“Those cops were a pain my butt,” he said. “They knew I didn’t want to talk to them. I didn’t have much of a choice. Cops make people nervous and my business runs on trust.”
Trust and pennies on the dollar. There’s a business plan.
“I’m Rudy. What can I do ya for?” he said. His hands came out of his pockets and he leaned down on top of a case filled with guns. I hadn’t noticed them earlier, and now the presence of so many weapons so easily obtained made me uncomfortable.
I started with a few basic questions. “If I understand correctly, the jewelry that was stolen from the Cannon residence came in here yesterday?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Did you know where it was from?”
“The day I start asking questions is the day people stop bringing me inventory.”
“When did you find out that it was stolen?”
“Last night. The cops showed up and asked me a bunch of questions.”
“You told them about the woman who brought the jewelry in. Did she give you a name?”
“No, but she didn’t have to. I described her to the police and they knew exactly who I meant. Ebony Welles, the party planner.”
“So you know Ebony—I mean, Ms. Welles?”
“Well enough. I told the police it was her and described the medallion she was wearing and that was enough for them to put two and two together.”
I reached out for the counter to steady myself. Ebony couldn’t have been wearing her medallion—it was sitting at home on my counter. If that was the clue that brought the police to her door, then I’d just found a way to prove that when you put two and two together, you didn’t always get four.
Chapter 27
“YOU NEVER SAW that medallion, did you?” I asked. Rudy stepped away from the counter. He didn’t answer right away. “Can you describe it?” I added.
“I have to make a phone call.” He went to the back. As soon as he disappeared, I took off out the front door. I’d gotten what I came for. Now I had to piece it all together and prove it.
* * *
EBONY had worn that necklace to the hospital on Tuesday. Several members of the staff had complimented her on it, and even Ivory had gotten his paw caught in the chain when we were at the rest stop. Probably, security cameras all over the hospital could verify it. When we’d returned from the hospital, she’d helped me carry the boxes from the trailer into the stockroom, and that’s where I found the medallion this morning when I loaded the dolly with boxes from the trailer and the wheels jammed up. It must have been there since Tuesday. Even better, I hadn’t been alone when I found the medallion. Willow, the new age therapist, had been there too.
So either Rudy Moore had encountered a different black woman who dressed like Foxy Brown and wore a gold medallion in his shop on Wednesday, or he was telling untruths to the police. But Amy Bradshaw had been the one to lead the police to him in the first place. Time to figure out why.
I drove from the pawnshop to Candy Girls, arriving around eight thirty. Only two cars sat in the lot: a black Lexus and a red Prius. The store’s sign, a giant neon lollipop, spun around in a circle next to a smaller illuminated rectangle that said CANDY GIRLS—SUGAR AND SPICE AND PARTY PLANNING. Under that, in italics, it said WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?
I parked my scooter in a well-lit corner of the lot and locked up my helmet. The lights inside the store went out and two women exited. One was Amy. She and the other girl parted ways. Amy locked up the store and headed toward the red Prius. I waited until the other car drove away before calling out to her—Amy, not the girl who had left.
She was startled at first, but relaxed when she recognized me. “We’re closed,” she said. “Come back tomorrow.”
“I’m not here for the store. I’m here to talk to you.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said. Her voice trembled with nervousness, not the defiance I had expected. She glanced at my outfit. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Like what?” I looked down at the security guard uniform. “I always dress in costumes from Disguise DeLimit. Everybody knows that.”
She appeared to accept that, though her expression said something about what she thought of my style.
“I won’t keep you long, but I have to talk to you. I know the pawnbroker doesn’t have proof that Ebony pawned Linda Cannon’s jewelry. You took that diamond ring in to his store, not Ebony. Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie,” she said. Her voice shook again, worse this time.
“Then you won’t mind telling me what you told the police.” We stood that way, facing each other in the middle of the Candy Girls parking lot, for a few more seconds. I needed to say something to shake Amy up, to either scare her into making a mistake or touch a nerve inside of her so she’d help me.
“I know you were the one to vandalize Ebony’s car. I found a scrap of plaid fabric caught in the car door. The pants of the costume you tried to sell me were torn. I also found an empty can of black hair spray from Candy Girls in the backseat, and I know it’s what you used to write Murderer on her car. Those things connect you to that. So far, only a few people know about the vandalism, and nobody knows about the piece of fabric, but I won’t hesitate to go to the police with it and show them that you’ve been trying to make Ebony look guilty since the day after the party.”
Under the glow of the blue neon sign, Amy’s pale face looked sick. Her eyes were wide, and dark circles under them made her look like she was wearing clown makeup to age her twenty-something face.
“Either you’re guilty or you’re covering for somebody,” I said.
Her face tightened up, and then her eyes filled with tears. She tipped her head back and the tears fell down the sides of her temples. When she looked back at me, more tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her fists, leaving smudges of eye makeup to further darken the circles that were already there.
“Nothing that I did to Ebony’s car was permanent. I told you, I caught Blitz with Gina in the back of that car. After I went and put together our Charlie’s Angels costumes, that’s how she repays me! I was so angry. When I found Blitz, we got into an argument.” She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve. “I left before he was killed. Later that night, when I saw the car parked in front of your store, I—I just snapped. I had the hair spray in my car and I just started spraying it.”
