by Kylie Logan
I pushed the door open and stopped dead in my tracks. The bag with my turkey sandwich in it slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a splat.
Too stunned to move a muscle, I stared at the chaos, which reminded me of the chaos of the burglary.
The chaos I’d finally cleaned up and had under control when I left the shop not an hour earlier.
Like the hiccup of a bad dream, there were buttons spilled all over the floor. But this dream contained another grisly component—in the center of all those buttons, there was Kate Franciscus, dressed in skinny leather pants and an emerald green jacket that would have looked spectacular with her coloring—if she wasn’t so ashen.
That silver swan-head buttonhook I’d arranged so neatly on my door-side table only a couple days earlier was sticking out of her chest, and blood curlicued down her side and puddled on the hardwood floor.
My breath gurgled on the bile that rose in my throat, and I jumped back onto the sidewalk. But I didn’t get the door closed fast enough.
That was why Mike Homolka was able to get a couple dozen photos of Kate’s body and a couple dozen more of me, staring in horror and screaming like a banshee.
Chapter Four
“GOOD THING MANKOWSKI DOWN AT THE END OF THE street remembered me. Otherwise, I never would have been able to get near this place.”
I heard Stan’s voice just a nanosecond before a Starbucks cup appeared right under my nose. The unmistakable aroma of Caffè Misto streamed out of the little hole on the to-go lid, tickling my senses and coaxing me back to reality.
“Drink.” The cup was in my hand before I could respond, and Stan was looking at me over it. “I put plenty of sugar in it. You know, to help with the shock.”
Shock.
Now that he put a name to it, what I was feeling made sense: the numbness that coiled in my stomach and made my arms and legs feel as if they were made of lead, my clammy skin, the way my breaths were so fast and so shallow that I wheezed like I had a five-pack-a-day habit.
“Go on; take a sip.” Somehow, Stan understood that expecting me to accomplish something even that simple was akin to asking me to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He reached over, popped the lid off the coffee cup, and put a hand under mine to lift it to my mouth. “It will make you feel better, kiddo. I promise.”
I wasn’t sure anything ever could, but I knew Stan; he wasn’t going to let me off the hook. A sip, and I felt some of the tightness in my chest uncurl. Another, and I somehow managed to draw in a long, slow breath.
“There you go.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Keep it up and you’ll be feeling like yourself in no time.”
“Can you promise that, too?” My voice was gravel. We were outside the shop on the park bench near the street, but the door was open, and I looked past Stan to the commotion that was once my tidy button emporium. The last hour or so was pretty much a blur. I sort of remembered jumping back out on the sidewalk, scrambling for my cell phone, and—for the second time in less than a week—dialing 911. I had a vague recollection of Brina and Dr. Levine, the optometrist who occupied the brownstone directly across from me, racing across the street at the sound of my screaming, of the cops arriving, of the questions and the confusion. I had a foggy sort of flashback that included all of us being told to wait outside and stay out of the way.
The memory of Kate’s body on the floor of the Button Box, her blood pooling around her—that was as clear as day, and something I would never forget.
I shivered.
Stan draped a Cubs sweatshirt over my shoulders and gruffly explained away the kindness. “I had it in the car. I figured I might as well bring it with me.”
“But how . . .” Even my favorite coffee wasn’t strong enough to completely order my brain. I took another gulp and shook my head to clear it. “What are you doing here?” I asked Stan. “How did you know?”
“I was watching TV at home, and all the first report said was something about the body of a woman in a shop on North Wells. I knew you were supposed to be here tonight, and I thought about everything that happened on Monday morning, and well, you know . . .” Stan cleared his throat.
“Hey, I’m fine.” I grabbed for his hand. “Just a little shaken, that’s all.”
He kept his poker face firmly in place. “Now, hell . . . As soon as Kate the Great’s name was mentioned, the media went into an uproar! It’s all over the news.” Stan turned and craned his neck, the better to see what was going on in the shop. “I wonder if those bozos in there know what they’re doing. I’d hate to see them mess up an investigation this important.”
The cops in the shop looked efficient enough to me. But then, before the night of the burglary, the only thing I knew about crimes and investigations was what I’d seen on TV. Now, I watched a couple uniformed officers cordon off the sidewalk outside my shop with yellow tape, while a couple more peered down at Kate’s body, taking notes and making phone calls. A technician bustled by and went inside, kicked aside a couple dozen buttons to make room, and flopped a hard-sided briefcase onto the floor. He popped it open and dug through it.
I groaned. “More fingerprinting powder. More to clean up.”
“Makes me wonder who’s in charge.” Shaking his head, Stan got up and walked to the door. “Hey! You need to be careful. Those are Josie’s buttons all over the place, and this is her shop and—”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for the suggestion.” Just as Stan was about to step into the shop, a cop blocked his path. She was a tiny thing, dark-skinned and as pretty as a model, but there was a glint in her eyes that said she wasn’t about to take any guff. Not from anybody. “We’re being as careful as possible.”
“Not when those guys in there are bumbling around like they’re wearing concrete shoes.” Stan made a face. “Didn’t they teach you anything at the academy?”
