Diane Davidson - Killer Pancake

I started walking. I wasn’t ready to go back to the van. I needed to move, to clear my head. All around, people trotted through the rain to their cars or to the heavy main doors to the mall. I looked into a Prince & Grogan plate-glass window. I didn’t see the leggy mannequins clad in short black suits, but instead gaped at my bedraggled reflection. Standing there, watching my elongated, pained face, I thought about the body as it came falling down, down, down. What had Nick Gentileschi been doing up in the blind? Especially when department store security supposedly didn’t use them anymore? Why were the pictures of Babs in his pocket? Did this have anything to do with Claire’s murder?

The cars whooshed behind me on the wet thoroughfare. Oh, Claire , I found myself whispering, I am so sorry. I am so sorry I can’t figure this out for you. I am so sorry, Julian. It’s just getting worse, instead of resolved .

Like my van returning to Aspen Meadow by rote, I walked as if I had someplace to go. Where was I supposed to go? I couldn’t remember. My shoes sloshed through puddles. Cold droplets continued to beat down all around. Kids pedaled past me on bikes. One yelled something like Get inside, lady! But I didn’t acknowledge him. Forks of lightning flared in the distance. Thunder rumbled overhead. I walked on. I didn’t care about the wet, didn’t care that my caterer’s outfit was getting soaked. If I got pneumonia, I thought absurdly, I could go to Marla’s house and her nurse would take care of both of us. I walked down one street, then another. I saw Nick Gentileschi’s body tumble from a great height. Again I heard the sickening crack as his weight hit the glass counter.

Finally, I stopped. Where was the store, exactly? Where was the hospital? The mall?

Where was I , exactly?

The houses, street, sidewalk, shrubs, and fences swam slowly into focus. I had arrived in the older neighborhood of Aqua Bella that Dusty had pointed out so enviously when we were sipping our lattes on the mall’s garage roof. Of course, “older” in Denver usually means “from the 1950s.” Along the sidewalk where I stood, drenched and disoriented, a Frank Lloyd Wright-style redstone-and-brick ranch was flanked by a white Georgian two-story with pristine black shutters and a turreted blue and pink neo-Victorian mini-mansion. The Victorian was like a large feminine presence. No one had controlled the zoning along this street, unfortunately, and none of these lovely buildings was an actual domicile. A small sign at the end of the sidewalk to the ranch home indicated it was now the office for a trio of dentists. The Georgian was devoted to accounting.

A blue and pink picket fence primly separated the sidewalk from the lush green lawn in front of the Victorian. White wicker furniture brimming with blue and pink cushions dotted a spacious front porch. An elaborately lettered sign on the picket fence announced that the business was Hotchkiss Skin & Hair.

Behind a glass door intricately patterned with white metal, the blue front door to Hotchkiss opened. Behind the fence, the rain, and the glass, a silhouette appeared in the lighted doorway. The visage regarded me, then beckoned. It was the young, cheerful face of Dusty Routt.

I moved toward the Victorian house. Perhaps I had intended unconsciously to come here all along, since I had received the directions over the phone. But Dusty worked at Mignon, not at Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss was Mignon’s competitor . Dusty held the glass door open as I stumbled inside.

“Goldy! Jeez, come in … you’re, like, totally … Look at you! You’re a wreck! I mean … I saw in the appointment book that you were coming, but … you’re so late! What were you doing out in the rain? Where’s your van? Why didn’t you wear a raincoat?”

I found myself in a foyer decorated with pale pink carpeting, matte pink walls, small gold and crystal chandeliers, white leather and gilt wood French provincial chairs, and a long glass counter arrayed with cosmetic products. The place was so at odds with my drenched, wraithlike appearance that I let out a crazy cackle. Dusty stared. I couldn’t tell her what I was thinking—that Hotchkiss Skin & Hair looked like an upscale whorehouse.

A pretty woman stood behind the reception desk. Her wide, pale face boasted dark streaks of brownish-pink blush. Her voice was as soft as her swirled nimbus of cocoa-colored hair and pink mohair sweater. She asked, “Are you ready for your appointment?”

I looked at Dusty. Out of her Mignon uniform and wearing a white shirt and green culottes, she looked younger—more her age. I said, “Nick Gentileschi…”

Dusty tilted her head. “What about Nick? Did he come with you? Is he here?” She glanced back toward the rainswept sidewalk. “He wouldn’t come here,” she said, confused, “because he works at—”

I cleared my throat. “Nick’s dead. There’s been an accident at the store.”

Dusty’s carefully plucked eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God! Dead? Nick? It’s not true. Is it?” When I nodded, she said, “I’ve gotta go. Oh … this is unbelievable—”

“You are Mrs. Schulz, then?” inquired the soft-voiced woman at the desk. The pink mohair materialized as a dress around a voluptuous body. “How did you say you were going to take care of your charges today?”

“Uh …” I fumbled with the slippery opening to my pocketbook. What charges? “I need a cab,” I said uncertainly.

“We’ll call one for you,” Ms. Mohair assured me breathily. “We just need your credit card.”

I guess it had been a long time since I’d taken a cab. I thought they took only cash. I handed her my Visa.

“What happened to Nick?” Dusty demanded.

I was suddenly aware of being wet and very cold. “I have no idea. Dusty? Could I get a …?”

“A what?” she asked. “What happened to Nick?”

“I don’t know.” My teeth chattered. “One minute I was standing at the counter, the next he was crashing out of that blind above the store entrance—”

“The blind?” She was incredulous. “He fell out of the blind? What in the world was he doing up there?”

The woman with the soft voice reappeared with my credit card and a paper slip and I signed. For what, I wasn’t quite sure. What had happened to Marla’s coupon? “We can take you back now, Mrs. Schulz. Let’s get you a dry robe,” she said intimately, ignoring Dusty, “and put those damp things in our dryer. Shall we?”

It sounded good. In fact, it sounded wonderful.

“Gosh, Goldy,” said Dusty, “are you sure you want to do your facial now anyway?”

“Oh, I …”

Competing voices invaded my brain. I’m so sorry, Claire. I’m so sorry I couldn’t figure anything out .

I’d made this appointment with Hotchkiss Skin & Hair because I was trying to discover why and how Hotchkiss was copying or stealing from Mignon, and if the fierce competition between the cosmetics companies could extend to killing people. Behind the reception desk, I saw first one, then another woman scurry down a far hall. Both wore lab coats. But I felt unsteady. Stay here, where all was unknown? Or ask Dusty for a ride back to my van? Tom would certainly want to know what was going on. With sudden resolve, though, I decided to stay. I would manage, I would have this facial, I would call a cab. And I would tell Tom all about what had happened at the department store. But a question nagged. “Dusty,” I said, “what in the world are you doing here?”

She pressed her lips together and relieved me of my purse and the paper bag. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “Reggie Hotchkiss wants to hire me. I mean, he’s promised. We just had a meeting. You know, I just have to get away from Mignon. That place is crazy. Come on, I’ll take your stuff back.”