Pocketbooks and Pistols

by Dorothy Howell

  Ty popped into my head.

  Holt’s owned Nuovo. Ty’s family owned Holt’s. He ran them both. Did he know the shipment had been lost? Could he pull some strings to get another order of the clutches sent to Nuovo, pronto?

  Maybe I should call him and ask—though I should probably leave out the part about wanting to take it on a date with another guy.

  Of course, for all I knew Ty was still on sabbatical, trying to sort out his life. I shouldn’t intrude unless it’s an emergency. But this was, after all, a shipment of designer handbags. Major bucks were involved. He would want to know, right?

  I stopped at the corner and waited with other pedestrians for traffic to clear. Halfway across the intersection, the mental image of Ty seeing my name on his caller ID screen and not answering sprang into my head.

  It made me feel pretty yucky.

  When I stepped up onto the curb on the other side of the street, that image morphed into Ty, dressed in his business suit, answering his phone at his office downtown, where he’d been for weeks without bothering to tell me he was back in town.

  I felt even yuckier.

  Wow, I really needed a Starbucks now.

  I walked past shop windows displaying mannequins dressed in gorgeous clothing, decked out in fabulous accessories, and it hit me—I wanted that Mystique.

  My emotional turmoil suddenly whipped itself into an F5 tornado. I had to find out what was going on with Ty so I’d know if he could get that bag for me.

  I pulled out my cell phone and called Amber, his personal assistant.

  Amber and I had always been cool with each other, even after Ty and I broke up. I hadn’t talked to her in a while so I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I’d get. I was relieved when she answered right away.

  “Oh my God, girl, how are you?” Amber said.

  She was young, brunette-smart, and super organized. I’d never worried about her having a thing for Ty—not after I’d noticed her checking out Marcie’s butt.

  “Pretty good,” I said. “What’s up with you?”

  “Just trying to stay ahead,” she said. “No, he’s not back yet.”

  I didn’t bother pretending not to know she was talking about Ty or that I hadn’t called to find out if he’d returned.

  “I’m paying his bills, keeping up on his emails, and forwarding him the important ones,” Amber said.

  A wave of concern washed through me. Ty really was off the grid—way off, and had been for months now. I wondered if something else was going on.

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  “Seems to be. I hear from him regularly.”

  “Where is he? What’s he doing?” I asked.

  All sorts of ideas flooded my head.

  Was he sequestered in a cabin high in the Himalayas, meditating and doing yoga? Trekking across Antarctica? Studying art and painting watercolors on the bank of the Seine?

  Or living on a secluded beach somewhere with a hot chick?

  “I’ve got no clue where he is,” Amber said. “So what’s up? Did you need something?

  It seemed kind of selfish—even for me—to contact Ty after all this time just so I could get my hands on a fabulous purse. Still, I was willing to do it, but Amber spoke first.

  “You want me to contact him, ask him to call you?” she asked. “You know, Haley, Ty would do anything for you.”

  That was nice to hear, but I wasn’t so sure it was true.

  “No, don’t do that,” I said. “I just . . .”

  Just what?

  In that instant, I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I wanted to say to Amber that could explain my call to her. Sure, it was about the Mystique. But something else was going on. I knew because my heart had started to ache, my breathing had gotten labored, and heaviness had settled over me. Images of Ty filled my mind—how tall, strong, handsome, smart, generous, kind, caring he was—along with the big question I still couldn’t come to terms with: Why? Why couldn’t things have worked out for us?

  “You’re sure?” Amber asked. “I can email him right now. It’s no problem.”

  Should I do that?

  I was tempted—oh, wow, I was really tempted. But how long would it take to hear back from him? How many hours, days, or weeks, maybe, would pass while I jumped every time my cell phone rang, thinking it was him?

  And what if it was never?

  “Haley?”

  The notion that he might not call me at all boiled down to a hard knot in my belly.

  I’d spent enough time waiting for Ty.

  I had to stop letting myself get all twisted up about him. We’d broken up. I couldn’t put myself through this any longer.

  “No,” I said. “Never mind. It’s no big deal. Don’t mention my call to him, okay?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” I said, and ended the call.

  I headed for Starbucks.

  * * *

  While I sat at a table near the window sipping my Frappuccino, I decided to move Valerie Roderick to the top of my mental to-do list.

  I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I’d get from her at her vintage clothing shop. She had, after all, gotten into a heated argument with Asha in Holt’s and was seemingly unconcerned about making a public spectacle of herself. Chances were good Valerie wouldn’t take too kindly to me, a total stranger, waltzing into her shop, telling her I knew about her near throw-down, and asking about her involvement with her former employee who was now a murder victim.

  Go figure.

  While I finished my Frappie, I did an Internet search for Valerie and her shop. I’d already done some preliminary work but thought it prudent to dig deeper in case she had an arrest record, a history of violence, or something else I should know about.

  Valerie’s Vintage had a cool website featuring a wide variety of women’s clothing and accessories. There were lots of photos depicting racks and display units crammed with merchandise. It ranged from vintage designer fashions to items that seemed to be just old stuff that I figured she’d bought at a yard or estate sale which, technically, I suppose, was still considered vintage.

