Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 02 - A String of Murders (2 page)

2

From: Jerry Burton ([email protected])

Date: Friday, April 18, 9:37 PM

To: Victor Spencer ([email protected])

Subject: FYI

Attachments: Lincoln County Burglaries.GGHerald.com

I know what you’re doing. Meet me at Cici’s Vintage Clothing at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night.

Saturday, April 19

Audie ended the phone call. I’m sure he did because the next thing I knew, I was sitting in my Civic, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. It was only five blocks, but I preferred to drive when I went out at night. Even in Grace Gulch, Oklahoma, occasional vagrants and juvenile delinquents made wandering alone after dark a chancy decision. Especially with a murderer on the loose
.

It can’t be happening again.
Last fall Audie’s theater troupe put on a reenactment of the gunfight between the two founders of Grace Gulch, Bob Grace and Dick Gaynor. Everything went famously until the man portraying Dick Gaynor—Penn Hardy—was actually shot dead during the fateful scene. We went through a tense few days when the police homed in on two suspects: my sister, Dina, because she handled the fatal prop gun and my old boyfriend, Cord Grace, because he fired the weapon. I nosed around and uncovered the real killer.

At least some good came out of that experience. By the time the police caught the killer, I had made up my mind between Audie and Cord. When Audie proposed at Christmas time, I accepted, and we planned to marry in June.

Thoughts of the wedding kept worries about Audie’s discovery at bay until I arrived. Blue and red lights flashed on top of Grace Gulch’s one and only police cruiser, stationed in front of my store. The presence of cops at my store would start the town’s rumor mill for sure.
Did you hear what happened at Cici’s store last night? Well she’s in trouble again. No telling what those Wilde girls will get up to next.

Speaking of the police, why hadn’t they called me? I turned off the engine and sat immobile behind the wheel, struggling with the implications of a dead man in my store.     Audie dashed out to the car and opened the door for me. “Good, you’re here. Chief Reiner wants to speak with you.”

I groaned at the mention of my least favorite policeman.

“Cici Wilde.” Ted Reiner’s loud voice matched his size, his chest straining against the polished uniform buttons. Like a beefy Teddy Roosevelt, he bellowed orders in a bullhorn voice. Behind him, Frances Waller, one of the town’s four-person police force, wiggled her fingers in greeting. They wore matching solemn expressions.

I swung my legs out the door and stood up, taking in the damage to the store window for the first time. The glass had shattered, shards standing up like ill-formed stalagmites in a dark cave. The elegant Antiqua lettering I had ordered in honor of Oklahoma’s recent centennial lay in slivers on the ground. The capital
V
from the word
Vintage
dangled like a precarious icicle. Papers and dresses scattered across the sidewalk.

“Oh no!” I darted forward. “The articles about Bonnie and Clyde. . .” Perhaps that sounded like a silly thing to worry about, but original newspaper clippings from the ’30s were hard to come by. And what about the guaranteed-worn-by-Bonnie Parker dress? I stopped to survey the damage.

“Cici.” Frances spoke this time.

I waited for her to say more. I’d rather hear bad news from the younger officer. When she didn’t continue, my heart raced. “I know there’s a dead body here,” I blurted.

Frances looked at Reiner, the two of them silently debating their next course of action. She shrugged, giving in to her senior officer. “You’re right. Come this way. We want you to take a look at the body.”

“Who is it?”

“We’re hoping you can tell us that,” Frances said.

“It’s—” Audie spoke.

“Hold your comments, please, until Cici has seen the body,” Reiner interrupted.

I nodded my agreement. Audie slipped his hand over mine, entwining my fingers with his strong ones. We followed Frances into the darkened store. A pale light emanated from somewhere near the cash register, enough to keep me from stumbling, but it didn’t provide enough illumination to reveal the state of the showroom. I reached out my hand to flip on the light switch.

“Stop!” Reiner must have seen me. “We haven’t dusted for fingerprints.”

I wanted to growl. Reiner loved to throw his weight around. They would find my fingerprints, in any case. After all, it
was
my store.

Audie squeezed my hand, reassuring me. I relaxed, grateful for his presence. I didn’t have to face something like this alone, whatever it was.

“We’ll need you to check for any missing inventory,” Frances said. “Later.”

Trailing the officer, I weaved through dresses, brushing against rustling satin and soft cotton. Stylish evening wear, all from the ’30s, framed the entrance. Beyond them, other racks and shelves loomed. Shadowy shapes reassured me that the store hadn’t been stripped.

Sketchy light made my store, as familiar to me as my own bedroom, into a house of horrors. Something else was at work here. The farther we walked into the store, the more an out-of-place odor assaulted my nostrils.

Frances stopped when we reached my cash register. One of those big, box-shaped flashlights splashed a small circle of light in front.

That’s when I saw him—a man, neither young nor old, dressed all in black. An ominous stillness surrounded him, the same stillness I had felt when I first saw Penn’s body last September. In his right hand, the dead man held a strand of pearls. I sucked in my breath.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Audie’s hand on my elbow steadied me.

“Well, well, Cici, look what we have here.” Reiner plodded along behind us, his heavy footfalls thudding on the carpet. “A dead body shows up in your showroom.”

Audie’s fingernails dug into my elbow so hard that I yelped. Better than the angry retort I wanted to utter, I guess.

“You in there, Reiner?” Dr. Barber, Grace Gulch’s on-call pathologist, had arrived. “It’s dark in here.” Before either officer could protest, he flicked on the overhead light.

Beside me Frances muttered a protest.

The dead man looked much worse in full light. Something, someone, had caved in this guy’s head. I gagged. Audie grabbed the chair that I keep by the dressing room and made me sit down. I leaned forward and rested my head on my hands, fighting waves of nausea.

