She leaned back. Her black cape flowed over the arms of the chair. For all of her presence, she appeared exhausted. I sat in one of the other chairs and leaned forward.
“Patrick was a legend for a very long time, until one day, he was not. There came a point when his opinion was no longer relevant. sensed it. He knew he was becoming a dinosaur.”
“Is that why he moved to Ribbon?”
“He chose to re-envision his role in the industry he loved. By moving to a smaller town, to Tradava, he chiseled out a new home for himself. No one with his credentials had ever worked for Tradava. He was a big fish in a little pond and at that point in his career, it suited him.”
Big fish, little pond. Patrick and I had talked about the same thing during one of our interviews. Find a way to remain relevant and you can live the life of your dreams, he had said.
“When Patrick first dreamed up the competition, it was a way for him to be a voice again. To help the next generation of designers. I’ve been asked to judge many a competition over the years, and I’ve always said no. The only reason I said yes this time was because of Patrick. I owe my career to him.”
She paused to take a sip of tea. The ice cubes clanked around in the glass. “He approached Tradava and they agreed to underwrite the competition and the reward. He convinced them it would be a great way to get out from their current reputation as a mass-market retailer, and claim a portion of the fashion trade he so loved. Part of the reason they had hired him was to bring his cachet to the store, and I’m sure he felt he must deliver on the promise of his connections.”
“But what happened?” I interrupted.
“As the economy took its toll on the store’s business, the board of directors determined they couldn’t foot the bill for what Patrick had in mind. They pulled out, but he wasn’t willing to let it go. He procured funding from another source, and Tradava agreed to sponsor the gala. Publicity for them, and a private donor would allow Patrick to have the competition he wanted. He considered it a win-win.” She paused again, swirling the iced tea around in the glass but didn’t take a second sip. Small beads of condensation trickled down the outside, forming a wet circle on the faded cotton placemat in front of her.
“Last week, I received a phone call, demanding we cancel the competition.”
“Who was it? What exactly did they say?”
“ ‘Kill the competition before it’s too late’,” she said.
“Too late for what?”
“I don’t know. I told Patrick, and he advised me to tell the police. That’s when he told me he’d received similar phone calls.”
“What did the police say?” I pictured Detective Loncar, in his Wranglers and plaid shirt, being asked to take seriously a threat over a design competition. The image was anachronistic at best.
“As I told you, the police have paid no attention to Patrick’s concerns. This morning, I received a second call. A demand for one hundred thousand dollars, the competition prize, to be delivered by me at the Designer’s Debut Gala. The caller said ‘What happened to Patrick was a message’. Without knowing more, I’m afraid we might both be in danger.”
“We?” I asked.
“You and me. The last thing the caller said was a warning. ‘Go to the police again and the trend specialist is next to die.’ “
Chapter 10
I don’t understand,” I said, because the overwhelming evidence pointed to the fact that I wasn’t the trend specialist, even though I continued to argue I was. Maybe it was time to give up that argument.
“I don’t know who Patrick was involved with or where the money was coming from.”
“Do you know where it is now?”
“In the bank, I imagine. I’m beginning to think he turned to an unconventional source. Whatever information he kept hidden, he would have kept at Tradava. With him gone, you represent the trend office and have access to his files.” Her gloved hand fingered the brooch on her cape. “Someone doesn’t want us to proceed with this competition. Please consider getting involved. Without more information, I don’t know which way to turn.”
“But you are cancelling the competition, aren’t you?”
“This competition is Patrick’s final legacy. I will not be bullied into cancelling it. I owe Patrick that much.” She stood from the table and pushed the chair back under. I followed suit, only left my chair jutting out as I followed her into the living room.
“Ms. Paulson, there was a designer in Patrick’s office the morning he … that morning. I didn’t catch her name, but she was tall, thin, with bright red hair—”
“Oh yes. Ms. Stevens. She’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things.” She waved her hand as though shooing away a fly. “Ms. Kidd, will you help me?”
