Twenty

Having two of something normally was a good thing. Socks. Dumbbells. Twinkies. Earrings. Shoes. Parents. Boyfriends. The list went on and on. Unfortunately, it didn’t include murder suspects.

I thought about the latest revelation as I attempted an awkward
K-turn while Victory stood on his lawn and watched. I could still see him in my rearview mirror as I turned back onto Vermont. Living there was a good reason for being in the area, and maybe that’s why “Jamie Smith” led us here during our goose chase. He was going home.

Victory hadn’t even bothered to come up with an alibi. Marina, on the other hand, did come up with one. It was just shaky as all get-out. Not to mention the influx of cash that had found its way into her bank account. When we got to the next light, I was ready to talk my thoughts out with Aubrey. “So we have two strong suspects.”

He looked genuinely confused. “One.”

“Victory, that’s one. And Marina, that’s two. You got my message, right?”

“I would not refer to Ms. Choi as a strong suspect.”

“She lied about her alibi.”

“You think she lied about her alibi. She could have not wanted to be photographed. Perhaps because she was drinking underage.”

“What about the hat? She goes to USC.”

“The Trojans are the top-ranked football team in the country. If we arrested everyone who wore their paraphernalia, there would only be two people left in all of Los Angeles.”

“She came into money,” I said, making sure not to get into the specifics of how I knew that. “Enough to help with her tuition.”

“Very nice, Ms. Anderson, but also very circumstantial. We can place Mr. Malone at the scene of our car chase. He was probably heading home.”

“But you can’t prove that,” I said, conveniently forgetting I’d just had the exact same thought.

“Mr. Malone also has no alibi.”

“If he killed her, wouldn’t he be smart enough to create an alibi?” I was well aware I was whining.

“You are referring to someone who got caught stealing a car from his own neighborhood. Smart is not part of his equation. When you do not give an alibi, there is no chance of anyone saying your alibi is a lie. I have a few additional things I want to look into in regards to Mr. Malone.”

He wasn’t the only one who could investigate. “Fine. I’m going to go see this Allie. Prove Marina’s alibi is fake.”

I wish I could say he got out the car at that point, but we still had five more minutes driving together. It felt like five hours. He spent the entire time lecturing me on proper lane-changing technique and pointing out things like traffic lights and other cars.

As soon as I got rid of him, I pulled out my tablet to hunt down Allie. I started with her Facebook page. It was private, but I could still see the basics. She wore a cheerleader uniform in her profile pic. Her hometown was listed as Crater Falls, Iowa, and her place of employment was the Forever 21 at the Americana.

Bingo.

Next, I placed two calls—phone card be darned. The first letting Emme know I’d be late. The second to Forever 21. It took a simple “Is Allie working today?” to confirm she was.

Getting Allie to break Marina’s alibi probably wouldn’t be so easy. I got on the 110 North and tried to figure out my best approach. In a perfect world, I’d walk up and ask if Marina was at her party, then walk out with an answer and a cute pair of jeans that were on sale. Unfortunately, this was the real world. For some strange reason, people didn’t react kindly to strangers asking them to implicate a friend in a murder.

I had no clue how to play it. I came up with nada on the drive over, so I had no choice but to wing it when I got there.

I parked in back of the garage to avoid the growing crowd of people stopping by during their lunch break and made my way to Forever 21. As soon as I stepped inside the over-air-conditioned store, Allie was easy to spot. She looked just like her Facebook party photos. Only sober. I plastered on my sweetest smile and sashayed over. Allie’s saleswoman spidey senses must have been on full alert because she turned when I got within five feet of her orbit and smiled. “Can I help you?”

Good question. I opened my mouth and prayed for brilliance to come out. Instead, I said, “Uhhh … ”

I was still dragging the word out when I saw her face change. “I know you. You went to Hanover High, right?”

And there it was. I opened my mouth again, all ready to explain I didn’t attend Hanover High. That she didn’t know me from a hole in the wall. That I happened to be on TV once upon a time selling fried chicken and my soul. “Yep,” I said then flashed back to her Facebook profile. “In Crater Falls.”

I silently talked to the man above, praying for forgiveness and thanking him for the invention of Facebook, and then spoke out loud. “You look super familiar too. Kinda like this cheerleader I went to high school with … Allie.”

“I am Allie! Oh my God, it’s been forever. How are you?”

She leaned in for a hug. I had a good five years on her but she didn’t seem to notice. Black don’t crack and all that. “I know! You look great, Allie.”

“You too … ”

She stretched that last word out, as if hoping to remember my name. I decided to help her out. “Dayna.”

