Double Booked for Death (14 page)

Read Double Booked for Death Online

Authors: Ali Brandon

“Yeah, it’s like, sacred,” a young male chimed in, sounding equally put out.
Darla looked up to see a pair of teens in full goth regalia—kohled eyes, black lipstick, and yards of black lace and velvet—advancing on her.
While she’d learned during her brief retail tenure that the badass emo goth reputation was, for the most part, unfounded, these particular representatives looked as if they meant business.
She scrambled to her feet and tried out Jake’s line.
“Sorry, kids, police business.
Move along now, you hear?”
“Yeah, right.
If you’re a cop, where’s your freakin’ badge?”
the girl demanded, her face a black and white mask of disdain.
Her companion gave a cold little smile.
“She don’t need no freakin’ badges, just like in that movie.
But that’s because she’s not a cop.
Right, lady?
You’re probably some religious freak who thinks we’re going to hell for liking Valerie’s books.
You just want to mess things up for everyone because you don’t like anyone who dresses like us.”
“That’s not true,” Darla protested, truly stung.
“I’m a big fan of Valerie.
In fact, I’m the one who set up the autographing at the store last night so everyone could meet her in person.”
She realized as soon as the words left her lips that she’d made a tactical error.
The teens made the connection just as swiftly.
The bored expression on the girl’s face promptly morphed into a look of genuine horror—likely the first emotion she’d allowed herself to show in an adult’s presence for months.
“Oh my Gawd, you’re the reason Valerie is dead!
If you hadn’t made her come here, like, she’d still be all alive!”
“Yeah, it’s your fault,” her companion hotly agreed, tossing the single inky lock that dangled from his otherwise shaved hairline.
His drawn-on black brows dove into an accusing frown as he jabbed his forefinger in Darla’s direction.
“So how ya gonna fix it?
We’re already telling everyone we know to boycott your store.”
“Yeah,” the girl chimed in, snapping her gum, “I already posted on my Facebook page.”
“But it wasn’t my fault!
It was an accident.
The police already said as much,” Darla countered.
Between the goth kids and the Christian crowd, she seemingly couldn’t win for losing.
As for the boy’s threatening demeanor, that had her glancing back the way she’d come to see if Jake was nearby.
Unfortunately, it looked like she was on her own, with only half a turkey Reuben to use as a defensive weapon.
“Look, er, kids,” she tried again.
“We can’t bring Valerie back, but there’s a chance I might be able to get my hands on some signed books from her.”
Seeing a spark of interest replace their hostility, she went on, “I can’t guarantee anything, of course, but—”
“Sunny, Robert, how are you?”
a familiar voice called.
Glancing back at the buildings behind her, Darla saw Mary Ann waving from the front door of her brother’s shop, Bygone Days Antiques.
“What are you two doing out of school so early?”
“We declared it a day of mourning,” Sunny answered for them, her tone appropriately doleful.
“Like, no way I could sit through social studies thinking about Valerie.”
“I understand,” the old woman answered with a sympathetic click of her tongue.
“I felt the very same way when I heard that Carole Lombard had died.”
While the teens exchanged blank glances at the mention of one of Hollywood’s most famous Golden Age actresses, Mary Ann went on, “Be sure to stop by the store this weekend.
We just unpacked some vintage mourning jewelry that you might like.”
“Sick,” the obviously misnamed Sunny replied in apparent approval.
“Ill,” Robert added, seemingly agreeing with his girlfriend.
“Thanks for the heads-up, Ms.
Plinski.”
“Oh, no problemo, it’s chill,” the elderly woman exclaimed, her garbled attempt at hipness drawing tolerant snickers from both teens.
Then she turned her attention to Darla, gesturing her to join her.
“Darla, I need your help here in the store.
When you say good-bye to your friends, can you stop in for a moment?”
“Sure, Mary Ann, I’m on the way,” Darla called back, realizing she’d just been tossed a life preserver, in a manner of speaking.
To the goth pair, she brightly added, “We’ll talk more later.
Bye!”