I looked down at the shag carpet to avoid making further eye contact. “I’m sorry about your friend, but I’m trying to start a new life in Ribbon and have had a couple of challenges of my own. I think it’s best I concentrate on doing the job I was hired to do and putting what happened to Patrick behind me.”
In my head, I politely tacked on another suggestion that she go to the police, but I couldn’t speak the words. She seemed firm in her belief the police wouldn’t help and promised to let me know if she received any additional threats. She left as abruptly as she arrived.
What was I doing? I was involved in a murder, thanks to a job I most likely didn’t have. There should have been nothing keeping me in Ribbon. Screw the fact that I’d grown up in this house. I’d always heard you can’t go home again, and because I tried to go home again, I was being punished. But where was I going to go? If I couldn’t make the mortgage payment, I would be little more than a squatter on the property, and besides, something told me skipping town wasn’t going to help me in the credibility department, especially when it came to my new friend Detective Loncar. After what Maries Paulson had told me, my path was bound to cross with the detective’s path, sooner rather than later.
Long after Maries Paulson drove away from my house, I turned my attention to the folder she left behind. There were two stacks of paper inside, each secured by a binder clip. The first was thick. I flipped through it with my thumb. The second pile held only four pages. The letters A through D were carefully printed in purple marker on the upper left corner of each page, circled with Giotto-like precision. A Post-it on the smaller pile read FINALISTS. I fanned the finalists out over the table. Four names, along with answers to questions on inspiration and experience, stared back. Amanda Ries, Clestes, Michael Dubrecht, and Nick Taylor.
Nick was a finalist in the competition? There was more wrong with that than right. He was already a professional designer. He hadn’t mentioned any of this on the countless opportunities he had to tell me, and he’d been the one to take Patrick’s computer.
He was hiding something.
Maybe Maries Paulson was right. Maybe Patrick’s murder did have to do with the design competition. I returned to Patrick’s computer and double-clicked a file titled DESIGN COMPETITION. The computer prompted me for a password.
I don’t know what I had expected, but it certainly wasn’t that.
I didn’t know enough about Patrick to crack his password in the first seventeen tries. I thought, not for the first time, if I wanted to understand why Patrick had been murdered, maybe it was time for me to get to know Patrick better. And I figured the best place to do that was at Tradava.
I changed into faded jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and some rubber soled black booties with chains hanging down around the heels. Investigative style, I might have called it, if I were writing an expose instead of planning a B&E on Patrick’s office.
There’s a certain skill set common to retail buyers. Sometimes you have to be creative. Sometimes you have to be analytical. The problem with this mental makeup is sometimes you lack the common sense normal people take for granted.
When it came to creative, analytical problem solving, my cup runneth over. When it came to common sense, my glass was half-ful
l.
The late September heat wave had broken with an unexpected thunderstorm, and raindrops pelted the windshield and the empty parking lot. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated the lack of activity around the store’s exterior. Aside from a woman in mommy jeans running toward a minivan, a hunched-over lady pushing a stroller through the lot, and a mall employee hoisting a lumpy bag of trash into the dumpster, the lot was deserted. The store staff had probably dwindled down to minimal coverage on the selling floors. I wondered if Eddie was anywhere in the store.
As the rain picked up I ran as fast as my impractical but sassy boots would allow, then entered the store through the main customer entrance, closer to me than the associate door. I remained relatively dry.
I passed the shoe salon and the elevators on my way to the escalators, which I rode until I was at the fifth floor. I ducked into the stairwell and hiked up two more flights to the trend offices, the one place I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to be, and I felt more and more like a criminal with every passing step. I pulled the keys I’d lifted on Day One out of the bottom of my handbag but kept them hidden in my palm.
After a deep breath, a couple of sideways glances, and three keys that didn’t fit the locks, I found a match. The door swung open and I stepped inside and headed to my stark office where I put my handbag down and looked around, wondering what to do next.
