A Disguise to Die For (23 page)

“For starters, Amy was wearing the ring on Sunday. The house was robbed on Monday afternoon. So if the ring was taken during the robbery, how'd she get it a day early?”

“Devil's advocate: what if somebody's been robbing the house over a period of time?”

“I thought that too. But why not tell someone about it right away? Why wear the ring at all if you planned to come forward with information about the robbery?” I sat back and moved the mushrooms around on my plate. “There's something wrong with Amy's story. And now the pawnbroker told the police that Ebony was the person to sell him the jewelry, so every other suspect has dropped off the list.”

I ate a piece of sesame chicken. The flavors of garlic and butter melted in my mouth. For a second, my thoughts were reset and the only thing on my mind was the fantastic food in front of me. I ate another piece of chicken and then speared a piece of zucchini. Hunger returned in a way I hadn't expected, and conversation ceased while we ate. And then, as if the nutrients from the food had been the missing factor in the problem-solving part of my brain, a plan formed.

“If Amy Bradshaw bought the ring from the pawnbroker, then he should have something to say about her. I have to find out what he knows.” I dabbed the corner of my mouth with my napkin. “I have to talk to the pawnshop owner. Are you with me?”

“MARGO, LET ME
ask you something. Do you really think Amy Bradshaw killed Blitz?” Tak asked.

“I believe that Amy Bradshaw knows more about the murder than she's telling. And I don't know why she's keeping secrets, but she's the one who led the police to the pawnshop, and the pawnbroker told the police something that led them to Ebony. I know Ebony isn't guilty, so I have to know what the pawnbroker told the police before I can figure out where everybody went wrong.”

“You're solving for Y,” he said.

“Sure, I want to know why, but I'll settle for who first.”

“No, not
why
, Y. Like an algebraic equation. This comes up a lot in engineering. There are basic equations that you use when you know some variables but not all. You plug in what you know and solve for the rest of the information.” I must have looked confused, because he continued. “It's like
the Pythagorean theorem you mentioned. C squared equals A squared plus B squared, right?”

“Right.”

“That's what everybody's working with. C squared is Ebony. Everybody thinks she's guilty. So they're finding the values for A squared and B squared that fit the picture where Ebony is the killer.”

“But I know Ebony isn't guilty, so I'm looking for A, B,
and
C,” I said, finally understanding.

“Right. Only you don't have to find A and B. All you have to do is prove that A squared plus B squared
doesn't
equal Ebony. You don't have to find the killer, you just have to show that Ebony
isn't
the killer.”

That's where Tak and I disagreed. Because as long as the killer was out there, he or she would have the power to make life miserable for Ebony. People would continue to believe in her guilt until the real murderer was found.

I moved my napkin from my lap and set it on the table. It was after eight. Kirby would have closed the store over an hour ago. My dad was due from the hospital tomorrow morning, and I wanted to make sure everything was perfect before he and Don arrived. Which meant if I was going to talk to the pawnbroker, it was going to have to happen now.

“Will someone bring our check back here?” I asked.

“Don't worry about it.”

“I didn't come here because I was looking for a free meal.”

“Margo, forget about it. You're not going to pay for your dinner if you're dining with me in my family's restaurant.”

I glanced at my watch again. I didn't have time to argue. I pulled $40 from my wallet.

“Don't insult me,” he said.

“How is this an insult? It's a seventy-four percent tip.”

A smile tugged at his mouth. “Okay, fine. I can tell you want to leave. Give me the money and I'll take care of it.”

I pulled the money back. “No way. I don't trust you. I'll give it to your mother.”

I scrambled up from the low seat and slid the closed screen open. The pretty woman from the hostess station was escorting a family to a table. In her place was the man who had called the police on Tak and me the night we came here for fried rice. Now that I'd spent a little more time with Tak, I could tell this man was his father. He was shorter than Tak and had a head of neatly trimmed gray hair instead of longish black hair, but the shape of his face, the sculptured cheekbones and jawline, the heavy brow, the deep brown eyes, they were all the same.

He looked up at me and recognition flashed in his eyes. I stood a little straighter and went directly to him.

