Dead Giveaway (5 page)

“I could back you. I've got some loose cash to invest before Uncle Sam takes his cut. Think you'd be interested in having me for a partner?”

“I . . . uh . . . that sounds wonderful.” Ellen felt her head start to whirl again. Compared to rural Minnesota, where it took people years to decide whether or not to repaint the barn, everything was happening much too fast.

“We could set up right here in Vegas and name it something catchy. Universal Mannequins is too much of a mouthful. How about Vegas Dolls?”

Ellen nodded. Vegas Dolls was a fine name for a business, especially if it summoned to mind the gorgeous showgirls who worked here.

“I'll look for a warehouse right away. Where do you want to work, in the warehouse or up on the mountain?”

Ellen took a deep breath. “Would there be room in the condo? I'm used to working at home.”

“No problem, Babe. You've got the whole eighth floor and all you have to do is tell Paul Lindstrom how you want it remodeled. I've got some contacts so I'll set up the distribution network, but we'll have to move fast. The fifteenth's my deadline for reinvesting.”

Ellen was too stunned to do more than nod. Without any effort on her part, her dream was turning into a reality.

“It's settled, then.” Johnny leaned over to kiss her cheek. “You'll be too busy to go back and pack your things. Is there someone who could send them to you?”

“Alma Jacobson might. I gave her a key before I left. I'll call her tonight and ask.”

They were walking out of the building now, and Ellen almost stumbled as she realized what she'd said. She'd just agreed to give up her teaching contract only months before she was eligible for tenure to move over two thousand miles across the country into a condo she'd never seen. And she was going into business with a man she'd met less than five minutes ago who also happened to be the singing idol she'd sighed over for the past ten years.

“Getting cold feet?” Johnny smiled down at her and Ellen shook her head.

“Not really. I only get cold feet in Minnesota. It's much warmer out here.”

Johnny laughed and led her to his car, a white Ferrari convertible, so shiny that it looked brand-new. Ellen sighed in pure contentment as she slid into the bucket seat upholstered in immaculate, soft kid leather.

It was dusk and the huge neon signs blinked on and off as he drove down the strip. The people they passed looked slim in their summer clothes and Ellen felt almost weightless without her bulky parka and moon boots.

There was a smile on Ellen's face as Johnny turned into a circular driveway flanked by towering palm trees, and a huge casino with turrets and spires came into view. There were colored spotlights weaving their beams in patterns over the walls and the entrance was guarded by a moat and a drawbridge manned by footmen in gold livery. It was a scene straight out of a storybook: Miss Wingate in an expensive foreign car with her famous bachelor partner, pulling up in front of a castle. That would certainly make all thirty-one first graders at Garfield Elementary sit up and take notice!

February on Deer Creek Road
Fifty Minutes before 10:57
AM

 

Ellen frowned as she rummaged through her box of mannequin limbs. On days like this, when everything seemed to go wrong, she almost wished she'd never left Minnesota two years ago.

The morning had started off badly. Her thirty-cup pot was the old percolator type and only made good coffee if she filled it to capacity. It had been a parting gift from the Garfield Elementary faculty and Ellen was sure they'd chipped in their books of green stamps to get it. Perhaps they'd assumed opening a mannequin business meant she'd have plenty of employees. In any event, the coffee it made turned to tar before she could drink it all, and she'd finally geared up to go into town to buy a pot to use every day.

The saleslady had shown her the newest model, promising that all she had to do was put in the coffee and water, set the automatic timer, and she would have hot coffee. Ellen had set the timer for eight and gone to bed, but when she'd come into the kitchen this morning there was no coffee to greet her. Checking the instructions, she'd found that the digital timer had a red light for
PM
and a green light for
AM
. Since the red light was glowing, her coffee would brew automatically, but not until eight in the evening.

Just as Ellen had switched the timer to manual, the phone had rung. It was the Purple Giraffe in New York, an exclusive chain of children's clothing stores, frantic because their purchasing department had made an error and they needed two dozen more mannequins by the end of the week. Naturally, Ellen had promised to deliver, and now she'd located twenty-four right arms but no left arms to match. Since she molded the arms in pairs and had never had an order for one-armed mannequins, they had to be somewhere.

Ellen stepped back to survey the boxes of limbs stacked on her workroom shelves, all coded with numbers, the work of her business manager, Walker Browning. When he'd heard that Ellen was looking for a business manager, Jack St. James had recommended his black friend from Chicago for the job, and Ellen had hired him sight unseen. Walker was extremely well organized and he was also a whiz at finding new markets for Vegas Dolls. If Walker were here now, he'd go straight to the proper box, but he was in Vegas picking up supplies.

Deciding it would be a waste of time to look for the arms herself, Ellen wandered back into her large sunny kitchen. When she'd moved into the eighth-floor condo two years ago, Ellen had mentioned that she didn't care for the ultramodern black enameled cabinets that showed every fingerprint and the gleaming white floors that required constant cleaning. Moira Jonas, their resident interior decorator, had offered her services and in less than a week, she'd faced the cabinets in oak and ordered an antique table and chairs to match. With lacy ferns hanging from wicker baskets, green and white gingham curtains, an array of copper pans and utensils mounted on the rack over the stove, and a braided rug on the new wooden floor, Ellen's kitchen had been transformed.

