Cement Stilettos

by Diane Vallere

  “When Mr. Taylor broke into the factory, a silent alarm was tripped at Mr. Cantone’s house. There’s a separate alarm that rings in my office. I didn’t expect to find you two,” he paused, and looked directly at me, “though I’m not entirely surprised.” He turned to Nick and continued. “I thought you deserved some answers.”

  “You think those were answers? That was a snow job. Who killed Angela? Who threw a concrete block through my showroom window?”

  “Why did Jimmy the Tomato punch Nick?” I added.

  “I can’t answer those questions,” Loncar said.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Nick asked. Loncar remained silent.

  Nick’s tone changed. “What do you want me to do?” he asked quietly.

  “I can’t tell you to shut your doors. I can’t tell you to take a loss or file bankruptcy. We released your showroom. What you do next is up to you.”

  “What about me?” I asked. “My car? Somebody tried to blow me up.”

  “What you thought was an explosion turned out to be a smoke bomb.”

  “A smoke bomb? So it was just a joke? My car wasn’t destroyed?”

  “The bomb didn’t ruin it but there’s considerable water damage from the hose. We found the device under the front end of your car. It could have been put there by anybody but we have reason to suspect that it was a juvenile prank that went wrong.”

  “You mean Jimmy the Tomato’s kid? The one who tried to scam me?” Loncar raised his eyebrows. “I don’t care if it does show the entrepreneurial spirit. I work hard for my money and I’m not about to hand it over to a scammer.”

  Loncar turned back to Nick. “Other than Ms. Kidd’s car, what we’re seeing here is classic mafia behavior. Whoever is behind this is connected, and at a very high level. There’s a short list of suspects who fit that profile.”

  27

  Thursday, close to midnight

  “I’m supposed to be back here in the morning to do a major photo shoot for Tradava,” I said. “It wasn’t my idea to shoot it here. I mean, at first it was, but when I learned about Vito and all this, I tried to go a different direction. The owner of the store set it up and as we all know, my employment history since returning to Ribbon has been tenuous. How do I know it’ll be safe?”

  Loncar didn’t seem pleased, but he also didn’t seem surprised. “I got a tip about that from Carl Collins. He thought maybe you’d forget to mention it to me. I’m sending a team of my men out here to pose as security.”

  “If Carl called you about the photo shoot, then he’s just trying to make it into something more than it is. Did you see the smear job he did on Nick in today’s paper?”

  Nick put his hand on top of mine. “Kidd, this photo shoot for Tradava and the interview with you—those are both very good things. You deserve to be in the limelight and to get credit. Loncar isn’t going to let anything happen, and if Vito is behind this, he’s not going to risk damage to his own property to get you.”

  I shivered and wrapped the zebra printed fur around me tighter. The exposed concrete walls shielded us from the wind, but they provided little in the way of warmth. I was tired and hungry. And now that I’d made such a big deal over the photo shoot, the reality of the very big day in my future loomed large.

  The three of us left the factory and Nick drove me home. He pulled into the driveway but didn’t turn off the engine.

  “Tomorrow—your interview. I want you to knock them dead, okay? Don’t worry about me or about any of this. You had a great idea and it’s going to lead to lots of success for you.”

  “Do you want to be there?”

  “No.” He turned toward me. “I can’t get Vito’s words out of my head. Nobody knew Angela was his daughter. Killing her had nothing to do with him, at least that’s how it looks now. I can’t put you in danger by spending any more time with you. Not until this is over. I don’t know what they want, but it’s about me, not you.”

  Nick waited in the driveway while I went into my house. As hungry as I was, I was even more tired, and the incredibly high amount of Aqua-Net in my mafia hairdo drove me to the shower first and then to bed. Logan was waiting for me on top of the covers.

