Red Blooded Murder

by Laura Caldwell

  I was dying to ask Maggie what I was supposed to do now that I was a person of interest, but my mother believed strongly in small talk before anything else. “Where are you two going to dinner?” she asked, settling onto an ivory-colored chair.

  “Les Nomades,” Wyatt said.

  “Les Nomades on a Tuesday?” My mother was clearly impressed.

  “I’m friends with the head chef.”

  Maggie and I exchanged looks. Her eyes said, Please shut up. Please don’t even think it.

  What I was thinking was what I’d told Maggie once-that Wyatt was allegedly friends with everyone. If you said you were going to a bar, it was likely Wyatt would tell you he was tight with the manager. If you mentioned a Cubs game, he was buddies with the first baseman.

  Les Nomades was a French restaurant, one of the fanciest in the city. The fact that Wyatt and Maggie were headed there reminded me of the Wyatt of old-all the snazzy restaurants and the glitzy nights out-and yet the fact that he was here, that he’d veered away from his evening plans to bring his girlfriend to see her train-wreck best friend and her family, was promising.

  My mother told a brief story about the last time she had been at Les Nomades. Q described a disastrous date he’d had there once, and then my mom segued into the topic at hand. “We need your help, Maggie. Spence just had a disturbing phone conference with the chief of police.”

  Spence, his brow furrowed, related his conversation. After being on the anchor desk all morning, I found it a balm to let someone else do the talking. Spence finished with, “He says Izzy has been named as a person of interest.”

  Maggie made a disapproving tsk.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “I think that “person of interest” is bullshit. On one hand, it doesn’t mean anything except that the cops have some Law and Order-style hunch about you, but they don’t want to call you a suspect and risk a lawsuit. The term has no legal significance.”

  “Seriously?” I felt optimism trickle into the room. “That’s good, right?”

  “In a sense, yes. It doesn’t even mean you’re a witness. All it means is that you’re someone the police want to talk to again. The problem is that if it leaks out, the media will pick it up and splash it everywhere. Your reputation could be damaged forever. Think about Richard Jewell, the guy who was a person of interest in the Olympic bombings in the ’90s. They dragged that guy through the mud.”

  “The Chicago police haven’t announced this yet,” Spence said.

  “That just means they don’t think they need help from the community right now.”

  “There must be a way to stop the police from mentioning it in the future,” my mom said.

  Maggie shrugged. “They do what they want to do.”

  My mother leaned forward. “Certainly, we can do something. Izzy has been through enough. This person of interest thing is ridiculous, and I won’t have her go through hell for the whims of the cops. I won’t have her name tarnished by this.”

  I blinked, looking at my mom. Her protective, den-mother attitude was not something she showed often. Even though she was a restrained person, she was someone who exuded energy, who made everyone want to be close to her. But her depression had led her to spend most of my childhood in pajamas, silently wandering the house, her thin frame like a mannequin I’d seen in the windows of Marshall Field’s.

  “All right, let’s think of something…” Maggie glanced around the room. “Let’s really think about this…” You could tell she was excited by the way her eyes darted past all of our faces and then back again. This was the same way Maggie looked at a jury when a closing argument really started to roll-as if she was letting every one of them in on a secret.

  “The cops don’t usually make deals,” Maggie said, “and I wouldn’t normally suggest you talk to them, because we have a little history with forced confessions in this town. But I’m thinking that I can call in some favors. We could tell them you’ll agree to be questioned, as long as they keep it quiet.”

  “Izzy is a lawyer,” my mom said. “She can handle being questioned. And you would be with her, right, Maggie?”

  “Of course.” Maggie nodded. “Let’s just think about this some more, and see what happens. I’ll put in some calls tomorrow and see if I can find out anything.”

  My mother gave a small exhale of relief. “Thank you, Maggie. Thank you.”

  When I walked Maggie and Wyatt to the door, Maggie pulled me aside. “How are you doing with all this? I mean losing Jane, finding her.”

  “I’m messed up.”

  “I can’t imagine.” She shook her head.

  I gestured at Wyatt. “How’s it going?”

  A sweet grin turned up her mouth. “It’s great. It’s sexy.”

  “It was always sexy, right?”

  She made a sound of exasperation. “Please, don’t judge him because of last time. We’re good. I’m good.”

  “Okay. No judging.” It was the least I could do. “And hey,” I said, “if you need any lingerie, let me know. I have to work at the store tonight.”

  She scoffed. “You’re the lingerie girl, not me. I can barely muster up something other than my cotton undies to go out with him.”

  “I’ve got something to get you out of those old cotton scraps.” I whispered to her about the pearl thong.

  When I pulled away, her eyes were wide, her mouth O-shaped. “Where can I get it?”

  “I’ll get you one tonight.”

  A half hour later I was off to peddle some panties.

  36

  I took a cab to my place to get my Vespa, the only thing I could think of that might clear my head. But as I drove down Sedgwick toward the Fig Leaf, the cool air, instead of being invigorating, only made me shiver. Or maybe it was the phrase that kept circling my mind. Person of interest. Person of interest. I tried to focus on tonight. On the job that I had to do-pretending I was someone named Lexi Hammond, a law student who worked part-time in a lingerie store.

