Crushed Velvet

by Diane Vallere

  “Why? He was a dirtbag. She’s better off without him.”

  “But she loved him.”

  “She loved the idea of him.”

  “No, I think she really loved him.”

  “Frenchy and I spent some time talking while she was staying here. You know what I learned? They met at a tea convention. He played up his French background and she thought it was a sign. He said they could open the tea shop and he’d quit his job and they’d run it together. But he never quit his job. He started sleeping around. I got the feeling that Babs wasn’t the dirtbag’s first affair, either.”

  “And she clearly wasn’t his last,” I said, the undesired naked-with-a-Chrismas-bow image popping into my head. “If Genevieve knew all of this, why didn’t she leave him?”

  “Security. Bunch of bull. She gave him security, not the other way around. She runs that store herself.” She picked up a pen from the desk and twirled it around in one hand while she spoke. “In one day I saw that she knows more about business than most people around here. She just downplays it because when people come in for a cup of tea, they don’t want to talk about growth factors.” She threw the pen like a dart against the side of the printer. It bounced off the hard gray plastic and landed on the desk, and then rolled to the edge and fell off.

  I bent down and picked it up. “So when this whole mess is cleared up, she goes back to the tea shop and life goes on.”

  “As long as Old Man McMichael doesn’t get his hands on her store.”

  “What does he have to do with anything?”

  “That’s the other thing she told me. He’s been sniffing around her property. And if she can’t pay her quarterly taxes in the next week, he’s going to have a darn good chance of buying her out.”

  Twenty-five

  I didn’t think Genevieve’s problems could get any worse. “If Mr. McMichael buys her store, she’ll never be able to get it back from him. He’ll sell it off without a second thought if a bigger investor wants that strip of land. We can’t let that happen.”

  I set the pen on the desk gently, hovering my fingers over it until I was sure it wasn’t going to roll down the slight slope of the desk again. This was bad—worse than bad. If Mr. McMichael found out that Adelaide was going to move the garden party to Tea Totalers this year, he’d have even more reason to gain possession of the shop. And Genevieve’s troubles were bad enough. I wouldn’t know how to break it to her that she might have to choose between bail and taxes. I thought about Topo di Sali’s offer to buy out Genevieve’s recipe. Just days ago I thought she’d never do such a thing. Now there was a chance the Italian Scallion held her only lifeline.

  Unless he’d been the one to set this chain of events into motion?

  A sick feeling twisted into a knot in the pit of my stomach, like I’d eaten too many slices of birthday cake. It’s too bad Genevieve never learned to read those leaves she uses in the tea. If she had, she might have seen this mess coming. I couldn’t let Genevieve’s situation become another battle between Adelaide and Vic. I needed to contact someone who was good with money, someone who had no ties to the situation at hand. I knew who that person was a solid ten minutes before I gave in to the fact that I had to make the call.

  The things you do for friends.

  “I’m going to talk to Genevieve later today,” I said. “Hopefully Clark will let her go after Adelaide talks to him, but I think it’s still a good idea if she stays here. Whoever killed Phil is still out there, and she might be in danger.”

  “Why are you rushing off?”

  “I have to make a phone call.” I cut my eyes to the floor.

  “You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?” Charlie asked.

  I avoided the question. “I’d rather not waste time defining stupid. There’s a lot to do at the tea shop. I better get going.”

  I let myself out the front door of the auto shop and walked to the visitor center on the corner. I found a bench a few feet away from the road and sat down. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  I cued up my contacts and flipped to the Cs. Before I had a chance to regret it, I called my ex.

  “Carson Cole’s office,” said a polite female voice.

  “This is Poly Monroe. Could I speak to Carson?”

  “Are you one of Mr. Cole’s clients?”

  “Yes,” I answered without a moment’s hesitation. Since when was he going by “Mr. Cole”?

  She put me on hold for a few seconds, and then the call clicked back on. “Carson Cole,” said a familiar voice.

  “It’s Poly.”

  “That’s what my secretary said, but I didn’t believe her.” He paused. “She told me you said you were one of my clients.”

  “You’ve given me financial advice and I’ve taken it. I figure that constitutes client.”

  “Is that what you’re calling about? You need financial advice? Wait a minute. Have you lost all of your money in that stupid store already?”

  Sometimes it takes only a few minutes to remember why we made certain decisions.

  “This has more to do with you than me. A friend of mine owns a café here. She’s been dealing with some personal business and it’s caused her to close temporarily. From what I understand, her quarterly taxes are due and if she doesn’t make the payment she might lose the place. Is that how these things work?”

  “Something like that. If it’s a tax issue, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Well, technically, you could loan her the money, right? As an investment. With a really, really, really low interest rate as a favor to me?”

  “Poly, you broke up with me and moved to another city. I can’t think of a single reason why I would want to do you a favor.”

  “Okay, forget the favor. How about this? Right now, if she defaults on her taxes, Mr. McMichael is going to buy the property. If you loan her the money and she can’t pay it back, the property goes to you, and you’d be in a position to negotiate with him. He’s the big leagues, Carson.”

