Diane Vallere - Style & Error 03 - The Brim Reaper

by Diane Vallere

  Large bay windows were filled with stands featuring hats from a bygone era. Jewel-toned cloches with gently moving feathers and sparkling jeweled pins stood like soldiers on hat stands. The floor of the windows was lined in black and white vintage advertising paper, and the hat stands were all painted a shade of high gloss mint green. The windows were merchandised with turbans, pillboxes, and the occasional fascinator.

  I window-shopped the way Audrey Hepburn had at Tiffany’s, until a petite brunette in a mint green smock waved at me to enter. As I pushed the door open, it struck me that this tiny shop had modeled its interior after the kind of millinery shops you often saw in movies from the fifties. Sitting stations, more like vanities, painted the same shade of green as the hat stands in the window, lined the room. A plump woman admired her reflection in the mirror in front of her, while the brunette stood to the side, holding a backup selection for the customer to switch to next. Her red-rimmed eyes belied her pleasant disposition. I imagined her personal life had spilled onto the hours of the work day, but she was doing her best to remain professional.

  “Welcome to Over Your Head. I’m Vera. May I help you with anything today?” She sniffled quickly and ducked her chin to cover the action.

  “Thank you. I’m just, I’m—are you okay?”

  She pulled a monogrammed lace hanky out of a pocket and turned away from me, dabbing at her eyes. “I’m sorry. Family.” Her voice trailed off.

  I paused, unsure how to react. “I’ll just look around a bit,” I said awkwardly, wondering how many “lookers” they got in a day. I doubted many people ended up at a hat store by accident. “I saw your ad in the paper and wanted to see your selection of hats by Milo Delaney.” It was the first thing that popped into my head.

  “Of course. Right this way.” She handed a mother-of-pearl hand mirror to the woman in the chair. “I’ll be right back, Mrs. Willoughby.”

  I followed her to a locked glass case. She fumbled through a set of keys, found the one she wanted, and unlocked the case.

  “That’s not necessary,” I started to say, but she shushed me with a wave of the hand.

  “You can’t come into a hat store and not try anything on,” she pooh-poohed, and pulled a kelly green felt cap down from the top shelf. “You obviously have taste. The shape of this would be great on you.”

  Great taste notwithstanding, it was probably my interest in their most expensive vendor that inspired her customer service, not my outfit. I didn’t want to lead her on thinking she was about to make a sale. Though she was right, this green felt cap was darn near close to perfection. The price tag dangled in the breeze. Did that say $250? No. She was definitely not making a sale.

  She excused herself and went to check on Mrs. Willoughby, who it appeared had decided on not one but two hats. Vera escorted her to the register and tallied her sale before saying goodbye and returning to me.

  Despite her not-very-well-hidden recent tears, she chattered on in that expert manner of the best sales associates. “It’s one of Milo’s newest designs. He has such an eye, don’t you think? He’s going to be making an appearance here on Thursday for publicity. Would you like me to have him sign this for you?”

  “I thought you specialized in vintage styles. Milo is a current designer, right?”

  “Yes and yes. Vintage is our thing, but there’s a limited supply, if you know what I mean. Milo’s designs are inspired by past styles but are new. We can cater to two customers now, those who are interested in the historical aspect of the styles and those who want something that’s never been worn before. Are you a collector?” she asked.

  She placed her index finger by her check and rested her elbow on the other hand that was across her waist. She turned her head, looked at my handbag, and then stood straight and looked me back in the eye.

  “Not really. I’m helping on the Hedy London exhibit at the museum, and I’m here for the hats.” I handed the green felt hat back to her.

  Her face darkened for a split second, and then she put a hand to her chest. “I didn’t know anybody knew about that. I took them to the museum last night. Right now Milo’s is the best collection we carry, but we’re all looking forward to the ones from Ms. London. I’ve seen the samples, and they really are spectacular. Did Tradava negotiate an exclusive?”