I’d searched the file cabinet yesterday. I’d been through the files on the floor as well. In fact, all of the items remaining in the office had been given my once-over, and I’d learned nothing. But someone connected me to Patrick, and the only tether between us was Tradava and a job I probably didn’t have.
Outside his office sat a small yellow desk with a phone, a lava lamp, and a bundle of purple number two pencils stamped with the name Michael. A sketchpad lay next to a tear-off calendar featuring quotes by tough-talking women. I slid open a drawer and found a manila file folder inside, containing clippings on several designers along with a copy of the Style Section, the industry newsletter that covered events, shows, trends, and designers. I flipped it open a couple of pages and found myself staring at a picture of Nick and the woman from in front of his new showroom. I read the caption: Nick Taylor and Amanda Ries: compatible competition?
She was the woman from Nick’s store and she was one of the finalists.
Dark, smooth hair that matched the shine of her lip-gloss hung in a delicate waterfall to her impossible waist. Porcelain skin set off by arched eyebrows and a low neckline that revealed nothing but perfection. She filled out the gown she was wearing, a chic halter that plunged to her navel, revealing the intangibles of life: great cleavage and no sign of tummy rolls, tan lines, or stretch marks. She was not the type you invite for a picnic with hoagies and chips.
Of course Nick would be with someone like her. Why wouldn’t he? He was a talented shoe designer, attractive, funny, and full of charm. No wonder he didn’t want me as a date. She could wear a bias-cut fabric like nobody’s business and her hair was frizz-free. Somewhere after noticing her ability to accessorize, a fat tear droplet hit the newsprint and distorted the copy.
Somehow seeing this woman, looking perfect, next to Nick, was too much. Not only did I not have the guy, but I also didn’t have a job or a paycheck. What I had were two new friends: a homicide detective and a mortgage officer. I imagined a conversation between the two of them: Why no, detective, we didn’t know she was involved in a murder investigation. Did you know she lied on her mortgage application? I think that speaks to character, don’t you?
I wasn’t here to find out about Nick’s social life. I was here to find out about the man who should have been my boss. I shut the newspaper and moved into Patrick’s office. Vintage Vogue, Bazaar, and Elle covers hung on the walls. Photos on the shelves above the desk showcased a younger Patrick in various settings with various, then-starting out, now-legendary designers. Outdated outfits helped identify the decades, but Patrick was like a fashion Where’s Waldo, wearing some version of the same outfit in every photo. His black hair, neatly parted on the side and his waxed mustache, seemed to have become his trademark in the early seventies and remained a constant, much like the plaids and checks and stripes I had recognized when I saw his body crumpled on the floor of the elevator.
I reached out to the Rolodex. It was still open the card for Pins & Needles. I wasn’t sure if this was what Red had been looking at when she flipped through the card file yesterday or not, but it was worth investigating. I pocketed the card like I’d seen so many detectives do on TV.
Next, I rifled through his inbox, looking for something, anything that would clue me in to his personality. Midway through the stack, I paused, spotting a mini-fridge tucked in the corner next to the purple sofa. Leaving no stone unturned, I abandoned the inbox to see if it was stocked.
The mini-fridge held a pitcher of lemonade, about a dozen bottles of Pellegrino, and several somethings hand-wrapped in gold foil. Further investigation exposed individually wrapped chocolate and caramel sweets, neatly piled in stacks: two stacks of six and one stack of four. A sucker for symmetry, I took two from the stack of six for myself.
I poured a glass of lemonade and bit into a caramel confection, then opened and closed his desk drawers, eventually finding a folder labeled DESIGN COMPETITION. I pulled the crisp white folder from the hanging pocket inside the drawer and laid it open on the desk. A small piece of paper from inside the folder fluttered to the floor. I bent down to retrieve it. Written on a page from a monogrammed tablet with an elaborate P in the center was a note in Patrick’s fluid handwriting. I read slowly at first, then again, and again.
