The Stories You Tell

by Kristen Lepionka

  “You know how they say necessity is the mother of invention?” Gail was saying in her office, which was just a corner of the warehouse with a curtain separating her desk from the row of floor-to-ceiling bins that contained the brand’s styles sorted by color and size. “Well, that’s really true. I wasn’t happy with the performance apparel on the market, so I dusted off my sewing machine and started making my own.”

  She paused for effect like she was delivering a PowerPoint presentation. I could almost picture the backdrop behind her fading to the next slide.

  “Now I have a team of twenty women who construct each piece for me, here in the warehouse. Could we do it in some factory in China? Sure. But I’m very big on supporting the local economy, supporting the community of working women in central Ohio. The business has grown literally more than a hundred percent in the last year, thanks to some very key partnerships on Instagram, so I definitely couldn’t keep up with the demand on my own!”

  I knew all of this already. I’d done my homework on Gail and the company before coming here. She was going to pay me for my time regardless, but I wasn’t inclined to sit through her keynote address before we got to the good stuff.

  “But back to the knockoffs,” I said. “Any idea where these are coming from?”

  “No. The problem is, we sell direct through our website, but also wholesale through performance apparel and athleisure boutiques. So there are a lot of places where people can get SpinSpo. The real SpinSpo. But the fake stuff is coming from somewhere, and I need to know where.”

  “Do you sell on Amazon?”

  She scoffed. “No.”

  “Do any of your wholesalers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I did see a lot of SpinSpo products for sale on—”

  “Apparel,” Gail said.

  “What?”

  “I hate the word product. We call it apparel.”

  “Um, okay. SpinSpo apparel is for sale on Amazon for a whole range of prices, starting around twenty bucks, so—”

  “I’m not talking about people who are buying knockoffs on purpose. Frankly, I could care less.”

  I declined to correct her misuse of that phrase the way she’d chastised me about products. Instead I just raised my eyebrows.

  “I mean,” she said, “SpinSpo offers a perfect fit, microsizing, performance fabrics with amazing recovery, and all of that on the cutting edge of fashion. Our leggings retail for ninety dollars, for a reason. Ninety-dollar leggings are not going to go for twenty dollars. Anyone with a brain should know that. It’s like the people who buy knockoff Louis Vuitton from a street corner in Midtown Manhattan. They don’t do it because they think it’s real. They do it because they like the bag, they like that for one hot second under not very intense scrutiny, someone might see it and think they’re the type of person who owns the real deal. When the straps fall off after three weeks, what are they going to say? ‘I’m so mad that this obvious knockoff that I paid about ten percent of what it’s worth for isn’t made well’? No. They chuck it and move on. I’m not worried about that. What really worries me is that someone might be spending ninety dollars expecting to get the quality that we’re proud to offer our clients, but getting something worthless instead.”

  So Gail Spinnaker was not the most sympathetic character I’d ever met, or worked for. But she wasn’t the least. She explained her idea to me thus:

  She wanted me to order purported SpinSpo merchandise from any store that claimed to sell it, have it shipped to one of a few post office boxes I’d need to open to cover my tracks, such as they were, then catalog the leggings’ authenticity or lack thereof, and narrow down the source of the knockoffs that way.

  “Why not follow up on the social media posts complaining about the leggings?” I suggested. “Instead, or in addition to. Or did you try that?”

  Gail glared at me. “If someone thinks that a brand ripped them off, they’ll be too angry to answer honestly. But whatever you think will get to the bottom of it. We’re planning a huge event this spring, a major new launch, plus we’re a founding sponsor of Columbus’s first women’s wellness lifestyle expo, and I really want to be out from under this dark cloud by then.”

  A mystery with a deadline—what could go wrong? But I agreed because the winter had been too shitty for there to be any new puzzles to solve in the city. I wasn’t complaining about that—the second a single snowflake melted, people would be raging at each other in full force once again—but it left me with more time on my hands than anyone with an overactive imagination and a tendency toward pessimism should have.

  So I’d spent two grand of Gail’s money on authentic SpinSpo product in this way, buying from boutique websites, having them shipped to my four new post office boxes; no knockoffs yet. But my client had authorized five times that in expenses, so there I was. My apartment was beginning to look like the wardrobe department of a very basic movie.

  I picked up a small box at the post office on Mount Vernon, and two flat padded envelopes from the Mail Boxes Etc. in Whitehall, somehow managing to wait until I got back to my apartment to tear into the packages. Three pairs of leggings in varying shades of black—onyx, ebony, and anthracite—but all with the genuine SpinSpo embroidered squiggle on the back of the left hip.

  “The case continues,” I said to the apartment. I hung the leggings up on a rolling garment rack I’d purchased at IKEA and entered each style in a spreadsheet—quickly, so that I didn’t pass out from boredom before I finished it—while my mind wandered back to Addison Stowe. I was still thinking about the sprinkler, the boots, the sweatshirt.

  I called my brother to ask what kind of sweatshirt he’d given her.

