Dressed to Confess

by Diane Vallere

  The planners had been smart. They proposed everything that a small town would need to encourage community: a library, a post office, a town hall, a police station, a public park, and a savings and loan. Percentages of businesses to residents were established, and zoning proposals indicated how many of each business could move into town. There’d been no zoning restrictions on costume shops, but if there had been, we could have claimed that we were here first. I suspected it was why Candy Girls defined themselves as a party store and not a costume store. Whenever someone planned an event—birthday party, funeral, high school dance, or bake-off, they claimed that was their specialty. “Costumes” had only been added when they saw a way to compete with us.

  I flipped past the first page of the file. Why had Tak sent me this? I didn’t think it was because of my interest in Proper City. So far, everything I read could be found in the one public library that had had been awarded to our town. One by one I flipped through reports that listed target demographics and how they would be served by everything that was being suggested.

  Three-quarters of the way through the file I came to a piece of paper marked “Proper City Savings and Loan.” A red star had been drawn on the page next to the subject. A phone number had been written in the margin alongside of the paper.

  I reached for the store’s phone before reading the document, but the words “Pete Proper’s gold” caught my eye. I set the receiver down and read.

  In order to build on the city’s past and create a sense of community and loyalty, the proposed Proper City Savings and Loan will house a display of gold attributed to Pete Proper’s mining efforts. As no gold from Pete Proper’s mining efforts has ever been found, it is assumed that he spent, traded, or gave away whatever he had. Source the gold for the S&L from a Hollywood prop company (suggested confidentiality agreement attached).

  I sat up and stared at Soot. “Well, how do you like that? If there was no gold in the savings and loan, then what could Ronnie have possibly stolen?”

  Chapter 24

  THE FIRST PHONE call I made was not to the number in the file. It was to Don. His phone rang three and a half rings before he answered with a tentative and muffled, “Hello?”

  Don didn’t program phone numbers into his phone, and he wiped his call history every night. It was his way of ensuring he never gave away another person’s information. He usually screened his calls and only returned the ones that left messages.

  “Don, it’s Margo. Can you talk?”

  “Margo—hi—what?” He sounded confused, as if I’d possibly awoken him.

  “I found something out about the bank robbery, but first I want to make sure you can talk freely.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m with your dad and we just crossed the state line. You think Proper City is full of desert? You should get a load of Utah.”

  “What about Arizona?”

  “What does Arizona have to do with anything?”

  “Are you on Route 15? You have to drive through the corner of Arizona to get to Utah.”

  “You sure?”

  “That’s not why I called. You know how you told me about the robbery at the savings and loan?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I just found out there was no gold.”

  “That’s because Ronnie stole it.”

  “No, before that. The gold that everybody thought Pete Proper mined, that sat on display in the lobby of the Proper City Savings and Loan. It wasn’t gold.”

  “Then what was it?” He sounded more alert now.

  “It was a prop from a special effects company in Hollywood. The early city planners came up with the idea to make people feel connected to the community.”

  “How do you know this?”

  I looked at the papers in front of me. The only reason I knew any of this was because Tak had used his position to get the info to me. It wasn’t common knowledge, and there was a very good chance that if it got out, someone would be able to trace it back to him. “I can’t tell you how I know it. I just do.”

  “You have a source,” he said, excitement evident in his voice.

  “No, I don’t,” I said too quickly.

  “Jerry, did you know Margo has a source? Are they willing to meet?”

  We were getting off topic.

  “Your dad doesn’t know anything about your source either. I want to see your notes, do a write-up. Did you give this information to Detective Nichols? We have to do that. She needs to know this new development. Have you called her? I can call her. Right now.”

  Panic spread through me. Tak worked with Detective Nichols. He would lose his job if she found out he’d pulled this info and gotten it to me. Not only that, Don’s abuse of the tip line had made him appear less than innocent, and adding this info to the rest of the evidence he’d already called in would surely paint him in a negative light. “Don, let me talk to my dad.”

  A few seconds later, my dad’s voice came onto the line. “Are you seriously hurt?” he asked.

  My dad had always had a problem with the question, “Are you okay?” He figured that, in most cases, that very question followed up an action or a reaction that indicated that the speakee—the person being spoken to—was definitely not okay, and the use of those three generic words undermined the situation. Two minutes after he’d first explained it all to me, he’d slipped on the freshly mopped floor of Disguise DeLimit. His feet had shot out from under him, and he’d landed on his butt. I’d walked over with the mop in hand and, looking down at him, asked, “Are you seriously hurt?”

  A Tamblyn tradition had been born.

  “I’m okay,” I answered. I gave him the highlights about what I’d learned. “Don can’t tell anybody about this, not until I find out more.” I paused, and then added, “Dad, would Ronnie have known that the gold wasn’t real?