  It was cold pizza for breakfast. Since today was not just about the photo shoot but also my interview for the Ribbon Times, I thought it best to avoid any potential tomato stains on my carefully selected outfit. When I finished eating and drinking (cold pizza goes nicely with cold coffee), I showered again, carefully applied a full face of makeup intended to make it look like I wasn’t wearing any at all, blow dried my hair into a style about a third the size of last night’s, and slipped on my outfit: a light blue pantsuit, navy blue silk blouse, black belt and mary jane pumps. The blouse had an attached scarf-like collar that, when knotted, framed out my neck and face. I transferred the contents of my handbag to a black laptop bag, slid my checklist and notes into an empty pocket, and left.

  And remembered that I didn’t have a car. Crap!

  I called Tradava to see if Ragu could swing by and get me on his way to the factory, only to learn that the samples had been dropped off hours earlier. There was only one other person I knew would be at the photo shoot so I called him.

  “Carl, this is Samantha Kidd. I need a ride to the factory.”

  “That’s right! I heard your car was blown up. I don’t want the story now—not until the tape is rolling.”

  “There is no tape, Carl.”

  “I know. I hate it. My entire vocabulary of reporter’s terms is obsolete thanks to technology. Next thing you know we’ll have flying cars and transporter devices.”

  “May I remind you why I called? I don’t have a car, and my transporter device is on the fritz. I need a ride.”

  “Be there in twenty minutes.”

  While I was waiting, I helped myself to another (two) slice(s) of pizza. (I needed all the antioxidants I could get.) Carl pulled into my driveway and beeped his horn. I bent down and kissed Logan between his ears. “Funny how things work out, isn’t it? I’m leaving here a regular working girl and I’m coming home the subject of a profile in the newspaper.”

  Logan, clearly impressed with all that I’d accomplished, meowed and then buried his head in his water bowl. I grabbed my bag and left.

  Carl wore a shirt and tie under a brown zip-front bomber jacket. It was like Indiana Jones meets David Brent. On his head was a brown tweed cap that I happened to know Tradava had marked down to $12.99. I’d never seen Carl without a hat. Either it was a stylistic quirk or he had a hairline situation he was trying to keep under wraps.

  When I opened the door, Carl moved an empty take-out bag to the back and brushed his hand over the passenger seat a few times to rid it of errant French fries.

  “When’s the last time you cleaned this thing?” I asked.

  He held his finger up to his lips. “No talking. Got it? I am not risking this interview by your small talk in my car.”

  I sat down and looked out the window. Who knows? The silence might be nice.

  We arrived at Vito’s factory in about half an hour. It was still pretty early in the day, and even during rush hour, traffic in Ribbon in January wasn’t particularly heavy. More people were driving out of the city toward Philadelphia, Harrisburg, or Allentown than the direction we headed. The Tradava delivery truck was parked by the front entrance, and a couple of men I recognized from the store were unloading the boxes I’d packed in my office. Security officers stood by the fence that blocked the factory from the road out front. Loncar had delivered on his promise.

  The way I’d laid out the day, we would do the interview first with the factory backdrop. Trying to wrangle models, makeup artists, lighting assistants, and everything else on the same day as the Ribbon Times interview would have been a little like juggling wet cats, especially since I’d become a one-woman production.

  For the purposes of being interviewed while representing Tradava, we’d all agreed that today’s photo shoot should include pictures of me assemb
ling the outfits that would ultimately be used on the magalog, but strictly as samples and not styled on models. This eliminated the need to book additional models, makeup artists, and lighting experts for two separate shoots (The Ribbon Times photo crew consisted of a man with a camera. Good thing I’d applied my own makeup.) I suspected Carl was going to leverage my relationship with Nick in order to sensationalize the article, so to be on the safe side, I’d asked the store’s PR department to give me guidelines on what could and couldn’t be asked. I pulled out a sheath of papers and handed them to Carl.

  “Here are the releases,” I said. “I’d rather keep things focused on the store and not on the criminal investigations in my past.”

  “That’s not the deal, Kidd. This is a feature on you. A person of interest in Ribbon, Pennsylvania.”

  “You’re not going to call it that, are you?”

  He smiled. “I might. In a way, you are Ribbon’s most interesting person.”