“Yes, sir. You can be sure they did.”
“Then you should know that the first thing you need to do—”
“Yes, sir.” When Stan stepped over the threshold, the cop put out a hand. “You’ll need to go back and sit down,” she said, an edge of iron in her voice. “When the detectives get here, they’ll talk to each of you.”
“By the time they get here, these guys are going to make a mess of the evidence.” Stan looked past the woman. “Dryer, is that you?” he called, and one of the uniformed cops spun around.
“Hey, if it isn’t the man leading the life of leisure! Stosh, how’s it going?” My guess was Dryer was nearing retirement himself. He was overweight, and what little hair he had left was as silvery as that swan-head buttonhook used to be. Before it was thrust into Kate Franciscus’s heart and covered with her blood. He put out a hand to shake Stan’s. “What are you doing in a weird place like this?”
Stan cocked his head in my direction. “She’s a neighbor. And a nice kid. It’s her place. You know, when you’re collecting evidence, you should start—”
“Great to see you, Stan.” Dryer clapped him on the shoulder. “But you know how it is. You’re a civilian now, and you can’t get involved. You just go sit down and we’ll be with you in a couple minutes.”
Stan opened his mouth to say something. But since Dryer smoothly back-stepped him onto the sidewalk and closed the door in his face, he never had the chance.
When Stan came to sit down next to me on the bench, he was grumbling.
Me? I was grateful someone had finally thought to shut the door. At least now I didn’t have to look at Kate’s body and the mess that was once my life’s work.
Depressing.
But at least the thoughts were enough to shake me out of my daze.
It was the first I saw that Dr. Levine, the optometrist from across the street, was sitting on a bench in front of the shop next door. He was busy texting, no doubt getting word out about how he’d suddenly found himself smack in the middle of what was bound to be the most sensational murder to hit Chicago since the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Brina was sitting next
to him. She was hugging herself and sobbing softly.
Brina, who was supposed to be in charge when I ran out for a sandwich.
Like I said, I don’t know much about murders or investigations. But I knew enough to suddenly wonder if I might have a star witness on my hands.
My knees were rubber. I managed to pull myself off the park bench anyway and make my way over to her. There was still coffee in my cup. I handed it to her.
“You OK?” I asked.
She took a drink and sniffed. Her nose stud winked at me. “It’s just like in the movies,” she said, looking past me toward the shop. No doubt she was picturing exactly what I was picturing: Kate’s ashen face; her open, staring eyes; the blood. “Only . . . only, it’s real, you know? And . . . and she was so pretty and so rich and so famous and she was going to be a princess and now . . .” A new cascade of tears started, and I plucked a tissue out of my pocket and handed it to her.
I made sure I kept my voice down so Dr. Levine didn’t get wind of what we were talking about and start spreading the news. “You were supposed to be in the shop,” I reminded Brina. “But when I got here . . . when I screamed . . . I saw you coming out of Dr. Levine’s. Did you—”
She shook her head so hard I thought it was going to come loose and go bouncing down the street. “It wasn’t my fault, Josie. Not exactly, anyway. Bert . . .” She looked over at the optometrist, and I realized I didn’t have to worry about him; he was so busy sending messages that he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to us. “Dr. Levine, he’s got a new computer and it’s really fast and not like the clunker I have at home and he doesn’t have Internet sites blocked on his like you do on the one on your desk, and things were slow over at his place, so he came by and we started chatting, and he, like, mentioned the new computer, you know, and then he asked if I would like to see it, and there was nothing much happening here and you never told me Kate was even supposed to be here tonight and—”
“And you weren’t watching the shop after all.” My shoulders drooped. Kate had been able to walk right in unnoticed. So had her killer. The fact that Brina was a big zero when it came to keeping an eye on my inventory paled in comparison. “Brina, you were supposed to—”
“I know, I know. But, Josie, don’t you see, if I was here like I was supposed to be, I would have been there when Kate the Great got here and—”
“You would have called me. You would have told me she was early. And I would have raced over here, and she wouldn’t have been here alone, and . . .”
And I wouldn’t have allowed myself to get distracted.
By Kaz.
My shoulders drooped some more.
Brina’s eyes got wide. “That’s not what I was thinking, Josie. I was thinking more like, you know, what if I was here? I might be dead, too. Or . . . or what if I was able to escape? You know, by bobbing and weaving.” Still seated, she did a weird sort of version of that. “That would make me, like, a witness. You know? Just like in the movies. And then . . . and then the killer would come after me, and I would have to go into hiding, and there would be Witness Protection and a new identity and I’d need to move to a new city and get a new job and—”
All right, I admit it—that sounded pretty appealing.
I didn’t mention it. But then that was because a dark sedan pulled up and Nevin Riley got out.
“Finally!” Stan threw his hands in the air. “Somebody with brains. You know he’s got brains,” he added for the benefit of the true civilians in the area. “I heard since I left, they gave Riley my old job. Hey, Riley!” Stan popped off the bench. “I was just telling Josie here that those guys in her shop, they should be—”
“Nice to see you, too, Stan.” They shook hands. “But Josie’s the one I need to talk to.”
