A Disguise to Die For

by Diane Vallere

  “Yep. Craziest thing I ever saw. It’s like somebody was playing a practical joke on her. Everything was temporary. No permanent damage.”

  “Except that I don’t know a lot of practical jokers who would write the word Murderer on her car hours after a dead body was found.”

  “True, that.”

  “Is there anything else that you noticed?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

  “There’s one more thing, but this is between you and me.”

  “What?”

  “I found an envelope of money under the seat. A lot of money. Hundreds in an envelope. When I asked Ebony if she knew anything about it, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. But then she took it and said she’d been looking for it. She took the bills out of the envelope and tossed the envelope in the trash.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He reached under the counter and pulled out a cream-colored envelope with the letters BM embossed on it. “This is the envelope and those are Blitz Manners’s initials.”

  I relaxed. “Blitz hired her to coordinate his birthday party,” I said. “That was probably how he paid her.”

  Dig turned the envelope over and showed me a smear of something red on the back. “So then you want to tell me why it has somebody’s blood on it?”

  Chapter 23

  THE SMEAR ACROSS the back of the envelope could have been a lot of things: ketchup, barbecue sauce, hair dye, or, yes, blood. And considering where it was found and who it had come from, the obvious answer wasn’t that Blitz had been eating a plate of ribs without a napkin before he’d been killed.

  “Dig, did you tell anybody about this?”

  “No, and you can’t either.”

  “It’s not that simple. This is evidence,” I said.

  He snatched it back from me. “No it’s not. It wasn’t found in the fire hall, it was found in Ebony’s car. Nobody searched her car. It wasn’t part of the crime scene.”

  “Because I drove it away,” I said. “Maybe they would have searched it. We don’t know.”

  “It’s too late for that now. I detailed the thing after I finished cleaning up the exterior.”

  “Did she ask you to do that?”

  “Nope. It was on the house.”

  Depending on how thorough Dig had been—and I was guessing he’d been very thorough, considering how he felt about Ebony—he’d negated the principle that forensic science was based on: every contact leaves a trace. Because if there was trace evidence in her car, it had been vacuumed up and dusted off with a coating of Armor All.

  “This means she’s in trouble, doesn’t it?” he asked, waving the envelope back and forth like a fan.

  “Not necessarily.” I checked the time on my phone. I’d planned to go to Ebony’s house before opening the store. I needed to catch the next Zip-Two or I wouldn’t have enough time to make it back to Disguise DeLimit by ten.

  “Remember—not a word about this,” he said. He tucked the envelope into his back pocket and I looked away.

  The Zip-Two was filled with people on their way to work. All of the seats were taken. I stood by the doors about a third of the way back and kept myself balanced by holding on to a silver pole that protruded from the floor while I thought about this new information. According to Amy, Blitz and Gina had occupied the backseat of Ebony’s car at the party. So it wasn’t a stretch to think that Blitz could have had the envelope of money in his costume and that the envelope had fallen out. And continuing that train of thought, he could have gone inside and been confronted by someone—maybe someone who expected that very envelope of money—who killed Blitz for it.

  But who at that party would have expected Blitz to hand over twenty grand?

  There was Amy, who was noticeably angry at Blitz for cheating on her after a two-year relationship. A woman scorned was not to be taken lightly, and if she was angry enough, she could have snapped. But what did that have to do with the money?

  Then there was Octavius Roman, who had been burned by Blitz’s last-minute cancellation. There was no easy explanation for why he’d been at the party in the first place, and $20,000 would have been a significant amount to him to absorb for the loss of business, even if his insurance covered the broken pipe. Had he snuck into the party and confronted Blitz in the kitchen over the money? It’s doubtful someone would have questioned him. Just like Black Jack had said, anybody could have gotten into the party if they were dressed in the right costume. Who would have known if there’d been a stranger among us?

