Crushed Velvet

by Diane Vallere

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Rosie. Are you looking for some flowers to brighten your day?”

  “Not really. Something more somber, I’d say.”

  “Are you on your way to the Hi-Ho Cemetery?”

  “The what?”

  She looked embarrassed. “I meant no disrespect. The Hickman-Howard Memorial Park. It’s about a quarter mile down the road, and a lot of people stop here to get a Message to Heaven bouquet on their way. Rumor has it Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is buried there, or at least the person Grumpy was based on. He supposedly haunts the place, so people started calling it the Hi-Ho Cemetery. Is that where you’re headed?”

  “No, but I am here because of a death in the family.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said quickly.

  “It’s not my family. I’m visiting someone whose brother recently died, and I wanted to take him a plant or something.”

  “You must mean Sam Girard,” she said. “I heard about his brother Phil on the news. They say his wife killed him, but I don’t believe it.” She set her clippers on a concrete step. “Follow me.”

  The interior of the small building had been divided in half thanks to a counter that held her register, a helium tank, and an assortment of foil balloons with colorful expressions on them. The right side of the building included a wall of refrigerated cases that housed buckets of roses in peach, pink, yellow, red, magenta, and white. In front of the refrigerated cases were small potted plants. They all looked either too feminine or too familiar for me to buy a stranger.

  “How well do you know Sam?” she asked.

  “Not well. He’s a business associate,” I added quickly.

  “How about a topiary?” She bent down behind the counter and stood up with a small tree shaped like a ball. There was a green ribbon tied around the trunk of the tree, which couldn’t have been wider around than a D-cell battery.

  “It’s perfect,” I said.

  I paid her what seemed like too low of a price for such a pretty plant and drove to my destination.

  Sam Girard’s house was in a residential community of flat-roofed ranches in various pastel shades. I parked along the curb under a tree that was just starting to show signs of life thanks to the gradual temperature shift that comes to California every April. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, reapplied my lipstick, and tucked the loose hair that had blown around my face back behind my ears. I wished I’d worn something nicer than a sweater, leggings, and high-tops to work, but that couldn’t be helped now.

  A small rectangular sign mounted to a wooden stake announced Sam’s business. The stake stood in the front yard a few feet back from the mailbox. The house was mint green with off-white trim. Delicate lilac flowers surrounded the base of the house, their pastel shade of purple complementing the mint green siding. In front of them, blooming groundcover in a deep purple alternated with thick fern-green leaves. The house looked warm and welcoming.

  I approached the front door with the plant under one arm. As I pressed the doorbell, a series of chimes sounded on the other side of the door, followed by footsteps.

  The door opened and I found myself face-to-face with Kim Matheson.

  Twenty-one

  The young blonde took one look at me and slammed the door in my face. Startled, I stepped back and readjusted the plant that was balanced on my hip. I pressed the doorbell again and waited. Her footsteps hadn’t receded and I suspected she was still standing directly on the other side of the door. After thirty seconds of waiting, I rang the doorbell again. She yanked it open immediately.

  “This is borderline harassment,” she said. “How did you find this place? I didn’t give you an address.”

  A man stepped into view at the end of the hallway. Although the light was dim, I could see a facial resemblance between him and Phil. This man’s hair was darker than Phil’s but had the same unruly curls.

  “Kim, who is it?”

  “Nobody.” She slammed the door on me a second time.

  On the other side of the door, footsteps approached. The man opened the door. “May I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m here to speak to Sam Girard about an insurance matter,” I said.

  “I’m Sam Girard.” He held out his hand. I readjusted the plant against my left hip again and shook his hand.

  “I’m Poly Monroe. I’m sorry for your loss.” I held out the plant. “This is for you.”

  “Thank you.” He took the plant and set it on a table inside the front door. When he turned back, he looked confused. “Your name doesn’t sound familiar, but I admit I’m off my game this week. Did we have an appointment?”

  “No, we didn’t. I’m sorry to show up like this, but I need to talk to you. May I come in?”

  “Sure.” He stepped to the side and I entered.

  A formal dining room sat to my left, furnished with a dark wood table and a matching hutch filled with crystal stemware. To the right was a living room. An overstuffed beige chenille sofa lined one wall and faced a brick fireplace. Dark, polished hardwood floors anchored both rooms, along with the hallway. The interior of the house was colorful. The dining walls were lavender, the living room yellow. The hallway was taupe.

  “I have to apologize for my niece,” Sam said. “She’s going through a phase.”

  “Your niece?” I was confused for a moment. “Kim is your niece? But Genevieve and Phil don’t have a daughter.”

  “My other brother. Kim’s been testing her boundaries lately.” He looked surprised. “You know Genevieve and Phil?”

  “I’m friends with Genevieve. In fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Come with me to my office.”

  As we walked down the hallway to his office, I wondered why Kim had lied about her relationship with Genevieve. From the very first day that I’d met her at Tea Totalers, she had pretended that she was a new employee who hadn’t met Gen. Turns out, they were related. Why the secret?

