It was also the perfect opportunity to ask the detective about the Columbo coat, and since Tak had been at the party, maybe he could contribute something to the conversation.
“Detective Nichols, Tak, nice to see you both,” I said. My voice came out higher than usual.
Tak stepped toward me, putting himself between us. “I heard about your father. Is everything okay?”
It was the one question I hadn’t been prepared for. The ground shifted underneath me and I swayed. Tak put a hand out around my waist and stabilized me. I looked over his shoulder at Detective Nichols, who had focused her attention on the grill.
“He’s in stable condition,” I said. “The hospital in Moxie is keeping him. They don’t think it’s a good idea for him to be in a car for the amount of time it’ll take for him to get home. Not yet. How did you know?”
“Word gets around. I saw that the shop was closed yesterday and I was worried.”
“I don’t think you should be worrying about me,” I said. I cut my eyes to Detective Nichols again, who had joined a crowd of people by the poster of Blitz.
“I can’t help it.”
The tone of his voice caught me by surprise and I looked back into his eyes. For the first time since I’d met him, I noticed how dark brown they were, how the color almost dissolved into the iris. I felt the same way I did the first time Magic Maynard held his spinning wheel up in front of me and told me to focus on the center. Disoriented and dizzy and a little bit drunk. I hadn’t realized how close we were standing to each other, but all of a sudden Tak was the only person I was aware of.
“Your dad’s going to be okay,” he said gently. And with that, my eyes filled with tears like they had at the hospital and overflowed down my cheeks. He brushed them away. I stepped back and his hand dropped.
“Will you be at the store later tonight?” he asked. “We should talk about what happened at the restaurant.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”
“I do.”
“Why? I didn’t know, but now I do, so it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. Whatever you think you know, you don’t.”
Just what I needed in my life. Another person who spoke in riddles.
“Tak, I came over here to talk to Detective Nichols. She was here a second ago. Do you know where she went?”
“She’s sitting at the picnic table with Linda Cannon.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned away and he reached out and caught my hand. “Tonight. Eight o’clock?”
“Fine.”
I left while I still had most of the control over my emotions. I wasn’t the only person shedding tears—it was a memorial—but having known Blitz Manners for less than a week made my tears seem forced. I didn’t want to talk about my dad’s heart attack in this crowd. It felt private, like if I kept it a secret from the rest of the world, I could pretend it never happened.
Detective Nichols was finishing up with her burger when I reached her. It struck me as an odd choice to serve hamburgers and hot dogs at a memorial service, but who was I to criticize? Several hundred people had shown up to pay their respects. I suspected everyone in the town of Proper felt unease over the murder of one of the residents. On some level, this was what everyone needed.
I sat across from Detective Nichols before she stood up. “Don’t leave. I want to talk to you.”
She crumpled up a black paper napkin and rolled it into a ball between the palms of her hands. Finally, she leaned back and set the ball down in the middle of the empty, black paper plate. Everything that Candy Girls had provided—the cups, napkins, plasticware, and plates—was black. The only color in the area was the floral arrangement that sat next to the photo of Blitz, a three-foot-wide burst of oranges, reds, and yellows that had been donated by Packin’ Pistils.
I leaned forward. “There was a crime scene cleanup crew at the fire hall yesterday. Did you know that?”
“I’m not surprised. Once we process a crime scene, it’s up to the businesses to decide how they want to handle things.” She shook her head and made a face like her hamburger wasn’t sitting well. “It usually doesn’t take that long to clear a scene, but with that many people at the hall when the murder happened, we wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss anything.”
“Do you feel confident that you didn’t?”
“Ms. Tamblyn, maybe you want to stop beating around the bush and ask whatever it is you came over here to ask me.”
I rested my elbows on the table and propped my face in my hands. To anyone watching, I was just a regular person having a conversation with a patron of the event.
“You say that you processed the crime scene, and you’re confident that you didn’t miss anything. But the crime scene cleaners found the trench coat from the Columbo costume and the deerstalker hat that Blitz wore shoved into the back of the oven in the kitchen. They said you released the crime scene. If that’s true, then how did those items get there?”
Chapter 20
DETECTIVE NICHOLS’S EXPRESSION changed from annoyance to defensive. “No way. Not possible.”
“According to the men I spoke to two days ago, it’s not only possible, it’s the truth. And if there’s evidence that someone else was in that kitchen with Blitz when he died, then I think you’re going to have to lay off Ebony as your main suspect.”
She sat up straight and looked around at the crowd. “This is an open investigation and I’m not going to discuss suspects with you. But since you brought up Ms. Welles, where is she? I don’t believe I’ve seen her here yet.”
“We were out of town yesterday and maybe she didn’t find out about the memorial in time to come.”
“You knew about it,” she said.
“Gina Cassavogli came to the store this morning.”