“Mr. Hoshiyama?” He nodded once, slowly. “I'm Margo Tamblyn. I just finished dining in one of the private rooms with your son. I have to leave and I didn't have a chance to get my check. This will cover my dinner.” I held out the two twenties. “I had sesame chicken and fried rice. I drank water.”

“Did you enjoy your meal?”

“It was all very good.” The same smile that I had seen on Tak's face tugged at the corners of his father's, but he didn't take the money. “I really do have to be going.” I set the two bills on the hostess stand and left before he could stop me.

*   *   *

I
drove away from Hoshiyama's and pulled the scooter into the parking lot next to Bobbie Kay's office. The lights were on. I hopped off and unbuckled my helmet while I was walking inside.

Bobbie sat on the floor in front, surrounded by patches of brown fur. A bag of fiberfill the size of a beer keg sat next to her. Behind her, a sewing machine sat unattended on the desk.

“Teddy bear fund-raiser coming up soon. I have to build up inventory.” She held up her right hand, hidden inside a half-stuffed bear. His head had taken shape, but his arms and torso dangled limply. His legs hadn't been sewn together yet, so the fabric flopped around like that of a puppet. “You want to help?”

“I can't—not tonight. I have to go to the pawnshop.”

She set the bear down. “Margo, there are better ways to get money than to pawn your possessions. You could donate them to charity and take the tax write-off. And you'd be helping those in need.”

“I'm not going to sell,” I said.

“You're going to buy? What could you possibly need to buy from Rudy's Pawn Shop?”

“I need to talk to the owner. His name is Rudy?”

“Rudy Moore owns the pawnshop out Main Line Road. It's the last stop out of Proper, or the first stop if you're coming back in. Does this have something to do with Ebony?”

“Yes.” I walked past her and sat down in the chair behind her desk. “Apparently the pawnbroker said Ebony came in and sold him a bunch of jewelry that was stolen from Linda Cannon's house. I need to find out why.”

“Sounds risky.” She turned the teddy bear on her hand toward her face. “Doesn't it?” she asked him. He nodded his fully stuffed head twice. She turned him back to me.

I picked up one of the frames on Bobbie's desk. It was a picture of her in high school, the day she'd gotten a letter from the president. Two days later she'd checked herself into the recovery center. I admired how committed she was to her life of fund-raising and helping people. Her grades and her
acclamations would have landed her a job with a Fortune 500 company after college, but she'd veered off that track when she went into rehab. As I watched her push another wad of fiberfill into the teddy bear's torso, I couldn't help but be proud.

I left Bobbie's office with a promise to call her in the morning and drove back to the costume shop to change into something that might make Rudy more apt to talk to me. I pulled a navy blue shirt and pants from the wall of uniforms and changed in the stockroom. The patch on the shoulder was generic; the word
security
was stitched in red thread against a white background. While technically it was a costume, we often rented this kind of thing out to people who were too cheap to hire real security guards but had recruited a volunteer to dress up and help maintain the presence of law and order at their event.

The pants were big in the waist, so I belted them with a belt from the gangster section, and then laced on a pair of black boots. I pulled my hair back into a low ponytail and left.

*   *   *

RUDY'S
Pawn Shop was a small brick building that sat off to the left of an abandoned Laundromat. There was ample parking for what must have once been a thriving strip mall. I drove through the lot and parked close to the entrance.

Neon lettering in the front window of the redbrick building said
RUD
Y'S PAWN SHOP—THE EN
D OF THE LINE
. I wondered how many of his customers thought that was funny. Underneath were the store hours: noon until midnight. The pawnshop customer wasn't an early riser. I locked my helmet to the seat of my scooter and went inside.

I wasn't prepared for the bright interior and blinked several times as my eyes adjusted. Once they did, I looked around. Rudy didn't seem to have much of a specialty. Walls
were covered in colorful guitars, large paintings, framed sports jerseys, and wedding dresses. The latter surprised me. For some reason, the concept of a pawnshop had a masculine feel to it. I hadn't spent much time thinking about the women who needed to make money fast, and the reasons someone might be willing to hock their wedding dress in exchange for money gave me pause.

