Chapter 17

“That did not just happen.”

I said it out loud as soon as I was inside the house.

“That could not have just happened.”

But it had. After six months of simmering looks and undeniable attraction, Hector and I had shared a kiss. An epic kiss. A phenomenal kiss. The kind of kiss they make whole movies about. Good movies.

And then he’d walked away.

“Does every man on this planet exist just to drive me crazy?” I asked the empty room.

There was no answer.

There was, however, wine.

  

“Did you hear? Can you believe it?” Lisa greeted me when I staggered into a busy Café Madeline the next morning somewhat the worse for wear. Or, at least, somewhat the worse for having been passionately embraced and wordlessly abandoned, and having fruitlessly searched for an explanation in a bottle of merlot.

“Heard what?” I asked, not taking my sunglasses off. “And I can’t believe anything, anymore.”

She slid a hot mug of salvation across the counter toward me. “They just announced what killed Tommy,” she said. “I heard it on the radio.”

I drank deeply, afraid to ask. “Bee pollen?”

“Arsenic.”

I took my sunglasses off and blinked at her in the bright morning light. “Arsenic?”

“As in old-school, classic, straight-from-an-Agatha-Christie poison,” she nodded.

“How?”

Our conversation so far had been at the counter, crowded with Sunday morning brunchers. Now she gestured toward our usual window table, where a young couple was just leaving. Once we sat she leaned forward. “It was in his orange juice.”

“Orange—? Is that what he drank in his car?”

“Room Service at the Four Seasons confirmed that he’d ordered a large orange juice in a travel mug that morning,” she nodded. “He must have taken it with him and not had any until he parked.”

“The police tested it?”

“They must have, because the news said it was highly concentrated,” she confirmed. “The arsenic, not the juice.”

“No, I’m sure the juice at the Four Seasons is freshly squeezed,” I said, a little dazed. Then I focused. “How did the poison get in the juice? Was the room service guy an assassin?”

“They didn’t get into that on the radio.” Lisa shrugged. “But can you believe it? Where do you even get arsenic these days?”

“I don’t know.” I had my phone in my hand before I thought the better of it. I put it on the table. “If I wasn’t afraid my search history would be used against me, I’d look it up,” I said.

“What do you mean, used against you? Nobody thinks you…?”

I gave her a look. “Yesterday was quite a day.”

She regarded me for a moment, then flagged down a passing server. “Chip,” she said, pointing to me, “the lady’s going to need a caramel chocolate baby cake.” She turned back to me. “Because I’m going to need to hear everything.”

  

“Oh, Nora, you don’t look so hot.”

Trixie was waiting for me as I let myself into the lobby and turned off the alarm. I looked at my reflection in the glass doors and had to admit she wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t even bothered to pull my hair into a ponytail, and there were dark purplish craters under my eyes.

“If anybody ever offers you caramel chocolate baby cake for breakfast after you had wine for dinner,” I advised her, “say no.” I put the box with our daily order of cookies from Lisa’s shop on the glass top of the concessions stand.

“Gee,” she blinked. “Can I do anything for you?”

“Unless you’ve got a working time machine, probably not. But how about if you keep me company?” I said. “We can read all about Tommy’s murder.”

“Ooh! Are we going to investigate?” She scampered up the stairs beside me.

“Let’s start with reading and take it from there.”

  

“Why, anybody can get arsenic,” Trixie said breezily. “Ask at the pharmacy. They don’t keep it out on the shelves, but they have it behind the counter. Or you could just go to the five and dime and buy rat poison. That has arsenic in it.”

We’d just spent an hour or so on the computer in my office, pouring over all the online reports about Tommy’s death. The facts seemed clear: There were high levels of arsenic in the orange juice that Tommy drank in his car. At such a concentrated dose it would have taken effect almost immediately, resulting in the quick and dramatic death I’d witnessed. Where the arsenic came from, and how it had gotten into the juice, were unknown.

Which is why we were discussing where to get arsenic. Apparently in Trixie’s day it had been easy as pie to pick up a little deadly toxin while running errands. I didn’t have the heart to tell her there hadn’t been a five and dime in the neighborhood for fifty years.

“Rules have gotten tighter about that sort of thing,” I said instead. “But I’ve seen people get it in old movies. Didn’t you have to sign a poison book or something, so there would be a record?”

“Sure,” she nodded. “Just in case you were planning on taking care of your husband instead of the rats.”

“Right,” I said, thinking of my husband the rat. “It isn’t that easy to get anymore.”

She blinked. “Then how do you kill rats?”

“Um…traps?” I really didn’t know. Maybe there just weren’t as many these days. Maybe all the other poisons of modern life kept the population down.

“Talking of arsenic reminds me of my sister Betty,” Trixie said, perching on the arm of the couch. “Isn’t that funny?”

“You’re not about to tell me your sister was a poisoner?”

“No, silly, she was a seamstress. And she never liked to work with green fabric because it was supposed to be bad luck. But that’s because in the olden days—the Victorian times, you know—they used to use arsenic to color the fabric this really pretty green. Girls who worked in the mills used to die all the time from it, and it poisoned the ladies who wore green dresses and gloves, but they didn’t even know why. Isn’t that sad?”

“It’s awful.” I forgot, sometimes, how far removed Trixie’s living years had been from mine. She was closer to the Victorians in their poisoned dresses than she was to the millennials who made popcorn at the Palace.