“ … Dayna. Oh my God. You hung out with Sassy?”

“Yep. That was my bestie.”

“Oh my God. How is she?”

“Great. She’s thinking about law school.”

“Really? She rang me up at Stop and Shop last time I was home.”

Oops. I immediately changed the subject. “I actually heard you were out here. I ran into someone who knows you. I was at this spot in Silver Lake. Clothes Encounters. This girl, I forgot her name. She was Asian, had braces.”

“Marina! Oh my God! I love Marina!”

“Yes, Marina! We started chatting. Found out we both knew you. Small world, right? She mentioned she hadn’t seen you in a while and I was like, ‘Oh my God. I got you beat. I haven’t seen her since high school!’”

“Yeah, it’s been months and months since I’ve seen Marina. Oh my God. I should call her.”

Months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My thoughts had more exclamation points than the name of Allie’s photo album. I was right. Marina had lied about her alibi. “Months?” I asked, albeit a lot more calmly.

“I invited her to my birthday party, but she didn’t make it. Oh my God, I wish I’d known you were out here. I would have invited you.”

I tried to keep the excitement out my voice. “I’ll definitely come next year. Well, I should go.”

It was abrupt, but if I stayed any longer, Allie was bound to see me break out in song and dance. And I might ruin the stereotype that all black people had rhythm. I turned to go, but Allie stopped me. “Have you heard about Sharon Cassidy?”

“No.” It was the first truthful thing I’d said since meeting her.

“Oh my God! Pregnant again. Three kids. Three baby daddies.”

“What?” Three kids by three different men before twenty-one was kind of a lot.

Allie spent the next ten minutes updating me on all the Hanover High gossip. Donald Whathisname lost his football scholarship to Wayne State. Maiya Whosit had gone lesbian her junior year but then ended up marrying a dude. Cara Thingamajig was now dating Principal Martin. Sassy’s law school aspirations would be a Facebook thread before I left the store.

I finally was able to claw my way out the door. To say I was excited would be an understatement. If I had enough minutes on my phone, I’d call Aubrey and scream “nani nani poo poo” while sticking out my tongue and putting thumbs in each ear.

As I drove to Toni’s house, I put on a full-length concert in my car, singing along to the radio as it played “old school” hits barely five years old. I was driving up the road to her house when I saw Emme standing on the side of it, next to the fence that separated Toni’s street from the public road. I stopped and rolled down the window. “Hey, sexy! Need a ride? Where can Daddy take you?”

She smiled when she saw me. She opened her mouth to speak but the voice I heard was decidedly male. “You got enough room for two?” Omari emerged from a hole in the fence.

I smiled at the sight of him, then remembered he had a girlfriend. Maybe. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

He assumed I wanted to know why they were outside. “Trying to figure out how Haley and her partner got past the security guard,” he said. “We think they parked on the side of the road and cut a hole in the fence.”

I was torn. Part of me was intrigued, the other part of me was still mad Omari was there. Emme could tell, too, because she spoke. “Any luck on your end?”

“Some. Marina’s alibi is shot. Allie confirmed she wasn’t at the party. Victory has no alibi the night Haley died.”

I was about to say more when we were interrupted. “Everything okay here, Ms. Abrams?” The security guard from the other day rolled up in his golf cart.

“Yes,” Emme said. “Just out for a walk.”

She and Omari jumped in my car. Omari took the front seat. He smiled when we made eye contact. Why was he in such a good mood? His girlfriend must have given him some that morning before she left to go be famous. I glared at the thought. “Seriously, what are you doing here?”

“Glad you’re happy to see me,” he said.

“No, like seriously.”

“I was third runner-up. She called me in a panic an hour ago and said you’d bailed on helping her.”

I fastened my glare on Emme, who didn’t even look at me. “You did,” she said.

“I told you I was coming. I just didn’t know when.” Emme rolled her eyes as I refocused on Omari. “You didn’t have plans?”

“Oh, I did. Plans with the most fascinating person on Earth,” he said.

Was that his A-list girlfriend? Was this the aforementioned mind-blowing sex? I was almost afraid to ask. “Who would be … ?”

“Me, myself, and I. I was gonna watch The Wire.”

Just like that, we were friends again. The Wire was great but not greater than mind-blowing sex. No way he’d choose a TV marathon over a sex marathon. It was looking more like Sienna was right. The blind item was BS. “Which season?”

“Four.”

Good choice. We pulled into Toni’s driveway and trooped inside. “We’ve spent all afternoon in the closet,” Emme said. “We’re done with the clothes and on to shoes.”