“Can I help ya?” asked an old, shriveled man from behind the counter. He had no hair on his head, but he more than made up for it with his bushy eyebrows. He wore a white undershirt and faded jeans held in place by a thick black belt with a tarnished silver buckle. He tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans and faced me with his shoulders rounded and his chest concave.

“I'm looking for Rudy,” I said.

“Whatcha want him for?”

“I have a couple of questions for him. About the jewelry pawned from the Cannon house.” I stood tall and mirrored his body language by placing my hands in the front pockets of my pants.

“You weren't here with those other officers,” he said. “You look different than they did.”

I had to be careful not to lie. Impersonating a police officer was a serious thing and I couldn't help Ebony if I needed help for myself. I pointed to the patch on my uniform. “Security,” I said. “Not a police officer.” I rolled my eyes. “I spoke to Linda and Black Jack Cannon earlier today and a couple more questions came up.” All true. I held my breath and waited to see how the man would react.

“Those cops were a pain my butt,” he said. “They knew I didn't want to talk to them. I didn't have much of a choice. Cops make people nervous and my business runs on trust.”

Trust and pennies on the dollar. There's a business plan.

“I'm Rudy. What can I do ya for?” he said. His hands came out of his pockets and he leaned down on top of a case filled with guns. I hadn't noticed them earlier, and now the presence of so many weapons so easily obtained made me uncomfortable.

I started with a few basic questions. “If I understand correctly, the jewelry that was stolen from the Cannon residence came in here yesterday?”

“Yeah, that's right.”

“Did you know where it was from?”

“The day I start asking questions is the day people stop bringing me inventory.”

“When did you find out that it was stolen?”

“Last night. The cops showed up and asked me a bunch of questions.”

“You told them about the woman who brought the jewelry in. Did she give you a name?”

“No, but she didn't have to. I described her to the police and they knew exactly who I meant. Ebony Welles, the party planner.”

“So you know Ebony—I mean, Ms. Welles?”

“Well enough. I told the police it was her and described the medallion she was wearing and that was enough for them to put two and two together.”

I reached out for the counter to steady myself. Ebony couldn't have been wearing her medallion—it was sitting at home on my counter. If that was the clue that brought the police to her door, then I'd just found a way to prove that when you put two and two together, you didn't always get four.

“YOU NEVER SAW
that medallion, did you?” I asked. Rudy stepped away from the counter. He didn't answer right away. “Can you describe it?” I added.

“I have to make a phone call.” He went to the back. As soon as he disappeared, I took off out the front door. I'd gotten what I came for. Now I had to piece it all together and prove it.

*   *   *

EBONY
had worn that necklace to the hospital on Tuesday. Several members of the staff had complimented her on it, and even Ivory had gotten his paw caught in the chain when we were at the rest stop. Probably, security cameras all over the hospital could verify it. When we'd returned from the hospital, she'd helped me carry the boxes from the trailer into the stockroom, and that's where I found the medallion this morning when I loaded the dolly with boxes from the
trailer and the wheels jammed up. It must have been there since Tuesday. Even better, I hadn't been alone when I found the medallion. Willow, the new age therapist, had been there too.

So either Rudy Moore had encountered a different black woman who dressed like Foxy Brown and wore a gold medallion in his shop on Wednesday, or he was telling untruths to the police. But Amy Bradshaw had been the one to lead the police to him in the first place. Time to figure out why.

I drove from the pawnshop to Candy Girls, arriving around eight thirty. Only two cars sat in the lot: a black Lexus and a red Prius. The store's sign, a giant neon lollipop, spun around in a circle next to a smaller illuminated rectangle that said
CANDY GIRLS—SUGAR
AND SPICE AND PARTY
PLANNING
. Under that, in italics, it said
WHAT MORE C
OULD YOU WANT?

I parked my scooter in a well-lit corner of the lot and locked up my helmet. The lights inside the store went out and two women exited. One was Amy. She and the other girl parted ways. Amy locked up the store and headed toward the red Prius. I waited until the other car drove away before calling out to her—Amy, not the girl who had left.

She was startled at first, but relaxed when she recognized me. “We're closed,” she said. “Come back tomorrow.”

“I'm not here for the store. I'm here to talk to you.”

