Collared For Murder (10 page)

I laughed. We both did. And then I sobered, thinking I might not get many more times like this.

“Look, Izzy, I never had children of my own, but you’ve come mighty close over the years. I want you to have this house. Even if you just turn around and sell it, I’ll know that it brought you some joy. Some value. Now, let me have my way.”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

Eleven

O
n the second full day of the cat show, all of the attention turned to the ballroom and the conformation competitions, where the cats would be judged against the standards for each breed: Were their ears set at the proper angle? Were their bodies the correct shape? Did their profiles match some ideal (if arbitrary) standard? Each of the judging rings was packed with onlookers, and you could tell when every round ended by the squeaks and gasps and moans of the audience.

Rena and I set up our booth, and I agreed to man it while Rena took a tour of the floor to pass out cards and, of course, get a look-see at all the action.

“Are you the designer?”

I looked up to find Peter Denford standing at the corner of our table, that familiar Joe Time Coffee cup
in his hand. I’d seen him hanging around the show and had even seen him the morning of his father’s death, but we’d yet to actually speak.

“Yes. Izzy McHale,” I offered, extending my hand.

He shook my hand, and I couldn’t help but notice the calluses on his fingers. He might play the part of artistic dilettante, but he actually worked hard at something.

“I’m glad to get to meet you,” I said. “The collar ornament you designed is beautiful. I loved the openwork surrounding the gems.”

He waved off my compliment. “As my father said, the drawing’s the easy part.”

His dad had said that? Still more evidence that Phillip was a complete sleazeball.

“I enjoyed the design work, but my real passion is for sculpture. Large-scale metalwork, actually. The exact opposite of that little charm I drew. I rarely find the patience to work on smaller projects like jewelry. I mean, there’s a reason my father didn’t have me execute my own drawing. The jeweler is the real hero.”

“Jolly’s a good friend. I’ll let her know.”

“I like your work,” he said.

“Oh, uh, thanks. Do you own pets?” I asked.

He grinned, and there was something charming about his smile. He had deep lines running from his nose to the corners of his lips, and when he smiled, those lines nearly bracketed his whole mouth.

“No. No pets. I leave the animals to my father. I just like your designs. Hipster designs for hipster pets. I like the social commentary.”

“Thank you.”

I didn’t intend my parkas and pj’s to be social commentary, but if this artist chose to view my work that way, I wasn’t going to stop him. If I told him that I designed the clothes just because I thought the animals looked cute in them, he’d probably think I was a loon, so I chose to take his comment as a compliment.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I added, suddenly realizing that this was the very
first
thing I should have said to the man.

He looked at me quizzically before the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “Oh, of course. I keep forgetting. Thank you.”

I just stared at him, taken aback by how nonchalant he seemed to be about his father’s death.

He must have picked up on my shock—and possibly the undercurrent of judgment—in my eyes, because he ducked his head and let forth a self-deprecating chuckle. “I know I sound like a horrible son. It’s just that my father and I weren’t that close.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” My own poor father, living in a house full of gregarious women, hardly said boo and kept himself holed up in his study with mountains of history books to read. But if he were gone, I’d
miss him like crazy. I felt bad for Peter that he didn’t have that kind of bond with his father.

He shrugged. “My father had his own interests and, uh, pursuits, and I had mine.”

“Like your art.”

“Precisely. My father didn’t think my artwork was a serious career. It was a hobby, he said, like his cat shows. The difference was he’d earned a time-consuming and expensive hobby by being a crackerjack businessman. I had earned nothing.”

“But at least he came to you when he needed the collar ornament designed.”

Peter laughed. “Actually, he didn’t. I’d heard about his plans from . . . dinner, and I took it upon myself to draw the design. He didn’t even pay me for it. Or ask me to execute it.”

“Wow. That must have burned.”

“No. It’s just the way our relationship was. Trust me. I’m a grown man, and I’ve learned to be self-sufficient over the years. I can take care of myself without my daddy pitching in.”

From across the aisle, Ruth Kimmey gave me a little wave and I returned it. Peter watched our exchange with a half smile on his face.

“I see you’ve made Ruth’s acquaintance.”

