Dressed to Confess

by Diane Vallere

  “I heard. I almost came to you first, but this is really more about Jerry.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Grady pushed his blazer open and tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He stood straight and puffed up his chest a bit, projecting an air of self-importance. “My dad said it’s time I did something with my life. He gave me two months to find a business opportunity to fund. Philanthropy, he called it. I think he expected me to write somebody a check, get listed on their board of directors in a non-voting role, and get on with my life.”

  “Sounds like you,” I said, only half joking.

  “Hey, I resent that! Besides, Dad might have something. People don’t think too much of me except for my bank account. But look at the kind of the guys you date. They’re not rich, but people respect them because of their jobs. People think they’re making a difference.”

  I knew there was more than one reason that Grady had avoided mention of Tak’s name. Ever since I’d met Grady, there’d been an undercurrent of flirtation between us. On more than one occasion, he’d asked if I’d gotten tired of Tak’s attention. I’d always laughed it off, but couldn’t deny that secretly I found Grady’s persistence flattering.

  Grady’s thoughts about philanthropy sounded honorable enough, but I didn’t like the way he eyed my dad’s booth while he said them. Before I could cut to the chase, a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt, dirty Birkenstocks, and a full mousy-brown beard approached us. He held out a closed fist. Grady balled up his own fist and brought it down on top of the Dead Head’s, who then repeated the action.

  They turned to me. “I’m Finn,” the Dead Head said. “Are you one of them?”

  “Depends which ‘them’ you mean. I’m Margo. I’m with the nuts.” I pointed toward the Spicy Acorn booth with my thumb stuck out like a hitchhiker.

  “These guys are right on,” he said. “They’ve been talking about how the government’s been spying on us.” He held up a copy of Spicy Acorn. “Their newspaper opened my eyes to things I never even thought about. Best booth at the festival. You think they’re hiring?”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re keeping it a small staff.” I looked at Grady. He shrugged and smiled, and then stepped away from us and toward another cluster of people. I turned back to Finn. “If their message is so popular, why is everybody outside and not in there listening to them?”

  “It’s exactly what they’ve been telling us. Once the man found out what they were saying, he’d come after them. It just lends credence to their message, you know? Speak the truth and watch out for authority.”

  I looked around. “What man?”

  “The G-man. Except in this case, he sent a woman to do a man’s job.” He smiled and made a fist and held it out. “Equal rights, man. Power to the people.”

  I was getting nowhere. “Excuse me,” I said. I moved past the crowd and went into the tent. Amid cries of protest, I turned around. “My dad’s booth,” I said. “Family emergency.”

  When I went inside, I realized that I’d been more correct than I thought. Detective Nancy Nichols stood in front of Don Digby, and she was in the middle of reading him his rights.

  Chapter 9

  DON, DETECTIVE NICHOLS, and my dad all turned to face me. Their expressions covered a range from outrage, annoyance, and concern. The concern was in my dad’s face. I could tell he wanted me to turn around and leave. I took a breath to speak, but my dad moved his head very slightly from side to side. Detective Nichols appeared to give me a moment to react.

  “I need to talk to my dad,” I said.

  The detective put her hand on Don’s arm and guided him toward the exit. Once they left, a few cheers went up from outside. I recognized Finn’s voice out front: “You can’t shut down the truth!”

  My dad rushed past me and pulled the zipper on the tent flaps down to indicate that the booth was closed. “Do me a favor, Margo. Behind the table is a sketchpad. Make a sign that says we’ll return tomorrow. I need to do damage control.” He rushed around the booth, packing up copies of Spicy Acorn and stuffing them into boxes.

  I put my hand on his arm. “Dad, stop. I don’t think the detective wants to talk to Don about conspiracy theories,” I said gently. “I think this has to do with Ronnie Cass’s murder.”

  “What could Don possibly know about the murder? He and Ronnie were a lifetime ago.” He buzzed around the tent stashing supplies. I wrote out his sign and he reached under the tent and propped up the sign out front.