  In the last year alone, I’d been a lawyer, a fiancée, a jilted lover, a mourner, a broadcaster, a moonlighting P.I., a witness. And now a person of interest. It made me feel fragmented, all parts entirely separate, almost ephemeral.

  But then I remembered Forester. He had given me a mountain of legal work for reasons no one understood at first. And even though I now understood more why he’d done it, none of it changed the fact that he had believed utterly in me. Sometimes remembering that was just the kick in the ass I needed. It made me pull hard on the gas. It got me there with five minutes to spare.

  But I pulled over a block away and called Mayburn. “What if the manager, Josie, has seen me on Trial TV?”

  “She seem like the type to watch a legal channel?”

  “No.”

  “Any PR on you yet?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’d say it’s fine. Just watch her in case she’s looking at you suspiciously.”

  “She looks at everyone suspiciously.”

  “You know what I mean. And hopefully I just need you for a week or two more.”

  The door to the Fig Leaf chimed when I walked in a minute later. Josie was behind the counter, squinting at her faux-antique register, a pen tucked behind her bobbed hair. She peered over her glasses at me, but said nothing.

  “Hi!” I hurried through the store. There was nothing that made me try harder than someone who clearly didn’t like me.

  But then Josie surprised me. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, although without changing her bland expression. “We’ve got a bride and a pack of bridesmaids coming in an hour. The bride wants everyone to wear matching underwear.”

  I unbuttoned my coat. “Are you serious?”

  “Can you believe that? She’s actually making everyone wear the same bras and the same panties.”

  “What a Nazi.”

  “I know.” I saw the first full and genuine smile ever from Josie. “I can’t handle it,” she said. “I need you to help
them.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” The smile disappeared. “I got dumped last year by the guy I thought I was going to marry.”

  Suddenly, I truly wanted to make her feel better. I couldn’t offer up my exact story. My fiancé took off, and he allegedly stole a bunch of money from my client, who was also my father figure. But I sure as hell could talk generally about it. And convincingly.

  “I was engaged,” I said. “He left town two months before our wedding.”

  She took off the glasses. “Are you freaking kidding me?” She sounded oddly excited.

  “Yep. Had the dress, the hall, the ring.” I looked at my hand and didn’t have an ounce of trouble mustering up a sigh. “I miss that ring.”

  “Holy shit.” Her tone was full of grudging admiration.

  I shrugged. “These things happen for a reason.” Best to get off this topic before it depressed me more than I already was.

  “Yeah, well…” She turned back toward the register. “If these things happen for a reason, the reason in my case is my ex is a self-righteous, pigheaded child with mommy issues.”

  I laughed, then went into the back room to hang up my coat. I looked around the other storerooms, finding most of them piled with boxes of product. If Josie was up to something, as the owner thought she was, it was not a failure to stock the store.

  Josie came in back. She gestured at the boxes. “Until the Nazi bride and her SS officers get here I need you to unpack this. I try to schedule all our deliveries for Tuesday, and we got a ton today.”

  “No problem.” Then I thought of Maggie. “Oh, and can I get a pearl thong for my friend?”

  Josie stopped and studied me with an expression I couldn’t read. “Did you try yours?”

  I blushed a little. “Yeah.”

  “Hot, huh?”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  She grinned. “What size is your girlfriend?”

  “Small. Or extra small. About the size of that girl, Nina, the other night.”

  Josie pulled out a step stool and used it to reach a metal box on a high shelf. She took keys from a ring in her pocket and unlocked the box. “I keep the thongs in here because they’re so expensive.”

  They weren’t more expensive than some of the peignoirs she carried, and those weren’t locked up, but I said nothing.

  Josie reached in and drew out a silver box, the same as she’d given me the other night. I started to say that I thought she only had size smalls in black. That was what she had said the other day to her customer, Nina. But maybe she’d gotten more stock today. And it didn’t sound as if Maggie cared what color it was.

  Josie handed the box to me. “I can’t give you the discount on that since it’s for your friend. Now, get to work on this stock, okay? It’s all got to be on the floor by the end of the night.”

  For the next hour, I sliced cardboard with a box cutter, I steamed, I hung, I tagged. At first, I found the work soothing. I ran my finger over purple velvet straps as I smoothed them; I stopped and appreciated the embroidered swirls on pieces of slick silk. After each item was hung, I had to find it on a list of expected inventory that Josie had prepared. I had to note the price and then create a handwritten ticket on a small linen card. The card was then threaded with yellow ribbon and attached to the garment.

  I knew Mayburn needed information about the products and the pricing to determine whether Josie was involved in anything shady. I looked over my shoulder to make sure Josie was still in the front, took a notebook out of my purse and then scribbled as fast as I could the names of lingerie items, the makers, the cost, the markup.

  I heard the front door chime once or twice, followed by the sound of Josie’s voice greeting a customer, the murmur of conversation as she helped them.

