Pillow Stalk

by Diane Vallere

  “You really are Madison Night? This is your car?” Cowboy asked.

  “I’m exactly who I said I was,” I answered.

  He held out a hand. “Sorry about that back there. Lieutenant Allen.”

  I shook his hand firmly. Always good to show a sense of confidence and power, especially when you’re wearing a powder pink pantsuit. “Madison Night,” I said again.

  “Didn’t mean to shake you up any more than you already were. The old guy didn’t have his glasses on when he ID’d the body, and apparently she’s wearing your robe?”

  “Mr. Popov’s eyesight might be poor but his pinching fingers work just fine, especially when a woman walks past him in a bathing suit. I loaned Pamela my robe for protection.”

  “I see.” An inappropriate half-smile cloaked his face.

  “May I leave?” I asked.

  “You can leave. Your car can’t,” he said, corroborating what Officer Nast had told me.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s part of the crime scene. This whole area is. Everything stays, until we have a chance to go over it, get some kind of clue to what happened here.”

  “Lieutenant, my puppy has been destroying your crime scene for the past ten minutes, and you’re not going to find any clues in front of, behind, or under my car.”

  We all looked down to where the leash had disappeared. Rock chose that moment to come out from underneath, covered in dirt and gravel, with a round aqua velvet pillow between his teeth.

  “What were you saying?” asked the lieutenant.

  FOUR

  “Rock! Give me that!” I said, stooping down get the pillow from his teeth.

  “Don’t!” Lieutenant Allen commanded. He patted his pockets, looking for something. “Nasty? You got a spare set of gloves?”

  The pretty brunette officer scowled at him. “I’m guessing last night’s bed didn’t have a homicide kit next to it?”

  She tossed a plastic package at him, which he easily caught with his left hand. He pulled a glove over his right hand and grabbed the side of the pillow. Rocky sensed that they were playing the same tug of war that I played with his stuffed lion at home and pulled away, placing tension on the delicate velvet fabric.

  “Rocky!” I admonished. When the tone of my voice changed to all business, he released his bite and cowered. I scooped him up and held him close. The lieutenant shook his head at our display, then handed the pillow to another officer who placed it in an evidence bag.

  “Have you seen that pillow before? Is it yours?” asked Officer Nast.

  “I’m a decorator. I have lots of pillows. There are about three dozen in my trunk right now.”

  “Open it,” she instructed.

  The keys dangled from the lock on the trunk. I turned them, but the trunk didn’t open at first. I shot a quick glance at the officer and the lieutenant. They looked impatient. “The lock’s been giving me trouble lately.”

  Lieutenant Allen pulled off his hat and put his fist inside it, then gave the lock a swift, sideways punch. The trunk popped open. He inserted the bent straw brim of the hat in the opening and eased the trunk open without making contact. A couple of pillows in pink, yellow, and aqua were nestled inside the gray cavern next to unopened packages of matching velvet curtains.

  “I thought you said you had three dozen pillows in there?” Officer Nast interjected.

  “I did.” I bent over the trunk and looked around.

  “Don’t.” Her hand clamped onto my upper arm and pushed me upright.

  “That’s quite a color palette,” said Tex. “Where do you find stuff like that?”

  “My store, for one.”

  “And where do you get this stuff? You make it?”

  “Those pillows are from 1959,” I declared.

  “And that’s a good thing?” he asked.

  “Do you have any honest to goodness questions for me? Or can I go now?”

  Lieutenant Allen slammed the trunk of my car shut. “You can’t take your car, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “May I have my keys?”

  “No,” said Officer Nast.

  “Sure,” said the lieutenant. The two of them exchanged looks. “I’ll have a duplicate set made up for you,” said the lieutenant.

  I turned around and stepped away. It was still early by most people’s standards, seven forty-five. I could call Hudson and ask for another favor. I flipped through the contacts on my cell phone and hovered over his name, but yesterday’s favor made me hesitate before making the call.

  “You calling a friend?” Lieutenant Allen said, from over my shoulder.

  Startled, I whirled around and dropped the phone.

  He picked it up and looked at the screen before handing it back to me. I took a step backward to put a normal amount of space between us.

  “I’ll call a cab.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll give you a lift somewhere.” He shielded his eyes with the straw hat and scanned the parking lot. “Nasty! Take it from here. I’ll be back.”

  “You? Don’t you have to stay here?” asked Officer Nast.

  “You’ve got it under control,” he said, exchanging a heated gaze with her. He put a hand on my elbow and steered me toward the Jeep. I shook off his touch. Rocky bounded ahead of me, expanding his leash, eager to get into the car. At least one of us would enjoy the ride.

  “Where to, Ms. Night?”

  I weighed my options. Without my keys, I couldn’t get into my studio or the storage unit. I couldn’t call Steve Johnson, because his number was in the pocket of my robe. That left one place. I scooped up Rocky and took a step backward, looking away from the emergency vehicles and cop cars. I shivered, even though the hot Dallas sun was already threatening to turn the air into a thick veil of humidity. I needed to get out of there, to get away from the image of this morning. “Give me a ride to the Mummy.”

