Suede to Rest (15 page)

“Where are you, little kitty?” I asked. “It's cold in here and your brother is upstairs waiting for you.”

As I made my way through the store, past the makeshift partition and the broken window where I'd gotten stuck the first day, I wondered what it would take for me to go back there. That was the scene of the murder, and if there really were unanswered questions about my great-aunt's death, then there was a chance the answers were back there. The door was partially open, about the width of one very small cat.

I took a deep breath, knowing what I had to do, but not knowing if I was ready to do it. I put a hand on the door and pushed it open, then stepped inside the darkness. My foot crushed pieces of broken glass from the day I'd entered through the window. The flashlight sat a few feet away from the glass. I picked it up and clicked it on and off. Nothing happened. I slapped it against my palm a few times like I'd seen my dad do, but still, nothing. I set it back on the floor. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, and reopened them after they'd had a chance to adjust to the lack of light. I kept one hand on the door as if letting go would throw me into an alternate universe.

I heard a car outside the store. I don't know why, but I pulled myself inside the hidden room and pressed my back up against the wooden partition, listening.

“Poly? Are you in there?”

It was Carson's voice. Even though I wasn't in the mood to deal with him, I knew he deserved better than prolonged avoidance. I had no right to take his car and leave him high and dry at the hotel.

“I'm sorry.” I stepped out of the back room and looked at the gate.

Carson stood by the gate. He shielded his eyes with one hand, trying to figure out where I was standing. “What are you doing in there? Have you gone crazy?”

“Give me a second and I'll get your keys. The car is out back.”

He fed his fingers through the metal fence and shook it. Metal clanged against metal loudly. “Open this gate and let me in.”

“You don't understand. There's a kitten lost in the store somewhere and I have to find him.” I scooped his keys up from the wrap stand and took a few steps toward him.

“You know we can't have pets at the apartment. Or are you going to sneak them in and jeopardize our lease?”

“I'm not going to jeopardize anything. I just need a little time to figure out what I'm going to do.”

“What's to figure out? I set this whole thing up. It's ready to go. I don't get why you're fighting me on this.”

“You don't get it because you don't listen.”

“I listen just fine.”

“No, you don't. You don't listen to
me
.” My statement hung in the air like a mist. In the resulting silence, I heard a sound coming from somewhere inside the hidden room and turned my head. “Did you hear that?” I asked.

“This is no time for your jokes, Poly. Either let me in or give me the keys. I don't really care which.”

I swung my right hand back and then forward like I was bowling. I let go of the keys and they slid across the exposed concrete floor, stopping only when they hit the base of the hinged metal gate. Carson bent down and snatched them off the floor.

“Nice move. Are you coming?” he said.

“You can wait five minutes, Carson.” I ducked back into the secret room and got down on my hands and knees, crawling across the floor, blowing kisses. Carson called my name behind me, but I ignored him. As I reached the wall that resembled a bookcase with plastic bins of ribbon, buttons, rhinestones, and other fancy trims, I saw the kitten's small orange body, hovering by the corner. He was shivering and scared.

“Poly, this is stupid. I'm leaving.”

“I'll be there in a second,” I called. “Come here, sweetheart, it's okay,” I cooed. He stepped backward. I knew lunging for him would scare him further. Very slowly I moved forward. Behind me, I heard the metal gate shake. Dry dust that had been settled for decades swirled through the air and caught in my throat. The only way Carson would hear me was if I yelled to him, and yelling would scare the kitten more. I ignored him and crept closer, until I could reach a hand out. He leaned forward and sniffed it, then let me run my fingers over his head.

The gate rattled, scaring the small kitten just as my hands were about to close around his small body. He jumped up and back, actions more befitting a cartoon cat than a real one, and disappeared into darkness around the cover of the bins of buttons and ribbon. Trying to find him now, without a flashlight, would have been futile. The cold concrete floor sent a chill through my pants to my skin. I stood up and stepped backward, tripping over my own foot but regaining balance quickly.

