by Tawna Fenske
“Go right ahead.”
He nodded and stood up, then moved down the hallway and slipped into the bathroom. I heard him lock the door behind him.
What the hell? Did he really think I planned to follow him in or eavesdrop or something?
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea.
I stood up and tiptoed down the hall, stopping just a few feet from the bathroom. I held my breath, listening.
“Everything’s under control,” he said on the other side of the door. “You don’t need to worry.”
There was a long silence, and I heard a click that made me wonder if Pete was going through my medicine cabinet. “No.”
More silence. As eavesdropping went, this wasn’t very productive.
“Sure. I understand.”
I leaned closer, pressing my ear against the door. If he was going through my medicine cabinet, I hoped there wasn’t anything embarrassing in there. Athlete’s foot cream? Yeast infection medication? I couldn’t actually remember.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Pete said from my bathroom. “Now’s not a good time.”
Sensing the call was about to wrap up, I turned and scurried back toward the living room. I was just about to dive for the couch when I tripped over something big, blue, and sharp.
“Mrrrow!” Blue Cat snarled and took a swipe at me with his claws.
“Dammit, Blue Cat,” I yowled as I grabbed my ankle and hopped around. “I didn’t step on your damn tail intentionally.”
He wasn’t appeased, and waddled under the television to stare at me with great disdain. He hissed once, just for effect.
Behind me, Pete laughed. “That’s some cat.”
“He might have a bit of an attitude problem, but he can be very loving when he wants to.”
“I’m sure he can. Look, I have to run. Are you going to be okay?”
“Sure, I’m fine. Feeling much better now. Is there a problem?”
Pete’s jaw clenched but he shook his head. “Just something I need to deal with tonight.”
“With your girlfriend?”
“Right. With my girlfriend. You sure you’re okay alone?”
“Positive. Thanks for coming over, Pete.”
“No problem. Be sure to call if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“Take care of yourself.”
I resisted the urge to grin at the unexpected euphemism. “I will. I definitely will.”
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THE FOLLOWING MORNING flew by in a haze of fresh garbage and unanswered questions. Like where was Macy? And had I complicated my life with last night’s inappropriately late rendezvous? And is there any way to quietly crush a piano?
Before I knew it, lunchtime arrived and I was walking back toward the break room with Burt. We were both filthier than normal as a result of a futile hand search of household garbage as we looked for someone’s lost wedding ring. When Burt’s phone rang, I expected him to let it go to voicemail.
Instead, Burt stuck the finger of one glove in his mouth, and used his teeth to yank it off.
“Hello?” he grunted into the phone. “Hey, sweet pea. I’m with her now. I’ll send her right up. She was just about to take lunch anyway.”
I turned toward him as Burt flipped the phone shut and nodded at me before wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“Ernie wants you in the shop right away. She’s got something you need to see.”
CHAPTER NINE
I was breathing hard by the time I reached the thrift store, having run the whole way in my Carhartts and work boots. I pushed my way through the front door, setting off a merry little chime that seemed out of place amid piles of cast-off household goods and the faint smell of eggs.
“JJ, it’s so great to see you!” Ernie squealed, bounding out from behind the counter. “Did Burt tell you what I found? I was out there this morning going through some of the new things that came in, and Tuesdays are always such a good day since that’s when the trucks come in from the West Hills and those people always throw away some of the nicest things, like one time I came across–”
“Burt said you had another bag come in – a Chanel?”
“Well, that’s what the little tag says, but I have my doubts,” Ernie said, narrowing her eyes with suspicion as she reached under the counter and came up with a large, black tote bag. “Really, it just doesn’t look right to me, but see what you think.”
I reached out to take it, knowing before I even touched it that it wasn’t real.
“It’s a knockoff,” I told her, inspecting it more closely. “I think so, anyway. Lori taught me everything I know about spotting fakes, so she could tell you for sure. This here is supposed to look like Chanel’s Ligne Cambon logo, but you see how it’s stamped instead of engraved into the leather?”
“Oh. Why yes, I see what you mean.”
“And the lettering right under the Chanel name isn’t centered. That’s another clue. And then the thread used to stitch the label on, it’s not even the right color.”
“Oh my.”
I reached inside the bag and began digging through the pockets, careful to avoid the big gobs of something that looked like crusted Dijon mustard.
“Do you think it’s made by the same people who left those fabric scraps in the dump?” Ernie asked.
“I doubt it. The material on this one seems a lot nicer.
“A real one of these Chanel things – how much would it cost in a store?”
“Maybe $3500,” I told her, frowning a little as my fingers located something small and angular wedged in the corner of one of the pockets.
“Are you serious?” Ernie gasped, dropping her coffee mug on the floor. It bounced a few times and I heard something slosh on the other side of the counter, but Ernie seemed not to notice. “Who pays $3500 for a purse?”
