Diane Vallere - Style & Error 03 - The Brim Reaper

by Diane Vallere

  “Table’s set. Wine’s open. Sinatra’s singing. I loaded a movie in the player. You’re good to go.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Chicken Florentine. Surprisingly, you had four packages of frozen spinach in your freezer.”

  “I like to rest the packages on my eyes when they’re puffy.”

  “Use the peas. You have a bunch of them too.”

  Eddie left me last-minute directions and left. I would have asked him to go out the back door in case Nick was early, but his VW Bug was in my driveway, so “covert” had more to do with having him take back roads. When the doorbell rang, I was more nervous than if I’d made the dinner myself.

  Nick stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a crisp white shirt under a navy blue blazer. The shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing traces of the tan he’d picked up during his last trip to Italy. His jeans were dark wash, his shoes were black wingtips. I looked back up at his face and his root-beer—barrel colored eyes scanned my outfit.

  “I brought dessert.” He handed me a small white box. It was cold. He leaned down and said, “In case I was wrong about you shopping for ice cream.”

  I turned my head to the side and caught his lips with mine. We stumbled backward until I was up against the hall closet door. I raised my right leg because the knob was jammed into the back of my thigh, and Nick reached down and ran his fingers along the underside of it.

  “We should eat,” I whispered between kisses.

  “I’m not that hungry,” he whispered back.

  In the end, we reheated the chicken Florentine in the microwave. Nick moved the coffee table and we set up a picnic on the floor of the living room. I turned off the stereo and started the movie.

  The title shot for Murder After Midnight, Hedy London’s most famous movie, filled my TV screen.

  Eddie might have delivered a perfectly respectable meal for my date with Nick, but he was making sure I remembered our secret pact.

  10

  Sunday morning I woke early and started the process of getting ready to work for Nick. I went sexy secretary: brown wool challis skirt suit nipped in at the waist, sheer blouse that tied at the neck, leopard print peep-toe pumps. My hair was pinned up in a French twist, and my eyes were shaded with large framed glasses. I snapped on a pair of taupe leather driving gloves I’d bought in Italy three seasons ago, and kept them on until after I was inside the showroom.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Nick said. He wore a chocolate brown suit—more dark chocolate than milk chocolate—with a crème turtleneck underneath. He looked like James Coburn in Our Man Flint. He flashed his smile and the similarities grew stronger.

  “Put your stuff down on my desk and join me. I want to go over what we have to get done this week. I know you might be worried about fingerprints based on your recent work history, but you don’t have to wear gloves around the showroom.”

  I went to the office in the back and stuck my tongue out at him while taking off the gloves. I pulled a steno pad from a drawer and tested three different ballpoint pens until I found one that worked.

  “You’re really not a morning person, are you?” he asked as I reappeared out front.

  “No.”

  He pushed a steaming hot cup of coffee across the white wooden table toward me. “I suspected as much.”

  I blew on the hot liquid and took a tentative sip, trying not think about the forty-five minutes he’d spent on second base last night. Not succeeding, just trying.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you expect from me?” I asked.

  “It should be pretty easy. I expect you to show up and help out. I expect you to not get involved in a murder investigation. If you can manage that, we’ll get along fine.”

  I glanced at Nick for half a second before looking away and focusing on the corner of his desk. Did he know about my agreement with Eddie? No. Eddie wouldn’t have said anything. Were the police so eager to talk to Eddie that they’d widened their circle of contacts and had reached out to Nick in order to find him? And what would Nick have said? If he was annoyed at my involvement, he sure was taking it in stride—

  “Kidd?” Nick snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Where do you go when that happens?”

  “What? I was thinking.”

  “I have to say I’m impressed. I wasn’t sure you’d be here on time.”

  “I already told you, when I’m working for you, that’s it. No extra perks. In fact, I think maybe we should take a break from each other.”

  “Did something happen last night after I left?” He looked concerned.

  “No.” Well, yes, I ate a good portion of the ice cream he’d brought, but I didn’t think that’s what he meant. “If I wasn’t starting to work for you today, I wouldn’t have asked you to leave last night.”

  “I don’t remember you asking me to leave.”

  “What I mean is, I would have asked you to stay.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “I can’t be your girlfriend and your showroom manager. It feels too—dirty.”

  “Dirty?”

  “Dirty. Like I’m taking money from you and I’m …”

  “But you’re not. We’re not.”

  “But we could be. But this way we won’t. See why it’s important for us to take a break?”

  “Kidd, if I had any idea this would be the first conversation we’d have on your first day, I would have rethought the job offer.”

  “Not for good. For Monday through Friday.”

  “On a break from Monday through Friday. I guess I can handle that.”

  “So you’re not mad? I asked, leaning forward. “I thought you might be.”

  “I’m not mad. I’m glad you’re taking this seriously. We have a lot of work to do this week, and maybe your plan will help us both focus.”

  “Good.” I uncapped my pen and lifted the steno pad, ready to make my to-do list for the week. “Okay, boss, what’s my assignment?”

  “We need to get this place ready for appointments. Shelves up, visuals ready. Samples should arrive by Wednesday or Thursday, and I’ll need line sheets before I can book appointments. Right now it’s my chicken scratch in a notebook.”

