Purses and Poison Read online

  So there I was still in my college student attire of jeans and sweatshirt that I’d worn to Jamie’s place this morning, walking into one of the most fabulous shops on the most famous street in the world, not worried in the least that Richard Gere wasn’t there to ensure that I got great service.

  The elegance of Chez March touched everything in the store, from the ankle-deep carpet, to the crystal chandeliers. The whole place was done in muted tones of gold and ivory, with mannequins dressed in chic fashions, and lots of comfy chairs to accommodate pampered customers. The sales staff all wore beautiful clothing—but not so beautiful as to outshine their wealthy patrons—with carefully coiffed hair and full-on makeup.

  I spotted Lillianna at the rear of the store. She looked like someone had just hauled her out of an exhibit at Madame Trousseau’s and set her up here at Chez March.

  She put on her I-have-to-pretend-you’re-better-than-me-so-I’ll-get-my-commission smile and came forward, greeted me by name, complimented my mother, then went to fetch the gowns Mom had picked out for me. Since Lillianna, like all the other clerks at Chez March, moved at the pace of a bride approaching the altar, I knew I had a few minutes to kill. I headed for the handbags.

  Maybe they had a Judith Leiber evening bag here. Oh my God, wouldn’t that be fabulous? My heart skipped a beat as I hurried toward the display case.

  My cell phone rang. I yanked it out of the side pocket of my backpack and flipped it open. A number I didn’t recognize appeared on the ID screen. Since I’m not big on suspense—and was desperate to get to the handbag display—I answered.

  “Uh, Haley?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Yeah,” I said as my gaze swept the purses behind the glass. Judith Leiber…Judith Leiber…surely there would be a Judith Leiber bag here.

  “Uh, hello, Haley. This is, uh, this is Doug—Eisner. Doug Eisner.”

  I froze. My mind whipped into a frenzy trying to place the name.

  “Uh, from the other night,” he said. “In your driveway. At your parents’ home.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. Doug was one of the engineers who worked with my dad that my mom had invited to dinner. “How did you get my number?”

  “The Internet,” Doug said.

  Okay, that was weird. But at least my mom hadn’t given it to him. She’d tried to set me up with one of Dad’s engineer friends once before. The guy definitely had his own agenda. In the first three minutes of our date he asked about my education background, work history, and where I saw myself in five years. I felt like I was on a job interview.

  “I hope that’s all right,” Doug said.

  “No problem,” I said, easing around to the next display cases. There just had to be a Judith Leiber bag here somewhere.

  Doug exhaled loudly. “So, I was, uh, I was wondering if you’d like to get together for dinner sometime.”

  I turned to the next case but instead of spotting a gorgeous evening bag, I saw Rebecca Gray.

  “Or, uh, lunch, maybe?” Doug asked.

  She spotted me at the same moment, and her eyes widened.

  “Coffee?” Doug asked.

  What was Rebecca doing here?

  “Haley?” Doug asked.

  “Yeah, that’s great,” I said into the phone. “Listen, Doug, I’ve got to run.”

  “Oh yes, of course. How about tomorrow?”

  “Sure. Bye,” I said, then flipped my phone closed.

  Rebecca and I did the usual oh-my-gosh-it’s-you quick hug thing.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Rebecca nodded toward the counter at the rear of the store. “Looking for a gown,” she said.

  “For the charity gala?” I asked. “Your family is still going?”

  It came out sounding kind of judgmental—I mean, jeez, her sister had been murdered a week ago—but Rebecca didn’t seem to notice. She looked sort of numb, like when I’d last seen her.

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “How’s your mom?” I asked.

  She glanced away. “She’s okay.”

  I doubted that was true, and it made me feel like a dork for standing here trying to talk to her. I didn’t know what to say—and everything I’d said so far came out bad—so I moved on to something I knew Rebecca would want to hear.

  “I found that Missing Server the cops were looking for,” I said.

