Twenty-Five

The rest of the night felt like a movie montage. Mainly because I was so in shock I only remember dribs and drabs. Aubrey ushering us out of the house while calling 911. The police responding way more quickly than they did for Todd. Answering the same questions over and over—just for different people. The cops letting us go. And, finally, me announcing to Sienna and Aubrey I was done playing investigator. I would just have to find a different way to help my parents out.

Omari could call me a quitter all he wanted. I’d get the word tattooed on my forehead if it meant staying alive. Let the police and Aubrey figure that crap out. I was finished, even if it meant someone got away with a murder—or in this case, two. It was better than three.

I went back to what I did best: looking for a job and not finding one. Yes, I was dead broke but it sure beat being just plain dead. The next few days involved a lot of phone calls to temp agencies I’d signed up with. I even signed up with a few new ones. Montgomery let me lie on my résumé and say I’d been his assistant. It made me find him a tad less annoying, especially when one of the new agencies immediately found me a few one-day assignments. It wasn’t much, but I happily took it.

Victory’s death made big news. The TV anchors reported that he’d been strangled with his own belt. If the police thought it was connected to Haley’s death and the Rack Pack, no one had informed the media. Their official theory was drug deal gone wrong. I knew better but wasn’t saying a word.

Sienna wanted to go to Victory’s funeral, but luckily I had to temp that day. Though I wouldn’t have gone even if I didn’t. It felt wrong to go when I was the one responsible for his death. The idea that I’d told him something that led to him dying was too much. My guilt could fill the Hollywood Bowl. Victory was an a-hole, but even a-holes don’t deserve to die.

A couple days after the funeral, my phone rang at precisely 11:08 a.m. I was expecting a temp agency. Instead, I got my mother. “Boop, they’re taking the house!”

I sucked in a breath. The jig was up. I wondered if my father knew. “What do you mean?” I asked, stalling for time.

“This here paper says we got one month till we have to leave the house. My house.”

“It’s a misunderstanding, Mama. There’s nothing wrong with the house.” I paced around the room. If God planned to strike me with lightning, I wanted to be a moving target. “Did Daddy see it?”

“He’s at work.”

Eek. The last thing I wanted was for my unsuspecting father to walk in on my mother mid-hysterics. I’d done it more times than I could count and each time was worse than the time before it. I needed to placate her. Stat. “I’ll call the bank and get it straightened out.”

I hoped that would pacify her, but it didn’t. “You gonna tell the neighbors that too?”

“They stick a big ‘Foreclosure’ sign on the lawn that everyone can read?” I’d seen that in a movie once. It was quite embarrassing.

“They stuck a piece of paper on the door.”

“Then, Mama, you’re fine. The neighbors probably thought it was a flier.”

“I don’t think so. Miss Jenkins looked at me funny this morning when I waved.”

Miss Jenkins looked at her funny every morning. “She probably was just mad because she thought the flier people skipped her house.” Miss Jenkins was like that.

My mother hemmed and hawed for a bit, then decided I had a point. “You’re gonna let me know soon as it’s straightened out … ”

“Of course. Let me get off the phone so I can call them now.”

“Okay,” she said and kept talking like she hadn’t heard me. “I was coming back from Bed, Bath & Beyond when I saw that foreclosure paper. They had the prettiest curtains. Figure I could save up, maybe have enough to get them in a few months. ’Course they’re on sale now. Don’t know if they’ll be then. Hate to pay full price.”

I let her ramble. She was waiting for me to interrupt and offer to send money. I was tempted to tell her no, but then I thought about my father. The better mood that I could get her in, the better for Daddy’s sanity—and safety. “I can always send you the money.”

“No. I couldn’t let you do that.” I must’ve gotten my acting skills from her because she sounded like she meant it.

Knowing my part of this script well, my next line came quick. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Well, if you insist.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I immediately called Daddy’s job but he was already gone for the day. He didn’t have a cell phone so there was no way to warn him about Mama. I could only hope that she was too busy daydreaming about curtains to notice that he’d come home.

Of course, now I had to make a hundred dollars more appear out of thin air. My miniscule temp money was already assigned to my own bills. I knew what I finally needed to do. It was something I’d been avoiding, but couldn’t any longer.

I went to the basement where Sienna’s storage unit waited, chock-full of two walk-in closets’ worth of my old size fours. At one point I’d been tempted to burn them in effigy for my failed career. But I’d kept them for a reason. I just assumed that reason would be I’d be able to fit in them again one day.

Grabbing two of Sienna’s largest, most overpriced designer suitcases, I threw in every single article of clothing without even looking. You’d think they wouldn’t all fit, but you have to take into account the length, or lack thereof, of my former wardrobe. The entire process took two minutes tops.

Factor in another five minutes to roll the suitcases to the car and an additional twenty-five sitting in traffic, and I was standing in front of Betty at a practically deserted Clothes Encounters within the hour. She was back from her vacation and judging by the new rock on her left ring finger, it had been a very, very, very good trip.

Her eyes flicked to the suitcase I had dramatically dropped on its side and flung open. Clothes spilled out, desperate to make their escape. It was as if they knew their fate. “We do a sixty/forty cut,” she said. “And I don’t take anything from H&M.”

“It’s all designer,” I said. “Just a couple of seasons old.”

“Perfect,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

I threw the clothes inside and followed her to the back of the store. As many times as I’d dropped by, I’d never been back there. It was exactly what I’d expected. Clothes hung everywhere, all neatly labeled too. She opened the first door on the left.

Her office was as eccentric and fifties as she was. Lots of pink, of course. The walls were filled with old school glamour shots of Old Hollywood stars in their heyday. Even her computer was a “classic”—a late-nineties hot pink iMac. It sat on a pink chrome Formica table she used as a desk. The two chairs were also vintage. They sat next to a few empty clothes racks. The only unglamorous thing in there—myself excluded—was a large whiteboard hanging on the wall. It had one of those blank calendars, which she had dutifully filled in.