  We reached a small room at the back of the house. The walls were dark hunter green. A worn cognac leather sofa sat along the wall under a hunting painting. Behind the desk was a brick fireplace with a wooden mantel filled with framed photos, diplomas, and awards. Sam’s desk sat to the left of the office and faced the sofa. An oriental rug in shades of green, white, red, and blue covered much of the hardwood floor.

  “Can I get you a drink? Scotch, brandy”—he looked at his watch—“sherry?”

  “How about water?”

  “You sure you don’t want something stronger? This has been a heck of a week.”

  “Water’s fine for me,” I said.

  He emptied a small bottle of club soda into a glass and handed it to me, and then fixed himself a scotch and soda. “I can’t begin to imagine what Genevieve’s going through.”

  “You haven’t talked to her?”

  “She’s not returning my calls. I know what people are saying and I—we—want to help. Kim said Genevieve hasn’t been at work all week and that’s not like her. We can’t help her if she won’t let us.”

  “Sam, the sheriff picked up Genevieve and took her to the mobile unit. I don’t think he arrested her, but I think he’s close. He said he has enough to get a conviction. I know she didn’t have anything to do with your brother’s murder, but there’s a lot of evidence against her.”

  He shook his head. “Genevieve couldn’t harm a fly. My brother was lucky to have her. I wish she would have listened to me about the insurance policy. Now she’s got nothing except the shop, and she’s probably going to lose that.”

  “See, that’s just it. There was a policy, a recent one.”

  “There was? Who drew it up?”

  “I don’t know. The sheriff found it this morning. Genevieve says she didn’t know anything about it. And if you’ve been trying to convince them to
get one, why wouldn’t they go through you? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Especially since I have a policy all drawn up for them. All it needs is their signatures.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I keep it in the safe.” He downed his scotch and soda and stood up. I thought he was going to make himself another, but instead he walked to the hunting painting and removed it from the wall. Behind it was a safe. He spun the lock back and forth a few times and opened the door. I watched his back as he rooted through a small stack of papers. “Here it is,” he said. He pulled a manila folder out of a stack. He flipped past the top pages to the back. “Wait a minute—that can’t be.” He flipped to the top page again and looked at the writing. “This isn’t possible.”

  “What is it?”

  He sat back down at the desk and laid the document in front of him. Starting slowly, he flipped through the pages one by one, scanning the text. When he reached the last page, he slowly shook his head back and forth.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “This document is signed, that’s what’s wrong.”

  “How could the document be signed and put into your wall safe without you knowing? Who else knows your combination?”

  “My wife knows. It’s our anniversary date. Same as the alarm code on the house.”

  “Who else knows that code?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

  “Mostly family.”

  “Did Genevieve know it?”

  “She might have. Phil did. I know I should change it more frequently, but it’s easier this way. One of the kids house-sits for us when we go out of town, and they know it, too. I lock the office, so the safe’s never been an issue.”

  “When’s the last time you went out of town?”

  “We were supposed to go a couple of weeks ago, but a family situation came up and it didn’t seem like a good idea to leave. It was just as well that we canceled.”

  I didn’t miss how his eyes cut to the door. “Does Kim ever house-sit for you?”

  “She has,” he said.

  “Tell me again how Kim is related to you.”

  “She’s my niece. My other brother, Jim, is a traveling salesman. He’s on the road fairly frequently. Has been since Kim was a girl.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  He looked at me sharply. “Kim’s family and she’s had some hard times. I told you she’s going through a phase, but that’s all I’ll mention.”

  I understood where Sam was coming from. Family was important to me, too. As an only child, I didn’t have a large circle of relatives around me. I had my mom and dad. When I came to San Ladrón after inheriting the fabric store, I’d gotten into some trouble, and my parents had been there for me. I knew no matter what happened, I could count on them.

  “Did Kim have access to your safe?” I asked softly.

  He nodded. “My business involves a fair amount of confidentiality. I’m going to have to talk to the sheriff about this, tell him what I found. I don’t know what it means.”

  There was a tap on the door to the office. “Uncle Sam?” said Kim’s voice from the other side of the door. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Come in,” he called.

  The door opened and she came inside. She was dwarfed by the darkness of the green walls and the heaviness of the wood beam ceiling. She shoved her hands into the kangaroo pocket of her pale pink sweatshirt. Her shoulders were slouched and her eyes were red.

  I stood up. “Thank you for your time, Sam. I can show myself out.”

  “Don’t leave, Poly. I want to talk to you, too,” Kim said.

  I sat back down. Kim walked over to the desk and played with a clear globe paperweight on the corner. “I heard you two talking. I know what you think,” she said to me.

  “Kim, I haven’t broken any confidences here,” Sam said. “You don’t need to tell Poly anything if you don’t want to.”