  According to the site, the shop had been around for about three years. Valerie must have been knowledgeable about both vintage clothing and managing a business if the place had been up and running for that long. Small shops—especially those aimed at a niche market—weren’t easy to keep above water.

  I followed a number of the links but didn’t discover much more than I had on my initial search. No news reports about Valerie being a psycho who’d shot up her own business, or disgruntled customers throwing bricks through the windows, or a protest staged in front of her shop over alleged inhumane use of cotton-blend fabrics, or anything else that could be dangerous to walk in on.

  No need for me to arrange backup before going in.

  After finishing my Frappie, I strolled down the street and turned the corner onto Theater Drive. Valerie’s Vintage was situated between an Italian restaurant and a toy store. It had a large display window featuring headless mannequins dressed in layers of chic fashions from different eras, old wooden chests bursting with scarfs and jewelry, and a bureau with open drawers overflowing with sweaters and blouses.

  When I went inside, Valerie—or her decorator—had continued the retro vibe with black and white prints of Chanel evening gowns, Hermès dresses, and Halston sheaths framed on the walls. The place was quiet. I didn’t see any customers or sales clerks. Nor did I see a lot of merchandise, contrary to their website photos, which showed displays crammed with fashions. This store was hardly the first to fudge a bit on its website. I wondered, though, if this was an indication that business had fallen off and Valerie had been forced to let Asha go. Was that why she’d left last summer? Or perhaps Asha had quit, having grown weary of spending hours, days, weeks, and months confined in this small shop.

  I could totally relate.

  Whatever the reason, Asha’s departure hadn’t been a smooth one, apparen
tly, given the argument Grace had witnessed in Holt’s. Something was still festering between them, all these months later. If I was lucky, maybe it had led to murder and I could solve the case today.

  I mean that in the nicest way, of course.

  There were, thank goodness, no handbags to distract me, so I checked out the clothing while waiting for Valerie to appear. I found an awesome pair of orange and yellow plaid hip-hugger bell-bottom pants that some hot chick must have totally rocked back in the seventies. There were dresses with shoulder pads that I was certain had been strutted by ladies in the grips of the who-shot-JR mystery, complete with panty hose, pumps, and chunky jewelry. I got a History Channel Woodstock documentary flashback seeing the psychedelic peasant blouses and love beads.

  I wandered to the jewelry display spread out on the glass case near the cash register. I wasn’t into vintage but, wow, these pieces looked awesome. Right away I spotted earrings that would look great with the dress I’d just bought, then I saw a necklace, a bracelet, a—

  “May I help you find something?”

  I jumped at the sound of a woman’s voice and whirled around. Valerie stood behind me.

  Oh my God. I was definitely going to have to work on my stealth-mode skills.

  I recognized Valerie from her photo online—late thirties, tall, dark hair, pleasant looking. She had on a pink sleeveless, belted dress that was probably in style during the first moon landing.

  “I love these earrings,” I said, and held up the pair I’d picked out.

  “Are you thinking of pairing them with that?” Valerie asked, indicating the bracelet I was also holding.

  I took a closer look. It was a chain bracelet embellished with crystals and coral roses. Gorgeous, but now that I’d taken a closer look, I realized it was not really me.

  “It looks like my mom.”

  In any other shop that comment might have come across as insulting, but Valerie rolled with it.

  “Then maybe you should get it for her,” she suggested.

  Buy a gift for my mom for no special reason? Why hadn’t I ever thought of that before?

  “It’s Prada,” Valerie pointed out. “Ceruse crystals. From their iconic coral rose 2012 collection.”

  I saw the Prada logo engraved on the clasp, so I knew it was the real thing—well worth the three-hundred-dollar price tag I discreetly glanced at.

  Valerie waited while I draped the bracelet around my wrist and turned it left, then right, studying how it looked and imagining it on Mom.

  “She’d love it,” I said.

  Valerie still didn’t say anything, didn’t push for the sale, which I appreciated—and which was probably the reason she’d stayed in business all this time. Small shops lived or died by their reputation. Nailing a customer with heavy-handed buy-it-now pressure didn’t inspire return business.

  Mom had been really upset the last time I’d seen her over that whole back-in-the-day beauty pageant scandal involving her second-place finish in the Miss Whatever-itwas competition. Even though she was over it now and planning a long vacation, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to surprise her with a gift. And wasn’t Prada the perfect pick-me-up?

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  “How about the earrings?” Valerie asked.

  If I could buy my mom a gift, I could certainly get one for myself.

  “I’ll take them, too,” I said.

  Valerie took the jewelry and moved behind the counter.

  “Shall I gift wrap the bracelet?” she asked.

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  Valerie made quick work of boxing the items and wrapping the bracelet in antique blue paper and ribbon. Then she tapped on the cash register and gestured to the displayed total.

  Four hundred and fifty bucks. Not a lot, considering what I’d purchased, but sizeable enough to put it on my credit card.

  “Does your mother shop here?” Valerie asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, as I dug my wallet out of my handbag—a terrific Fendi tote. “But after she sees this bracelet, I’m sure she’ll want to come by and check things out for herself.”

