A Disguise to Die For

by Diane Vallere

  “Can you do cash?”

  I knew I could. But I also knew the cash was locked up in the safe, and besides, if I gave her cash, I’d have no way of knowing her identity.

  “How about a check?”

  She seemed less happy with this option. “Sure, okay. Can you make it out to ‘Cash’?”

  “I’m sorry, I need a name. I have to have a record of the sale, and part of that record is getting your name and contact information. It’s our regular policy.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” she said.

  “It’ll only take a second.”

  She reached up for the outfit on the hook. “I changed my mind. I think I’ll keep it anyway.” She threw the clothes and garment bag over her arm and left.

  The only explanation I had for her behavior was that she was guilty of something. Could that something be murder? Lover’s quarrel or jealous rage? Add in that she was planning on a morning of tennis the day after her fiancé had been murdered, and something was definitely rotten in the state of Denmark—or Nevada, as the case may be.

  I regretted not trying to match the square of torn fabric from Ebony’s car with the pants when I had them all in front of me. I pulled the fabric from my fringed pouch and looked at it. It was a nondescript plaid in shades of khaki, plum, navy blue, and brown, the same shades of her pants.

  In her haste to leave, she’d left the wig and glasses to the costume on the counter. I grabbed them and raced to the front door. A red Prius pulled away from the curb just as I reached the sidewalk. If she saw me waving the props at her, she ignored them. Her little red car turned right at the intersection on the corner, passing the bus that was letting off passengers.

  Proper City had established a public transportation route called the Zip. There were four buses in total, going by the simple names of the One, the Two, the Three, and the Four. They circled around the city between the hours of seven a.m. and seven p.m. and were driven by a group of retirees who liked having something to do with their time. The vehicles themselves were repurposed school buses, large and yellow.

  Ebony was one of the passengers who got off the Zip-Four. Today she wore a caftan and gold sandals. Her Afro was brushed out to its full dimensions, adding four inches of height to her already tall stature. By the time she crossed the street, I was on the corner. I threw my arms around her and she hugged me back.

  “What’s this about Jerry going out of town?” she asked.

  “He’s with Don Digby. They’re scoping out a sci-fi collection somewhere in the desert.”

  “You let him go just like that?”

  “They left while I was asleep.”

  “Those two are trouble when they’re together. They turn into thirteen-year-old boys.” She put her arm around me and we walked back to the shop. “Next question: what was Amy Bradshaw doing at Disguise DeLimit? Scoping out the competition?” she asked.

  “That woman in tennis clothes? You know her?”

  “Sure looked like Amy. Brown hair, button nose, about yay tall.” She held her hand up to approximate the customer’s height. “She works for Candy Girls.”

  “She wanted to sell her costume from yesterday.” I chewed my bottom lip. “She was wearing a giant heirloom diamond ring and she said it was from Blitz. She made it sound like they were engaged.”

  “If they were, it was a secret.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that she was in here trying to sell me her costume the day after Blitz was killed?”

  Ebony waved her hand back and forth. “I don’t spend time trying to understand half the people in this town. All I know is that Amy was the point person for Grady’s hustle party, if you can believe it. She can’t be more than twenty-two. What would a young thing like that know about the hustle era?”

  “I think you’re going to have to let that go.” I stared down the street in the direction that Amy’s little red car had gone. There was something off about her story, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Do you want to go inside for something to drink?”

  “No, I want to take care of this car situation. This is your idea of a tarp?”

  I nodded.

  Ebony inspected the taped joints of the Twister mats. “You didn’t do this,” she said. “This is precision work.”

  “That guy Tak stayed and helped me after I talked to you.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “Not really. I told him to leave but he wouldn’t. And he wanted me to call the police. And he took pictures of the glass before I swept it up. I think he was up to something.”

  “Or maybe he wanted to see you again,” she said. She reached under the wheel well and freed the duct tape. “Let’s see the damage.”

  Reluctantly, I helped her fold the Twister mats up so she could see the extent of the vandalism. The word Murderer had smudged under the tarp and was less legible than it had been when I first saw it. She reached inside the broken window and unlocked the door. Inside the car were a couple of empty cans of paint. More shards of glass were inside between the seat and the door.

  “Maybe Tak was right. Maybe we should call the police,” I said. “If this was random, they wouldn’t have sprayed that word on. This is related to what happened to Blitz.”

  “Margo, this attack connects me to that murder, just like being in the kitchen with a knife connects me. Three strikes and I’m gonna be out.”

  “That’s not how it works,” I said. “I know you didn’t kill Blitz, and that means someone else did. And someone else did this. Maybe those two things are connected. Did you think of that?”

  “Trust me, Margo. There are things that I don’t want to come out in public, and the only way to keep that from happening is to keep my mouth shut.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts until finding the one she wanted. “Yo, Dig? This is Ebony. I need a tow. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” She gave the address to the costume shop and said thanks.

  “Dig Allen is on his way. How about you go make me one of those smoothies you’re always drinking.” She pulled a brown vial out of her purse. “Put this in it. Lemon balm oil drops. Helps calm the nerves.”

