Authors: Blair Bancroft
What had I actually learned, after all? Not much beyond the peanut allergy and Vanessa’s weak excuse for not going to her husband’s rescue. One thing was clear, however. Her joy over being invited into the bosom of the Hospital Auxiliary easily outweighed her grief over the loss of her husband.
“Has Jeb Brannigan come in to talk with you?” I added while the
C
hief was considering what I’d told him.
“Bright and early this morning,
which is partly why I’m here.”
Truthfully, I was surprised. The Jeb I knew from high school would have ignored my advice, simply blowing off the whole mess, hoping it would go away.
“Do you believe him?” the
C
hief asked.
“Eighty or ninety percent,” I said, wiggling my hand in a classic
comme çi, comme ça
wave. I told him what Alyce Jahnke had seen.
Boone Talbot whistled. “You
do
get around. I have to admit there are advantages to living here since the Year One. Any other tidbits?”
“No. But I’m working on how peanuts or peanut butter got onto
Rainbow’s End
. I mean, it’s not like they were something Martin would stock in the galley.”
The
C
hief nodded. “Point made.”
“So you don’t think I’m nuts for thinking Martin might have been murdered.”
“I think you’re nuts for trying to do my job for me.”
Slam. Bang. Thank you, ma’am, but back off.
“But—but you just admitted I know everyone and you don’t. People talk to me.”My pride had just taken a hard fall and, dammit, I could hear the whine in my voice. Appalled, I clamped my lips over my teeth and simply glared. Or tried to. I had the awful feeling I probably looked more like a kicked puppy.
Chief Talbot muttered something under his breath that sounded like a four-letter word beginning with S. He heaved a sigh and glowered at me. “Let’s suppose,” he said, “that you’re right. If Martin Kellerman was murdered, then there’s a killer out there. The killer is not going to be pleased about anyone asking questions. Particularly someone who’s actually getting answers.”
I hung my head, staring down at the Hitler mustache, now all alone on the top shelf of the display case.
“I get paid to ask questions,” the
C
hief pressed on. “It’s my job. It’s the job of my detectives. They’re trained for it. They may not get paid big bucks, but they knew what they were doing when they signed on to risk their necks.”
And Gywn Halliday didn’t. So here it came, the final nail in the coffin.
“You, however,” he intoned, “are in the costume business. You are not trained. You are not paid to snoop. I have enough problems at the moment without worrying about some costume designer who thinks she’s Sherlock Holmes. Find another hobby, Miss Halliday. Your sleuthing days are over.”
He stopped abruptly, his cop face twitching into something that looked remarkably like guilt. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Sometimes I get up on my high horse and just can’t get off. Guess this is a bad time to ask you out to dinner?”
“Right.” My stubborn chin angled up, but at the same time I heard the lock on the Talbot niche snick open again. My sub-conscious was playing hell with my best intentions.
Cop face back in place, the C
hief nodded. “Until next time.” Then Boone Talbot was gone, the door sighing shut behind him.
My pheromones screamed,
Call him back. Ask when and where
.
Instead, I slumped on my stool and made a litany of calling myself a stupid idiot. I’d broken out of the designer box in New York and look what happened. Now I’d done it again and . . . Boone was right. I’d already suffered the destruction of my dreams. Of trust. Of love. I knew the ultimate terror of risking my life. So why, why, why would I plunge back into a pit I’d fled to Florida to escape?
I wouldn’t, of course I wouldn’t. I’d stick to costume design, and, well . . ., I couldn’t forget Letty. Helping a friend was neither nosy nor dangerous. No chickening out of Tea at four. I tucked Martin Kellerman into a niche beside Boone Talbot and shot the bolt on both of them. The trouble with that was, the dead bolt knobs were on my side, in easy reach.
I groaned and went to work. Just two costumes going out today. A classic Mrs. Santa with a full-cut red corduroy dress, big white apron, and stylish mob cap with narrow red ribbon trim. And a Christmas Elf, all in green. Dagged tunic, tights, a matching feather in his suede cap (which also doubled for one of Robin Hood’s Merrie Men), and crinkly green vinyl shoes with turned-up toes.
In twenty minutes I was done, the costumes ready for pick-up. I glanced at my watch. Five hours until tea with Miss Letty.
