The Scent of Murder, page 16
part #1 of Marissa Scott Series
“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when I find out more. Fuschia, huh?” Marissa had hoped Ellen would be too involved in her wedding to ask questions.
“You changed the subject. I guess threats won’t get you to open up?” Ellen sighed. “I think I’m going to have matching ties and cummerbunds for the ushers. I picked out a style of dress for you that you can wear again. You know, like maybe to a cosmetic function.”
Marissa rolled her eyes. Maybe to take out the trash. Everyone at a cosmetics function would know Marissa had been in a wedding recently and was too frugal to relegate the dress to the back of the closet. “I promise not to forget about the bridal show. I’m really behind in my paperwork though and have to get going.” She hung up the phone. Marissa remembered the hostile attitude of the gift wrapper. Louise made sense as the prankster. Why had she used her discount though? The purchases could be traced back to her through that number. Marissa remembered the World Trade Center bombers and how they had been caught by arguing over the car rental bill. Some people were more interested in getting a bargain than in covering their tracks. Psychologists would probably argue that deep down Louise wanted to get caught and let Harper know the depth of her disapproval. Otherwise, why not just steal perfume from the store?
Marissa headed through the cosmetics department and up the escalator. She walked back to the gift- wrap area. Louise leaned up against the counter, smoking. The pranks might have stowed down since Billy’s murder, but her attitude still held.
Louise took a long drag on her cigarette and slowly exhaled. “Come to have another present wrapped for another man?”
Marissa thought of checking for wounds. That comment had hit a little too close to the truth. As long as she concentrated on the murders, she didn’t have to think about Gavin or Dan. “No, actually I came up here to find out about some purchases you made.”
Louise blew more smoke out in her direction, a long lazy stream of bluish gray. “What would I want in makeup? I’m a little too old to want to get fancied up for a man.”
“How about the latest perfume?” Marissa breathed in, checking for a citrusy aroma, but only smelled wrapping paper and cigarette smoke.
Louise shook her head. “Never wear it. That stuff gives me a headache.”
Marissa looked around the little area. Sample boxes that would never be delivered adorned the far wall. Other than a small blue plastic chair in the corner and a radio on the counter, nothing in the gift-wrap area made the room seem homey. Just another room in another office of another store of another mall, like one of the thousands that littered the country. She sighed, wondering if she would spend the end of her workdays like this. Lifelong employment had truly become a thing of the past in the same way that “'til death do us part” had.
“You must have a lot of relatives, then. Or friends.”
Louise ground out the cigarette into the plastic countertop and threw the butt into the trash can. “Do you have a point? You didn’t come up here to pay me a social call.”
“I was going over the sales reports today and noticed that you’ve been buying a lot of Paradise lately. I counted almost a gallon in sales. Also you’ve been buying Eternity, and you don’t have any male relatives. Not only is that suspicious, it’s expensive.”
Louise let a smile play at the corners of her lips, one side of her mouth rising higher than the other did. “Worth every penny though.”
“Then you admit it was you who did all these pranks?” Marissa leaned in closer to the counter. She couldn’t see anyone else in the vicinity, but she still felt a need for secrecy. Harper would take no prisoners when he found out who had ruined his Porsche. Inside of herself, Marissa could understand Louise’s need to strike back and take control of her world. Wasn’t that what her personal investigation was all about? Find a murderer, get Dan out of her house, and not have to see Gavin so much.
“How could I deny it?”
“Are you saying you dumped perfume on Harper’s car? Not to mention the washing-machine incident and the fountain out front.”
Louise smiled at the list of accomplishments and nodded. “All me.”
“Why?” Marissa spent most of her time trying to stay out of trouble, not causing more. Her happiest days would be the ones most people called boring.
“I don’t have much to lose. I just wanted them to feel as sorry about this situation as I do.” She waved her arms around the little cube with the rolls of wrapping paper on the wall. “I’ve been an executive secretary for the past twenty-five years. Now some young punk comes in here and decides I can’t do the job to suit him.”
