by Janet Bolin
You won’t get away with it.
Pay up or else.
Maybe Kent had printed the first note and typed the second.
Mona waved a hand in front of her face. “But it doesn’t matter. We need to find the real murderer quickly so we can get those outfits back to use as costumes in our play, and Kent and I are afraid that the police will come after him.” She lowered her voice. “This is confidential, so don’t go telling anyone, especially not the police. Kent was wrongfully convicted when he was in his early twenties. He has to figure out who killed Antonio before the police dig up his old criminal record and think he was Antonio’s murderer.”
Was Kent’s criminal record due to the assault that Loretta had told me about, or something else? Whatever criminal record the man had, the police probably already knew about it. Unless . . . I asked, “Was his conviction overturned?”
Mona stamped a foot. “No. That’s the problem. Don’t you see? A model accused him of assaulting her, but he was only draping fabric on her and barely touched her. The girl wanted attention and made a capital case of it.”
I asked Mona, “Why did Antonio take the risk of hiring a teacher with a record of assaulting a model? In a fashion design and modeling school?”
Mona gave me one of her superior, haughty looks. “Didn’t you understand what I just said? Kent wasn’t guilty. He was wrongfully accused and convicted.” Her eyes went suddenly dreamy. “Poor Antonio. He was not only handsome, he was a good man, a fair and just man. He believed Kent, and he gave him the chance he needed.” She took a deep breath. “So you see, Kent would never have harmed Antonio. Kent loves fashion design. He wants to design clothes just for me. Isn’t that darling?”
Actually, it was worrisome.
She didn’t seem to notice our exchange of glances and clearing of throats. “Kent needed to prove he could be in the fashion industry without being unjustly accused.” She glowered up the hill in the direction of TADAM. “But things have gone all wrong for Kent. First, his employer died. May have been killed. And then, to make matters worse, another model here in Threadville, a TADAM student, has just accused Kent of touching her.”
Almost breathless, I asked, “Another model? Did he say who?”
Mona’s forehead puckered. “Some name like a department store. Blooming? Blossom?”
“Macey?” I supplied.
Mona nodded. “Yes, that’s the name. Poor Kent suffers from terrible luck, probably because of his good looks, and we wouldn’t want to compound his problems by going around speculating that he murdered someone, would we? He could end up with another wrongful conviction.”
Naomi answered, “We certainly wouldn’t want to see anyone being wrongfully arrested.”
Edna folded her arms, making her look quite formidable, despite her tiny size. “But nothing you have said actually clears Kent’s name. Be careful.”
Ben added, “Don’t be alone with him.”
Mona smiled up at him. “Want to be my chaperone?”
Ben brushed that off with a light quip. “Maybe we all should be.”
Opal reminded her, “Whether Kent is innocent or not, there could be a murderer in Elderberry Bay. Lock your doors.”
“I’ll be fine. You all worry too much.” Mona went into her shop. With an exaggerated flare, she twisted the dead bolt.
26
Although Haylee’s mothers and I would gladly have let Ben return to spend the rest of the evening alone with Haylee, Edna summed up what I’d been thinking. “We have work to do. We’d better watch that video again and figure out where everyone was, and when. Especially Kent. Mona is obviously besotted. What she said makes me even more suspicious of him.”
Ben, Edna, Naomi, Opal, and I hurried toward The Stash.
Naomi glanced over her shoulder. “I hope Mona doesn’t look out and see us not going back to our own shops, after all.”
“You can bet she’s watching the street,” Edna said. “But she’ll be looking for Kent. I would not want to be alone with that man.”
“Me, neither,” said Ben.
We all laughed. Ben was taller than Kent and more muscular. He could probably look after himself.
“If you have allergies, though,” I told Ben, “don’t let anyone know what they are.”
He pulled at the handle of The Stash’s front door. “Haylee told me what you suspect about Antonio’s killer and the almonds and allergy medication. So don’t worry. If I develop any allergies, I’ll keep them a secret.”
The door was locked, but Haylee dashed out of her classroom and opened it for us. Although her smile was wide, she blushed and didn’t look directly at Ben.
She had it bad. And who could blame her?
After we were all inside, she carefully locked her door. “We’re not going to want surprise visitors.”
Either Edna or one of Haylee’s other mothers had managed to whisper to her that we would return, or she had guessed. In her classroom, she’d already put out sheets of paper and pencils for each of us.
She went to her computer. “I thought we could watch the show again, all the way through, without stopping to discuss it. If you glimpse something you want to see better, make a note of it, along with the time, which will show at the bottom of the screen. Then we’ll go back through the entire thing, pausing whenever anyone wants to. Okay?”
It was already nine thirty, and watching it two more times would take us until nearly eleven thirty, but we all agreed.
Ben asked, “Should I call Clay to join us? And what about your mother, Edna? She wouldn’t want to miss this.”
Edna pretended to draw a big X on her pad of paper. “My mother can already find too many ways to get into trouble.”
I burst out with, “We can’t call Clay. Loretta could be with him. We don’t really want her helping us analyze who might have stuck candy-covered almonds into Antonio’s pocket and removed his medication. Loretta could have done it.”