  “You have costs?”

  “Initial costs. We have to land them and calculate markup.”

  “Sixty?”

  “Fifty-five. I’m keeping tight margins on my first collection so I’ll have a competitive edge against the rest of the assortments out there.”

  “What about inspiration boards? Leather books?”

  Nick stared at me. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look angry. I didn’t know what his expression said.

  “It’s been a long time since I worked with someone who knew what she was doing,” he said softly.

  “It’s been a long time since I felt like I knew what I was doing,” I admitted.

  The longer the silence between us grew, the more I sensed Nick’s internal struggle. He needed me. He needed my expertise. He needed my ability to get the job done.

  And I needed his paycheck.

  “Kidd,” he started.

  “Maybe when we’re in here you should call me by my first name?”

  “Samantha,” he said.

  The sound of his voice saying my name was like melted chocolate being poured over cookies hot from the oven. It was hot, sweet, and did little to underscore the professionalism of our situation. Quite the opposite—I found myself wondering what it would feel like to steal third base in the stockroom.

  “No, I was wrong. You call me Kidd and I’ll call you Taylor. Unless you want me to call you Mr. Taylor. No, scratch that. Let’s just leave things the way they are, okay?”

  I was interrupted by the sound of a woman clearing her throat.

  Nick stood up and went around the partition to the front door. “May I help you?” he asked.

  “I should think so. Mr. Taylor, I presume?”

  “Yes, I’m Nick Taylor.”

&n
bsp; “I’m Hedy London.”

  I sat up straight in the chair. The steno pad and pen dropped to the floor. I bent to pick them up, and when I sat up again, Nick and Hedy London were standing in front of me. Her hair was more gray than blonde, and her frame held a few more pounds around the middle, but otherwise there was no mistaking that I was in the presence of a film star.

  The first thing I should have noticed was the long feather that stood a good twelve inches higher than her head, barely piercing the band on the ginger-colored cloche she wore. A lavender double-faced wool jacket, nipped in at the waist, and a pencil-thin, cordovan leather skirt that ended at her knees completed her ensemble. I had to admire the fact that, at her age, she was perched atop three-inch heels. I also had to admire the beautiful brown alligator pumps that she was perched on. Those shoes had cost several thousand dollars. Even if she had bought them on sale. And Hedy London did not appear to be the kind of woman who bought anything on sale.

  “Ms. London, this is my—” Nick’s expression changed as he decided how to best introduce me.

  I stood up on my leopard-print peep-toe pumps and adjusted the hem of my jacket. “I’m Nick’s showroom manager, Samantha Kidd.” I held out my hand and she shook it.

  “Hedy London.” She looked around Nick’s showroom. It was far from ready for appointments, even further from ready for a visit from a living legend. I was curious why she was there on a Sunday morning. Judging from the look on Nick’s face as he watched her take inventory—or the lack thereof—I could tell he hadn’t been expecting her.

  “I expected you to have samples,” she said.

  “Ms. London, may I offer you something? Latte, cappuccino?” he asked.

  She turned to me. “I’ll take a no-foam latte.”

  I looked at Nick. Was there a Starbucks around here that I didn’t know about?

  “Samantha, the espresso machine is in the back. Ms. London, please have a seat.”

  Great. Was it my fake chicken Florentine skills that had Nick thinking I knew how to make a latte?

  I stared at the giant black machine. Elaborate dials with numbers on them, silver switches, and handles for small pots of coffee grinds had this thing looking like a prop from a Steampunk movie. The country-wide success of gourmet coffee shops should have taught the world one thing: coffee drinks were meant to be ordered, not made at home. And while I was back here launching bombs with this contraption, Nick was talking to Hedy London. About what, I didn’t know.

  I filled a demitasse cup with an inch of milk and microwaved it, then added another quarter cup of water. I added a glug of coffee for color, dumped a packet of sugar on top, and swirled a demitasse spoon around it.

  Good enough.

  I set the mug on a saucer and carried it out front. Nick and Hedy stood by the front door. She held out a hand, and her bracelet, heavy with thick gold charms, created tinkling rhythms. Nick held the door open and she left.

  “I thought she wanted a latte,” I said.

  Nick looked at me. “From the look on your face when she ordered it, I didn’t think you knew how to make one.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “No. Now, where were we?”

  “Excuse me. Hedy London just showed up at your showroom and you’re not going to tell me why?”

  “Sit down, Kidd.”

  I sat down. Not because he told me to, but because my left shoe was pinching my toes.

  “I’m having a small moral dilemma. My girlfriend likes old movies. In fact, last night, we watched a Hedy London movie. She’d probably like to know that Hedy London was just here. The problem is, I don’t think I’m going to talk to my girlfriend all week.”

  “If Hedy London wanted to talk to you about business, I’ll bet your showroom manager would like to know about it too.”

  “True. The problem with that is the nature of the business. She asked me to produce fifty pair of shoes for an exhibit at the museum—the same museum where a murder took place two nights ago. That my showroom manager specifically said she wouldn’t get involved in.”

  “I don’t want to split hairs here, but I think your girlfriend was the one who said that.”

