by Laina Turner
Chapter 4
“I shouldn’t have had that last helping of tiramisu last night,” I said to Katy, “My pants are too tight.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. I think we will work if off today.”
“This is worse than I remember,” said Katy, standing with her hands on her hips in the front of the store, surveying the mess in front of us. We had arrived super early to get as much cleaning done as we could before open. “Could this possibly have gotten worse since yesterday?”
I frowned because she was right; it did look worse than yesterday. “Maybe because it’s early, and we haven’t had enough coffee yet?” I suggested hoping that maybe we weren’t in the right frame of mind without enough caffeine.
“Sorry, I don’t think any amount of coffee is going to make this mess any better. It’s a good thing we wore jeans.”
Normally, I wouldn’t even think of wearing jeans to Silk, but I also didn’t want to ruin my good clothes and needed something comfortable to work in all day. So had compromised with trouser jeans and a crisp button down from Banana Republic paired with a baby blue sweater. We had made our plan last night, after Jared’s delicious dinner, to come in early before any of the staff. Presuming they showed up after what happened to Roxanne. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if they never came in again and I wouldn’t have blamed them. Our goal was to try and organize the sales floor, the office stuff, and the backroom in that order. It was a daunting task.
“I don’t even know where to start, Katy. There’s so much to do. But let’s look at the bright side. No one should get arrested today. The odds of that happening two days in a row are probably nil.”
“I’m glad you’re thinking positive. I saw a ton of boxes sitting on the sales floor. Why don’t I look at those, see what’s in there and what can be done with the stuff to get it off the floor, and you look over the paperwork now and try to get a handle on things and then when it’s time to open you can come up front and help me.”
“See! This is why I need you here. You know exactly what needs to be done.”
“It doesn’t look like they’ve looked at this stuff in months,” I muttered to myself as I sat at the desk. Then looking at the receiving log and at a stack of unpaid invoices that were dated almost a year ago. An even bigger stack of bills, or I assumed they were bills, were in a shoebox next to the desk. The last shipment they received according to the stack was in September. It was now March. To not get the merchandise for months and still have anything left in the store told me how bad sales had been. I didn’t understand how Roxanne could have ignored this and continued working like everything was fine. Though if no one was holding her accountable, no wonder the merchandise looked so rough. It was all the old leftovers. I thought I had seen some spring merchandise, which meant it must be last spring’s line. Not current.
My stomach was in knots wondering what I had got myself in to and hoping I hadn’t just made a disastrous mistake. What if I couldn’t pull this off? It would be impossible to dig out of the hole without something to sell.
“Hey Pres,” Katy said, sticking her head in the door.
“Yeah?”
“Those boxes in the front we thought were merchandise.”
“Yeah,” I said again, assuming I was not going to like what she was going to say.
“We were right. They’re stuffed fully of mostly damaged merchandise. I don’t think any of it is salvageable.”
“Well, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised,” I said, but couldn’t help but am upset over it. Amazing how being a business owner changed how I felt about every last cent.
“I’m going to look up the number for the Goodwill pickup place and see how soon someone can come. At least start to de-clutter. If nothing else, it can be a tax write off.”
“Thanks. That would be a huge help.”
”No problem. That just leaves us with needing to get merchandise in and fast.”
“I know, I know. I’m working on it.” Jim negotiated with some of the vendors, and they have given us a few dollars to work with, but it’s not enough to make the store look full. I need to try to get a few more of them to open up a little. He spoke to the bigger vendors because of the amount of money we owe, but there are a whole lot of smaller ones he didn’t contact. He said he didn’t want to charge me to do something he could do. From all these invoices here, it seems like they just kept opening lines of credit with everyone they could and not ever paying them until vendors got smart and stopped extending credit.”
“Isn’t that fraud?”
“I would think, but I’m sure Roxanne was just doing what she needed to get something to sell and probably thought James would pay the invoices, so it probably wasn’t intentional. I’m going to call and beg some of these vendors to give Silk another chance and maybe if I explain the situation, they will take pity on us. After all, I can’t pay them if Silk can’t make money.”
“Good plan, old fashioned groveling – simple and usually works,” she smiled. “You get to work on that and I will start going through the boxes that are back here and see what we really have. Who knows, maybe I will come across some wonderful pieces.”
The backroom, outside the office area, as was the front of the store, was in disarray. There were boxes on the floor stacked up with merchandise stuffed in them and spilling out the top. It looked like a thirteen-year-old had been back here and was told to clean and thought cleaning was sticking everything in boxes to hide the mess and make it look clean.
I was so busy on the phones perfecting my begging routine with surprising success – honesty could go a long way - that I was surprised to hear the doorbell, signaling someone coming in the front door. I looked up to the clock and realized it was already nine a.m. The last two hours had flown by.
The person who had walked in had a key, so I assumed she was an employee and not some random person. There was one employee I hadn’t yet met, so by default this person must be Joyce Render. I could tell she was surprised to see us here so early. My guess was Roxanne wasn’t one to put in extra hours. I got up from where I was sitting at the desk and walked over to where she was standing in the doorway between the front and the backroom.