  Gina Cassavogli’s involvement had come out of left field. At first defensive over how I’d talked to Amy, I now knew that Amy had caught her with Blitz in the backseat of Ebony’s car. And hadn’t Gina threatened me with a lawsuit because her husband was an attorney? I wondered how that played into her master plan of having Candy Girls take over our business? I could hardly imagine that she’d want her activities with Blitz to become public knowledge.

  I hadn’t given much thought to Black Jack and Linda Cannon. Was it a coincidence that they’d been robbed days after Blitz’s murder? Or had someone, not finding the money on Blitz at the party, broken into their house looking for it? Or had it all been staged, a way to bury them under community sympathy instead of looking too closely at their possible involvement?

  The bus jerked to a stop. The sudden movement snapped me out of my thoughts. What was I thinking? I was so eager to find another suspect that I was practically accusing a family of murdering their son. But blood was thicker than water. I knew that better than most. Even though I’d moved away, at the first sign that something was wrong with my dad, I’d dropped everything and come back. And I’d stay as long as it took to make sure he was okay.

  I climbed off the Zip-Two a stop early and walked the rest of the distance to Ebony’s apartment. Her Cadillac was parked out front. I went around the back and knocked on the door that led to the kitchen. She answered a few seconds later, like she’d been close by.

  “Hey, girl,” she said. She wore a pair of faded denim bell-bottoms with patch pockets, platform sandals with cork soles, and a maize-colored shirt that was knotted at her waist. A long, tribal-looking scarf was knotted around her head. Ivory, who looked like little more than a dumped-out bag of cotton balls on the kitchen floor, sniffed her purple toenails. “What brings you here so early?”

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “Come on in.”

  I followed her through the back door to a small love seat out front. She paused when she reached the sofa. Ivory looked up at her and yipped, and she ran the palm of her hand over his puffy white fur.

  “I know about the twenty thousand dollars,” I said. Her head snapped up. First shock, then relief, and then an attempt to pretend she hadn’t reacted at all flashed across her face in pulses. “You must have dropped it when you were loading or unloading your car. I found it after you drove away on Monday. I have it—not with me, but it’s in the costume shop.”

  “You’ve had it all this time?”

  “Ebony, I don’t understand why you had it. You said Blitz didn’t pay you. But I talked to Dig and he told me he found the envelope with Blitz’s initials on it in your car. An envelope that had something dark and red smeared on it. And he told me how you took the money but threw the envelope out. What’s going on?”

  Ebony walked around the side of the sofa and sat down next to Ivory. He settled down on the cushion next to her and put his paws on her thigh.

  “Blitz told me he had my money. He said there was one thing he wanted for it. He wanted to know the truth about me and his dad. He didn’t give it to me. I found it in my car. After.”

  “After what?”

  “After he was murdered.” She looked down at Ivory, who looked up at her. For a few seconds, it felt like they were having a wordless conversation. I liked to think that Ivory was the voice of reason, tell
ing her to tell me what was going on. Perhaps he was, because when she looked away from him, she stood up and reached her hand down between the cushions of the sofa and pulled out a knife.

  “What is that?” I asked. I needed to hear her say it to confirm my worst suspicions.

  “It’s the knife that I had in the kitchen. The one I was about to use to carve the goose. When I saw Blitz’s body, I dropped it and it landed in the blood.”

  Her eyes were wide, the whites of them standing out against her coffee-colored skin. Her mouth was shaped like an O, which made her already-pronounced cheekbones stand out even more. Terror emanated off her in waves. Like a contagion, it made my throat restrict almost immediately.

  “Why is it here?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice calm.

  “I found it in the bushes behind my house. I don’t know how it got there, but I know it means one thing. Somebody planted it to make me look guilty.”

  “But if you were holding that knife, then it wasn’t the one used to kill Blitz.”

  She sank back down on the sofa, her hand wrapped around the handle of the knife. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. What’s gonna happen to me?”