“Yes. She’s been very helpful, showing me around.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “I’m sure she has. She’s
probably told you about the good old days when these shows were a little wilder.”

I blushed.

“Mmm-hmmm. Did she tell you that she and my father had a fling? It was between my mom and Marsha, so my father wasn’t technically cheating. But something tells me it wasn’t a coincidence that Ruth’s big Russian blue, Jampaws Mr. Jumbo, took home the crown that year.”

“Ruth?”

He laughed. “She didn’t always look like that. I remember her from back then. I’ve always had a thing for older women, and I had a big ol’ crush on her then.”

I had actually been thinking that she didn’t seem like the type to dally, but I couldn’t help but turn to study Ruth through the lens of that bit of information. I could see it: the gray hair a rich auburn brown, those fine cheekbones, her delicate build, less grannylike glasses on her face.

“Huh.”

“The march of time, right?”

“I guess.”

“So, Izzy, I wanted to make a suggestion to you, one struggling artist to another. I assume you have a Web storefront?”

“Sure. We do good volume over the Internet.
Merryville’s a tourist town, and I get a surprising number of regulars from the community, but most of our sales are online.”

“Have you heard of theartisanway.com?” He took another sip of his coffee before setting it on the edge of our display table.

“No. Should I have?”

He grinned. “Maybe not yet. We’re a start-up right now, just getting off the ground. But we can make you a lot of money if you give us a shot.”

I sighed.
We
. The father was trying to kill my business and the son was trying to save it. I wondered if Peter knew about his father’s plans to take over my niche in the marketplace.

“See, the great thing about theartisanway.com is that it’s strictly high-end handcrafted goods, but it’s not limited to pet stuff. So a shopper may come to the site looking for a gift for his dad, find Trendy Tails, and end up buying Dad a sweater for his dachshund. Or the shopper may come looking for a trench coat for herself and find one for her beagle on the Trendy Tails page. It’s a way to reach a whole market that didn’t even know they needed your products.”

“So it’s like an online craft fair.”

“For hipsters,” he agreed with a nod. “And rich people. Basically, your clientele.”

I had plenty of average Joes who bought ruffs for their cats and little fleece booties for their pups, but he
was right that I needed to appeal to that group of buyers if I wanted Trendy Tails—soon to be Swag and Wags—to grow.

“It’s perfect for you. We’ll accept only handmade items, so anything made in a factory—no matter how high-quality—can’t be sold on the site.” Again, I wondered if he knew about his father’s efforts to undercut my business, whether that was the very reason he was approaching me. Was he hoping to nurture my business so it would be a legitimate competitor with his dead father’s business? Or was he genuinely interested in growing small businesses?

“Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about. How much does it cost to participate?”

He held still, gauging my reaction. “Right now, a thousand a month plus two percent of your pretax net sales. We’re upping to four percent of initial sales after the first one hundred accounts.”

I let out a low whistle. With my margins, that would mean a serious hit.

Peter jumped right back in to assuage my fears. “That thousand, though, that provides all your technical support. We’re negotiating to hire a full-time Web designer who would help artists set up their stores, organize products so they’re easier to find, basically do everything other than taking pictures of your stuff. He’ll even pump up your copy for you. And our clients are quality seekers. They’re willing to
pay more than your in-store customers. You can make up that two percent with slight markups to your prices that won’t impact demand.”

On its face, the prospect was compelling. Rena and I had just talked about emphasizing the handmade custom quality of our work, and theartisanway.com would be drawing people who were interested in supporting that kind of business. But in the end, I had no idea how Web marketing worked. Maybe this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Or maybe it was a lot of hocus-pocus. Either way, I couldn’t make a move without input from my business partner, Rena.

“You keep saying ‘we’ when you talk about this program. Who else is involved?”

“I have a silent partner, who prefers to remain silent.”

“It’s not your father?”

He laughed. “Not exactly. Why?”

“I am a little persnickety about whom I do business with.”

“Well, he’s gone anyway.”

He had a point, but I was still leery of getting involved in anything to do with Phillip Denford, his kith, or his kin.

“Listen,” Peter said, “some of us are going to lunch tomorrow at Red, White and Bleu. Basically, me and all the people running the cat show. Why don’t you come with us?”