“Gee, I haven’t thought about Betty in ages,” Trixie said wistfully. Then, right about when my heart was aching for her, she shook herself and smiled brightly. “Anyway, I’m sure there’s some arsenic around here somewhere. Why, we used to use it all the time for rats and mice.”

“I sincerely hope it’s long gone,” I told her. Particularly if the police still suspected me of having anything to do with the murders. I’d hate to be caught with a cupboardful of vintage poison just lying around. Did arsenic go bad? That was probably another question I shouldn’t have in my browser history.

We were just about to take a look at what wild stories the gamer blogs were spinning about Tommy’s death when my phone pinged with an incoming message. It was from Callie.

 

Hey, Nora. I’m down in the prop room. Anything you want to tell me about this rack of fabulous gowns?

 

I looked up at Trixie. “Um, I’m going to need a minute.”

  

“What do you mean you forgot all about them?”

I’d just told Callie how six famous gowns had found their way into our prop room last Thursday. And how that had slipped my mind.

“How could you forget you had Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ gown hanging in the prop room?” she demanded.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I bristled. “Little things like witnessing murders and being questioned by the police tend to be somewhat distracting.”

“Sure,” she said. “Except Marilyn Monroe’s gowns!”

I saw her point.

“What about all the rest of it?” she asked, looking at the mess I’d made of unpacking all my other possessions the other day. “It looks like a tornado hit Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Again, I saw her point. “I need to figure that out.”

“You think?”

I perched on a table and took it all in. “I can’t believe it’s come to this.”

Callie sat next to me. “Look. Your husband is shady AF, and it literally sucks that he took all your money, but…damn. Those are some gorgeous gowns.”

“Gorgeous gowns I can’t do a thing with,” I told her. “I can’t sell them, I can’t even exhibit them, without proof of authenticity.”

“And Ted didn’t send that?” she asked.

“He just sent a note, saying he needs me,” I said darkly.

“Oh,” she said, then “Oooooh,” as if she suddenly understood.

“Oh, what?”

“Oh, he’s holding you hostage,” she explained. “Or he’s holding the gowns hostage.” She waved her hands. “Either way. He said he needs you, right? I bet what he means is he needs you to do something for him. And I bet the receipts or whatever he has for the dresses are his leverage. You do him the favor and he gives you the stuff you need to be able to sell them, if that’s what you want.”

I stared at her. “You’re right.” How had I not seen it? “That rat! Why hasn’t he told me what he wants?”

She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he just give you the money he owes you? Your man is shady.”

“He’s not my man.” I reminded her as I pulled out my phone to send him a text. Then I changed my mind. Ted needed something from me. Something worth a substantial investment in Hollywood couture. Let him stew.

“Meanwhile…” Callie said.

I looked at the glittering rack. “Right. Meanwhile, I have no idea what to do with the gowns.”

“The gorgeous, historically important, incredible gowns?” Callie said.

“Right, those.” I’d swathed them in a clean sheet the other day before abandoning them, but Callie had removed it when she’d discovered them. They shimmered and glinted, winking at me. “Robbie told me I should call a museum.”

“Never mind a museum.” Callie typed something into her phone. “I’ll ask my mom.”

“Your mom? Is she a collector?” Nothing about Lillian Gee would surprise me.

“She’s more of, like, a wearer, but I know she gets her furs stored somewhere in the summertime.” Realizing how that sounded, Callie shot me a look. “Yes, I said her furs. She lives in California and has furs. Do you have something to say about that?”

I gave her wide eyes. “Not a thing.”

“That’s right you don’t.” Callie nodded and went back to her phone. “I make her donate to PETA every year when she gets them out, but I can’t stand it when other people, like, judge her.”

“Mothers are complicated,” I said, hoping to sound supportive.

“Don’t let mine see these gowns,” she warned. “She would literally insist on trying them on.” She tapped something on her phone. “Done.” My phone chimed with an incoming text. It was the address and phone number of a professional garment storage facility located South of Market.

“I should come to you with all my problems,” I said. “Oh, can you ask your father if he knows an allergist, or where to get arsenic?”

She stared at me. “I’m going to need you to, like, explain a little.”

I nodded. “S Banks died from bee pollen. I was thinking an allergist might be able to say how common that is, and how allergic a person would have to be to actually die from it, or how much pollen they’d have to be exposed to.”

“Uh huh,” Callie said, her face blank. “And the, um, arsenic thing?”

“Haven’t you heard? Tommy was poisoned with arsenic in his orange juice.”

She nodded, but her phone pinged with a text before she could answer. She read it, swore, then stood and faced me. “Don’t freak out.”

I’d have to remember how counterproductive those words were the next time I used them. “What’s going on?”

“I mean, it’s no big deal, but you might want to, like, take a step back from the murders for a while.”

I had a very bad feeling about this. “What was in that text, Callie?”

“I mean, it’s just Brandon. He’s upstairs looking for you.”

My eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Um…because people are, like, saying you killed Tommy?”

“Oh, that.” I waved my hand, relieved. “I told you Detective Jackson just had to ask me a few questions. He doesn’t seriously think—”

“I don’t mean Detective Jackson,” Callie interrupted. “I mean, like, people.”

I looked at her. “What people?”

She held up her phone. “People, people.”

She meant the Internet. The Internet thought I was a murderer.