The fence rattled again. “Would you knock that off?” I said under my breath. I might not succeed in finding the kitten tonight, but I wasn't going to let him starve. I crossed the store to the cutting station, peeled the metal lid back from a fresh can of cat food and dumped it into the plastic bowl from the drugstore. I filled the water bowl and set them both by the door that separated the secret room from the store. I glanced at the gate, expecting to see the annoyed look on Carson's face that I knew so well.

I screamed at what I saw instead.

Bloodred liquid covered
the formerly white fence, dripping from several of the intersections of metal that I'd oiled two days ago, pooling at the bottom. On the sidewalk, the red liquid seeped toward the street, filling in cracks on the sidewalk in the same freakishly ominous color. A matching trail left a slow moving track into the store. I ran to the gate but stopped a few feet short of the door. My stomach lurched and an acidic taste filled my nostrils and mouth. I backed away, slowly, until I was up against the register, then grabbed my phone and keys and left out the back.

The parking lot was empty, Carson's car gone. I stumbled past the series of diagonal yellow lines that marked off the vacant spaces, into the alley and around the corner to the front of the store. The black Mercedes with the
MCM
license plate was parked in the same lot it had been the first day I'd arrived. I ran to it and beat on the dark-tinted windows with an open palm.

“Is this how you negotiate? What are you trying to do? Scare me into selling? Why are you doing it? What are you trying to hide?” I closed my fist and pounded on the door with the outside of it. There was no acknowledgement from inside the car. “I don't care what you do to scare me off, I won't sell. I won't! I don't care what you offer me. You killed Mr. Pickers and I'm going to figure out why! Whatever secret you're trying to protect, I'll find.”

Two arms closed around me from behind and lifted me off my feet. I screamed from the pressure against the bruises on my midsection and instinctively put my feet on the door of the black luxury car. The rubber soles of my boots left dusty footprints on the gleaming paint job. I twisted one way, then the other, pushing against the car with my feet until I heard a string of curse words. The arms around me let go and I fell backward, into another person, onto the ground.

I rolled onto my hands and knees and looked at the person who had attacked me. It was Vaughn. He was on his back, staring up at the sky. A cloud of dirt surrounded us. His chest heaved and fell with deep breaths sucked in through his open mouth. His light brown hair was coated in dirt.

“Are you okay?” he asked, turning his focus to me.

I pushed myself backward until I was kneeling, then smacked my hands against each other to knock off small pieces of gravel that were embedded in the fleshy part of my palm. I didn't answer his question.

Vaughn sat up and rested his arms on top of bent knees. “Do you want to tell me why you're beating up on my dad's car?”

“Do you want to tell me why your family has moved on to scare tactics?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The front of the store. Did you do that?”

Vaughn's expression changed into one of concern. His dimples vanished. He turned to the side and used one hand to push him up to a standing position, then extended the hand to me. I got up on my own without his help and walked past him, toward Bonita Avenue. From the sound of the footsteps behind me, I knew he was following.

As soon as I turned the corner, I heard his sharp intake of breath. The gate was covered in red splotches, something that had been thrown on it haphazardly. It didn't look like paint, and it stank in a somewhat familiar way. Words on the sidewalk in front of the store said
Go Home
.

“Who did this?” asked Vaughn.

“As if you don't know,” I answered.

“You can't think
I
did it.”

“I don't know what to think.”

“Did you call the cops?”

“Maybe I did. Are you scared now?”

“Poly, this is vandalism and it needs to be reported. If you didn't call the cops, I will.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed a number and asked for Deputy Sheriff Clark. I didn't wait around to hear the details of the call.

An audience of strangers filled the opposite side of the street. I recognized a couple of men from the bar where Charlie and I had gone the first night I'd been in San Ladrón and Duke in his wheelchair. Two blond women stood to one side, and a woman with pieces of foil folded around sections of her hair stood next to them. A man with a small dog cowered behind the group.

“What are you all looking at?” I yelled. “Is this funny to you? Let's run the new girl out of town? I don't think it's funny.”