  “I know. She’s been all over the news,” Rebecca said, glancing at the handbags in the case.

  “No, no, I found her,” I said. “Me. I found her myself just this morning.”

  Rebecca’s head whipped around. “You did?”

  I nodded quickly. “I told you I would. Remember? I promised you that day at your house that I’d find Claudia’s killer.”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “I talked to her right in front of her apartment near the campus.”

  Rebecca just stared at me for a minute, like she couldn’t believe I’d actually done what I’d promised.

  “So, what did she say?” Rebecca finally asked.

  I shrugged. “She told me the same thing she told the cops, that she didn’t see anything the day of the luncheon.”

  “She didn’t know anything?” Rebecca asked.

  Now I regretted that I’d mentioned it, that I’d gotten her hopes up when the info amounted to nothing.

  “Sometimes—lots of time, really—witnesses realize later that they saw something important. That could happen with Jamie,” I said. “I got her phone number. I’m going to talk to her again, and I’m sure the cops will, too.”

  “Wow, that’s…that’s great, Haley.” She glanced back toward the stockroom. “I guess I’m not really up to this, after all. Would you tell Talia I had to leave?”

  She ducked around me and out the door.

  Rebecca didn’t look so great, but would I look any better if my sister had been killed a week ago? And my mom was dragging me to a formal event?

  It flashed in my mind that maybe I’d thought too harshly of Rebecca and her family for attending the charity gala so soon after Claudia’s death. Maybe they needed to put it behind them, get back to their real lives. Who was I to judge?

  Lillianna appeared and presented a Vera Wang gown with great fanfare, but I couldn’t look at it. I wasn’t feeling so good myself, at the moment.

  Over the past week I’d wondered how I’d feel if my sister died. Now another, scarier thought zoomed through my mind.

  What if I died?

  Chapter 15

  Ever since I left Chez March this morning after seeing Rebecca, I couldn’t stop contemplating my life—and the possibility of losing it. What would happen if I died? What would I leave behind?

  I drove into the Holt’s parking lot and nosed into a space near the door, killed the engine, and stared out the windshield, hoping to catch a glimpse of a life without me in it.

  I figured that by the time I got old, decades and decades from now, medical science would have advanced to the point where people routinely lived to be over a hundred. I had a lot of years left—unless something went wrong, like with Claudia. So, if I died in, say, a few years, I’d likely leave no kids behind. What would be left to show that I’d even been on earth?

  Money.

  The idea popped into my head. I had that eighty grand in the bank. I could do something with it, set up a foundation, a trust, or something.

  I got out of my car and crossed the parking lot contemplating just what sort of worthy cause I should give my money to. It would have to be something grand, of course. Something huge. Something that would make everyone else jealous.

  Then it came to me: I could set up a program to give designer handbags to underprivileged young women.

  Yes! Perfect. Wow, what a cool idea. Jeez, why was I fooling with college classes when I had these terrific—

  “That’s her!” a voice yelled.

  Off to my right, a half dozen people raced across the parking lot toward me.

  “Stay right
there!” someone shouted.

  In a flash I recognized several Holt’s employees running behind a woman in a pink suit. A man loped alongside them carrying some sort of equipment.

  “Don’t you dare move!” the woman commanded.

  They surrounded me, closing me into their tight circle.

  The woman turned to the man. “Get ready. We go live in fifteen.”

  Oh my God. Oh my God! A television crew.

  “Stop,” I said. “I’m not—”

  “Haley Randolph, right?” the woman asked, pulling out a microphone. She turned to the cameraman. “How am I?”

  “Great,” the guy said, hoisting a huge camera onto his shoulder.

  “Wait,” I said. “What’s going on? I don’t—”

  “All you have to do is answer my questions,” the woman said, patting her hair and straightening her jacket. “Act naturally.”