“I have to check with Rena, make sure she doesn’t mind covering the booth and getting a doggy bag, but if she’s okay with it, I’d love to tag along.”

Maybe
, I thought,
I’ll find a new way to make a little cash. And maybe I’ll learn a little more about a murderer.

*   *   *

Rena had asked me and Jack to join her and Jolly Nielson for dinner that evening. Though Rena was playing hostess, we were dining on the main floor at Trendy Tails. Rena shared a place with her unpredictable father, and Jolly lived out of a corner of her studio. The old dining room at 801 Maple had become the official gathering spot for our circle of friends, and since Rena knew her way around that kitchen as well as she did her own, it made sense for us to meet in the store.

Still, while we were eating on what amounted to my own turf, the evening belonged to Rena and Jolly.

Even though Rena and I had been best friends since we were in kindergarten—even before Sean Tucker moved to town and rounded out the Musketeers—she hadn’t come out to me until just a year before. Even then, she rarely talked about her love life.

That is, until she and Jolly started dating. Jolly had eight years on us, and she was comfortable in her own skin. With midnight hair, soft amber eyes, and a gently curvy body that she clothed in long dresses and her own nature-inspired jewelry, Jolly defined “earth mother.”
She and Rena were peanut butter and chocolate: starkly different but oh so good together.

Jack and I regularly went on double dates with Rena and Jolly, so there was nothing unusual about Rena inviting us to dine with them, but I could tell that the evening was special somehow. If nothing else, Rena was wearing a dress, and when I asked what the occasion was, she actually blushed.

As usual, I didn’t bring much to the table other than a couple bottles of chardonnay. I was an adequate cook, but I was surrounded by greatness. Jolly, who had a knack for putting together a good cheese board, had laid out brie, fig preserves, sliced fresh stone fruit, a sharp manchego, and some delicate sesame crackers. We sat around the cherry-red table, sipping wine and munching on cheese while Rena put the finishing touches on her famous portobello tacos. Along with a simply dressed salad of mixed greens, baby beets, and goat cheese from a farmer one county over, they would be dinner. And Jack had brought dessert: a mascarpone-and-raspberry tart with a crisp chocolate crust.

Seriously, with the three of them in my life, it was a miracle I wasn’t as big as a house.

Jack spread a cracker with fig and brie, then topped it with a slice of plum and held it to my lips. While he wasn’t usually all that affectionate in public, Jolly and Rena didn’t count as public.

As he leaned in to kiss a crumb from the corner of my lips, Val—Rena’s chocolate roan ferret—popped her head up above the edge of the table. She’d scrambled into Rena’s vacant seat and was eyeing the spread with eager eyes. Before she could decide which of the many tasty tidbits she should try to snatch, Jolly whisked her up into her arms.

“Bad girl, Val. I thought we were teaching you table manners.”

Val wriggled out of Jolly’s arms, took a flying leap onto a pile of kitty capelets, and then slithered herself away to frolic in the front of the store.

Rena bumped open the kitchen door with her behind and carried in the tacos in one hand and the salad in the other, all the while trying not to trip over Jinx, who was doing figure eights around her legs. She set the dishes on the table and we started passing them around.

“So, uh, Jolly and I have some news,” Rena said, her plate piled with food she had yet to touch.

She reached out her hand, and Jolly brought hers up to nestle inside it. For a few seconds, they simply stared at each other, loopy smiles on their faces.

Jolly giggled for no apparent reason, then cleared her throat. “We’re getting married.”

I nearly choked on a piece of beet. “What?”

“We’re getting married,” Rena repeated, the grin on her face growing wider.

“That’s great news,” Jack said, pushing back from the table and walking around to give them both big bear hugs. I leapt to my feet and followed suit.

“I’m so happy for you two! When did you decide to get hitched? When’s the wedding? Tell me everything,” I insisted.

Rena laughed. “There’s not that much to tell. We’d sort of been dancing around the idea for a few weeks, but then I finally decided to just ask. Scariest five minutes of my life before she said yes.”

Jolly gave her a playful punch in the arm. “It was no more than two minutes, and you knew I’d say yes. I wasn’t very subtle when I showed you a design for wedding bands.”