Death of a Domestic Diva (18 page)

For now I had another question for her. “Tyra, why did you come to Paradise in the first place? Did it have something to do with Lewis?”

Tyra looked surprised and then laughed. “Lewis? Heavens, no. I never met him until I got here. I only came here to do a show with you on stain removal techniques.”

I shook my head. “I was out at the Red Horse Motel today—Paige never booked rooms for a film crew. You never intended to have me on your show. So why did you really come here?”

Tyra frowned. “I thought you wanted to know about my missing papers?”

Now that, I thought, was interesting. She'd rather talk about her missing papers than why she'd really come to Paradise.

“Okay,” I said. “I have a hunch your papers and why you came to Paradise are related, but we can start with the papers.”

“You know about my designer T-shirts?” Tyra said.

“Sure.”

“Well, the papers have to do with their manufacturing at a—a plant in California. The papers are legal documents and letters from my attorney, because, you see, there have been a few, um, labor problems at the plant. Something about whether or not the workers are actually, uh, legal to work in this country.” She gave a nervous laugh. “It's so unfair! I've never even been out to the plant in California—I delegate all that. I pay people to oversee things like manufacturing.”

“So you're saying that you didn't know that illegal labor practices were going on—”

“No, of course not! All I did was hire some plant managers and tell them to get the T-shirts made as cheaply as possible.” She stopped, considering what she just said, then smiled. “While preserving quality, of course. I wouldn't want anything bearing my name to be shoddy.” Tyra sighed, impatient all of a sudden. “Beside, no one ever thinks about how or where the clothes they are wearing are made, do they? Do you know where your jeans were made—under what conditions? Or your shoes? Or your T-shirt?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “But it seems to me that as the owner of your business, you'd care about—”

Tyra waved a hand at me. “Like I said, I delegate all that. My role was to design the T-shirts, and the other clothes that would go with them. I'm the talent behind the operation.”

I wondered just how much talent it takes to design a T-shirt. A T-shirt, it seems to me, is just a couple of squares of cloth with two short sleeves sticking out of them. In fact, once upon a time, a T-shirt, I remember my Aunt Clara saying, was considered underwear. Now people pay big bucks to wear T-shirts with other people's names on them, and I had no doubt that people would pay big bucks to wear Tyra Grimes's T-shirts, too.

And I couldn't blame her for wanting to cash in on people's willingness to be walking advertisements for her. After all, I'd had T-shirts printed up with my slogan—Toadfern's Laundromat, Always a Leap Ahead of Dirt. I'm the only one who wears them, but even so, it makes a nice statement. Still, I didn't see that it takes much effort to design a T-shirt, other than to say, “Make them red and put my name on them in a fancy script.” But I decided not to comment on that.

“What people would care about is that the T-shirts have my trademark name on them,” Tyra was saying. “That's what people care about. And what I cared about was getting them done quickly and at a low overhead.”

“So it's not your fault that maybe they aren't being made with legal labor, under lawful and fair conditions, because you delegate that part of the operation.”

“Exactly!” Tyra looked genuinely pleased that I understood. She had this tendency, I was noticing, to mistake understanding for approval. “So you can see why I'd want these papers back. If they get out to the media . . .”

She suddenly looked worried again.

I considered what Tyra had just told me. I didn't for a minute believe that she had told me everything, or that she'd innocently and naïvely turned her business over to someone else to run. She struck me as someone who'd want to control every aspect of her business. My gut told me that she probably knew exactly what was going on, had approved it, probably even ordered it. And my gut told me that those papers showed exactly that.

I started to bring up Ramon and Aguila Cruez . . . but a warning bell went off in my head. If I did that, she might get scared and run. And if she ran, then we might not ever get to the bottom of who had really killed Lewis—and Chief Worthy would just let poor old Elroy languish in jail, and chalk Lewis's murder up to resentment over being taunted about tainted tuna fish.