I’m wracked with guilt over my recent behavior. This is not what this business is about. New talent needs a proper home. I cannot sit by and watch anymore. I leave it to you to look in vogue and correct my legacy. I fear I won’t be around. This is not about the money, it is about the creativity. Friendship and loyalty do not have a price, and I was foolish to think otherwise. If this is the new business of fashion, it will go forward without me; my only regret is that I turned to the wrong people to achieve my final goals.
I set the paper down on top of the other pages in the folder and thought about what this meant. Patrick had left behind a note that indicated his guilt about something. But what had he done? And one sentence gave me the chills. I fear I won’t be around. Maries was right. He had known.
I scanned the note again. Words like money, regret, and the wrong people stood out like bandanas on a display of silk scarves. He was trying to tell me something.
Unexpectedly, my vision blurred. My heartbeat whooshed in my ears, loud and rhythmic, making it hard to hear anything other than the pounding of my pulse. I stood up and felt along the corners of the desk for balance as my vision swam, distorting the details of the office in sideways, stretched images. Something was wrong with me. My heel caught on the edge of the carpet and I grabbed at Patrick’s inbox, pulling it off the desk and scattering the contents over the floor. I landed on the pile of papers, closed my eyes, and faded into blackness.
I awoke with a start. A yellow Post-it fell from my cheek and fluttered to the carpet. I didn’t know why, but I was on the floor of Patrick’s office. I blinked several times and tried to figure out how I’d gotten there. My head ached.
I crawled to Patrick’s chair and planted my hands on the soft black leather. After a few motivating breaths, I pulled myself into it. The office was dark, illuminated only by emergency lights from the hallway. I pulled the desk phone close enough to read the display. One thirty seven. As my mental faculties faded in and out, one thing became clear.
I was trapped in the store.
A clap of thunder crashed overhead, an audible punctuation mark to my thoughts. I was trapped in the one place I wasn’t supposed to be. If caught by the wrong people, this would not look good. Considering I was trying to find out details about a murder during off-hours in a store where questions surrounded my employment, the wrong peopl
e were numerous.
My paranoia kicked into overdrive. Having worked (or not) for this store for a sum total of about twelve hours I realized this might not be the kind of behavior they encouraged. Not only that, but I didn’t know vital facts about their operation, things like what kind of overnight security they had. I strained my ears to listen for the sound of bloodhounds or some other equally frightening dogs, sniffing away for intruders and became suddenly aware of my movements, wondering if the store had invisible light beam laser grids I’d seen so often in movies. I didn’t hear sirens but didn’t want to risk it.
Think, Samantha, think. I tried to settle on a plan but couldn’t formulate a clear thought. I rubbed a sore spot on my temple and let my vision adjust to the darkness. This was the second time in two days I’d blacked out. But this wasn’t like seeing Patrick’s body in the elevator. This had been different. My mind was fuzzy, like fleece after it’s been laundered. I fished my cell phone out of my handbag, but Eddie was right. No signal. Still groggy, I moved to the purple sofa and curled up under a pashmina someone had left draped over the back.
Someone shook me awake. I opened my eyes and saw purple velvet. Immediately, my body went rigid, and I whirled around, hand in a ball, ready to strike the person behind me. I swung and Eddie caught my fist. When I relaxed, he did too. With effort, I sat upright. The office was light. I had spent the night asleep in the store. My heart pounded in my ears and adrenaline raced through my body.
I rubbed my eyes, smudging mascara accidentally. I sat quietly, searching for the best way to explain how I’d come to be asleep on Patrick’s sofa behind the doors of a previously locked office.
“You’ve been here all night?” Eddie asked before I worked out my explanation.
I nodded.
“Then you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Everything’s changed. Someone found Patrick’s body in a dumpster behind the store.”
Diane Vallere - Style and Error 01 - Designer Dirty Laundry Page 7