Ben frowned at me and shook his head. “I doubt that Clay would be with her, but I won’t call him. Too bad. Clay’s very observant.”
Opal nodded. “He has a good head on his shoulders.”
Edna chimed in, “Except around that redhead.”
My thoughts, exactly.
Naomi brought us all back to the subject. “What should we be looking for in the video?”
I answered, “Anyone who had access to Antonio’s jacket.”
Haylee nodded. “Who was near it, and when,”
Edna groaned. “All of us were, at one time or another.”
Ben added, “Maybe we can eliminate some of the people as suspects.”
Edna burst out laughing. “All of us!”
I dimmed the lights. Ben started the video.
While we watched, pencils scratched on paper.
Suddenly, after the fashion show was over and the audience began leaving the conservatory, the blue velvet curtains swayed. Kent thrust his way out between them. He marched down the runway, crouched, rested his weight on one hand, then vaulted down to the conservatory’s floor. With two quick strides, he reached the video camera, and then the picture went black.
I turned on the lights.
Edna spoke first. “Paula was just out of view almost the entire time. She used her clipboard to hold the curtains back for us, and I could see at least a corner of the clipboard every time someone went between those curtains.”
Haylee tapped her pencil against her chin. “Are we sure that she was the only one doing that? Did Loretta have a clipboard?”
We all agreed that we hadn’t seen Loretta with one, and that the few times that a hand had appeared on the video holding a clipboard, the hand had looked more like Paula’s.
“Nail polish,” Haylee summarized. “Loretta’s was red that evening, and if Paula was wearing any, it was a more subtle shade.”
I asked, “Did anyone see Kent, either backstage or in the main room of the conservatory, between the time he set up the camera and later, when he shut it off? After the show, Kent came backstage from, it appeared, outside. He passed Antonio, who was again wearing his jacket and was on his way out of the conservatory and probably heading straight to TADAM.”
Ben pointed his pencil at the blank screen. “He was near the back of the rows of chairs before the fashion show, when Clay and I arrived with Dora Battersby, but I didn’t see him again.”
None of us had seen him during the fashion show. “Maybe he told us the truth,” Haylee concluded. “Maybe he did stay away.”
“There was an area at stage right that was sectioned off by red curtains like the ones surrounding our cubicles,” I said. “Kent could have spent at least part of the show in there. He could have come out and put candies in Antonio’s pocket when we were either in our cubicles or out on the runway, so none of us saw him. However, he was definitely coming from the opposite direction when I saw him rush past our cubicles. That conservatory has other rooms besides the main one, though, and that red-curtained storage area could possibly have been accessed from the ramp that winds around behind the backstage.” I stared at the screen again, even though it was blank. “Loretta disappeared into that larger cubicle and came back several times. Did Paula, also?”
“I saw Loretta come out of there,” Haylee said, “but no one else. She retrieved those white briefcases and other props. But every time I was near the stage curtains, Paula was, too.”
“Someone kept moving the chair that Antonio’s jacket was on,” Opal contributed. “They kept putting it where people coming in off the runway wouldn’t see it and could bump into it and knock the jacket off.”
Edna nodded. “It was like whoever planted the almonds in Antonio’s jacket pocket wanted to make certain that as many people as possible handled it.”
I groaned. “He—or she—succeeded.”
“I moved that chair away from the curtains at least once,” Opal said.
“Me, too,” Naomi added.
It turned out that all of us had pushed the chair away from the curtains, bumped into it, knocked Antonio’s jacket off it, or picked up the jacket and hung it on the chair.
Edna said, “I think every student in that fashion show also touched his jacket.”
Including Macey, who had told me that she’d slapped Antonio in her cubicle, but had apparently told the police that Kent had been the one touching her. But I only said, “As I told Detective Neffting, I saw Paula near that jacket immediately after the awards ceremony, which was when I accidentally kicked something that could have been the vial of medicine out from underneath the chair.”
Edna nodded quickly. “It’s often the spouse.” She gazed at her sparkling engagement and wedding rings. “Sad.”
“Paula moved that chair into everyone else’s way,” I said. “Did anyone else do that?”
Edna looked up from admiring her rings. “Once when I was in line to go out onto the runway, Paula pushed that chair so far that it bulged the stage curtains, and she had to pull it away. And that’s on the video, too, seen from the audience’s side of the curtains.”
Ben fingered the keys of Haylee’s laptop. “Did you write down the time?”
Edna consulted her notes and gave him the exact time in the video.
Ben reset the video, and I dimmed the lights. Sure enough, the curtain bulged for a second, the clipboard held one curtain back, and Edna, wearing her Distinguished Dressing outfit, pranced out onto the runway.
I summarized, “That bulge in the curtains is close enough to the clipboard that Paula could have been holding the clipboard with one hand and moving the chair with the other.”
Naomi closed her eyes briefly, then reopened them. “When Ashley and I went backstage together right before the awards ceremony ended, Loretta had her hand on the back of that chair, and it was tight up against the stage curtains again. Loretta quickly let go of the chair, and we edged around it without knocking Antonio’s jacket off. Maybe Loretta was only trying to regain her balance—she was sort of tilting sideways—or trying to move it out of our way, instead of into it. Paula was glaring at her.”
