At the Drop of a Hat Read online

  “You are such a man!” I snapped.

  “A few minutes ago, that was a good thing,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, a few minutes ago we were discussing body hair, not slandering an innocent woman.”

  “Slandering?” Harrison’s eyes bugged out at the mere suggestion.

  “Yes,” I said. I paused at the entrance to the Underground. “Typical male, you just assume she must have slept with him. Well, I’m betting there is a much more reasonable explanation.”

  I turned to go into the station, and when he would have followed, I stopped him by holding up my hand.

  “No, we’re done,” I said.

  “Oh, come on, Ginger, don’t be mad,” he said. But not even the use of my coveted nickname would budge me. I turned and stomped into the station and stepped through the turnstile.

  I was pretty sure I heard him offering to show me his chest hair as I stormed away but I didn’t turn around and I didn’t smile, at least not where he could see me.

  Chapter 24

  I blew into the shop with a hearty shove from the blustery wind at my back. No, it wasn’t raining, but the bright blue sky and big fluffy clouds were accompanied by the sort of wind that ruined a perfectly good hair day. I was suddenly grateful for my hat and the fact that I had put no effort into my hair that morning.

  The shop wasn’t open for business yet, so I locked the door behind me and followed the sound of the music coming from the back room. Viv was there, using a steam iron on a length of wide dark brown ribbon. She glanced up when I came in and then frowned.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Not good,” I said. I slumped onto a seat at the table.

  Viv pushed a plate of raisin scones and a jar of clotted cream at me. Heaven. If there was one thing I had missed in the States, it was clotted cream on, well, everything.

  I slathered a bit of the cream on the top of the scone. Viv continued ironing while I chewed. She is more patient than me; I don’t know that I would have let her eat before telling me the news.

  She pushed a cup of tea at me, and while I was still pretty amped from my coffee, I did need something to wash the scone down. I took a sip, and she took the half-eaten scone out of my hand.

  “Tell me,” she demanded. “What happened?”

  I gave my scone a sad look and told her everything. If I spoke fast and left out some details, that’s not really my fault since she was holding my scone hostage, right?

  “Is that everything?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I held out my hand and she handed over the scone.

  I polished it off in three bites while she finished ironing her ribbon.

  “What do you think about it?” she asked.

  “Ariana is innocent,” I said.

  “Agreed,” she said. “But why did Russo have her blouse?”

  “That’s the same detail Harrison couldn’t let go of,” I said. “There could be any number of reasons.”

  Viv stared at me.

  “When does Fee come in?” I asked.

  “In an hour,” she said.

  “Let’s go see Ariana when Fee is here to watch the shop,” I said. “She’ll clear it all up. I’m certain of it.”

  “I can’t run out of the shop again,” Viv protested. “I have orders that I’m falling behind on and you have a newsletter to write and you have to update our webpage.”

  I popped out of my seat. “The newsletter is almost done. I’ll proof it now and send it out. You get to work and no more talking. We’ll visit Ariana quickly and work late tonight if we have to.”

  Viv blinked at me. “Aren’t you the motivated soul?”

  “I want to help Ariana,” I said. “I just feel like Mim would have wanted us to help the daughter of one of her own brides, you know?”

  Viv and I both looked at each other and waited for the telltale smell of lily of the valley. There was nothing.

  “Is that a sign?” Viv asked.

  “Yes, that we’re pathetic,” I said. “Get to work.”

  I moved to the desk in the corner and opened up the newsletter I’d finished writing but needed to edit. It didn’t take much. There were a few misspellings and I needed to replace the main picture of a holiday hat Viv had created for a clearer one. She’d done a forest-green wool cloche trimmed with a bright red ribbon with a cluster of holly leaves and berries. It pretty much yelled “Holiday Cheer” and I figured anyone who saw it would want it as a sure hit for holiday parties.

  I brought up our list of newsletter subscribers. Since I had started including coupons, we’d had a surge of customers sign up and our number went from a paltry thousand subscribers to well over fifteen thousand. Of course, they lived all over the world but I figured it helped to give the shop buzz and build Viv’s status as an elite designer.

  Viv was a blur of motion. She worked on three different hats at the same time, and when Fee arrived, she marveled at how much Viv had gotten done that morning.

  “I’m so glad you think so,” Viv said. “Scarlett and I have to go out.”

  “Again?” Fee asked. She gave us a distressed look. “I feel as if I’m working here alone.”

  “Which is how it was for me for years before I hired you. Loneliness is good for you. It builds character,” Viv said.

  I felt a pang of guilt. I had no idea Viv had been lonely. Then again, I’d been so self-absorbed with my own ridiculous life, even if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have done anything. Yes, I was that awful.

  “Character.” Fee snorted. “I’d rather have a nice chin wag.”

  “We won’t take very long, and I promise we’ll come back with gossip,” I said.

  “The news today made it sound as if she was having an affair with her boss,” Fee said. “They insinuated that she killed him because he was going to tell her fiancé about the affair.”

  Viv gave me a worried glance, and I knew she was thinking what I was thinking. Had the news media figured out something we hadn’t? I refused to believe it was more than rampant speculation.