Then Moira had started on the rest of the condo, replacing Aunt Charlotte's stylish white leather furniture with comfortable overstuffed chairs and a couch and loveseat covered in patterned chintz. The black marble fireplace had been redone in aged brick. Matching chintz curtains now graced the floor-to-ceiling windows, and for her bedroom, Ellen had chosen a massive four-poster bed and a dresser set to match. An authentic nineteenth-century quilt in a Double Wedding Ring pattern covered the bed and Priscilla curtains hung at the windows. There was even a spool rocker in the corner to hold her patchwork doll, and a washstand complete with a blue bowl and pitcher.

The bathrooms had presented a problem. Moira had pointed out that in order to be authentic, they should look like privies, but had compromised with wood paneling and antique medicine cabinets. She'd found a claw-footed tub deep enough to accommodate Ellen's long legs and the shower was hidden behind wooden doors.

When it came to Ellen's workroom, Moira had consulted with Paul Lindstrom, the building architect. They'd knocked out the wall between Aunt Charlotte's sitting room and Uncle Lyle's office, converting it into a huge work space. Paul had installed rafters to give it the look of a farmhouse attic and the wooden floor was treated with several coats of polyurethane so it would be impervious to spilled dyes and chemicals. The high ceiling had been lowered in strategic spots to give the illusion of gables, and tall triangular windows gave Ellen the benefit of the spectacular view.

Ellen was just sitting down at her old-fashioned kitchen table when the phone rang again. It was Laureen Lewis from the first floor.

“Hi, Ellen. Do you have that recipe of your grandmother's handy? I tried it last night and had a terrible flop.”

“What happened?” Ellen frowned. She knew she'd copied the recipe correctly.

“The caramels never set up. It turned out to be the most luscious chocolate frosting I've ever tasted, but that's not what I was after. It just doesn't work with a five-ounce can of Hershey's syrup.”

“Hold on a sec.” Ellen reached for the red loose-leaf cookbook on the shelf by the phone. Laureen was doing a chocolate program on her cooking show and had been very interested in Grandmother Wingate's recipes. Ellen flipped through the book until she came to the page with a smear of chocolate on the corner. She remembered making that smear as a child, helping Grandma Wingate make caramels for Christmas.

“Yes, it says five ounces. At least I think it's ounces. It actually looks more like a cent sign to me.”

“That could be it!” Laureen sounded excited. “Does she have any other notations on the recipe?”

“Yes. At the top it says it's from Mrs. Friedrich, the Lutheran minister's mother. And Grandma wrote a note on the side. It says, ‘Never serve to Bill Carr. False teeth.'”

“I love it.” Laureen laughed. “Is there a date on the recipe?”

“No, but the one on the next page is for Mrs. Friedrich's watermelon pickles and it's from the summer of forty-five.”

“That's close enough. I'll call Hershey's in Pennsylvania and ask for an old price list. Thanks, Ellen. And I'll bring you some caramels this afternoon if they turn out right.”

“That would be a real treat.” Ellen's mouth was watering when she hung up the phone. She hadn't tasted Grandma Wingate's chocolate caramels in years and it was a sure bet she'd never make them. Grandma Wingate had been an excellent cook, and so had Ellen's mother, and both had looked cute in their ruffled aprons. Unfortunately, neither attribute had been passed on to Ellen. She'd learned to fry an egg and broil a piece of meat, but that was the extent of her talent in the kitchen. Everyone said that a man wanted a wife who was pretty and knew how to cook. She flunked on both scores. No wonder no one had ever wanted to marry her.

 

 

Forty-five Minutes before 10:57
AM

 

Laureen's stomach gave a protesting growl as she opened the refrigerator door. All this wonderful food inside and she couldn't eat any of it.

Harry Conners, her producer, had delivered an ultimatum when she'd shown up twenty pounds heavier after the Christmas holidays. If she didn't lose ten pounds by the end of next month, he'd have to replace her. Laureen had explained that there was no way to test a recipe unless she tasted it, but Harry wasn't one to listen to reason.

Naturally, Laureen had tried. She'd even gone on the newest fad diet, which promised miraculous results if she ate only an unsalted rice wafer four times a day, washed down by a vile-tasting concoction of food supplement powder mixed with grapefruit juice. But three days after she'd finished the recommended two-week stint, she'd stepped on the scale and found she'd regained her lost pounds and then some.

A package of thick-sliced bacon beckoned, and Laureen yearned for bacon and eggs for breakfast. She was tired of being constantly hungry. Her stomach growled at the most embarrassing times and all she could think of was piles of creamy mashed potatoes awash with savory brown gravy. Grace claimed that dieting was a simple matter of balancing the calories consumed with the amount the body burned up through exercise, but of course that was easy for her to say. She was naturally thin. And the daily exercises she'd recommended only made Laureen hungrier.

