Unable to see or hear Whitley, Virginia gave a small nod. “Yes. I was surprised too. She told me that if it were just any house, she’d have suggested they choose a different realtor, but she said that this particular man asked for her by name, and he wanted to see a twenty-five-million-dollar listing! She said the commission on that one piece of real estate alone would pay for her entire wedding and honeymoon!”
“Wow!”
Virginia nodded. “Wow is right! I remember shooing her off!” she chuckled. “I remember saying, ‘Go, go. I’ll get the zipper fixed while you’re gone!’”
“So then what happened?” asked Johanna, hanging on Virginia’s every word.
The old woman’s eyes widened, lifting the heavy wrinkles in her forehead. “She never came back.”
Johanna shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean she never came back?”
Virginia threw up both arms. “I mean, I fixed the zipper. I bagged it up for her, and then she never showed up to pick it up.”
“Did you try calling her?”
“Yes, of course I did. I left her several voicemail messages. She never returned any of the calls. And then eventually, the dress went into our overdue pile.”
“What happens to the dresses in the overdue pile?”
“Oh, every so often the company either sells the garments or donates them.”
“So that would have been how it got to a secondhand store?” asked Johanna.
Virginia nodded. “Very likely.”
“Didn’t you find it bizarre that she never came back for her wedding dress?”
“Oh, of course I did. But I thought, you just don’t know what happens sometimes. Maybe she and her fiancé got in a fight and split up. It’s really none of my business. Of course I was always curious as to what happened.” Virginia looked at Johanna with interest. “Why are you looking for the owner?”
Johanna sighed and glanced at the dress. “Honestly? I really don’t know. Something just begged me to return this dress to its original owner. Like there’s a mystery to be solved.”
Virginia smiled at Johanna softly. “How sweet of you, dear. But it’s possible the woman who owned this dress didn’t want her dress back. Perhaps it would be just too painful for her to see it again.”
Johanna frowned then. She hadn’t thought of that. “It’s possible,” she agreed. “But I have to try. Do you remember the woman’s name?”
Virginia shook her head softly. “She signed the dry cleaning ticket as F. Marshall. I always called her Miss Marshall.”
“Do you still have the ticket?” Johanna asked, sitting up straighter.
Virginia stood up and went to the small desk in her workspace. She pulled open a drawer and rifled through some papers. “Aha!” she said with a smile, pulling a paper from the drawer. “Here it is.” She handed it to Johanna. “It’s even got her phone number on in it. Now you can track her down!”
Johanna’s heart leapt for joy. She felt one giant step closer to returning the dress to its rightful owner and solving the mystery. “Oh, Virginia, this is great. Thank you!”
“Just don’t tell Herb I gave it to you,” she whispered. “The boss wouldn’t take too kindly to me giving out customer information, and at my age, I can’t exactly go looking for a new job.”
Johanna beamed. “Oh, Virginia, my lips are sealed!”
8
Rocky snorted happily and bounded forward when Johanna and Whitley emerged from the dry cleaner’s minutes later.
“Oh, it’s about time,” Esmerelda drawled, rolling her eyes. “This kid whines more than a four-year-old with a tummyache.”
“Well, then, you two should have gotten along well together,” said Whitley with a half-smile.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” snapped her sister, swishing her tail back and forth. “Just so we’re clear, you two aren’t leaving me alone with this buffalo anymore. I’m a cat, not a dog sitter.”
Johanna hugged Rocky’s head to her stomach. “Oh, did you miss Mommy?”
Rocky’s tail stirred the frosty air excitedly as she gave his ears and jowls a good jostle. He pulled himself loose from Johanna and walked over to Whitley next, looking up at her with his big brown eyes.
“I think he wants you to give him a little love,” said Johanna with a smile.
Whitley grinned from ear to ear. “My pleasure!” she chirped, giving him a hug.
“What did you find out?” asked Esmerelda.
“The first thing we found out is that the clerk couldn’t see your sister,” said Johanna. “He thought I was crazy.”
