by Laina Turner
“You’re in good spirits. How much coffee did you have?” she asked.
I laughed, “Not enough, that’s for sure. It was more a tequila type of meeting. I’m just trying to be positive. There are a few more vendors who have bubbled up to the surface that we owe as well as taxes. Yes, at first I wanted to jump off the nearest bridge at the thought of more debt.”
“I’m heading to the back, let me take your things to the office,” said Joyce reaching for my coat and purse.
“Thanks, Joyce,” I said, giving her my things and then turning back to Katy.
“But then I realized there’s nothing I can do to change the situation. I can only work to fix it. It’s not like I want to give Silk back, so the only option is to make it work. In fact, the thought of not having Silk is a much more painful feeling than the thought of all this debt.”
“Good attitude! So what do we need to do?”
“We need to get this store cleaned up and making money to pay the bills. This is a case where money will cure all ills.”
I heard the front door bell ring and looked up hoping to see a customer and instead it was Willie Landon. I got a big smile on my face and rushed around the counter to hug him.
“What brings you here?” I asked.
“Officer Castillo mentioned a pretty lady asked him to pass on her congratulations, and I just had to come check it out. Hi, Katy,” He called to her as she was walking to the office.
“Hi, Willie,” she said and waved.
“Lieutenant Landon, It has a nice ring to it. So proud of you! I know that was a career milestone you were working on.”
“Thanks. How are things with you and business ownership?” Willie had known when this opportunity had first presented itself and had encouraged me to go for it.
“They’re good. This is proving to be a ton of work, but I like it.”
“Officer Castillo told me why he had the delightful chance of meeting you. What is it with this place that seems to bring police in?” Willie had been the lead detective when the original owner of Silk had been found murdered and through that experience we had become friends. He had even helped me get back together with Cooper by inviting him to a party we were going to so Cooper, and I could talk things out. He was a good guy.
“We do seem to be a bit of a trouble magnet,” I said.
“That’s an understatement. Why didn’t you call me when this happened?” he chided.
“I didn’t want to bother you.” And that was the truth. He had already done so much for me in the past I didn’t want to take advantage of our friendship.
“That’s silly. You’re never a bother. Tell me what’s going on?”
“Why are you asking me? You’re a detective, excuse me, lieutenant. Don’t you already know?”
He laughed. “You know what I’m asking. I know the facts as we see them. She allegedly murdered her boyfriend. But she’s out on bond and back here so I’m assuming you don’t believe she did it. I want your take on things.”
“How do you know she’s been back here?”
“I’m a detective. I know everything.”
“Are you guys keeping tabs on her?” I asked.
“You could say that.”
“Then why let her out on bail?”
“It’s how the system works,” he answered.
“Seems like a stupid system sometimes.”
“Yes, it does,” he said smiling.
“Honestly, I don’t think she did it. She doesn’t seem like the type.”
“Presley,” he interrupted. “There are a lot of criminals who didn’t seem the type, but turned out to be very much the type. “Don’t be so naïve.”
“I know but she doesn’t seem the type,” I repeated, “and I want to help her. I can’t help it if I want to believe in the good of people. Do the police have any other suspects or is their investigation all centered on her?”
Willie teased me. “You know I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”
“C’mon, you know I won’t tell,” I pleaded.
“Let’s just say she’s a small part of something bigger we suspect. I don’t want to say too much because we aren’t sure.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Do you really think she killed him though? Do you really think a female could beat someone to death with a golf club?” That was one of the things that made me believe Roxanne was innocent. I couldn’t see her doing that. Couldn’t see any woman doing that.
“I’ve seen a lot of things you wouldn’t expect.”
“I know people are capable of a lot of things I probably couldn’t imagine. She did have two guys come looking for her the day before she got out of jail. So maybe she isn’t all she seems. I wasn’t here, but Katy said they were scary.”
“Really?” At this information, Willie’s interest increased ten-fold.
“Yeah. Roxanne claimed to not know who they were, but I think she was lying.”
“Can you describe them?”
“You should probably talk to Katy. Thuggish and foreign is what I know. Katy seemed to think Russian or Ukrainian.” I could sense a change in Willie’s demeanor.
“Does that mean something to you,” I asked.
“It does, listen I …”
The door chimed, and we both looked up to see it was Roxanne walking in.
“Hi, Presley,” she said and gave Willie an appreciative glance. He wasn’t a guy you could walk by without noticing. Very Wentworth Miller in Prison Break looking, tattoos and all. Much more bad boy looking than you would imagine if you conjured up detective in your mind. Until Will, I assumed detectives all looked like Jerry Orbach. That wasn’t a bad thing; Lenny Brisco in Law and Order made you feel safe. I wondered how Roxanne would feel if she knew Willie was a detective?
“Hey, Roxanne. Katy is in the back. Ask her if she need help,” I said knowing Katy didn’t, but wanting her to go out of hearing of my conversation with Willie.
“That’s my cue to leave,” said Willie.
