A woman with two bulging apple-green shopping bags pushed by me as I went inside the store with walls tinted the same color.
The man took in my Lazy Mermaid T-shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. He gave a deflated little sigh but pulled himself together. “How may I help you?”
“Are you the owner?” I said.
He spread his arms. “The one and only, Franque!”
The woman behind the counter stifled a laugh. He stepped closer and held the blue dress in front of me. “This was made for you! That red hair! Those blue eyes! Venus on the half shell!”
“It’s gorgeous.” I didn’t bother to look at the price tag. “Sorry, I’m not shopping today.”
Franque shrugged and hung it up. “Looking for a job?” A hopeful note.
“No, it’s—” How did I start? I wasn’t a cop. He’d probably think I was some ghoul. But still, I had to ask.
He stuck out his hand. “Franque Delacour.”
We shook.
“Allie Larkin,” I said.
“Ooh, I thought I recognized you.” Franque snapped his fingers. “I saw you on TV last month! And now there’s that new body that was found. Was that you, too? With the lobster lady? Involved in another suspicious death?”
Maybe this would be easier than I thought.
The woman behind the counter said, “Franque watches all the shows. CSI. CSI New Orleans, CSI Special Victims, CSI—”
“CSI Mystic Bay. Well, one can hope.” He tilted his head then pulled me back toward the counter. The woman nodded. “Hello, I’m Donna, Franque’s long-suffering sister.”
“Hi.”
“You found that girl,” Franque said. “Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack. You were lobstering with that lobster lady and found the body.”
“Actually, yes,” I said.
Franque’s sister shook her head and went to help a customer.
“Come back here.” Franque waved me to a back corner of the shop next to a display of sun hats. “Don’t want to upset the shoppers with any juicy forensic details. So, how may I help you?”
Franque made this too easy.
“The girl that I found was wearing very unique jeans. Gray denim bell-bottoms with embroidery down the leg.”
Franque nodded. “For that boho-hippie look that was big. The floppy hats, low-slung belts, off-the-shoulder tops. You’d look killer in that!”
“The police think the pants were from some high-end designer and I thought maybe she bought them here,” I said. “Do you remember carrying any pants like that?”
Franque drummed his nails on the counter. “Yes, yes, I did carry something like that. Sold out in no time. Not that they were the same pants, mind you, I don’t know. Maybe the police’ll come in with photos.” Franque’s eyes shone. “Well, if they were the same pants, they were adorable and they flew out of the store.”
“Is there any way to check who bought them?”
Franque frowned. “Maybe … we’d have to dig into receipts. If she paid by credit card, no way to do that without going to the credit card companies, that’s something the cops would have to do.”
And I’m not a cop. My heart dropped. “And if she paid cash there’d be no record at all.”
Franque waved it away. “You said girl, so she was young? Maybe your age?”
I nodded.
“The young people don’t use cash,” Franque said.
“The police did a sketch.” I scrolled on my phone.
Frank frowned. “Those sketches never look like a real person.”
My mind went back to the morning on the boat. “She was petite, not very tall, short black hair. She had a tattoo.”
Franque scoffed. “They all have tattoos.”
Not me, I thought. My ballet teacher had forbidden it. “Do you see swans with tattoos?” she’d said.
I searched my phone for the police photo. “The police haven’t mentioned it yet, but it was a pitchfork. Her tattoo.”
Franque’s eyes lit up. “I remember! Because she didn’t look like the tattooed type to me at first. She was wearing a sexy sundress, lots of bangle bracelets. A big black straw sun hat.”
My heart leaped. “So, how would you describe her?”
Franque didn’t hesitate. “Confident. Some people wear the clothes and some people, the clothes wear them, know what I mean?” He nodded toward a woman in a too-short leopard-print minidress leaning over a jewelry case. A broad-brimmed hat swooped over her face, multiple scarves wrapped her neck along with several necklaces. She tottered on sky-high platform sandals.