  “I don’t know. You said you took them to the museum?” I asked. I saw the confusion in my reflection: my eyebrows scrunched, two small dimples on my forehead. I tipped my head back and tried to relax my expression but succeeded only in looking a little like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.

  Vera looked embarrassed. “I’ll admit, I was hoping to see what’s been done on the exhibit so far. It’s a great concept.” She dropped her voice and looked from side to side. “I would have liked to be more involved in it, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

  A delivery man pushed a wheeled cart piled high with boxes through the front door. He approached Vera. “I’ve got about twenty more of these in the truck.” He held out a black box on a cord and asked her to sign a small screen with a plastic stylus.

  “Bring the rest to the back, please,” she instructed the deliveryman. “I’ll let you in the stockroom door, right in front of the white Explorer.”

  My eyes darted to the boxes that were secured with shiny taupe packing tape. Small handwritten numbers in red marked a few of the corners. One box was punctured, probably from a not-so-gentle delivery. Bubble Wrap peeked through the opening.

  I looked away from the box to Vera’s face and caught her watching me. She tossed a striped tablecloth over the stack of boxes. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to leave. I’m closing the store early today.”

  12

  Vera turned her back on me. Apparently we were done. I left the store and sat in my car for a few minutes, thinking about our conversation. There was something missing. I was surprised at how much she’d known about Hedy London and how she’d reacted to my knowing about hats. She had admitted to being at the museum last night, and she said she had wanted to be a bigger part of the exhibit. A bigger part, she’d said. So what part had she played? What exactly did she mean?

  Before I pulled away from my primo parking space, I noticed a mom-and-pop pizza shop across the street. It was after two and I was hungry. I reasoned that I’d had a productive morning at Nick’s showroom and he would have called if he needed me. If I took a spare couple of minutes to grab a late lunch, he’d never be the wiser. I left the car for a second time and jaywalked across the street during a lull in traffic.

  The sign that hung above the door read J&D in crisp black letters underneath a Pepsi logo. Both sides of the sign were painted on thick plastic that had yellowed with age and sandwiched neon tube lighting that would serve as a beacon to anyone who needed a cheesy, saucy fix after the sun went down. The bottom corner of the plastic was broken off, and from the right angle I could look into the sign and see the neon tubes, along with a couple of dead flies.

  Chimes rang as I pushed the door open. A fat man in a white T-shirt, dirty white apron, and tomato-stained painter’s pants stood behind the counter.

  “Hiya, fancy. I was hoping you’d come in here. You working for the lady across the street?”

  “Working? No, I’m a customer, I guess.”

  “The way you’re dressed, I thought you were a model for one of her events.”

  I looked down at my brown blazer and skirt and realized how out of place I probably looked, especially in the middle of a pizzeria.

  “There’s been a lot of activity over there lately,” he continued. “Trucks coming and going, boxes being delivered, trash being hauled away.”

  “Is that normal?” I asked. I studied the fat man’s face.

  He put his thumb on the bottom of his jaw and stretched his index finger out along his chin as if stroking an imaginary beard. “Not normal, not to me. It’s only been a couple of days now, maybe a week. Last Thursday we couldn’t fit our trash in the Dumpster because she filled the thing u
p with that packing stuff—”

  “Bubble Wrap?”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “I made the guy turn on the compactor and the plastic popped like a firing squad. The girl in the record store next door called the cops before she knew what was going on. Reported hearing gunshots. She was pretty embarrassed when she learned it was Bubble Wrap in a trash compactor.”

  “Can you tell me anything else?”

  He dropped his hand and crossed his arm over his chest. “Why you asking so many questions? Don’t you want to order something?”

  “Oh, yeah, right. Can I get a large round with extra cheese? And do you mind if I wait at the table by the front window?”

