A Calceologist Has a Bad Day
Jamie Catcher
“Faerie Culpepper. The woman of the shoes, they call you.”
The detective introduced himself as Detective Deranged-kangaroo, or something like that. I was too distracted by his shoes and their gleam to pay attention. I will think of him as Detective Shiny Shoe.
“I didn’t do it.”
A red shoe sits in a clear plastic evidence bag on the table in front of me, and I inch forward in the desire to save it. This all began with a missing shoe and now here I am—defending my life—with a found shoe in an interrogation room that smells of lemon floor cleaner and faint cigar smoke.
Or did you do it for the heel of it? That’s what he’ll say next. I imagine the words forming from his pillowy lips, the fleshy pink pinched with a nice Cupid’s bow, but he purses his lips together instead, and only nods. They are prize lips; I noticed them immediately when he came to arrest me. I appreciated the tiny touch of beauty in the ugly moment of being surrounded by cops and handcuffed while sitting at my kitchen table, having coffee with the vice president of the Junior Ladies Bonne Society Club. We’d been planning a charity shoe auction and I’ll never, ever, forget the look on her face.
He sits across the table from me and says nothing, his face stony as he grinds his teeth back and forth, then sucks his bottom lip in. I wonder if he notices me staring at his lips. Maybe that’s why he continues such grand lip activity.
I also wonder what he thought of my shoe collection.
My beautiful, beautiful shoes. Did he walk into my shoe room and look around in awe? Did he touch the white wooden cubbies that lined the wall from floor to ceiling? Maybe he flicked on the lights above the protective glass of the showcase for the Chosen Four. While rows and rows of my shoes are tiny representatives of past times and cultures, those four pairs of shoes meant my future.
Coco Chanel said that with four pairs of shoes, she could travel the world. So, I had four pairs chosen for my trip. There was a pair of tall brown boots for attitude and bad weather, and a pair of burgundy ballet flats for naps on mass transit and good measure. A pair of utilitarian black loafers rounded up the pack—my sightseeing heavyweights—and then there was the pair of cherry red stilettos. I daydreamed of wearing them on a hot date. All were patiently tanned and hand-sewn, and met my criteria of sturdy yet beautiful.
The detective taps his fingers, and I hear his watch tick as the walls of the interrogation room seem to tighten. My throat is dry and the urge to swallow hits, but I fight it off in front of his stare.
Tick.
When I blink, images blur and turn like the glass in a kaleidoscope. When I saw the left shoe of my red pair was missing, I screamed and I screamed. I clutched my head, the screams spinning around me, mingling with Jack’s laughter.
Tick.
“There was an old lady who lived in a shoe,” Detective Shiny Shoe says under his breath as he rustles papers and adjusts in his wooden seat.
The sense of humor I hear in his voice wants to spill now, but he’s holding it together. I bet he’s actually a fun guy, but as if I haven’t heard that old shoe line before. I smile and sit up straighter in my posterior-numbing wooden seat to play along with the game.
“Who had so many children, she didn’t know what to do,” I say. I hope he knows I’m the victim here. He has to see it and let me go home to my shoes so I can finish packing and print the train tickets for Venice to Florence. I paid extra for two nicer seats: one seat for me, and one for the Chosen Four.
He raises his eyebrows at me and I keep talking.
“Women do like their shoes, as do many men. I see you’re wearing an Italian-made loafer in a US size 12, but I’m sure it’s marked Euro size 46. They appear to be hand-constructed, which is rare these days. Probably in Tuscany. Florence, specifically. Did your wife buy them secondhand? I doubt on your salary you could afford them new. You should be proud to wear an Italian cobbler’s work. They’re not Salvatore Ferragamos, but they’re close.”
He glowers during my spiel and then raises his leg to plop his foot on the table. He stares at the shoe, pulls it off, and looks inside. “Well, now. Made in Italy. Size 46. I never noticed. Bravo, Madam Shoe.” He puts his shoe back on, lowers his foot to the floor, and looks down at the loafer, perhaps with new appreciation.
As he should. They were a fine pair of shoes, a remnant of the days when shoes were made lovingly by hand over hours and hours in a small room with scattered mounds of leather, wooden shoe forms, and tiny tools.