  Nick leaned back in his leather chair and stared at the ceiling. His hands were folded across his waist. Every once in a while his eyes narrowed and the crinkles by the sides of them deepened. It was like he was having his own internal conversation.

  “She’s lending her collection of costumes to the museum, right?” I asked. “And Eddie said she entered a licensing deal for a millinery collection. What’s she going to do with fifty pair of shoes?”

  “She has something special in mind for the gala. Fifty models dressed up as her from Murder After Midnight. At the opening of the exhibit, she wants to flood the museum with look-alikes: fifty women dressed and styled like her most famous character.”

  Milo Delaney was going to produce fifty hats, and she needed Nick to produce fifty pair of shoes. I wondered who was going to supply fifty matching suits on such short notice but didn’t ask. That, it appeared, wasn’t my problem.

  “I’m going to need to count on you to get this place in shape. I have to call in some favors to get these shoes produced. With any luck we’ll be knee deep in chocolate brown pumps by the end of the week.”

  A slow anxiety climbed my spine. “How are you going to get fifty pair of shoes here by Thursday?” I asked.

  “Before I licensed my own label, I was the creative director at Ignottia.”

  “The Italian footwear house that produces most of the shoes on the runways?”

  “Yes. Most designers don’t want the shoes to take away from their clothes, so they pick one or two styles, and all the models wear versions of the same style. Half the time those shoes aren’t even produced. Ms. London was at Ignottia last month and saw the shoes I did for a collection last year. If I can call in a favor at a factory, they’ll slot me in the production queue and overnight the inventory.”

  “That’s a borderline impossible deadline.”

  “Kidd, this order would solve a very untimely cash flow problem. I’m going to do whatever I can to make this happen.”

  “Where are the clothes coming from?” I asked out of curiosity.

  “I gave Hedy the name of a designer.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You remember my friend Amanda Ries, don’t you?”

  Yes, I remembered Amanda Ries. Up-and-coming fashion designer-slash-college friend of my boyfriend-slash-boss. She could be the nicest person in the world for all I knew. Our face-to-face encounters had been few and far between. What I knew was that she and Nick had the kind of special friendship that transcended girlfriends and murder investigations.

  Fine, I thought. We’d just established that favors for really close friends weren’t subjected to rules.

  Things were looking good for Eddie.

  11

  While Nick was off doing whatever it was he did with Amanda Ries that I was going to pretend fell under the umbrella of shoe designer and not boyfriend-on-a-break, I got to work.

  First things first: I called Eddie. He answered after three rings. I heard Devo playing in the background.

  “About time you called. How was your date?”

  “What? Oh, you mean dinner. It was good.”

  “I know dinner was good. I made it. I’m talking about the movie. Notice anything?”

  “I was a little distracted,” I said. “But that’s not why I called. You’re not going to believe who just came to Nick’s showroom.”

  “Who?”

  “Hedy London.” I waited for a response. None came. After a few seconds I said, “Hello? Are you still there?”

  The music in the background turned off. “I’m either delirious or distracted. I could have sworn you said Hedy London came to Nick’s showroom.”

  “I did. Just walked up to the door and waltzed in. She ordered a bunch of shoes from him. Something about having fifty models dressed like her char
acter in Murder After Midnight at the gala. Do you know anything about this? Did Christian or Thad mention it?”

  “First I’m hearing. Is he there? Can I talk to him?”

  “No, he’s not here, and no, you can’t talk to him. You know about our agreement.”

  “So where is he?”

  “Off meeting with Amanda Ries.”

  Eddie whistled. “You’re showing a nice level of maturity here.”

  “It’s my day for personal growth.” I leaned back on the desk and scoped out the showroom. “There’s about four hours of work here that I can kick out in three. If Nick isn’t back by then, is there anything you need me to do?”

  “Can you get to Vera’s store? We’re still missing some of the hats, and Thad confirmed that she has them.”

  “Sure. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

  I hung up and started to type up Nick’s line sheets. A few formulas in an Excel spreadsheet made the project go quickly. When that was finished and Nick still hadn’t returned, I draped my jacket on the back of his chair, kicked off my shoes, and started on the display shelves.

  I found the power drill and a small package of wall anchors and screws, measured out the placement of the shelves according to Nick’s sketches of how he wanted the wall to look, and finished that project too. I borrowed a Handi-vac from the comic book store next door and cleaned up the resulting mess. By the time I finished, I was aware of two things: I was pretty darn good at hanging shelves, and I didn’t like the whole employee-not-girlfriend thing.

  I scribbled a note to Nick that pointed out the first thing, taped it to the inside of the front door, and locked up behind me.

  Over Your Head was located on Penn Avenue, across the street from a used record store and next to a nail salon. Penn Avenue was peppered with unique boutiques, art galleries, and the occasional medical supply store. The odd assortment of retailers combined to make a cohesive couple of miles of something out of the ordinary. The hat store fit in by being odd, not by being expected. I missed it the first time I drove by and had to double back. The second time, I spotted the black and white sign featuring a derby off to the side of the O in the logo. I got lucky with a parking space right out front. It was a couple of minutes past one o’clock.