“Corporate thinks highly of him.”
Louise smirked. “Corporate would think highly of a cockroach if he could save a buck.”
“You have to stop doing this. You’re going to get caught and they’ll fire you. Harper is furious about his car. He’d probably sue.”
“I can make one prediction. You’ll never tell him about this. You don’t like the man any more than I do.” Louise’s words sounded strong, but Marissa could see the woman’s body deflate as she spoke. The ex-secretary looked her age. Her hands reduced to shriveled claws that clutched the scissors and marker.
“I’ll make you a deal. If you stop with the pranks, I’ll keep my mouth shut about them. But you need to cut it out now.”
“Why not?” Louise shrugged and leaned heavily against the counter. “I only have six months to retirement. Then you’ll never see me in this store again. It’ll be Sears from now on for Louise Cramer.”
Marissa thought shopping at Sears for the rest of her life should be punishment enough for anyone. “It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out that you were behind this. Someone else could figure it out, too.” She paused a second and looked at the woman again. “Tiffany knew, didn’t she? That’s why you two got so chummy.”
“Maybe you should stick with Dan. You’re much too smart for the police.” Louise lit another cigarette. “Of course, they’re too busy chasing after pretty young things like you to worry about pranks.”
“How did she find out?”
Louise snickered. “She wasn’t as bright as you by half. She caught me red-handed coming out of the men’s bathroom with a couple of empty cologne bottles.” Marissa’s eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to get into a discussion like this with someone who might be a killer. She moved back from the counter, noticing the scissors gleam in the fluorescent light. “So Tiffany was blackmailing you not to tell about the pranks?”
“Maybe you should stay with the cop if this is all the better you can do. She offered to help me. She told me that she could get me as much of that stuff as I wanted, provided I embarrassed the store. She said that she knew a source for all the perfume she wanted.” Louise laughed a series of short barks. “She seemed quite pleased with herself.”
“She helped you? She tried to extort money from everyone else she met, but you, she tried to help.”
“Why would I make that up? I have nothing to lose by telling the truth. Besides, I don’t have enough money to pay anyone.”
Marissa looked at the woman. Could she be a killer as well as a vandal? The anger and bitterness existed in sufficient quantity to qualify as a motive. Marissa paused, and wondered if this was how people perceived her: jaded and unable to move past the hurt of a divorce. She tried to focus on the woman across the counter. “There’s a big difference between what you’ve admitted and murder. No one gets the death penalty for vandalism.”
The woman’s face went as white as the underside of the gift paper. “I never killed her. Why would I? She was helping me.”
“I still don’t understand why she would help you. She wanted money for some reason, lots of money.”
“I don’t think someone like you could ever understand her. Tiffany wasn’t like most girls her age. She reminded me of me when I was young. Except she went after her goals, didn’t get tied down to a menial job like mine. She was intelligent. She had a good mind for figuring out how to turn things to her advantage. I was a means to embarrass the store, specifically cosmetics, so she took the chance.”
Marissa took a deep breath. Her thoughts were more twisted at this point than some of the bows along the counter. Why had Tiffany hated her so much? She was the one with a grievance, not that young tramp who’d taken her husband. The situation seemed reversed. She remembered what Eddie had said about his sister lashing out at others, but why had she selected a total stranger? “How could I have been so stupid? I can’t believe that little bimbo was running around trying to ruin my life, what’s left of it anyway, and I didn’t notice. You’d think I had a bag on my head.”
“I told her that she was taking an awful risk doing this, but she wouldn’t listen. If I had to guess, she enjoyed it more than I did.”
“So when did she find out?”
“About three weeks ago. I had just bought the perfume to destroy Harper’s car. I returned some of it and used the stuff Tiffany brought me. That was how I got enough for the fountain too. She brought over a case of perfume to my house.”