“I’ve always wondered if it was true that the cobbler’s wife went barefoot, as the old adage goes,” he says. He pulls two Chapsticks out of his coat pocket and applies one and then the other liberally to his lips in a very exact process, one that took him some time.
I watch, thinking he seems quite preoccupied by his lip activity in general. “If I married a cobbler, I’d want the pick of the lot.” I say, then remember I’ve sworn off men, even shoemakers.
The air conditioner turns on, mingling the lemon cleaner and cigar smoke with the smell of someone’s curry take-out dinner, and the hairs on my arms rise. I feel sick. To calm myself, I imagine the feel of a new Italian shoe on my foot, one with tender leather molded to my foot.
“Your ex,” the detective says, “what did he think of you and your shoes? Living like that in a self-made shrine of shoes? Or did he not care because you supported him, that is, until he met her, and she made more money than you?”
Living like that. Why was I being judged for admiring beauty? For loving the smell of buttery soft leather and a hand-sewn sole with the heel stacked and pressed with exactness? For admiring centuries of artisans and craftsmanship? I want to knock the detective’s Chapsticks off the table.
“I don’t care if she made more. I do just fine in cybersecurity at the hospital. And I think of my collection as being a shoe museum. I collect many shoes of the past. You can learn a lot about an era and about a person from their shoes. Their income. Their personality. The style of their culture and the technology of the time period. It’s called calceology.”
“Calceology, hmm.” He leans back and crosses his arms. “Our cyber guy has heard of you. Spoke well of you. He says he sees you at conferences.”
I fidget. I sit taller, cross my legs, and concentrate. My bladder passed its emergency mark at least an hour ago, and I feared standing up meant a water show. Maybe that was why the floor cleaner reeked so strong in here.
Now he leans toward me. “Have you always tucked shoes into little beds and pulled up the covers on them like they were babies? Did you give them some broth without any bread, whip them all soundly and put them to bed?” he sing-songs, finishing his page in Mother Goose as if he just can’t help it.
So now it begins—the questioning of my sanity. I nod. “Yes, I have. And when do I get my shoe back?”
“You mean the murder weapon found at the scene? You don’t. It’s evidence. Your ex tells us you sleep with shoes in your bed, and I did see shoes there. Did you just scoot them over when he was around, or did they replace him after he left you for her?”
Funny how you can take a moment in time, a bad moment, and wall it away in your brain, this dark little room that your day-to-day thoughts ignore as they waltz on by. And then boom. The door bursts open, spilling the dark out into your every thought, and taking over your brain in a rush that leaves you struggling for breath while your brain screams.
I feel the heat flush my cheeks at the memory of seeing two people smile at each other in the park. I had followed him there, suspicious that he would meet someone. I hid in the trees but once I saw them, I had to look straight to her shoes. She wore pleather size sevens from the fall collection at the corner department store. Machine-made. Cemented-together soles. But a fine knock-off of a famous designer who had her shoes handmade by some the world’s best shoe artisans. I wanted to hate her for her shoes, but I couldn’t. They were actually a good choice for today’s assembly line market. So, I hated him instead.
“Witnesses say there was a loud confrontation last night at his apartment. You accused your ex and his lover of stealing a single shoe.”
That part is true, but did he have to say lover?
“I did go to Jack’s, but I left both of them alive,” I say. Again I think, I am the victim and I will the detective to see it.
“When I returned home from work yesterday, the left side of Pair One’s cubby sat empty. Jack had been over to get his things, and by the lingering smell of perfume in the house, I knew she came with him. They were the only people in my house yesterday.” She had already admitted she loved my shoe collection months ago. She’d once been my so-called new friend, all chatty and asking a zillion questions, and then Jack walks in, and her eyes pop.
“Of course, I accused them of stealing my shoe. It’s completely like Jack to take one shoe just to piss me off.”
“It must have been hard. Being replaced by a younger woman.”
At least he hadn’t said a younger, thinner woman. “Well, if we’d had anything worth anything, he wouldn’t have left me for her. Best to know where I stand right now than continue living a life that’s a charade.”
The detective tilts his head in apparent thought at this, and then rubs the dark stubble flecked with red that lines his jaw. He closes his notebook, and I think, This is it. I’m free to go. I’ve surprised him with my coolness, my acceptance. I’m not crying and blubbering and raging around slamming my fists to the table like a dumped partner. He knows I’m innocent. I am the victim.