I knew I was acting like a crazy person, only I didn't know how to stop. Two hands landed on my upper arms, rubbing up and down on the black knit fabric of my tunic. I turned my head. Vaughn had moved close, right behind me. My body went rigid, but he didn't stop.

“The police are going to be here in a second,” he said softly in my ear. “You're shaking, and I don't blame you, but you need to calm down.” He looked up at the bartender from Antonio's Ristorante. “Everybody, drinks are on me. Tony, take care of them.”

The bartender nodded at Vaughn and walked back toward the restaurant. Most of the crowd followed. Duke spun his wheelchair around and rolled back to his bar. The woman with the foil on her hair looked confused, like she couldn't decide between the free drinks and the risk to her hair color.

“Tony, deliver a bottle of champagne to Angie's salon, too.”

The two blondes and the woman in foil smiled at each other and entered the door next to the restaurant. The man with the dog turned away from us and walked down the street.

“Is that how you stay under the radar? Mr. Big Shot, who can buy his way out of anything?”

“What am I supposed to be buying my way out of?”

“Whatever happened here.”

“What
did
happen here?”

“I don't know.”

A police car pulled up by the curb next to us. “You need to tell him exactly what you think is going on,” Vaughn said.

“Why? So you can come up with a plausible story to cover your guilt?”

Deputy Sheriff Clark got out of the car and looked at the store. He approached the gate and leaned into it, sniffing the red liquid. He turned around, careful not to tarnish the back of his uniform by leaning into the gate, and looked at the splotches on the sidewalk. After scribbling something into a small notebook, he approached us.

“Do either of you know who did this?” he asked.

I looked at Vaughn, then back at the deputy sheriff, as if the answer was obvious.

“She thinks I did it,” Vaughn said.

“I want to talk to you. Alone,” I said to the deputy sheriff. Vaughn stepped backward and I led Deputy Sheriff Clark past the front gate to a shaded bench, where we sat down.

“Miss Monroe, is what Vaughn said true? You think he did this?”

“I don't know why else he's here. His father has made no secret of the fact that he wants to buy the store from me. I found some things out recently. I don't think Mr. McMichael wants the store for business reasons. I think he's hiding something. Scare tactics might be a way for him to up his game and make me sell.”

Deputy Sheriff Clark ignored my statement. “Is there anybody else who might have done this?”

“Like who?”

“Ms. Monroe, a man was murdered behind your store two days ago. Since you arrived you've been at the center of a couple of incidents around town. Maybe that's normal in downtown Los Angeles, but we don't get behavior like this around San Ladrón often, so I'm thinking that somebody is trying to send you a message. A message in ketchup.”

I looked at the storefront, dripping in red. I hadn't wanted to think about what the liquid was, but that explained the faint scent and the acidic taste in my mouth. “Ketchup?”

He nodded.

“I want you to give me a list of anybody who you know who might have reason to want to scare you out of town.”

“The person at the top of that list is Vaughn McMichael. Or at least his dad is. His son could be doing his dirty work.”

“I don't like what's been happening in our town since you arrived. I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Making up accusations to make yourself look innocent isn't going to help your case. The McMichael family is well respected in San Ladrón. Vic McMichael will only put up with what could be called defamation of character for so long before he fights back.”

“What are you saying?” He didn't answer. “What about the other stuff—my car and the shower and the murd—” My breath caught in my throat. “You think I did this to my own store?” I jerked a thumb toward the gate. “Why would I do that?”

“You tell me,” he said.

I stood up from the bench to put distance between the deputy sheriff and myself. I looked over my shoulder at the sickening appearance of the storefront and ran a hand through my choppy short hair. Vaughn stood on the sidewalk watching us. I clenched my teeth together and narrowed my eyes. He wouldn't get away with this. I looked back at the deputy sheriff.

