Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 03 - Buyer's Remorse Page 7

  “Mitzy!” she said finally, when her mouth was free.

  “Hi Alice! It is so good to see you again.”

  “And you. But, I have to ask…no wait, first please come inside and I’ll make tea. Then tell me what brings you here. I promise I pay all my bills.”

  Mitzy laughed, “You’d better. You put enough money down on this place. It looks like the studio is working. I was just at Neveah’s Wardrobe and saw all of your beautiful work.”

  A smile lit up Alice’s freckled face, “Thank you so much. They carry my goth wear right now.” She led the ladies into the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea. Her smile slowly slipped away. “But did you hear about the murder? The girl from Neveah’s?”

  “Yes, actually. That’s why we’re here.” Mitzy watched Alice’s face carefully. Her little nose started to turn red and the corners of her mouth wavered from her cheerful smile.

  “I still can’t believe she’s gone. I had wanted to talk to her so bad after the fight. I just felt awful not taking her side.” The words poured out of Alice as her face crumpled into a cry.

  “Slow down,” Joan said in a motherly tone. “Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Did you guys get in a fight?” Mitzy asked. “I am so sorry. Having that on your conscience must be awful.”

  “I didn’t have a fight with her,” Alice said. She closed her eyes for just a moment and took a deep breath. “I was delivering product to Neveah’s just after closing time, and Fiona and Lara were in the middle of something. Fiona was in tears so I wanted to calm everyone down. I thought if they would calm down, they could talk it out.”

  “What was Lara doing?” Mitzy asked.

  “She was yelling. When I walked in she was saying something like ‘that’s not good enough anymore.’ Lara is always—sorry, she was always so direct. She didn’t mince words. Fiona is very sensitive. It doesn’t really matter who was right or wrong. Lara was just more equipped in an argument. Anyway, I tried to calm them down and then David came in.” Alice stopped and put a hand over her eyes.

  “What did David do?” Mitzy leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone.

  “David slapped Lara right across the face.” Alice waved her hand in front of her reddening face. She picked up a tea towel and held it under her eyes for a moment.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Lara lit into David with some choice words: really horrid names and just filthy language. I’d never heard her go off like that before. Fiona started to wail and just turned around and went to her office. I grabbed Lara by the shoulder and begged her to calm down and talk sense.”

  “Did it help?” Mitzy asked.

  “No, not at all. David told me to mind my own business. Then Fiona came back in red-faced, and told me I needed to leave, so I did.”

  “Did you ever find out what the fight was about?” Mitzy asked.

  “No. I haven’t been back since. I left my delivery there and walked out. They don’t need to see me in person, at least not right away. Now Lara is dead, and I never had a chance to make it right.”

  “It doesn’t sound like she needed you to,” Joan said.

  “She was my friend. She had a mouth on her and strong opinions, but I liked her. I wanted to make it right but never did.”

  “How long ago was the fight?” Mitzy asked.

  “It was four days before she was killed…just four days.” Alice turned away and gripped the edge of the stove.

  Joan looked at Mitzy and shrugged. Mitzy shook her head. There had been trouble at the shop shortly before the murder. But that wasn’t all she needed to know. She still wanted to know how Neveah’s was able to keep all of its employees in such style. She had some questions to ask over the tea.

  Once the tea had steeped and Alice had taken a moment to compose herself, the three women sat down together with their mugs and a plate of biscotti. They were in the living room, which had lovely views of a wetland preserve. The naked branches of the trees shivered in the December wind. Mitzy sipped her tea for a moment and calculated the value of the view while she composed her next question.

  Joan jumped in first, “I just bought one of your bags but feel like I should apologize because I got it from a resale shop online.”

  Alice gave her a small smile. “I see your bag. What shop did you buy it from?”

  “Someone called Winter Rose on eBay.”

  Alice nodded. “I thought so. That’s my eBay shop. I use it for items that the boutiques return to me. No need to apologize at all.”

