A Disguise to Die For

by Diane Vallere

  “I think I’ll keep the Sherlock outfit for myself. My fee for handling the small detail of the costumes. That’ll burn up Blitz pretty good, don’t you think?”

  “You’re going to wear one of our costumes?”

  “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

  “I heard your girlfriend worked for Candy Girls. I assumed you’d get something from them.”

  “See, this is how rumors get started. Blitz is the one with a girlfriend at Candy Girls, not me.” He grinned. “In fact, I could use a date for the party. You wouldn’t want to be my Watson, would you?”

  “That would make it look like I was in on the plan to burn up Blitz.”

  “Nothing wrong with playing opposite Blitz’s team. Get him back for the way he acted last night.” Grady flashed a third megawatt smile, and I was starting to feel blindsided.

  “You can pick the costumes up tomorrow,” I said, switching the subject.

  Again, his face fell. “You’re going to have to deliver them,” he said. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his wallet and held it between his first two fingers. When I reached for it, he pulled his fingers in toward his palm so the paper was out of my reach. I held my hand open and waited for him to give it to me. After a few seconds, he pressed the slip of paper into my palm and folded my fingers over it.

  “You will be at the party, won’t you?”

  “I’ll probably be there to help Ebony.”

  “Good. I’m looking forward to seeing which costume you kept for yourself.”

  I put the paper into my pocket and thanked him for his purchase. After he left, I returned to the register and put the signature slip in a clear pouch. The store had been open for twenty minutes and already things were looking good.

  I propped the front door open with a concrete block and rolled a rack of discount clown outfits outside. They were bright and colorful and cheap, the trifecta of what makes a perfect sidewalk sale item. After adding a handwritten sign that said TODAY’S SPECIAL: CLOWN COSTUMES, $20, I picked a blue and pink polka-dotted costume off the end of the rack and carried it inside. A little modification and it would make a nice jumpsuit.

  It was a good day for sales. By six o’clock I’d sold four clown costumes from the rack out front, a half-dozen fairy wings from our princess section, and ten cowboy hats. I’d stopped only once, to dispose of a mouse that Soot had caught in the stockroom and delivered to the register area. I was hungry and I was pooped.

  After pulling the rack of clown costumes inside and locking the door, I cashed out the register and went upstairs. I ate a bowl of Fruity Pebbles for dinner, changed into cotton pj’s, and took a pair of scissors to the clown costume.

  * * *

  FRIDAY morning I was up early to open the store. I dressed in what I’d renovated last night. After removing the collar, sleeves, and elastic by the ankles of the costume, I’d been left with a wide-legged jumpsuit that had colorful polka dots on it. I cinched the waist with a pink obi belt from a box of uniforms we’d inherited when the Las Vegas Benihana changed its dress code, and slipped on a pair of bright pink suede flats. I put a white plastic hair band on my head to keep my hair from falling into my face and added a sheer pink lip gloss to my lips.

  After blending up a smoothie with blueberries and raspberries that made a nice complement to the polka dots, I rolled the same rack of clown costumes out front and, based on my own outfit, sold five more plus two obi belts. If things kept up, I was going to have to find another sidewalk sale item! My dad checked in at closing time; he and Don were spending another night with the collector. He—the collector, not my dad—wanted to treat him and Don to a tour of Area 51, and I knew my dad well enough to know he couldn’t pass that up. After a heavy grilling of Don about my dad’s pulse and then a lecture with my dad about medication and taking it easy, I told him that business was under control.

  * * *

  BY the time Saturday rolled around, talk of Blitz’s party was all over town. Everyone was excited to see what Ebony had planned on short notice. Even though both Blitz and Grady had extended invites to me, I chose to remain a member of the staff and volunteered to help Ebony behind the scenes.

  I dressed as Honey West and assembled my outfit from a black, V-neck dress with a high slit cut up one leg, a garter from the mob section, and a plastic pistol tucked into the garter. I pinched a stuffed ocelot from the jungle section of the store and hooked a leash to a studded collar from the ’80s section. Since my hair was far from her golden blond, I tucked it under a tight cap and pulled on a wig. This girl for hire, indeed.