“Two nights ago, Vaughn McMichael stole information from inside the store. I don't know why. It was in a ledger of sales info from when the store was open. I'd made some notes on the back pages about Mr. Pickers and the things that had happened since I arrived. I don't know what else was in the ledger, but it looked like my aunt used the book to write down thoughts and plans on blank pages, in addition to the daily sales tallies. I don't know why he took it.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

I shook my head.

The deputy sheriff stood up and walked past the front of the store to where Vaughn stood talking on his cell phone. I followed a few steps behind, but couldn't hear them because their voices were low. When I reached the two of them, I stood at an angle, looking back and forth between their faces. Whatever conversation had transpired, it had been short, and it was over.

Deputy Sheriff Clark closed his notebook and put it back into his breast pocket. “Ms. Monroe, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

I thought about the charm Adelaide Brooks had given me. It meant something, but I didn't know how useful it would be to the deputy sheriff. What did a charm from an old bracelet prove? It meant nothing to anybody but me. For all I knew, it was a red herring, intended to set me off on a completely different trail, away from Mr. Pickers and into the land of family secrets and foggy memories. Until I knew what it meant, I wasn't going to tip my hand.

“No.”

“If you think of anything else, I want you to call. Right away. I've made arrangements to stay in the mobile unit, so unless I'm on a call, I'm three blocks away. If anything else happens, I'll know about it.”

I didn't like how he said that last part. Made it sound like he was going to keep an eye on me. He held out a hand and I shook it, then he crossed the street to his car and left Vaughn and me alone in front of the store.

“Let's end this right now,” Vaughn said.

“Why did you steal information from the store? What were you looking for?”

His face grew red. “If you saw me take the ledger, why didn't you say something? Or ask me?” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his forehead a couple of times, shielding his face from me, then looked up again. “I thought I could have it back to you before you noticed it was missing.”

“I'm talking about the pages from the sales journal. How exactly were you planning to replace the missing pages?”

“I didn't take any pages. The book's intact. Come with me.”

He walked to the black sedan and unlocked the doors with a remote. A turquoise notebook sat on the passenger seat on top of a nondescript flat white box. He hesitated for a second. “Will you get into the car?”

“No.”

“You really think I'm the bad guy, don't you?”

“What would you think if you were in my shoes?” I asked.

He tucked his hands into the front pockets of his khaki pants. The collar of his navy-blue sweater was turned up against a second white collar from a polo shirt underneath. The few buttons down the front of his sweater were unbuttoned. One was missing. He didn't impress me as the type to wear a sweater with a missing button and I wondered if it had fallen off when we'd scuffled.

“I guess if I were in your shoes, I'd see exactly what you see, which is too bad, because it couldn't be further from the truth.” He reached into the car and pulled out the ledger. “I acted on a spontaneous impulse. I don't normally do that, but it is what it is.” He held the notebook out and I took it, but he didn't let go right away. For a few seconds, we stood there like we were playing tug-of-war. When he let go, I pulled the book into my chest and wrapped my arms around it.

“Did you look at the scrapbook?” he asked. The breeze ruffled his hair, pushing a shock of it onto his forehead.

“Yes.”

“So you should understand why I'm interested in the store and what becomes of it. What's it going to take for you to believe that?”

“Trust. The one thing you can't buy.”

“Why are you so hung up on my family's money? It's insulting.”

“Some of us have had to work, Vaughn. My parents worked at the fabric store all the time. I helped out when I was a teenager, and I couldn't even tell anybody until I was sixteen. While you were out on your yacht with your dad, I was learning the difference between jacquard and damask.”

“I watched the way my father did business. He bullied people into agreeing to his terms. I didn't want to be like him. I paid for my own education by working two jobs so I wouldn't have a mountain of debt when I graduated. I interned at an investment firm in Richmond—for no pay—for the first six months after graduation. When a job opened up, I interviewed for it like everyone else. So don't tell me I don't know about hard work.”

We stood there for a few seconds, locked in a heated glare, until Vaughn looked back into the car. He leaned down and moved the white box to the passenger seat, then climbed in and pulled the door shut without a good-bye.