  But now the door chimed again and the store was soon filled with the loud chatter of women who had obviously stopped for drinks on their way over. The bridal party, I thought. I straightened my suit and headed out of the back room.

  There were eight women buzzing about the place, all shrieking and pointing and holding up negligees. Their joy was palpable and innocent, and I felt a kind of envy I hadn’t experienced before-a feeling that I might never again have such unencumbered joy.

  I’m the same Izzy I always was, I told myself. But as I stood in the doorway, gazing at a bunch of women a few years younger than me, I knew that no matter what happened from here on-with the cops, with Jane’s death, with Trial TV, with Sam, with Theo, with Grady-I was different because of what I’d done and seen over the last year; because of what I’d done and seen over the last week.

  Still, I was there for a job. I put on my anchorwoman face-the calm, confident one that I’d learned from watching Jane-and I began to walk toward the pack of women.

  But then I froze. I could tell who the bride was now-she was at the center of a knot of women who were holding out every piece of white lingerie we had. “Look at this one!” they were saying. “No, this one is perfect!”

  The bride laughed and swung around, gazing at everything with big eyes. “I can’t decide, you guys. My wedding night will be the most important night of my life.”

  Josie stood to the side, and I could see her hiding a grimace. She turned and looked at me, giving me a glance that said, Can you believe this piece of work?

  The good employee in me wanted to charge in and take over, helping the bride the way I’d been asked to do. But there was one very big problem. I knew the bride. I knew the asymmetrical cut of her shiny black hair. It was Faith Lowe, the producer from Trial TV.

  37

  J osie found me in the back, furiously steaming cashmere pajamas, trying to hide behind a cloud of vapor.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she said in a fierce whisper. “I need you out there.”

  I struggled for something to say. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I knew Faith from Trial TV.

  “I know that girl,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Faith. The bride. She’s a lawyer, right?” I remembered that Jane told me Faith was one of the Trial TV employees who also had legal experience.

  “I don’t know,” Josie said, irritated. “I’m just trying to sell her a lot of merchandise, and I told you to handle her. I run this store, Lexi.”

  “I know.” I bit my lip, trying to come up with something to sway her, some reason I could stay hidden in the back. I quickly reviewed all my dealings with Josie. The only time I’d seen her frosty exterior melt even a little bit was earlier tonight when I’d told her about my fiancé taking off.

  “She’s the one,” I said, at the same time sending a silent apology to Faith for the fact that I was about to trash her name.

  “The one what?”

  “The one who my fiancé was involved with when he dumped me.”

  Josie drew in a quick breath. “Are you serious?” But then she made a face. “I thought you said he left town.”

  “He did. With her.”

  A gasp. “So she’s here because she’s about to marry your fiancé?”

  Hmm. Tricky. “Well, no. She dumped my fiancé and then she got with someone else. So really she broke two hearts.”

  “The bitch!”

  “I know.” Sorry, Faith. “So, I really can’t help her.”

  Josie huffed and looked at me sympathetically. “Of course you can’t.”

  I gestured at the stock. “I’m going to get all this done, though.”

  Josie nodded. “I’ll handle the bridal party.” She grunted. “And all those negligees that were on sale up front? They are not on sale any longer. Not for that girl.”

  “Thanks, Josie.” I felt the first bond with her, and then guilt for having engineered it.

  She stomped back to the front, and I could hear her addressing Faith in a saccharine voice.

  I pulled the notebook from my purse again and wrote for Mayburn, Will raise prices when doesn’t like a customer. Then I went back to work on the stock, att
acking it with a vengeance, determined, at least, to do a good job for Josie.

  A minute later-bam, bam, bam-a knock came from the door that led to the alley.

  There was a little window cut into the door. I peered out and saw a guy in a black baseball cap holding a large cardboard box, almost like a big pizza box. Behind him was a white van. More stock?

  I was about to open the door, when Josie rushed into the back room. “Got it,” she said breathlessly.

  She opened the door. “Hey, Steve.”

  Steve, a mean-looking guy with black oily hair and a meager beard, grunted and held out the cardboard box. He stopped short for a second when he saw me. He dragged his eyes up and down my body, smiled slightly. He was probably my age, in his late twenties, but he was one of those people who looked as if life had treated him hard. Or maybe he had treated life hard.

  “This is my new clerk,” Josie said.

  Steve nodded, leered in my direction.

  Josie took the box and held the door open so he could leave. But Steve wasn’t moving. He was still staring at me, a weird, twisted kind of smirk on his face.

  “Thanks, Steve.” Josie’s words were loud. “See you later.” She shut the door so he had no choice but to step back. When he was outside, she locked it. Then she opened the box. Inside were smaller black boxes, like the one she’d sold to Nina a few days ago.

  “More pearl thongs?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “If you want to give me the key, I’ll put them up there.” I gestured to the locked box on the high shelf. “That way you can get back out front.”

  “No, I’ve got it.” She sighed. “That evil woman has her girls trying on fifteen different nude bras. They’re never going to get out of here.”

  Out came the step stool and the keys. She quickly arranged the pearl-thong boxes in the lockbox, tucked her keys in her pocket and then shot back into the front room.