“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He guided Ebony to the passenger side of his truck and opened the door for her. She looked back at me and rolled her eyes.
I waited until after they’d driven off before digging out my phone. Maybe Ebony was okay with the vandalism in front of the store, but I wasn’t. I needed to talk to somebody I could trust, somebody who could tell me if the growing sense of fear was normal.
Soot came out from the stockroom. He skulked across the floor and brushed up against my ankles. I sat down and stroked his fur.
“Hey, Soot. Got a minute to talk?” I dangled my hand back down and he circled around and made another pass at my ankles. He lowered himself and stuck his paws out in front of himself like a sphinx, and then looked up at me and meowed, as if saying, The psychiatrist is in.
“I thought it would be fun to help Dad and Ebony out with the party. I don’t even know if the two of them could have pulled it off without my help. But now the client is dead and the police think Ebony did it.”
Soot licked his front paw a few times and then tucked it underneath him. I ran my hand over his dark gray fur several times and he started to purr. “I know I have a tendency to think that the worst will happen to the people around me. I think it’s because I’m so scared of losing my dad.” I stopped petting Soot for a moment and he looked up at me. “I think his heart attack shook me up more than I want to admit, but he needs me to hold myself together. So does Ebony.”
Soot stood up and put his front paws on my knee. I bent down and butted heads with him.
“This is a good opportunity for self-growth. Remember how scared I was when Magic Maynard first tried to saw me in half?”
Soot meowed.
“And that turned out mostly okay. This will too. I have to be strong for both of them. But do you mind if, every once in a while, we have a talk like this?”
Soot bumped heads with me again and let out a small mew. I scooped him up and held him close for a second until he wriggled free. He dropped down to the floor and took off for the stockroom.
I guess my time was up.
But what really had happened to Blitz? Someone had killed him at his own birthday party. Who? And why? Sure, he’d been obnoxious, but that was hardly a reason to murder someone.
There was a connection between Ebony and Blitz, or more accurately, between Ebony and his father. Blitz had alluded to it the day he hired us to put together his party. When I asked her about it, she hadn’t denied it. And when Blitz had used knowledge of that connection to get Ebony to do what he wanted, it had worked. He’d shown her that he had a power over her, a power he wouldn’t hesitate to use in order to get her to do what he wanted. I couldn’t help her until I knew what those secrets were and how damaging they would be.
Sunday hours at the store were twelve to five. When no customers had entered by twelve thirty, I started a list of as many items as I could remember using in the detective costumes. Blitz’s short timetable had forced me to swipe parts of our existing costumes, and I’d need to get them back in order before being able to rent them out. First I listed the characters, and next to them, the items I’d used in each costume and where those items had come from.
Kojak: man’s suit from ’70s, bald cap (general accessories), lollipop from candy store
Columbo: trench coat from hobo, man’s suit from salesman, cigar (general accessories)
Tom Swift: jetpack and goggles from steampunk, suspenders and knickers from chimney sweep
Miss Marple: sweater and plaid skirt from ’50s sorority girl, glasses from ’80s accessories, sensible shoes from church lady
And so it continued. It would have been nice to know who wore which costume, but I didn’t know many of the people who were invited. I’d spent more time appreciating the way the characters had mixed and mingled, and no time noticing the individual people under the costumes.
It all went back to the way I felt about myself. I learned early on that there was something special about wearing a costume in public. People in costumes were friendlier, happier, less stressed. It wasn’t just something that I noticed with kids, but adults too.