“Your fingerprints were all over the murder weapon.”
“You mean the shoe. Of course, they were. It’s my shoe.”
“You suspected Jack and his new girlfriend stole a single shoe to taunt you. A joke sent you into a rage. I think you hid in the bushes and tackled her, then you stabbed her repeatedly with the high heel of the stolen shoe’s mate.”
Okay, now this guy is just an idiot in nice shoes.
“Its five-inch heel was plunged into her carotid artery, according to the medical examiner.”
I look to the table. My poor baby sitting in the evidence bag without air. I hate how it looks now, the heel soaked in her blood, and blood spatters all over the upper.
“After the screaming match over the stolen shoe, the one the neighbors reported, you waited outside in the garden, and when she went for a jog, you took out your revenge, didn’t you?”
“Did Jack tell you all this? Are you going to believe everything Jack says? Maybe I didn’t care as much about Jack as Jack thinks. And his new girlfriend and I were surprisingly cool around one another. We both like shoes and I know she really liked my collection. I didn’t hate her and I didn’t kill her.”
He leans back, his lips apart, and his eyes squinting.
I cross my arms, wincing as I sink down into my chair, the hard wood slats making my lower back twinge with pain. My thoughts scramble from I need a lawyer to My plans for tomorrow are absolute rubbish now to why didn’t I buy trip insurance? I don’t know of anyone who would post my bail, so I’ll probably be sleeping in jail tonight, and there’ll be no one to tuck my shoes in. I picture the tiny white cubicles, unkempt and alone.
I weep.
Detective Shiny Shoe nudges a box of Kleenex at me.
“I understand you have a big trip planned. You understand, if I let you go tonight, you can’t take that trip. You have to stay in town.”
I blow my nose with more power than I intend, the loud honk much like a horn in the tiny interrogation room. He’s really letting me go.
“Yes, I’ve been planning a trip around the world. I go to Paris tomorrow to search the antique markets for a 1960s’ Chanel nude pump with a black toe. It shortens the foot while elongating the leg, you know. And then—”
“And then, you continue your elaborate escape while shoe shopping in Paris.”
“No. I was going to say, I’m going to Florence to shop leather. Did you know you can stay in a centuries-old villa overlooking Florence where Dante himself stayed? From the villa, I can walk to the bus stop and go to a variety of artisan shoemakers and then the Duomo. I have it all mapped out. It’s my dream come true.”
“You’re not going on your dream-come-true trip now. Understand?”
“You can check the booking dates. You’ll see my plans were made long before last night’s events. Why would I risk my trip? Why would I want her blood on my shoe?”
“I did check, which is why I’m not arresting you now. Lock your doors tonight and call me if anything out of the ordinary happens. And I mean anything.” The detective stands, pockets his Chapsticks, and places his card in front of me, suddenly in a rush to leave the tiny room of eau de lemon cigar curry.
“I can leave? Just like that?”
“Uh-huh. Like that.”
“Free,” I say, though I don’t know how I’ll get home without my car. They carted me up here, wide-eyed and annoyed, all my neighbors peering out their windows
“And Faerie? I don’t have a wife. I buy my own shoes, possibly secondhand at times,” he says with a slight shrug and a grin before glancing at his loafers.
He taps them once as if beckoning me. I squeeze my legs together and waddle to the bathroom, my heart pounding. I’m free. Free! But what did he mean about locking my door tonight? The detective sounded like he thought I might end up with a stiletto in my carotid, with all his call me for anything.
When I step out of the precinct washroom, he waits. He leans against the wall in a black leather jacket. Combined with his growing stubble, it gives him a rugged look that makes me suck in my stomach and swear off Lay’s potato chips.
“I’ll take you home, Faerie.”
I follow on the heels of the Italian loafers.
“It’s the house that looks like a giant shoe, right?” he says, giving me a side eye.
“Shut up,” I say under my breath, unsure if he heard and unsure if I care.
On the silent drive home, I count fourteen Chapsticks in his car. He parks and I go to open my car door, but he holds up a finger for me to wait.
“I mean it, Faerie. If anyone comes to the door tonight, don’t answer it. Call me—immediately—don’t even think.”
Don’t even think. I nod and grimace, choking down a hysteric laugh. I wander into my empty house, the faint smell of bacon lingering in the kitchen. I try to remember something, but the something’s out of reach and all I can think of is my shoes. I lock the door behind me and peek out the window to watch the detective walk away.
