by Janet Bolin
She studied my face, but all she said was, “Haylee, can you wait right here on the front steps while Willow comes to my cruiser and gives me her statement?”
Haylee glanced up toward the front door, which, as far as we knew, was still unlocked.
Vicki relented. “No, better yet, sit on the trunk of the statie’s cruiser so I can see that you’re safe.”
Vicki pushed empty coffee cups, maps, and stray pieces of paper off her front seat so I could sit there.
“I’ll make your car stink,” I objected.
She sighed. “No worse than I will. Get in.”
I did. In front of us, Haylee folded her arms and leaned against the state trooper’s fender.
Vicki radioed someone to check on the mansion’s front door and put tape around the front porch, then turned to me. “What happened?”
“We were walking the dogs and heard thumps coming from that carriage house. The dogs barked. We couldn’t tell what was going on, so we took them home and came back, expecting that the raccoon or whatever might be long gone. That time, though, we thought we heard a muffled call for help. We saw a skunk, just minding its own business, but we had to run around the block to the front of the mansion to get closer to the carriage house, and the skunk sprayed almost as soon as we left. It was almost like that smell was chasing us. When we got to the mansion, we noticed the front door swinging open.” I pointed at the mansion’s large front porch. The young trooper who had been at the carriage house was now stringing tape from column to column. Apparently, he’d given up on holding his nose.
I turned to Vicki again. “The carriage house door was unlocked, too. We went inside and turned on the light. When our eyes adjusted, we could see Paula, bound and gagged.”
“Anything else?”
“A piece of the stabilizer that Paula’s attacker wrapped around her was hanging from the handle of a lawn mower, as if Paula’s attacker had prepared everything in advance, but didn’t need that last piece. It was big, about two feet long, and a foot wide.”
“I saw that.”
“I peeked behind the lawn mower and saw the packaging from the stabilizer. It could have come from just about anywhere, including TADAM, but I sell that brand and size in my store. And I could see the handles and part of the blades of a pair of dressmaker’s shears back there, also. They looked like the ones Naomi gave the rest of us, but I couldn’t be sure, and if they were engraved, I couldn’t see the part that was engraved. You would expect to find many pairs of dressmaker’s shears at a fashion design school, and as you may remember, Kent was using a pair with very long blades at the Design 101 course.”
“And you have pictures you’re going to print for me, of Paula and the stabilizer and scissors and anything else that seems relevant?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, go out and tell Haylee I want to talk to her. Stick around and I’ll drive you both home. My car can’t get much smellier.”
I clambered out, signaled to Haylee, and took my turn leaning against the state trooper’s car.
Vicki’s interview with Haylee didn’t take long, then Vicki opened her cruiser’s back door for me, shut me in, and went off to confer with the state trooper. During the short time that Vicki was gone, my legs and feet began going numb in that cramped space. Maybe riding in a cruiser had not been a worthy goal, after all.
Vicki drove us toward Lake Street. I said between the heavy steel mesh separating the back seat from the front, “It’s possible that Paula’s attacker was sprayed by that skunk, so maybe all you have to do is go around finding people who stink.”
Her cackle was witchlike. “I don’t have to look far for that, do I? Might as well arrest you two right here and now.”
I corrected myself. “Somebody else who stinks.”
She turned the steering wheel and heaved a huge sigh. “I’m not likely to smell anything but skunk for a long time. But you both told me you smelled the skunk after you heard the head-banging. A long time after, if you took time to walk the dogs home. I’m guessing the attacker was long gone by the time the skunk delivered his message.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Poor Paula. That skunk somehow went into the carriage house and added insult to injury.”
Vicki pulled up in front of In Stitches. “There are holes in that building big enough for skunks, and who knows what else, to get in. Maybe Paula was blocking the way to its den.” She shuddered. “That woman got the worst of everything tonight.” She turned to look at me. “I guess I’d better open that door for you, Willow, or you’ll be riding around with me all night.”
“That’d be okay,” I teased, “if you opened all the windows and drove very fast. The circulation to my feet stopped about two blocks ago.”
But she let me out, and Haylee was able to open her own door. Vicki drove off, and Haylee and I said good night and headed for our apartments.
Not wanting to odorize In Stitches any more than I had to, I went around to the patio and let my animals out. All four of them thought that sniffing me was more intriguing than doing their duties, and I was beginning to worry that Tally-Ho might mistake my legs for a fire hydrant that had been anointed by a skunk, but he finally wandered off to water a bush, instead. All of them followed me inside with more eagerness than usual.
Maybe my pets would love me more and follow me everywhere if I wore skunk cologne all the time.
I stripped, showered for a very long time with lots of soap and shampoo, then threw my outfit into the washer. It was about three when I was finally ready to crawl into bed. Except for my hair, I wasn’t too overly skunky. I checked my phone. A text had come in when I was on the line with the dispatcher, and in the excitement in the carriage house and afterward, I hadn’t noticed it.
Clay had asked me to text him when I got home.