My stomach clutched. And not because I get anxious talking to those in authority or anything.
Let me explain. See, after my divorce, my friends and neighbors decided to do me a favor and get me out and dating again. Only it wasn’t exactly a favor. And not because I was pining for Kaz or anything. I mean, sure, there are times I still think about that honeymoon in Barbados and . . .
Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about friends who fix up their friend and they think they’re doing this fabulous thing for her, only they never stop to think that the friend they’re trying to help is a button nerd who doesn’t get out much, and always has her nose in a book about buttons or is writing an article about buttons for the local or the national button society newsletters or is busy studying the buttons she already owns or dreaming about the ones she’d like to get her hands on. That means that friend isn’t very good at discussing the weather or current events or . . . well, or much of anything except buttons.
The accountant Adele Cruikshank fixed me up with? He didn’t notice; he was even more boring than me.
The advertising executive my ex-sister-in-law insisted was just right for me? He talked so much that he didn’t have a chance to find out how dull I was.
As for the guys Stan found for me . . .
Well, no big surprise there. The guys Stan arranged for me to meet were always cops, and cops are hard-charging, quick thinking, and macho. The last thing they want to hear about is buttons. I did a couple quick mental calculations (which was pretty impressive considering my current emotional state), and figured out that thanks to Stan, I had had three such dates from hell.
And none was more horrible, more uncomfortable, and more downright disastrous than the one I had with Nevin Riley.
The curt nod he sent my way gave me a quick moment of hope—he didn’t remember. No such luck. Cops have steel-trap minds. Which means Nevin remembered, all right—the long, uncomfortable silences in the restaurant, the couple times I brought up buttons, his resulting attempts to change the subject, fast. I wondered if he also remembered that phone call he got just as the pizza came to the table, the call I knew was a setup. Sure, he claimed it was so important, he had to cut our date short and get back to the office, but I knew better. Nevin Riley couldn’t wait to get away from me.
“Ms. Giancola.” Nevin is a tad over six feet tall and has a runner’s body, lean and athletic. He gave me a cursory once-over and took a small leather notebook out of the pocket of his charcoal-gray suit. “You found the body?”
So much for small talk. But then, I guess he remembered I wasn’t very good at it anyway.
I nodded. “We had an appointment, Kate and I and—”
He stopped me with a quick shake of his head that mussed his shaggy, sandy-colored hair.
“Is there some place we can talk? Alone?”
This was not a come-on and I knew it. For one thing, he’d run out on our one and only date with nothing more than a flimsy excuse. For another, he’d never called after that one, awful date, so I guess it was pretty clear that Nevin wasn’t interested. For a third . . . Well, I’m logical enough to know he couldn’t take the chance of my statement contaminating what anyone else had to say. Of course we had to talk alone.
I guess Dr. Levine was paying more attention than I thought. Typing with one hand, he pointed across the street to his office. “Door’s unlocked,” he said, fingers flying. No doubt, the fact that the statements were taken in his office would make his texts hotter than ever.
“I could help,” Stan offered before we crossed the street. I’ll give him credit: Nevin thanked him for the offer. Then he kept on walking.
I followed him, but not before I took one last look into the front display window of the shop I had once dreamed of as my home away from home. I watched what the cops and technicians were up to and tried hard not to look at Kate’s body. I guess it didn’t work, because before I knew it, I was rooted to the spot, staring at the two crime-scene technicians who were slipping bags over Kate’s hands. Nevin gripped my elbow, urging me to get a move on.
“Sorry,” I croaked.
“No need.” We walked across the street between a ph
alanx of police cars with their lights flashing and crowds of people who were gathered around, and he opened Dr. Levine’s door and stepped aside to allow me into the office first. All the lights were still on, and so was the computer that had been so tempting, it made Brina abandon her duties. It was open to the web page of a local tattoo artist.
Nevin turned off the screen. “Have a seat.”
I chose the one on the customer side of the table where glasses were fitted. Nevin took the one opposite me, the optometrist’s side. “You had a burglary at your place earlier this week.”
So much for chitchat, but then, what did I expect? I’d already proven myself incapable. I shifted uncomfortably in the metal chair. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t think anything, because I don’t know anything yet. About that burglary . . .”
I told him everything I remembered and watched him scratch notes as I spoke, which was fine with me, because it gave me a chance to look him over. I’d never describe Nevin as drop-dead handsome. His blue eyes were a little too far apart. His nose was a tad too pointy. His mouth was far from generous. Still, I remembered walking into the pizzeria where we’d first met and thinking he was nice looking. Maybe that’s what had doomed our date from the start. He was cute, and I—for the first time since I gave Kaz the heave-ho—was interested. I tried too hard—to be funny, to be clever, to be interesting.
Interesting and buttons.
Two words that don’t go together in most people’s vocabulary.
Then again, Nevin wasn’t all that flashy himself. He didn’t have Kaz’s swagger, Kaz’s dazzling smile, or that sexy aura that pulsed around Kaz like a neon come-and-get-it sign.
No doubt, that’s why I was attracted to Nevin in the first place.
And now?