“She’s entitled to some free samples, but Carly would never give her models a case each. There’s something fishy going on around here. I wonder if she might have been dipping into the store supplies herself.” Marissa wondered about Nicole’s comments about the yard sales again. Had Tiffany resorted to stealing perfume to raise the money she’d stashed away for her trip to Los Angeles?
“She seemed to be an endless supply of Paradise.” Louise’s smile twisted further.
“Not in my book she wasn’t.”
Chapter 20
Later that evening, as the winter winds nudged her car across the road, Marissa wished she was home with Josh. Still gullible and nurturing, she’d promised to run some errands for Dan. His request had seemed reasonable when he made it. When Marissa drew nearer to their old home to pick up the mail and check on the house, she started to feel the familiar gnawing in the pit of her stomach. The queasy, painful burning in her gut. The fights, the long spells of not talking, and the final night when Dan didn’t come home at all had taken their toll on her digestive tract. There had been days when Marissa would cook for Josh and skip the meal, feasting instead on the flow of bile.
She looked back on these things now almost through a filter. Those memories might have happened to someone else or in another life. She’d thought the pain had evaporated in the strong light of Gavin’s affection and Dan’s constant presence until she had started the drive here. This house had been theirs and Dan’s after the divorce. She purposely had stayed away from the neighborhood since their home had represented much more to her than where she had lived. Exiled in embarrassment.
The associations had been easy to forget since she’d moved across town. She and Dan had lived in a newly built subdivision in the village of Wyoming, one of the more affluent areas of town with faux Tudors and English cottages. The houses in the neighborhood had all belonged to up-and-coming young families, most of them with children about Josh’s age. She’d spent her days visiting with the other Stepford wives and listening to them talk about their husbands’ latest deals and promotions.
Marissa had met Anne there. Anne had plenty of free time as her husband had traveled a great deal even in the first days of their marriage. Working and without children, the redhead didn’t feel as if she fit into the social situation. The two had hit it off immediately. They had managed to stay friends through all the turmoil in Marissa’s life. Anne’s situation made her ideal for hanging around with even as a single, divorced mother.
Marissa pulled the car into the middle of the driveway. The Rabbit was leaking oil this month, but cleaning up the slick puddle from the concrete would be Dan’s responsibility. She wouldn’t have to listen to him whine. She grabbed the keys Dan had given her off the front seat and headed towards the front door.
The mailbox brimmed with letters. More had fallen on the ground. Since the temperature had yet to break thirty, spending time in the snow hadn’t soaked them. Marissa bent down and picked up the envelopes. She cradled them in her arm as she worked the key into the locks. After two winters, she’d forgotten about the way the key stuck.
The heat of the house blew out to greet her as she pushed open the front door. Dan had always liked it hot in the house, no matter what the electric bill. She dumped the mail on the entryway table and walked around the house. Subtle touches let Marissa know that Tiffany had lived here in the days before her death: ruby red lipstick on a glass in the sink; hairspray cans in the trash; an Offspring CD. Coming here had been a bad idea and Marissa regretted it, feeling disposable and forgotten. Her carefully conceived decorating had been plastered over by a veneer of bachelorhood, and teenaged girls. Little remained of what she’d spent months doing.
She set the glass in the sink and filled it to the brim. The plants in the kitchen slumped in their pots. Marissa watered them slowly. Always the nurturer, she thought. Dan would probably let them wither away.
She finished the chore and walked back to the entryway. Some of the mail had fallen to the floor. She pushed it into a pile with her foot. Slowly sorting the mail into stacks of magazines, junk mail, bills and others, she pushed the glossy digests and unpaid bills into her purse.
Marissa took the junk mail to the pantry and opened the door. The thick smell of composting trash wafted out of the enclosed area and made her gag. She dumped the ads and credit-card requests on top of the garbage. Dan never remembered to take out the trash when they were married. Why would he have changed without her? At least some things are forever. She lifted the trash bag and tied it closed. She went to the garage and threw it on top of the metal trash can in the corner.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed boxes against one wall. She stepped over to them to investigate.