  Mitzy straightened up a little. “I’m going to plunge right in, Alice. I’m here because I found Lara’s body.” Mitzy let a little stream of air escape her lips.

  “Oh how awful!” Alice said. “What a horrible experience for you.” Alice picked up her teacup and then put it right back down again. Her thin white hands were shaking. “Did you know Lara?”

  “No, I had never met her before.”

  “Wasn’t she killed at her new place?” Alice reached for the teacup again, but pulled her shaking hand back to her lap and clasped it in the other. The shaking seemed to calm down.

  “She was. She was buying my condo. I want to help solve this crime. I feel…I feel responsible. I went to Neveah’s and talked to David and Fiona, but they didn’t share anything with me. I saw your name on the clothing labels and thought I could come talk to you.”

  “I don’t know how I can help.” Alice unclasped her hands and shook them a little. They were much steadier and she finally picked up her tea cup. Then she sighed. “But I’ll do anything I can. What do you want to know?”

  “I have a ton of questions,” Mitzy said. She also picked up her tea cup and took a drink. “For example, she was putting a twenty percent down payment on the condo. How did she save up that much money working at a dress shop?”

  Alice shook her head. “Sales at Neveah’s aren’t great. Some months I wonder how Fiona keeps the business running. She can’t have been paying her staff anything more than minimum wage. Lara, David, Renata…I think there was one other sales person for a while. But no, her sales, at least of my stuff, haven’t been very high.”

  “I’ve been there once. And if David is the same fellow I saw, he was dressed like he makes a lot of money,” Joan stirred her tea with a thin silver spoon. “Did you see his watch? It was no knock off. It was a real Fendi Chronograph. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

  “How could you tell?” Mitzy asked.

  “I’m into luxury. I’ve got to know what luxury looks like when I stage a home for million dollar clients.”

  Mitzy nodded and sipped her tea.

  “David is fashion obsessed. I’d imagine he’s in hock up to his eyeballs. You probably didn’t see his scooter. Top of the line, but oh so green.”

  Mitzy set her cup down on the saucer with a clatter. Her throat constricted. She knew too many bad guys on scooters. “David rides a scooter?” she managed to squeak.

  “He does. He has a really fancy commuter pedal bike as well. He doesn’t have a car but he does use those zippy-car car-shares things sometimes. He carries the highest end electronics too.”

  Mitzy shivered. David drove an expensive scooter. Had he bought it at Scooter-Niks before the fire? Did he do work on the side for the Mafia that ran the scooter shop to help him afford his expensive tastes? “What about Renata?” Mitzy asked. “I didn’t meet her. Does she seem like she spends a lot of money as well?”

  Alice nodded and thought for a moment. “Maybe so. When she’s at work she only wears designs that Neveah’s Wardrobe carries. Fiona doesn’t loan clothes to employees and she doesn’t give them a discount either. I certainly can’t afford to wear what I design for Neveah’s. I don’t know how Renata can.”

  “Maybe they all have other jobs.” Joan suggested.

  “No. None of them do. David is constantly clubbing, Lara travels and Renata is a part time student.”

  “Lara travels?”

  “With Hector.
They go away at least twice a month. Not exotic, but she’s always off with him. I don’t think she could be gone like that and work two jobs.”

  “Probably not. But Hector could be paying for the trips. He seems to do well with his business.”

  “He could pay for it, but there is still the time issue. When would she work the second job if she used all of her spare time for vacation?” Alice shook her head. “I think it’s odd how Hector and Lara were always either going away together or fighting. They never seemed to have a normal week of spending time at home. But I guess some relationships are like that.” Alice shrugged.

  “I guess,” Mitzy said. Mitzy thought about Alonzo and how they spent all their time wrestling the Mafia and talking business. She was certainly not one to judge Lara’s relationship.

  “Am I helping at all? I really want to do something for Lara. I just hate how it ended between us.”