She turned on her heel and took the dozen or so steps to the antique shop at a brisker pace than usual.
Once past the shop door, she glanced back for a final look.
The teens were still eyeing her with suspicion but did not appear inclined to pursue.
She closed the door behind her and turned to Mary Ann with a sigh.
“Thanks for the rescue.
I was afraid it might get a bit nasty out there.”
“Oh, surely not,” the old woman said with a smile.
“Sunny and Robert are perfectly nice children and good customers, to boot.
But I happened to look out the window and saw everyone standing there outside.
They did seem rather upset, so I thought I should defuse the situation.
My gracious, aren’t all those flowers something?”
“They’re something, all right,” Darla agreed with a sigh.
“I imagine it’s been pretty unnerving for you today, too.
Did you see the cable news people circling like hawks this morning?
And you were right about people wanting to buy.
I ended up opening the store for a couple of hours.
But good old Sunny and Robert said that they’re organizing a boycott against me.”
She gave Mary Ann an overview of her morning, including the fact that the police had determined not to charge Marnie in connection with the author’s death.
She left out the part about Hamlet’s finding the lipstick note, however, as well as her debate with Jake as to whether or not it constituted a clue.
The older woman nodded sympathetically as she listened, and Darla felt herself relax just a bit.
Something about the woman’s briskly cheerful attitude seemed to dial down her own feeling of doom.
The store itself added to that homey feel.
Unlike other similar establishments with their emphasis on overpriced European antiquities, Bygone Days Antiques specialized in eighteenth – and nineteenth-century Americana, the sort of items that one might find in one’s grandparents’ house.
Though she’d only visited the store a couple of times, the faintly musty scents of old wooden furniture and vintage clothing and linens always made Darla feel at home.
“Well, I’m glad the poor driver won’t have to face any charges,” Mary Ann said.
“ As for the rest, it’s my opinion that when it’s our time to leave this world, it’s our time to go, and nothing can stop us.
So consider yourself absolved of any fault.
Now, would you like to come upstairs for a cup of tea?”
Darla considered the offer a moment and then shook her head.
“Normally, I would, but Detective Reese is supposed to stop by later to discuss a few things.
I probably should clean the apartment a little before he arrives.”
“Ah.”
The old woman’s knowing smile made Darla blush despite herself, but she figured any protest would only add fuel to the fire.
Cripes, couldn’t she have a casual chat with a good-looking guy without people trying to read something into it?
With a glance out the shop window, she deflected that subject and instead said, “Looks like Sunny and Robert are gone, so I’d better duck out now while the getting is good.
Too bad there’s no connecting door between your place and mine, so I wouldn’t have to go back out onto the street in case another news van drives past.”
The other woman chuckled, and pointed to a display of wide-brimmed, beribboned women’s chapeaux, saying, “If you want, you can borrow a shawl to wrap around your head, or one of those big picture hats.”
“No, I’m good.”
That last was said with just a tinge of regret.
Another time, Darla wouldn’t mind trying out the black straw number with a matching veil .
.
.
the one sitting rakishly atop a mannequin head that sported a painted bob the same red color as her own dark auburn hair.
Bidding Mary Ann farewell, she slipped out the shop door and made hasty tracks to her own stoop.
She couldn’t tell from a glance at the basement apartment if Jake had made it home yet, but she’d catch up with her when Reese showed up.
In the meantime, Darla took the lipstick letter she’d snagged from the store trash, tucked it carefully into a clear sheet protector, and then headed upstairs to give her place the once-over.
Hamlet was waiting at the door when she let herself back into the apartment.
The timbre of his meow indicated displeasure with something she’d apparently done .
.
.
or not done.
“All right, Hamlet, spit it out.
You’ve got food, fresh water, and I even took your side on this whole note thing”—she waved the plastic-wrapped flier in his direction—“when Jake laughed at us.
So what more do you need?
And, no, you’re not getting my sandwich.”
By way of response, the cat padded over to the front window overlooking the street below.