“As usual,” I said. “Paula seemed to glare at everyone, including her late husband, before he was late, that is.”
Naomi said, “Loretta seemed upset about what Antonio was saying. She told Ashley that Antonio didn’t mean it about threadly sins, and of course Ashley had created her own design. But if you ask me, that Loretta is a fake who will say whatever she thinks people want to hear.”
Edna leaned forward. “Ben, talk to Clay. Tell him that redhead is a fake.”
Ben gave Edna a devilish grin. “Your mother has already warned him.”
I made a weak sort of groaning noise. Maybe no one heard it. We were all pushing our chairs back.
Ben asked Haylee if she needed help putting her classroom in order.
Say yes, Haylee.
“No,” she said. “There’s really nothing to do.”
I caught Naomi and Opal exchanging disappointed looks. We all, including Ben, trooped to the front door. Haylee let us out, stayed inside, and locked the door after we left.
“We’ll walk you to your truck, Ben,” Edna offered.
He laughed. “I can look after myself.”
Opal explained, “But you’re parked in front of Mona’s shop.”
Naomi finished the sentence. “And we should go see if Mona needs our help with anything.”
Ben ambled with us. I wasn’t certain that Mona would want us interrupting a possible rendezvous, but when we arrived at Country Chic, all the lights were out. If Kent was with her, they were in her apartment above the shop. We didn’t see lights up there, either, and none of us wanted to pry.
We started up the hill toward our own shops. Ben came with us. Going to Haylee’s after all? But he only said, “I’ll watch until you’re all safely inside.”
After I went into In Stitches, I peered out at him. He turned and strode back toward his truck.
Although it was nearly midnight, I called Haylee. “Want to go for a walk with me and the dogs?”
“I’m ready,” she said. “But maybe we should go to Pier 42 for a few minutes, first, and ask if Kent was there on Saturday night.”
“When does it close?”
“Why would I know the closing time of local bars? Except I do know. It closes at one.”
I laughed and hung up.
Dressed alike again in the black jeans and hoodies that would raise Vicki’s eyebrows if she caught us, Haylee and I met in front of The Stash and strode down Lake Street to Pier 42. Even this late, the pub was noisy and crowded, but we found two stools together at the bar. It was tended by Ray, a big man with a thatch of brown hair that resembled the fur on a teddy bear’s head. We each ordered a small mug of craft beer. When Ray brought them to us, I asked him, “Were you working here Saturday night?”
His dark eyes seemed to snap. “I work here every night.”
“Did you happen to notice a short, muscular man wearing a black T-shirt?”
“Angry-looking dude?” Ray asked. “The one who talked to you when you were leaving here with the other firefighters last night?” He pointed toward the back corner near the hallway to the restrooms. “He’d been sitting over there with Mona?”
“That’s the one,” we said.
“Yep, he was here Saturday night. Ordered a pitcher of beer and drank it himself, all but the two or three inches he left in the bottom of the pitcher.” Ray’s upper eyelids nearly covered those black eyes. “A waste of good beer, if you ask me. But he said he had to rush off. Something about filming a fashion show and getting the reception ready afterward, in that old mansion—you know, the one they fixed up in a huge rush and turned into a school?”
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br /> I asked, “Did you notice what time he arrived and when he left?”
Ray shook his head. “Sorry. But he was here a long time. Kind of funny, I thought, for someone who claimed he was working the whole time, when what he was actually working on was most of a pitcher of beer.”
We finished our beer, left Ray a nice tip, and hurried back to my yard. Blueberry Cottage was dark. For once, Dora Battersby wasn’t spinning, weaving, knitting, or reading. Or watching my back door so she could chat while I let my animals out. I opened the patio door, leashed the dogs, and handed Sally’s leash to Haylee. Sally and Tally strained toward the cottage, probably hoping for their usual handouts from Dora, but after I locked the door, Haylee and I urged them up the hill to my side gate, instead.
On the sidewalk, where our talking wouldn’t disturb Dora, Haylee asked quietly, “Want to climb into my truck and go see if Clay’s truck is parked in his driveway?”
“No! Would you like to make certain that Ben’s truck is back at the Elderberry Bay Lodge?”
“Definitely not.”
“I really like him,” I said. “He fits in with the rest of us. But maybe that’s not a point in his favor.”
She laughed. “I like him, too. He’s a good friend. With the emphasis on friend. And I’m afraid that’s the way it’s going to be for a long time.”
We guided the dogs south, away from the lake. “Maybe not so long. He seems to find it natural to go where you are and help with whatever you’re doing.” Meanwhile, have I lost Clay, even as a friend? I didn’t want to suggest it. Haylee would only contradict me, which could give me false hopes. Logic, I knew, was not my strong point.
The conservatory was dark, but lights on the pathway surrounding it showed yellow police tape encircling the building. “It seems a little late to tape that off as a crime scene,” I muttered.
We stayed on the pathway.
When we were behind the TADAM mansion’s carriage house, a sudden succession of loud thumps and grunts made us jump.
The noises came from inside the carriage house.