With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3)

by Vallere, Diane

  I sat, silent, waiting for Tex to badger me into talking. I waited for three minutes, if the clock on the dashboard was to be trusted. As it turns out, three minutes is a relatively long amount of time.

  “My parents died in a car crash when I was twenty-one,” I said. “I remember because it was the night before my midterms. They were the only family I had. When they were gone, it was just me.”

  “What about your extended family? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?”

  “My parents were both only children. When they died, I was on my own.”

  I stared at the empty containers scattered inside his car. Not only had I not gotten Tex to open up, but I’d succeeded in exposing my own old wounds. This wasn’t going well.

  “I should be getting home,” I said. I picked up the empties and opened the car door.

  He reached a hand out to stop me before I was out. “I’m here because I can’t sit around at home wondering what’s going on. Kate Morrow was abducted from this store.”

  “You’re planning to make the parking lot your new residence?”

  “Not just here. One of the other women was abducted from the bowling alley on Turtle Creek Boulevard. Another from the Mexican restaurant on Greenville, and another from the Cineplex.”

  “So you’ve become a one-man surveillance operation.”

  “There has to be something we’re missing. Officially, I’m on leave. Unofficially, I can sit in a parking lot and look for something unusual to happen.”

  “Has anything unusual happened yet?”

  “Aside from you showing up with the Chinese food? Not really.”

  I smiled. “Are you going to be here tomorrow?” I asked.

  “I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow.” He hesitated. “But maybe I’ll be back here tonight.”

  “Okay, well, maybe I’ll bring you dinner.”

  We held each other’s stare for a few seconds but neither of us moved. When I opened the door a second time, Tex didn’t stop me from leaving. Halfway to my car, the Jeep started. Tex pulled up next to me and rolled down the window.

  “The Chinese takeout was a nice touch,” he said. “Next time bring eggrolls.” He smiled and drove away.

  I stopped at Mad for Mod for the references of other contractors that Hudson had left for me and drove home. Effie and her boyfriend Chad sat on the front steps. Rocky lay on the sidewalk, legs spread out behind him, paws in front, face on the ground. He looked pooped.

  “Sorry I’m so late. Something came up.”

  “Madison, you remember Chad, right?”

  I looked at the guy and smiled. “Yes, nice to see you again.”

  He nodded his head once.

  “I have to talk to Madison,” Effie said to him. “Alone.”

  “I’ll wait by the car,” Chad said without looking at her. He pulled himself up with a hand on the loose metal banister and walked to the car parked by the curb.

  I took Chad’s place on the steps. Rocky stood, turned around, and laid his head across my lap. “How did things go today?” I asked.

  “Officer Nast was great. She took me to the police department and told them she wouldn’t let them talk to me without her. When we were done she gave me her phone numbers and email and told me I could call her anytime I wanted to.”

  “Did she tell you she wasn’t a police officer anymore?”

  “Yes, but she’s a security officer now so I’m still going to call her Officer Nast.”

  “I’m glad things worked out.”

  Effie reached out and rubbed the top of Rocky’s head. Her lips were pressed together, making their normally rosy shade turn white.

  “Effie, what’s on your mind?”

  “Chad thinks it’s a good idea if I move in with him. You’re not here every night, and even though I know you put in all those security devices, I don’t want to stay here alone.”

  “I understand,” I said, because I really did. Even if I said I would stay in the building, we’d have separate schedules. Coming and going to the mostly empty complex would still have a solitary feel.

  “I’m going to get my stuff over the weekend. I paid my rent through the end of the month, but once I’m out, I won’t come back. I know I should have given you sixty days. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t even worry about that. You can stay here as long as you want. If you decide to get your own place, let me know and I’ll write you a referral. You’ve been a very good tenant.”

  “Madison, there’s something else.” She looked down at her feet. They were pointed toward each other, and the rubber of her worn-out sneakers was peeled away in two places. She reached down and pulled off a piece, tossed it to the side, and looked up at me. “I know you said Lt. Allen couldn’t have been the person who approached me last night, but I’m still scared of him. I know he comes here to see you and I don’t want to see him.”

  “I thought when you saw him on the news, you knew it couldn’t have been him.”

  “Yes, but I can’t help it. I’m still scared of him. That’s why I think it’s a good idea that I go with Chad.”

  I looked at her boyfriend, leaning against his Prius, using his thumbs to type something on the screen of his phone. He was a tall, skinny guy in a faded Kiss T-shirt and ratty jeans, but to her, he was her protector.

  “You can come visit Rocky whenever you like,” I said.

  “Maybe he can come visit me?” she asked.

  “Sure. When you’re ready, you give me the address and we’ll come by.” I stood and helped her up after me. We hugged. She got into Chad’s car and he pulled away.

  And then there was one.

  I drove back to the studio to check out my Asian-themed inventory. Before I moved to Dallas, Mad for Mod had been a vacant storefront on Greenville Avenue. The storage locker behind the shop had been in disrepair, with the doors falling off their hinges and the roof leaking in five places. In addition to the locker, the property came with a Dumpster, four parking spaces, and an unfortunate red zone in the front that had led to more than one parking ticket.

