Half-Price Homicide (2 page)

This Angelina wasn’t bringing up babies with Brad Pitt. Vera gave all her prime clothing sources celebrity code names. She had to make sure the up-and-coming lawyers, businesswomen and social butterflies who bought her designer consignment didn’t travel in the same circles as the sellers. Selling your barely worn clothes was a worse faux pas than sleeping with your friend’s husband. As with adultery, the real sin was getting caught.

But Vera cleverly provided Cutie-pie and her selling sisters good excuses to come into the store. Snapdragon’s also did first-rate dry cleaning and sold expensive knickknacks. Cutie-pie could say she was at Snapdragon’s doing her wifely duty and dropping off hubby’s shirts.

“She’s in the back room,” Helen said. “I’ll get her.”

“Hurry,” the blonde said. “He can’t know I’m here.”

The sellers were always in a hurry. What if a friend came in to sell her castoffs? The shame would set off seismic shudders in their circle.

Helen didn’t run through the narrow store, packed with high-priced clutter. But her long, loping stride covered several yards at a time. She cut through bins of dirty laundry, dodged a display of designer purses, tiptoed past the Waterford and powered through the consignment clothes racks. Versace, Gucci, True Religion and other designer names flashed by.

After booking nearly a block through this pricey obstacle course, Helen stopped at the print curtains leading to the office of Vera Salinda, Snapdragon’s owner.

She could hear a man’s voice say, “What do you think of me now? Do you love me?” His voice was the sort of whisper that made good women do naughty things.

Vera’s was light and teasing. “Love you? Keep performing like this and I’ll marry you.”

Oops, Helen thought. I’m interrupting a private moment.

“Please, hurry!” Cutie-pie pleaded. Helen could hear her all the way in the back of the store.

Helen knocked on the doorjamb, and Vera said, “Come in.”

Helen tried not to stare at the man next to Vera, but he was a fallen angel with a narrow waist, broad shoulders and artfully tousled golden hair. He seemed surrounded by sunshine. Or maybe it was a halo.

“This is Roger,” Vera said.

“Who should be leaving,” Roger said.

“No, don’t go,” Vera said. “I still need you. I’ll be right back. Wait here.” She pulled the print curtains shut. Helen and Vera stepped into a dressing room. Vera’s sleek dark hair was like an ax blade. Her plump red lips looked like fresh blood. Her pearl white skin had an otherworldly glow in the underlit room.

“What?” she asked Helen.

“Angelina Jolie is here,” Helen said. “She wants to see you. She says it’s urgent.”

“Hell’s bells,” Vera said. “Not her. The only thing worse would be Kate Winslet.”

Vera hurried toward the front, adjusting her bloodred mouth into a scary smile. Tight black Versace jeans and a pink tank top showed off her gym-toned body.

Helen picked up the Windex and started cleaning the costume-jewelry case, where she could watch and listen, but not be noticed. Snapdragon’s odd acoustics amplified voices.

“Chrissy Martlet, how are you?” Vera asked. She swung her cutting-edge hairstyle and leaned on the counter. Muscles rippled under her hot pink top.

“In a hurry,” Chrissy said. Her sweet breathy voice was a breeze through a bakery. “I have something to show you.”

She moved the soiled shirts to reveal a brown leopard-print purse with a Prada logo. “It’s a pony-hair purse. Still has the original tags and the certificate of authenticity.”

Pony hair, Helen thought. A purse made from a baby horse? She decided the material wasn’t any creepier than calfskin.

Vera ran her fingers over the gold Prada logo, prodded the hairy purse with her long, bone white fingers and unzipped it. Helen saw the brown signature lining.

“It’s the real deal,” Vera said. “I can sell it for four ninety-five.”

Chrissy went even whiter. “What? That means I’ll only get half. Two hundred fifty dollars.”

“Two forty-seven fifty,” Vera corrected. “And that’s if I sell it.”

“I can’t do anything with that kind of money,” Chrissy said. Her sweet whisper changed to a thin vinegar whine. “That purse was three thousand dollars.”

“It’s like a car, Chrissy. Once you drive it off the lot, it loses its value. Leopard print is so last year.” Vera’s voice was harder than her fake nails.

