Her blues eyes were measuring my chest, and I found myself standing straighter and squaring my shoulders. “Molly Blume. I’m—”
“Thirty-six C, right?”
“B.” They always flatter you.
“We have an Extreme Cleavage bra that’s real popular. We also have a vinyl bustier that’s really cool. Well, not cool, ’cause it’s vinyl.” She giggled. “Married or single?”
“I’m getting married in two weeks,” I said, not sure why I volunteered the information.
“Wow! Then we have to get you something special.” Her smile erased a few years and revealed almost straight teeth. “I know just the thing.”
I would have preferred talking here, in private, but Trina’s heels were already clacking on the marble. I followed her downstairs to a lingerie rack at the front of the store.
“How about a bridal teddy with a matching veil?” she suggested. “Or a maribou-trimmed baby doll? That comes with a veil, too, and matching slippers.”
“I don’t think that’s me.”
She flipped through the rack. “I know you’ll like this.” She pulled out a black corset with burnt black velvet detail. “Sexy, but elegant. Am I right?”
It wasn’t bad. “Trina—”
“Come on,” she coaxed, draping the corset against her body, then thrusting it at me. “Try it on, just for fun.”
I took the corset. “Actually, I’m not here to shop. I’m a reporter.” With my free hand I found a card in my purse and handed it to her.
She tucked it into the waistband of her slacks without glancing at it. “You’re doing a piece on the museum?” The enthusiasm had left her voice, and her eyes were scanning the room for the next customer.
“I’m here about your brother.”
She stiffened and took a step back. “I don’t want to talk about my brother.” Her hand went to the long silver chain that circled her neck.
“I know how painful this must be for you, Trina.” I cringed at the platitude but didn’t know what else to say.
She glowered at me. “Did you ever lose a brother?” She kept her voice low but the words were an assault.
Several people, including Jonnie, turned to look at us.
“No.” Thank God.
“Well, then, you don’t know anything!” She narrowed her eyes, which were bright with tears, and regarded me with suspicion and unease. “How did you find me, anyway?”
“Mrs. Lamont, the building manager. Is there somewhere we could talk for a few minutes?”
She dropped the chain. “The police told you Randy killed some woman years ago and you want to write about it, huh? I should’ve figured that out.” Contempt had aborted the tears.
“I’d like to hear more about your brother before I write anything. I do have questions about what happened. About his girlfriend, for one thing. Doreen.”
“Isn’t it enough that he’s dead? Can’t you leave us alone ?”
I felt sorry for her, but pity wasn’t about to stop me. Oh, no. “If Randy didn’t kill that woman, don’t you want to find that out? Don’t you want to clear his name?”
“Like you care about my brother! He’s just a story to you.”
It wasn’t quite the truth, but it was close enough. My cheeks burned. I didn’t care about Creeley. For all I knew he had killed Aggie. And Porter was right. I was desperate for absolution, hungry for details and determined to get them even if it meant manipulating this woman’s grief.
Jonnie had approached. “Everything okay here?” she asked with false cheer that sounded desperate.
“We don’t seem to have what this customer is looking for,” Trina said, her tone as sharp as the V of the toes of her shoes.
“Maybe I can help,” Jonnie offered.
“Actually, I’ve decided to take this.” I held up the corset.
Jonnie smiled. Crisis averted. Trina threw me a suit-yourself shrug and walked off. Ten minutes later I was standing under the famous pink awning with my purchases—the corset and a white lace-and-pearl-beaded teddy that I’d spotted on the way to the register. I headed toward Cherokee and had crossed Hollywood when I heard someone calling my name. I turned and waited for Trina to catch up.
“You didn’t have to buy the corset,” she said.
She hadn’t put on a jacket, but she didn’t seem to notice the cold that was nipping at my cheeks. Her face was flushed, and she was breathless—from exertion or urgency, I couldn’t tell.
“I wasted your time and upset you,” I told her. “I’m sorry on both counts.”