She didn’t sound like she looked forward to it. I couldn’t blame her. Out of all the rooms, Toni’s interior designer had spent the most time on where Toni hung her clothes. The hard work had paid off. It wasn’t a closet as much as a showroom. I’d never been to Rhode Island, but rumor was Toni’s closet was bigger.

The centerpiece was the shoes. It was clear where Sienna had gotten her inspiration for my bloset because Toni’s collection was lined neatly on shelves on two walls. Her stylist had left them in boxes and carefully attached a photo of each pair to the box for easy pickings.

I took it all in as they ran me through what they’d been doing. We were to go through each box to see which shoes were missing. It’d have been easier if Haley and her partner had left the empty boxes in a pile on the floor. They hadn’t. What did it say that Toni’s burgled closet was neater than my non-burgled one?

“If they’re missing, take the photo and put it in a pile over there.” Emme motioned to a pile just as her phone rang. She checked it. “It’s Ben. BRB.”

Once she left, Omari and I got started without her. It would have been more effective to start on opposite sides and work our way to the middle, so, of course, he wanted to start on the same side. Since he was taller, he went for the top shelf. I started at the bottom. He pointed to a photo of silver stiletto sandals. “No way they took these,”

“Au contraire,” I said. “Those are the Prada. Definitely goners.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Bring it on.”

He reached for the box. I could tell it was empty by the way his face dropped. “Wanna go for round two?” he asked.

I pointed to the nearest photo, a pair of simple black platform heels. “Red soles,” Omari said. “Those are Louwhoevers. Definitely gone.”

“Definitely last season. They’re here.” I grabbed the box. Sure enough, it wasn’t empty. “Three out of four?” I asked.

It was his turn, so he grabbed a photo. It was a stiletto with a Pink Panther print. “Oh, these are definitely still here. Every other chick I see on the street has these on. Bet Haley already owned these. Or at least already had stolen them from someone else.”

“Those are definitely gone.”

Of course, I was right. He looked at me with admiration. “I forgot you were the Shoe Whisperer.”

“More like every girl you’ve seen has a knockoff. That shoe was the original, made just for Toni by Mr. Louboutin himself. The only difference is Toni’s has a five-inch heel.” I glanced at the photo. “I will say Haley had taste. I would’ve stolen these myself if Toni’s feet weren’t so freaking small.”

We laughed like we used to, then spent the next few minutes working in a comfortable silence. After a few boxes, he spoke up. “So I know your excuse for being late. What’s Sienna’s?”

“She’s redecorating our place in anticipation of her reality show being picked up.”

He didn’t even blink. “Right,” he said. “About—”

“Her quest to set a world record for wearing red every day.”

“Let me guess, you’ll be wearing blue.”

“You know blue’s not my color. I was thinking lime green.” Then I got serious. “She and her new manager are shooting a teaser but I’m not gonna be in it. I’m retired. You know that.”

He ignored that. “Seems like this manager’s legit, at least.”

“I hope so. He’s all she talks about. ‘Montgomery said this. Montgomery did that.’ She even told me the other day they both agreed I should stop investigating because it’s getting too dangerous. You believe that?” He shrugged. “You’re the only one who hasn’t told me I was stupid, foolish, or crazy for doing this.”

“Because I know you’ll quit.” He had the nerve to laugh after he said it.

“Why would you think I’d quit?”

He looked at me and saw I was not amused. He sighed out an answer. “Because that’s your MO, Day. At the first sign of trouble, you quit.”

“That’s bull.”

“Monopoly,” he said.

“That game takes forever.”

“Harold Miller.”

“I was going away to college.”

“Business school.”

“To follow my dreams.”

“Acting.”

He had me there. “Retiring and quitting are two different things,” I said.

“You don’t ‘retire’ if it’s really your dream.” He actually used air quotes. “I didn’t. Took me almost ten years. Sienna hasn’t.”

“Emme also quit acting.”

“She was five.”

He had a point, but still. Emme and Toni had shared the role of the precocious youngster on a family sitcom back in the day. Emme hated every minute of it and retired as soon as the show was canceled. Toni, obviously, had not. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “She still quit, as you call it.”

“You’ll quit this, too.”

I hated how sure of himself he sounded. All the good will I felt for him possibly not having a girlfriend evaporated. In fact, I suddenly hoped he not only had one, but that she cheated on him every chance she got and gave him an STD. Pissed, I yanked a shoe box off the wall. The photo was for a horrid pair of black flats. I didn’t even know why Toni kept them. I ripped the box open and looked inside.

That’s when I screamed, dropping the box in the process. Photos rained down like dollar bills in a strip club.