Slugfest db-4 Page 15

  “She called him a loser and he called her a bitch.”

  “Must be love,” I said.

  “I couldn’t see,” Nikki said, “but it sounded as if one of them pushed the other up against the wall or the edge of the sink. They both grunted, and instead of shouting they spit their words at each other. That was scarier. The woman said she’d gotten very good at manufacturing things and could manufacture an accident if he didn’t watch his step. She even laughed and said they’d attribute it to the Javits Curse.

  “They struggled. Something fell and spilled onto the floor. I saw a lipstick rolling under the door into the stall where I was hiding. I was petrified they’d find me there. Then the lights went out.”

  It was pitch-black. Nikki heard the others run out and, as she tried to get down, her foot slid off the rim and into the toilet. She twisted her ankle in the bowl, fell over, and cracked her head—first on the lock, then on the tile floor, a trickle of blood sinking into the grout.

  “They don’t know how long I was out, but no one found me until well after the lights came back on, so what was that, twenty-five minutes?”

  “Man,” Rolanda said, shaking her head. “I will never say another bad word about those cat and dog people.”

  “The woman in the lounge said, ‘once again.’ Do you think the people who were arguing were married or a couple?” I asked.

  “If they were, they’re headed for divorce court,” Nikki said.

  “I don’t suppose you recognized any voices.”

  She hadn’t. The absence of slang or a hipster vernacular made Nikki think they were aged thirty to fifty with no particular accents or speech patterns to help identify them. Nikki closed her eyes, trying to re-create the experience.

  “The woman was wearing heels. I could hear them when she moved from the carpeted lounge area to the tile floor of the restroom. While they were arguing I heard something unzip.

  “At first, I worried that it was—you know—his pants, but it must have been the makeup case. That was probably what drove the guy crazy—the fact that he was going apeshit and she was touching up her makeup.”

  The hospital had kept Nikki overnight and released her early Saturday morning, when she came directly to the show.

  “Did I tell you Russ came to pick me up? Wasn’t that thoughtful? He brought me clothing and this darling hat.”

  “That’s a little bitty thing,” Rolanda said, looking it over. “There were some serious hats at Otis’s service this morning. Hats that would need their own cars if they were going on to the cemetery.”

  “Anyway, they gave me my belongings in a white plastic bag.”

  Included among her possessions were the stained black sheath, Lucy’s now-flattened silk flower, one pair of high heels (right one broken and still soggy), and two makeup bags—only one belonging to Nikki Bingham. She was aching to show us the other, but it didn’t seem wise to whip it out right on the show floor. Nikki went to her booth and came back with an English-style trug filled with scented drawer sachets. She placed the basket on the floor of my booth and bent down ostensibly to look for something. Instead she fished out a plastic bag from underneath the fragrant packets and shoved it under the table in Primo’s booth.

  “I don’t want some crazy lady coming after me looking for her lip gloss. I can’t think when I’ve heard a woman sound so driven—and so violent.” Nikki, Rolanda, and I agreed to meet later at El Quixote to search the bag for clues.

  Was Garland Bleimeister “the kid” and Otis Randolph the “poor bastard” who’d stumbled into something? Or was this just another happily married couple having the kind of knock-down, drag-out fight most people are fortunate enough not to witness except on daytime television?

  If I was right that the intended recipient of Garland’s note was someone listed on one of the dog-eared pages, I’d met or heard about most of them, most recently Cindy Gustafson, Connie Anzalone, and Lauryn Peete and her high school students. I had about an hour before we were all ejected; maybe it was time to visit the others.

  But what was I looking for? An emasculated man? A woman needing to freshen her makeup? I didn’t know what I hoped to learn, but my instincts had served me well in the past and I was willing to give it a shot—for Garland and Otis, and for Jamal—but also if someone had broken into Lucy’s apartment looking for that damn bag and scaring the crap out of me and J. C., I wanted them to pay. No greed, no lust, but maybe a little revenge. As J. C. had advised, I’d watch my back.