  I sat at the table and watched Vera’s store while I waited. Nothing unusual happened. But Vera Sarlow was connected to the hat exhibit, I knew that for sure. The information from the talkative pizza man only added to my hunch. She was hiding something, and I needed to know what it was. Problem was, I didn’t know how to go about finding out.

  The pizza man brought the pizza to my table. I asked for extra oregano and tore a piece of the crust off the slice while I let the rest of it cool. I ate two slices and watched the storefront, hoping to catch Vera up to something. The only thing I caught was another employee who set a wooden tent sign in front of the store. I asked for a to-go box and packed up what was left, carried it across the street, and looked at the tent sign. It advertised the upcoming appearance of Milo Delaney on Thursday afternoon. I put the pizza on my passenger-side seat and drove back to Nick’s showroom, full of pizza, thirsty for soda, and hungry for answers.

  Nick was busy answering e-mail when I walked in.

  “Hey, boss,” I said lightly. “Sorry I had to step out for a bit. Something personal came up. How long have you been back?”

  “Couple of hours. You might want to tell me now if you plan on having issues with timekeeping.”

  “Nope, no issues here. This was a one-time thing.” I sniffed the air, immediately recognizing the scent of cured lunchmeats.

  “I ordered us hoagies from B&S. I hope you don’t mind, but I ate without you. I didn’t know you’d be gone so long. Yours is on my desk next to the bag of chips.”

  Two comments about how long I’d been gone. I could hardly tell Nick that I’d been out at Vera’s store looking for info for Eddie, not after I’d practically cross-stitched my work ethic onto a pillow so he’d take me seriously.

  “Thank you. I’m going to get a little more work done first. Besides, I’m not really hungry.”

  I walked past him to the desk, where a sandwich was wrapped in white butcher paper. On the outside was magic marker that said hard roll, no tomatoes, extra oregano. Darn Nick for knowing exactly how I liked my hoagies.

  I set my handbag on the corner of the desk next to a dog-eared spiral-bound sketchpad. I flipped it open and thumbed through drawings of shoes. A lined sheet of paper with a bullet-pointed list fell out onto my lap.

  Milo, London, Collectors, Amanda, Shelves, Line sheets

  The last three items had been circled in red. The last two were crossed out in green. Nick had gone to see Amanda, so was this a new item on his list? Or had he failed to cross her out?

  And since when was that the biggest concern I had?

  I looked again through the sketchbook filled with drawings of the kind of shoes that would make Cinderella’s sisters green with envy. A few sketches he’d doodled on cocktail napkins and scrap paper had been stapled to blank pages with notes. I’d watched him do this before, when we were out for business dinners. He’d see a detail—an orchid as a centerpiece, or a particular pinstripe on a man’s suit—and get an idea. He’d sketch it out on whatever surface he could find. More often than not those spontaneous design ideas turned into his best sellers. I’d secretly cherished knowing I was there when inspiration had struck.

  I flipped back to the list and ran my finger over the words.

  “What’s up, Kidd?” he said from the doorway behind me.

  He startled me into enough of a jump that I knocked the bag of chips onto the floor. I stooped to pick them up and then stood up quickly when I became aware of the butt-side view I’d given him.

  “Nothing. Sorry. Where were we?” I asked.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  “I’ve never known you to turn down a hoagie. What gives?”

  “I’m trying to eat better, that’s all. You know, salads and fruit and stuff.”

  “Really,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “Really.”

  “You didn’t stop off for lunch somewhere, like maybe at a pizza place?”

  “Are you having people spy on me?” I asked angrily.

  “There’s a tomato sauce stain on your lapel.”

  I looked down at my chest. A telltale stain had blossomed across the brown fabric. I looked around the desk for a napkin but saw none.

  Nick held out a box of tissues. “It’s no big deal, Kidd. I just didn’t know.”

  I wiped at the stain and then gave up and took off my jacket. “What’s my next job, Boss?”

  “Set up a meeting with Milo Delaney to see the samples.”

  “You know him?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen him around the trade show circuit and at a couple of industry banquets. Do me a favor? Bring me the notes I left out front.”

