Sprinkle with Murder (12 page)

Thirteen

“That’s it! ” Angie declared. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are that Driscoll didn’t snap your picture and sell it for big bucks? You’re too well known now. You have to let me help you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mel said, and blew out a breath. They were sitting at the steel table in the kitchen, enjoying a quick coffee break between customers.
“It’s not just about you being a suspect anymore,” Angie continued. “This is
our
business that we stand to lose. Besides, Tate is my friend, too, and I want to help.”
“Okay,” Mel said.
“I mean, I have skills,” Angie said. “I can ask questions, and believe you me, I can get answers.”
“You’re in.”
“I—what?” Angie asked.
Mel laughed. “I need you to pretend to be a very wealthy bride-to-be. Are you up to it?”
“Are you kidding?” Angie rose from her seat and pretended to have a bouquet in hand while walking like a bride down the aisle and singing, “Da-da-da-dum.”
Mel laughed. This might just work.

Terry Longmore Designs was located in downtown Phoenix in an industrial warehouse off Seventh Street, south of the Interstate. There was plenty of parking around the building, which looked like it had been hit by every single tagger in the metro area. Mel studied the vivid graffiti and noticed the initials T, L, and D were worked into the loops and swirls of the neon spray paint. Very hip.
Her phone vibrated, and she flipped it open. “Hello.”
“Passing you,” Angie said.
Mel glanced up and saw Angie drive by in her red Mini Cooper. They had switched cars, thinking that Angie’s white Honda would be less noticeable, and given that Mel was going to be sitting outside the building in it, she was all about not being noticed.
“Remember to leave your phone on in the outside pocket of your purse,” Mel said as she watched Angie park and climb out of the car. “That way I can hear your conversation.”
“Got it,” Angie said.
She had dressed the part of the ingenue bride. She let her long black hair tumble down her back in thick waves. With her mother’s four-carat emerald cocktail ring on her left hand and a gray organdy over yellow cotton dress, designed by Yoana Baraschi and borrowed from Angie’s sister-in-law, she looked every inch the wealthy young woman shopping for her wedding gown.
They had called Terry Longmore yesterday and arranged a meeting. The plan was for Angie to work Christie into the conversation and see how Terry reacted. Mel wanted to know if he had a motive for killing off his competition. If he acted suspicious, Mel and Angie had agreed that Angie should leave immediately.
Sitting outside the large block of concrete and steel, Mel wondered if she should have gone in with Angie or, even crazier, sent her mother.
She lifted her field glasses and watched as Angie approached the bright orange door to the right of several steel garage doors. She pressed the doorbell, and Mel heard an annoying buzzing sound come from her phone. Well, at least the phones were working.
“Who is it?” a voice asked from the intercom.
Angie pressed the Talk button and answered, “Angie DeLaura.”
“Oh, you’re punctual,. How very Miss Manners of you.”
The door in front of her unlocked with a click, and Angie pulled it open and stepped inside.
Mel lowered the glasses. She hated that she couldn’t see Angie. It made her nervous. Not that she thought Terry would harm Angie, but what if he was the killer? What if he figured out what they were up to? Angie could be in danger. Mel lifted her phone and was about to yell, “Abort! Abort!” when she heard Angie talking.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Longmore,”
she said.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like you’d be more comfortable working on cars than clothes.”
A deep laugh echoed out of Mel’s phone, followed by a pleasant male voice.
“Don’t let the ripped jeans and Nas car T shirt fool you. I design a hell of a wedding dress. However, you probably expected to see me in a ball gown and tiara,”
he guessed.
“Er . . . more like a spangled halter with fishnets and stilettos,”
Angie said.
He laughed again.
“I’ll have to keep that in mind for the next time we meet.”
Mel felt herself smiling as she listened. Terry Longmore certainly had charm.
It was silent for a moment, and then Mel heard him say,
“Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not really a cross dresser.”
“
Then why . . . ?”
Angie’s voice trailed off as if she was unsure of how to phrase her question.
“
Why does everyone think I am?”
he finished for her.