Crystal came in at one, wearing a caftan I’d never seen before. I suspected she might have whipped it up for today’s visit. The shell pink flowers, scattered haphazardly over a hot pink background, looked suspiciously shiny. She confirmed my suspicions by continually fluffing the dress in the air. “Can’t sit down ’til the paint dries,” she explained.
Bless her, and she’d even coordinated her colors to mine. Talk about best friends.
“So how are we going to do this?” I asked. “Miss Letty blew you off when you asked if anything was wrong. Any suggestions for a new approach?”
“Haven’t a clue. I’ve looked in my ball a dozen times, and all I see is shadows. Creepy swirling mists, same as her aura. Spooky.”
Crystal was beginning to spook me too. When she first came to DreamWear, I thought her “gifts” a nice little gimmick. Good for business. But her intuition, empathy—whatever you want to call it—had been right enough times for me to become less of a skeptic. I was ninety percent convinced she really did see auras. “Okay,” I said, “let’s look at the problem this way. What are the possibilities? What could intrude enough on Miss Letty’s life to screw up her aura?”
“Cancer?” Letty offered. “Something bad like that.”
I winced. Cancer had taken my father. But Crystal’s suggestion was valid. I put
health
at the top of the hopefully subtle questions we needed to ask. “Does she have close friends or relatives?” I asked. “Someone she might have quarreled with? Or maybe it’s one of them who’s sick.”
“There’s a nephew up north somewhere. She told me he’s all that’s left of her family.”
“Her heir?”
“I guess.”
“How about friends?”
“She’s a fiend for bridge, but won’t touch Bingo with a ten-foot pole. She’s on the board of all the high-falutin’ organizations like the Hospital Auxiliary, the Library, and the Art Center. I think she said they just put her on the “Keep Main Street Beautiful” committee. The old gal’s got impeccable taste.”
“Friends,” I repeated. “Someone she might have confided in?”
Crystal’s anxious amber eyes winked shut as she scrunched her rounded features together, thinking hard. “She eats out with the bridge club once a week. That’s about it.”
“Leaving you and me.” Mentally, I added problems with the nephew and local acquaintances to my list.
“Money?” Crystal offered. “I mean, the economy’s tanked, right? Maybe Miss Letty’s money went down the drain with everyone else’s.”
“Makes sense,” I murmured, “except I always got the impression her money was so ‘old,’ so securely invested that this latest downturn should be nothing more than a ripple in the flow of her finances.”
“Maybe . . .” Crystal paused, turned and paced toward her Cave, fluffing her dress with every step.
“Crystal?”
“Maybe it’s not that kind of money problem.”
“There’s another kind besides not having enough?” I prodded when Crystal didn’t follow up her highly ambiguous remark.
“Seniors like Miss Letty
,
” she said at last, “maybe you don’t know
—
Golden Beach being such an out of the way corner of the world and all
—
but con artists love ’em. Seniors draw scammers like bees to honey. Miss Letty’s generation came along when the world was still bright and shiny. They were taught good manners, trust with a capital T. They just can’t
believe
anyone would scam them. And they can’t believe they would ever be stupid enough to be taken in by a con. Which makes them perfect marks.”
Crystal was standing half-way between me and her Cave, head down, flapping her hot pink caftan. Slowly, I closed my mouth over the obvious question—how did Crystal know so much about scams? Was this the past she was escaping the day she wandered into DreamWear? If so, it was well behind her, and if Miss Letty was being stung by con artists, then Crystal’s knowledge could come in handy. But it didn’t take a lot of intuition to see that Crystal’s words had not come easy. No sense in twisting the knife.
Scams soared to the top of my list. But no . . . I shoved them back to last. We’d have to work up to scams, just as Crystal and I had done while brainstorming Miss Letty’s problem. I sagged down onto my wicker stool, plopped my head into my hands. Was I really up to this? Or was I plunging in, amateur night in Dixie, as I had with Jeb Brannigan and Vanessa Kellerman before Boone Talbot slammed the lid on my curiosity? Were Crystal and I charging off to Miss Letty’s like bulls in a china shop?
Not quite. We’d just worked that one out. We were Letty’s friends. We cared.