“And you didn’t mention it to Ebony? Seems kind of odd.” Her tone was calm and inquisitive, not snitty or accusatory, as I would have expected. But despite her even tone, the insinuation was there. She found it curious that Ebony had chosen not to attend the memorial to honor Blitz, her most recent client. And while I knew Ebony was innocent, I found it curious too.
The detective pushed her plate away from her. “You didn’t come over here so we could talk about Ms. Welles’s decision to stay away from the memorial, so let’s get back to these costumes. Where are they now?”
“They were being incinerated. From what I understand, that’s how these things work. The fire hall was left unattended for two days after the murder. The cleanup crew dealt with the whole place, not just what was left in the kitchen. Food was left out, garbage was overflowing. I watched them carry at least a dozen bags of hazardous waste out of the hall before they declared it clean.”
“Was it?”
“The owner proclaimed that it was.”
“What about you? Did you agree?”
I could have lied or pretended that I didn’t know, but what would have been the point? Going on that walk-through hadn’t been against the law, and besides, it was clear that Nichols knew I’d been there. As long as she was treating me with respect I’d return the favor.
“Yes. They did an excellent job. You’d never know a crime took place inside the building.”
She stared at me as if trying to read my thoughts. Just in case she could read my thoughts, I put forth the internal musings that Ebony was innocent interspersed with the fact that I wasn’t interested in her boyfriend. After several uncomfortable seconds, she sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.
“Are you staying much longer?” she asked.
“No. I want to offer my condolences to Black Jack and Linda and then I’ll leave.”
“I meant in Proper City,” she clarified.
“I don’t know.”
“If you do, plan to get used to me poking around your business. I like to know the resi
dents of the town so I can protect them.” She gave me a quick smile, lobbed her trash in the aluminum can that sat to my right, and then stood up and walked away.
I’d never had a police officer tell me that he or she planned to poke around my business, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Now hardly seemed the time to discover that I was somehow special.
Black Jack and Linda Cannon stood off to the side of the crowd. For the first time since I’d arrived, they were alone. I approached them with a nonthreatening manner.
Recognition flashed across Black Jack’s face and he stepped toward me. “Hello there, little lady,” he said. “Margo, right? Have you met my wife, Linda?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said. I held out my hand.
“Hello,” she said.
Linda Cannon’s face was vacant. Her eyes were dilated and her cheeks and mouth drooped slightly. Not having met her up close and personal prior to today, I wasn’t sure how much of it was because we were at a memorial for her recently deceased son and how much of it was the result of a heavy dosage of antidepressants to keep her emotions under control. Whatever was responsible for her expression, it was creepily effective in hiding whatever she might have been feeling.
She took the tips of my fingers with her own and held them for a few seconds before letting go. Her skin was cold to the touch and I flinched.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” I said. “Both of you.”
Black Jack put his arm around Linda. “Thank you,” Linda said. “It was lovely for so many of Blitz’s friends to turn out today. How did you know my son?”
“I only met him recently. My father owns the shop where he ordered the costumes for his party.”
The blank expression changed and Linda became animated. Surprise. Anger. Outrage. The emotions moved quickly across her previously vacant face. She turned to Black Jack. “Did you invite her?” she asked.
“Honey, your son was an important member of Proper. I told Candy Girls to invite everybody in town. You knew that.”
“Yes, but if you’d shown some common sense I wouldn’t have had to warn off that Ebony woman.”
“What do you mean you warned off Ebony?” he asked.
“The woman was standing over my son’s body with a knife in her hand. Whoever found his body told the police. They hardly have to look any further than her to find the killer.”
I spoke up. “Mrs. Cannon, I found Blitz’s body, and Tak Hoshiyama called the police. And since you very clearly haven’t been told the facts, you should know that the knife Ebony held was pristine. She was about to cut the goose for the partygoers.”
Black Jack and Linda stared at me, as did a few of Blitz’s friends whom I recognized from the party. Tak appeared from out of the crowd and put his arm around me.
“Margo, I’ve been looking for you. We should be going or we’re going to be late,” he said.
I looked at him like he was wearing the two-headed lizard mask that sat in the corner of the costume shop. In the split second that passed, I realized how absolutely inappropriate my outburst had been, even if its motivation had been just. Tak watched me, and as I processed the information his face relaxed. It was like he could read my thoughts and he knew that I knew that he was trying to help me out.
“I lost track of time,” I said to him. I turned back to Black Jack and Linda. “I’m very sorry. For what I said and for what happened to your son.”
“Never you mind,” Black Jack said. His arm was around his wife, but he reached his other hand out and rested it on my forearm. “This past week has shaken all of us up. You go on. And thank you for coming.”
Tak and I turned away from the Cannons. Neither of us spoke until we reached the perimeter of the park.
“Do you want to tell me what that was about back there?” he asked.
“That depends. Are you going to use what I tell you in your investigation against Ebony?”