  “But—”

  “This is so cool,” I heard Troy say. He stood at my left shoulder, his mouth open slightly, leering at me. That heavyset guy from menswear stood next to him. Three other people from Holt’s crowded closer, craning their necks to see.

  “Look,” I protested, “I don’t—”

  “We’re live here at Holt’s Department Store,” the woman suddenly announced into the microphone, “where just days ago an untimely death took place. Now, in the wake of that tragedy, new life has been discovered in the form of a mother cat and her litter of kittens.”

  My heart slammed against my ribs. Oh my God! This was not happening.

  “With me this evening is Haley Randolph, the young woman who, we’re told, found these precious creatures near the very stockroom where, only moments before, model Claudia Gray’s murdered body was discovered,” the reporter said. “Tell us, Haley, how did it feel when you heard those tiny kittens calling out?”

  The reporter shoved the microphone in my face. The camera swung toward me. Silence fell and everybody stared.

  Oh my God. I had to say something.

  I gulped hard. “Good. I mean, I was glad the kittens were safe inside the stockroom.”

  The reported yanked the microphone away. “And you’re heading up the store’s efforts to take care of these sweet little kittens and their mother, aren’t you?”

  She thrust the mic at me again.

  “It’s really all the employees,” I said. “Everyone’s chipped in with food for them.”

  “So there you have it,” the reported announced, turning toward the camera again. “An entire store, led by one committed young woman, treasuring life in the face of death. For Channel Three’s Making Things Matter segment, I’m Avery Phelps reporting. Back to you, Bob, in the newsroom.”

  The cameraman and the reporter walked away without another word. Everyone else kept staring. Troy eased closer.

  “Wow, Haley, that was so cool,” he said, then snorted a laugh.

  The guy from menswear looked at me like I was a cinnamon roll with extra frosting.

  “I’ve got to get to work,” I said, and pushed my way through the crowd.

  Just inside the door, Julie, the Holt’s credit greeter, stood beside the table where she handed out half-pound boxes of candy to customers who completed a credit card application.

  “Was that a news crew?” Julie asked.

  She was nineteen, cute and perky. She had the store’s new we-can-do-that smile down pat on the very first try.

  “Just something about the cats,” I told her.

  “I heard them the other day,” Julie said.

  I stopped. “You what?”

  She nodded. “I was in the stockroom and I heard the kittens.”

  I just stared at her for a second, then kept walking.

  I headed for the employee break room, knowing what I’d find when I got there. Rita. I was already picturing her with duct tape across her mouth.

  Sure enough, Rita stood by the whiteboard, poised and ready to add my name to the list of employees late for their shift. I snatched my time card out of the slot and fed it into the clock, three seconds early.

  “I want you in the sewing department tonight,” Rita told me.

  “I can read,” I shot back, pointing to the work schedule that hung beside the time clock.

  “And I want all of this out of here by the end of your shift,” she said, and jerked her thumb toward the table in the corner.

  My shoulders slumped. More cat food. Plus litter, and all kinds of cat toys. What was I going to do with all this stuff?

  Rita glared at me for a few seconds and I glared right back. Finally, she tossed her head and trounced out of the break room. I stewed for a moment, then followed.

  I didn’t know the first thing about sewing, except that I owned a sewing machine that had proved impossible to get rid of, so I hardly knew what to expect working in that department. Bella had said the woman Holt’s had hired to run it was old, so maybe I could slip away when she wasn’t looking.

  The new department looked about half finished. Seven sewing machines were set up. A number of display units were in place, along with several huge cabinets, and some tables and chairs with thick catalogs on them. I had no idea what any of it was for, even though I watched Project Runway faithfully.

  The one good thing about the department was that there were ropes up to keep the customers out.

  Maybe working here wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  “Hey, girl,” Bella called. She walked over from the housewares department. “You working here tonight?”

  “I guess so,” I said, and gestured to the empty department. “Who’s the manager?”

  “Beats me,” Bella said. “You hear what happened to Shannon?”