I cared about Martin Kellerman too, and look where that had gotten me. Shut out of a murder investigation.
Only if I wanted to be.
Only if I was chicken.
Curiosity killed the cat
. There had to be a lot of truth in that old expression, right?
Not Artemis, my stubborn mind countered quickly. If only I had some of Artemis’s street smarts, his feral instincts, his sheer bravado, his flat-out muscle power.
Instead, I was five feet-six, one-twenty-five, and disciplined exercise was simply not on my daily schedule. Way, way back, when I was still Laura Wallace, I swam a lot, indulging in Chad-watching while showing off a succession of colorful bikinis, my bra size expanding with each passing year. But after my college sophomore summer Chad had disappeared from my life, disappeared from Golden Beach and never come back.
Which had absolutely nothing to do with the problems at hand. My mind was skittering again.
The front door swung open, and Tim DeFranco dashed in, surrounded by the energy surge of not-quite-seventeen. Tim is slim, medium height, with Italian coloring not too different from my own Gypsy looks. His hair is dark brown, rather than black, curly instead of straight like mine, and his eyes are a lighter brown. Gifted with a good nature and a ready smile, he looks like a junior version of the Italian men famous for pinching bottoms on the Via Veneto.
“I’m not late, am I? Tell me I’m not late.” Tim grinned as we assured him we had plenty of time to get to Miss Letty’s condo. “Oh, wow, you both look great.” He studied me a moment. “Isn’t that from our Thirties collection?”
I nodded. If you’re thinking not many seventeen-year-old boys would have noticed, you’re right. But Tim is, well, different. He’s currently struggling with this issue. Enough said.
“Is that new?” He twirled his finger, inviting Crystal to do a three-sixty, showing off her latest creation. “Neat! But maybe you’d better use a blow dryer before you sit on Miss Letty’s furniture.” Tim turned and ran flat out to his parents’ deli next door and returned, I swear, in ninety seconds, blow-dryer in hand. No doubt about it, I was blessed by the quality of my employees.
The upholstery of my Malibu, as well as Miss Letty’s furniture, was also grateful for Tim’s inspiration. I sneaked a look after Crystal got out of the car. Not so much as a smear of pink paint.
We looked at each other, drew identical deep breaths, and walked up the perfectly landscaped sidewalk.
Chapter 9
Letitia’s Van Ryn’s penthouse exceeded my imagination and, believe me, exceeding a costume designer’s imagination isn’t all that easy. A panel of windows filled the south wall of her living room, offering a view of the broad Golden Beach Inlet, with the late afternoon sun scattering sparks onto every wave and a golden glow onto the million-dollar homes lining the far bank. A second panel of windows revealed the infinity of the Gulf of Mexico a mile to the west. I loved our solid old Mediterranean-style home on Royal Palm Drive, built before “condo” was a word, but, oh my, Miss Letty’s aerie was truly special. Her furnishings, naturally, were designer showroom quality, with enough museum-quality antiques and objets d’art to turn Peter Koonce quite green with envy.
Royal Willie pranced up to us, inclined his elegant head for a pet, then took himself off to the Adams reproduction fireplace, where he settled in for a snooze on a small oriental rug that probably cost more than the entire inventory of DreamWear.
When I saw Miss Letty’s version of “afternoon tea,” a wave of guilt took me by surprise. She must have been working flat-out since the moment I called. And here we were, scheming to pry out her darkest secrets.
The petit fours crowning the top of a three-tier server might have come from the Publix bakery, but everything else appeared to be fresh from Miss Letty’s kitchen. Delicate triangular tea sandwiches (no crusts, of course)—watercress, cucumber, egg salad, chicken with fresh dill—served on a gold-rimmed cut-class platter. The lowest tier of the server offered an array of oatmeal and raisin cookies, brownies with walnuts, and strawberries dipped in chocolate. It was all I could do not to gape. As Crystal and I exclaimed over the food and its elegant presentation, while protesting that Letty shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble just for us, my guilt deepened. Letty Van Ryn was more than an acquaintance; we thought of her as a friend. Yet this was the first time we’d been to her condo. And we’d never even thought of inviting her to a meal at 100 Royal Palm Drive.
Mea culpa
.