  “Um, I don’t know, I guess it was grey?”

  “Ohio State?”

  “Like I own an Ohio State sweatshirt.”

  “Come on. I’m sure Mom’s given you at least three Ohio State sweatshirts.”

  “I don’t know. I grabbed one out of the closet. I wasn’t really thinking about which one.”

  “A pullover, or a hoodie?”

  “Hoodie.”

  “But it was definitely grey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dark grey, light grey?”

  “Roxane, I don’t know. Why?”

  I sighed. “Do you remember what kind of shoes she was wearing?”

  “Boots. Ankle boots. Brown, I think.”

  “Made of?”

  “I didn’t ask to see the tag. I don’t know. Why are you asking about her clothes? Did you find something out?”

  “No.”

  Just more questions.

  * * *

  I drove back to her place. I wanted another look at the hoodie and the shoes. Maybe these were proof that she’d made it home okay on her own, that there was no reason to be worried.

  The backyard was as I’d left it. I went into the enclosed porch and snapped a quick photo of the items in question.

  Then I heard someone undoing the dead bolt.

  The woman who opened the door a crack and peered out at me was not Addison Stowe.

  “Uh, can I help you?” she said.

  “Is Addison home?” I said, trying for friendly.

  “This isn’t the front door, you know.”

  “Sorry. But is she at home?

  She shook her head. She was younger than Addison, barely twenty. She had curly blond hair and wore a preppy green cable-knit sweater. “I don’t think so. Hey,” she said, calling over her shoulder, “Addy, are you home?” Silence followed. “No.”

  “Are you her roommate?”

  Nod.

  “Have you talked to her this morning?”

  The young woman shook her head again. “Why?”

  “I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was a long story, so I summarized: “Just wanted to make sure she got home safe last night.”

  “Well,” the roommate said, seemingly familiar with that
type of explanation, “it smells like she got home safe enough to burn her eggs this morning, as usual, so I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Now that she mentioned the burned eggs, I could smell it in the air wafting out of the kitchen. “Well, okay.” I glanced down at the doorknob; the business card I’d left a few hours ago was gone. “Maybe she’s at work?”

  “Maybe?” She looked down at her watch and frowned. “She’s never home.”

  “Do you know where that is?”

  “Not really—look, I need to go—”

  “Is she still working at the Sheraton?” I tried. I knew she wasn’t but I hoped that throwing out a detail like that would make the roommate more inclined to share something useful with me.

  “The Sheraton? No, she’s, like, a deejay or something now.”

  “A deejay, like on the radio?”

  “No, like at a nightclub.”

  “Which one?”

  “One night here, one night there. But she has a deejay name, it’s funny, like a fruit or something? But it’s some nickname? Oh—it’s radish. But with two ds.”

  “DJ Raddish?”

  She nodded.

  “Does Addison have a car?”

  Something hesitant entered her expression. “Who are you, again?”

  I told her who I was and produced another card. She took it from me and studied it, her eyes narrowing in a clear WTF expression. “This is super weird. A private investigator now?”

  The way she said now made me think that I wasn’t the first person to come around looking for Addison recently. “Has there been someone else asking for her?”

  The roommate sighed. “There was this guy a few days ago. Or a week, I guess. A cop. I told him, just like I told you, she’s never home.”

  “A cop?”

  She nodded.

  “What did he want?”

  “To talk to Addison, but she wasn’t here.”

  “Did he come back?”

  “Not while I was here.”

  “Did he ever talk to her?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Okay, do you remember his name?”

  Her mouth twisted slightly as she considered that. “No, but I think—hang on.” She stepped away from the door and studied the front of the refrigerator and plucked something off. “Here,” she said, thrusting the card at me. “This is him. I told her about it but she was like, whatever, okay. That’s her usual speed. Now, I really need to go.”

  “If you see her, can you give me a call?”

  The roommate made a noncommittal noise and closed the door in my face.

  THREE

  The card belonged to one Michael Dillman, a sergeant in the investigative subdivision. A phone number was written on the card in a haphazard scrawl.

  I got back in the car and cranked up the heated seats. The car was new, or new-to-me, anyway: a black Range Rover with champagne-colored interior that I’d picked up at a police auction after I’d gotten the bad news about my beloved old blue 300D Mercedes last summer; the car accident I’d been in had bent its frame so severely, there wasn’t any hope. It had died a noble death, absorbing most of the impact so that the damage to me was limited to a touch of whiplash and a nasty cut on my neck from the seat belt. But I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the Range Rover. Although it was a couple of years old, it was still packed with new-fangled features that seemed wholly unnecessary to someone who’d been driving a car older than I was. But in the dead of winter, the heated leather seats were damn nice.

  I studied Michael Dillman’s business card and dialed the number written in ink. The line rang three times before kicking over to voice mail. “You’ve reached Mickey Dillman,” a gruff voice said in my ear. “Leave me a message and I just might call you back.”

  I left my name and number and turned my attention to the information printed on the card.