  I left Ebony on the sidewalk and went inside and upstairs. Since my smoothie had landed on the sidewalk, I blended up enough for two people. By the time I made it back downstairs, Dig and his tow truck had arrived.

  Dig Allen was a bald black man who favored bowling shirts with the sleeves torn off, boxy black work pants, and a wallet on a chain that was hooked to his belt. He had a tattoo of Tweety Bird on one muscular biceps and an anchor on the other. He was half a head shorter than Ebony even if you didn’t count her Afro. Even though she was ten years older than he was, he asked her out every chance he got.

  Today Dig looked like he’d stumbled onto the mother lode of rescue fantasies. Not only had Ebony called him, but she needed him. He had a hand on the small of her back and was in the middle of offering to replace and balance all four of her tires—though only two were flat—when I returned.

  “Margo Tamblyn! Long time no see. You come here to tell Jerry to take it easy after his heart attack?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Is he listening?”

  “He’s somewhere along Route 66 chasing down government conspiracies and alien costumes.”

  Dig laughed. “That sounds like Jerry. How long do we have you for?”

  When I asked my boss, Magic Maynard, how many days I could take, he grumbled about finding a replacement before he could make a decision. My roommate, a former employee at one of the older casinos, had volunteered to step in for me while I was gone so my job wouldn’t go to someone else permanently. I hoped she was doing a good enough job to keep me employed when I didn’t return to work on Tuesday.

  “I have to go back soon,” I said, “but not yet. Not until I feel like Ebony and my dad are both going to
be okay.”

  Dig looked at Ebony with concern. “Margo’s got a point. You might need a man to look after you for a few days.”

  “Ain’t no man who can take care of me like I can take care of myself,” she said. “But I tell you what. You help me out with those tires and the removal of the paint and I’ll take you out to dinner to the restaurant of your choice. Within reason.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Dig said. He fumbled with something by the dashboard, and after a series of loud noises, the back of the truck tipped down. He freed a large hook and secured it under Ebony’s Caddy and then went back to the dash and did something else that made the hook retract. The Caddy resisted, but with enough force, finally lifted from the ground. By the time Dig was done with the process, the front two wheels of the Caddy were resting on the tilted bed of the truck. Sadly, this made it even easier to read the word that was painted on the car.

  “Will it be hard to get the paint off?” Ebony asked.

  “Nah, little bit of turpentine’ll do the trick. Besides, it’s still fresh. See?” Dig dragged his finger over the paint and left a streak through the M.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “I found the car like this around ten o’clock this morning. Spray paint dries in half an hour. Hour, tops.” I stepped closer to the car and looked in the window. The cans of paint had rolled to the far side of the car. I walked around and reached in and picked one up.

  It wasn’t a can of spray paint at all. It was a can of temporary hair color, like the kind we stocked in the costume shop.

  Chapter 7

  I TURNED THE can over in my hands. A small white price sticker on the bottom read CANDY GIRLS. I shook the can a few times and the ball inside clinked back and forth, the same way an empty can of spray paint might sound.

  “Ebony, didn’t you say Amy Bradshaw works for Candy Girls?” I asked.

  “Yep. Why?”

  I held the empty can up. “This isn’t paint, it’s hair spray. It’ll come off with a bucket of warm soap and water.” I pointed to the price tag. “It came from Candy Girls.”

  “What does that tell you?” Ebony asked.

  “Not much. We sell this stuff by the truckload. It’s one of the most popular everyday items. I bet they do too.”

  Ebony took the can from me and read the label. I had enough experience with the colored hair spray to know that you needed to spray it in short bursts, otherwise the nozzle would drip and the spray would get on your hands. The user of this can didn’t know that. The black spray had run down the label and spidered around it. Ebony looked inside her car. There was a black splotch on the middle of the camel-colored vinyl interior.

  She held the can up in front of her like Hamlet about to address a skull and said, “I’m gonna git you, sucka!” and then handed me the empty can. As long as she was quoting blaxploitation movies, I knew she was taking the vandalism in stride. Better than I was, all things considered.

  “I have to get back inside and open the store. Dig, do you have this under control?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He guided Ebony to the passenger side of his truck and opened the door for her. She looked back at me and rolled her eyes.

  I waited until after they’d driven off before digging out my phone. Maybe Ebony was okay with the vandalism in front of the store, but I wasn’t. I needed to talk to somebody I could trust, somebody who could tell me if the growing sense of fear was normal.

  Soot came out from the stockroom. He skulked across the floor and brushed up against my ankles. I sat down and stroked his fur.

  “Hey, Soot. Got a minute to talk?” I dangled my hand back down and he circled around and made another pass at my ankles. He lowered himself and stuck his paws out in front of himself like a sphinx, and then looked up at me and meowed, as if saying, The psychiatrist is in.

  “I thought it would be fun to help Dad and Ebony out with the party. I don’t even know if the two of them could have pulled it off without my help. But now the client is dead and the police think Ebony did it.”