It was late, but I did, and I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t hear back from him until the first thing in the morning. He called while my animals and I were eating breakfast. “Any chance of getting together this evening after work?” he asked.
29
I still smell like skunk.
“Sure,” I said. Maybe I could take three more showers before meeting him . . .
“It’s supposed to be warm. How about if I bring a picnic we can eat on the beach? Your dogs can join us.”
We’d be outside in the fresh air, and I could try to keep him away from me, and upwind. “That sounds great. What should I bring?”
“The dogs. Meet you at one of those tables at the west end of the swimming beach?”
“Near the cottage colony?”
“That’s it. I can park close to the beach with my truckload of picnic. How does seven sound?”
Truckload? Who else was coming? “Great.”
“See you then.” His voice held its usual warmth. After we disconnected, I didn’t know whether to dance and sing in anticipation, or worry that he had invited a crowd, including Loretta.
I looked down at my dogs. Their beautiful brown eyes brimmed over with adoration. “Maybe I can blame you two for the skunky smells.” Nice way to reward the darlings for their unconditional love. They wagged their tails.
Maybe I didn’t stink. I pulled a hank of my hair to my nose and took a deep breath.
I did stink.
Maybe no one would notice. I took the dogs and the morning’s coffee, cider, and cookies upstairs. I unlocked the front door of In Stitches, turned the embroidered Come Back Later sign in my glass front door to Welcome, and sat down at my computer.
Georgina was the first of the morning class to enter In Stitches. “I smell skunk,” she said.
So much for no one noticing. The day—and the evening—should be fun.
Georgina glanced past me to the dogs in their pen. “What did you two get into?”
They wagged their tails, and I had to confess that I wa
s the one who had been too close to a skunk. Other women came in and asked questions, but I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t think Vicki would want me telling last night’s story. I felt a brief moment of sympathy for Paula, and what she must have suffered with that stabilizer stuck to her skin while a skunk gave her the full force of his opinion of her.
Had Antonio’s killer attacked Paula? If so, it was no wonder that she’d looked terrified.
Had the killer returned later to do something even more drastic to Paula and been stopped by a militant fur ball? And then we’d come along and saved her from the killer?
Kent? And did he still reek? I imagined him staying away from TADAM today because he couldn’t rid himself of the smell.
“Wash your hair in tomato juice,” Rosemary suggested.
Georgina objected, “That might turn it red. Take a bath in hydrogen peroxide mixed with baking soda.”
Another woman piped up. “That would be too corrosive. I’ve heard that vinegar works.”
I laughed. “I can think of better ways of getting pickled.” Like this evening, on the beach with Clay and a bottle of wine . . .
Again, we worked on upside-down crewel work. I wasn’t watching what Rosemary was doing, so I didn’t see her project until she took her hoop off her machine, turned it over, and shouted, “Ta-da!”
Everyone in the store laughed, and I had to, also. Using thick thread with hairs wisping from it in the bobbin, she had embroidered a darling and rather fuzzy skunk. “I made use of the fragrance permeating your shop,” she explained.
During lunchtime, word must have gone around Pier 42 that embroidering skunk designs would be appropriate at In Stitches. At the afternoon workshop, three more women chuckled over what they insisted on calling “scratch and sniff” embroidery motifs.
After school was over for the day, Ashley came in. Her smile was the widest I’d seen on her face in a long time. “Skunk!” she shouted. “Did the dogs get sprayed, Willow?”
“Not the dogs,” I said. “But I went too close to where a skunk had recently been.”
Ashley made an exaggeratedly pouty face. “I have some bad news for you. I’ve decided I don’t want to go to TADAM. I’ll probably go away to college, so I won’t be able to keep working here after next summer.”
“I’ll miss you, but I really don’t think TADAM has much to offer you.”
“And there’s good news.” She clapped her hands. “My dad was offered a job, and it’s nearby. We won’t have to move.” She hopped around in a little dance, and so did everyone else in the store, including me. From their pen, Sally and Tally yipped gleeful songs of their own.
After our customers left, Ashley helped close the shop. I asked her, “Do you remember the curtained-off storage area behind the podium at the fashion show?”
She nodded. Her shining brown curls bounced. “Loretta kept those briefcases back there.”
“Did you see anyone else going into and out of that storage area?”
“Paula, for sure. Kent may have gone there after the fashion show. I don’t think he could have been in that storage area during the rehearsal. He was at the foot of the runway taking our pictures. But right after the show itself, I saw him rush through the backstage, like he was in a hurry or angry, but I didn’t see where he went.”
That agreed with my memory, except I had seen where he went—directly onto the stage. And the video had shown him bursting out between the curtains.
However, that didn’t prove that he hadn’t slipped a candy-coated almond into Antonio’s pockets, only that he’d had fewer chances to do it than Loretta, Paula, and the rest of us.
“Macey told me something suspicious about Paula,” Ashley told me.
“You’ve been talking to Macey?”
“She hardly knows anyone here. She’s lonely. She’s very nice.”
Seems nice, I thought to myself.