  “You’re giving me a chance to go head-to-head with McVic?” He was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you go to his son? You’re friends with him, right?”

  Why hadn’t I gone to Vaughn? He was the first person who came to mind. Only, I didn’t want him to think I was using him for his money or that I was taking advantage of him in any way. And I didn’t want to put him in an awkward position with his father. I didn’t need Carson to know any of that.

  “I have my reasons.”

  “What’s the name of this café?” he asked.

  I told him the name and address of Tea Totalers. It was probably just a matter of time until Carson figured out the nature of the personal business that was keeping Genevieve from running the shop, but he was going to have to do that legwork without me.

  After exchanging a few more details, we hung up. I was confident he would look into the property purely for selfish reasons. I put my phone in my handbag and went back to the fabric store to pick up the panels of voile so I could finish the curtains. I carried several plastic hangers with fabric draped over them like a wedding shop employee would carry an expensive gown: hangers in my left hand held up over my head, fabric draped over my right forearm. If you took away the fabric, my stance was like the Statue of Liberty. I carried the panels to my car, took great care setting them in the backseat without letting them touch the gravel or the floor mats, and drove to the tea shop. I dropped them off inside, and then locked the shop up and headed back out to my car. Time to pay Babs Green a visit.

  It was the tail end of rush hour and traffic was starting to thin out. I could hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” pouring out of one of the cars and the particular energetic musings of a morning talk-radio host from another. I made the mistake of exiting on San Ladrón Avenue, which meant I had to cut across two lanes of traffic and either make an illegal U-turn or turn left and
circle around in one of the small residential lots on a side street.

  I turned right instead of left, so I could get out of traffic. I drove past the Waverly House and the sheriff’s mobile unit and turned right at the next road. I found myself on a two-lane street with a stop sign at every corner.

  Even with the stop signs, I made better time than if I’d been stuck in the traffic on one of the main streets. I’d spent so much time driving up and down Bonita that I hadn’t explored the rest of the neighborhood yet. I took note of the smaller cottages on either side of me. A few had signs out front advertising businesses that people ran from their residences, like Sam Girard. Tailor, seamstress, accountant, notary public.

  Sooner than expected, I came to a cross street. I turned right, then left at the light, and cruised two miles until I reached Babs’s apartment building. I pulled the scarf out of my messenger bag and smoothed my hands over the wrinkles a few times, my efforts wasted. The scarf was more wrinkled than the panels of voile I’d left in the washing machine last night.

  The architecture of Babs’s building was Spanish. A terra-cotta roof extended over a tawny stucco exterior. Thick vines of ivy hung from above the roof and swung lazily in the breeze. The door was framed by concrete-colored bricks that followed the entrance and met in the middle, kissing a keystone that sat at the top of the arch. To the left of the archway, a marigold tile set in mortar displayed the house number.

  I passed into the courtyard and scaled a staircase of glossy Spanish tile to the second floor. Only one door had a number on it: four. I clapped the brass knocker twice. When the door went unanswered, I rapped knuckles against it. Was today like last Monday, when Babs was still sleeping off an alcohol binge from the night before?

  I peered inside the window to my right. The front door opened and Babs leaned out of the doorway. She looked the opposite direction, toward the stairs, to see who had come knocking on her door.

  She wore a sheer duster over a long satin nightgown that ended above delicate feet with a perfect fire-engine-red pedicure. Marabou trimmed the collar and sleeves of her duster. Aunt Millie had left a similar one hanging in the closet at the apartment. Babs’s thick red hair was tousled, parted on the side, and falling over one eye. She held a Bloody Mary with a stalk of celery in it. Ice clinked in the glass as she turned away from the stairs and spotted me standing by her windows.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  It was a fair question.

  I held out her scarf. “You left this at the Waverly House when you were there with Phil Girard,” I said.

  “And let me guess. You’ve been appointed the head of the lost-and-found department and you’re an overachiever.” She reached out and took the scarf from me.

  “I’m Poly Monroe. I’m friends with Genevieve Girard, and I know you were having an affair with her husband before he was murdered.”

  She made a show of looking at the back of her wrist as though checking a watch that wasn’t there. “It’s a little early for blackmail, don’t you think? Besides, Phil’s dead. I hardly think our relations matter much anymore.” She pulled the celery stalk out of her glass and took a long drink.

  “Can we talk?” I asked, stepping forward.

  “No.” She stepped backward and shut the door in my face.

  That hadn’t gone well.

  I hadn’t traveled out here not to get information. I raised my hand and knocked on her front door again. “Ms. Green, it’s important. Please.” I waited about thirty seconds, and then turned away from the front door and returned to the windows. They were pushed up, with only a screen in place. Currents of air circled around the small second-floor landing, pushing her pink sheers inside for a moment. I pressed my face up against the screen and scanned the room. A secondhand sofa, a cart topped with full bottles of booze, and a coffee table covered in magazines filled the left-hand side of the room. On the right, a shiny baby grand piano sat unattended. I heard the refrigerator door open, a can pop open, and the sound of something being poured. Seconds later there was a thud, followed by the sound of glass breaking.