“Well, you should be.” She pushed a thick strand of blond hair behind an ear decorated with multiple studs. “You can return it. We don’t work on commission.”
“I really like it. It is sexy and elegant. I bought a teddy, too.” I smiled, but Trina was all seriousness.
“You mentioned Doreen. Did you talk to her?”
“No. That’s one of the things I want to talk to you about. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
She glanced behind her. “I have to get back to work.”
“How about after work? Five-thirty? Six?”
Trina ran her chain across her lip. I sensed that she wanted to say yes, that she hadn’t run after me to talk about corsets.
“Did you mean what you said, that you wanted to help prove Randy didn’t kill that woman six years ago?”
“I want to find out the truth,” I said, though Trina’s truth and mine might not end up being the same. “The woman who was killed—”
A truck backfired. I was startled, but Trina jumped at the loud noise and jerked her head around. When she turned back, the color had drained from her face, making the rose blusher look like clown’s paint.
Her hand went to the chain around her neck. “I have to go.”
“Trina—”
“I don’t want to talk about Randy, okay?” she said with some of her earlier belligerence. “I just didn’t want you to be stuck with something you don’t want.”
I barely heard her. I had sucked in my breath and was staring at the locket Trina had pulled out, a locket with an image of Rachel’s Tomb.
“That’s an unusual locket.” Buses were belching fumes, cars were honking. My words were pounding in my ears.
“Randy gave it to me. It’s supposed to be good luck.”
“Is there a red thread inside?”
Trina’s eyes widened with surprise, which quickly changed to alarm. “Yeah. Why?” The why was defensive.
“A friend of mine has a locket just like yours, with the red thread.”
“Randy didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She glared at me and clamped her hand around the locket before dropping it out of view.
“I’m not saying that at all. I’d really like to talk, Trina. You have my card. Please call me.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Well, you might have to, if you want to get into that corset.”
She gave a nervous little laugh and practically ran down the block on those killer heels. I watched her for a few seconds before climbing back up the hill to my car. Bird droppings had decorated my windshield and someone had left a series of red-lipstick kisses on the driver’s window and side-view mirror.
Hooray for Hollywood.
nine
THE LOCKET THREW ME.
If Randy had given his kid sister a locket identical to Aggie’s, including the red thread inside, it couldn’t be coincidence that he’d been in possession of Aggie’s. And it wasn’t likely that someone had planted it on him.
So Connors and Porter were probably right—Creeley had killed Aggie.
But why had he given his sister a locket like Aggie’s?
Trina might have answers, but she wasn’t talking. Maybe I’d fare better with her father.
I’d taken along the Google information, including Creeley senior’s phone number, which Gloria Lamont had matched to the one she had.
I should probably phone first, I thought. With the funeral two d
ays away, Creeley might not be in the mood to talk. But phoning ahead would ruin the element of surprise that is often vital in an interview. And what if Creeley, forewarned, never wanted to talk to me?
Wiping off the bird doo and lipstick with a towelette from the stash of emergency supplies my dad had stored in my trunk, I considered. Then I dialed Creeley’s number on my cell phone, introduced myself as a reporter to the woman who answered, and asked to speak to Roland Creeley.
“I’m Mrs. Creeley,” she said. “What’s this about?”
She was clearly the keeper of the gate. “I heard about Randy’s death, and I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Creeley. I know this is a hard time, but if it’s possible, I’d like to talk to you and your husband about Randy.”
“If this is about the dead girl, we don’t know anything.” She had the put-upon tone I use with telemarketers just before I hang up.
“The police are saying Randy’s responsible, but I’m not so sure,” I said quickly. “I have some questions.”
“Well, we’re not interested in talking to anyone.”
“Talk to who?” I heard a man ask. “Who is that, Alice?”
“Hold on,” Alice Creeley told me, annoyed again— either with me or with the man, who I assumed was her husband.
After half a minute or so of muffled conversation he came on the line.