Frank tilted his head. “That girl was petite. Strong chin. Blond?”
“Blond?” My heart plummeted.
Franque shook his head. “Can’t remember. Her hair was pulled up under the hat. But I remember when she paid I said something about the tattoo. She looked at me over her sunglasses. Dark eyes, dramatic eye makeup. The look she gave me. Saucy. Paid cash. She matched, outside and inside.”
“Matched?”
“When a person’s clothes match their inside. Their personality. Their being. That’s when it works. Otherwise it’s just a costume.”
I shifted uneasily, imagining his judgment on my shorts and Lazy Mermaid T-shirt.
I finally found the police sketch and handed my phone to Franque.
Franque held the phone at arm’s length and squinted over his glasses. “Honestly, that doesn’t do that girl justice. Could be her? Maybe? And something else she did struck me.” He stroked his chin. “It’ll come to me.”
I took the phone back and thanked Franque. I wanted to stop at Verity’s before rehearsal. “Sorry, I’ve got to run.”
“Come back any time!”
* * *
Could Franque’s customer have been the girl Bertha and I found? It would be too easy. But how many women in Mystic Bay had a pitchfork tattoo? I’d have to call Chief Brooks and let him know. My spirits lifted. This was a lead, I was sure of it. It wasn’t much, but maybe it would lead to the girl’s identity and reunite her with her family.
Sleigh bells on the back of the door jingled as I pushed open the door to Verity’s shop. My spirits lifted even more.
Verity’s Vintage was an Aladdin’s cave of vintage fashion. Racks with clothes from every era jammed the former hair salon, which had originally been a parlor in a three-story Victorian-era building.
Verity had started collecting vintage clothes back when she was in Mystic Bay High School and had to find poodle skirts for our sophomore class production of Grease. She got hooked, so much so that her parents’ garage, den, and spare bedroom filled with boxes labeled Fichus, Corsets, fifties, Bombshell, mod. She’d started selling online and last year saved enough to open the shop.
Verity rushed to hug me. “You didn’t return my calls!”
“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t handle picking up the phone last night, Verity.” I hugged her back. “I’m okay now but I have to find out who that girl was. And I think I found a lead.” I told her about my visit to Fashions by Franque.
“I saw you going in there. I was going to ask if you’d won the lottery.” She handed me her phone. “You have to call my uncle and give him this info right now.”
The call went to voice mail. I left a brief message for Chief Brooks and hung up.
“I wonder if that girl came in here. I saw the police sketch on TV,” Verity said.
“That picture didn’t seem right to me. But maybe the clothes will be the lead.”
Verity nodded. “Tell me what else Franque said.”
I shrugged. “Not much. He has this theory about people’s outsides and insides matching.”
Verity straightened a basket of lace-trimmed handkerchiefs. “Well, that’s a nice theory but sometimes people don’t look like what they are inside because they can’t afford the right clothes. Take me for example. I’m Chanel in my soul but not in my pocketbook. You’re a sparkly sea-sprite fairy inside a total artsy weirdo who should be wearing Alexander McQueen and you�
��re disguised as a lobster roll slinger.”
I threw a handkerchief at her. “Gee, thanks.”
“Plus, you walk around like a duck with your feet turned out.”
I laughed. That was true of most ballerinas. “Got me.”
“Lorel’s inside and outside match. Money does that.” Verity rubbed her fingertips together.
I thought of how together Lorel appeared and how messed up she was over Patrick Yardley. “Looks can be deceiving.”
One of the clothing racks was empty. “Wow, did you sell out?”
“Get this,” Verity said. “Today this girl comes in—sheath dress, pumps, hair pulled back like Lorel…”
“Zoe Parker,” I said.
Verity touched her nose. “… with photos of a picnic at a seaside cottage circa 1955.” She pointed to the empty rack. “All my fifties casual, poof! Said ‘her employer’”—Verity made air quotes—“is doing a vintage picnic photo shoot.”
“Big sale! Awesome!” We high-fived.