And surely Tyra would be safe for a day or two, right? After all, the Cruez couple wouldn't be likely to come into town, where Tyra would be surrounded by people. And without her SUV and Paige, Tyra could only go where I or other volunteer drivers would take her. And after her experience last night, I couldn't imagine she'd go off walking by herself again.

“Here's the deal,” I said. “I know who has those papers and I can get them back for you.” In truth, I wasn't sure who had the papers—the Crookses or Paige—but I'd worry about that later. “But you have to tell me something first.”

Tyra looked wary.

“Why did you come here to Paradise?”

Tyra sighed. “All right. I was going to come here anyway, but then your letter showed up. It made the perfect cover. I'm in town to make a sizable donation to Stillwater. I'm meeting with the director tomorrow to iron out the details—that's why I need you to take me there. Then I'm going to have a press conference on Friday to reveal my donation. Your wanting to be on my show made a good cover for coming here—that way no one would try to figure out why I was coming here until I was ready to announce my donation.” She gave a pacifying smile. “But I did want to talk with you about possibly being on a future show.”

I decided to ignore that last comment, as unlikely as it was. “You came here just to make a donation to Stillwater?”

“Why, yes,” Tyra said. “What's so odd about that? I make donations all the time.” She leaned forward, said in a hush-hush tone, as if sharing some insider business secret, “They make a good tax write-off.”

“But wouldn't sending a check have been easier?”

Tyra glared at me. “This is a sizable donation.”

I thought about Guy. I thought about how upset Vivian had been at the Tyra Grimes T-shirt Verbenia had been wearing. Something didn't seem right. I mean, I could see that Tyra would want do something that looked really good, to offset the fact that she was about to get in trouble for using illegal labor in her business, but something about it was really troubling me.

So, I blurted out, “Why Stillwater?”

Tyra looked at me evenly, as if daring me to question what she was about to say. “I read about the institution in an article recently. It sounded like a worthy cause.”

“Where was the article published?”

Tyra shrugged, then yawned. “Can't remember. I read so many things, you know.”

She stood up. “Sorry about all the fuss earlier,” she said. “But now that I've told you what you want to know, I trust you'll track down those papers for me?”

I nodded. Tyra started to the door. Then she turned and gave me her trademark charming smile. “You might try parting your hair in the middle. It would look better, anyway.”

And with that, she let herself out the door.

When she shut the door, I stepped into the living room, asking Owen, “Was I just had?”

But he couldn't answer. He was fast asleep on my couch. Poor guy. He'd had a long day.

I stared at him, daring myself to wake him up. Then I heard it start to rain outside. Somehow, that just made me feel melancholy—not a good mood for what I'd been thinking of doing with Owen.

So I covered him up with a spare blanket, then gave him a little kiss on the temple, and went to bed myself.

I woke up early the next morning, even before my alarm went off, after a blessedly deep and dreamless sleep. No visits from old Mrs. Oglevee, haranguing me about all I was doing wrong.

I took a shower, noting with a little alarm the wad of hair that tangled itself around my drain stopper. My scalp was even itchier than before, so I put on a generous amount of conditioner, which made my head feel better. Then I toweled off and put on jeans and a plain blue T-shirt, with no one's name on the outside of it, not even mine. I parted my hair in the middle, blew it dry, and studied myself in the mirror. I had to admit that Tyra was right—a middle part looked better on me than a side part, an admission which kind of made me grumpy, since all my life I'd worn a side part. I told myself it was just a trick of the bathroom lighting that my hair was starting to look a bit more brassy than strawberry blond, a bit more kinky than curly.

I went out to the living room, all ready to make a nice big breakfast to share with Owen. But he was already gone. He'd left the blanket folded up neatly on the couch, but no note.

I told myself, as I went into the kitchenette, that I wasn't surprised. Or disappointed. Owen and I were really just friends, after all. And unlikely friends at that. Me, a laundromat owner. Him, a professor of philosophy, religion, and literature. Nope, I wasn't a bit disappointed. But for breakfast I had Choco-puffs cereal, topped with chocolate milk, anyway. And just a dash of chocolate syrup. Plus a leftover chocolate chip pancake.