  “But, Uncle Sam, I did something really bad,” she said. Her eyes grew wide and bloodshot. “I forged Aunt Genevieve’s and Uncle Phil’s signatures on that insurance policy. I’m the reason the police are after her!”

  Twenty-two

  I wasn’t sure which one of us was more surprised: Sam or me. After a pulse of shock, a cloud of darkness came over Sam’s face. “You what?”

  “She’s been so nice to me with my problem that when Uncle Phil was murdered I wanted to help her. I knew you had a policy drawn up for them and I knew you kept it in the safe. I figured if it was signed, you could have your company pay on it and she’d have money.” Tears streamed down Kim’s face. Her fair cheeks were blotchy and her eyes, already bloodshot, were now puffy and red. Her breathing was erratic and her pink sweatshirt convulsed in spasms every time she took a breath.

  Sam opened the manila folder and held up a form. “Kim, did you make a copy of this policy?”

  She sniffled and nodded. “I put a copy in Aunt Genevieve’s office. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen, I swear it!”

  He stood up and shooed us out of his office. “Wait in the living room. I’m calling your father.”

  Kim turned to the door and I followed her down the hallway. She sat on the chenille sofa in the living room, her hands in her lap, her ankles crossed. She was slouched down, staring at her hands. Her fingers were threaded together, and she chipped at the polish on the thumbnail of her left hand with the thumbnail of her right.

  “Kim, that very first day at Tea Totalers you acted like you didn’t know Genevieve. Why’d you lie about her being your aunt?”

  “We thought it would be better if we pretended we didn’t know each other. I didn’t want anybody to figure out why I was working there, and she promised not to say anything.”

  “But that first day—that was the day your uncle was murdered.”

  She sniffled. “I didn’t know about that when I got there. I was running late just like I told you, and I knew I’d be in lots of trouble if anybody found out, so as soon as I got there, I found the key and went inside and started working.”

  “You said there were people who were counting on you to be working there. Who were you talking about?”

  “My family.”

  “Kim, Genevieve is a member of your family, and she’s in real trouble. You said you wanted to help her. If that’s true, you need to tell me the truth. The whole truth.”

  Kim continued to stare at her hands. She was so involved in what she was doing that I wondered if she’d even heard me.

  “Kim?”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I got a DUI last month. It was my second one. My license was revoked and I was suspended from school. I needed a letter of recommendation to lift the suspension. I have community service on Saturdays, so I can’t work weekends. And I can’t drive—it would violate the terms of my parole.”

  “And Genevieve’s your aunt, so she gave you a job at the tea shop. And she’s not paying you, but she can verify where you’re at. That’s why you said you had to work there.”

  Kim nodded.

  “But I don’t understand why you threw out the produce and the tea.”

  “I only did what Aunt Genevieve told me to do. She said we always used fresh ingredients. She said the deliveries came on Mondays, so by the end of Monday night, we threw out everything that wasn’t fresh. That was supposed to be one of my job responsibilities, to look at what we had a surplus of and suggest recipes so we wouldn’t be so wasteful.”

  “So you threw out everything? The vegetables and the fruit? And the croissants?”

  “The vegetables and fruit, yes. I didn’t find any croissants.”

  That made sense. Genevieve had made lunch for the construction crew at my shop, and she’d asked Phil to pick up six dozen croissants on his trip. There shouldn’t have been any croissants to throw
out except for the small bag I’d found in the kitchen.

  The door to Sam’s office opened and shut. Kim looked up. I followed her gaze. Sam appeared and stood under the dark wooden trim above the doorway.

  “I’ve contacted your dad. We think it’s best for you to tell the police what you did.”

  “But you said yourself it didn’t work. Can’t you just tear up the policy and pretend I didn’t do it?”

  Sam looked at me. “Do you want to tell her what happened?”

  I turned from Sam to Kim. “When the police found the copy of the insurance policy on Genevieve’s desk, they figured they had her motive.”

  Kim balled her fists up and put them to her eyes.

  “You have to take responsibility for your actions,” Sam said.

  “But the police will look up my history.”

  “Yes, they will. And they might not believe you based on your past. But you need to tell them the truth and accept whatever punishment comes along with it,” Sam said.

  “Uncle Sam, I’m only nineteen!”

  “Yes. You’re an adult and it’s time you started acting like one.” He crossed his arms over his green shirt. “You can use the phone in my office.”

  “Are you going to listen in?”

  “No, I’ll give you privacy. I want to talk to Poly for a second.”

  Kim shot me a look that I couldn’t read. Embarrassment? Humiliation? Anger? She stood up and shuffled past Sam and headed toward his office. I heard his office door shut.

  I stood up. “Do you really think you can trust her to tell the truth?”

  “She has to be given boundaries. It’ll be easy enough to find out if she doesn’t make the call.” He ran his finger back and forth across the base of his nose and sniffed in sharply like he was trying to stifle a sneeze.