  I went to the desk by the front of the showroom, found pages of notes in Nick’s handwriting, and returned to the back office.

  “Thanks. See you tomorrow,” he said, and hung up. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He had taken off his suit jacket, and the cuffs of his shirt were folded up twice, exposing his tanned forearms. I looked away to the four-foot square painting I’d hung earlier, an abstract lime green canvas that popped against the otherwise white walls of his showroom.

  “Who are you seeing tomorrow?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “Milo.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of handling this on my own.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “I figured since there was so much to get done around here, we’d divide and conquer. I’ll go to Milo, you do your stuff. Call London, visit Amanda.”

  He ignored my mention of Amanda. “As it turns out, you got more done than I expected.” He leaned across the desk and put his hand on top of mine. A rush of heat went through my body. I pulled my hand out from under Nick’s.

  “Don’t make me threaten you with a sexual harassment case,” I joked, and stood up. “I’m going to keep working on the line sheets.”

  When he didn’t say anything I turned around and headed back to the front of the store to proof the line sheets I’d typed up. We didn’t talk until the end of the day.

  Nick stood in my doorway. His expression looked strained. “I’ll meet you at Milo’s at nine tomorrow morning. Here’s the address.” He held out a piece of paper.

  “Fine.”

  “And do me a favor. If you want to avoid the sexual harassment situation, skip the sexy secretary look. It’s a little distracting.”

  Logan met me by the front door. I dumped my handbag on the chair and scooped him up from under his belly. As I scratched his ears, I called out for Eddie. “Honey, I’m home!”

  Eddie emerged from the kitchen.

  “What do you want to eat? I can go hamburgers or hoagies.”

  “Dinner’s done. Steamed chicken and brown rice.”

  “Is that some kind of a joke?” I asked, looking past him to the table.

  The table was already set, complete with already-filled wine glasses. Eddie handed me one. “You started working for Nick today, and I’m in the middle of avoiding the police. Figured we could both use some power food.”

  I couldn’t speak for anybody else, but what I really could use was the leftover pizza.

  “You still haven’t called Detective Loncar back?” I asked.

  “I’ll do it tomo
rrow. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him, about taking the hat and not calling him back.” He buzzed around while I talked.

  “The longer you wait, the worse that conversation is going to be.”

  Within minutes we sat at the table with plates of beige food in front of us. Logan meowed, caught up in the excitement. He got a piece of my chicken, cut into small cat-bite sized pieces

  “I went to Over Your Head today. The woman who runs it is Vera Sarlow. Short, brunette woman. Kind of compact. Emotional. A little shady. You know her?”

  “Nope, not familiar. Sounds like you have her pegged as a suspect.”

  “She knew about the Hedy London collection. She said something about wanting to be involved.”

  “From what Thad told me, a lot of people wanted to be involved. Volunteers came out of the woodwork, but Dirk refused any outside help. He said he was risking his store’s performance and bottom line by being involved, and the only way he’d continue to do so was if the entire thing was kept under wraps.”

  I nodded. “What about you? You said you won some kind of contest and doing this was the prize.”

  He set down his fork. “That’s just it. I won the contest for designing windows. Dirk wasn’t exactly amenable to my talents. He wanted me to do grunt work. You know, move this mannequin here, move that pedestal there.”

  “The stuff you wanted me to do.”

  “That’s different, dude.”

  “Whatever. So was Dirk planning to shuttle his staff in from Philly?”

  “Philly’s thirty miles from here, so that’s a big nugatory. It was the museum staff and me, and if he could have booted me out, he would have. The Tradava tie-in kept me there. What did this woman do to get you so twisted?”

  “We were talking about Milo Delaney. She carries his hat collection. A driver showed up with a large delivery. The boxes were all marked like the boxes at the museum, and one of the corners had Bubble Wrap peeking out from them. It seemed suspicious.”