  Forty-three

  I’d forgotten that I’d already met the Bagua Lady. She’d been the one lingering on the show floor the other night, loading up on handouts at the information booth. It was hardly the stuff of CSI, but all the spiritual merchandise on her shelves made me think she wasn’t the type to bitch slap a guy who had followed her into the ladies’ room. Then there were the Birkenstocks. Also inconclusive, but I gave her points because of them, although it was certainly possibly to own old-fashioned, hippie shoes and stilettos.

  I’d already spent almost sixty dollars on honey, so I was not inclined to drop any more dough on chimes or lucky Chinese coins strung together with red twine just to get a few answers. I took the simple approach.

  “How’s the show been for you?” I asked. It was the standard, innocuous trade show or convention exchange. You never wanted to hear it was fabulous—especially if it wasn’t going well for you—but occasionally it opened the door for other, more practical information like, “Way better than Poughkeepsie.” Or “Not as good as Poughkeepsie.”

  “Oh, you know,” Terry said. “It’s more expensive than the flea markets or craft shows but there’s less driving and not as much fun.” I took that to mean she hadn’t run into any old flames—probably a good thing, given her track record. “I’d rather be outdoors than in all this reconditioned air. Last night was good.” Then she shared the details of every sale over fifty dollars. I was sorry I asked and struggled to keep the glazed-over look out of my eyes. I could only assume today had been slow and I was the first person she’d spoken to for any length of time. The more she talked, the less I saw her as Garland’s contact. People with something to hide didn’t volunteer much, and Terry Ward was the opposite, even drifting off into a personal sidebar about her route selection to the convention center (“I started with MapQuest, but you can never trust them and the GPS told me to turn left but I knew the GW would be crowded…”). It was mind-numbing. I needed to change the subject.

  “Good idea wearing those shoes. It’s brutal standing on these concrete floors all day.” That I knew from personal experience. I still had the shin splints from my first Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to prove it.

  “You’re so right. I even wore them last night for the reception instead of heels. Who could see under a long black skirt? Besides, I’m not here to look sexy. I’m past that. It’s all about the sales. And most of the attendees and buyers are women, anyway. We don’t need to dress up for each other.”

  Hers was a philosophy I didn’t totally agree with. Was she a killer? Only if you could bore someone to death. It was unlikely Terry Ward was the woman in clacking heels who had preened and reapplied war paint while verbally abusing some poor schlub in the ladies’ room. I put Terry Ward on the Probably Not list, then I took pity on her and sprung for two sets of lucky Chinese coins.

  * * *

  The woman at the Bambi-no booth looked haggard. Show life didn’t seem to agree with Lorraine Shepard. Traveling from one city to another, sleeping in strange beds and just being away from home and all the familiar things that make it home—your sheets, your soap, a coffeemaker you can trust is clean—took its toll. After a few days, I was even feeling it, but it showed on Lorraine Shepard’s face as if she’d been out in the fields picking cotton. She put on a tired smile for the three or four people at her booth, but her pitch had no energy and they smiled politely and then drifted away.

  The booth was bare-bones—an umbrella stand filled with baseball
bats and two tables covered with a stretchy cloth preprinted with the word Bambi-no! in large, bright blue type. Next to the name was the image of a deer about to be brained by a baseball bat. Even to a seasoned gardener with no love for deer, it seemed a tad angry. On the tables were half-gallon bottles of the magic potion. From a distance, they looked as benign as jugs of apple cider, like those stacked in any supermarket once October rolled around. As you got closer the smell became overpowering. Perhaps that’s what was responsible for the look on Lorraine Shepard’s face and the deep marks etched on her forehead that resembled the pause button or the number eleven.

  I hovered, listening to the woman speak with other prospective customers. It was a tough sell. At Primo’s booth, people were either intrigued by the art or they kept walking. Here, Lorraine and her husband—the directory listed a partner named Marty—had to constantly battle the skeptics and the naysayers, or worse listen to people recite their own homemade recipes for a concoction that would repel deer. When she did find a receptive ear, two out of three times the listener balked at the price. I found myself hoping her husband was a better salesperson or at least had had a caffeine jolt to combat the afternoon lull.