As Laureen reached for the bacon, she had almost managed to convince herself that her problem was hereditary. One of Laureen's earliest memories involved sitting on a bench in some kind of health club, waiting for her mother to get out of a steam cabinet. She'd expected her mother to emerge thin and beautiful, but her face had been as red as a lobster's and she'd been just as plump as ever.

With a sigh of remorse, Laureen shoved the bacon in the very back of the refrigerator. She'd have a small glass of skim milk and a piece of diet toast with sugar-free jam. And then she'd make her husband's breakfast, even though he didn't deserve it.

 

 

Alan Lewis looked out his window and frowned despite the lovely scene, a glistening expanse of white snow unbroken by human footprints. The pines in the grove loomed dark and tall, a frosting of snow on their branches and three bright blue mountain jays and a vivid red cardinal were pecking at the feeder Paul had designed. The whole picture was worthy of Currier and Ives, but Alan found it difficult to appreciate. Ever since Laureen had found out about Vanessa, his treatment had been colder than the icicles that hung from their balcony.

Alan flipped the lock on his office door and sat down at his father's desk. His office was his refuge, a replica of the one his father had maintained in the back room of his country hardware store. Moira Jonas had decorated the walls with antiques. There was an old red Flexible Flyer hung from the rafters over his head, along with assorted shovels and rakes and even a hand plow. Laureen thought the room looked cluttered, but Alan loved the sense of hands-on merchandising that was difficult to maintain in the modern world of computer-generated orders and automatic restocking. His father hadn't needed a computer to know what was on his shelves. Of course, his father hadn't owned fifty-three stores in six different states, either.

He pulled out the center drawer and felt in the back for the hidden compartment where a carton of unfiltered Camels was secreted away from Laureen's prying eyes. Opening a pack, he withdrew a cigarette, rolling it between his fingers almost reverently. As he touched the flame of his lighter to the tip of the cigarette, the intercom crackled into life.

“Alan? Do you want oat bran pancakes for breakfast? Or would you rather have egg substitutes and oat bran toast?”

Alan gave a guilty start and dropped the cigarette into the ashtray. Laureen would confiscate his Camels if she knew they were here.

“Alan? Can you hear me?”

“I hear you, honey.” Alan sighed deeply. The last thing he wanted was more oat bran. Ever since Laureen had read that it reduced serum cholesterol, she'd been sneaking it in everything she cooked. “I guess I'll have fake eggs and toast. But if you're working on something important, I can wait.”

Laureen's voice was impatient. “Of course I'm working on something important. You know I'm doing the chocolate show next week.”

“It's all right, honey. I'm not very hungry and I can always fix something later.”

“Don't be ridiculous! I always cook for you when I'm home. Five minutes, and don't be late!”

The intercom crackled again and Alan was glad he couldn't see Laureen's expression. “Thanks, honey. I'll be there.” Alan switched off the intercom and picked up his cigarette, coughing slightly as he inhaled. Laureen had been up late last night with the chocolate caramels, and her unaccustomed failure, coupled with the strain Vanessa had put on their marriage, had put her in a foul mood.

Alan leaned back and puffed on his forbidden Camel, wishing he could turn back the clock. Hal Knight had married two years ago and since then his wife, Vanessa, had gone after almost every man in the Deer Creek Condo complex. The moment Alan had recognized Vanessa's little game, he'd been very careful to give her a wide berth, even though she was younger than anyone in the building and probably lonely. He'd even begun to feel a little sorry for her, alone every day while Hal was off on his business trips.

Looking back on that day, a month earlier, Alan could honestly say he hadn't suspected a thing. Vanessa had called to say her garbage disposal wasn't working right, so he'd grabbed his toolbox and headed right up to the third floor. When he found her waiting in a see-through pink negligee, Alan had thrown his previous caution to the winds. It had only happened a couple of times before Laureen had caught them, and Laureen wasn't the forgiving kind.

Almost time. Alan put out his cigarette and hurried to the attached bathroom to flush the evidence down the toilet. He brushed his teeth, used some mouthwash, and headed down the hallway to the kitchen to try to make peace with his wife.

 

 

Forty Minutes before 10:57
AM

 

Moira Jonas took a blue and gold caftan off the hanger and slipped it over her head, careful to avoid her reflection in the mirrored closet doors. Her newest outfit, decorated with ropes of shiny gold beads on a cobalt-blue background, had long sleeves and a high mandarin collar to hide the crepe that was beginning to show on her neck. She'd tried all the expensive creams and moisturizers, but nothing seemed to help, and Grace had noticed; she was sure of it. Of course Grace was much too kind to say anything critical, but she worked with gorgeous showgirls all day long and even though she insisted she loved Moira just the way she was, comparisons were inevitable.

Moira brushed her long red hair and pulled it up into a tight bun she'd been wearing lately. It hurt, but it smoothed out some of her wrinkles. Last night she'd casually broached the subject of a face-lift and Grace, ten years younger and blessed with skin as smooth and elastic as a baby's bottom, had been less than sympathetic. Didn't Moira realize that any surgery, no matter how minor, was dangerous? Subjecting yourself to elective cosmetic surgery just because you had a few character lines was totally insane.