“I don't have anything to say to you,” she said. Her voice trembled with nervousness, not the defiance I had expected. She glanced at my outfit. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Like what?” I looked down at the security guard uniform. “I always dress in costumes from Disguise DeLimit. Everybody knows that.”

She appeared to accept that, though her expression said something about what she thought of my style.

“I won't keep you long, but I have to talk to you. I know
the pawnbroker doesn't have proof that Ebony pawned Linda Cannon's jewelry. You took that diamond ring in to his store, not Ebony. Why did you lie?”

“I didn't lie,” she said. Her voice shook again, worse this time.

“Then you won't mind telling me what you told the police.” We stood that way, facing each other in the middle of the Candy Girls parking lot, for a few more seconds. I needed to say something to shake Amy up, to either scare her into making a mistake or touch a nerve inside of her so she'd help me.

“I know you were the one to vandalize Ebony's car. I found a scrap of plaid fabric caught in the car door. The pants of the costume you tried to sell me were torn. I also found an empty can of black hair spray from Candy Girls in the backseat, and I know it's what you used to write
Murderer
on her car. Those things connect you to that. So far, only a few people know about the vandalism, and nobody knows about the piece of fabric, but I won't hesitate to go to the police with it and show them that you've been trying to make Ebony look guilty since the day after the party.”

Under the glow of the blue neon sign, Amy's pale face looked sick. Her eyes were wide, and dark circles under them made her look like she was wearing clown makeup to age her twenty-something face.

“Either you're guilty or you're covering for somebody,” I said.

Her face tightened up, and then her eyes filled with tears. She tipped her head back and the tears fell down the sides of her temples. When she looked back at me, more tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her fists, leaving smudges of eye makeup to further darken the circles that were already there.

“Nothing that I did to Ebony's car was permanent. I told
you, I caught Blitz with Gina in the back of that car. After I went and put together our Charlie's Angels costumes, that's how she repays me! I was so angry. When I found Blitz, we got into an argument.” She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve. “I left before he was killed. Later that night, when I saw the car parked in front of your store, I—I just snapped. I had the hair spray in my car and I just started spraying it.”

“Why did you write
Murderer
on Ebony's car?”

“I didn't! I sprayed the doors and the roof. And then I smashed empty glass bottles against the side. I was trying to break the window, but it didn't break. The glass fell all over the sidewalk. I was afraid to walk over it, so I opened the back door and crawled through to the other side to get out.”

“How did the fabric get caught in the window?”

She cursed. “Why can't you leave it all alone? The vandalism doesn't have anything to do with the murder!”

“I think the police should be the judge of that,” I said. I stepped backward as though I were leaving.

“Wait,” she said. I turned back. She balled her fists up in the hem of her lime green T-shirt and twisted the fabric until it was stretched out. “I wanted it to look like the window was broken so I rolled the window down from the inside. The hair spray can fell out of my hand and I hung out the window to grab it. I didn't know my pants tore, but they must have gotten caught on something—a piece of metal trim inside the car or something else sharp—I don't know what. And then I tossed the cans in the back and I left out the other side. It's the truth. I'll tell the police. I promise. I will! I want this all to be over.”

“What about the flat tires?”

“I held the core of the stem in with a screwdriver. My brother taught me how to do that when I was a kid. I'm telling you the truth.”

It wasn't the time to point out to Amy that a broken window would have left glass inside the car and not outside on the sidewalk or to advise that the next time she uses hair spray to vandalize a car she should take the Candy Girls price tag off the can. Her story explained a lot of things, but not enough. If she hadn't painted the word on Ebony's car, then who had? And if Blitz had cheated on her at his party, why had she shown up at Disguise DeLimit the next day pretending they were engaged?

“Amy, where did you get the ring you were wearing when you came to my store on Sunday?”

Her fists dropped to her side and she looked at the ground. “I saw the ring at the pawnshop last week.” She glanced up at me as if to gauge if I was judging her or not. I kept as impassive a face as I could so she would continue. “That night, I asked Blitz about it. He said it couldn't be his mom's because that was her most precious possession from his real dad. I don't know what happened on Friday, but Friday night he came over to my house and gave me something wrapped in several layers of tissue. He said he had just done the most important thing of his life and not to let anything happen to the package.”

“When did you look inside?”