“You can’t leave, yet. You were about to tell me something.”
“I’ll call you later. I need to get to an appointment anyway,” he said, looking at his watch.
“Fine,” I said exasperatedly. “Should I be worried about her being here?”
“Yes, I think you should,” he said frankly. “But I know that won’t stop you so I’ll have a couple more patrols drive by daily to check on you and if she has any more friends stop by,” he said, emphasizing the word friends, “call me immediately.”
“You can’t tell me anything else about what’s going on? Are you going to leave me hanging? This isn’t making me feel better.”
“I can’t tell you anything else right now. Just be careful, Presley.”
He left, and Joyce walked up to me.
“Who was that handsome man?”
“A friend of mine who happens to be a detective.”
“Is he single?”
I burst out laughing. “I think so. Want me to fix you up?”
“I sure wouldn’t mind. He’s beautiful.”
“That he is, and he’s nice. Not a common combination.”
“Is he working on Roxanne’s case?”
“No. Just stopped to say hi,” I said, not wanting to get into the details of what Willie had told me, and we were friends, so it wasn’t a complete lie.
Katy and Roxanne walked out from the back and approached us.
“Your purse was buzzing. I thought it might be important,” Katy said, handing me my phone. There was a missed call, a Chicago number that I didn’t recognize. “Thanks.”
“What do you want us to work on next?”
“Could you get the rest of those new dresses out and Joyce go through the preferred customer book and see if you can make some calls and let people know of the few new arrivals we have. I also thought we should organize some sale event. To clear out all this older merchandise. If we can make it a super big deal and create some excitement maybe, it would help kick
start more traffic.”
“I can make those calls and we can brainstorm and think of a theme for the sale. How about we plan it for a week from today and when I’m making calls about the new arrivals, I can invite them to the sale.”
“Great idea. That will put the pressure on for us to get things ready, but I say let’s do it. Nothing wrong with a little pressure. Let me call this person back, and I’ll help.”
“Hello?” A soft female voice answered on the first ring.
“Hi, this is Presley Thurman. You just called me?” There was a long pause, and if I hadn’t heard her breathing, I would have thought she had hung up.
“Hello?” I said again.
“Sorry,” the voice said. “This is Rita. From Dianne’s. Caren said you came in looking for me?”
My eyebrows shot up, and I started walking quickly to the back room to the office. This wasn’t a phone conversation I wanted to have on the sales floor. I couldn’t believe she called me. I hadn’t expected it at all.
“Yes, yes, I’m so glad you called me.”
“Why are you looking for me?” she asked, and I could tell she was nervous, by the way, her voice sounded.
“Do you remember waiting on a young blond Monday night? Right before closing?”
“You mean Roxanne Baxter, don’t you?” she interrupted.
“So you know who I’m talking about.”
“You could say that,” she said which I thought an odd thing to say. “I didn’t know who she was that night, but once it hit the news, I did.”
Maybe she thought Roxanne was a murderer, and that’s why she sounded funny. Couldn’t blame her for that. But then why call? Wouldn’t she just ignore this?
“Is that why you left for vacation?”
Rita gave a half laugh. “Not exactly.”
“Are you OK?”
“Not,” she said, her voice faltering.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly.
“Maybe I could meet you somewhere and we could talk about it? Roxanne needs your help.” I offered, trying to get more from her.
“I don’t know,” she said again.
This was frustrating. “Really. It’s OK. Maybe I can help you?” I said, hoping I could persuade her. I had a feeling that she could be an important piece of this whole thing. I just needed to get her talking. “Coffee?”
“OK,” she said, giving in.
Yes! I thought.
“Just not at Diane’s,” she said.
“Wherever you feel comfortable,” I said, sensing she was afraid of something or someone, and that’s what I wanted to find out.
She mentioned a coffee place on the other side of town. I’d never heard of it, but that’s what Google maps were for.
“Don’t bring anyone with you, OK?” She asked.
“Sure. How’s three o’clock?”
“That’s fine.”
I hung up the phone just as Katy came through the back door.
“I put the girls to work so I could come back here. Who was that?”
“It was Rita.”
“Oh. Wow. I guess I didn’t expect her to call you. What did she want?”
“I’m not sure, but she sounded nervous. She’s scared or something. I convinced her to meet me for coffee today at three.”
“I can ask Joyce to stay late and go with you.”
“No, that’s OK. She asked me to come alone.”
“Presley, are you sure that’s wise?”
“It’s fine. There’s no reason to be afraid of her, and we’re meeting in a public place. I just have a feeling that her fear is related to Roxanne in some way. If’ I’m going to help Roxanne, I have to find out what that is.”
Chapter 12
The rest of the afternoon flew by and I made it to the spot I had arranged to meet Rita with only minutes to spare, which I thought was pretty good since I hadn’t known where I was going. Since we didn’t know what each other looked like, and I only had Roxanne’s description of what Rita looked like. I just hoped we didn’t end up missing each other.