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Think about it, okay? Because it’s looking more and more like whatever happened during that robbery has something to do with the reason she was killed.”

  I hung up the phone and read over the information again. Soot jumped on the table and walked to the stack of papers. As I flipped through, I set each page upside down in a new pile above the ones I was reading. Soot flopped down on top of the pile. I turned a page and he stuck out a dark gray paw and swatted at the paper until I set it down.

  “Let’s assume the facts as we know them,” I said to him. “Number one: the Domino Divas—mainly Ronnie Cass—are suspected of involvement in a bank robbery in 1968. Number two: nothing of value was stolen. Number three: people think she stole today’s equivalent of close to two million dollars in gold. Number four: the so-called gold wasn’t real. Number five: after the robbery, she left town, thus breaking her engagement with Don. Number five point five: when she returned, she and Mayor Young were a couple.”

  Soot seemed unimpressed with my recap.

  “Fast-forward. Now Ronnie is dead and everybody thinks Don is guilty. What’s his motive? It can’t be the gold because there was no gold. Is it supposed to be unrequited love? I could find a dozen people willing to testify that Don isn’t walking around carrying a torch for Ronnie. I never even knew they were a couple and I’ve known him my whole life.”

  Soot shifted his weight onto his back and stretched all four of his paws out, the front two in front of him, the hind two straight behind him. He added a yawn, just in case I didn’t realize he was disinterested.

  “Am I boring you? Okay, how about this. Two cats make off with a giant ball of string. Then a bunch of years later, one loses his ninth life and the other is held accountable. But the giant ball of string never existed in the first place.” I stopped talking for a second while that processed. “Which means all of this talk about Don helping Ronnie steal the gold is a diversionary tactic. And as long as the rest of the town believes in the existence of the gold, they’ll
believe the story and focus on that.” I was halfway to the phone when Soot jumped down from the table and let out a howl. I looked down at the floor, where he stood on top of one of the pages that he’d knocked over. The page with the phone number and the red star.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those cats who solves crimes,” I said. He gave me the same glare he perfected when I once dressed him up in a pirate costume and then jumped on the windowsill and meowed. Apparently, his work here was done.

  I called the number on the page. When I heard the phone pick up, I spoke. “Hey,” I said. “It’s Margo.”

  “Took you long enough. Meet me in the parking garage under the library behind the PCP. Eight o’clock. Come alone.”

  There was only one thing more troubling than the abrupt hang-up. The fact that the person on the other end of the phone wasn’t Tak.

  Chapter 25

  I SPENT THE necessary ten minutes picking the pages up off the floor and getting them back in order, fed Soot, and poured a bowl of Fruity Pebbles for dinner. It was six thirty. I would finish that bowl of cereal in less than five minutes. And then what? I’d spend the next hour and a half worrying about what I was about to do. And already I knew that, regardless of the instructions that I’d been given, I wasn’t going to just show up alone in a dark parking lot. I stopped myself from adding the milk to my bowl and poured the Fruity Pebbles back into the box. I called the person I’d thought I was calling the first time.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s Margo.”

  “Hey,” Tak said.

  “I was thinking about that ‘proper celebration’ I owe you. Want to join me for dinner at Catch-22?”

  “As long as you’re treating,” he said.

  “Deal. How’s seven sound?”

  “Good. I’ll pick you up around ten till.”

  “Don’t pick me up. I’ll meet you there. See you soon.” I hung up before he could ask what was going on.

  I changed from the blue scrubs to a white T-shirt, dark jeans, and white sneakers, and then pulled on a red windbreaker from a series of costumes I’d made last year. The letters B.W.G. were cross-stitched on the back. I’d been hired to create twenty detective-themed costumes for a rich guy’s birthday party and had made seven of these matching jackets in total, but because I’d had trouble with the seams on the nylon, had only offered the customer five. Two jackets had remained behind in stock. I’d all but forgotten about them until Kirby accidentally filed them with the 1950s display of letter jackets and poodle skirts.

  Catch-22 was a local seafood restaurant. The joke was: Who would eat in a seafood restaurant in the middle of the desert? But somehow, the chef made it work. Every day a shipment of fish was flown in and prepared twenty-two different ways. The biggest expense, aside from the ingredients, was the cost of printing up the menus.

  Tak was in the parking lot leaning against his gray RAV4. I parked the scooter next to him and hopped off. My outfit—chosen more for my activities after dinner than for the dinner itself—seemed awkwardly casual next to his suit and tie.

  “You’re early,” I said.

  “You’re late,” he countered.

  I looked at my watch and smiled sheepishly. The last couple of times that Tak and I had been together had been strained, and tonight was no different. His smile was guarded. Impulsively, I stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Come on. We don’t want them to run out of fish.”