Ashley continued, “We both like to run, and it’s good to have a running partner. Safer, too. But I wasn’t with Macey when she went out jogging a few hours after Antonio collapsed. She said she saw Paula come out of the conservatory. That surprised Macey. She thought Paula would still be in Erie with her husband. So what was Paula doing roaming around at that hour?”
“Vicki drove Gord and Paula home around one thirty.”
“Why would Paula go back to the conservatory?”
I wish I knew.
After Ashley left, I sat down at my computer.
Ben had sent Haylee and me copies of files that he had retrieved from Kent’s thumb drive.
Kent had sent e-mails to Antonio. Kent had asked to be paid, politely, at first, and then more firmly. Antonio had answered that Kent could either stay at TADAM or take his chances with the sort of reference that Antonio would give him. Antonio had made it clear that although he’d been ignoring Kent’s criminal record, other schools wouldn’t.
Ben wrote to Haylee and me, “I think we should turn these files over to the police. What do you two think?”
I sent a message agreeing with him that we should, and that I would call Vicki. I did, and asked Vicki if I should forward her the files. She said she’d come see them.
While I waited, I phoned Mona. “Are you all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? You don’t have to worry about me being in danger from Kent. He’s a great guy. Except he never showed up for his thumb drive last night. Maybe he’ll come tonight.”
Vicki’s car pulled up outside my shop, so after giving Mona another warning, which I knew she would ignore, about staying away from anyone who’d had anything to do with Antonio, I said good-bye.
Vicki stomped into the shop. “Do I smell skunk?”
I made a show of sniffing in her direction. “I suspect you do. And you were smelling it before you came in here.”
“Tell me about it.” She patted her stomach. “These vests aren’t washable. All I could do was dab at it with a damp cloth.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
She gave me the evil eye. “AND I had two smelly people in my cruiser last night.”
“Did you go to Loretta’s and Kent’s apartment building last night to sniff out if either of them had been sprayed?”
“That would be one for the record books—go to a judge in the middle of the night and ask for a warrant to search for the remnants of skunk spray. Besides, if I’d gone snooping around apartment buildings or anywhere else, all I’d have smelled was myself. In addition, it wouldn’t have proven a thing. Lots of people ended up smelling like skunks last night. Me, for instance, and the investigators from the state police.”
“Investigators?” I asked. “Plural? So they think Paula’s attack could be connected with Antonio’s murder?”
30
Our police chief cocked her head. “Do you believe the attack on Paula had something to do with the murder of her late husband?”
“Yes, but I’m not an officer of the law.”
She opened her notebook. “Good to hear you admit that. I’m going to write it down in case we ever become confused about it in the future.” But she didn’t write anything, and I heard the teasing note in her voice. “Where are these files you said you found?”
“Ben and Haylee dredged them up.” I led her to my computer and showed her the correspondence between Kent and Antonio.
“Anyone could have written that stuff,” she pointed out. “Why are Haylee and Ben interfering?”
“Haylee and Ben are naturally concerned because initially, Paula accused Dora Battersby and me of murdering Antonio. Paula has since apologized, saying she now knows that Antonio wasn’t killed by someone hitting him, but still, what if the state police are investigating Dora and me instead of the real culprit?”
“Maybe one of you is the real culprit. Maybe you didn’t like being called a glutton and Dora didn’t like Edna being accus
ed of greed.”
I scoffed. “Neither of us would harm anyone.”
Vicki scrutinized my face for uneasy seconds, then returned her attention to my computer screen. “How did Haylee and Ben unearth these e-mails?”
“They were on a thumb drive that Kent lent us so we could watch a video of the fashion show. A few minutes ago, Mona told me that Kent has not picked up the thumb drive from her yet.”
“The staties have the video of the fashion show.”
“Kent had another copy. Maybe he’s not picking the thumb drive up on purpose. Maybe he doesn’t want the investigators to see the correspondence he had with Antonio, so in case anyone searches his apartment, he’s keeping it hidden by letting Mona hold on to it. He had deleted the file with the correspondence in it, but Ben was able to open it. If he could, the state police could, and Kent might have known that.”
She scribbled in her notebook.
When she looked up, I said, “Mona had already told us that Kent had a criminal record, for touching a model, and that a TADAM student had accused him of the same thing. Mona couldn’t remember the student’s name, but I suggested Macey, and Mona thought that was the girl’s name.”
Vicki asked, “The Macey I met?”
I nodded. “That one. The one that Antonio pinched. As I told you, I heard Macey slap someone in her cubicle right before the dress rehearsal, and I guessed from his artificially lowered voice that it could have been Antonio, but I wasn’t sure. It could have been Kent. However, later Macey told me that she had slapped Antonio. If she’s now saying that it was Kent who touched her before the dress rehearsal, she’s changing her story. I don’t know about you, but that sounds suspicious to me.”
Vicki did her usual thing of avoiding answering by changing the direction of her questions. “Describe what Macey did after Antonio pinched her at the reception.”
“I didn’t see him actually do it. Ashley squealed, and then I saw her shove Antonio’s hand away from Macey’s rear end.”