  Half of the interior of the studio was staged with furniture to demonstrate the styles of room I’d design if a client hired me: Nelson bubble lamps, Saarinen tulip chairs and tables, low sofas with classic right angles, and the occasional bachelor bar, all filled the space. I’d recently rotated the inventory from the storage locker and set up Tiki windows, with collections of mugs, hula girls, Polynesian lamps and ashtrays. I even found a couple of old blowfish lights in the trash when La Calle Doce renovated, and put them to good use, suspending them from the ceiling and using battery-operated dollar store flicker lights to illuminate them.

  The other half of my studio was my office. Less than half, actually. A narrow hallway led to the back portion of the store, and my office sat on the left-hand side. One wall was covered floor to ceiling in cork squares where I pinned inspiration pictures and stills from Doris Day movies for potential rooms. Cleo and Dan Tyler had taken a particular liking to the cork wall.

  Two weeks ago I’d pinned the four paint chips from Paintin’ Place to the top of the cork wall. At the time I’d thought surrounding myself with the swatches would keep me from forgetting them. Maybe I should go with famous architects. Paul McCobb yellow. Yellow like corn. On the cob. Corn on the McCobb Yellow.

  I was losing my mind.

  I sat behind my desk. It was a patchwork of surface, drawers, and mismatched legs from different pieces of furniture that were otherwise unsalvageable. Two Barcelona chairs sat opposite the desk. A molded fiberglass desk chair sat behind it. Cabinets next to the desk held swatch books and blank sketch pads, an electric coffee pot, and an industrial-sized box of vanilla wafers, my current favorite afternoon pick-me-up snack.

  Rocky curled up on his fluffy dog bed and chewed on his rope bone.
I located a list of contractors from the file and left messages with the first four on the list. The afternoon sun was high in the sky, bringing with it the perfect amount of sun to illuminate the storage locker. I put the paper aside and planned to try again later.

  I filled bowls with food and water for Rocky and left him in the office while I went out back to root through my inventory. I amassed a pile of bamboo, paper lanterns, and stacks of pillows with vintage Oriental needlepoint patterns. The bright sun had brought an uncomfortable level of heat and humidity with it, but I was too lost in the project to quit.

  “Excuse me,” said a voice from the doorway.

  I looked over my shoulder. A strange man in a dark uniform blocked the exit. I was wrangling a long red tufted cushion between a table and a bookcase when I turned to face him.

  “Can I help you?” I called.

  “Dunno. Are you Madison Night?”

  “I am.”

  That’s when I saw the knife in his hand.

  EIGHT

  The sunlight backlit the man’s figure. He stepped into the locker. I stepped back. He lifted his knife. It was curved like a hook. I raised the cushion in front of me. He came closer. A lamp tipped over and glass shattered on impact. I tried to scream but my throat was dry and no sound came out.

  “Madison Night, right? The decorator?” he said. “Hudson told me to get in touch with you. Says you was looking for a contractor? I tried to call but nobody’s answering your phone.”

  “What did you say your name was?” I called. He hadn’t, but I didn’t care.

  “People call me Lyndy. Are you sure you’re okay back there? You look trapped.”

  “Mr. Lyndy, can you wait out front for me?” I said from behind the cushion.

  “Sure.”

  I waited until the storage locker was silent and shifted the cushion onto the top of a boomerang coffee table. I didn’t have much in the way of weapons, but I wasn’t going out unarmed against a man with a hook-shaped knife. I picked up an aluminum trash can lid and a fireplace poker and made my way out front, feeling more Monty Python than Doris Day.

  The man leaned against the back door of Mad for Mod. He was older than I’d originally assumed. Dark, tanned, deeply creased skin glowed against his white hair. He was shorter than I was, exacerbated by the curve of his spine.

  “I hope I didn’t scare you back there. I’ve been banging on the front door for about twenty minutes afore I came around the back. Saw the door open and saw your legs sticking up, got a little scared myself.”

  Rocky’s barking sounded from inside the shop. The knocking must have riled him up. “Mr. Lyndy, you said you know Hudson?”

  “Ain’t no Mister, just Lyndy. Yeah, I know Hudson. Taught him a thing or two about construction. Boy’s a fast learner.”

  I knew Hudson had been raised by his grandmother, but I’d never stopped to think about how he’d gotten into construction and woodworking. I’d always figured he’d picked it up on his own.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the knife in his hand.

  “That’s my carpet knife.” He held it up. “Truth is, I’m on foot. Don’t live far from here and I didn’t want to bring my whole tool box if you wasn’t around. Hudson called me yesterday and said you were looking for someone to help you on a project. I thought I’d show up ready for a job. I don’t do many jobs these days, but if Hudson wants a favor, I’ll do it.”

  I was still wary of the knife and wondered exactly how far he’d walked while holding onto it. It seemed I had even more evidence to support my argument that most Dallas residents didn’t pay attention to the threats right in front of them.