  “Where’s that?” he asked once we were buckled inside.

  “The Mummy Theater at the end of Lakewood Drive?” He didn’t react. “Used to be the Casa Linda? Sat vacant for years?”

  He kept up his blank stare.

  “It’s across the street from the topless bar, Jumbo’s Playhouse?”

  “Oh, that place. Didn’t realize they’d reopened.”

  The sound of the wind whooshing around our exposed heads replaced conversation until he pulled into the theater’s lot. “You work here?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” I answered. It dawned on me that he wasn’t just making conversation but trying to casually find out about me. Some things he’d discover pretty easily with a Google search. Others not. I decided to save him some time.

  “I own a mid-century modern decorating business called Mad for Mod.” I slid a business card out of a small silver cigarette case that I’d scored at one of my buying excursions and handed it to him. “I volunteer here. I spend my mornings swimming laps at Crestwood just like today. I live on Gaston Avenue, and if you do some digging, you’ll discover that I own the building, though my tenants don’t know that and I’d kind of like to leave it that way.”

  He held my card out in front of him. “Madison Night. Mad for mod. Cute.” He reached two fingers into the ashtray and slid out a card of his own. “In case you want to talk.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “About anything.”

  “I told Officer Nast everything I know.”

  “I don’t want to get the info from Nasty. I want to get it from you.”

  That was the third time he’d called her that, and although it offended my feminist sensibilities, I chose not to comment.

  “If you have no other questions for me, I’m going to go.” I fought the door for a couple of seconds, which put a damper on my take control attitude. Rocky put his paws on the door and stood on his hind legs looking outside and when I finally got the door opened, his little body stretched for a wild second until I cupped his belly and scooped him close to my chest.

  “Goodbye, Lieutenant,” I
said, shutting the door behind me.

  “It’s Lieutenant Tex to you,” he said back with a smile. “And Ms. Night? I’ll be in touch. You can count on that.”

  He let the engine idle while I found the spare keys in the mailbox out front and unlocked the doors. I scooped up the junk mail and promotional flyers someone had fed under the door. The rest of the team, paid employees and volunteers, liked coming at night to take care of business, but with my morning habits and flexible schedule, I preferred to handle small projects during the day.

  Rocky led me down the hallway to the makeshift manager’s office behind the concession stand. I clicked on the overhead light and turned on the computer. The room was a box of stale air, like it always was when I first walked in. Trace scents of stale popcorn and soda lingered from last Saturday night’s box office. I popped the window lock and cranked the small metal wand in a circle to tilt the glass at an angle and allow either fresh air in or stale air out. Either would be an improvement.

  A yellow post-it was stuck to the monitor screen. Madison, Emergency meeting tonight. 7:00. See you then. The note was signed by Richard Goode, the film school graduate who ran the newly renovated classic theater. I dialed the number below his name.

  “Richard, it’s Madison. I can’t make the meeting tonight. What’s the emergency? I’m at the theater now. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Madison, we’ve got a big problem. Cancellation for the fourth of July. That’s two months away, and we got nothing.”

  Richard’s idea of an emergency paled drastically in comparison to what I’d seen that very morning.

  “Now’s not really the best time for me to brainstorm, Richard.”

  “C’mon, Madison. I need something. Anything. You’ve got the best contacts of everybody on the staff.”

  Richard had been pushing Russian space movies, his idea of ironic highbrow on the anniversary of the moon landing, for months. Richard was the only one of us making any money at the theater, his salary paid by the owners, and thus the only one with something to lose if we failed to bring in viewers. I scanned the piles of paper on his desk and felt a shock of pain through my chest when I found Pamela’s flyer. She must have delivered them everywhere. Where yesterday her smiling fake-fifties image had bothered me, today it touched a nerve. I wanted to remember her like the picture on the flyer, not the picture in my memory.

  “What about Doris Day?” I asked.

  “For the anniversary of the moon landing? Those movies are hardly cinematic history, and you’re probably the only person who would show up to see it. I don’t think the owners will go for that. Give me something else.”

  But as soon as I’d said it, I knew it would be the perfect project to take my mind off of the murder at the pool. “I can fill your theater for you, if you give me a chance. We can show The Glass Bottom Boat. Rod Taylor plays an astronaut and there’s a special featurette with Doris at NASA.”

  “That’s not the direction I want to go.”

  “Good luck telling the owners that you’d rather be closed on a major holiday weekend than pack the house with a retrospective of a well-known American actress.”

  “Madison—”

  “Richard, I can make this happen. Quickly. It’s a good idea, and I know you have the authority to give me the green light.” Tires on gravel sounded outside. “I gotta go.”

  I hung up and tiptoed to the open window, looking out at an angle. The Lieutenant’s Jeep sat idling by the side of the building. I leaned backward, not sure I wanted him to know I was there, and regretted opening that window. If he wanted to come investigate, he’d literally be able to reach right in and touch me.