  Shannon supervised the greeting card department. She and Rita were friends. I hate her, of course.

  “She got attacked,” Bella said, leaning in a little. “In the stockroom.”

  Okay, I didn’t hate her enough to wish something bad would happen to her.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “That mama cat back there came after her, attacked her,” Bella said.

  “What?”

  “She’s off on disability.”

  I don’t believe this.

  Bella headed back to housewares and I hung around, waiting for somebody to show up. Then, afraid a customer might jump the ropes and ask me to do something, I started rearranging the catalogs on the tables.

  A tiny gray-haired woman walked up. She looked frail, brittle, like maybe if you spun her in a circle body parts would snap off. She wore a Holt’s lanyard around her neck, so I figured she was the woman hired to run the sewing department.

  “Hi, I’m Marlene,” she said, giving me a sweet smile. “We’ve got a lot to do, dearie, so let’s get cracking.”

  “I’ll go back to the stockroom and get the merchandise,” I offered. I could stretch that out for at least a half hour.

  “No need,” she said. “I’ve already got it all.”

  Marlene pointed across the aisle. Four U-boats were loaded down with boxes. It would take all evening to stock all that merchandise.

  Crap.

  Marlene talked until closing. Straight through, with barely a pause for a fresh breath, she talked. I think she even talked while I was on break.

  Thread, bobbins, patterns, blah, blah, blah. Anything I took out of a box, she explained—just as if I were interested. She droned on about the leisure suits she’d made back in the ’70s, and how she hoped shoulder pads would come back. I got an earful about the lessons she planned to give here at Holt’s.

  Just as I was seriously considering shoving a wad of rickrack into her mouth, the store closed. I rushed to the break room, cut to the front of the line at the time clock, then grabbed my purse and headed out the door.

  “Aren’t you taking the cat supplies home?” Julie asked.

  Everyone in line at the time clock stared at me, so I forced a smile and said, “Sure. I’m just getting a U-boat.”

  I dashed back in
to the stockroom, found a U-boat, and loaded it up with the litter, cat food, and toys. Everyone in the break room pitched in.

  Outside, I rolled the U-boat up to my car as everyone else headed home. I popped the trunk and stared down at all the supplies already inside. What was I going to do with all this stuff?

  A shadow moved across my face and I looked up to see a man standing next to me. The security light shone from behind so I couldn’t see who it was. I got a creepy feeling.

  “Uh, hello, Haley,” he said.

  I glanced around. Everyone else had left the parking lot already. The creepy feeling threatened to mushroom into an all-out panic.

  The man took a step closer. “It’s Doug—Eisner. Doug Eisner. From the other night? We talked today…on the phone.”

  I shifted to the side, changing the angle of the lighting, and got a better look at him. He looked nice, like he’d shaved and showered before coming here and, thankfully, had left his junior high jacket elsewhere.

  “Oh yeah, right,” I said, relieved that—as far as I knew, anyway—Doug wasn’t a homicidal maniac. “What are you doing here?”

  “I saw you on the news tonight,” he said, and nodded earnestly.

  Damn. I’d hoped no one I knew had seen that news segment. I didn’t worry that Mom had seen it—she never watched the news—but someone she knew might mention it to her. This was hardly the story I wanted shared over drinks at the charity gala at the Biltmore.

  “Your efforts at pet rescue are to be commended,” Doug said. “The ramifications of homeless animals in our communities place undue hardship on many facets of our society.”

  I just looked at him. What was I supposed to say to that?

  “Let me give you a hand with that,” Doug said, and started loading the cat supplies into my trunk. He moved some things around and got it all in there, with room to spare. He was stronger than I expected, for someone who didn’t lift anything heavier than a mouse.

  “So, would you like to go have coffee, maybe? Or something?” Doug asked as he pushed my trunk lid closed.

  It hit me as kind of weird that he’d seen me on the news, then shown up here at Holt’s.