Mel found herself leaning closer, wanting to hear his answer.
“When I first started designing, I did primarily men’s clothes. But frankly, it’s boring. You never get to play with fuchsia satin if you’re creating for men. So, I started play ing with women’s wear.”
Mel heard the sound of footsteps, and assumed they were walking while Terry continued talking.
“I became so caught up in the creations, I forgot about comfort, and during a disastrous photo shoot, one of my models challenged me to wear my own design.”
She heard Angie giggle, and she looked at the phone as if it had hiccupped. Angie didn’t giggle.
“I took the challenge and discovered I couldn’t walk, couldn’t sit, and couldn’t pee. Suffice to say, lesson learned. Well, Sadie, the model, thought it was so funny, she called the photographers at
Vogue
and had them do a shoot with me in the damn outfit, and after that, we did another shoot in a few of my new comfortable, wearable designs. Since then, I’ve always made a prototype for myself to test drive, and it’s given me a rep as a cross dresser, which I can live with for all of the free publicity.”
“A friend of mine used to be in marketing,”
Angie said.
“I believe she would say that was very savvy.”
If Mel didn’t know better, she would think Angie was flirting. Nah, it couldn’t be. Angie didn’t flirt. She was just playing her part really, really well.
“Now, as fascinating as I am,”
Terry said,
“I’m guess ing you’re not here to talk about me.”
“Not exactly,”
Angie agreed.
“As I mentioned on the phone, I’m getting married, and I need a gown.”
“May I say, he is a very, very lucky man,”
Terry said.
“Oh, thank you,”
Angie simpered.
Angie sounded flustered, and Mel wondered if she was blushing. This was not at all how she had envisioned this going. She could hear the clatter of dishes, and then heard Terry’s voice again.
“Would you like sugar in your coffee, although I doubt a girl as sweet as you would even need it?”
he said.
Oh, good grief! Mel was pretty sure she was going to throw up. Angie giggled again, and Mel thought it might be time for an intervention.
“I have a confession to make,”
Mel pressed the phone closer to her ear.
“I was going to hire Christie Stevens to design my gown.”
“Were you
?” Terry asked.
“How unfortunate for you that she suffered such a tragedy.”
Even through the phone, Mel could tell he thought it was anything but.
“It has set me back a bit,”
Angie said.
“Although I’m not sure I was happy with her.”
“Really?In what way?”
“She was, well, mean,”
Angie said.
“She told me I had to lose ten pounds if I wanted to look good in her design.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
Angie said with just the right amount of indignant hurt.
Go, girl!
Mel thought.
Reel him in.
“Angie, I’m going to be blunt,”
Terry said.
“Christie was a bitch.”
The venom in his voice dripped through the phone, and Mel thought perhaps he did have a motive to kill Christie, if hatred was a motive.
“Sorry,”
he said.
“That came out a little harsh.”
“It’s okay,”
Angie said.
“I happen to agree with you. I imagine she must have made your life very difficult, being in the same business and all.”
There was a pause, as if he was considering what she said and how to respond.
“You have no idea,”
he said.
“Between you and me, the police have been here three times. Just because we were business rivals, they think I might have had something to do with her death.”
“No!”
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
he asked.
Mel was thinking
not so much,
and she wondered if Angie was thinking the same.
“I heard the police suspect her fiancé and his child hood friend,”
Angie said in a stage whisper.
“I suppose it’s possible,”
Terry said.
“But you don’t think it’s likely?”
Angie asked.
“I don’t know,”
he said.
“I’ve met her fiancé at some events and he seemed nice, too nice for her.”
“Do you know anyone else who wanted to harm her?”
she asked.
“Try everyone who ever had to do business with her. She used people up like they were Kleenex, completely disposable.”
“Including her designers,”
Angie said.
“Yeah, I wasn’t going to mention it, but from what I’ve heard, she was a nightmare to work for. I try to give my people the credit they deserve. I’ve got fresh grads from the Rhode Island School of Design here. I know they’re not planning to be with me forever. I don’t lock them into untenable contracts. They’re allowed to shine with their own designs. Christie didn’t do that. She suffocated people.”