“Sunday morning. After I heard the news. I knew he wasn't coming back for it.” She hung her head. “Two years together—that's a long time. Enough that he trusted me with that bundle. I had to see what it was, because I didn't know if it was something that would get me killed too. When I saw it was his mom's ring, I figured he bought it out of hock. I know it was wrong of me to put it on and act like we were engaged, but he wouldn't have asked me to keep it for him unless maybe he thought that one day he really would give it to me.”

“Why did you leave when I asked for your name?”

“You were asking too many questions. I thought you
somehow knew the ring wasn't mine to wear and I didn't want to get in trouble with Blitz's family.”

“So when the Cannons were robbed on Monday, you talked to the police.”

“I had to. They thought the robbery on Monday was the first one. I was the only person who could tell them that the ring had been hocked sometime last week. I told them when I saw the ring at the pawnshop, and I told them that I told Blitz. I gave the ring back to Mrs. Cannon on Wednesday.”

“That's why you acted so funny when I asked about it at the memorial.”

“I didn't tell them that I wore it for a few days. Nobody knows that but you and me.”

I bit at my lower lip. “Amy, there's just one thing I don't understand. Why did you come to my store on Sunday?” If everything Amy was telling me was true—and it did have a note of authenticity to it—then showing up with her torn costume while wearing Blitz's mother's ring was a pretty dumb move.

“Gina wanted me to donate our costumes to Candy Girls. After she helped Blitz cheat on me, I wanted to make her mad. I knew it would drive her crazy if I sold it to you.”

I thanked Amy for talking to me and drove home. Back at Disguise DeLimit, I changed out of the security officer uniform and into my alien-printed pajamas. I sat at the kitchen table, staring at my clues. Piece of plaid fabric. Empty can of black hair spray. Twenty thousand dollars. And now Ebony's medallion. Four things that told the story of who murdered Blitz Manners—or rather, who didn't. Amy's story explained away the hair spray and the fabric. They implicated her in the vandalism, but not the murder. I separated them from the money and the medallion so I wouldn't consider them evidence. Amy had also said that Blitz got the ring out of hock
on Friday. But the supposed robbery hadn't taken place until Monday. Maybe I'd been right about someone had been stealing from Linda Manners all along.

I added a piece of paper to the table and wrote
Columbo trench coat
along the bottom. It was a clue that would have pointed the finger at Grady if I had it, but I didn't. It had been incinerated along with everything else that came out of the fire hall after the party. That cleanup crew had made sure the crime scene could never be revisited.

I picked up the chain of the medallion and let it dangle from my fingertips. What had Willow called it? A talisman. Something that Ebony wore to give her strength. I didn't have a talisman. I changed my accessories and my overall look the way most people changed nail polish. If it was true that a person's identity could be gleaned from their personal style, then I was a lost cause. I put on and shed identities of fictional characters because they were easier to adopt than to look inside myself and identify what made me who I was. And here, it was Ebony's talisman that poked a hole in the story that the pawnbroker had told the police.

I called Detective Nichols. “This is Margo Tamblyn. I have some new evidence in the Blitz Manners murder case.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” she said. “What do you have?”

“Ebony Welles's necklace. She wore it all day on Tuesday when we were at the Moxie Hospital, and the chain must have broken when she helped me unload the trailer we brought back here. I found it in the costume shop this morning. The pawnshop owner said that a black woman with a medallion pawned the jewelry, but that's not possible. Ebony didn't have her medallion on Wednesday or today. He's lying.”

“I think it's safe to say that Ms. Welles might own more than one gold necklace,” she said.

“But this isn't just any old necklace. It's a talisman. She wears it everywhere.”

“Ms. Tamblyn, I can appreciate that you don't want your friend to go to jail, but I've already taken the evidence to a judge and I'm expecting a warrant for Ms. Welles's arrest to come through tomorrow morning. That means she stays in the county jail. And don't worry too much about that necklace. We don't allow inmates to wear jewelry.”

I was so angry I wanted to scream. “You're going to let a killer go free because you're too caught up in believing Ebony is guilty. What do I have to do to show you she's not?”

“Ms. Tamblyn, I'd say we have a pretty solid case. I wouldn't waste any more time if I were you.”