“She’s dressing a cast of thousands.”
“Lucky for you.”
Verity grinned. “Nice start to the holiday weekend.”
“For you, too. I heard Aunt Gully’s catering Stellene’s party.”
“Yes. Oh, I’ve got to get to rehearsal.”
Verity clasped her hands by her chin. “Allie, can you please, please, please get me in to the party? I can serve lobster rolls.”
“Lorel said just me, Aunt Gully, and her, but I’ll ask.”
Chapter 9
“Allie!” a tall guy with sun-streaked brown hair and hazel eyes called as I walked onto the stage at the Box Barn. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the one who found that girl?” Cody Walton’s eyebrows knitted together and he wrapped me in a hug. “How terrible for you.”
I blew out a breath. I should’ve known the news would reach the theater eventually.
“Cody, I was going to tell you. It’s just—”
Cody swept his arm around the stage. “This is your escape.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
Techs, dancers, and actors swirled past us. I tugged him into the wings and told him what happened on Bertha’s boat.
“It must’ve been awful,” he said.
I nodded. “In a weird way, I feel responsible for her. How did she end up there? Who was she?”
Cody crossed his arms, his biceps bulging. He still had the broad shoulders he got slinging hay bales on his family’s Wyoming ranch. “What about that lady you were with? How’s she?”
“Bertha’s tough but the shock hit her hard at first.” I sighed. “Hit me hard at first, too.”
Margot Kim strode over, her long silky black hair scraped back into a high ponytail.
“Hi, Margot,” I said.
Margot Kim, Cody, and I had lived with several other dancers in a sprawling Victorian in Boston, the house where I’d fallen and broken my ankle this spring.
“Allie! You finally do something interesting. Give us every juicy detail.” Margot’s ponytail swung as she laughed.
Cody ducked his head and shifted his weight away from her.
“Honestly, Margot, it wasn’t cool or juicy,” I said. “It was awful.”
“Oh, come on, you’ll get yourself in the news again.” She pressed the tips of her pointe shoes into the rosin box. Rosin is a sticky substance to help guard against slips on the wooden stage floor. She spun away on pointe, then bourréed back toward us, taking tiny steps that made her look like she was floating on air. “Free publicity for your shack.”
The simple movements stabbed a knife of jealousy into me. Since my injury, the question of whether or not I could regain my place in the company was open. Margot had already replaced me in some of my roles.
“I heard some reporter was looking for you,” Margot said. “Leo Rodriguez.”
My stomach dropped. “Now? Here?”
She shrugged. “One of the techs said he was asking for you.”
I peered into the darkened audience, but didn’t see Leo. Maybe I could get through rehearsal and get out the door without having to talk to him.
“Not the kind of publicity I need,” I said. “I don’t want to be associated with more deaths.”
Margot tsked. “Don’t be naïve, Allie. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. It just means more business for that little lobster shack where you work.” Margot’s smile showed sharp little teeth.
“That reminds me,” she continued, “I was at the casino the other night at the high-rollers tables. Saw your sister with that hot guy who owns New Salt.” She tapped her chin with her finger. “I thought it was odd because I heard he was still living with some waitress who moved in with him back in May.”
Hot guy who owns New Salt. Patrick Yardley.
Margot looped her hair into a bun and walked back onstage.
Usually I brushed aside Margot’s mean little pricks, but my emotions were raw.
Fury rose so fast inside me I thought I’d choke.
Could Patrick be living with another woman at the same time he was dating Lorel? I balled my fists and started after Margot.
“Allie?” Cody put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about Margot. She’s a witch.”
I forced myself to take a breath. “Agreed.”
The stage manager called, “Places, everybody!”
I took another deep breath. “Back to work, right, Cody?”
But I knew what I was doing after rehearsal. Going to New Salt to confront Patrick Yardley.