“Joyce?” I said holding out my hand.
“That’s me and you’re Presley. Our new boss,” she smiled and said perkily that somewhat contradicted her jet-black hair and heavy eye makeup that made her appear more sullen and brooding than chipper. She seemed a little edgy to be working here, but as long as she worked hard and didn’t get arrested, I didn’t really care.
“And over there sorting a necklace tangle is Katy. She will be helping us out for a while until we can get things in order.”
“Nice to meet you, Katy.”
“Likewise,” she said and turned back to her project. I could tell she was making good progress and determined to salvage what looked to be several hundred dollars worth of accessories that would be a huge help. Accessories didn’t go out of season as fast so it would be one less vendor to beg to let us order merchandise.
“Let me set my stuff down and then put me to work, boss.”
“I think I’m going to like you.” I looked over at Katy, who nodded, maybe we had a go-getter in Joyce. It’s about time something positive happened.
It was almost time to open so Joyce, and I went out to the front and left Katy with her never ending tangle. I put the cash drawer in the register and opened it for business and then looked around the floor.
“I know you’re probably thinking we didn’t do a very good job at keeping the store in good shape,” Joyce said.
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I didn’t want to be harsh, especially since she was acknowledging it. Not on my first full day when I had just met her, and I really couldn’t afford for her to quit. Yesterday’s events had been a bad enough start. I didn’t want to start today off on a bad note too
“Whoever thinks retail is easy has never worked it,” was my response. “I think if we
can start pulling items together by silhouette, they are sort of scattered about the store, and then make sure they are hanging properly we could at least see what we have out here and things will at least look more presentable. If there isn’t much in the way of silhouette, we can at least pull together colors.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We worked in silence for a while, and I was finally able to see we were making a little bit of difference, at least the place was a little cleaner and had some semblance to organization. Finally. Joyce said something I had been expecting since she got here. I was surprised it had taken her so long.
“So I heard about Roxanne. Arrested right from the store?”
“Yep,” I said. I was curious about what she might know, and it didn’t bother me that she asked. I would have done the same thing in her place. It was normal curiosity. “How did you hear?”
“Brenda called me and told me. Is she fired?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Joyce, I honestly hadn’t even thought about it but I am sure that her job at Silk is the last thing on her mind right now.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said and I could tell she wanted to say more, so I just waited. “Do you think she’s guilty?” she finally said.
“I can’t answer that either. I only met her the one time before yesterday when I met you. I couldn’t even begin to guess what happened much less if she’s guilty. I hope she’s not guilty. I hate to think of someone who worked here being capable of doing that.”
“I don’t think she did it. That’s not Roxanne; she’s a sweet girl. She may have been a bad store manager, but she would never kill anyone. Much less Drew. She loved him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Roxanne and I have worked together for almost a year. She was dating Drew before I met her and constantly gushed about how awesome he was. In fact, it was annoying at times and so over the top with her accolades about him, I wondered what she was overcompensating for. You know how it is when people talk about someone like they are trying to convince themselves the person is wonderful when a person isn’t. That is until I met him, and I had to admit I could totally see why she thought he was the best guy in the world.”
“He was that great of a boyfriend?”
“And a person. We all went for dinner the first night I met him, and he was sweet, funny, engaging and I could tell he as was completely head over heels with Roxanne as she was with him. It made me jealous, my relationship at the time was on the rocks, but then I hated feeling jealous because they were both nice people. You know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“There is no way she would have killed him. Especially the way they say.” Joyce shook her head. “No way.”
The news said Drew had been beaten to death with a golf club, which I did think an unusual means for a female. Women seemed to kill in less violent ways, at least from all the episodes of Fatal Women I’d watched on Netflix.
“Is it always so slow in here these days,” I said changing the subject for a minute because while I wanted to ask Joyce some more questions, I realized not a single customer had come in, in the hour we had been opened and that worried me. I knew I was probably paranoid, but it made me anxious knowing we had been out here this long with no customers. It was just much different from what it used to be, and with my money on the line so to speak I was obsessing a little.
“Yeah. It’s slowed down the last month or so since the holidays. I think customers got tired of coming in and seeing this mess. I’m sorry,” she said, looking at me, and I could tell she felt bad.
”Don’t be, Joyce. Things happen. Now we just have to fix it.”
I had to think Joyce was right that customers got tired of coming into a dirty store without merchandise. I know I wouldn’t keep coming back if I were a customer. I would find somewhere else to shop. When we re-launched, we would have to work hard at getting those customers to give us a second chance. The store needed to be better than ever.
“Hey, Pres,” Katy called to me sticking her head out from the back.
“Yeah?”
“Come here for a minute. There’s something I want you to take a look at.”
I made my way to the back where Katy was standing next to two boxes that were filled with merchandise still in plastic.
