shouldn’t tell me. After all, I’ve blabbed to everyone about you leading the Templars.”

  He gave me his exasperated Chase look, left brow raised. “That’s different. I never thought you’d tell anyone about that. But you do love to gossip about other people’s problems.”

  “What are you saying? I never blab anything. I keep secrets from one end of the Village to the other. You just don’t appreciate how much I know about what goes on around here.”

  “Okay. You’re right. You never tell anything.” He kissed me and smiled. “Even if they tortured you or threatened to give you a costume you didn’t want to wear. I know you’d never tell anyone that Bernardo was having hair implants put in the morning Cesar was killed.”

  I couldn’t believe it! Hair implants. “Are you kidding me? But he’s got all that thick, dark hair.”

  “It’s a wig. He spent the night at a local clinic and only got back after we found Cesar. He woke Marco and the two of them came to the shop.”

  “That’s amazing. Hair implants. No one will believe it!”

  “Jessie! You promised not to blab.”

  “Yeah. I won’t tell anyone. I can keep a secret. But that totally ruins my theory about Bernardo. Yet he was the one who got everything he wanted.”

  “I’ll leave you to ponder that issue, my lady.” He gave me a gallant bow and kissed me again. “Lunch at Peter’s?”

  I curtsied a little (he did say I had a big mouth) and smiled back. “Yes, Sir Bailiff. But if you ever charge me with telling secrets—”

  “I’ll take the tomatoes for you in the stocks anytime.”

  “You really do love me, don’t you?”

  “With all my heart.”

  I finally let him go and went around the hat shop straightening up until I thought about the hat pins again. Reluctantly, I returned to ponder them. Even though the answer might be here, I was getting really bored looking at all of them. It might be different if they were all distinctly unique, but sometimes there were three or four that were only separated by one bead or bangle. It seemed hopeless.

  I found a set of older-looking hat pins with Hollywood celebrity names on them. There were hat pins from hundreds of actresses whose names I didn’t recognize, but there were a few I knew, too—Susan Hayward, Marilyn Monroe, and Bette Davis.

  The plastic that held them was cracked and yellowed, but a piece of velvet inside protected each pin. At the bottom of the case was one that said Kathleen. I picked it up and looked at the pin. There were several pink stones on it. Neal had pegged it right.

  “What are you doing?” Andre asked from close behind me.

  Thirty-two

  I dropped the hat pin. “Nothing. Sorry. I was admiring all the hat pins. Did you create all of these?” It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment.

  The suspicious look on his poor, tortured face immediately changed to pride. “Many of them are my creation. Especially for the actresses. Like Farrah Fawcett—did you see hers? Or Ali McGraw? I created both of those specially for them. They wouldn’t take anything less.”

  I was so close. The pink hat pin was making my fingers itch as I picked it up off the floor—and I don’t think it was the dust or the old plastic causing it. “This one says Kathleen. That was your wife, right?”

  He took the pin from me. His eyes kind of glazed over as he looked at it. “That’s right. I didn’t create these hat pins. I found them for her. I only have one left because the police kept the other. They never returned it because the case was never closed.”

  “It had to be terrible for you.” I sympathized because of his loss—and to keep him talking. I was close to something here. I could feel it.

  “I can’t tell you how hideous it was, Jessie. The whole thing—finding her dead that way, then being accused of killing her. There was no time to mourn properly. It was all I could do to survive.” He looked up at me with tears in his eyes. “I have a scrapbook. I know it seems macabre. I kept it because I couldn’t take it all in, you know? And I thought later I might want to remember it, remember her.”

  “You have a scrapbook?” I hoped I didn’t sound too eager. I really wanted to take a look at it without sounding too ghoulish about it. I wasn’t sure if the two crimes were linked, but I had to agree with Chase that it was a huge coincidence. Maybe I’d see something with fresh eyes that someone else had missed.

  “I do. Would you like to see it?”

  I followed him upstairs, and we took out the scrapbook. He wasn’t kidding about saving everything. The yellowed newsprint was from several newspapers and magazines. He had every condolence card—there were hundreds of them from famous people he’d worked with to people I’d never heard of.

  “Are these crime scene photos?” I asked. They were not the typical pictures you’d see in a magazine.

  “Yes. I paid the crime scene photographer—he was a moonlighting publicist’s photographer from MGM. He needed the money. I needed to see what happened.”

  I looked at the terrible pictures of Kathleen floating in the pool in a pretty pink dress. There was another even worse when they brought her out. “But Andre, you were there.”

  “I know. But you can only take in so much and then your mind shuts down. I think it must be to protect us from going mad. When I look at these pictures, they don’t bring back memories. It’s like I wasn’t there.”