  I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from his photographer. “This might be about me but it’s also about my job. If you back me into a corner, I’ll clam up. That’s not going to do anybody any good.”

  “What are you so worried about? Don’t you trust me?” He grinned and adjusted his hat. “Relax. It’s just you and me and my camera guy. I’ll do the interview first, and then he’ll get shots of you with your merchandise.”

  I pointed at him. “If you so much as mention the murder at Nick’s showroom, I’m out of here.”

  “Kidd, what did I tell ya? That’s cabbage. I’d much rather talk about why you suggested we use Vito Cantone’s factory as your setting.”

  I felt my eyes go wide and my mouth drop open. “You wouldn’t dare,” I said.

  “It’s called background research, Kidd. I know you’re raring to give me a quote.” He held his recorder out toward me. “From this point on, anything you say is on the record.”

  I closed my mouth and bit my lip to keep from talking. Behind Carl, a dark blue sedan pulled into the lot. It parked next to the Tradava van and Pam Trotter and the owners of Tradava got out.

  “Oh, look!” Carl said. “Tradava executives. Those are the people you were hoping not to embarrass, right?” His grin got wider. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you have a chance to say the store name between stories about all of your run-ins with the police.”

  28

  Friday morning

  “Don’t even think about making me look bad in front of the store owners,” I threatened. I left Carl and crossed the parking lot to greet Pam, Otto, and Harry. “This is a surprise!” I said to them. Once again, nerves caused my voice to rise and crack like Peter Brady going through puberty.

  “Are you kidding?” Pam said. “This is the most exciting thing anyone from Tradava has done in a long time. Otto and Harry are supposed to visit the West Ribbon store this afternoon but I convinced them to come here first. Will Nick be joining us?”

  “No, he’s busy getting his showroom back together.”

  “I heard about the vandalism. Is the location salvageable?” Harry asked.

  “I think that’s what he’s hoping to figure out today. The police released the crime scene last night so today is about assessing the damage.”

  “Poor thing,” Pam said. She leaned closer to me so the store owners couldn’t hear her. “West Ribbon has an opening for store manager. I’ve got some tough competition, but your idea made me look very good. Make me proud, Samantha.” She stood back up. “Otto? Harry? Why don’t we find a nice, out of the way spot where we can listen in on the interview without bothering anybody.” She winked at me.

  “Vaseline on the teeth,” Harry said to me. “Keeps you smiling during the whole interview. Learned about that trick when I married a cheerleader.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said.

  The Tradava executives went inside the factory. I scanned the parking lot. Security officers stood by the entrance and close to the building. I recognized two of them from the night Nick’s showroom had been vandalized. My stress level dropped slightly, until it occurred to me that Carl would be asking about my involvement with the police, and Loncar wasn’t going to like that one bit. My stress level rose and my left eye started to twitch.

  Me and my bright ideas.

  I trailed behind Otto and found Carl hovering above one of two chairs that faced each other. A table sat next to us. It wasn’t dissimilar to the setup in Loncar’s interrogation room, a fact I knew from experience. It was exactly the type of detail Carl would want me to share. I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Here’s how we’re doing this. My recorder will sit on the table and pick up our conversation. You’ll also wear a mic just in case there’s loud ambient noise. I’ll transcribe the interview tonight and submit the story to the weekend editor.”

  “This weekend? Won’t you need time to Photoshop the pictures and fact check?”

  “The tie-in with your boyfriend made the whole thing a little more newsworthy than I originally expected. Truthfully, this started out as a puff piece. Remind me to take you out for a drink sometime to say thanks for being in the middle of another investigation. One involving the mob, too. You’re a peach, Kidd.”

  “Yeah, I did it for you. And let me help you out with your fact checking. Nick Taylor is my fiancé, not my boyfriend.”

  “Wow. Ribbon’s most eligible shoe designer made it official, huh? Hope he knows what he’s in for. You must be a handful.”

  “Is your recorder on yet?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Bite me.”

