EIGHT

I looked at Connie. “Who was that?”

She held up a finger. “Give it a second.”

The doors to my studio reopened, and the woman walked back in. A shot of adrenaline coursed through me and I braced myself for a confrontation. This time, the woman’s body language was completely different. She was relaxed and appeared happy. I didn’t know what kind of nut job I was dealing with, but I wished I’d had the foresight to ask Tex to meet me back here.

The woman threw one hand up in the air and said, “Ta-da! How was that?”

“How was what?”

“My audition. I mean, I know you aren’t the one who makes the decisions, but you’ve got to have some say in the matter. After all, it was your life too.”

I looked from her to Connie and back. “I’m a little lost.”

“You don’t know who I am?” the woman said. She was surprised. “You mean you really believed I was mad at you? That’s the best possible reaction. Wait until I tell my agent!”

“Your agent? Are you…you are…”

“I’m an actress! And you have just Made. My. Day. I’m Erin Haney.”

I held out my hand awkwardly. “I’m Madison Night.”

“I know. I’d know you anywhere.” She pushed my hand aside. “I’m a hugger!” she exclaimed and threw her arms around me.

When she let go, I took a step back. Connie looked at Erin and applauded. “Great job. You even had me going, and you told me what you were going to do.”

I put both hands up. “Will one of you please tell me what’s going on? I’m officially lost. Did we have an appointment? Am I supposed to know why you were just yelling at me?”

Erin giggled. “I’m an actress. Well, mostly, I’m a dancer, but I want to be an actress. My agent told me about a movie being made about some guy from Dallas, so I came here to check things out. Nobody knows I’m here, either. It’s a research trip so I can get into the mindset of the character. Like method acting, you know?”

“You’re talking about what happened to Hudson,” I said slowly. Before my relationship with Hudson had turned toward romance, he’d been my handyman. And before that, he’d lived a quiet life, avoiding town gossip about a twenty-year-old unsolved murder case where he’d been a person of interest. A few years ago, the killer had resurfaced, and Hudson’s reputation had been shattered. The evidence that connected him to the crime became front-page news. It was then that he dropped his protective walls and I saw the vulnerability he’d kept hidden while we worked together. After that harrowing time in our lives was over, my own emotional walls were left full of cracks.

“You’re his girlfriend, right?” Erin asked.

“Yes, but you do know I have no say in the movie casting,” I said. “To be honest, I thought the project had been abandoned.”

Erin looked unfazed. “That’s how the business works. People talk and ideas move from one company to another until someone decides to take a chance. My agent had coffee with a reporter from Variety who used to date a story scout for the original studio. Casting will take place in Los Angeles with the producer and directors, but I was hoping to spend some time with you while I’m here, pick up some pointers, maybe try out a few scenes. You know better than almost anybody what happened.”

That was true, but it didn’t mean I wanted to reenact it. I glanced back down at Erin’s outfit. “You do know the killer targeted women dressed like Doris Day, right? Do you even know who Doris Day is?”

“Of course, I know who Doris Day is. She’s the mayor of Carmel, California.”

“That’s Clint Eastwood. But she does live there, so points for that.”

“Oh, wait. She was in a Hitchcock movie, and she likes animals, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. She runs an animal foundation.”

“Called Shambala Preserve, right?”

“No, that’s Tippi Hedren.”

“Okay. Hold on, I know this. She’s the one who everybody thought was two years younger than she actually is, right? There was a big scandal when MSN dug up her birth certificate right before her ninety-fifth birthday.”

“I’m not sure how big of a scandal it was, but yes, that was her. You know, that whole case Hudson and I were involved in had to do with one of her most famous movies, Pillow Talk. Maybe you should watch it?”

She waved her hands back and forth in front of her like a toddler who’s being forced to eat peas. “I don’t want anything to cloud my vision,” she said. “Besides, I’m not going for one of the Doris Day parts. I figure there were so many women who looked the same that nobody’s going to remember any of those actresses.”

Considering most days I stuck out like the oddball of Dallas, it was somewhat comforting to be thought of as interchangeable for once. “Who do you want to play?” I asked politely.

“Officer Nasty!” she said.

As if the situation couldn’t get any worse.

If a mid-century modern interior decorator who modeled her life after Doris Day could have a nemesis, I imagined none better than Officer Donna Nast. I’d resisted using the nickname her fellow officers used behind her back until I’d gotten to know her and discovered the nickname fit. You wouldn’t think we’d have many reasons to spend time together, but somehow, she kept turning up in my life.

“Officer Nast played a very minor role in that case.”

“Yes, but this is Hollywood. I heard they’re going to write a steamy love scene between her and the police lieutenant.” She waggled her eyebrows at that prospect.

“I guess if someone buys the story, they can take as many licenses with the truth as they want.”

She shrugged. “It’s all about happily ever after. You ended up with Hudson, but the hot cop deserves somebody too.”

Happily ever after. Right.

Erin and Connie remained out front discussing the highs and lows of living in Dallas. I excused myself and went to my office. As soon as the door was shut and locked behind me, I called Hudson.

“Hey, Lady,” he said. “You caught me on a break. Everything okay?”

“You tell me. An actress just showed up and told me she wanted to rehearse scenes before her audition for your movie. Were you going to tell me about this?”

Hudson chuckled. “If there were something to tell, I would.” His deep Johnny Cash baritone sounded entertained by my reaction.

“This was just a random coincidence? That she showed up at my studio pretending to be Officer Nasty?”

“Not entirely random, although I do question her choice of character. There’s been some talk. A couple of calls. I thought about telling you, but I didn’t want to drag you back into any of it until I knew if it was going to go anywhere or stall out like the last time this came up.”