I saw someone walk in fitting the description Roxanne had given me who was also looking furtively around the room. I half stood up and got her attention, and she started to walk over in my direction. When she got within earshot, I spoke.
“Rita?”
She nodded, and I held out my hand to shake hers. “I’m Presley.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said softly.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea? I grabbed mine when I came in. I was desperate for my afternoon pick me up,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. She looked scared. I hoped it wasn’t over meeting me.
“I’m fine,” she said and we both sat down.
I wasn’t sure where to start, and I didn’t think either one of us was looking for small talk, so I decided to jump in.
“I know this may be uncomfortable or awkward because we don’t know each other, but on the phone it sounded like something was wrong. You have nothing to fear from me or Roxanne for that matter. I’m just trying to help a friend.”
“Why did you come to the café to look for me?” she asked, very tentative with her words.
“Roxanne said she had been talking to you at Dianne’s the night of her boyfriend’s murder, so we thought maybe you could help her case. You know, if she were at the café with you, she couldn’t have been somewhere else killing him. I know you have no reason to believe me, or even care for that matter, but I don’t think Roxanne did this.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. She seemed to be thinking.
“I’m assuming you got my number from Caren and called because you want to help,” I said, prodding her a little. I didn’t want to scare her off, but we needed her help. Rather Roxanne did, and I wanted to see why she was so scared and why she had taken off. I thought it could be a key to this whole thing.
She nodded, again not saying anything.
“Rita,” I said gently, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me anything. What’s so upsetting that you told your friend Caren you were going on a surprise vacation? Since that doesn’t seem to be the truth.”
She took a deep breath. “Roxanne was with me that night. She was upset, said she had, had a fight with her boyfriend. She seemed like a sweet girl, so I let her stay while I was closing up. There didn’t seem to be any harm in that. I’ve been in her shoes before. We chatted for a few minutes until her friend joined her. Then I left them alone and finished up my routine, and we all left. It was probably around one or so in the morning.” That got my interest. Roxanne had said she was there alone so who was her friend? Rod, maybe? And why was she hiding it?“
The next day when I saw on the news she had been arrested, I was surprised. I guess I didn’t think about the timeline, but again she had seemed like a nice girl and maybe it was just weird to see her on TV like that, so I thought no way could she have done it. Just a random chance encounter. Like once in a while when a celebrity comes in. Vince Vaughn stopped for coffee in once,” she said, with a small smile. Clearly reliving that memory.
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’s the most famous customer we’ve had, on my shift anyway.”
“So then what happened after you saw her on the news?” I said wanting to get back to the conversation at hand.
“I went to work the next night not thinking anymore about it until about an hour before closing time this guy came in, asking me about Roxanne.”
“What did this guy look like?”
She thought for a minute. “Thirties, bigger guy. Probably handsome when he was younger. He seemed extremely nervous.”
That sounded like Rod and if it were, what would lead him to this place? And then it also meant he hadn’t been with Roxanne the night before. So who had been? The fact that neither one of them had mentioned any of this was a huge red flag to me.
“What did he ask you,” I said.
“He asked me how l
ong Roxanne had been here the night before and who she was with. He said he was her boyfriend and thought she was cheating. I had already seen on the news that Roxanne had been arrested for murdering her boyfriend, so I knew he was lying.”
“Who was the friend who had met her the night before? Was it the same guy?” I asked.
“No, not the same guy and she didn’t introduce us. As soon as he showed up she ignored me and got engrossed in a conversation with him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could hear them talking and he was foreign. At least he sounded foreign. He had a thick accent of some sort. I couldn’t understand him.”
“Like Ukrainian or Russian?” I asked, assuming it must be the same guys who had been looking for Roxanne at Silk.
“Maybe. I’m not good at that sort of thing so I’m not exactly sure.”
“Is that why you left? Did that guy make you nervous?” I asked, wondering if she had the same reaction as Katy since I assumed it was the same person.
“Not because of anything up to that point, but the next day, right after the guy claiming to be her boyfriend left, the foreign guy who had been with Roxanne came back. With a friend and they scared me.”
“What did they do?” It had to be the same guys who came looking for Roxanne. It had to be.
“The guy who had been with Roxanne said it would be in my best interest to forget him and Roxanne had ever been in. That if the cops came asking, I never saw them before.”
“Rita, did you tell the police?”
“No, they had just told me to keep my mouth shut. I locked up right after they left even though technically we weren’t closed yet and went home. I didn’t know what else to do. These guys scared me. I assumed as soon as I saw Roxanne had been arrested the police would be coming to talk to me at some point. The only way I could prevent that is to hide, so I went home to grab clothes and have been staying at a hotel.”
“Rita, I understand you’re scared, but you can’t hide forever. Especially from the police. They can protect you,” I said while thinking she must have been scared to not go to the police, which could get her in more trouble.
“That’s why when Caren left your information on my voicemail I called you. I needed to talk to someone. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid these guys are going to come back.”