  Carl rolled his eyes. Behind him, Otto waved his hands back and forth to get my attention. He pointed to his own phone and then held his hands palm-side up in a question.

  “You can come over,” I called out. “We haven’t started yet.”

  He walked up to us. “My brother and Pam just brought up an important question. Has anyone from Tradava reviewed your questions?”

  “Excuse me?” Carl asked.

  “Standard press procedure,” Otto said. “If this was just an interview of Ms. Kidd as a local celebrity, we’d request that she not mention the store. Since we’re using our merchandise in the shoot and tying it into our advertising campaign, there’s really no way to keep Tradava out of it.”

  I looked at Carl. “It is standard procedure,” I said. “The store where I worked in New York was the same. Even today I usually just say ‘luxury store in New York’ instead of Bentley’s New York. I’m trained.”

  Carl looked annoyed. He handed a small stack of index cards to Otto. “Don’t take too long,” he said. “We need to get this thing started soon if we’re going to get pictures too.”

  Otto held up a hand and then flipped rapidly through the cards. He dropped the fourth, fifth, and thirteen through fifteen on the desk, and then handed the stack back to Carl. He looked at me. “Samantha, you must have a very interesting background.” He picked up the cards from the table and stuck them in his pocket.

  Carl flipped through the remaining cards. “He took all the good ones!” he said. “What’s he going to do to me if I ask them anyway? I’m a journalist. He can’t really stop me, can he?”

  “He can do whatever he wants where Tradava is concerned. He owns the company.”

  He turned on his recording device and looked straight at me. “Fashion industry professional. Small town girl moves to the big city and then moves back home. The prodigal daughter? Or a restless spirit looking for her place in the world? Today Ribbon Times reporter Carl Collins talks to Samantha Kidd about who she is, what she’s done, and where she sees herself in the future. Samantha, before we get into your decision to move back to the town where you grew up, I have to ask: is life in Ribbon as exciting as New York?”

  And we were off.

  The formal interview lasted close to an hour. Despite Carl’s repeated attempts to expose the dark side of my life, I mostly kept things on track. I knew he’d take creative license when it came to background inf
ormation; every single thing I’d been involved with since moving back home had been covered in the Ribbon Times and it was merely a matter of him rooting through the archives.

  He finished on a lightning round of This or That, feeding me such challenging questions as shoes or handbags (shoes), pizza or salad (duh), Jessica Fletcher or Nancy Drew (Nancy. She had the better wardrobe). When we finished, I felt a bit like I’d crossed an active minefield and come out the other side. My one and only mention of Nick had been when Carl asked me what it was like to join forces with another fashionable resident of the city. I limited my answer to the potential impact such union would have on my closet, and then smiled sweetly. Carl Collins was going to choke on cabbage and there was nothing he could do about it.

  We finished and took a short coffee break while the Tradava stock team assembled giant metal racks and hung the samples I’d had delivered. Pam joined me to set up the sunglasses.

  “That went well, Samantha,” she said. “I knew you had taste and I knew you had style, but I didn’t know you could conduct yourself in such a professional manner. I’m beginning to wonder if your talents aren’t being wasted in the advertising department.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I’ll be plenty busy now that my coworker left.”

  “All I’m saying is don’t be surprised if you hear from me about another kind of job opportunity.” She unwrapped the last of the sunglasses, smiled, and rejoined Otto and Harry. The two men waved at me and the three of them left the site.

  The photo shoot lasted for several hours. The light caught in the windows and shifted, creating glares and highlights on the merchandise I’d set up. More than once I’d had to redo my backdrop. One by one the other people present left the scene, including Carl, who claimed he had to work miracles on our interview to liven it up and deliver on his promise to subscribers of the paper. We finished with the skeleton crew of the photographer, Ragu from Tradava delivery, and me.

  At around five, the photographer turned off his camera. “That’s a wrap,” he said. “Sun’s going down and we’re getting some weird shadows. You’re starting to look a little creepy, if you ask me.”