* * *
Since Margot had warned me about Leo Rodriguez, I prepared evasive action: when rehearsal ended, Cody would make sure the coast was clear outside the dressing room. Then I’d hustle over to the costume shop. There was a door directly into the parking lot there. Then I’d make a break for Aunt Gully’s van.
Well, it sounded simple. Once out of my harness and mermaid tail, I waved to Cody and dashed down the dim hallway leading to the costume shop. The darkened space was lined with stage decorations: gigantic clams, eight-foot-high plywood kelp, and fake coral reefs coated with glittery paint in garish fairy-tale pinks and purples. I ran to the costume shop door and turned the knob.
Locked.
“Mac!” A voice familiar from the television news rang out. Leo Rodriguez.
The lanky frame of Mac Macallen, the director of Broadway by the Bay, stepped into the hallway, and then turned around. “Leo Rodriguez, my friend!”
Footsteps rang on the linoleum floor of the hallway. One more step and Leo would see me.
I ducked inside a six-foot-tall, shocking-pink papier-mâché conch shell, curling myself up as small as I could. I peeked around the side and realized my dance bag stuck out far enough to be noticed. Rats. I eased back inside the shell and held my breath.
“Leo, how’s it going?” Mac said.
The two men exchanged pleasantries. They both had performers’ voices—loud, precisely enunciated—so I could hear everything they said. My calf cramped. I winced and kneaded it.
“What brings you here?” Mac said.
“We’re covering the body found out in the bay,” Leo replied.
“I just heard. Such a tragic, terrible thing. Have the police identified that poor soul? It was a young woman, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, a woman in her late twenties,” Leo said. “No one’s stepped forward to identify her yet.”
“Tragic, tragic.” Mac coughed. “Have you found out anything else?”
“Not much.” Leo said. “The State Medical Examiner has to process the body. Police, Coast Guard, and Harbor Patrol didn’t have much to tell us. Lobster lady who found her told me to go to hell.”
Mac chuckled. Leo didn’t join in. I imagined his chiseled cheekbones, perfect for TV news, his broad, white smile, the way his eyes bored into you.
“Do you know if Allie Larkin’s here?” Leo asked. “I stopped by the lobster shack and her house but I keep missing her. Her sister told me she was reh
earsing.”
Lorel. That rat.
“Allie Larkin?” Mac said. “What does she have to do with this?”
“She was with the lobster lady when she found the body.”
“Oh, that must’ve been a terrible shock for her.” Mac was silent for a moment. “They just finished up rehearsal. We’re doing this new experimental piece called Ondine. The director specifically asked for her.”
“Easy to see why,” Leo said. “She’s stunning.”
Leo Rodriguez thinks I’m stunning?
“Indeed. She plays the Mermaid Queen. It’s a very small part but we’re lucky to have a dancer of her caliber,” Mac said. “She may still be onstage or in the dressing rooms. You can go down that wing.”
“Okay, thanks, man. See you opening night.”
“Definitely. Have a good night, Leo.”
Footsteps rang and receded. I uncurled from my crouch and peeked around the shell. Right at Mac Macallen.
“I thought that was your dance bag, Allie,” Mac whispered. He grinned.
I jutted my chin toward the end of the hallway. “Thanks. I don’t want to talk to Leo.”
“Ah, we’ll make our exit through the costume shop.” Mac hefted my dance bag and pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. He turned the key in the costume-shop door and we slipped inside. Light from the parking lot cast a gray glow on racks of clothing, wide worktables, and sewing machines. Mac closed the door softly then relocked it. “Should I put on the lights?”
“No, I can see well enough with the light coming in the window.”
“Leo Rodriguez is one determined reporter,” Mac whispered.
“Tell me about it.”
Light reflected off Mac’s horn-rimmed glasses as he handed me my bag.
“Thanks, Mac. I’m just going to slip out this door and then go home.” With a stop at New Salt.
“Ah, yes.” Mac rubbed his hand along his chin. “I’m sure you’re tired of talking about it, Allie, but—” Even in the dim light I could see Mac’s frown.
Against the Claw Page 5