  “Ebony, you have to calm down.” I leaned forward and put my hands on her wrists. The tip of the knife pointed down and poked me in the thigh. I moved my knees to the side. “Set the knife down here and tell me what happened.”

  She released it and it clattered to the coffee table in front of us. “When I went into the kitchen, I went straight to the oven to check on the goose. The oven is behind the kitchen island,” she said. “In the corner. I pulled the goose out and set it on the counter, and then I got the carving knife out of the drawer. When I turned back, I saw Blitz’s body on the floor. You came in and I dropped the knife. I was in shock.”

  “Then this knife should have stayed at the fire hall. Somebody else knew your fingerprints were all over it. They wanted to frame you. Where did you say you found it?”

  She stared at it as if hypnotized. “In the bushes behind my back door. Sitting among the leaves, like someone tossed it when they walked past.” She reached into the neckline of her tank and ran her fingers over her clavicle.

  “Why aren’t you wearing your medallion?” I asked suddenly.

  “I can’t find it.”

  The doors to Shindig opened and three uniformed police officers came in. One of them was Detective Nichols. I didn’t know the others.

  “Ms. Welles, Ms. Tamblyn,” Detective Nichols said, nodding at each of us. “Ms. Welles, I’d like for you to come with me so we can have a long talk.”

  The knife sat on the table in front of us. It was the only thing on the table, and if the detective looked down, she’d see it. There was no way to hide it without making my actions obvious.

  Detective Nichols looked down.

  When she looked back up, her expression changed. “Ms. Welles, do you want to tell me what that is on your coffee table?” she asked in a tight voice.

  Ebony looked at me. The strongest woman I’d ever met looked terrified. I put my hands on her shoulders and squared her so she was facing me. “Now, listen to me. Never fear, because Margo’s here. Nothing bad is going to happen on my watch. You got that?”

  “You got enough on your mind with your dad that you don’t need to be worrying about me too. I’ve gotten myself out of worse jams than this.” She tried to smile, but tears filled her eyes.

  “I will fix this,” I said. The tears were contagious and my own eyes welled up.

  Ebony turned to face the detective. “That knife came from the kitchen the day Blitz Manners was killed,” she said.

  “Am I going to find your prints on it?”

  “Yes. And I agree. I think it’s time we had a long talk.”

  The detective pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket and picked up the knife. She didn’t look at me. She gestured to Ebony, who stood and followed her out the front door, leaving Ivory and me alone inside of Shindig.

  Yesterday, Detective Nichols had brought my scooter to Disguise DeLimit and had acted like a normal, nice human being. Twelve hours later, here she was, carting Ebony away like a common criminal. What had happened in that short amount of time? Just last night she’d agreed to look into what I told her about Amy Bradshaw. Clearly, she hadn’t.

  I was shaking. There was one person who would know how Detective Nichols thought, and that person was Tak. As much as I didn’t want to make the call, I did.

  “It’s Margo. I’m at Shindig. Detective Nichols was here. She took Ebony away—” My voice caught and I coughed. I did not want him to hear how upset I was. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. I had a meeting this morning and I left early. What did Nancy say?”

  “Someone planted a knife at Ebony’s house and the detective saw it. She and Ebony left to talk. What does that mean? Is a talk just a talk, or is it worse? You know how this stuff works from working for the district attorney, right?”

  “Depends on what led Nancy to Ebony’s house. Right now she’s probably going to interview her, but if they left Shindig together, then Nancy has enough to hold Ebony overnight. After that, she’s going to need a warrant to make an arrest.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “She can only hold her for twenty-four hours.”

  Which meant if Detective Nichols was planning on arresting Ebony, she would need a judge to sign off on a warrant by tomorrow morning. Which meant I was going to have to find some answers tonight.

  Chapter 24

  “I DON’T KNOW what time I’ll be back in Proper, but stop by the restaurant when you close the store. I’ll try to meet you there,” Tak said. I couldn’t promise anything, so I thanked him and hung up.