  I strapped the stuffed ocelot onto the back of my white Vespa scooter and slowly fitted my helmet over the wig. It was a couple miles drive to the fire hall that Ebony had rented for the party, and I arrived in about fifteen minutes. Parking was limited, but a small spot on a side street called my name. Thankful for the compact size of the scooter, I backed it into the space. The blond wig came off when I removed my helmet, leaving my head—in a black stocking cap!—exposed. I tugged the wig on quickly and glanced around, hoping nobody had seen.

  Ebony met me and the ocelot at the fire hall doors. She whistled when she saw my outfit. “Only you could turn out forty costumes in twenty-four hours and still have the best-looking one for yourself.”

  “I never turn down an opportunity to wear a wig. You know that.”

  “You’re practically the same age as Blitz and his crowd. You should be here as a guest, not an employee. Who knows, you might even meet Mr. Right.”

  “Mr. Right? Let’s see, I made a Mr. Moto, but I don’t remember making a costume for Mr. Right.” I looked at her sideways. “Besides, I’m six years older than Blitz. Maybe six years is nothing to you, but that would be practically cradle robbing to me. And you don’t want me to become part of Blitz’s scene any more than I want you to move to the moon. What’s up?”

  “It wouldn’t kill you to meet a nice guy and settle down.”

  For a self-proclaimed independent-for-life woman, Ebony had an odd obsession with me meeting “a nice guy.” I rolled my eyes, the standard response for when she brought “him” up, and went inside.

  The interior of the fire hall had been converted. Tables and chairs were arranged to one side, leaving ample space for a band and a dance floor. There were four portable bars manned by bartenders in plaid capes and deerstalker hats. Servers circled with heavy, leather-bound encyclopedias in place of serving trays, each covered in clear trays of crudités and hors d’oeuvres. Guests were given large magnifying glasses instead of plates, and they selected items from the servers and set them on the surface of the glass. The handles made them easy to carry.

  Ebony handed me a magnifying glass that held a rolled piece of roast beef with a dab of horseradish on the top. “What’s he doing here?” she asked.

  I followed her stare. An older gentleman, dressed nattily in a fitted black suit and narrow trousers, stood off near the side entrance. He wasn’t so much dressed as a detective as he was dressed from the pages of GQ. He looked across the hall at her and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Octavius Roman. Otherwise known as He with the Broken Pipes.”

  “Otherwise known as Blitz’s First Choice.”

  She shook her head. “Takes a lot of nerve to show up here after his services were terminated. I can’t see Blitz sending him an invite.”

  “Where is Blitz, anyway?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He said he was playing a joke on his friend Grady and we might not see him until after the party was in swing. You’re lucky Grady already paid you for the costumes. Blitz said he’d pay me tonight. I know the boy’s got money but I put this whole thing together on his promises.”

  Again, I felt bad for giving back Blitz’s money. Whatever point I’d tried to make had gone unnoticed, and Ebony was now on the hook for the entire expense of
the party. Sure, Blitz had the money to pay her, but would he? Especially after his dig to Ebony’s past.

  “What did Blitz mean when he mentioned you and his dad? Do you know his father?”

  “Girl, don’t you start with that gossip too. Bad enough I had to take it from him. He was talking about his real dad, Brody Manners. Important lawyer. Now there was a man with character.”

  “But why did Blitz say his father hired you?”

  A cloud of darkness passed over Ebony’s features. “I better go check on the goose and the coffee.” She walked away.

  I rested against the wall with my arm around my stuffed ocelot. I never liked the idea of working the room or approaching strangers to make conversation at a cocktail party, but the fact that everyone here was in costume took away that anxiety. Costumes gave people the confidence to be someone else and leave their insecurities behind—me included.