He reared up onto his hind legs, just as he’d done with the bookcase earlier, stretching so that his front paws were on the windowsill.
Black nose pressed almost to the glass and tail twitching, he meowed again.
“What is it, fellow?”
Frowning, Darla tossed the sandwich into the fridge and made her own way to the window.
In the short time that they’d shared space together, she had never seen Hamlet demonstrate interest in the activity on the street below.
He preferred things up close and personal, be it in the store or underneath her feet.
A glance outside at the mountain of flowers showed little change from the scene she’d left only a little while earlier.
A new group of mourners was busy paying their respects, a few dressed much like Robert and Sunny, and the rest in the classic teen uniform of jeans, tops, and jackets.
“Just your typical
Haunted High
fans,” she muttered.
So what was it that had attracted the cat’s attention?
She shrugged and started to turn away, when abruptly she found herself staring just like Hamlet.
One of the jean-clad teens stood slightly apart from the rest, holding what appeared from Darla’s vantage point to be an oversized card.
Her black hair was well below shoulder length, and so straight that Darla guessed that she must use one of those ceramic flat irons on it.
Something about her posture, the way she tilted her head, looked oddly familiar.
Darla squinted, her own nose a bare inch from the glass, trying for a better look as she struggled to recall where she might have seen the girl before.
As she watched, the girl bent and propped her card on a pile of black carnations alongside a lit red pillar candle.
The action sent the shawl-like black scarf she wore sliding forward, momentarily hooding her features.
The sight sparked an even stronger sense of familiarity, and Darla frowned.
And then it came to her.
“Oh my God, it’s the Lone Protester!”
TWELVE
“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, DARLA.
YOU CHASED A strange girl because your cat gave her a funny look?”
Reese was giving her a funny look of his own, and Darla bit back a frustrated groan.
She knew her instincts had been right.
The problem would be convincing Reese.
The detective had shown up on her stoop not long after she had dragged herself, sweating and gasping for breath, back to the store after a fruitless sprint down Crawford Avenue.
Her quarry had looked up from the wall of flowers just in time to see a determined Darla advancing on her.
Either the girl had recognized her, or else she’d seen the purpose in Darla’s expression.
Either way, she had promptly fled the scene with Darla in hot pursuit, but had managed to put sufficient distance between them long enough to catch one of the borough’s few cabs and make good her escape.
Watching the taxi speed off with the girl inside, Darla had made an immediate vow to join a gym and get back into shape.
Now, back in her apartment, she was fortifying herself with a tall glass of sweet tea as she related the details of her missed encounter to the detective and Jake.
Both were perched on the prickly horsehair couch while Darla paced impatiently about the small room.
Reese had exchanged last night’s head-to-toe black for a fashionably tight and faded pair of jeans topped by a short-sleeved, navy Henley.
He’d stripped off the black motorcycle jacket that he’d walked in wearing—a jacket that looked like it had seen the asphalt at some point—giving her a good look at the bulging biceps she recalled from the previous evening.
Remembering, too, that she was still ticked at the guy for his attitude last night, she made a point of not paying attention to said muscles, or the fact that this vaguely retro look suited him.
To her credit, Jake hadn’t yet cracked a smile over the situation, though she was surveying Darla with a tolerant expression that spoke volumes.
She set down her own tea glass on the coffee table and propped her Docs-clad feet beside it.
“All right, kid, let me catch up here, since I came to the party late,” the older woman began.
“You say you saw this girl from a third-story window half a block away, but you’re sure she’s the same girl from the other day who you also saw only from a distance.
No offense, but that’s pretty thin as far as eyewitness testimony goes.
How could you be sure it was her?”
“Right,” Reese interjected, jabbing his pen in the air for emphasis.
Though technically off-duty, he had whipped out a notebook and was scribbling in it as she described her encounter.
“I was there last night and saw the same girl, too—except I didn’t really see her face, because she was wearing some sort of hood.
No way could I pick her out of a crowd.
Jake’s the only one who actually ever talked to her, as far as I know.”
“I know it was her,” Darla insisted.