  “Ms. Green? Are you okay?” I called through the window.

  She cursed. “Can you come in here and help me? I’m surrounded by glass.”

  I entered her apartment and passed a row of open garbage bags before passing through her living room, and then into her kitchen. She sat on the floor surrounded by the tipped contents of a cobalt-blue recycle bin. She held one hand to her head and the other out front.

  “What happened?”

  “I tripped over the recycle bin and hit my head on the counter,” she said.

  I scanned the mess of tomato juice cans and glass water bottles that had spilled from her recycle bin. At least one of the bottles had broken, and the shiny green shards of a Perrier bottle covered the floor around her. Blood dripped from her hand. I helped her to her feet, turned on the cold water, and held her palm under the spigot.

  “Do you think there’s any glass in your hand?”

  “No. I cut myself on one of the broken pieces on the floor.”

  I looked behind me and retrieved a pair of fur-trimmed slippers from under the piano. “Put these on,” I said, and handed them to her. Once she was shod, she reached for a broom and dustpan from next to her refrigerator and swept the mess into a corner. As she emptied it into a plastic shopping bag and knotted the top, I scooped a handful of ice from her otherwise empty freezer, wrapped the ice in a white dish towel, and held it out to her. She traded me the ice for the bag of broken glass. She pressed the ice against the lump on her forehead and I carried the bag of broken glass to the other bags of trash in the hallway. When I turned back, I watched her pour a can of tomato juice into a tall glass.

  “I’m sorry about the mess. I haven’t had the energy to take the trash out all week,” she said. She bent over and scooped several cans and bottles back into the recycle bin and then rinsed her hands under the water again. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose was red. “You really want to talk about Phil? Maybe I need to talk about him.” She turned away and I followed after her flowing marabou duster. “Have a seat.” She gestured toward the worn sofa.

  I sat on the end, resting on the front half of the cushion. She waited until I stopped fidgeting to ask again what I was doing there.

  “I’m Poly Monroe. I’m new to San Ladrón—”

  “Polyester. You’re the one who inherited the fabric store on Bonita,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Why are you here? To judge me? To vilify me for being the other woman? I’m sure that’s what most of San Ladrón is saying. At least I’m sure the women are.”

  I considered how best to proceed. Truth was, I hated that she’d been helping Phil to cheat on Genevieve, but I knew it took two people to cheat. I also knew I was there to try to learn something. “Ms. Green, Phil was picking up fabric for me from Los Angeles the morning he was murdered. I’m trying to understand how this happened, so I guess that means I’m trying to understand what he might have been involved in.”

  “I thought he was getting supplies for his wife’s tea shop?”

  “He was. We both had things that had to be picked up from the city.”

  She tucked her chin for a moment and ran her fingers over her eyes. When she looked back up at me, a fresh tear trickled down her cheek. She let it ride the contours of her face until it dripped from her chin and landed on her sheer robe, leaving a dark wet spot on the silk.

  “No one will ever believe this, but I loved Phil. I knew he was married and I knew he would never leave his wife. I didn’t want him to. But he was a kind man who understood me. He accepted my act, my public persona, but he saw who I really was and he treated me like a lady . . . at least until Sunday.”

  My mind flashed to the garter belt Charlie had found in Phil’s car. “What happened on Sunday?”

  He
r hand quivered as she took another sip of her drink. “He told me he reserved a room in Los Angeles. I reminded him that I had two shows booked Sunday night. I thought—hoped—that he’d wait until after my shows and we could drive to Los Angeles together, but he didn’t come to the theater that night. When I called him, he told me he’d made other arrangements, that he’d met someone else. I couldn’t believe it. The mistress—the exciting exotic-dancing mistress—gets cheated on with another woman.” She downed what was left of her drink.

  “Do you know why someone becomes the other woman, Poly?” I shook my head. “Because sometimes you take what you can get. And now I’m back to being alone. No companionship, no affection. The only things I wanted.” Her hand shook as she held her glass to her lips for another sip.

  “Is it true that you had someone from the theater drive you home Sunday night?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I overheard some people at the Villamere talking.”

  She waved her glass. “To be honest, I don’t remember much of Sunday. I’m afraid after I spoke to Phil, I found the companionship I sought in a bottle of champagne. I started drinking before my first show. My second show is a blur. I woke up here the next morning with my sleeping pills open on the nightstand. I must have taken some. There was a pot of coffee brewing and a blanket and pillows were on my sofa. My manager tells me one of the ushers drove me home, but he wasn’t here when I woke up.” Her voice shook as she talked, but instead of dropping her face into her hands, she raised her head like a queen and held herself proudly. I was surprised to feel her strength, that of a woman who has fought to make a reputation for herself, and now spends her time balanced between living up to that reputation and living it down. She set the empty glass on top of a straw coaster on the table and looked directly at me. “I should have crawled back into bed and slept it off.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t like leaving my car in public parking lots. It’s recognizable. People see it around town and they start rumors. I took a cab to the theater, but the manager wouldn’t let me drive home until we’d had our weekly meeting.”