  We were led to a booth next to a window. Tak ordered a beer and I ordered an unsweetened iced tea. A glass of wine might have calmed my nerves, but I wasn’t much of a drinker and didn’t think tonight was the night to change my habits. I ordered the tuna steak and Tak ordered the tuna tartare. I drained the first glass of tea quickly and started on the second before our entrées arrived. The caffeine, in addition to my nerves, made me jittery. I excused myself and went to the powder room to wash my hands, and then returned to our booth as the waitress was dropping off a basket of freshly baked sourdough rolls. I bit into one and chewed, and then followed it with another swig of tea.

  “What’s going on, Margo?” Tak asked.

  “What? Nothing. It’s the caffeine. And I haven’t been sleeping well. And—”

  “And you’re downing those rolls like they’re bonbons, and you’ve checked your watch four times since we sat down. And you wouldn’t let me pick you up like we were going on a date. All of which tells me that you have other plans after dinner.”

  I set down my fork and folded my hands in my lap. “You’re right. I’m meeting someone after dinner.”

  Tak pushed his plate away. I reached across the table and put my hand on his. “But it’s not what you think. I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but I don’t think it’s a good idea not to tell anybody. So I was going to ask you if you’d come to the library with me when we’re done. Only I can’t tell you anything else, except park in the lot underneath and pretend you’re not there, unless it looks like I need help.”

  “No,” he said.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’? You won’t help me?”

  “I won’t blindly agree to you heading into a potentially dangerous situation. And this sounds like a potentially dangerous situation.”

  “I just told you I’m going to the library. How dangerous can it be? When people say words are weapons, I don’t think they’re talking about throwing books at each other.”

  “Let’s back up for a second. What time is this meeting?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  Tak looked at his watch. “That means you have twenty-seven minutes to eat dinner and get to the library. That’s not a lot of time.”

  The waitress arrived with our entrées. She set Tak’s in front of me and mine in front of him. We both waited until she was gone to swap plates. I picked up my fork and sliced through the corner of the tuna steak. I ate two bites and then set my fork down. Tak hadn’t started on his meal yet.

  “The clock is ticking,” I said. “And I gave up a bowl of Fruity Pebbles for this dinner. It’s not going to waste.” I finished first and filled Tak in on what I’d learned from the package that had been delivered to Disguise DeLimit.

  “The address on the return envelope was the mayor’s office. I thought it was from you. I knew you started work there today, so I thought you found info, maybe made a copy, and had it delivered to me. You know, to help.”

  “Technically I’m working for the mayor, but not in the mayor’s office. I thought you knew I was based out of the police station.”

  “I did. I do. I mean, yes, I might have blocked out that bit of information.”

  He smiled. “So you’re meeting this guy in ten minutes.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better flag the waitress over. We don’t have a lot of time.” He pushed his plate away from him. “And for the record, this is not a proper celebration. You still owe me.”

  * * *

  THE public library closed at eight o’clock. Only two cars were in the lot: a Prius parked in the space reserved for the librarian, and another car next to it. The second car was covered in a canvas tarp to protect it from the elements—an odd choice considering we were in the lower level of a parking garage. I drove in a circle through the columns, looking for something out of the ordinary. Except for the emptiness, it seemed like every other parking lot in town.

  I left my scooter by the exit ramp and locked up my helmet. The plan was simple. Tak would park on the street up top and walk down, staying closest to the shadows. I was to stay as close to the ramp as possible.

  “Are you Margo?” asked a man’s voice. I squinted into the darkness and scanned the lot until I saw a young man in a baseball hat and buttoned-up raincoat standing by the elevator doors.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Come closer.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said
. “I have information.”

  “You already sent me information,” I said. “Where did you get it?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Come closer,” he said again. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I have information.”

  The parking lot was silent, except for the sound of our two voices bouncing off the cavernous walls. I didn’t want to go closer, but something about the man was familiar. I took two steps closer, reached into the pocket of my red windbreaker, and grasped a small flashlight. I switched it on with my thumb and pulled it out, aiming it at the man.

  He was caught by surprise. A cell phone fell from his gloved hand to the ground. He threw his other arm in front of his face, knocking the baseball hat off his head. Long hair tumbled out.

  And my source’s identity was revealed.

  Chapter 26

  HE WAS A she. “Gina Cassavogli? What are you doing here?”

  She cursed. The voice from the phone by her feet kept speaking, “Come closer. I won’t hurt you. I have information. Come closer. I won’t hurt you. I have information.” It was a recording of a male voice on repeat.

  Whatever anxiety I’d had over tonight’s clandestine meeting vanished when faced with Gina. I went straight for the car with the tarp over it and pulled it off in the same manner that Magic Maynard used when performing one of his magic tricks. Under the tarp was Gina’s sporty blue convertible.

  “Don’t you touch my car!” she yelled. I threw the tarp to the ground.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I asked.