“You’re with the Times, right?” He sounded eager and pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t think they’d get back to me. I asked them to check into my son’s death. The police say Randy overdosed on drugs, but I don’t believe it.”
I felt a flutter of excitement, but I told myself that like many parents, Creeley was probably in denial about his son. “I’m not on the Times staff,” I admitted, “but I freelance for them and several other papers.”
“Oh.”
“And I’ve investigated crimes. I write a weekly crime column and books about true crimes.” I mentioned Out of the Ashes.
“Never heard of it. I don’t read all that much. When I do, it’s mostly magazines. So how’d you hear about Randy? What’s your interest in him?” Suspicion had sharpened his voice and raised it a notch.
“From the police.” I repeated what I’d told his wife. “I’d like to hear why you think your son didn’t overdose.”
“And you want to check into his death? The police aren’t going to, they said as much,” he told me again with some anger.
“Yes.”
I took the silence that followed as a good sign.
“Well, if you want to come tomorrow morning, fine,” Creeley said, his lack of enthusiasm indicating that he was settling.
“I can do that. Or I can come now, or this evening.” I’d have to postpone the florist, but I was eager to talk to Creeley and worried that between now and tomorrow morning he’d change his mind or have it changed for him by his wife. Or what if a Times reporter did call?
“Tonight’s no good. I have to clear out Randy’s apartment, pick up his car. And as soon as I hang up I’m leaving for the funeral parlor to finish the arrangements. They want us to pick flowers. Like Randy’s gonna see the flowers, like he gives a damn. Vultures.” Creeley grunted. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Molly Blume.”
“I know that name. Is that the name you write under?”
“No. You’re probably thinking about the fictional character. James Joyce’s Ulysses?”
Throughout most of my adult life I’ve been teased about my name (most frequently, by Connors). I blame my mother, who teaches high school English and should have known better, but teasing aside, and though I’d practiced writing Molly Abrams in countless high school notebooks, my name has opened some doors and I’ve pretty much decided to continue using it for professional reasons after Zack and I are married, when I’m not writing under my pseudonym.
“I saw the movie years ago,” Creeley said. “Didn’t like it much. Your parents had a sense of humor, huh?”
“Apparently.”
“Nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Family will be coming to the house from ten on, so if you’re gonna be late, don’t bother showing up.”
ten
THE CREELEYS—FATHER, DAUGHTER, AND SON—LINGERED in my thoughts while I did a load of laundry, and kept me company when I picked up my mother on the way to Flores Lindas, a flower shop on Third Street just east of La Brea. I’m pretty sure she sensed my preoccupation and its cause, but unlike my oldest sister, Edie, my mother doesn’t push.
Raul, who owns the shop with his wife, Dani, greeted us with double-cheek kisses. He’s a Brazilian charmer with sensual Latin good looks—dark, wavy moussed hair that brushes his shoulders; cheekbones so sharp they’d probably bruise your fingers if you touched them; black eyes that my mother, who’s had one romance novel published (anonymously) and is almost finished with the second, would call “smoldering.” A filigreed gold cross gleamed against the all-year-round-bronzed, hairless skin exposed in the deep V of the crisp white shirt he’d tucked into tight jeans, the kind of jeans Connors wears well and Zack used to before he became a rabbi, though I’m sure they’d still fit him just fine.
“If I didn’t know better, Celia, I would think you are the bride,” Raul told my mother. “You look like a beautiful flower.”
His accent softened the words in the sexy way that only Portuguese does, in my opinion, and that makes me think of “The Girl from Ipanema” and other lazily sultry tunes on a Stan Getz–João Gilberto vinyl album (my parents’) that Zack and I made out to in high school and that still gives me tingly memories.
“A preserved flower,” my mother said, but I could tell from her flushed cheeks that she was pleased. She’s almost fifty-six but looks younger, with only a few fine lines around the brown eyes she’s passed on to me and most of my siblings, and a trim figure she maintains by taking evening walks with my dad, who still gazes at her the way he did in their wedding photos from over thirtyfive years ago and tells you she is his world.