“Why did you write Murderer on Ebony’s car?”
“I didn’t! I sprayed the doors and the roof. And then I smashed empty glass bottles against the side. I was trying to break the window, but it didn’t break. The glass fell all over the sidewalk. I was afraid to walk over it, so I opened the back door and crawled through to the other side to get out.”
“How did the fabric get caught in the window?”
She cursed. “Why can’t you leave it all alone? The vandalism doesn’t have anything to do with the murder!”
“I think the police should be the judge of that,” I said. I stepped backward as though I were leaving.
“Wait,” she said. I turned back. She balled her fists up in the hem of her lime green T-shirt and twisted the fabric until it was stretched out. “I wanted it to look like the window was broken so I rolled the window down from the inside. The hair spray can fell out of my hand and I hung out the window to grab it. I didn’t know my pants tore, but they must have gotten caught on something—a piece of metal trim inside the car or something else sharp—I don’t know what. And then I tossed the cans in the back and I left out the other side. It’s the truth. I’ll tell the police. I promise. I will! I want this all to be over.”
“What about the flat tires?”
“I held the core of the stem in with a screwdriver. My brother taught me how to do that when I was a kid. I’m telling you the truth.”
It wasn’t the time to point ou
t to Amy that a broken window would have left glass inside the car and not outside on the sidewalk or to advise that the next time she uses hair spray to vandalize a car she should take the Candy Girls price tag off the can. Her story explained a lot of things, but not enough. If she hadn’t painted the word on Ebony’s car, then who had? And if Blitz had cheated on her at his party, why had she shown up at Disguise DeLimit the next day pretending they were engaged?
“Amy, where did you get the ring you were wearing when you came to my store on Sunday?”
Her fists dropped to her side and she looked at the ground. “I saw the ring at the pawnshop last week.” She glanced up at me as if to gauge if I was judging her or not. I kept as impassive a face as I could so she would continue. “That night, I asked Blitz about it. He said it couldn’t be his mom’s because that was her most precious possession from his real dad. I don’t know what happened on Friday, but Friday night he came over to my house and gave me something wrapped in several layers of tissue. He said he had just done the most important thing of his life and not to let anything happen to the package.”
“When did you look inside?”
“Sunday morning. After I heard the news. I knew he wasn’t coming back for it.” She hung her head. “Two years together—that’s a long time. Enough that he trusted me with that bundle. I had to see what it was, because I didn’t know if it was something that would get me killed too. When I saw it was his mom’s ring, I figured he bought it out of hock. I know it was wrong of me to put it on and act like we were engaged, but he wouldn’t have asked me to keep it for him unless maybe he thought that one day he really would give it to me.”
“Why did you leave when I asked for your name?”
“You were asking too many questions. I thought you somehow knew the ring wasn’t mine to wear and I didn’t want to get in trouble with Blitz’s family.”
“So when the Cannons were robbed on Monday, you talked to the police.”
“I had to. They thought the robbery on Monday was the first one. I was the only person who could tell them that the ring had been hocked sometime last week. I told them when I saw the ring at the pawnshop, and I told them that I told Blitz. I gave the ring back to Mrs. Cannon on Wednesday.”
“That’s why you acted so funny when I asked about it at the memorial.”
“I didn’t tell them that I wore it for a few days. Nobody knows that but you and me.”
I bit at my lower lip. “Amy, there’s just one thing I don’t understand. Why did you come to my store on Sunday?” If everything Amy was telling me was true—and it did have a note of authenticity to it—then showing up with her torn costume while wearing Blitz’s mother’s ring was a pretty dumb move.
“Gina wanted me to donate our costumes to Candy Girls. After she helped Blitz cheat on me, I wanted to make her mad. I knew it would drive her crazy if I sold it to you.”
I thanked Amy for talking to me and drove home. Back at Disguise DeLimit, I changed out of the security officer uniform and into my alien-printed pajamas. I sat at the kitchen table, staring at my clues. Piece of plaid fabric. Empty can of black hair spray. Twenty thousand dollars. And now Ebony’s medallion. Four things that told the story of who murdered Blitz Manners—or rather, who didn’t. Amy’s story explained away the hair spray and the fabric. They implicated her in the vandalism, but not the murder. I separated them from the money and the medallion so I wouldn’t consider them evidence. Amy had also said that Blitz got the ring out of hock on Friday. But the supposed robbery hadn’t taken place until Monday. Maybe I’d been right about someone had been stealing from Linda Manners all along.
I added a piece of paper to the table and wrote Columbo trench coat along the bottom. It was a clue that would have pointed the finger at Grady if I had it, but I didn’t. It had been incinerated along with everything else that came out of the fire hall after the party. That cleanup crew had made sure the crime scene could never be revisited.