  When it was my turn, I tried asking a question unlike the same few I’d heard repeated in the last fifteen minutes.

  “So, Bambi-no—does it have to be reapplied after it rains?” My delivery was perky. I was a real gardener, not a cop pretending to be a gardener. It should have gone well. It didn’t. “You are the one millionth person to ask that same question this weekend. Give that woman a kewpie doll.” I half expected bells and buzzers to go off.

  Lorraine Shepard didn’t completely snap, but it was a pretty athletic bend. She shook her head as if it were the dumbest question she’d ever heard, then launched into her prepackaged reply. “Yes. After every rain. Same thing for areas near the sprinklers.” She was practically gasping for breath.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” I said, “but are you okay? You seem a little out of sorts.”

  Lorraine thanked me. Her husband had been called to a meeting and she’d been on her own all day. She was just tired. I offered to bring her a cold drink or a chair—they hadn’t sprung for the chairs either—but Lorraine said her husband would be back soon and anyway the floor was almost closed. No sooner did she say it, than Marty Shepard appeared, staring at my badge and barely masking his irritation that his wife would use what little energy she could muster on someone who wasn’t a buyer and who couldn’t possibly do them any good.

  I jokingly asked if he thought the name Bambi-no would be a problem for gardeners who were Red Sox fans. He was not amused. I spared him the trouble of answering by leaving on my own but not without making eye contact with his wife, who nodded as if to say, Yes, he’s a jerk, but he’s my jerk.

  The next name on Garland’s short list was BioSafe, the company selling SlugFest. I rushed to their booth just in time to see the last salmon-clad employee flinging off her ugly shirt and tossing it behind a meeting room door, then dashing off.

  Everyone else was gone. The door was slightly ajar. I was just your average gardener, hoping to keep the slugs at bay. That was my rationale for entering the SlugFest meeting room.

  Forty-four

  The air at El Quixote smelled of beer and barbecued chicken wings. Even without the famous red dress, Brian, the bartender, greeted me as if I were an old friend. He pointed toward the back, where Rolanda was ensconced in a booth that was more private than the table we’d occupied the night before. She was already sipping a drink, so I ordered an Amstel and waited at the bar until he came back with the frosty bottle.

  “No glass, right?”

  “Thanks.”

  I slid into the booth opposite Rolanda. The cold beer went down easy.

  “Nikki called to cancel, dinner with Russ. I smell a reconciliation,” Rolanda said. “You look in the makeup bag yet?”

  “I thought we’d share the moment.” I pulled the white plastic bag Nikki had given me out of my backpack. Inside was a freebie cosmetics case from one of the department-store makeup companies—a free-with-purchase offer. Spend seventy-five dollars on face cream—which should come with a label 100 Percent Delusional—and we will give you this stylish, nylon, made-in-China pouch that cost seventy cents. What a deal. I’d fallen for it myself.

  “High-end label,” Rolanda said. “Our lady doesn’t shop at the drugstore.”

  “We don’t know that yet. I’ve gotten some of these special-offer packages at Marshalls.”

  “Good tip.”

  I unzipped the case and upended it over the table with all the drama of someone unlocking a safe from the Titanic. The contents spilled out, and Rolanda and I spread our hands to make sure nothing rolled off the edge. It was the stuff that dreams were made of. Whoever left the bag in the ladies’ room before the blackout was an equal opportunity shopper. Everything from Maybelline Great Lash to Yves Saint Laurent concealer to Guerlain spray bronzer. This woman was prepared for every contingency.

  “That concealer goes for forty or fifty bucks, and it’s only slightly better than Almay’s,” I said.

  “Want to leave her a note?”

  I thought of the women I’d spoken to that day, starting with my breakfast meeting. Fake Cindy didn’t look like she could afford fifty-dollar concealer. Besides, when you’re that young, how much do you have to conceal? Let me rephrase that—how much under your eyes do you need to conceal?

  The rest of the items were pricey—lipsticks, expensive hair cream, and a tube of brow gel. I took a swig of my beer and pulled out my copy of the show directory.