  I settled into a chair. “So there was a Don and Ronnie? They actually were a couple?”

  My dad stopped what he was doing and sat down too. “Yes, there was a Don and Ronnie. He loved her. He even bought her a ring. But Ronnie had an agenda that didn’t include marriage to a poker-playing male nurse who likes the blues. She wanted to be rich and she wanted to be famous. Don wasn’t going to give her either one of those things.”

  As I listened, I noticed a figure hovering outside the tent, close enough to hear us. I held my finger up to my lips, and then pointed toward the wall. Though distorted, it appeared to be a misshapen man in a top hat. Whoever he was, he was dressed in costume.

  “It’s getting late and the festival is about to close for the night. Let’s secure the booth and head home,” I said in a loud voice. I pointed to the shadow again. In a lower voice, I added, “We can talk about this later.”

  I could tell that my dad wanted to argue with me, but the shadow hadn’t moved. “I’ll finish up here,” he said equally loudly. “Why don’t you go check in with Bobbie?”

  “Good idea.”

  I left the booth quickly, looking at the spot where the eavesdropper had been. And there he was, dressed in a black tux and red bow tie, thick white mustache, and a cane. Our eavesdropper was a cardboard cutout of Rich Uncle Pennybags, the millionaire character from Monopoly, propped up on a dirt patch outside of the conspiracy theory booth.

  I felt silly for imagining that someone had been listening to us, but instead of admitting my error, I headed to Bobbie’s spot at the festival. She was talking to Joel V.

  Today he was dressed in a pink and white striped shirt, a pink and orange floral necktie, and orange pants. The man did not shy away from color. Bobbie pointed to me. “Here she is now,” she said.

  Joel turned to me. “Bobbie says you made domino costumes for the bears.”

  “That’s right. It was a last-minute idea. Bobbie and I were unpacking the bears, and the two thoughts just merged. You know how ideas do that sometimes.”

  “Yes, but now if we expect any kind of profit, we have to scrub any mention of the dominos from the festival.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bobbie interjected. “The festival is a Proper City tradition. It’s not a moneymaker. I’ve approached the mayor’s office about fund-raising for the past five years and for five years I’ve been shut down. And I’m a nonprofit. The message has always been, this is for the residents of the city. Everybody who participates is responsible for funding their own booth, donating their materials and time. There are no financial winners here.” She picked up one of the small bears. “That’s why I’m giving these away.”

  “Maybe that was the case in the past, but not this year,” Joel said. “I saw the agreement myself. Ronnie had Mayor Young sign a contract that paid the Domino Divas fifty percent of festival income in exchange for the use of their name and logo.”

  “Is that public knowledge?” I asked.

  Joel straightened up and adjusted his floral tie. Guilt slid across his face, like a kid who’d just tattled on his brother for swiping a cookie before dinner. He raised his hand and held two fingers up in a Scout’s honor gesture, then pointed them at Bobbie and me. “Let’s not turn this into a thing. The mayor is counting on me to fix this so people aren’t distracted by the tragedy.”

  “That’s pretty callous,” I said. “The mayor
should be worried about what it says about him that he’s willing to gloss over the fact that a woman was murdered at the festival.”

  “She wasn’t murdered at the festival. She was murdered in her trailer that was parked on an adjacent street. There is a difference.” Joel picked up one of the bears. His hand gripped the back of its head, causing the bear’s face to scrunch up. “I have a proposition for you. Because of the original agreement with the Domino Divas, everything from this festival has their logo on it.”

  “Ebony already asked me to take Ronnie’s place so the divas could perform and I said yes, so if that’s what you were going to ask, don’t bother.”

  “You’re going to be a Double D?” Bobbie asked.

  I glanced down at my chest. “This might be the closest I get.”

  “Not necessary,” Joel said. “I found another act. This time tomorrow, Clue: The Musical takes the stage.” He stared into the face of the little bear and then back at me. “So I’m going to need Clue costumes for the bears. Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Miss Scarlet. Can you do that?”