“You probably are. But that wasn’t what I meant. Do we have a name?”
“We have a last name and a first initial. F. Marshall. The woman dropped off the dress to be altered and then never came back for it,” said Johanna, untying Rocky’s leash from the pole outside the cleaners. “We did get a phone number.”
“Oh, man, that’s going to make solving this mystery so much easier,” sighed Whitley. “Can we call it now?”
Wrapping Rocky’s leash around her hand, Johanna pulled her phone out of her pocket. “We can sure try.” She punched the number in and put it on speakerphone.
It rang and rang and then went to voicemail. “Hey, you got my answering service. You know what to do,” said a young woman’s cheerful voice.
“Leave her a message,” hissed Whitley in a whisper.
Johanna nodded, silencing Whitley. “Hi, my name is Johanna Hughes. I was hoping to speak with you. If you could give me a call back, I’d really appreciate it,” she said before adding her phone number.
“Well, fingers crossed she calls us back!” said Whitley.
Johanna groaned. “She never called Virginia back. Chances are she’s not going to call us back.”
“Who’s Virginia?” asked Esmerelda, jogging to keep up with the rest of them as they walked down the street.
“She was the seamstress who did the alterations on the dress. She remembered the woman who owned the dress. She said she was a realtor, and someone texted her out of the blue to show him a really expensive listing on the day of her wedding rehearsal.”
“Did she go?”
“Yeah, she told Virginia that the commission on the sale of that single property would pay for her entire wedding and her honeymoon,” said Whitley. “She had to go.”
“But then she never came back,” added Johanna.
“Ugh, this woman went to work on the day of her wedding rehearsal and never came back for her dress? Lame,” groaned Esmerelda. “See, this is why women shouldn’t work. They should just meet a man and get married, and that’s it.”
Johanna’s jaw dropped. “You don’t think women should work? What decade are you girls coming from, anyway?”
“We’re coming from the same decade as you,” said Whitley with a laugh. “My sister just never had a job. I, on the other hand, was a budding fashion designer. I had big plans to move to the city before I was incarcerated.”
“How did that happen anyway?” asked Johanna. She’d been wondering what the story behind the twins was since she’d met them less than twenty-four hours ago.
Esmerelda groaned. “It’s Whitley’s fault, ask her. She’s the reason we’re in this predicament.”
Whitley stopped walking and stared down at the cat. “My fault?!”
Esmerelda didn’t stop, but instead hollered over her furry shoulder, “Admission is the first step, you’re making progress.”
Whitley thundered ahead. “This is not my fault, Esmerelda Snow. This is your fault. You’re the one who refused to solve the mysteries with me like we promised Dad.”
“I didn’t promise Dad anything. That was you. I also didn’t ask you to alter those dresses. That was your doing!”
Whitley slammed her arms down to her sides. “I did it for you!” she hollered.
“Sure ya did. Keep telling yourself that, sis. You did it for yourself.”
“No, I didn’t!”
Johanna’s hea
d bounced back and forth between the sisters. She rubbed her temples. “Can you two knock it off? You’re giving me a headache.”
Whitley let out a frustrated “Ugh!” and then strutted past Johanna and Rocky.
Just as she did, Johanna’s phone rang.
“It’s her, it’s her!” shouted Johanna excitedly, touching the little green phone symbol.
Whitley turned around and rushed back to Johanna’s side. “Put her on speaker!”
Johanna nodded. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Penny returning your call.”
“Penny?” asked Johanna with a frown, wondering if perhaps that F on the dry cleaning ticket had actually been a P. “Penny Marshall?”
“No, Penny Greenway.”
“Oh,” sighed Johanna, feeling defeated. “I was trying to get in touch with an old friend. I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number.”
The woman on the other end of the phone paused before answering. “You’re looking for a Marshall?” she asked.
“Yes. Is she at this number?” Johanna’s hopes lifted for a moment.