  The Jeep drove away. Outside of Rocky, occupied in the corner with an old shoe from the lost and found, I was alone. I spun through the Rolodex, looking for other volunteers. If I were going to do this, I’d need help convincing Richard. Ruth Coburn, mother of three, would be a great place to start. She answered halfway through the fourth ring and hollered something at someone before saying hello. After identifying myself, I went straight into my sales pitch.

  “Ruth, would you support the idea of a Doris Day film festival over the Fourth of July weekend?”

  “I would support anything that would give me a chance to get out of this house and leave the kids with my husband. Doris Day would be perfect.”

  “Great. I can’t make the meeting tonight, but I’ve already told Richard my idea. I’m going to start working on it, so will you push the idea tonight?”

  “Absolutely. You know, my daughter is the spitting image of Doris in Pajama Game. She’s been acting in her school play.”

  “You have a daughter in high school?”

  “Put down the grape jelly!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Madison, you’re lucky you don’t have kids. I gotta go.”

  I spun the old Rolodex to the S’s and found the number for Susan from American Film Rentals, or AFFER, as we’d come to call them. I’d met Susan exactly once, three weeks after moving from Philadelphia to Dallas. She’d flown from Los Angeles to help host a Rat Pack themed weekend. She was the quintessential party girl, out until two every night, stretching the limits of my lifestyle. Thanks to AFFER’s ongoing long distance relationship with the Mummy, we’d stayed friends ever since.

  AFFER was one of two major rental companies that we worked with to secure the best copies of films to show in our theater. There existed a unique crowd of people interested in seeing old classics on the big screen, people willing to trade the comfort of their living room sofas and the convenience of the pause button for the movie going experience. That was the audience we catered to. Local film buffs made our reopening a possibility and they wouldn’t appreciate if we simply hooked a projector up to a DVD player. They wanted the reel thing, honest-to-goodness 35mm film that spun on metal reels, scratches and all. I fired off an email to Susan.

  Dear Susan,

  I’m trying to sell Richard on a Doris Day film festival for July. Tight schedule! I’m curious what films AFFER has available? Initial idea is for six different features to show over three nights as double features. Obvoiusly would prefer to rent all movies from one house. Richard’s not a fan, so let me know what’s in your inventory and we’ll go from there.

  I ran a spell check, fixed “obviously”, and sent the note.

  The phone rang but I let it go to the recording. Most of the mid-day calls were for show times and addresses. Only in my early days did I make the mistake of answering, and that time I’d ended up defending John Hughes’ movies for close to an hour. A bell sounded from the computer and an instant chat window appeared. It was Susan from AFFER. “Answer your phone!”

  I picked up the jangling receiver. “Susan?”

  “I thought Richard wanted you guys to answer the phone with ‘Dig Movies at the Mummy’?” said her bubbly voice. “He’s not there, right? He can’t be there. He’d never allow you to answer like that.”

  “Why the call? Did something happen?”

  “I got your email. Are you really talking Doris Day?” she said. Even the crackling of the old phone line couldn’t hide her obvious enthusiasm. I couldn’t keep up with her, not now, not today. My world was still in slow motion, my interest in mounting a Doris Day film festival unfairly unimportant regardless of how much I wanted to sink my teeth into it. I looked at the computer screen at a movie poster of Pillow Talk and concentrated on the simplicity of what it promised.

  “Yes, I’m talking Doris Day. Are you talking Doris Day? You sound a little too excited to be on the same page as me.”

  “No way. I’ve been waiting for the right person to pitch this idea to for years!”

  “I didn’t know you were such a fan,” I said.

  “I’m not. But I’ve been sitting on some Doris Day dirt, and if you’re willing to use it, your film festival will turn into one hell of a seat filler.”

  FIVE

  “You’ve got dirt on Doris Day?” I asked, immediately
sucked into the moment.

  “Here comes the manager.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll call you later.”

  If there was dirt, and I mean good dirt on Doris Day, I would have known about it. Even though we were literally Night and Day, from the moment I’d discovered that we shared a birthday, I felt a connection to the actress.

  I called up Google and typed “dirt on Doris Day.” Nothing. I tried other phrases, ones that felt wrong to type, but found no scoop. The woman, at least on the Internet, was still as squeaky clean as she’d been her whole career. It only piqued my interest more.

  I was pulled from my internet research by the phone. “DIG Movies at the Mummy,” I answered, cringing at the phrase the Dallas Independent Group wanted to use.

  “I called Richard about the film festival. You’re right, he’s not into it,” said Ruth.

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s going to take some convincing. But this could be very good for my daughter. She’s looking for something special to put on her college applications and this could be perfect.”

  “What could be perfect?” I asked, not sure what she was suggesting.

  “She can work the lobby as a lookalike. I mean, no offense, Madison, but she’s seventeen and you’re my age.”

  “Richard said yes to this?”

  “Like I said, he’s going to take some convincing.”

  Finally, after a bowl of very stale popcorn from a bin in the stockroom and an exhaustive search that involved quotes, image searches, and more than one porn site, I closed the Internet. Susan hadn’t called or emailed me back, and I had to keep myself busy if I wanted to keep the images of the morning at bay. I was on foot, and that made getting from here to there, here to anywhere, harder than the turn of a car key and the press of a pedal.