  I supposed that made sense. We continued to sift through all of the information stuffed into folders and envelopes, scrapbooks and even shoe boxes. It was your typical Hollywood event with plenty of press that followed the case. All of it led to a dead end when Andre’s alibi proved to be solid. He was the only suspect even though the papers said his wife was having an affair.

  He jumped up from the bed where we sat. “That was never substantiated! They say that every time someone dies out there. If you’re famous, your spouse must be having an affair. But I know Kathleen truly loved me, even if she wasn’t always faithful.”

  It was hard to doubt his sincerity—and I didn’t question that it was what he truly believed. But I also knew he thought Eloise loved him. He was obviously a little deluded when it came to women who caught his eye.

  Wasn’t it just like a man to want what he couldn’t hav
e when Beth loved him and wanted to be with him? It made no sense.

  “I hate to ask you this, Andre, but what about the hat pin they found—er—with her?” There was no delicate way to say it.

  “Yes. It was the twin of this one.” He held up the pink hat pin. “As I said, I don’t ever expect to see it again. And maybe that’s a good thing. It might be more than I’d like to collect.”

  “Funny they don’t talk about it in the accounts. They only say an antique hat pin.”

  “Which was incorrect. There was nothing antique about it. It looked old, but it was just a reproduction. I believe the police withheld the information about exactly what type of hat pin it was. Something about keeping that secret in case I wasn’t the killer. It would be privileged knowledge, you see. Only the killer would know.”

  “But they didn’t bother looking for anyone else, did they?”

  “No. The investigation started and ended with me. My poor Kathleen goes unavenged but not unmourned.”

  It was a terrible sad tale, as my grandmother would’ve said. She hadn’t been a well-educated woman but she had a great turn of phrase.

  I was glad when our time with Kathleen’s murder was broken up by the arrival of the three sisters, who were looking for their hats. I hadn’t realized how late it was. I hoped Chase was waiting for me at Peter’s and left Andre to know all the pretty words to say to his female customers.

  I had to pause before I left and admire the three purple gowns they wore. Each one was slightly different like each hat. They would make a splash as they perambulated through the Village that day. Some people just really had things together.

  Peter and Maude told me Chase had been there but was called away when a goat cart flipped over and dumped a dairy maid on the cobblestones. “He said he’d catch up with you later but you shouldn’t wait for him,” Peter said as he wiped down the dark wood bar.

  “That doesn’t seem like such a big deal,” I whined, feeling guilty because I was late.

  “I suppose it is when the back of the goat cart is full of eggs.” Peter shrugged. “Can I get you something for lunch, Lady Jessie?”

  “No, thanks. I might see if I can find him anyway. He has to eat lunch sometime.”

  It was then that I remembered I hadn’t told Andre about Neal’s carriage driver hat. I knew it would take Chase awhile to get people in to clean up the mess—and longer to disperse the interested crowd that would think it was part of the show. I had time to go back to the Hat House and see if something could be done for Neal.

  Luckily it was a short trip between the Hat House and Peter’s. I waded through the heavy crowds looking at maps of the Village or upending water bottles into their mouths or on their heads.

  There was a Scottish group here in full tartan and carrying shields. All of the men had long, braided beards. They all carried peace-tied claymores and axes. They looked fierce enough to scare any poor Renaissance maiden. But their ladies, though dressed in tartan splendor as well, were carrying stuffed animals their mates had won for them at various games. It kind of took away from the tough Scottish gang image.

  I got back to the Hat House but no one was there. I searched under the bed and through the material—Andre was really gone this time. Maybe he’d stepped out with the ladies in the purple gowns. He had been known to take lunch or dinner with customers.

  Good. That was probably what he needed to get his mind off Eloise and Kathleen. I knew it probably wasn’t helpful for me to dredge up the past at this time, but his retelling of the first murder and looking at the scrapbooks might be helpful. I wouldn’t know until it was all over.

  Since I had a few extra minutes, I went to see Master Archer Simmons, head of the Weapons Guild. We talked about my upcoming prank on the Templars—I knew he could be trusted. He told me I could count on him when the time came.

  I knew I couldn’t trust Robin Hood even though he was head of the Forest Guild. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I planned to let him know about the prank at the last minute. And that was only because I knew he’d want in.

  Merlin? I wish I could’ve told him, since he was head of the Magical Creatures Guild, but I knew he’d disapprove and tell Chase. I didn’t want either of those things to happen.

  I figured I’d waited long enough for Chase to take care of the goat cart situation. I walked down the cobblestones to find him. It wasn’t hard. There was a large crowd of visitors still watching as Village maintenance tried to clean up the eggs using Renaissance technology.

  “It’s gonna be a while,” Chase said loudly when he saw me at the edge of the crowd.