  “They’re just guessing,” I said. “Come on, Viv, let’s hurry.”

  Viv grabbed her jacket and we ran out of the shop, leaving it in Fee’s capable hands.

  “This has to be the last time we leave her alone,” Viv said as we hurried down the street.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. I handed her my cell phone, which I had already dialed.

  “What? What’s this?” Viv asked.

  “Just take it,” I said. “It’s ringing.”

  “I can hear that, Scarlett,” Viv said. “But who is it calling?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to as even I could hear the male voice answer the call on the other end.

  “Oh, hello,” Viv said. “This is Vivian Tremont and you are?” She frowned at me and then gave me an exasperated look. “Oh, hi, Alistair. Yes, I’m holding Scarlett’s phone for her while she’s fixing her hair. Here she is.”

  She practically threw the phone at me like it was a hot potato. I tried to hand it back but she tucked her hands behind her back and refused to take it.

  “What?” I asked. “I thought you liked him.”

  “You’ve got me up a gum tree,” Viv said.

  “Why do you say that?” I asked. I lowered my voice to a whisper and asked, “You don’t like him?”

  Viv turned away from me and hurried down the sidewalk as if she could not put enough space between us.

  “Hi, Alistair,” I said into the phone, trying to make my voice sound cheery but my eyes stayed on Viv. The wind tugged at her long blond curls and the hem of her coat as she leaned into it, trying to keep her balance. It seemed metaphorical to me, but maybe I was reading too much into it.

  “Scarlett, good to hear from you,” Alistair said. If he’d heard any of our con
versation, I couldn’t tell from his tone of voice.

  “Have you spoken to Harrison today?” I asked.

  “No, why?” he asked.

  “Oh, no reason,” I said. “Listen, Viv and I were hoping we could get in to see Ariana, well, right now, in fact. Is there any way you can help with that?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Meet me in front of the station and I’ll escort you in. It’ll do her a world of good to see some friendly faces.”

  I ended the call and hurried to catch up to Vivian. She didn’t look at me when I began to walk beside her, so I figured for once I’d keep my yap shut, and if she wanted to talk, I would let her take the lead.

  It was a very long, very quiet walk to the jail.

  * * *

  Ariana looked horrible. She was pale and thin. Her dark hair was stringy and her eyes were red and swollen as if she hadn’t stopped crying in days. The sight of her made me desperate to break her out.

  “Ariana, I know things look grim,” I said.

  She barked out a laugh that seriously lacked humor.

  “That’s an understatement,” she said. “I’m probably going to prison for a crime I didn’t commit and I’m going to lose my fiancé because I can’t expect him to wait forever, now can I? Oh, and the media is making me out to be some sort of slut because of that damn photograph. And no one can tell me how they got it or where it came from.”

  “The police are working on it,” Alistair said. “As am I.”

  Ariana’s face softened. The custody sergeant let us use a small room in the back of the police station. Alistair was next to Ariana while Viv and I sat across from them.

  “Ariana, why did Russo take your blouse to the dry cleaners?” Viv asked.

  “Really?” I asked her. “No lead-up, no segue into the conversation? Just boom.”

  Viv glared at me. She was still hopping mad about the phone incident. I could tell because she barely looked at me and refused to look at Alistair. Only Ariana got her full attention.

  “We don’t have time for niceties,” Viv said. She looked at Ariana, who looked confused.

  “The blue blouse you were wearing on the day he died,” I prompted her. “There was a bit of the fabric in his hand.”

  She blanched. “I didn’t push him.”

  “We know,” Viv said. She reached across the table and put her hands on Ariana’s in a reassuring gesture. “But Russo took it to the dry cleaners recently. Why?”

  Ariana stared at their hands and then she looked up. “He bumped into me in the kitchen one day, oh, it must have been weeks ago. He spilled coffee all down my blouse.”

  “Wait,” Alistair said. “How do you know Russo took the blouse to the dry cleaners?”

  “I found the receipt,” I said.

  “You did?” Ariana asked.

  “In your jacket pocket,” I said.

  “Not the point,” Viv said. “Ariana, when Russo took your blouse in, did you know there was a tear that he had mended as well?”

  “A tear?” she asked. “No, I only knew of the coffee stain. I had a nasty burn on my belly from it.”

  “Did you go to a doctor?” Alistair said.

  “Yes, I popped into an A&E,” she said. “They gave me some ointment to help it heal.”

  Alistair looked from her to Viv and me. He looked cautiously optimistic as if he wasn’t quite sure to believe this unexpected good fortune.

  “How did you get this receipt out of her jacket?” he asked.

  Viv and I both studied the tabletop. Now was the icky and uncomfortable moment where we had to admit to entering the crime scene, which we suspected was not going to go well.

  “I asked them to stop by my office,” Ariana said. “In fact, I asked Scarlett to retrieve my jacket for me. It’s my favorite.”

  Ariana was such a horrible liar. She blinked repeatedly and her words trembled when she spoke as if they didn’t have enough strength to stand on their own, as is the nature of lies.