  “I can see it makes you uncomfortable. I lost my old one. This one’s new. I had it in my pants, but after a while I kept feeling the tip poking into my thigh. I didn’t even realize I was holding it when you saw me. Sure am sorry about that.” He set the carpet knife on the ground by the toe of his boot, and then eased it forward, away from him and toward me. It was an odd gesture. I’d seen people do it in old movies, when bad guys are told to stand down. In the movies, the bad guys usually have another weapon strapped to their ankle.

  “Do you have any referrals?”

  “I told you, Hudson,” he said.

  “No, I mean client referrals.”

  “Most of the time I do the work and get paid cash. I don’t ask people to write up referrals. But I’ve worked on most of these buildings out here. Been laying carpet since the sixties. I did the Granada Theater at the end of the street, and the Szechwan Pavilion on Buckner before they renovated.”

  “Is there a way I can reach you? Do you have a business card?”

  “You can write down my phone number.”

  The longer I stood outside talking to Lyndy, the less wary I became. He seemed like a nice old man who was willing to do a job, but I wasn’t the same trusting soul I’d once been. I was going to need more than first impressions to put him on my payroll.

  “When did you talk to Hudson?” I asked.

  “This morning. Boy knows I get up early. He’s in one of them square states now but he said he’s on his way back. I got the feeling he wanted me to help you out until he got here so he could pick up where I left off.”

  “Let me get your number, and if things pan out, I’ll be in touch.” Instead of going inside, I went to my car and pulled a pen and business card from the center console. Lyndy rattled off seven numbers, I prompted him for the area code, and he looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Two-one-four,” he said. “I’ve been around longer than them new area codes.”

  I thanked him for his time and watched him walk to the edge of the parking lot. When he turned around, I noticed sadness in his red-rimmed eyes. “Miss Night, Hudson said you were a good lady. I’ve been down on my luck and I could use the work, even if it does only last until he gets here. I understand you gotta call him and make sure I’m not lying about anything I told ya. I’d want my own girls to do the same thing if they were still alive.” He raised his hand to me in a cross between a tip of the hat and a wave. I waved back and watched him disappear into the streets behind Greenville Avenue.

  I went back through the file of contractors that Hudson had left me. The last name on the list, one that I hadn’t gotten to because of the early time, was Emil Lyndy. The phone number matched the one the old man had given me. For the first time since he’d shown up by the storage locker, I felt myself relax a tiny bit. Maybe he was just a man with a tragedy in his past who was looking for a job.

  I locked up the storage locker and spent the rest of the day designing the Japanese-inspired temporary interior for Cleo Tyler’s party. I tried to recall any pertinent scenes in the Doris Day movies I knew so well, but came up empty. Not a tragedy, I figured, since the room would be temporary and torn down when the time came to finish the rest of the Tyler house.

  I made a shopping list: paint for the walls, brushes and ink to create a minimal design on it, string lights for the paper lanterns, and bamboo. I downloaded a photo of the Tyler living room as it currently was, diluted the colors enough that only a hint of walls, floor, and ceiling lines were present, and printed five copies. I placed a sheet of tracing paper over the photo, and with a sharp black marker, sketched on the placement of a long, low bench that could serve as a dining area, rectangular cushions like the red one I’d been wrestling in the storage locker, plants, and a portable sake bar. Once I replaced their light fixtures with suspended paper lanterns, it would take on a cartoony Asian flair, less aesthetically pure but higher in entertainment value—something I suspected Cleo would respond to.

  I closed down the computer, locked the front door, and left out the back sometime after seven. The temperature didn’t change much between the time the sun was up and when it dropped, and the air held the beginning of what would soon become mont
hs of summer humidity. I envied Cleo’s ability to jump into the pool when she wanted to cool down. Maybe I’d take her up on her offer to attend the party. I closed the storage locker and drove to Thelma Johnson’s house.

  I’d inherited the two-story stucco house from the son of a woman who had been murdered a year ago. It was located in the M streets, so named because all of the streets had names that started with that letter. The inheritance had required me to clear the back taxes on the property, and at the time, the idea of a secret hideaway had been appealing. I cleared up the bills and moved in. Turns out it was just in time. When my past came knocking on the door of my apartment, I’d needed a place to go. A place where nobody knew to look for me. And for the most part, this house had continued to be just that. A place where I could get away when I wanted to not be found.

  Staying at Thelma Johnson’s house had started out as a once or twice a week thing, and had turned into my more regular residence. Now that Effie was moving out of my apartment building, I found that I didn’t want to stay there all by myself. The initial luster of buying the property and building my own small community through rentals had been tarnished by recent events. The community I’d built had vanished into thin air. I was forty-eight years old and had established that I didn’t want or need anybody in my life except for my dog. At least that’s what I wanted the world to think. Personally, I was starting to feel like a fraud for pretending to be so independent when more and more I craved companionship.

  I carried Rocky from the car past the hedge, and then set him down. He took off across the yard, making a dash for the row of trees that lined the property. He lifted his leg by a purple Japanese maple that had been there for decades, and then raced in circles around the sidewalk. I guess when you spend your day cooped up inside a small office, you need a place to let off some steam.

  I studied the vegetables in the garden while he played. A white butterfly caught his attention and he trotted along behind its irregular path. I picked the almost ripe tomatoes from the vine and called to Rocky.