The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

course. He’d seen Ned’s psycho-secretary walk up to the front door and let herself into the Weatherby house with a key.

That was why he’d called frantically on Ned and Jennifer’s home phone line after I failed to answer my cell. He’d ID’d her from all the surveillance pictures I’d taken over the course of the week I’d trailed Ned, even though she’d drawn her hat down over her eyes and pulled her coat collar up around her ears.

“I’m telling you, she might have had a key, but she wasn’t supposed to be there,” Dylan said. “Even without the turned-up-collar routine, her posture would have said it all. Self-conscious and guilty.”

“Odd for a woman known to scare the bejeezus out of just about everyone who knew her.”

Luanne’s presence there put a new spin on things. Why had she been sneaking around? Why had she wanted Jennifer’s journal? And, perhaps most importantly, how the hell had she even known about it?

“Do you think it was Luanne who came to the office dressed as Jennifer that day?”

“No,” I answered, without having to put too much effort into the thought. “For one thing, even in heels Luanne isn’t tall enough. And yes, I realize the impostor was putting on a fake voice, but I think it was too throaty for Luanne Laney under the best of circumstances.”

“Luanne could have hired someone. There’s a very good chance that whoever killed Jennifer and set us up did just that — hired an actress for that stint. And I’m betting that if that’s the case, that’s one scared actress right about now.”

I nodded in agreement. “Scared and close-mouthed, no doubt.”

Dylan scratched a hand along his unshaven jaw as he thought. “You said Jennifer hid the journal somewhere other than in the desk?”

“Right, the bookshelf.”

“So who was she hiding it from? Ned or Luanne?”

“And what the hell is so very important in this journal that Luanne Laney would risk breaking in to retrieve it?”

Dylan and I barely breathed into the silence now, as I opened Jennifer’s journal. The bed dipped between us as we leaned in closer together to look through the pages. Dylan was seeing this for the first time, of course, and studying it with all the intensity that I’d come to admire about him. I was giving the journal a second but substantially more thorough look — a more purposeful one now that I had the time to do so, and now that I’d had the chance to think things over.

I looked at the time correlation of the journal entries again:

J - return six dresses to Ryder’s.

N - meeting with PR.

J - buy three watches, choose one (return others within the week)

N - church meeting after supper

J - cancel first-class tickets to New York.

“She didn’t go to New York?” Dylan asked.

“She did.” I flipped forward a few pages, and pointed to an entry.

J - see Mrs. E at Tiffany’s on Fifth re: refund policy

“That’s Tiffany’s in New York,” I pointed out helpfully. “She went. She just didn’t go first class.”

Dylan huffed a laugh. “So she downgraded her ticket, and flew economy to New York? Why?”

I smiled. “Think about it. What’s the only logical reason someone would chose economy.”

Dylan was still for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Money. Jennifer downgraded the ticket and pocketed the difference.”

“That’s my guess.” I leaned closer to Dylan and started flipping through the pages — back and forth as I compared. “And look at the way purchases and refunds are aligned here. Every time Jennifer contemplates she should ‘return’ something, it corresponds with the times her husband is in church, at first.”

“Feeling guilty for excesses?”

“Orrrrrr,” I said. “Every time he goes to church, she got concerned. So she’d write a note to return a costly item. That’s the way Jennifer kept her entries — always what she ‘planned to do’. This wasn’t so much of a diary as an events calendar. And the more her husband went to church, the more Jennifer bought and returned.”

“I don’t know….”

“Think about it, Dylan. She puts items on her virtually limitless credit card. Returns them for cash. Husband, pays the credit card bills every month and is none the wiser as Jennifer tucks the money away. What would an outfit from Ryder’s run? At least fifteen hundred or two thousand, I’m thinking. That would certainly add up after awhile — build a little nest egg. Little backup cash just in case.”

Just in case of what? That was the question pounding through my mind.

“Nice theory,” Dylan offered. “Except stores would simply credit the amount of the refund back to the credit card, wouldn’t they? I’ve never known a retailer to do otherwise. I don’t think they can do anything else.”

“Sure, to you and me and the rest of us plebs. But this is Jennifer Weatherby we’re talking about here. You gotta figure the proprietors of those shops would bend over backwards to keep her business, especially in this fairly small backwater. Hell, they’d probably turn a blind eye while she stole the stuff, then send the bill to Ned.”

Dylan grunted agreement.

“I’ve got it!” I said, my eyes widening. “I betcha my best RF tracker that Ned Weatherby’s arrangement with Ryder’s doesn’t involve credit cards at all. I’m betting he has a free standing line of credit. You know, rack up the purchases, settle up once a month.”

“Oh, hell, yeah. That’s gotta be it. They could give her a cash refund, no problem, because they’d still get paid by Ned.”

“Oh, and hey, maybe they even levied a little surcharge,” I suggested. “Say five or ten percent, to make it worth their while. Then everybody’s happy.”

“Okay, that works for the local dress shops,” Dylan said, “but what about the airlines?”

I shrugged. “Maybe not the airlines, but certainly any travel agent that was interested in keeping the substantial Weatherby account could figure out a way to accommodate.”

He looked further through the journal. “But the consistent correlation of notes to self and Ned’s church times ends. And in the last few weeks, Jennifer was buying and returning up a storm whether she writes of Ned going to church or not. In fact….” He jumped up and rummaged through the pics on the bed. “In fact, the last time he went to church, when you snuck into choir practice, Jennifer didn’t even make an entry that day.”

And we both knew why.

“Church attendance was no longer noteworthy,” he said. “It was expected. Part of Ned’s everyday life now. She might as well have written in he brushed his teeth and wore a tie. Going to church was that common.”

“Right,” I said. “But Jennifer wasn’t a big Ravenspire fan.” I flipped around the pages. “Other than the first two Sundays Ned attended, Jennifer never returned to Ravenspire’s church.”

“We need to look into this guy some more,” he said.

“Oh yeah. Do we ever.”

Proud as oh-so-smart peacocks, we sat grinning at each other. This felt good. This felt like good old- fashioned private detective work. This felt like a bit of control here.

As we’d poured over the journal, we’d drawn closer together on the bed. Getting more casual, getting more at ease as we sat there. Together. Almost touching. Dylan looked at me closely, his eyes soft but unreadable.

“We … we still don’t know who killed Jennifer Weatherby,” I said.

“But, we’re getting warmer, aren’t we, Dix?” His voice was slow and deep.

I nodded. “Damn right we’re getting warmer.”

I tossed the journal on the bed beside us, and it fell open. A chill raced up my spine as I glanced over and saw where the book had opened, as if willed to this page by some other force. Some other spirit.

J cancelled caterer, in Jennifer’s handwriting.

And beneath it, contrasting sharply and angrily, the bold, black-inked NO WAY IN