“No, but I’m pretty sure I was assigned her old number. I’ve had it for several years now. The woman who owned the number before me must have been a realtor, because for a while I got a lot of calls about realty listings. I almost switched numbers because I got so many calls for her.”
“Yes, the woman I’m looking for was a realtor. I don’t suppose you have a forwarding number?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you,” said Johanna, preparing to hang up.
“I do know what realty company she worked for, though,” said Penny.
Whitley’s eyes widened excitedly and she clapped her hands together quietly.
“You do? Oh, that would be very helpful! Which company?”
“It was Four Seasons Realty,” said Penny.
Johanna wanted to cheer, too, but she reined herself in. “Oh, Penny. Thank you so much!”
“No problem, I hope you find the woman you’re looking for!”
Johanna smiled. “So do I!”
“A re we just going to go in there and ask for an F. Marshall?” asked Whitley, looking around nervously.
Johanna peered through the glass doors. It was well past lunchtime. Against Esmerelda’s wishes, they’d taken her and Rocky back to the apartment again because it was too cold to leave a dog and a cat out on the city street for any length of time, and the realty office they now stood in front of had a sign that clearly read No Animals. A woman with a pen stuck in a messy bun on top of her head sat at a desk answering the phone.
“What else would we do?”
Whitley giggled. “I don’t know, we could be sneaky and pretend to be buying a house and ask for Miss Marshall?”
Johanna knew that Whitley was having a good time with the mystery, but she wasn’t. She had a million things she needed to be doing, including a book she needed to finish writing, and investigating a mystery with no crime, no suspects, and no clues was not one of those things.
“Or we could just tell them we’re looking for Miss Marshall and then talk to her like normal adults.”
The smile on Whitley’s face faded. “Or we could do that,” she agreed in a small voice.
Johanna nodded. There was no reason for them to beat around the bush. They weren’t going to get anywhere in solving the mystery if they did that. “That’s what we’ll do. Come on.”
“Don’t forget, they can’t see me,” whispered Whitley as Johanna opened one of the glass doors.
“Then why are you whispering?” Johanna whispered back out of the side of her mouth.
Whitley giggled. “Good question.”
“May I help you?” asked the woman at the desk, hanging up the phone.
“We’re here to see Miss Marshall,” said Johanna.
The woman behind the desk lowered her eyebrows. “Hmm. Miss Marshall? I don’t believe we have any agents here by that name.”
Whitley stomped her foot down on the floor. “Oh, darn it! She doesn’t work here anymore!”
“I see,” said Johanna, not prepared to give up just yet. She’d half-expected the secretary to say that since her phone number had changed. “She used to be a realtor here, maybe five or six years ago. Maybe even more. But I think Marshall was her maiden name. It’s possible she’s married since then.”
The woman smiled. “Ah. I’m new. I wouldn’t know those things. Can you hang on? I’ll let you talk to Mr. Shaw. He’s the boss, he’ll know.”
“Thank you.”
Johanna and Whitley turned their backs to the receptionist and examined the pictures on the wall while the woman called her boss. Several framed pictures of happy homeowners with keys to their new homes, shaking realtors’ hands, covered most of one wall. Another picture was of a stocky man shaking hands with a tall, thin man, captioned Tim Shaw, Managing Broker with a little placard beneath it, October 2011.
Suddenly a voice boomed behind them. “Hello, I’m Tim Shaw, may I help you?”
Johanna turned to see the stocky man in the picture standing in front of them. He had straw-like blond hair with a bit of a cowlick in the back and a chubby red smiling face, and he wore khaki trousers and a short-sleeved white button-down shirt. Johanna reached her hand out to him.
“Hi, Mr. Shaw. My name is Johanna Hughes. Several years ago, maybe five or more years, I worked with a realtor by the name of Miss Marshall. I’m having a hard time remembering her first name. I was hoping to possibly work with her again?”
Whitley elbowed Johanna in the ribs. “You’re welcome,” she hissed.
Tim’s bright smile faded. “Oh, I’m so sorry to have to tell you, but Felicia Marshall passed away six years ago.”
