Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries (13 page)

“Not after I watched him ID her this morning. He was a truly broken man. Then he puked.”

“With his hangover, you’d have puked too.”

“That smell in there is enough to make me sick.”

“His story was the same when he was drunk as it was when he was sober. He didn’t hesitate about voluntary consent to a search of his hotel room and belongings. But he had motive, opportunity, he calls her four times and next thing she’s dead.”

Luke gulped more coffee. As though it might help clear his mind. “My money’s on Mandeville.”

“We’ve got no evidence. Nothing to hold him.” Henderson sipped his tea. “He lied to us about the fight. Stupid thing to do when he must have known we’d check out the restaurant.”

“Maybe he hoped nobody would remember them.”

“So, he also had means, he had opportunity. But where’s the motive?”

“Because he could. His book’s got a section about using what’s at hand to do the deed. Like a knife out of the hotel kitchen.”

“Pretty weak.”

“Yeah. Did the husband do it to stop her going to the boyfriend? Did the boyfriend do it to stop her going back to the husband? Or because he wanted a new chapter for his next book? It feels like we’re missing something the size of an asteroid.”

“Maybe the knife will turn up something.”

“Yeah. I put a rush on it, so if we’re lucky we’ll get DNA results by Monday. I’m going to get caught up on the paperwork.” Keeping up what they termed the murder book was an important part of the investigation. So far it contained photographs, transcripts of interviews and the initial crime scene report. By the time the case went to trial, there would be thousands of pages of documents and hours of video.

He opened the binder and gazed down at the first picture of Amy, taken at the scene. “Who killed you?” he asked silently. “And why?”

Stacy Krump was standing outside the conference meeting room Toni was about to enter for the session titled: Creative Marketing Strategies Using Social Media. It was such an uncreative title she had doubts about the workshop.

“Hi, Stacy,” she said, preparing to go around the woman standing there like a stone statue.

The sessions were changing over so there was plenty of coming and going, women chattering, giggling and hugging. There was always plenty of hugging going on at a Lady Bianca convention and right now Stacy looked as though she needed one badly.

“Stacy, is everything all right?”

She started and blushed. “Oh, Toni. I –” She glanced nervously behind Toni’s shoulder, no doubt terrified Nicole would see them together and she’d get in trouble.

Toni knew it was partly her fault poor Stacy was acting this way, so she pulled herself up to her full height, as she always did when called upon to do something unpleasant and said, “I need to apologize to you about this morning. I was out of line. I never should have interrupted you and Nicole.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay. You were there. You heard her say I should get a company credit card and she’d help me. So then I wouldn’t have to let my husband know about my finances.”

“Yes. And it’s a personal decision. If you think that would be good for your business, you should go ahead and get one, but there’s nothing wrong with thinking it over for a night or two.”

Stacy rubbed her conference agenda between her fingers leaving a damp mark. “Well,” she giggled nervously. “The thing is I already have a card.” She glanced up and back down at the agenda. “I got one today.”

“Oh.” Toni didn’t know what else to say.

“Nicole helped me. And then we did some shopping.” She was rubbing the agenda faster and faster, soon the paper would tear. Then, in a rush she blurted, “I put five thousand dollars on that card.”

And she burst out crying.

Now, Toni had been with Lady Bianca for more than fifteen years and she’d been cried on a time or two, so she took the gush of tears in her stride.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s get away from this crowd and find somewhere to sit down. Then I’ll get you some water.”

“I didn’t mean to spend that much, but it seemed like it was the best thing to do and I’ll make twice that back when I sell all the product.” She hiccupped. “But I’m not real good at selling yet. And if my husband finds out, he’ll –”

“Toni!” Nicole’s angry voice cut through the giggling, chatting and hugging crowd like machine gun fire. “What are you doing making one of my girls cry?”

She grabbed Stacy’s shoulders and physically yanked her away from Toni.

Women around them stopped and stunned silence surrounded them.