“What about Tansey? Call her. She’ll take it.” Chrissy couldn’t hide her desperation.

Chrissy must be a regular, Helen thought, if she knows the names of the women who buy her clothes.

“Tansey hasn’t been buying,” Vera said. “Her ad agency is laying off staff.”

“Couldn’t you give me a little more money? I have the tags
and
the receipt. Unlike some of your sources, I don’t steal.”

“Nobody cares about your receipt,” Vera said.

“The police would.” Chrissy returned to sweet-talking. “Please, Vera. You know me. My code name is—”

“I know your real identity, Angelina,” Vera said, quickly cutting her off. “Hush. You never know who could walk in.”

With a screech of brakes, a black BMW with a grille like a hungry mouth slid into the loading zone in front of the shop. The driver’s door slammed. A man filled the shop door, blocking out the harsh August sun.

Chrissy looked frightened. “It’s Danny,” she whispered. “I think my husband followed me here. He’s getting suspicious. That’s why I asked your girl to hurry.” Chrissy hastily dropped the soiled shirts back on top of the pony-hair purse.

Big didn’t begin to describe Danny Martlet. He was dark and threatening as a thunderstorm. His black eyebrows were like low-hanging clouds. His eyes flashed with barely controlled anger. He wore a navy suit, but didn’t sweat in the sweltering August heat.

“Chrissy, pumpkin, you’re up early,” he said. “It’s not even noon.” His smile showed sharp teeth that made Helen shudder.

“I’m taking your shirts in for laundering.” Chrissy’s voice trembled slightly. “Vera is the best dry cleaner in town. I want only the best for my hardworking man.”

“Be sure and show her that ketchup stain on my white shirt,” Danny said. He grabbed the Hugo Boss shirt, exposing the pony-hair purse.

“What’s that?” he said.

“It’s a purse,” Chrissy said.

“I can see it’s a purse. I also see that Gucci bag on your shoulder. Since when do you carry two purses? Are you trying to spend twice as much of my money?”

Helen heard him accent that “my.”

“No. I must have picked it up by accident.”

“Unless you were trying to sell it. This is a designer consignment shop. Was she bringing in that purse to sell, Vera?”

“I told her leopard print is so last season,” Vera said.

“You didn’t answer my question, Vera,” Danny said. “You sell designer clothes on consignment and my wife is addicted to logos.”

“So what if I am?” Chrissy exploded. “You want me to look better than all the other wives, but you won’t give me any money.”

“I don’t trust you around cash, sweetie,” Danny said. “It disappears at the touch of your little white fingers. But I let you shop as much as you want. You have unlimited credit at Neiman Marcus, Gucci, Prada and every other major shop from here to Miami.”

“Did it ever occur to you I might want my own money?” Little Chrissy looked like a Chihuahua yapping at a Doberman.

“Then get off your lazy ass and make some,” Danny said.

“I can’t! I gave up my acting career when I married you.”

“I hardly think a mattress commercial and a straight-to-DVD movie counts as an acting career,” Danny said.

“I didn’t have a chance to develop my art,” Chrissy said.

Danny snorted. “The only acting you do is in the sack.” He meanly mimicked a woman in the throes of pretend passion: ” ‘Oh, Danny, more. More. More.’ More sex or more shopping, dear heart?”

Helen kept her head down and scrubbed the already-clean display case. This was way too much information. They were talking so loud, she felt like she was inside their argument.

Danny’s diatribe was interrupted by the clip-clop of high heels. A jingle of bells signaled Snapdragon’s door was opening. Vera slipped between the warring couple and said, “Continue your conversation elsewhere, please.”

Danny dragged his wife by the arm to the back of the store.

There was a tiny tinkling sound in their wake. Helen found a woman’s diamond Rolex wristwatch on the floor. Was it Chrissy’s?

She heard a dressing room door slam. She waited, then knocked on the door. Chrissy and Danny were facing each other in the cramped space. Her face was bright red.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Helen said. “Is this your watch, Chrissy?”