“I could tell from her body language, from the way she stood.”
When the pair merely looked at her expectantly, she shook her head.
“Look, back in high school I had a friend who was nearsighted.
She couldn’t wear contact lenses for some reason, and she was too vain to wear glasses.
But it didn’t matter.
She told me she could see someone clear down the hall and tell who it was, even though they were blurry, just by the way they moved.
Same principle here.
Besides, isn’t it telling that the girl took off running when I tried to talk to her?”
“Uh-huh.”
Reese flipped his notebook shut.
“Which is what I’d do if I had a crazy woman chasing after—ouch!”
Clapping a hand to his neck, he swung around to glare at Hamlet.
The feline lay sprawled atop the sofa back, conveniently within paws’ reach of the man but with both those appendages neatly tucked against his chest.
“Your damn cat scratched me,” the detective claimed in an accusing tone.
Hamlet stared back at him, green eyes unflinching and round with innocence.
Darla knew from experience that this likely meant the hardheaded feline indeed was guilty as charged, despite none of them having actually witnessed the supposed attack.
She suppressed a smile as she fleetingly reflected on the concept of instant karma as it applied to Reese.
Hamlet was owed a nice treat for that one.
She and Hamlet might not be bosom buddies, but apparently he didn’t care for a stranger dissing his human roommate.
Aloud, however, she made the appropriate noises of concerned dismay.
“Bad kitty!”
she declared and shook a finger in the cat’s direction.
Then, to Reese, she added, “Are you bleeding?
Here, let me take a look.
I’ve got bandages if you need them.”
“Don’t be such a big baby, Reese,” Jake said before he could answer.
“I can see from here it’s just a nick.
Hell, I’ve had worse paper cuts than that.
Believe me, you’ll live.”
From the expression on the detective’s face, Darla guessed he was counting to ten.
After a few seconds of silence, and through gritted teeth, he said, “Thanks for everyone’s concern .
.
.
and yes, I’ll live.
But that spawn of Garfield better hope I don’t come down with cat scratch fever.”
The detective shot the spawn in question a cold look and removed himself to one of a pair of ladder-back chairs situated a safe distance from the feline.
Straddling it—chair, not cat—and tapping his notebook against his knee, he said, “So let’s assume the girl you saw
is
your Lone Protester.
That could be interesting in light of some things I found online last night.
Problem is, your sighting doesn’t do us much good, not unless you got the cab number.”
“Gotcha covered.”
Darla rattled off the information, which she had taken care to memorize as soon as she realized that the girl had escaped her.
While Reese scribbled that down, Jake gave her a smile of approval.
“First-rate work, kid.
Now, I don’t suppose your girl conveniently dropped her wallet or anything, did she?”
“Not her wallet .
.
.
but I have something almost as good.”
Setting down her tea, Darla went over to her old-fashioned rolltop desk.
Propped atop it was a large white note card illustrated with a single red rose.
Careful to hold it by one corner, she handed off the note to Jake, who’d dragged herself up from the couch to follow.
“I saw her put this on a pile of black carnations along with a bunch of other cards,” she explained, trying to sound blasé, though in fact her discovery had only bolstered her earlier suspicions.
“I stopped to pick it up, and that’s how she got away from me.”
Which sounded better than admitting she’d been outrun.
Jake squinted at the card a moment and then read aloud,
“Sorry for what I did, I needed the money
.
”
“I told you there was something fishy going on,” Darla exclaimed.
“Maybe everyone was wrong about Marnie and her gang being innocent victims, too.
Maybe the Lord’s Blessing Church paid her to help bump off Valerie.”
Her enthusiasm for her hypothesis building, Darla rushed on, “It all makes sense now.
The girl lured Valerie outside with the whole protest act, waited for the right moment and,
pow .
.
.
off the curb Valerie went.
Marnie and her van do the dirty work, the girl vanishes into the crowd of fans, and the police chalk off Valerie’s death as an accident.
Case closed.
So what do you think?”