“I’ll get you some tea.” Audie disappeared behind the door to my office where I keep a microwave and small fridge. Reiner followed him, probably to make sure he didn’t destroy any evidence.

“Do you recognize him?” Frances’s soft voice penetrated my stupor.

I opened one eye and looked a second time, trying to control my shaking. This should be easier than seeing Penn’s body last year, because then I knew the victim. This man was a total stranger.

Or was he? Something about him tugged at my memory. If I could see him walk or gesture—

But he would never again move. Nothing short of the last resurrection would ever bring him back to life.

“I’m not sure. I don’t know him, but. . .I may have seen him around.”

Frances moved aside so that I could look more closely. I took a deep breath, swallowed, and edged my chair forward. More details registered. A few strands of grey streaked his hair. Maybe early forties? Eye color? Undetermined, clouded as they were by death. His clothes, standard intruder black. His hands, roughened by work, clutched Magda Mallory’s beautiful pearls.

Nausea welled up in me again and burned my throat. Tears wet my face. I managed to croak out the fact I couldn’t identify him.

“Cici?” Audie knelt beside me, the mug of tea set to one side. His arms surrounded me, shielding me from the dreadful sight. I would never look at the practical carpet the same way again. Wood floor, I thought distractedly. I would have the original wood floor uncovered and restored.

Dr. Barber moved in my direction. I saw his rubber-covered hands and shivered. Noting my reaction, he removed the gloves. He placed cool fingers on my forehead and urged me to lean forward again. “I see you made tea, young man,” he said to Audie. “Plenty of sugar?”

Audie nodded.

“Drink it up,” the doctor said. I did as I was told.

“Now why don’t the two of you go into your office back there.” He started to lead us to the small room.

Reiner came out from the office. “All clear, Dr. Barber.” He nodded at the newcomer.

“Come this way.” Dr. Barber followed us into the office and dug out the not quite empty box of sugar cookies. “Eat one.” He kept his body between me and the—thing—on my floor and managed small talk about safe subjects, like the wedding and spring planting, my father’s plans for the ranch.

The grandfather clock situated beside the register chimed the quarter hour. Only thirty minutes had passed since I arrived at the store. I used a damp washcloth that Audie supplied to freshen my face and took a deep breath.

“Feeling better now? Good. We’ll let you know when we’re done.” Dr. Barber slipped back into the store.

Audie turned my radio on low. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. The noise of my teeth crunching on another cookie covered sounds from the other room.

“I’ve done all I need to do here,” Dr. Barber spoke, and Audie turned down the volume of the radio. “I’ll do the autopsy in the morning, although the head trauma leaves little doubt as to the cause of death.”

“When do you estimate—” Reiner barked.

“Time of death? You know better than to ask me that. I’ll have your answer after the autopsy.”

The front doorbell rang. Feet padded across the floor, followed by rolling wheels—a gurney. The hearse must have arrived. Dr. Barber came in to say farewell and left. For a moment I felt as abandoned as a child lost at a county fair. Then I looked around the office—my domain. Someone had committed murder at my place of business. Anger surged through me, and I stood up in the wake of the energy it gave me. Now that the body had been removed, another concern arose. Had any of my merchandise been damaged or stolen?

I paused before I went into the back room. “Is it okay if I check my stock?”

“Give us a few more minutes. We need to finish our crime scene check.” Frances sounded brisk, professional.

I dropped back into my office chair and turned on the radio again. A show featuring classic country songs played in the late evening hours. The wailing tunes turned my stomach, and I flicked off the dial.

Audie held my hand, but his gaze focused on a spot on the wall. I wondered what occupied his thoughts. Lately he had seemed preoccupied much of the time.

Frances stuck her head in the office. “You can go into the back now. Can you check your inventory while you’re at it?”

“Of course.”

Audie joined me in the back room, away from the mess in front of the cash register. I couldn’t understand why the intruder had smashed my lovely front window when he could have forced my back door open without much effort. The chain swung loose from its mooring although the door was locked. The murderer might have exited out the back. I opened the door and looked at the back alley. I don’t know what I expected to see. Muddy tire tracks left on the asphalt? I should leave the forensics to the police. Even Reiner knew more about it than I did.

I walked through racks of plastic-wrapped merchandise. The most valuable and fragile pieces stayed in the back room. I brought them out when a customer sought a particular item, or sold them via the Internet. Everything seemed in order.

“Cici, come here.” Frances called me to my office where she had opened my desk drawers. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

At those ominous words, I gave brief thought to contacting my lawyer, Georgia Hafferty. But why should I? I didn’t have anything to hide.

“When did you leave the store this evening?”

I relaxed. I’m not sure what I had expected. Did you murder that man?

“About quarter past five. I close an hour early on Saturdays.”

“And everything was normal when you left?”

I nodded.

“Please talk us through your usual routine when you leave.”

“I can show you.” I circled behind the cash register and extracted a clipboard. “Here are the instructions for when someone else closes up shop for me. Tidying up, a quick cleaning, cashing out. . .everyday, normal activities.”

“We’ll take a copy of this.” Frances unclipped the page and added it to her file. “And where did you go after you locked up?”

“Home.”

“Can anyone verify that?” Frances glanced at Audie.

“Not unless you count my Bible. I was studying my Sunday school lesson.”

Frances might wonder where my fiancé was while I stayed at home alone on a Saturday night, but she didn’t ask. They would probably grill Audie at a later time.

“Can you tell if anything is missing? Is the right amount of money in the petty cash box?”

I had already checked. It matched the amount I scratched on my memo pad, right next to the note Call caterer! stenciled with curlicues of spring flowers. Right now wedding plans seemed as foreign as the Amazon rain forest. “The money’s all here. I haven’t checked my inventory yet.”