  The direct-dial number under Dillman’s name rang and rang and rang, which was weird enough, since city phone lines were generally nestled in a web of voice mail boxes or central receptionists. So it was unusual that one would just ring uninterrupted. Finally, someone picked up, quizzically. “Homicide?”

  “Um,” I said, not expecting that, “is Sergeant Dillman available?”

  “What’s this regarding?”

  “I’d just like to speak to him—is this his number?”

  “This is nobody’s number, sweetheart. You called an empty desk.”

  I frowned. “So Sergeant Dillman is—”

  “Hang on.”

  The phone clunked down.

  I waited, definitely curious now.

  After a minute, the line beeped in my ear and started ringing again.

  “Columbus Division of Police, Professional Standards Bureau,” a woman answered.

  “Hi, I’m trying to reach Sergeant Michael Dillman—”

  “Please hold.”

  I waited again. Maybe the third time would be a charm?

  But no—this time the line delivered me to the voice mail box of “Acting R and D Sergeant Greene.”

  I hung up, not sure what any of that was supposed to mean but distinctly not feeling any better about the situation. Burnt eggs were evidence of nothing. A random visit from a cop was evidence of nothing—maybe Addison had lost an engraved, platinum watch in a Laundromat and he just wanted to return it to her. Unless Sergeant Michael Dillman wasn’t a cop anymore.

  * * *

  I took a deeper dive into Addison’s existence. She drove a maroon Scion coupe, in which she’d been cited for failure to yield nine months ago. I scanned the records for Dillman’s name, but didn’t see it. That was the extent of the court records on her name. I moved on to her deejaying career; DJ Raddish had a Facebook page with just under a hundred “likes.” This one was public, but contained few updates; the last was from the previous October, when she had posted a flyer for a roller-disco fund-raiser at the Skate Zone off of I-71. I clicked on her Events tab; the only thing listed there was a traffic party for the upcoming Valentine’s Day at a club called Nightshade. Because what was more romantic than a themed hookup night at a club named for a poisonous plant? In the Past Events section, I saw a few other holiday-themed dance parties, also at Nightshade: Christmas Sucks! and 24 Hours of New Year’s Eve. I leaned back in my desk chair. Now that I’d completed my mailbox run, I truly didn’t have anything better to do. Which meant that the mystery of DJ Raddish was the only thing I had going on at the moment. The name Nightshade was vaguely familiar to me. I remembered hearing about it in the context of a certain type of nightclub with dirt-cheap well drinks and periodic appearances in the news when fights broke out. I opened a new browser tab to find out where it was located.

  “Huh,” I said out loud.

  The club was across the street from my brother’s loft.

  I called him again. “Do you know anything about the club across the street, Nightshade?”

  “Why?”

  “Do you?”

  “Not exactly my scene,” he said. “It got shut down a while back for serving underage kids—they never carded anyone, I guess, so it got a reputation as that kind of place. Self-perpetuating cycle. But that was, I don’t know, more than a year ago. I heard it was reopening, or maybe it already did.”

  “I think Addison deejays there.”

  “Really.”

  “Seems that way.”

  “So it’s open again?”

  “Unless she’s dropping beats for an empty room, yes.”

  “Dropping beats?”

  “Is that not what the kids are saying these days?”

  “I don’t know any kids. What else did you find out?”

  “She always eats burnt eggs for breakfast.”

  “That definitely seems like a clue.”

  “I know.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Her roommate said some cop was looking for her a few days ago.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. From the roommate
’s attitude, it seems like it’s always something with Addison.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  Neither of us said anything for a while.

  “Are we being ridiculous here?”

  I sighed. “No, this truly seems weird. I might try to check out Nightshade later.”

  “Good idea.”

  * * *

  “What’s even in Rhode Island?”

  Following dinner at Lindy’s, Catherine and I were in her bed. Or, rather, I was in her bed, and she was going back and forth between her walk-in closet and her dresser and the open suitcase that had been relocated from the guest room to the corner of Catherine’s bed. My sense of uneasiness had been temporarily pushed back by dinner and sex but I could feel it creeping up again. “Catherine.”

  “I told you,” she said. Then she paused, lost in thought over two black dresses.

  I cleared my throat.

  She looked up and smiled before tossing them both into the suitcase. For a short trip, it was a rather large suitcase, and it was getting rather full. “It’s a conference. About art and education. At RISD.”

  She said it ris-dee, like it was all one word.

  “Don’t go.”

  “I have to go. They put me on a panel. I’m expected.”

  I snaked an arm out from under the covers for my whiskey. I was drinking it neat tonight—it was too cold out to consider ice cubes. “I still don’t think that’s a good excuse.”

  “You’ve made your objections known.”

  I watched her as she disappeared into the closet and returned a moment later with an armful of dresses in bold prints. Right now, she was wearing just a T-shirt, white, that barely reached her thighs. She’d gotten her long blond hair styled into a pixie cut last fall once she’d healed up from her head injury and it was shorter than I was used to. But of course she could pull it off. I said, “How many dresses are you taking?”