Whitley sucked in her breath and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my goodness!”
Johanna felt her stomach sink. When Virginia had said she had never come back for her dress, the thought had crossed her mind, but she hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. She put a hand to her stomach as her jaw dropped.
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry! How did she die?”
Tim frowned. “She was found dead in a park. An apparent mugging gone wrong.”
“Oh my God,” breathed Johanna. “That’s terrible!”
Stunned, Whitley took a seat in one of the lobby chairs. “This is horrible! I thought we were only going to be returning the dress to the woman. I never thought for a second we’d find out she was dead!”
The mystery writer inside of Johanna had gotten her interest piqued now. How curious was it that Felicia Marshall had received a suspicious request to show a house on the morning of her wedding rehearsal and then had been found dead later that day? Was that simply a coincidence, or was there more to the story?
Tim nodded. “It certainly was horrible. She was a great coworker and an amazingly hardworking realtor. We all loved Felicia.”
“Wow, I’m in shock,” said Johanna, unsure of what to do next. That mystery without a crime or a victim they’d been trying to solve had just become a mystery with a crime and a victim.
“I completely understand,” said Tim, nodding sadly. They all seemed to observe a moment of silence in Felicia’s memory, and then he looked up at Johanna curiously. “Is there a listing you were interested in looking at? I can certainly get you to another realtor. Janet Sandborn took over most of Felicia’s clients.”
Johanna’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“Tell him yes,” said Whitley, shooting up out of her chair. Having recovered from the shock of finding out that the dress’s owner was dead, she now stood next to Johanna with a determined look on her face. “Tell him we want to see some apartments.”
Johanna swallowed hard and nodded. “We’d like to look at some apartments.”
“We? Do you have someone coming to look with you?”
Johanna cleared her throat and blanched. “I’m sorry. I meant, I’d like to look at some apar
tments.”
Tim smiled kindly. “I’ll let you talk to Janet. She knew Felicia too, and she’s one of my best agents. She’d be glad to help you.”
Johanna gave him a tight smile, the kind where her smile didn’t make it all the way to her eyes. “Thank you.”
Minutes later, Johanna and Whitley sat side by side in matching chairs in front of Janet Sandborn’s desk. The spiky-haired blonde stared at them from beneath a set of extremely long, obviously fake eyelashes.
“Tim says you’re looking for an apartment?” she asked as her long red fingernails clicked her computer’s keyboard.
Johanna held her breath, puffing out her cheeks. She released it uncomfortably. “Actually,” she began, dragging out the word, “can I just be honest with you?”
Janet’s fingers stopped clicking on the keys. She looked up at Johanna curiously. “Of course.”
Johanna swallowed hard. “This is probably going to sound really weird.”
“Okay?” Janet’s over-drawn eyebrows knitted together curiously.
“I recently acquired a wedding dress from a secondhand shop. It had a dry cleaner’s tag inside it that led me to discover that the dress was owned by Felicia Marshall.”
Janet’s mouth gaped open. “Felicia Marshall! Wow, I haven’t heard that name in a while.”
Johanna nodded. “Mr. Shaw just broke the news to me that Felicia passed away six years ago.”
Janet sucked in a deep breath and pursed her lips. “Yes, six years ago. That sounds about right,” she agreed stiffly.
Sensing that Janet’s body had tightened up slightly, Johanna leaned in and cocked her head to the side. “Did you know Felicia well?”
Janet leaned back in her black desk chair and, putting her elbows on the armrests, steepled her fingers. “I mean, we were coworkers.”
Johanna leaned forward. “I’m sensing something. Did the two of you not get along?”
Janet shrugged. “We got along alright. It’s just that Felicia was… I don’t know how to say it exactly.” She shifted in her seat. “Let’s just say that Felicia was a shark.”
“A shark? How so?”
Snow Cold Case: A Mystic Snow Globe Romantic Mystery (The Mystic Snow Globe Mystery Series Book 1) Page 6