I go straight to my shoe room and gather my favorite pairs, my arms full. I drop them on the bed as they’re sleeping with me tonight for safety. I arrange them on the bed, placing them at careful angles so I can see them all, and try to decide on Pair One’s replacement for the trip. So torn between a navy patent with a gold heel and a black studded stiletto, I’m about to choose my Chuck Taylors when out of the corner of my eye, I see that my closet door sits ajar. I rush over and shut it, annoyed by a memory. Then an icy thought crawls up my spine and it’s the something out of reach: I don’t remember cooking bacon this morning.
A blinding light floods my bedroom window, making my heart race. I lunge forward and crawl across my bed to crack open the blinds and peer out. Despite Jack’s arguing it was unnecessary, I had installed the brightest motion detecting lights I could find a few years ago. Now, anyone who steps into my backyard after twilight gets a nasty—click. A figure stands there.
“It’s Detective Bergeroo, Ms. Culpepper. I’m checking out your grounds. Can you turn your lights off?”
So, that’s what his name is. “The lights will go out on by themselves in fifteen minutes.” I turn back on my pillow, ignoring the bleaching white light, and waiting for his reply to that. You didn’t say please, Detective Bergeroo.
Something rustles. I sit up. The rustle’s followed by a metallic zinging sound. Outside? No. Inside. Unless he’s capable of teleportation, it can’t be the detective, and now my heart thunders in my ears as I squeeze the covers between my fists. A muffled male roar follows the zing. I now realize it comes from a cubicle off its track in the shoe room.
I grab the baseball bat that I’ve kept by my bed ever since Jack moved out. On tiptoe, I ease toward the shoe room, realizing I hear breathing that’s not my own.
Someone’s in my house. They left my closet door open and they ate my bacon. I need to get to the door and call Detective Bergeroo-Shiny Shoe. He has to still be nearby, doesn’t he? I make it out of the room and down the hall.
Ooomphf. The impact of a hand over my mouth slams my head to the wall. I drop the bat from the force, the aluminum pinging as it rolls away on the wooden floor of the hallway.
“You crazy bitch.”
Jack, with bacon breath and the stolen cherry leather stiletto in his hand, is red-faced and fuming. He shakes the shoe heel at me and squeezes me to the wall as I struggle for air.
“We were just playing a joke on you. Why’d you have to kill her? How sick are you? You killed her with a shoe!”
I manage to gather enough of his flesh between my teeth to bite until he releases me, and I then scream for Detective Bergeroo. I try to run, but Jack drags me down and gets on top of me. He presses the shoe heel against my neck. I get hold of his thumb and bite again.
My front door busts open, the wood splintering, and I hear running footsteps coming toward us in the hall. I picture Detective Bergeroo, his service weapon drawn, but all I see is the looming face of mad Jack, howling in pain. The shoe heel and its sharp edges are only inches from my throat. Jack presses it down and I feel it pierce my skin.
“Drop the shoe, Jack.” Detective Bergeroo grabs him by the shoulders and twists him off of me. “Faerie, are you all right?”
To my horror, I see Jack raise the shoe over the detective’s head and start to swing.
A boom. My ears vibrate in pain, the shock waves pulse through me, and time slows. Jack freezes. He falls on top of me.
Liquid warmth grows between us, and I’m not sure if it’s his blood or mine. I try to breathe under Jack’s weight and I watch the ceiling morph black around the edges until I hear Detective Bergeroo’s voice again, calling me, and then I feel his hands prying Jack’s hands from my neck. He shoves Jack’s body to the side, the metallic smell of blood rising in the air.
He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket, and presses it to my throat as I stand up, flinch to get away from the dead body, and swipe up the fallen stiletto along the way. What a kill shot, Detective Bergeroo.
“Well, Miss Culpepper. I guess you see now why I let you go tonight. We already had dirt on Jack. Something to do with his girlfriend having another boyfriend, some damning emails, and a rank search engine history.”
I let out a low whistle.
“Oh, thank you, Detective Bergeroo,” I say. I throw my arms around him, and with shoe dangling in tow, I kiss those hot lips so he can’t see my face or read my mind.
It sure didn’t take much to get rid of those two.
No one messes with my shoes.