  Columbo was talking to Veronica Mars by the side of the stage. A small group of men and women stood by the bar, wearing red windbreakers with B.W.G. embroidered on the back like the Bob-Whites of the Glen from Trixie Belden. Mr. Moto looked like he was trying to start something up with ’30s Nancy Drew, but she seemed more interested in Kojak, who stood a few feet away. Tom Swift stood off to the side, comparing notes with Miss Marple. The whole scene was fantastic!

  Three women dressed like Charlie’s Angels were poised by the door. We hadn’t provided Charlie’s Angels costumes. I walked across the room to get a better look and recognized them as Candy Girls. Farrah Fawcett wore a bikini top and hip-huggers, Kate Jackson wore plaid pants and matching sweater vest over a snug polyester printed shirt, and Jaclyn Smith wore a white pantsuit and platform shoes. They each had identification tags clipped on that said TOWNSEND DETECTIVE AGENCY.

  Charlie Chan stood behind them, in a black suit, white shirt, and narrow black necktie. I hadn’t made a Charlie Chan costume and wondered if he’d put it together himself. His hair was slicked back away from his face. His mustache was perfectly styled across his upper lip, turning down by each of the sides, with a small triangular patch under his bottom lip. You never knew what a person would bring to a costume, if they would research the proper hair and makeup to pull it off. This man had. Our eyes connected for a moment, and then he turned and walked away.

  Ebony had decorated the fire hall with blown-up images of question marks, fingerprints, and oversized envelopes marked CLUE. Tom Swift had pulled himself away from Miss Marple and inspected a clue from the closest envelope.

  My role at the party was as Ebony’s helper, but as long as she was in the kitchen, I felt like a wallflower. I wove through servers to see if she needed my assistance with the food. When I pushed through the doors, I saw her standing behind the kitchen island with a large knife in her hand. On the island was a black roasting pan that held a cooked goose. She looked terrified—Ebony, not the goose.

  “Do you need help carving that?” I asked. I stepped around the side of the island and instantly understood that the cooked goose was not the reason for her terror.

  No, her terror was due to the body of Blitz Manners, dressed in our classic Sherlock costume, that lay by her feet in a pool of blood.

  Chapter 4

  I DROPPED TO the floor and put my hands on the side of Blitz’s neck. There was no pulse. The puddle of blood seeped across the uneven floor, collecting on a series of tiles between us and the wall-mounted phone. I stood up and put my hands on Ebony’s arms.

  “What happened here?” I asked. I shook her slightly to snap her out of her paralytic stance.

  “Is he dead?” she asked. She stared at him, oblivious to my question.

  The swinging doors to the kitchen opened up and one of the servers walked in. She took one look at the blood on the floor and raced back outside. “She killed Blitz!” she screamed. I moved my hands from Ebony’s upper arms down to her wrists. She dropped the knife and it landed on the floor next to his body.

  “Ebony, we have to call the police.”

  She tore her gaze from Blitz’s body to my face. “He’s dead,” she said. There was no emotion behind her voice. “What’s going to happen now?”

  I heard the doors swing open a second time, this time drawing a crowd of partygoers. The first women in, two of Charlie’s Angels, Kojak, and ’30s Nancy Drew skidded to a halt when they saw the body. Nancy spun around and buried her head into Kojak’s lapel.

  Charlie Chan pushed Charlie’s Angels aside and stepped farther into the room than anyone else had been so far. He looked at the body, then at me. “Did you touch him?” he asked.

  “I felt his neck for a pulse. I couldn’t find one.”

  “Don’t go anywhere.” He turned to the growing crowd. “Don’t anybody go anywhere,” he said to them. He picked up the phone on the wall and called the police.

  They arrived quickly. Charlie Chan moved everybody but Ebony and me back out front. He poked his head back into the kitchen after the last of the partygoers had left and asked if we’d be okay.

  “I don’t know if okay is the right word,” I said.

  “The police are going to want to talk to both of you.”

  “I’ll wait here until they arrive.”

  He nodded, as if that was an appropriate answer, and left.