  “I don’t know. You’ve confirmed that more money is getting into the hands of Neveah’s employees than seems logical. And even though she was your friend, it sounds like Lara was kind of hot-headed and maybe was the kind of girl to make people really mad.”

  “That’s the truth. She could really make people mad. I liked her, but my tastes aren’t everyone’s.”

  Joan nodded. “You like people with personality.”

  “That I do. In fact, Lara was the only one I really liked at Neveah’s. Everyone else …I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I ever really got to know them. I suppose there is time still. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Neveah’s sells your designs. Is everything there local?” Mitzy asked.

  “Yes. Fiona has three of us designing for her. She has a pretty good reputation as well. But there isn’t a huge market for gothic and vintage style luxury goods.” Alice traced a crooked line on the table top, “It is Portland so there is some market. It’s just not huge. Fiona thinks of herself as green. Some of her customers are really loyal because of that. I think she still has room for improvement. She ships product all over the country, which helps the profit margin but loses some of her green cred, in my opinion.”

  “I expect she only ships though, right? She’s not receiving truckloads of goods, so she’s that much greener than most places.” Joan offered.

  “Yeah. That’s what she hangs her hat on.”

  “I feel like I need to meet the other employee. You said her name is Renata?” Mitzy chewed her bottom lip. “But I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself.”

  “Why not?” Alice lifted her teacup and took a drink. “Do you have something to hide?”

  “She absolutely does not.” Joan sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.

  “Why don’t you want to draw attention to yourself?” Alice sat back a little as well, “That’s not like the Mitzy Portland knows and loves.”

  Mitzy didn’t want to tell Alice about her feelings on the murder. To start with, Alice had been the only person so far to really care about Lara. How awful to hear Mitzy should have been the one killed. And people who did know her thoughts on it were beginning to treat her as though she were just paranoid.

  “I was selling her my condo. If folks hear I am trying to help sort out this murder they’ll think I want something from it. Like money or something. If I can help but keep a low profile, it seems like it would be better.”

  “Well that makes sense. Can I help at all? I should go in and see Fiona this week. I can talk to Renata a little and maybe I can hook up with the other designers. We might want to do something in Lara’s memory anyway. It would be a good opportunity to see what they know.”

  “Would you really? Oh, Alice. That would be fantastic. Thank you.” Mitzy breathed a sigh of relief. “Just talk to them about Lara. Maybe someone knows about her other friends or her family.”

  “Of course. It’s the least I can do.”

  “One more thing, though, and it might be a little harder. It seems to me Neveah’s employees are living pretty well for selling clothes. Can you sort of find out about commissions or bonuses or anything that might explain all that money?” The money issue, Mitzy felt, was the one thing that gave her hope the murderer hadn’t actually been after her. If she or Alice found out that Lara and the others earned their money legitimately she’d try harder to convince the Feds that she was the intended victim.

  On the other hand, looking into the money issue could lead to the killer.

  “Honestly, that’s a harder one. But I’ll see what I can find out. Renata might talk about it a little. Hector might know. Have you talked to him much?”

  “I have. He’s pretty shook up still. I’ll give him a couple of days and then come back. He knows what I’m doing. Maybe I’ll have learned something that could help by then.”

  Alice stood up. “I’m really glad that you care so much. I’d hate to think Lara had died and…and …no one had cared about her.” She choked on the words.

  A thread of guilt needled Mitzy’s heart. She would do her best for Lara, but in reality, she was doing this for herself.

  “Thank you guys for coming. If I want to see Fiona later this week so I need to finish up my summer samples. Please don’t think I’m rude, but I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Not at all. I totally get it. Will you call me after you see Fiona?” Mitzy said, standing up.

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  Joan stood up too. “It was good to meet you. Thanks for your help.”

  Mitzy looked at Joan. She had probably better let Joan get back to work. Mitzy despised the feeling of vulnerability that left her wanting a babysitter for herself. She needed to stuff it away and let Joan go.