  As much as I didn’t like the idea of adding to my workload, I knew his idea was genius. Tiny bears dressed to match the costumes of the characters from Clue would make everybody forget about the Domino Divas and the murder. Photos of the Clue bears would pop up on social media and within twenty-four hours, people would forget about the Double Ds. Considering it was almost nine p.m., the only problem was when I would find the time to make them.

  “If you think you can’t do it, I can go to that other costume shop. Truth is, that might be easier since they’re making the costumes for the stage show. I need an answer right now. Yes or no?”

  “It’s going to require an all-nighter,” I said.

  “A hundred bears in Clue costumes by tomorrow. Yes or no?”

  “A hundred!” I exclaimed. “I can’t make a hundred by tomorrow.” He pulled his phone out and scrolled through his contacts. “Who are you calling?”

  “Candy Girls.”

  “I’ll do it!” I said. Joel V. wasn’t giving this business to Gina Cassavogli. “I’ll do my best. But I need something from you.” The idea came to me in an instant. “You must have video or pictures of the divas performing. Can you send them to me?”

  “Why do you need that?”

  “Posterity.” He looked at the rack of costumes hanging next to me. “I made their costumes. I’d like something to show for it.”

  He didn’t look happy. “I don’t want word to get out that I did this.” He swiped the phone screen a few times. “What’s your number?”

  Between Detective Nichols taking Don out of my dad’s booth and now Joel V. requesting a hundred bear costumes overnight, I’d completely forgotten about my phone falling into the grate under Ronnie’s trailer. “Can you e-mail it instead?” I asked.

  “E-mail, sure. What’s your addy?”

  I gave him the e-mail address for Disguise DeLimit. He repeated it into the voice recorder of his phone. “Thanks, ladies. I’ll be in touch.” He pushed his phone into the back pocket of his striped pants and left.

  “What was that all about?” Bobbie asked. “You don’t need to see that video. Why the story?”

  I held my hand horizontal and slowly lowered it in the universal pantomime for “keep it down.” I held my finger to my lips, just in case she wasn’t fluent in universal pantomime, and pulled her deeper into the booth. “I don’t think Ronnie performed yesterday,” I said. “Which means somebody else stood in for her. If we can see that video, really analyze it, we might be able to figure out—”

  Bobbie pushed me away. “No, we won’t. We,” she said pointing at me, “need to get to work on a hundred bears in Clue costumes for tomorrow. Leave this alone, Mitty. It’s not your problem.”

  Deep down, I knew she was right. Just because I’d had a little success in the past when crime had come to Proper, threatening Ebony and then my family’s store, didn’t mean that I knew what I was doing. The same experiences had threatened my life and put a strain on my relationship with Tak. The smart thing to do would be to let it go. Except that somehow my dad’s best friend was connected to whatever had happened to Ronnie and I’d learned a long time ago that friends were as important as family.

  “The police need to know what Joel just told us. They need to see that video and check the diva contract.”

  “So call Detective Nichols and tell her about it,” she said.

  “I can’t. I dropped my phone down the sewer grate underneath Ronnie’s trailer.”

  “I’m afraid to ask this next question. What were you doing under Ronnie’s trailer?”

  “I was looking for evidence, okay? When I found her body, I saw a blue domino mask on the sidewalk. Ronnie was the blue domino. Detective Nichols says I imagined it because her team didn’t find it.”

  “It’s been over twenty-four hours,” she said. “Even if you did claim to find it now, don’t you think she’d dismiss it? You could very easily take a blue mask from the store and say it was in the grate. Mits, I know you feel like you’re in some kind of competition with Nancy Nichols, but she’s doing her job and you’re kinda getting in her way.”

  “So you’re saying if I found something suspicious in that grate today, nobody would believe me?”

  “Did you? Did you find the blue mask in the sewer grate?”

  “No, I didn’t find a blue mask in the grate,” I said. I leaned back and put my hands on my hips. “I found a teddy bear.”