  Ebony hadn’t said anything since dropping the knife. I turned her away from the view of Blitz’s body and guided her to the opposite side of the kitchen island. We stopped in front of the large Sub-Zero freezer. I opened the door and a whoosh of frigid air enveloped us. I propped the door open with an empty ice bucket from a shelf on the wall. The cool air would do wonders for Ebony by the time the police came back to us. I hoped.

  The third swinging of the doors brought uniformed officers and emergency technicians. The lead officer, an athletic blond woman with girl-next-door features, dressed in a black pantsuit over a white shirt, snapped photos of Blitz’s body from every angle. She spoke to the techs. Charlie Chan came in and said something in her ear and then pointed to us. The officer shook Charlie Chan’s hand, nodded to the technicians, and approached us.

  She introduced herself as Detective Nichols and asked for our names, which she jotted down in a small notebook. “Which one of you ladies found the body?” she asked.

  Though it had been pretty clear that Ebony saw the body before me, I spoke first. “I came back to see if Ebony needed help with the goose. When I came into the kitchen, Blitz was on the floor in a pool of blood.”

  “Where were you, Ms. Welles?” she asked Ebony.

  “Goose,” Ebony said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “She was tending to the goose,” I translated. “Detective, Ebony is clearly shaken up by what happened here. Can we sit down somewhere?” She looked around for chairs. “Out front, maybe?” I added. My hope was that once Ebony was away from the body and the crime scene, she’d snap out of it.

  “Sure,” Nichols said.

  We followed her, walking past the kitchen island a second time. I diverted my eyes to the wall of silver pots and pans to the left of the swinging doors and pretended nothing was amiss, like a person walking a tightrope might avoid looking at the ground. If my shrink was right and I had a tendency to avoid reality, now was the perfect time to use that skill as a crutch.

  The ballroom was empty, save for the decorations and discarded plates and glasses. Charlie Chan stood along the back wall with his arms folded over his chest. When he saw us, he relaxed his arms. The detective waved him forward and then turned to me.

  “I’d like to talk to Ms. Welles alone,” she said. “Why don’t you talk to Mr. Hoshiyama?”

  “Who’s Mr. Hoshiyama?” I asked.

  “He’s me,” Charlie Chan answered.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He looked at me as if I were nuts. I looked at Ebony.

  “You go with the Asian. I’ll take t
he American,” she said.

  I followed Charlie Chan out a fire exit along the side wall of the banquet hall. He turned to me. “Takenouchi Hoshiyama,” he said. “Call me Tak.” He held out his hand.

  I shook it. “Margo Tamblyn,” I said back. “Call me Margo.” His handshake was gentle and comforting. I held on for too long, and then dropped it as if I were shaking off water from freshly washed hands. After a few awkward seconds of me wishing I knew the appropriate thing to say at a time like this, I defaulted to what I knew, and I complimented his costume.

  “You make a good Charlie Chan.”

  “You did a good job with the rest of the costume. With all of them. When Blitz hired you to make forty costumes in a day, I had my doubts.”

  “Blitz told you he hired me to make the costumes?” I asked.

  “I was at your shop,” he said.

  I thought back to the day Blitz had been at the store. “He was alone,” I said.

  “After happy hour.”

  It wasn’t until then that I remembered the man who had come in when Blitz and Grady were talking and had walked off in a different direction. “That was you?” I scanned him from top to toes and back again. “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Isn’t that the point of a costume?”

  Under different circumstances, I could have spent the next half hour extolling the virtues of costumes as shield, confidence booster, identity badge, and creative outlet, but now hardly seemed the time. Besides, I was too worried about Ebony to have a superficial conversation with one of Blitz’s friends. And considering Charlie Chan—Tak—was one of Blitz’s friends, he was taking the murder much differently than the other party guests. Involuntarily, I stepped backward to put distance between us.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Detective Nichols wanted to talk to your friend alone,” he said.

  “I mean here at the party. Here with me. Why aren’t you out front with the rest of Blitz’s friends? Why are you so calm? Your friend was just killed and you’re talking to me about costumes.” My voice rose.