  I flipped through the cards in my wallet—driver’s license, auto club, medical insurance, Macy’s gift card, but no Visa from the Golden State Bank & Trust.

  What the heck?

  I went through everything again, looked in the other slots in my wallet, and dug to the bottom of my tote. The card wasn’t there.

  Oh my God. I always kept that card with me. Had I lost it? Or worse—had it been stolen?

  Was somebody running from store to store throughout Southern California, racking up charges in my name? Or website hopping, ordering extravagant luxuries that I would be billed for?

  Why hadn’t my bank called me? Why hadn’t I gotten an alert? I’d signed up for that service, hadn’t I?

  I sensed Valerie staring.

  Okay, this could have been really awkward but, luckily, I had a don’t-get-embarrassed-at-check-out backup plan in place. I pulled out my emergencies-only MasterCard and passed it to Valerie.

  She chatted about something but I couldn’t listen. I was in semi-panic mode.

  When had I last used that credit card? I thought back. I hadn’t purchased anything in a while, except for the dress at Nuovo, which I’d used my debit card for. I didn’t remember charging anything—

  Then it hit me.

  I’d used it the night Marcie and I had dinner together, at the restaurant just down the street, the night I’d ended up in Jack’s bed—which I absolutely could not think about right now.

  Maybe I’d left the card at the restaurant. I’d check. Then I’d search my car, my apartment, the handbag I’d carried that night. I’d ask Marcie. Maybe she’d picked it up by mistake.

  I thought hard, trying to come up with another spot to search. If I couldn’t think of more possibilities that meant—

  Oh my God, had I left it at Jack’s place?

  Oh, crap.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the small shopping bag from Valerie.

  “You’re very welcome,” she said. “I know your mom is going to love that bracelet.”

  I smiled and headed for the door.

  Wait. Hang on. I couldn’t leave yet. I’d come here to question Valerie about Asha’s death.

  I’ve really got to do better about staying focused.

  I oh-so-cleverly pretended to get distracted by a rack of acid-washed jeans with zippers at the ankles, and glanced up to see that Valerie had come from behind the counter sensing, I’m sure, another possible sale.

  I waited until she got close, then said, “Asha McLean used to work here, didn’t she?”

  Valerie froze. Her I’m-always-helpful smile curdled.

  Oh, yeah, I was definitely onto something here.

  I decided to hit her with the big news and see what kind of reaction I got.

  “She’s dead, you know,” I said. “Murdered.”

  I got a small gasp and a double blink from Valerie but nothing more, nothing that indicated she was surprised to hear the news, or that she already knew.

  After a few more seconds, Valerie said, “Well, I can’t say I’m shocked.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  Her eyes narrowed a bit, and she said, “How do you know Asha?”

  “We worked together.”

  Valerie drew back a little like I’d suddenly started to stink. “Where?”

  She must have known Asha had worked at a lot of places, since she’d seen Asha’s résumé when she’d hired her, so this should have been a logical question. But Valerie looked angry, suspicious, like something else was going on.

  “At that website of hers?” she demanded.

  Website? What website?

  “At Holt’s,” I said. “Asha ran a website?”

  Valerie’s expression morphed from anger and suspicion to just plain old anger.

  “That so-called review site of hers.” Valerie all
but spit out the words. “That Exposer site.”

  I’d never heard of an Exposer site, but I wanted to keep Valerie talking so I rolled with it.

  “Oh my God, Asha ran that?” I asked. “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were,” she told me, then waved her arms around. “Look at this place. My business has fallen off to nothing since she posted that horrible review. I’m still trying to recover. And it was lies she told—lies.”

  “Asha deliberately posted things that weren’t true?” I asked.

  Valerie fumed, now seemingly angry at herself. “I hired her. I believed her. I fell for her story about wanting to learn the retail business from the ground up, and working her way toward a business degree. And all the while, she was really nosing around my shop, uncovering every tiny troublesome situation that arose, every miniscule problem, and blowing it up into a major catastrophe that she included in that review of hers.”

  “So what she reported was true?” I asked.

  “Yes, some of it was, but she blew it completely out of proportion, made it into something it wasn’t,” Valerie said. “And she fabricated other things that had no basis in truth.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Money, of course,” Valerie told me. “That site of hers is vile and mean-spirited, and for some reason, she has thousands of followers.”

  People loved bad news. They flocked to places that reported it which, in turn, attracted lots of advertising revenue.

  I didn’t doubt what Valerie was saying but, really, how much damage could one bad review really do?

  “So Asha wrote an unfavorable review,” I said. “And you think that one thing was the cause of your business troubles?”

  Valerie’s anger rose again.

  “Twitter blew up,” she told me. “Tweets were flying. Claims were made that my designer fashions were knockoffs, that I bought clothing from sweatshops overseas, that I was contributing to child slavery.”

  “And none of that was true?” I asked.

  “No!”

  I took a step back.

  Valerie’s face turned a deep red. “Los Angeles Magazine was going to do a story on my shop, but they cancelled!”