“Rich people,” I told her, struggling to free the object from some loose threads snaring it inside the pocket. “Or people who want to look rich. People who don’t care that some starving little kid in a third-world sweatshop was probably beaten for sewing the hardware on a little crooked.”
I stopped my tirade as the small object finally broke free from the thread and I pulled it out into the light. I stared down at my palm, recognizing it immediately.
“What’s that?” Ernie asked, peering at it. “It looks like a lapel pin.”
“It is. A really ugly one.”
Ernie frowned. “Why does it say Ass Cancer Treatment?”
“It was actually supposed to say World Class Cancer Treatment,” I informed her, peering down at the small cloisonné letters. “Only they decided to use a globe instead of the word world, and then the globe ended up covering the first two letters of class, and well – you can see how it turned out.”
Ernie frowned. “How do you know this?”
“Marketing and PR people run in the same circles. I knew a couple women who worked at the hospital when this whole thing happened. The graphic designer caught hell over it.”
“I can see why,” Ernie said, picking it up and looking at it. “Why is the globe pink? With that little crease in the middle like a–”
“Yeah, that was another problem. It was supposed to signify breast cancer awareness, but, um – that didn’t exactly work. The CEO made them throw out the whole box of pins. The marketing team thought they could use it to promote the hospital’s success rate treating colorectal cancer, but the CEO said no.”
“Ass Cancer Treatment,” Ernie said again, looking at the pin with
renewed interest. Then she looked back up at me. “So why is it in the purse?”
“Beats me, but I’m going to make a couple phone calls. I can’t imagine too many of these got out.”
“Probably for the best,” Ernie said, handing the pin back to me.
I stuck it in my pocket and turned around as the door chimed behind me. Green Barbie flounced in on her impossibly high heels and began making the rounds to Ernie’s recycling bins.
“There’s an extra bin of cardboard back there, hon,” Ernie called.
“Okay, thanks.”
Ernie turned her attention back to me as I picked up the fake Chanel again.
“So what are you going to do with the bag?” I asked her.
“Oh, well I made some phone calls and those nice people at Harper’s Bazaar asked me to send them anything I came across. They’re trying to get them out of circulation, of course, and they want to use them as part of a photo spread.”
“That’s great, Ernie.”
She nodded, beaming at me. “A lot of my regular customers have come in looking for handbags, but now I’m telling them why I don’t carry them anymore. I even put up that little sign over there saying how awful the counterfeit industry is.”
“Wow, that’s great, Ernie. You’re a real crusader.”
Her smile grew broader. “I just wish I still had the three we sold yesterday morning.”
I stopped pawing the purse for a moment as a thought occurred to me.
“Ernie, you said a woman came in and bought those three — do you remember what kind of bags they were?”
“Oh. Well, there was one that was white with little shapes on it – I think it said Dooney & Bourke? It was about this big, and the handle was broken when it came in, so I had to sew it back on. And then a little brown one that said it was a Louis Vuitton, but of course, I don’t really think that—”
“Ernie,” I said, swallowing the lump that had started to form in my throat. She had just described the bags that had been left for Lori and me. Maybe this was the key to finding Macy. “I need to find out who bought those bags from you.”
Ernie’s eyes widened at the harshness in my voice. “Oh my. Well, I could ask Gladys, but of course, she only works on Mondays, and her bunions have been acting up so she doesn’t always come in every week and then—”
“Could you call her? Please? It’s important.”
“Well, yes, dear. Of course. Just hold on two little minutes while I try to find her number.”
Ernie toddled off into the back room while I dug into my pocket for my cell phone. I began scrolling through my contact list, a little surprised to see name after name of professional contacts from my former life. It seemed like eons ago I had been wearing a pencil skirt and heels and trying to think of a clever slogan for the county’s annual weed pull. I found the number I was looking for and hit the button to dial it.
Voicemail kicked on almost immediately, a sunny, cheerful voice I recognized from countless networking functions. I could hear Ernie murmuring on the phone in the next room, but I couldn’t make out the words over the sound of Green Barbie clattering through the co-mingled glass bin.
The voicemail message cycled through and then prompted me to leave my name and number.
“Hey, Mindy – it’s JJ Shultz, from the county. Listen, you probably heard I left public relations and took another job doing something a little – um, different. Anyway, I was just looking to catch up, maybe grab a drink sometime. Call me.”
I clicked off right as Ernie trotted back out to the counter. “Who was that?”
“A former colleague in the marketing department at the hospital. We used to do a lot of networking together.” And by networking, I meant drinking. “Did you reach Gladys?”
“Why yes. She had to think real hard, on account of all that Vicodin she has to take for her back, of course, but she said she thought she remembered that woman who came in here yesterday and bought all those purses.”
“And?”
“Well, she didn’t talk much – the little gal who bought the bags, that is, Gladys talked plenty, if you know what I mean – she’s always a little lonely living over there in the retirement home with only that chinchilla for company and—”
“The bags?” I prompted, hoping to keep Ernie focused while the conversation was still fresh on her mind.