He looked confused. “What investigation?”
“I already know you and Detective Nichols are, well, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know you’re dating her, and I know you keep showing up and asking me questions that probably have to do with the investigation. So I figured you’re reporting in to her on everything you’ve found out. I appreciate your help back there, but I don’t like being used.”
“Margo, please get in the car and let me give you a ride home.”
“I came here with Bobbie Kay,” I said.
“And Bobbie had to leave so she asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“Bobbie wouldn’t leave without telling me.”
“It’s possible that she was trying to find you when she saw you talking to Nancy.”
His use of Detective Nichols’s first name confirmed everything I thought I knew. You just don’t go around calling police officers by their first names unless you’re dating them, right?
“And just because I used her first name doesn’t mean I’m dating her,” he said. I was starting to get seriously spooked by the way he could see right through me. “I’d rather not have this conversation on the edge of a public park where most of the residents of Proper City are in a position to watch.”
He was right. Amy Bradshaw, whom I hadn’t seen so far, stood off to the side with Grady. Gina Cassavogli was behind them, holding the silver bowl of water bottles. An unexpected breeze blew the picture of Blitz from the easel. Gina thrust the bowl at Amy and ran across the patches of yellow-green grass to pick it up before anybody else noticed.
“I need to call Bobbie first,” I said.
He bowed his head slightly and held one hand out, palm up, in a gesture that said, Go ahead if you think that’s necessary. I did, so I did.
“Bobbie, where are you?”
“Hi, Margo. Didn’t Tak find you?” she asked. I looked at him and caught a smile. I used my thumb to lower the volume of the phone until I almost couldn’t hear her. “He’s standing right next to me, but I thought I should check with you first before leaving.”
“What did you think? That an employee from the district attorney’s office did away with me at a public gathering?” She giggled. “You’re just as funny as you were in high school.”
I didn’t tell her that humor hadn’t been the driving force behind my accidental comedy routine. “I’m just making sure nobody’s signals got crossed. Yes, I’ll catch a ride home with him.”
“Don’t be mad. You were talking to Detective Nichols and I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
I assured Bobbie that I was fine with the way things had panned out, even if the new arrangement left me feeling out of sorts. I’d been planning to go back to the store and call the hospital before I got to work on the stockroom reorganization project. Now, with Tak by my side, I wasn’t sure what I’d get done.
* * *
THE trailer was gone from the front of Disguise DeLimit and a note from Ebony, explaining that she’d taken care of it, was tucked in the front door of the shop. I folded the note and Tak followed me inside.
“I’m going to be busy in the stockroom for the next couple of hours,” I said.
“Do you need any help?”
I shook my head no before thinking, and then changed my mind. “Yes,” I said.
“That wasn’t the clearest of signals.”
The thing was, the signals I was getting from Tak weren’t exactly clear either. It had been a long time since I’d been attracted to someone, so I found myself second-guessing the way I felt about him and the way he treated me. Las Vegas wasn’t known for its pool of eligible bachelors—the bachelors who partied in Vegas weren’t exactly eligible—so maybe I was rusty. Maybe my intuition was on the fritz. Maybe my judgment was out of whack because of everything crazy that had happened since I’d arrived back in Proper.
“I want to change. Will you wait here until I get back?”
“Sure.”
I ran up the stairs and changed into my clothes from earlier. My hair went back up into a ponytail. Soot sat in the middle of my comforter, cleaning his face with his paw. I sat down on the corner of the bed and placed my index finger directly between his ears. He stopped cleaning himself and looked at me, his paw suspended in front of his grumpy gray face.
“Soot, do you think it’s a good idea for me to trust Tak? He’s downstairs now. He seems understanding, but maybe it’s a mistake.”
Soot tipped his head back and my finger slid down to the tip of his nose. He swiped at it with his paw. “I don’t trust a lot of people. I trust my dad and I trust Ebony and I trust Bobbie. That’s pretty much it. I don’t even really trust Crystal to do the magic act the right way and keep my job safe. And now here I am, about to confide in a total stranger. What’s wrong with me?”
I scooped Soot off the comforter and planted a kiss on his head. He responded with an annoyed meow and a yawn. I made up for interrupting him up by scratching his ears while I carried him downstairs.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said to Tak. I set Soot on the concrete floor.
Tak’s eyes went from my face to my head and back to my face. “No problem,” he said. “You wouldn’t have left me alone down here if you didn’t trust me.”
“Were you listening to me?”
“No. Why? Were you talking about me?”
“No. Never mind.” I turned my back on him and reached for one of the big boxes. It was large but light. I shifted it from on top of a stack to the floor. Tak grabbed the other side, overestimating the weight of the box. Because he’d expected it to be heavy, his effort to help support it resulted in the box flying from my hands into the air. He looked stunned. I stepped forward and caught it.
“What’s in there?” he asked.
A Disguise to Die For Page 16