  My efforts to navigate Proper City via the bus had left me at the mercy of its every-twenty-minute schedule, and from a glance at the clock, I saw that I was between twenty-minute intervals. Besides that, I was now the temporary caretaker of one fluffy white bichon frise. I found Ivory’s leash in a kitchen drawer and clipped it on, grabbed a bag of dog food, and then locked up Shindig behind me.

  By the time I returned to Disguise DeLimit, the store was twelve minutes late in opening. A woman in a flowy floral dress and cowboy boots stood outside, staring into the windows at the sailor and South Pacific costumes. I said hello and unlocked the store while Ivory lifted his leg on the front of the building. The woman stepped over the small puddle and followed me inside.

  I flipped on the lights. The stockroom door was open the width of one cat. Seconds later a guilty Soot appeared with Styrofoam pellets stuck to his whiskers. He took one look at Ivory, hissed, and ran upstairs.

  “I’m sorry I was late getting the store opened,” I said to the woman.

  “Time is such an abstract concept,” she said. “Five minutes here, five minutes there. Not a big deal.”

  I set Ivory behind the counter and prepped the register for a day of sales. The woman flipped through a rack of Hawaiian attire behind the window. She moved on to the picked-over wall of flapper dresses, and then to the display of clown clothes next to it.

  “Please let me know if I can steer you in a direction,” I called out. “I’m Margo, and this is my family’s store. Sometimes people like to wander and get ideas, and other times they know exactly what they want.”

  “I’m a wanderer,” she said. She let the sleeve of a brightly colored muumuu fall from her fingertips and looked at me. “I’m Willow. I just moved to Proper a few days ago, and I’m thinking about throwing a small get-together for a few clients. After I saw the photos from the other costume parties people have had on the Proper City website, I thought dressing up might be fun. Help break the ice.”

  I smiled. One of these days I’d meet the person who maintained the Get to Know Proper page on our website and I’d thank him or her. The pho
tos that residents submitted of their parties showed off some of the best costume concepts we’d ever thought up. No way was I letting Candy Girls be the only game in town.

  I welcomed the distraction of talking about costumes. After building a barrier out of clown shoes to keep Ivory contained, I gave Willow my full attention. “If you’re looking for costumes, you’ve come to the right place. We sell or rent. With rentals, there’s a refundable deposit. If you rent and decide to buy, you can. If you buy and decide you wished you’d rented, well, I can’t really do much about that after the fact.” I stopped talking long enough to realize that I’d just hit her with a lot of sales jargon in a short amount of time. “Have fun looking around. We just acquired the sailor costumes that you see in the window, and there’s lots of other stuff in the back stockroom.”

  Willow had a genuine look of curiosity about her. She pointed at the stockroom. “Anything back there that I don’t see out here?”

  Bobbie had mentioned the acquisition of ice cream shop uniforms, but I hadn’t come across them yet. Who knew what else my dad kept back there in the disorganized mess?

  “Aliens and G-men,” I said. “We just acquired a collection from a sci-fi collector in Area 51. There’s the usual, the little green men and some government-type outfits, but also some unique items that were handmade.”

  “Little green men! That sounds perfect. Is there any way I can see them?”

  I looked at the stockroom door. Tak and I had made a little progress, but I wasn’t comfortable letting a new customer get a behind-the-scenes look at the way we did business. Besides, there was the matter of the dead mouse that Soot had found, and the last thing I needed was for a customer to stumble upon one of those!

  “I was going to work on a display of them today. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll bring a sampling out front.”

  “Take your time,” she said.

  It occurred to me that a flowy floral dress and cowboy boots was a good outfit for someone who wanted to appear nonthreatening. Soot must have thought the same thing. He wandered into the shop and brushed his fur up against Willow’s ankles. She squatted and held her hand out for him to sniff. When he reached the same conclusion I had, he stepped forward and bumped his head into her open palm.