  Soot licked his front paw a few times and then tucked it underneath him. I ran my hand over his dark gray fur several times and he started to purr. “I know I have a tendency to think that the worst will happen to the people around me. I think it’s because I’m so scared of losing my dad.” I stopped petting Soot for a moment and he looked up at me. “I think his heart attack shook me up more than I want to admit, but he needs me to hold myself together. So does Ebony.”

  Soot stood up and put his front paws on my knee. I bent down and butted heads with him.

  “This is a good opportunity for self-growth. Remember how scared I was when Magic Maynard first tried to saw me in half?”

  Soot meowed.

  “And that turned out mostly okay. This will too. I have to be strong for both of them. But do you mind if, every once in a while, we have a talk like this?”

  Soot bumped heads with me again and let out a small mew. I scooped him up and held him close for a second until he wriggled free. He dropped down to the floor and took off for the stockroom.

  I guess my time was up.

  But what really had happened to Blitz? Someone had killed him at his own birthday party. Who? And why? Sure, he’d been obnoxious, but that was hardly a reason to murder someone.

  There was a connection between Ebony and Blitz, or more accurately, between Ebony and his father. Blitz had alluded to it the day he hired us to put together his party. When I asked her about it, she hadn’t denied it. And when Blitz had used knowledge of that connection to get Ebony to do what he wanted, it had worked. He’d shown her that he had a power over her, a power he wouldn’t hesitate to use in order to get her to do what he wanted. I couldn’t help her until I knew what those secrets were and how damaging they would be.

  Sunday hours at the store were twelve to five. When no customers had entered by twelve thirty, I started a list of as many items as I could remember using in the detective costumes. Blitz’s short timetable had forced me to swipe parts of our existing costumes, and I’d need to get them back in order before being able to rent them out. First I listed the characters, and next to them, the items I’d used in each costume and where those items had come from.

  Kojak: man’s suit from ’70s, bald cap (general accessories), lollipop from candy store

  Columbo: trench coat from hobo, man’s suit from salesman, cigar (general accessories)

  Tom Swift: jetpack and goggles from steampunk, suspenders and knickers from chimney sweep

  Miss Marple: sweater and plaid skirt from ’50s sorority girl, glasses from ’80s accessories, sensible shoes from church lady

  And so it continued. It would have been nice to know who wore which costume, but I didn’t know many of the people who were invited. I’d spent more time appreciating the way the characters had mixed and mingled, and no time noticing the individual people under the costumes.

  It all went back to the way I felt about myself. I learned early on that there was something special about wearing a costume in public. People in costumes were friendlier, happier, less stressed. It wasn’t just something that I noticed with kids, but adults too.

  Growing up in the store, I’d had ample opportunity to play dress-up. Even after my dad stopped providing my school wardrobe from Disguise DeLimit’s inventory, I turned to our shelves for my accessories. When I was a teenager searching for my own identity, I found it in the characters who I dressed up as: cowgirl, tomboy, artist, mechanic. There was a costume to suit my every mood, and dressing up in character helped me identify myself and got me through the day.

  Maybe that’s why I hadn’t paid attention to the people in the costumes at Blitz’s party. What I remembered were clusters of people talking among themselves. Columbo talking to Veronica Mars. The Bob-Whites talking to Cherry Ames. Rockford flirting with Nancy Drew, who kept her eyes on K
ojak. Tom Swift and Miss Marple. Too bad I hadn’t paid more attention to the people under each disguise. The only person I remembered was Octavius Roman, who hadn’t bothered with a costume. I wondered briefly if that was significant.

  By twelve forty-five, I couldn’t stand the idea that I was trapped behind the counter for the next five hours. I found Kirby Grizwitz’s number where my dad said it was and called.

  “Kirby, this is Margo Tamblyn,” I said.

  “Hey, Margo. How’s Jerry?”

  “He’s recovering faster than anybody expected.”

  “Did he take off to go see those alien costumes?” he asked.

  “How’d you know about them?”

  “He’s been wanting to go check them out for months. He keeps asking me to take on full-time hours so he could get away.”

  “He and his friend Don took off Thursday morning. I don’t know when they’re coming back.”

  “That sounds like Jerry,” he said.

  “Are you calling with my schedule for the week?” Kirby asked.

  “Sort of. I know this is short notice, but can you work today?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. Come over as soon as you’re ready. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  * * *

  KIRBY arrived at the store a little after one. He went straight to the register and signed in on a time card.

  Kirby Grizwitz was a freckle-faced teenager who worked part-time at the shop. He was captain of the Proper City Prawns, the local high school swim team. He maintained a year-round tan from early-morning practices and lived in T-shirts from swim meets around the country. He had a typical male swimmer’s build: broad shoulders and lean muscles, which made him popular with the girls in his class, despite his obvious prioritizing of sports over dating.

  “Sure is crazy what happened to Blitz Manners yesterday,” he said.

  “How did you hear?” Kirby wasn’t known for being up on current events since he spent most of his time in a swimming pool.