Then I went down to my laundromat.

I love the ritual of opening up my laundromat in the morning.

Even this morning, when I had so much on my mind—like how poor Elroy was doing, and Lewis being dead, and wondering what Tyra was really up to with Stillwater, and the T-shirts and Billy and Paige and the Cruezes and the Crookses and the missing papers, and of course Owen, and my hair coming out, and wondering if I'd ever hear from Winnie—even with all that on my mind, I felt that little thrill of eagerness I always get when I'm unlocking the doors to my laundromat. Even with my toad painting gone, and my name misspelled to “Todeferne,” and my coffeemaker replaced by a cappuccino machine (all of which I was going to correct as soon as I got the chance), I felt that bit of excitement that comes with opening up my own place of business, with taking in the whole place with one glance and seeing how neat and clean it is, because I always make sure my place is clean each night before I lock up, and there's something about the quietness at the start of a day—before all the washers and dryers are making noise and there's people inside my laundromat.

I started back to my storeroom office, to make a sign—leave a message for Josie if you have any laundry questions. I didn't like it, but I was going to have to leave my laundromat opened, but unmanned today. I didn't see as I had a choice. I told myself that my laundromat had been all right in my absence on Monday, that my sudden uneasiness was unfounded. I had to open up for my regular customers. Still, I wished Chip Beavy was available to watch it. Or Billy.

I also knew I couldn't not take Tyra to Stillwater. One way or another, even without Paige around to chauffeur her, Tyra would find a way out to Stillwater, and I wanted to be there to figure out what she was up to. I didn't believe she just wanted to be nice and give a donation to a place she had just read about in an article. I doubted there'd even been an article. Don Richmond, the director at Stillwater, was always good about letting the families know when news about Stillwater was going to come out. I would ask Winnie to check all the news resources she knew about—if I ever got in touch with her again, that is.

I was almost back to my storeroom, when I noticed, right under a folding table, a lump of dark clothing.

Then I saw the clothing stir. I blinked. The clothing stirred again. And groaned. And started snoring.

So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I went right over and kicked it.

The lump of clothing yelped and quickly unfolded itself to reveal Billy Toadfern, unshaven and unkempt in a wrinkled black raincoat, black shirt, black jeans, and black baseball cap.

Billy blinked up at me, licked his lips, yawned, and licked his lips again. Then he said, “You're early.”

“Billy, get out from under that table. And tell me what you're doing here. Plus where you've been.”

He crawled out, stood up slowly, his knees popping loudly. Then he staggered forward and hugged me. Suddenly, he pulled away, glancing back at the big glass window.

“Come on, back to the storeroom,” he said, shoving me along. “Before they see me!”

“Who is ‘they'?” I tried to keep my feet firmly to the ground, but Billy pushed me on.

“Come on! I can't let them see me!”

So we staggered on back to my storeroom.

He slammed the door shut, began looking around, as if “they” might be back here, too. I knew “they” weren't. Between my desk and the three shelves, there was barely room for two adult people, and definitely no hiding spots. The only “they” my storage room/office would be able to hide was a few mice, and if any “they” of the mouse kind were back there, I didn't want to know about it.

I grabbed Billy's shoulders, shook him, and said, “Billy! Settle down. Now, tell me, what's going on? Who's this “they” you're worried about? Is it the couple from the Red Horse—Aguila and Ramon?”

Billy stopped looking around and focused on me with wide eyes that were fearful.

“How do you know their names? Who told you?”

“I'm not answering that until—”

“Was it a couple? The man—tall, cute, and dark? The woman—short, cute, and blond?”

“Well, um, yes, as a matter of fact, they were just here yesterday . . .”

“What did they say about Aguila and Ramon?”

“That they're armed and dangerous and—”

Billy cut me off with a loud groan. “Oh, geez, Josie, please tell me you didn't believe that, that you didn't tell them anything . . .”