“I think you need to take a deep breath and leave the investigating to the professionals,” Reese answered her, not bothering to suppress a dismissive snort that promptly burst Darla’s sleuthing bubble.
“There’s a little thing called evidence .
.
.
and a random Hallmark card isn’t enough to convict someone with.”
“Whatever,” Darla muttered.
“But you have to admit, that card is more than the police have.”
“Now, now, children .
.
.
play nice,” Jake said with an absent frown, still studying the card in question.
Darla noted that she, too, was taking care not to touch more than a corner of it.
She reviewed it a moment longer and then looked back up at Darla.
“I hate to ask, but how about we take a look at the lipstick note that Hamlet found?”
While Jake explained to Reese how Hamlet had found the discarded paper, Darla opened the desk’s top drawer and triumphantly handed over the page, still in its plastic protector.
Jake scrutinized both documents side by side before walking them over to Reese.
“Doesn’t look like the same handwriting, but it’s kind of a coincidence that we found this, too.
Take a look.”
Reese did as ordered, and a flicker of interest replaced his previous expression of forced tolerance.
“Okay, let’s see if we can track down that cab.”
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
His muttered conversation with the person on the other end took only a few seconds before he hung up and addressed the women again.
“I’ve got a buddy at the cab company who’ll call me back in a minute.
Now, don’t get your hopes up,” he cautioned as Darla allowed herself a celebratory fist pump.
“Even together, all this isn’t exactly what I’d call a confession, but maybe your hellcat over there”—he gestured at Hamlet, who responded with a yawn—“has a knack for police work.
Darla, do you have a computer here with Internet access we could use?”
“Sure.”
Feeling vindicated, Darla slid up the rolltop’s slatted panel to reveal a sleek laptop within the oversized cubby.
She booted up the computer as Reese abandoned his seat and headed in her direction.
“I assume you want to drive?”
she said with a deliberately bright smile, vacating her seat.
Appearing not in the least chastened, he simply nodded and sat down.
While Jake and Darla both peered over his shoulders, he entered the address of a popular video-upload site.
“Like I said before, with all the kids and their camera phones, I figured there’d be plenty of video from the autographing floating around.
I checked when I got home last night and found at least fifty new Valerie Baylor clips that had been uploaded to YouTube.
I must have watched forty-nine of them before I found something.”
He typed in a search string, and a series of tiny screen shots appeared on the page.
He clicked on one, which pulled up a black rectangle tagged at eleven minutes, seven seconds that was labeled “Me and Alexa and Bridgette and Emily waiting for Valerie Baylor.”
The clip loaded to focus on a red-lipsticked, braces-filled mouth that presumably belonged to the “me” of the title.
The lips pursed in a series of air kisses, while girlish shrieks and giggles served as an audio backdrop.
After a few seconds, the amateur videographer turned her camera from her dental work to the grainy, close-up faces of several other shrieking teens, equally red-lipped and grinning.
Wincing a little, Reese dialed down the volume.
Now, the clip was a silent show of black-caped girls chattering, dancing, and mugging for the camera.
Despite the nighttime venue, however, the ambient light along the street had provided a surprisingly decent view of the action.
While Darla and Jake watched expectantly, Reese took on the role of voice-over narrator.
“You’ve got the one girl filming her three friends”—he pointed out two blondes and one brunette, all of whom appeared about fourteen years old—“and you can see the antique store behind them.
That’s our establishing shot.
Now, the girl with the camera phone swings around to show the steps leading up to Darla’s store, and then goes back to her friends.”
“Ugh, I’m getting dizzy,” Jake complained as the video swirled just as he predicted.
“Another Spielberg, the kid ain’t.”
“It goes on like this for a while,” Reese said.
“Now, around the nine-minute mark is where we get down to business.
You’ll see Ms.
Baylor walking toward us in a minute.
Watch.”
Darla and Jake obediently leaned closer as the camera girl apparently ducked beneath the barricade.
The video jumped about again for a few dizzying seconds, and Darla felt a bit of momentary queasiness herself.
Then the camera focused in again, showing a long view of the street leading away from the store.

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