“Why yes, the bags,” Ernie said, looking determined. “Gladys really couldn’t tell me much. She’s blind as a bat, but she thinks the woman wasn’t very tall. Maybe dark-haired?”
I frowned. That didn’t help much.
“Excuse me?” chirped a small voice behind Ernie. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”
We both peered around the large recycling bin to see Green Barbie smoothing down her miniskirt. She sashayed up to the counter to join us.
“You’re talking about that lady who bought all those cool brand name purses yesterday morning, right?”
“Right,” I said, feeling hopeful. “Were you here then?”
“Sure. I was sorting through the soda cans. I remember noticing, since she was buying three of them, and I’ve always wanted a bag like that.”
“Do you remember what she looked like, hon?” Ernie encouraged.
“Sure. She was a little younger than me – maybe eighteen or twenty – with black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was real short, maybe only five feet tall, and maybe Japanese or Chinese or Korean—”
“Did you talk to her at all?” I asked.
“Nuh-uh, she didn’t say anything. Just bought the bags and left. She did have a funny little patch of white hair on the side of her head – just a little spot right here, and I only noticed because the rest of her hair was so black.”
“Wow,” I said. “Anything else you remember?”
Green Barbie shook her head and glanced at her watch. “Is that all you need? I have to get back to work.”
“You’ve been really helpful,” I told her. “Thanks so much.”
“No problem,” she said, smacking her gum as she tottered off on her heels. I waited until she disappeared around the corner before I resumed my questioning with Ernie.
“How did the woman pay for the bags?” I asked, hoping for a credit card signature or something I could give the police to determine if the bag on my porch had come from Ernie’s shop.
“Cash,” Ernie said, folding her hands on the counter. “A couple twenty dollar bills for all three purses. Why? Are you going to have her arrested? Or – wait, you’re not going to have Gladys arrested for selling counterfeit bags? Oh dear, I know she didn’t realize—”
“No one’s getting arrested,” I assured her. “No one who works here, anyway. It’s a long story, but someone left some fake handbags on my porch last night, and it sounds like they could be the same ones you had here.”
Ernie frowned, looking perplexed. “But why would someone do that?”
“I don’t really know. I mean, I guess they want to send us a message to stop poking into this thing with the fake bags.”
“Oh dear. And you think they bought the handbags here?”
I shrugged. “You said earlier that a lot of them turn up here. Maybe someone knew this was a good place to shop.”
Ernie bowed her head a little at that. “Really, I didn’t know it was illegal—”
“It’s okay, Ernie. I’m not mad. It’s also possible that whoever threw them in the landfill in the first place got worried you’d dug them out. Like maybe they just wanted to get them out of circulation. There’s spray paint all over them, which covers up any distinguishing marks there might have been.”
“But why would they give them to you?”
I suppressed a shiver, thinking of the nooses around the necks of the little zipper pulls.
Please let Macy be okay.
“It’s a pretty good threat, I guess,” I told Ernie. “Maybe they figured I’d make the connection to your shop, and that it would scare me off if I realized they know where I wo
rk.”
At that, Ernie paled a little. “Are you? Scared, I mean?”
I thought about it for a second, stroking the edge of the mustard-covered fake Chanel. “Not yet. But I’m getting there.”
LATER THAT EVENING, I picked Lori up in front of her house. She was dressed in dark-washed jeans that fit like they’d been tailored to her tiny legs. Her Betsey Johnson sweater looked remarkably similar to one that had gone missing from my closet the week before, but I wasn’t in a position to complain. I was, after all, wearing her favorite earrings and bracelet.
“So where are we going again?” Lori asked, jumping into the passenger seat and fastening her seatbelt. “And why am I coming along?”
“We’re going to the martini bar on Seventh,” I told her. “And you’re coming because Mindy can drink her own body weight in vodka. I might need someone to help get her home. Besides, you can help me watch for clues.”
“Clues?” Lori asked. “What are you now, Landfill Supersleuth?”
“Don’t be a smartass or I won’t let you be my fabulous sidekick.”
“Elementary, my dear Wats-in-your-trash-bin.”
“Great. A sidekick with bad puns. Just what I need.”
Lori flipped her visor down and checked her lipstick. “So why are we interrogating Whatshername?”
“Mindy. Her name is Mindy Wallace, and I think she might have owned a fake Chanel handbag that turned up at the dump today.”
“You busting her for it?”
“No, I’m not busting her for it. I’m not even sure it’s hers. I just happened to find something inside that only a handful of people would have had, and Mindy’s my best guess since she prides herself on being a fashionista.”
“A fashionista with a bad fake.”
“It was actually a pretty good fake. Anyway, I just want to find out where she got the bag. Maybe if we can figure that out, it’ll lead us to Macy.”
“I doubt Mindy’s going to admit she bought it out of the back of some guy’s Gran Torino in Northeast Portland,” Lori said. “Not without some serious arm-twisting.”