  Bobbie’s face went pale. “In the sewer? Under the trailer?” I nodded. She grabbed my wrist. “Let’s go.”

  Bobbie closed the flaps to her booth. She found one of the security guards standing by a nearby trash can. “Keep an eye on my booth, please? I’ll be right back. Ten minutes,” she said, holding up all of her fingers. He nodded.

  Proper City had grown dark. We hurried through the patches of dead yellow grass, crossed the street, and came to a halt as we rounded the corner. Ronnie’s trailer, which earlier had been parked along the curb of Rapunzel Road, was gone.

  Chapter 10

  “WHERE DID THE trailer go?” I asked. “It was right here.”

  “Do you have the right road?” Bobbie asked.

  “Of course I have the right road.” I took a few steps forward and stepped down off of the curb by the sewer grate. It was too dark to see inside it. “Do you have a flashlight?” I asked.

  “Hold on.” She fiddled with her phone until a beam of light shined out from it, just like I’d done with mine. The fact that the sewer was dark told me my battery had died.

  I squatted by the grate and squinted. Two hours earlier, I’d seen my phone drop onto the lap of a teddy bear. Now, I wasn’t sure that other critters weren’t occupying the same close quarters. I looked up at Bobbie. She bent down, soiling the knees of her khaki pants on the sidewalk, and pointed the light to the grate. Even with only the slim beam from her phone’s light, I could make out the shape of my phone resting on top of the bear.

  “What does it mean?” Bobbie asked.

  “It means that somebody put a teddy bear in a sewer grate. I don’t know how or when, or who or why, but I dropped my phone earlier today, so it happened before that,” I said. “I thought Ebony put it there for the scavenger hunt the mayor asked her to arrange, but she said she’s taking a stand and ignoring his request.”

  “How long was the trailer parked here?”

  “I don’t know. A week?”

  “You said yourself that there wasn’t a lot of room under the trailer. So somebody must have put him in there before the trailer was parked.”

  “There’s another possibility,” I said. My knees were sore from squatting so I shifted myself onto the curb and rested my feet next to the grate. My yellow tights snagged on the concrete and a run climbed up my leg. “Somebody put the bear in the grate beca
use they knew the trailer would be parked there. They knew as long as the grate was covered, nobody would look inside it.” I looked away from the grate and at Bobbie. “But then Ronnie was murdered. It’s too much of a coincidence. That bear has something to do with what happened.”

  Bobbie turned the flashlight off on her phone and held it out to me. Without words, I took it and made the call I knew I had to make.

  * * *

  TWENTY minutes later, we were joined by Detective Nichols. “Margo, Bobbie,” she said. She did not seem surprised by the lack of trailer on the street. I knew as long as she was calling us by our first names, we fell into the category of concerned citizens and not nuisances or suspects. Once she went all “Ms. Tamblyn” on me, I had cause for alarm. “What’s this about more evidence?”

  I’d made the decision to remain vague on the phone call in order to get her to the scene. Something about evidence hidden in a teddy bear in the same grate I claimed held a phantom blue domino mask sounded a bit fantastic, like the fairy tales the local roads had been named after. When I’d mentioned evidence, she agreed to join us without further questions.

  Bobbie and I both stood. When Nancy—as long as we were on first name basis, I figured why not think of her that way?—held out her hand, I shook it. She looked at Bobbie, who looked at me, who took a deep breath and prepared to watch the polite respect we’d been getting from the detective evaporate.

  “Earlier today, I came out here to look for the blue mask that I told you about,” I said. “The one that I think came from Ronnie’s domino costume.”

  She held her hand up to stop me. “Ms. Tamblyn, you’ve already told us about the mask. My team checked inside the trailer. We found her blue mask wedged between the bed and the wall.”

  “You did? But that means the one I saw out here must have been a duplicate. Which supports my theory that it wasn’t Ronnie at rehearsal, it was somebody dressed up as her.”