I picked up the chain of the medallion and let it dangle from my fingertips. What had Willow called it? A talisman. Something that Ebony wore to give her strength. I didn’t have a talisman. I changed my accessories and my overall look the way most people changed nail polish. If it was true that a person’s identity could be gleaned from their personal style, then I was a lost cause. I put on and shed identities of fictional characters because they were easier to adopt than to look inside myself and identify what made me who I was. And here, it was Ebony’s talisman that poked a hole in the story that the pawnbroker had told the police.
I called Detective Nichols. “This is Margo Tamblyn. I have some new evidence in the Blitz Manners murder case.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” she said. “What do you have?”
“Ebony Welles’s necklace. She wore it all day on Tuesday when we were at the Moxie Hospital, and the chain must have broken when she helped me unload the trailer we brought back here. I found it in the costume shop this morning. The pawnshop owner said that a black woman with a medallion pawned the jewelry, but that’s not possible. Ebony didn’t have her medallion on Wednesday or today. He’s lying.”
“I think it’s safe to say that Ms. Welles might own more than one gold necklace,” she said.
“But this isn’t just any old necklace. It’s a talisman. She wears it everywhere.”
“Ms. Tamblyn, I can appreciate that you don’t want your friend to go to jail, but I’ve already taken the evidence to a judge and I’m expecting a warrant for Ms. Welles’s arrest to come through tomorrow morning. That means she stays in the county jail. And don’t worry too much about that necklace. We don’t allow inmates to wear jewelry.”
I was so angry I wanted to scream. “You’re going to let a killer go free because you’re too caught up in believing Ebony is guilty. What do I have to do to show you she’s not?”
“Ms. Tamblyn, I’d say we have a pretty solid case. I wouldn’t waste any more time if I were you.”
Chapter 28
“DO YOU HAVE anything else for me?” Detective Nichols asked.
I thought over the conversation with Amy. It had filled in a lot of blanks for me, but it wasn’t new information to the detective. “You’re holding the wrong person,” I finally said.
“I’ll take that as a no. Good night, Ms. Tamblyn.”
She hung up first. I set my phone down and laid Ebony’s necklace on the sheet of paper marked MEDALLION. That left the money and the trench coat.
The trench coat equaled Grady. What else did I know about him? He lived close enough to Blitz’s house that he could have gotten in to steal. He even could have used their friendship to gain entry without raising suspicion. I’d heard that both he and Blitz were big practical jokers. Had this started out as a joke? Steal a piece of jewelry and hock it—and then sit back and watch while the family freaks out? I didn’t understand the kind of games that these people would play, but as far as theories went, it felt thin.
And then there was the money. Dig had found it in an envelope in Ebony’s car, and the envelope had blood on it. That meant the envelope had been on Blitz when he was killed and somebody took it and put it in Ebony’s car. When? And was the plan all along to frame Ebony, or had her presence in the kitchen made her the easiest decoy?
Volunteering that Ebony had had $20,000 from Blitz after he was murdered would have raised a lot of questions. Some people might have claimed it was her motive. After Dig found it in her car, she must have moved the cash to a blank envelope. Maybe she was going to put it in the bank. Maybe she was going to hide it in her house. Maybe she was going to give it back to the Cannons. But she couldn’t do any of those things. Not while under suspicion.
But the money still didn’t make sense. Why had Blitz been carrying so much money at the costume party? His own costume party? Either it was the money he intended to pay Ebony with or he was planning on using it to pay someone off. But
for what? Ransom?
Maybe Amy was lying about how she came to be in possession of the ring. Maybe she’d been the one to steal it all along. And maybe, just maybe, she demanded money in exchange for its return.
Blitz liked to play the joker, the leader of the pack of prep school pretty boys, but I’d learned enough about him to know that under that façade was a guy who had been forever changed the day his real dad died. Sure, he had money to spare, but the one thing he couldn’t buy was the family he once had. That ring would have meant something to him, more than what it was worth. If someone stole it, he’d get it back, regardless of the price.
I thought it through. I had to follow the money. Blitz had the money at the party but it ended up in Ebony’s car. There’d been blood on the envelope, which told me the killer had moved the envelope from Blitz to the Cadillac. Whatever Blitz had planned to do with that money didn’t matter. Someone had used it as a diversion.
I picked up the phone and cued up redial. Would the detective believe me if I called her again so soon? Would she even take the call? I set the phone down. The last thing I needed was to annoy her while she was pushing to arrest Ebony. I didn’t know what would happen if a judge signed off on the warrant, but if a warrant was issued, I’d annoy the detective plenty.
I pushed concerns about Ebony aside to focus on getting the place ready for my dad to come home. The combination of Soot and Ivory running loose was like having to clean up after a pair of five-year-olds who’d been allowed access to a playground. Pillows had been shoved from the sofa thanks to pushy paws, and the bedspreads had been tugged off center thanks to sharp kitty claws. Litter had been tracked a few feet from the litter box, and Ivory had left a little surprise on the kitchen floor. Toys were strewn about, like the discovery of a new one meant ignoring the last. I walked from room to room, peeking under chairs and tables, rounding them up. Both animals lay in the middle of my bed, two feet apart. Soot’s head was propped on his paw. Ivory was upside down with his paws in the air. Neither had a care in the world.
A Disguise to Die For Page 22