  “No, you didn’t,” I sighed. “Viv and I got the access code from Ariana so that we could go and snoop around the office.”

  Alistair lowered his head into his hand and squeezed his temples between his thumb and middle finger as if he were trying to keep his head from exploding.

  “And you did this because two milliners are so much better at canvassing a crime scene than, say, a crime scene unit and two seasoned detective inspectors.”

  “It sounds so reckless when he puts it that way,” I said to Viv.

  “He sounds like Harrison,” she agreed.

  “Harrison knows about this?” Alistair asked. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “So that’s why he texted me three times telling me to call him. I thought it was about our upcoming rugby match.”

  “But this is good news, right?” Ariana asked. “I mean it helps, doesn’t it?”

  She looked so hopeful, we all leaned forward and reassured her that, yes, this was a good thing.

  “We should tell the detectives, shouldn’t we?” Viv asked Alistair.

  He frowned. I could tell he was thinking the new information over. If Ariana was charged, this new information would be key in her defense, but if she wasn’t charged, then this information could help the detectives find the real killer.

  “Yes, let’s tell Franks,” Alistair said.

  “Are you ready?” I asked Viv.

  She nodded.

  “I’ll come with you,” Alistair said. “In case it gets unpleasant.”

  I didn’t like that his tone of voice indicated that he assumed it would.

  Alistair knocked on the door and an officer came to lead Ariana back to her cell. I squeezed her hand as she went by.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  She nodded at me, and I noted that her dark eyes had something in them that they hadn’t when we arrived. Hope.

  Alistair led us down the hall. He rapped on the open door of what I recognized as Inspector Franks’s office. Inspector Franks glanced up at us and I saw his mustache twitch. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or a bad thing, but I decided to assume it was good.

  “All right, Ms. Parker, Ms. Tremont?” he said. His look was much less friendly when he glanced at Alistair. “Turner.”

  “Franks,” Alistair said. He sounded about as happy to talk to the detective as the detective was with him.

  Franks leaned back in his chair. He stroked his mustache with a finger while he considered us. Viv cracked like a walnut under a hammer.

  “We went to Russo’s office,” she said. “We know we shouldn’t have but we were trying to help Ariana. We didn’t find anything but it was cold out so Scarlett borrowed Ariana’s jacket and she found a dry-cleaning receipt in the pocket, which had a woman’s blouse listed. So Scarlett went to the dry cleaners and they said that the blouse had a coffee stain and a tear and it was the blouse Ariana was wearing the day that Russo was killed.”

  Inspector Franks sat forward at this but Viv had stopped talking, having run out of air. He turned to me. I twisted my fingers together. This wasn’t exactly how I had pictured this going down.

  “It’s true,” I said. “All of it. We just confirmed with Ariana that Russo had her blouse cleaned because he’d accidentally dumped hot coffee on her a few weeks back.”

  “Did you know about this?” Franks asked Alistair.

  “First I’m hearing of it,” Alistair said.

  “The most interesting thing we learned from the dry cleaner was that Russo had them mend a tear in the garment. Mahasti, the seamstress, said it was right on the hem and Russo paid her quite a lot to make it perfect.”

  “Can I see the garment?” Viv asked.

  Inspector Franks looked at her with wide eyes. I think he had been expecting anything but that.

  “I’m a milliner,” she sa
id. “I know hand stitching and machine stitching. I’ll be able to tell if the fabric found in his hand matched the repaired tear on the blouse.”

  “That’s what’s been bothering me!” Inspector Franks pounded his fist on his desk. We all jumped and he looked sheepish. “Sorry. But that has been needling me ever since we collected Miss Jackson’s blouse. There is no tear. If Russo had grabbed her when he fell, there should have been a fresh tear and we could find no sign of a quick repair if she was trying to hide something.”

  Alistair stood straighter. He reminded me of a dog anticipating his ball being thrown. He was ready to chase it down.

  “Will you let Ms. Tremont examine the blouse?” he asked.

  Inspector Franks studied Viv for a moment and then nodded. “Follow me.”

  When Alistair and I made to go with them, Franks frowned at us. “You two wait here.”

  “Aw, what?” I protested.

  “That’s not right,” Alistair argued.

  “Do either of you sew?” Franks asked.

  I thought about lying but really what was the point? I couldn’t even thread a needle without stabbing myself half to death—only a mild exaggeration, I assure you.

  “Sit,” Franks barked.

  Alistair and I both sat. Viv gave me a brave smile as she left with Inspector Franks.

  “Where is he taking her?” I asked.

  “Crime lab or possibly the property room and then the crime lab,” Alistair said. “Depends upon where they stored the evidence for Ariana’s case.”

  I stood up and began to pace. Franks’s tiny office wasn’t really conducive to pacing, so I awkwardly circled my chair a couple of times and then gave up and sat back down.

  “About your cousin,” Alistair said. He wasn’t looking at me and I sensed that he was feeling awkward.

  “Vivian?” I clarified, although she is the only cousin of mine that he knew about, so really who else could he be talking about? I have a few cousins on my father’s side of the family but they are all much older and I seldom saw them unless there was a wedding or a funeral to attend.