She nodded. “He and his wife were in that big house on Christopher Robin Crossing. Blitz was just a kid, maybe four years old. He was a little devil, that one. One minute he was running around the place screaming at the top of his lungs, the next minute he was hiding behind the sofa, waiting to jump out and scare you.”
And suddenly Blitz’s comment the day he walked into Disguise DeLimit—the opinion of a spoiled four-year-old boy that had been cemented in his mind ever since—made sense.
“Blitz saw his dad give you money.”
“Blitz and his mother both saw. They overheard Brody say that it was for old times’ sake, that nobody had to know what happened in our past. The two of them suspected the worst. They didn’t know the circumstances and they wouldn’t listen to me. I haven’t been welcome in that house ever since.”
“But if Blitz held a grudge against you, why would he hire you to plan his party? And why would he hold that knowledge over your head?”
“Seems the little devil finally reached a point of maturity. Blitz hired me because he finally got tired of not knowing the truth.”
Chapter 18
“HOW DO YOU know that?” I asked.
“He told me. After I said I’d plan the party, he came to Shindig on his own. He apologized for making a scene at your store. You know, I actually think it never occurred to him that I’d tell him the truth if he came to me like a normal person and asked about what happened.”
“So you told him? About the loan and how his mother always suspected the worst?”
“I didn’t have a chance to get into specifics. He said we’d talk at the party. But he finally understood that his dad always considered me to be somebody special. That boy almost cried when he talked about Brody. He said he’d give back all the money he inherited if it would bring back his father.”
But it wouldn’t. That money could make a difference for Bobbie’s fund-raisers, and it could keep Ebony from debt, and it could throw the biggest detective-themed costume party that Proper City had ever seen, but the one thing it couldn’t do was bring someone back from the dead. Nothing could. I’d made similar proclamations myself, so I knew.
“You said Blitz planned to talk more at his party?”
“He said he’d come find me when he had a chance to get away. I think deep down, even with all of those people around him, he was alone. He probably came to the kitchen to find me. And then somebody killed him and he’ll never know the truth.”
“He must have suspected that it wasn’t as bad as his mother said if he wanted to talk to you. What Brody did for you was totally legitimate. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said.
“I wasn’t embarrassed. Brody was never anything but nice to me. He wrote me a check that allowed me to clear my debts and stay in business. I don’t know if he ever knew what a difference that money made to me. The only thing I regret is that he died before I was able to pay him back. I wanted to tell Blitz that I tried to pay back the money.”
“When?”
“I made one trip to that house after Brody passed away. Blitz’s mom, Linda, refused to accept it. She wouldn’t acknowledge that any such loan had taken place and she asked me to leave and never come back. She treated me like I was a dirty secret from Brody’s past. I always wondered if Blitz knew the truth, or if he thought I was back to ask for more money from her. The day he walked into Disguise DeLimit was the first time he ever mentioned it, and that’s the day I realized what his mom must have told him about me.”
When I remembered that day, I was struck again by how strange it had seemed at the time that Blitz wanted Ebony to plan his party and Disguise DeLimit to provide the costumes. And again I found it hard to justify the person who had walked into our store expecting to toss around money and get what he wanted with the person Bobbie Kay had told me she knew—the tortured rich boy who made donations to her nonprofit with no expectations in return.
Certainly Blitz could have turned to a number of different people to make his birthday party happen. As far as costumes went, what my dad always said was true. We had a vast inventory and our reputation as a costume shop had spread beyond the perimeter of Proper City, but I hadn’t been able to understand why Blitz would hire someone he didn’t appear to like. Now I understood. He wanted to get to know her—get to know the story behind her relationship with his real father—and he’d used his party as an excuse to open that door. His attitude had been for show, a proud kid who hid his vulnerability behind an act of false bravado.
“You awake over there?” Ebony snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“I was just thinking about things.”