“Is that what I think it is? You found new merchandise that’s just been sitting here? You think this place was so messy and unorganized that they didn’t even know they had unopened merchandise they could have been selling.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but then I looked at the shipping date on the box, and it’s from two weeks ago. So it’s fairly recent.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. What’s the date on the packing list and who is it from?”
“I couldn’t find a packing list and there isn’t a return address label.”
“That’s weird. Maybe the packing list was already taken out.”
She shook her head. “I opened this box. It hadn’t been touched.”
I leaned over to pick up one of the garments when the phone starting ringing, so I walked over to pick it up in the office.
“Silk, how may I help you?”
“Will you accept a collect call from Cook County jail,” an operator said.
“Umm, yeah?” There was a click, and a tearful voice came on the line.
“Who is this?” the voice said.
“It’s Presley. Is this Roxanne?” I assumed that would be the only person calling the store from jail. At least I hoped it was the case.
“Oh, Presley, I’m so glad you accepted the call. Yes, it’s Roxanne,” she said, and I could tell she was crying.
“Are you ok?” I asked, thinking that was a stupid question, but not sure what else to say. She’s in jail for murder. Of course, she wasn’t. No one would be in that situation. I was surprised she even got to make a phone call to anyone who wasn’t her lawyer.
“No. Listen; I had to beg the guard to use the phone and I only have a minute. I didn’t do this, I swear, and I need you to help me.”
“Roxanne, I…”
“Don’t say no! Please don’t say no! Please say you’ll help me.”
“It’s just I think you would be better off finding a good lawyer. I don’t know how I can help.”
“I can’t afford a good lawyer. I’m going to end up with a public defender, and they aren’t going to care about me and then I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail. You found Solange’s killer. You have to find out who killed Drew, because it wasn’t me,” she said and started crying harder, making me feel very guilty for not being more willing to help her.
“Calm down. I want to help, but I don’t see how I can.”
“I was framed and you have to help me prove it. Someone wanted Drew dead, but it wasn’t me,” she said again. “Call Rod Simmons at The Whole Pi. He can fill you in. Please tell me you’ll help?”
I hesitated for a second, not wanting to get involved but, on the other hand, not wanting to leave her on her own. What kind of person would I be if I did that?
“Please Presley,” she pleaded. “I don’t have anyone else.”
“I’m not making any promises but I’ll see what I can do,” I said giving in because I had no idea how to say no to her in this situation without feeling like a horrible person, and writing down the information she gave me.
“Thanks, Presley,” she said and the line abruptly went dead. I sat the receiver down and turned to Katy and Joyce who were standing right next to me, Joyce having walked back here presumably to ask a question.
“She’s innocent. I would bet on it,” Joyce said. She must have heard part of the conversation and assumed I was talking to Roxanne. I was glad she kept reinforcing that thought. It helped me feel I was making the right decision to help even though I didn’t have proof, and I barely knew Roxanne.
“Presley,” Katy said and I knew what she was thinking.
“What was I
supposed to say, Katy? Tell a girl who just called from jail asking for my help too bad I’m busy?”
“No,” she sighed. “I suppose not. But really, what can you do. You don’t even know her. How do you know she’s even innocent?”
“I don’t for sure, but my gut says she’s not a killer, and Joyce said there’s no way she killed Drew. That’s got to count for something. She told me to call Rod Simmons at The Whole Pi, so I thought I could at least talk to him and get more information about what’s going on. If I hear something I don’t like or doesn’t seem right, I don’t have to help, but I feel I owe it to her to at least ask a few questions.”
“And who is Rod Simmons?” Katy asked.
“It’s Drew’s business partner. The Whole Pi is the company name. They do something in computers. The name is a play on the mathematical computation,” Joyce interjected, and I’m glad she knew. Saved me time searching to figure out it wasn’t a bakery of some sort that would have been my first guess.
“Oh,” I said. “Good to know.”
“That’s about all I know. Drew was some genius. What his company does exactly I don’t know beyond what I just said, mainly because anytime he talked about it, it was so over my head I just didn’t understand,” Joyce finished.
“See Katy, I can call this Rod and just see what he has to say. If he were Drew’s business partner, he should have a strong opinion on whether Roxanne could have done this or not. It will, at least, give me a little more information on the topic,” I said trying to convince her.
“It’s not like anyone can stop you anyways,” Katy said, giving in.
“We have another couple hour before lunch so let’s finish organizing the sales floor as best we can, and all investigations can wait until Debbie and Brenda come in to work. If they come in,” I said.
“I will call them if you want and make sure they will be here,” offered Joyce.
“That would be great.” Joyce went to call, and I went back to the box of merchandise Katy had found, picking up one of the plastic wrapped dresses. Taking it out of the plastic, I shook it out. It was a full length, heavily beaded, evening gown. I looked at the tag, and it said Halston. High-end brand and beautiful but not one Silk had ever carried before. The tag on it said one thousand three hundred dollars.