“Have a seat.” She took a suitcase from me and opened it, using a much gentler hand than moi. She examined the clothes while she spoke. “We’ll go through each piece so you can tell me anything I need to know. We’ll look up items online and on eBay to come up with a price. The cut includes all hanging costs. You just need to pick up your check when an item is sold.”

Sounded good to me. We got to work. I heard the bell above the door ring a couple of times, but Betty never stopped. There must’ve been someone I hadn’t seen working the front desk. I hoped it wasn’t Marina. I still wasn’t ready to see her. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

Betty was good at what she did so it only took an hour before she was hanging the final piece on the rack. “You have a nice collection,” she said. “There shouldn’t be any problem getting rid of it.”

That’s when it hit me. I was getting rid of my clothes, as in they wouldn’t belong to me anymore. Someone else would own them. Someone else would wear them. Someone else would wash them and not just pay someone to do it like I did.

I felt like I was giving up a child. Someone else would be wearing my children. Not the best analogy, but it was as gross as I felt. Unaware of my internal crisis, Betty rolled the first rack out the door without giving me a chance to say a proper goodbye. “Let me just get these out of here and we can sign the contract.”

A dress fell off the rack. She stopped. It probably wasn’t a coincidence it was my favorite. I’d worn it during my appearance on the Today show. Of course it would want to stay with me as much I suddenly wanted to stay with it. I grabbed it off the ground, clutching it to my implants.

“Oh, thanks.” Betty sounded like she expected me to hang it back on the rack. That didn’t happen. She sighed, as if this was an everyday occurrence. She walked toward me, slowly holding her hand out. “It’s okay.” She reached for my precious dress, but I leaned back. “I’ll find them all a good home.”

She gently pulled the Today dress from my hands. Surprisingly, I let her. She smiled like everything was okay as she hung the dress back up, but she was quicker when she resumed rolling the rack out. I turned my attention to the second rack and looked at my babies.
I loved them all. I gently ran my fingers over each piece. It became too much. I forced myself to look away.

I made myself examine the photos on the wall. She had some beauties decorating them. Ava Gardner. Elizabeth Taylor. Lana Turner. Movie stars really were so much more glamorous before the invention of TMZ. I turned to the calendar. It looked like Betty used the whiteboard to track everyone’s work schedules, writing in workers’ initials to mark their shifts. There was a BX, which had to be her, MC for what had to be Marina, and finally an NP.

My internal light bulb went off. It wasn’t one of those rinky-dink forty-watt energy efficient ones, either. What if the NP in Haley’s text to Victory didn’t stand for “no problem”? What if it stood for Betty’s other employee, Nat Whatever-her-last-name-was? Was Haley telling Victory that Nat took all the cash from the Kandy Wrapper robbery?

Betty came back in. I called over my shoulder, “What’s Nat’s last name?”

“My last name is Peters. Why?”

I turned with quickness, coming face to face with someone who might just be Haley’s killer. By that point, I had plenty of experience confronting Haley’s would-be killers, so I knew the rules. Rule Number One: Don’t let them know you think they did it. I forced myself to smile as I spoke. “Just wondering.”

I followed it with Rule Number Two: Get out of there as soon as possible unless you have backup. I slipped past her and grabbed my purse. “Tell Betty I had to run. I’ll sign the contract later.”

I hauled butt and soon found myself sitting in my car contemplating this latest development. Could Nat be Haley’s partner-turned-murderer? Even without the initials, she fit the profile. Victory had let it slip that Haley’s partner was a she. Nat had the necessary lady parts. She was also small enough to be the shadowed partner. And she was obsessed with all things Hollywood. I’d never really thought about her because she and Haley didn’t seem close.

I still wasn’t sure. I looked at my Pink Panther pumps and got an idea. It was one of my better ones. Luckily, I’d brought my tablet. I hunted down some free Wi-Fi, logged into Facebook, and loaded the pics from Allie’s twenty-first birthday party. It was Nat’s alibi, but she could have always left the party early. Scrolling through until I found a full-body shot of her, I zoomed in on her shoes.

When I first saw the photo, I’d assumed Nat was like everyone else in Hollywood, rocking knockoffs of Toni’s shoes. Now I realized she was wearing Toni’s shoes. I peered close. The heels were definitely five inches. The knockoffs had gone for a more sell-friendly three-and-a-half. I called the tip line immediately.

“Tip ­li—”

I cut the Voice off. “It’s me. Got something good this time.”

“Oh goodie. They preempted my soaps for the stupid president.”

I chose to ignore that, instead launching into what had happened the last week of my life. I went into Victory’s slip-up, the NP on Haley’s phone matching Nat’s initials, and finally, the photos of Nat wearing Toni’s shoes. “That’s photographic evidence. Has to be enough for an arrest, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re getting us confused with the fashion police,” the Voice said.

A vision invaded my head of some soap opera–handsome prosecutor thrusting a photo at the jury and exclaiming, “Look, they’re not knockoffs.” She had a point.

“I’ll have something more for you in a day or two.” I hung up before I could hear her smart-aleck reply.

I needed more, but I couldn’t just confront Nat. She needed to confess, and I had to be there to catch it. Or at least catch enough to get the police to haul her in. But how? I started my car and pulled away.

I always did my best thinking when I was either in the car or in the shower. It was as if my brain went on stand-by, letting the important things break through the crowd of unimportant crap like what Angelina Jolie wore to the Oscars three years ago (Valentino). Within five minutes, I was busting a U-turn, knowing exactly how I’d get Nat to confess.

I waited until I got to a stoplight to call Emme and beg.