“Absolutely not.” Raul tilted his head. “You should always wear that shade of brown. It brings out the copper in your hair. And I love the headband. Very chic.”
I wondered if Raul was aware that the olive velvet band camouflaged the point where my mother’s rich chestnut brown met her fall of the same color.
“And Molly.” He turned his high-wattage smile on me. “You are going to be stunned with what I have done. Stunned. But why waste words? Come.”
He waved us through a narrow hall perfumed with floral arrangements in various stages of construction to a table with a sample centerpiece formed of dozens of tightly packed, open red-black roses that sat on a bed of green hydrangea in a square black Lucite container.
“Is magnífico, yes?” Raul beamed. “Simple, elegant. And there will be tea lights, of course. Many, many tea lights. And white tablecloths, with embroidered organza toppers. Celia, I do for you and the lovely Molly what I don’t do for other clients at twice the price.”
Raul has provided flowers for numerous Hollywood galas (his keenest disappointment to date is losing the Brad Pitt–Jennifer Aniston nuptials), but he takes equal satisfaction in his creations for less spectacular events, including all the Blume bar mitzvahs and weddings. If he likes you, he’ll throw in extras (and he’s been known to donate flowers to brides who have no means), but if you don’t set firm limits, you can end up spending the farm.
In this case, Zack’s parents’ farm. In Orthodox circles the groom often pays for FLOP—flowers, liquor, orchestra, and photography (still and video). The Abramses had given Raul a generous budget that he’d urged my parents to supplement for “this once-in-a-lifetime magical event,” which he’d momentarily forgotten wasn’t my “once.” My dad, a contractor, had groused (“Six hours later, what do you have left? Put the money in the new kitchen”), but he had been ready to give in. I had nixed the extras.
“It’s beautiful, Raul,” my mother said. “Exquisite. It’s everything you promised and more.”
�
��Beautiful,” I echoed. My mind had skipped to Creeley, who at this moment was choosing flowers for the funeral of his son. Aggie’s killer?
My mother nudged me. I glanced at Raul. He looked crestfallen, his smile dimmed.
“I absolutely love it, Raul. It’s breathtaking. ”
Back in his office, Raul shoved stacks of magazines off chairs for us so that we could sit, and after taking his place behind his French desk, he showed us sketches for the chuppa and the preceremony reception that culminates in the bedeken, during which the groom views the bride and lowers the veil over her face.
The veil originated with Rebecca, who veiled herself when she first saw Isaac. The rite, which assures the groom that he’s marrying the woman he chose, stems from the experience of Jacob, whose crafty father-in-law Laban substituted his older daughter, Leah, for her sister Rachel on the wedding day. According to the commentaries, Jacob and Rachel, anticipating Laban’s treachery, had exchanged secret signs so that Jacob would know if it was Rachel behind the veil. But Rachel, taking pity on her sister and wanting to spare her humiliation, revealed the signs to Leah. And in spite of that magnanimous gesture, Leah was jealous of Rachel and the love her younger sister shared with Jacob when he took her as his second wife. And it was Rachel who was barren for so long while Leah and Jacob’s two other wives triumphantly bore many sons and daughters to their husband, Rachel who died young and was buried on the lonely roadside.
In my mind’s eye I saw myself inside Rachel’s Tomb, circling the sepulchre and pressing my red thread against the dark velvet. I saw Aggie slipping the locket, a snip of the red thread inside, around her neck. I saw Trina Creeley clutching an identical locket before she dropped it out of sight. I wondered again where Creeley had obtained the red thread and the locket, and why.
Raul was gesturing with his free hand and explaining while his pencil flew over page after page of his white pad. I forced myself to focus. Soon thoughts of Aggie and the locket receded, and I was caught up in Raul’s excitement. That’s how I’d been since Thursday—grieving for Aggie one minute, giddy with anticipation the next.
Grave Endings Page 6