  The two women tucked themselves into the Miata and drove away. Joan chattered about how badly Alice’s house needed a designer while Mitzy tried to think up reasons for all the extra money at Neveah’s.

  Alonzo was in his office when Mitzy and Joan got back. “Did you see this?” he asked Mitzy after kissing her cheek. He pushed a piece of newspaper into her hand.

  She held it away from her face, disturbed to think she might need reading glasses. “What is this?” she asked.

  Alonzo shook his head and thwacked the paper with his finger. “News on the murder from the neighborhood paper.”

  She read the headline. “Oh no,” she said quietly to herself. The murder weapon had been found. Directly under the patio there was a deep indentation in the grass where something heavy had fallen, which had led the police to look for a blunt object in the area. And all around them on the wall were newly installed concrete faux stones. One of the stones, freshly cemented to the wall, not far from the dent in the dirt, was bloody. Mitzy sat down. The police were contacting all of the men who had worked on that section of wall.

  “They think someone who was working there went upstairs, smashed Lara’s head in, dropped the stone, and then hid it by sticking it into the wall?”

  Alonzo nodded. He wrapped his arm around Mitzy’s shoulder. “You probably know what I’m thinking,” he said.

  “Were these men who had ever worked with Maxim Mikhaylechenko?” Maxim was still in prison but he had also worked construction, which was how she ran into him in the first place.

  “I can’t answer that positively,” Alonzo said. “But I do know the teams working on your condo and yes, Mitz. I’ve chatted with them. At least one team is Russian. But I know them Mitzy. They are really good guys. Could someone else have come by the condo in the night? I don’t know. I can’t speak for all of them. But I would have staked my business on them being straight.” Alonzo gave her a quick squeeze and stood back again. He stared out his window. “But what can we ever know about the people we work with?”

  “Between that and the phone call…” Mitzy said. She turned and stared out the window too. “Did Marge take a message for you? From two guys this morning?” she asked suddenly.

  “No,” Alonzo said. “What two guys?”

  “I saw two guys I thought were watching me earlier. T
hey came in here. Joan was in her office and she was sure they came into your office. She was paying attention because she liked the looks of one of them.”

  “Of course she did,” Alonzo said. He opened the door to his waiting room, “Excuse me. I’ll just ask Marge about it.”

  Mitzy followed him into his reception area.

  “No one came in.” Marge was saying. “I did hear someone come up the stairs but since they didn’t come in here, I assumed they went to Joan’s office.”

  “Did they stay long?” Mitzy asked.

  “No. They didn’t. I knew Joan was in her office so I was surprised by how quickly they went back downstairs. My door was open so I could hear well, but I can’t see the staircase or Joan’s door from here.”

  “Joan must have had her door closed because she said she saw them cross the street and come inside, but she thought they stayed upstairs.”

  “Well where did they go?” Marge asked. What were they doing here?”

  “They must have just come the wrong way,” Alonzo said, but his eyes looked worried. “Give me your keys Mitz, I want to check out your office.”

  Mitzy put her hand over her pocket. “Not without me.”

  Alonzo shrugged and headed out the door.

  Mitzy headed downstairs. She met Alonzo at the door and hooked her pointer finger through his belt loop. She leaned in close for a second. Alonzo reached back and swatted at her hand. Mitzy stuffed her hands in her pockets but kept close to Alonzo. Alonzo stuck his hand out behind him without looking at Mitzy, and shook it a couple of times.

  “Can I have your keys, Mitzy?” Mitzy said, mimicking Alonzo’s deep voice.

  Alonzo grunted. Mitzy put the keys in his hand. Mitzy rested her hand on his shoulder and leaned in again, “Relax,” she whispered. Alonzo shook his shoulders a few times.

  He stopped before putting the key in the lock. “I’ll relax when I know you’re safe.” He unlocked the door and let them in.

  Mitzy released a deep sigh. Things looked fine.

  “What’s all this?” Alonzo asked. The computer mess was in the middle of the office floor.