“Yes, thank you. The clasp is loose. That’s my next errand.” She absently fastened it on her wrist as her husband shut the door in Helen’s face. She caught snatches of their argument over the store’s low background music.

“What do you mean, am I cheating on you?” Danny said.

“I saw the way you stared at her last night!” Chrissy said.

“I wasn’t looking at her designer dress, that’s for sure.”

“No, you were looking at her fake tits,” Chrissy said. “Mine are real. So are my designer dresses. She wore a knockoff and everyone knew it.”

“And none of the men cared,” her husband taunted.

“You don’t love me anymore,” Chrissy said. “You want rid of me. That’s why you’re following me around. You want a divorce.”

“Cut the melodrama,” Danny said. “If I wanted you gone, your ass would be out the door. Gone. Over and out. Understand?”

Helen didn’t want to hear another ugly word. She moved toward the front to wipe down the sunglasses rack and tried to block out Danny and Chrissy’s argument. Vera turned up the background music a notch, then loudly welcomed her new customer. “Loretta Stranahan. How nice to see the best-dressed woman on the county board of commissioners.”

Helen nearly dropped the spray bottle. Loretta could have been Chrissy’s twin sister. Her blond hair was a shade or two yellower, but she was as small, creamy and curvy as Danny’s wife. And as well dressed in black Moschino and polka-dot heels. She looked about thirty and dangerous. No one would ever call her “little Loretta.”

“Broward County has lots of women commissioners,” Loretta said. “But I like the competition. I came by to see if you got in more suits from Glenn Close.”

“Sorry,” Vera said. “Glenn hasn’t made a delivery lately.”

“Is she hanging on to her suits longer now?” Loretta asked.

“Even the rich have money problems,” Vera said. “Men who never noticed the price of laundry now want their shirts on hangers instead of in boxes. You know why? Shirts are seventy-five cents cheaper on hangers. Seventy-five cents! These are the same men who used to leave their change on the counter because it made holes in their pants pockets. Now they count every freaking penny.”

“Please, let’s not go there,” Loretta said. “I’ve had endless meetings about budget cuts. With the picketers, postcard campaigns and petitions, I’m about to snap.”

“Let me show you my new arrivals in the back,” Vera said.

“Watch the store, Helen,” Vera whispered. “I have to make sure Loretta doesn’t run into Danny.”

Loretta trailed Vera through the store. Helen could hear Vera say, “I have a Chanel suit in your size.”

“Too expensive-looking,” Loretta said. “My constituents will think I’m on the take.”

“A black Ferragamo, then,” Vera said. “That’s rich-looking but not rich.”

“Vera, honey, I have a hundred black suits. They all look alike.”

“I’ll find you a new blouse,” Vera said. “A touch of color would freshen a suit. I have some hand-painted scarves. They’d look good on television.”

“Well, I could look. That wouldn’t cost anything.” Loretta was weakening.

Helen heard a small surprised shriek. “Why, Danny,” Loretta said. “You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

“I’m shopping with my wife,” Danny the bully said. Helen saw no sign the couple had been arguing, except maybe Chrissy’s slightly strained smile.

Helen watched the drama unfold in the overhead security mirror. Chrissy and Loretta had squared off. Chrissy’s back was arched like an angry cat’s. Danny loomed above the blondes like a dark mountain.

“That’s right,” Chrissy said. “He has a wife. I’m Mrs. Danny Martlet.” She wrapped her arm protectively around Danny’s.

“Trust me, honey, I’m not interested in your husband,” Loretta said.

“Then why do you call him a hundred times a day?” “It’s business,” Loretta said. “Until midnight?” Chrissy asked.

“Important business. A little cream puff like you wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m not stupid!” Chrissy said. “I know about those three thousand new jobs Danny’s project will bring to the city. And the house with the seven toilets. It’s not exactly the House of the Seven Gables, is it?”

“Shut up!” Danny said, his voice dangerously low.

“Danny can’t afford to get rid of me, can you?” Chrissy said. “He tells me everything.”

“If he told you everything, he’d tell you why he spends so much time with me,” Loretta said. “I can’t see why you shop here, Chrissy. With all Danny’s money, he could buy this store.”