  Everyone turned to look at me and a few camera flashes followed. I shrugged and blew him a kiss. I was going to have to eat lunch by myself and get back to the Hat House. Maybe Andre would be in a good enough mood now to work on hats again.

  I grabbed a pretzel from a traveling pretzel vendor and followed it up with some frozen lemonade as I walked around the Village Green watching people.

  There were some acrobats plying their trade, bouncing and jumping around the deep green grass. Some visitors were picnicking while others sat on benches and looked at the Good Luck Fountain spraying water into the air. Ladies curtsied to gentlemen before beginning their stroll that would allow visitors to take more pictures. Knights (not Village residents) horsed around with their shields and recently purchased swords. They obviously didn’t know about peace-tying their weapons yet.

  I thought about everything Andre had told me and that I’d seen in the accounts of his wife’s death. I could see why Detective Almond believed he was guilty of killing Cesar—the two killings were hauntingly similar.

  Of course, anyone could go online and look up the information like Chase and I had. But not many people would be that motivated. Andre had been here running Harriet’s Hat House for years. Why would this happen now?

  And what would they gain from this copycat killing?

  All of it whirled around in my head. There were a few people coincidentally (or not) directly involved with the first murder in the Village. The evil twins—Rene and Renee certainly had a score to settle, at least in their minds. Neal was here after working on the first story, and Joe Bradley was involved, too. Any of them could be part of this. I liked the evil twins best for the crime, but they had an alibi for the time Cesar was killed. Neal didn’t seem to have a motive and neither did Joe.

  That left me with someone in the Village—maybe not Bernardo, Eloise, or Beth. I couldn’t imagine who else would want Cesar dead and would be willing to put the blame on Andre. It seemed hopeless. Any of the residents walking by me could be guilty. How would we ever figure out who did it when everyone seemed to have an alibi? I was really beginning to hate the whole alibi situation.

  I finished my pretzel and frozen lemonade, then washed the little bit of mustard from my hands in the cool water from the fountain. I thought about my hat pin research again. It appeared that the only way to solve Cesar’s death might be to solve Kathleen’s death. It made sense with so many people here from Hollywood who could want to lay Cesar’s death at Andre’s feet.

  Something Andre said tickled my thoughts. The police withheld the information about the hat pin that was in Kathleen. Only the police, crime scene photo guy—and Neal Stevenson knew the stones on the hat pin were pink.

  If the police had let Neal know about the hat pin, wouldn’t he have put it into the paper?

  My mind started buzzing with that. I watched one of the carriages drive by—not Neal because the driver was wearing one of the little hats.

  Unless Neal made some deal with the police not to use that information. That was possible, I supposed, having heard things like that on TV shows but not really knowing if it was true.

  The best way to sort this out might be to get Andre and Neal together so they could compare notes. Maybe three minds might be able to figure it out.

  I looked around at the carriage drivers circling the Village Square, but Neal wasn’t one of them. No
t that D’Amos would look kindly on me snatching one of his drivers away to talk about old times with Andre. I knew Neal would have to be at the King’s Feast in a few short hours. Andre would be there, too. Maybe I could get them together then.

  With that settled, I went back to the Hat House—Andre was still gone. There was nothing I could do here without him. I remembered to pick up Neal’s hat and closed the door to the shop behind me.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon lining up help for my prank. Bart and Daisy were definitely in. Several pirates agreed to help—although I thought their motive was probably more seeing Queen Crystal than helping me. But you know pirates. They love a good prank, whatever the reason. Roger Trent was in and so was Hans, the blacksmith. Brother Carl said he’d bring a few monks, and Hephaestus, the owner of the Peasant’s Pub, also agreed to be there.

  With all those hearty souls behind me, all that remained was deciding on the prank itself. I hoped my visit to the encampment tonight would bring that onboard, too. All that would remain after would be making up with Chase for totally ignoring his judgment on the matter.

  The Village was slowly shutting down as all activity moved to the castle for the King’s Feast. Most vendors brought a few things to show off and sell to the crowd, except for the food vendors, who just had to stand around and watch. The castle staff who prepared the feast every week got a little cranky about the idea of competing with food vendors on their own home turf. A decree followed quickly, banishing all but castle food during the feasting.

  Food vendors, like the rest of us, were still required to attend the festivities. Only death or dismemberment got you out of that. Just the food venders couldn’t make any money. We were all ambassadors of good will for the thousands of visitors every year.

  Other vendors went cheerfully. It was a big night for those selling artwork, swords, fake fairy wings, shields, and flower garlands. Even clothing was for sale. I waved to Beth and Portia as they labored toward the castle. Their assistants dragged costumes on racks behind them.