“Until someone suffocated her,”
Angie said.
“Or some thing like that.”
“You reap what you sow.”
“Indeed. But your business must be reaping some ben efits from her demise,”
Angie suggested
.
Mel held her breath. Angie was going for the jugular. How would Terry respond?
A pair of hairy knuckles rapped on Mel’s window, making her jump and drop her phone. It fell to the floor and slammed shut. No! Her connection to Angie was cut off.
She glared out the window. There, attached to the hairy knuckles, stood two of Angie’s older brothers, Sal and Tony. She lowered the window.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise?” she asked.
Sal frowned at her from under his bushy unibrow.
“Good to see you, Mel,” he said. He leaned in and kissed her cheek, and she was about knocked out by the heady scent of Brut cologne that surrounded him.
Tony muscled him aside and leaned in to kiss her other cheek. “Yeah, good to see you.”
“You two, too,” Mel said.
They stared at her as if waiting for her to make a full confession. Mel was not about to do so. Instead she just sat. She tapped the steering wheel and looked at a hermit warbler sitting on a nearby oleander.
“Well,” Sal said. He spread his hands wide. “We’re waiting for an explanation.”
“Of what?” Mel asked.
“Why you’re here,” Tony said. He was the tallest of the DeLaura brothers and the skinniest.
“I heard there was a paper company that does cupcake liners down here, and I’m checking it out,” she answered.
“In Angie’s car?” Sal asked.
That was the problem with the DeLauras, they were an observant bunch.
“Mine’s in the shop,” she lied.
“Really?” Tony asked. “Because it looks like it’s parked over there in front of that clothing designer’s studio.”
Nuts! Too late Mel remembered Tony had helped her change a flat on her car a few months ago; of course he recognized it.
“Where is she, Mel?” Sal asked.
“Who?”
They looked at her with the grim inevitability of prison walls.
“What makes you think she’s with me?” Mel asked. “I’m her partner, not her keeper.”
“We tracked her cell phone using GPS,” Sal said. “When your shop was closed this morning and no one could get in touch with her, we ran the search and followed it to this location. So, what is she doing? Or, more accurately, what are the two of you up to?”
“You tracked her?” Mel asked, sure she must have heard him wrong.
“She’s our little sister,” Sal said, as if this was all the explanation necessary. “We worry.”
“You’d better worry, because if she finds out, she’s going to . . .” Mel stopped in midsentence. She’d forgotten Angie was still inside asking the tricky questions. How much time had passed? Should she be out by now? What if something had gone terribly wrong?
She scrambled out of the car and hurried toward the building.
“Mel, I don’t like that look on your face,” Tony said. “What’s happening?”
“Angie’s pretending to be a bride-to-be shopping for a gown, so we can scope out Christie’s competition and see if maybe he had a motive to kill her. That way the police will stop looking at Tate and me, and our business will be saved.”
“You mean she’s in there with a killer?” Sal shouted.
“No, I mean, I don’t know. I was listening to her conversation on my phone until you two came along and scared me,” Mel snapped. “But I do think she should be out by now.”
Sal and Tony hurried to the door. Sal pulled a small case out of his suit jacket and unzipped it. He jimmied the two locks on the door and then, with a pop, the door swung wide.
Uncle Stan would be so unhappy about this, Mel thought. Before Sal became a car salesman, he and Uncle Stan had quite a shared history, with Sal being naughty and Uncle Stan catching him.
“You wait out here,” Tony said. “You’ll be safer, plus they might recognize you. Go wait in your car.”
“But . . .” Mel began, but Sal cut her off. “No buts.”
Sal still had enough of the thug in him that Mel didn’t argue. If Angie needed rescuing, there was no one better for the job than her brothers.
She hurried back across the parking lot and hunkered low in the seat of Angie’s car. She was just getting crazy restless when she saw one of the garage doors slide open to admit a black SUV. She blinked. Sitting in the driver’s seat was Alma Rodriguez.