The cardboard boxes were labeled Paradise and Marissa saw a packing sheet for the Kantor’s Kenwood store. Why would these be here? Carly would provide employees with some samples and free gifts. Not whole cases of their new cologne. The last time she checked, Kenwood was a good twenty minutes from here.
Marissa reached down and pulled on the corner of the topmost carton. The cardboard pulled back easily — she looked inside. The case was filled with the bottles of perfume just as she expected. This must be part of the stash of Paradise that Tiffany had offered Louise. Marissa thought back to Nicole’s statements about the yard sales and the perfume. Had Tiffany resorted to stealing perfume? Marissa was more than willing to think the worst of the girl. Often it was true.
She looked around some more and found the complimentary gifts from the current advertising campaign. It coincided with the quantity of perfume in the garage. Marissa guessed there was about five thousand dollars in perfume here, not including gifts; that would buy a lot of plane tickets.
Marissa walked back into the house and made sure the doors and windows were all locked. The phone rang. She hesitated, not knowing how to explain her presence to any of Dan’s friends or family. Most of them wouldn’t be happy to hear her voice, having heard only Dan’s side of the split. They had made it all too clear that they supported their philandering son and amigo. On the fifth ring, she picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
The phone line was silent, no voice and no dial tone. After ten seconds, the line went dead. The familiar buzz came to her ear. How many times had this scenario happened while they were married — the phone calls where no one would answer? She hung up the receiver and closed the door behind her.
****
She didn’t have any qualms about telling Dan about the perfume or Louise or the airline ticket. The drive across town to her own two-bedroom apartment on the west side had given her sufficient time to think about all the times she’d been hung up on by the dead woman. Too many.
Dan was sitting on the sofa watching Joshua play when she returned. The little boy still had his pajamas on and was pulling a train in circles on the carpet.
Marissa pulled the mail from her pocket and dumped it on the coffee table. The airline ticket retrieved from the store mannequin she handed to Dan separately.
“What’s this?” He looked at the envelope, turning it over in his hands.
“An airline ticket. A one-way trip to Los Angeles.”
“If you wanted me to leave, there are subtler ways to broach the subject, you know.” He looked up at her with sad eyes. For a moment, Marissa dreaded the impending conversation. She knew both of them had been punching bags at the school of hard knocks lately.
“It’s not for you. This belongs to Tiffany. She was supposed to leave this week for an undetermined amount of time.” Marissa took off her coat and walked to the closet. She took her time with the hanger to allow Dan to process the news. He’d never been good with surprises. Except for the ones he pulled.
As she walked back to the living room, he said, “I don’t understand. Why would she want to go to California a few days before our wedding?”
Marissa plopped down on the couch near Joshua and stroked his hair. “I hate to break this to you, but there wasn’t going to be a wedding. She was getting money together any way she could and she had a one-way ticket out of here.”
“But why?”
“Dan, you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure that out. I almost did. You need to get past the hurt and move on.” Marissa remembered the words as some that Dan had used on her some time ago. Nothing like a bit of recycling to make the world a better place.
“That was a cheap shot.”
Marissa checked his expression. She wanted answers now, not tears and recriminations. “Hey, sometimes the truth is painful. What I really need to know is why there’s perfume in your garage.”
“What are you talking about? I know the trash hasn’t gone out in a couple of weeks, but it’s cold so it shouldn’t smell too bad.”
Marissa watched his face. She knew his lying expression, just as she could recognize Josh’s fibs now. He wasn’t pulling his ear or scratching his nose. So either Dan really didn’t know about the boxes, or else he’d practiced keeping a straight face in the past two years. Maybe if that hang-up meant the same thing it had during their marriage, he might have learned how to juggle even more women. “If you really don’t know about it, there are cases of Paradise perfume and the free gifts that go with them sitting in your garage. I think they could be stolen from my store.”