Toni had a temper and unfortunately, when it flared it tended to run hot and rash. Right now she was so angry with Nicole that even if the woman had acted as angelic as the Virgin Mary she’d have wanted to smack her.

“Me?” she shouted back. “I didn’t make this poor woman cry. You did. You forced a credit card on her she doesn’t want or need and put a big balance on it. Why? So you can win yourself another diamond ring. That’s cheap, Nicole. It’s cheap and sleazy.”

“Get off your high horse. That order alone will be enough to make sure we beat your asses again this year.” Nicole rubbed Stacy’s arm in what was probably supposed to be a soothing gesture, but she was so mad her arm jerked up and down, looking like a dog humping a chair leg.

“You should be so proud, Stacy. Your order got us to the top. For the third year in a row.”

“That’s going to be cold comfort when she can’t pay the bills she’s racked up. Why aren’t you helping her sell what she already has?”

“If you weren’t spying on us at breakfast you wouldn’t know anything about Stacy’s business. It’s private.”

The object of the fight was alternating between bright red blushes and pale shades. “Please. Stop shouting,” she pleaded. “I’m getting a migraine.”

But the two were in it now and this fight had been brewing for a decade. One little migraine wasn’t going to stop them.

“Spying?” The word shrieked out, with Toni hitting a high note she hadn’t known was in her vocal range. “I would never stoop to spy on you. I overheard you encouraging Stacy to get a divorce.”

Nicole shoved herself right into Toni’s personal space and jabbed her in the chest with a talon-like fingernail. “Keep your big nose out of my business. Or you’ll be sorry.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Nicole jumped back so fast she landed on Stacy’s instep causing the younger woman to howl. But her eyes stayed on Toni’s, hard and bright. For a second there was absolute silence. Toni could see her thin chest rising up and down like she was panting. Finally she pointed and said, “My God. It’s you,” in the same voice Macbeth uses when he sees Banquo’s ghost.

“Me what? What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been sending me those notes.” Her breath huffed in and out.

Nicole was staring at her with such hatred in her eyes that Toni felt physically stung by it. She had no idea what the woman was raving about.

“What notes?”

She glanced around and her gaze landed on Melody Feckler, who looked as though she’d been slapped with a dead fish.

Toni knew exactly how she felt.

The silence was as thick as the morning the dead woman was found. She heard her own harsh breathing, and that of Nicole’s.

“I always knew you were jealous of me, but now I see that you truly hate me.”

“Nicole, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

Her hand was shaking when she pointed at Toni. “I’ll stop you, you bitch.”

Chapter Fourteen

If I were two faced, would I be wearing this one?
—
Antonio Machado

Toni crept in late to
Creative Marketing Strategies Using Social Media
and then couldn’t concentrate anyway. She could imagine herself and Nicole as the subject of a lot of tweets and Facebook updates. Damn that Nicole. But in her deepest self she was ashamed that she’d let herself stoop to Nicole’s level. She cut out of the rest of the afternoon sessions and spent an hour in the hotel gym working off her frustrations, followed by a twenty-minute soothing face mask during which she listened to a motivational speaker on her iPod.

She picked up her phone and called Tiff. “Hi hun, how’s it going?”

“Good. Grandma’s rocking out to Iron Maiden.”

She chuckled, feeling better already. “I bet. And what did you do today?”

“Not much. Smoked some crack. Got a tattoo. Joined the Hell’s Angels. Pretty quiet day.”

“Don’t forget your bike helmet.”

Tiffany snorted. “You are such a mom.”

There was a short pause. “How bout you?” her daughter asked. “What did you do?”

“Not much. Got into a public brawl. Bitch-slapped another rep.”

“Yeah, right.”

If only she were joking. “Are you eating all right?”

“Sure. I explained the low calorie aspects of veganism to Grandma and now she’s totally into it. I think she’s becoming a vegan too.”

“You’d better join Lady Bianca, Tiff. You were born to sell.”