I looked at the situation from Hudson’s perspective. “They’re showing interest in your story, and you’re out there thinking about how I’m going to react. That’s not fair to you.”

“I don’t want to split hairs, but to be accurate, they’re not showing interest in my story, at least not the people who approached me originally. This new studio is a whole other deal. It’s a cable channel that leans toward mysteries with romances, and I suspect if they go for it, the result won’t have much to do with reality.”

“Does that bother you?”

“It is what it is. I’m just along for the ride. What’s going on there?”

I settled into my Barcelona chair and rested my head on the back of it. “Do you remember Alice Sweet? My friend from the pool?”

“Sure.”

“She passed away recently and left me a pajama factory.”

“Sorry to hear that. She was a nice lady. But a pajama factory? That’s a first, right?”

“Yes. I didn’t even know she owned one.”

“Any idea why she left it to you?”

The thing was, I still didn’t. The letter and the gun made me think something had been going on in Alice’s life, something she’d never spoken of. Maybe she wanted me to clear her husband’s name of the rumors like I’d first thought, or maybe she just figured I’d enjoy the novelty of the building. Maybe I’d been correct that she felt leaving it to one of her estranged step-children would have been too much of a burden. If there had been a dying wish in that letter, I’d have some clear direction, and I’d honor it. But for now, I was juggling the acceptance of her death with what I’d learned about the factory and the death of Suzy Bixby. “Who knows with Alice?” I said. “She was an interesting woman. You lived here your whole life. You never heard any rumors about the building?”

“I never went in much for rumors,” he said.

We chatted a few more minutes. A part of me wanted to tell him about the gun, but I didn’t. I tried convincing myself it was because I didn’t want to worry him. I wasn’t sure I believed it.

When I returned to the showroom, Erin was gone. I highlighted my idea for a new display window to Connie. We worked side by side breaking down the current window, vacuuming the platform and dusting the baseboards and window frame. Rocky’s ball chair got relegated to the back corner. I expected him to follow us and sit in its new location, but instead he remained by the front of the shop staring out at the street.

“What’s out there, Rock? What could he possibly find so fascinating on Greenville Avenue?” I asked absentmindedly.

“He’s probably watching for the Chihuahua that wanders around during the day. I, um, I started leaving out food, and now we’ve got some stray cats. The Chihuahua hasn’t come back.”

“He chased a Chihuahua down the street earlier.” I ruffled Rocky’s fur. “Is that it? You made a new friend?”

“I made a video. Look.” She pulled out her phone and showed me a GIF she’d taken from the street of Rocky on his hind legs with his paws on the inside of the glass. “Pretty cute, right? I thought you could use it in your advertising. I could mock something up for you if you want. Maybe you can give me a recommendation, and I can build up a client base. You know, if the custom record sleeve business doesn’t take off?”

“Or maybe I could give you full-time hours.”

Connie’s eyes got big. “Don’t toy with me, Madison.”

“I’m not. I’ve been thinking now that I sold off my apartment building, I have the time and the wherewithal to take on bigger projects. My only problem is I need to find those bigger projects, and I can only do so much from the studio. You’ve been great helping me out so far, but I don’t like feeling like I’m taking advantage of you. What do you think?”

“I think I love you.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

The window turned out beautifully. We put a white Saarinen tulip table in the center of the display and positioned four tulip chairs around it. The cushions on the chairs had been destroyed over time, but Connie set up a sewing machine and whipped out four matching bark cloth covers with a retro space theme. I used my limited knowledge of electrical wiring to hang a Sputnik lamp over the table, and replaced a few of the small white bulbs with blue and green ones.

Next, we set each place setting with round silver placemats and, using a mix-and-match assortment of Franciscan atomic starburst and Taylorstone Cathay patterns, created whimsical place settings. While Connie cleaned and dried a glass vase to use as the centerpiece, I dug out a couple of boxes of small silver jacks that I’d picked up in Canton for twenty-five cents a bag. I spritzed them with a light coating of bright chrome spray paint, and when they were dry, transferred them to each of the place settings. I then set a small vintage rocket ship toy in blast-off position on each of the bread plates and finished with four tall Royal China glasses with colorful turquoise graphics. The resulting window was cheerful and spacey. My favorite combination.

The window display had achieved the necessary purpose of distracting me from thoughts of Alice’s death, Hudson’s and my life being turned into a movie, and the surprise “audition” for the part of Nasty. But by the end of the day, all I wanted was to lock up the studio and dig into the file I’d taken from the storage unit. Connie and I mapped out her schedule for the next two weeks, and I headed home.

Tex’s Jeep was parallel-parked by the hedges that lined my property. I parked behind it. The neighborhood was quiet, so I picked up Rocky and carried him instead of putting his leash back on. When we got past the shrubs that provided privacy from the road, Rocky saw Tex sitting on the front steps. He wriggled around until I set him down and he charged over to his friend.

Tex bent down and ruffled Rocky’s fur and then straightened up. “Where’d you take off to this morning?”

I adjusted my bag with the files. “It looked to me like you had a shift in priorities. I was giving you the space to make your move.”

“Come on, Night, that’s not how I operate. I was there with you on the job.”

Rocky ran into the yard and dug up one of his stuffed toys. He carried the dirt-covered animal—this one a fish—to Tex and dropped it by Tex’s feet. Tex picked it up and threw it back into the yard, and Rocky chased after it.

“After I left Hernando’s, I thought you’d want to know I confirmed your gun wasn’t used in any open investigations,” Tex said.

“So we’re good. Alice probably got it for safekeeping but changed her mind about shooting it. She was uncomfortable having it in the house.”

“Well, there’s one problem with that theory.”

“What’s that?”

“Ballistics reports indicate the gun was fired as recently as this past week.”