  “First off, there’s no guarantee this bag or the argument Nikki overheard has anything to do with Garland Bleimeister, although it’s tempting to think so given the reference to ‘a kid that had to be taken care of’ and the ‘guy who worked here.’”

  Rolanda was unconvinced. “Weren’t they the words Bleimeister used in his note … ‘I have to be taken care of’?”

  It was a common expression, but it was one more thing that made us think the two events were connected. I told Rolanda about my visits with Terry Ward and the real Cindy Gustafson.

  “The honey lady had a sister who went to the same school as the dead kid?”

  Rolanda thought that was promising, but I didn’t see it. “There’s probably a big age difference, even if the sister was ten years younger. Cindy’s a mature woman, very comfortable talking to me about her ex-husband, his indiscretions, her finances. She even made a few jokes.”

  “So that’s it—if they’re funny, they can’t be the bad guys? I must have been out that day at cop school.”

  “Okay, not scientific. I admit it.” Still, Cindy had been so at ease with me, it was hard to think of her as a criminal. Or a potty-mouthed, castrating she-devil like the one Nikki had overheard in the ladies’ room. Maybe that’s what sociopaths do. They get you to trust them and let your guard down before they strike. But I couldn’t see her spray painting her face with bronzer. She wore her porcelain skin like some badge of honor, the way women did in the nineteenth century.

  “What about Terry Ward? The Bag Lady?”

  “It’s Bagua.”

  “What does that mean anyway?” Rolanda asked.

  I wasn’t really sure. I seemed to recall bagua was some kind of map or grid used in feng shui. It told you where things were supposed to be in your house. Not your keys or your eyeglasses, which might be more helpful—your chi, your energy. The good news was, almost anything negative could be counteracted with a mirror, which Terry could cheerfully provide in every price range. I liked the idea of easy fixes but didn’t totally subscribe to the practice.

  “Shoot, I’ve got mirrors in every room in my apartment.”

  “Well, then you’re covered,” I said. “Terry seems like a nice, agreeable woman. Hardworking, sensible shoes. That’s exactly who you have to watch out for. Those nice-sounding women in boring shoes. They’re the ones who snap. Don’t trust a wo
men who doesn’t care what she puts on her feet.”

  It was true—shoes tell.

  “She could be in financial difficulties, but didn’t seem desperate and didn’t strike me as someone who’d do anything illegal, much less commit murder. She also said she’d rather be selling outdoors at the flea market. Didn’t sound very cutthroat to me.”

  “Single?”

  “I didn’t ask and she didn’t say, but no ring.” I twisted the ring on my own ring finger; it was one I’d bought myself and I wasn’t married, so what did rings mean? Inconclusive.

  “Question mark. But if we’re definitely adding the makeup case to the mix, I’d say no. At the risk of sounding mean, she had a unibrow. I doubt the woman owns a tweezer much less a tube of Anastasia Beverly Hills brow gel.”

  Were we really making assessments of guilt or innocence based on health and beauty products? Footwear?

  Connie Anzalone’s name was the next on the list. She could certainly afford anything in that makeup bag, and hadn’t I seen her in full war paint, even coming back from the ladies’ room at the St. George, even when she knew she’d be back in her room in half an hour? But her husband wasn’t at the show on Friday night. Could she have been arguing with someone else? Who? Fat Frank? Another man?

  “Wouldn’t her distinctive manner of speaking have registered with Nikki?” she said.

  “That was very diplomatic of you and it’s a good observation, but we know what Connie sounds like. Maybe Nikki doesn’t. I’ve never seen Nikki and Connie together, have you?” Rolanda hadn’t. Nikki hadn’t even run over that first day to see Connie’s meltdown when her veronicas died. She had just repeated the gossip she’d heard in the ladies’ room.

  As much as I didn’t want to believe it, there was something about the woman’s cutting remarks in the lounge exchange that smacked of the same casual viciousness I’d heard when Connie and Guy had had their brief but volatile tiff in the hotel bar. And the memory of the lye comment was still, uh, seared in my brain.