By the time she’d showered and re-done her make up, going a little heavier than usual and putting extra shimmer on her cheeks, almost in defiance, she felt a lot better.

Still, it was a somber group of her reps who met for dinner.

The lobby sported a marble statue of a horse, a landmark that made a good meeting spot to gather a group together to go out for a meal. Unfortunately, Nicole had chosen the same meeting spot. Naturally, she and Toni ignored each other. Where she’d slapped on extra make-up, Nicole had splashed out on her outfit. She wore a cream silk wrap dress and shoes that smote Toni with envy. They were cream and made of fine leather, sporting gold bows on the sides.

“If she paints a stripe of White-out across the front of her hair, she’s all set to be Cruella de Vil at Halloween,” Suzanne Mireille said into Toni’s ear, in her husky French-accented voice.

Toni chuckled, “Well, God love her. Somebody’s got to,”
then turned to her friend and sales rep. “You heard about the fight?”

The shrug was pure Gallic. “Who didn’t? She’s not worth your time.”

“They’ve won, though. You know that. Stacy’s five grand makes them uncatchable now. I’m taking orders until eleven, but there’s no way I’ll get that kind of commitment in the next couple of hours.”

“So, we’ll win next year. Trust me, we all want to bring that nasty woman down,” Suzanne said. In various ways, all of Toni’s team echoed those sentiments, but it was still a quiet group dinner.

Orin Shelenbach approached her when she returned from dinner with her sales team. “Toni, I’m so glad I caught you,” he said with his usual Hollywood gushiness as though about to tell her that she’d won the side-by-side refrigerator
and
the self-cleaning oven. “Let me buy you a drink.”

She was tired, overwrought and knowing they’d lost the top sales spot to Nicole’s group had put a pall over dinner. She didn’t want to get her hand slapped for fighting in public, even if she did deserve it. But she knew Orin was only doing his job and she figured she might as well get the lecture over with. She put her own fake smile on and said to the group, “I’ll see you all in the morning.”

Suzanne looked as though she was going to say something, but thought better of it. She touched Toni’s shoulder in silent support and headed off with the rest of the girls.

“Let’s go out of the hotel. It’s so crowded in the bar here.”

For that she was grateful. At least he wasn’t going to dress her down in a bar full of curious women. He led her to a Starbucks attached to the mall across the street, which fortunately contained no Lady Bianca reps.

She waited until he’d brought her an iced tea and was sitting across from her at a round table by the window.

She took a long, cold drink, then said, “I guess you heard what happened today.”

“I’m glad you brought that up, Toni. You created quite a sensation. I had Nicole almost in hysterics and, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of gossip. You know that as directors, you have to set an example for other reps.”

Typical that the woman had gone running to daddy to tell on Toni, as though she hadn’t behaved equally badly. “Nicole certainly seemed recovered enough from her hysterics to go for dinner with her team. And to gloat about getting the top sales spot. Again.”

He rubbed a thumb along his tanned jaw. Rumor was that he’d purchased his own tanning bed and used it every day. “She says you’re so jealous you’re trying to destroy her credibility.”

Toni took a long sip of tea. Cold. Tart. Made herself take a full breath before she answered. “I regret losing my temper with her in public. But, Orin, she’s pushing her sales reps to buy more stock than they’re comfortable with. One of her reps was in tears over it. That’s not how Lady Bianca works.”

“None of her reps are complaining, Toni. They love her.”

“They’re brainwashed.”

He sipped his own tea and then said, “This isn’t sour grapes because she beat you is it?”

“No. But I resent that she forced that poor woman to buy five thousand dollars worth of extra merchandise so they could win.”

“It wasn’t only that. Another of Nicole’s reps placed an order for ten thousand.”

She felt her eyes bug out. “Ten thousand dollars? A single rep? She’d have to sell twenty grand this month. That’s ludicrous.”

“It shows confidence in her sales ability that you have to admire. All your reps combined only brought in another four thousand today. Unless you get another eleven thousand in the next hour or so, she won fair and square.”