She idled over to the display case that also served as pay station. A plus-size elderly woman in polyester-knit pants was arranging new arrivals on the long clothes rack behind her.
A miniature dachshund curled on a pillow atop a stool growled at their approach, and followed up with two sharp yaps of dislike.
"I'll be right with you," the woman caroled over her T-shirt-clad shoulder, when she turned to the foursome, her open features showed immediate perplexity. Finally, her trifocal glasses fixed on Temple.
"I haven't seen you in here for some time."
"No, been too busy to get around to the shops much. This is, ah--" Temple was mercifully cut off before she could make introductions. "We're the police."
Molina waved a clip-on identity badge pulled from her jacket pocket. "We have some questions about clothes we have reason to believe were purchased here."
She lifted the brown paper evidence bag to the glass counter top, obscuring most of the costume jewelry displayed on the top shelf, which Temple had been discreetly checking out.
"Are you the owner?" Molina donned latex gloves and began easing the clothing out of the bag.
"Sure. Bernice Grandy. Been at this location for ages. But what makes you think these clothes came from here ?"
An awkward silence. No one wanted to say the joint smelled like fermenting strawberries.
Molina must have found awkward silences useful in her work, because she let this one lengthen into an embarrassment before she broke it. "That's why Miss Barr is with us. I understand that she's something of an expert in the used clothing area."
"Gently worn," Bernice corrected, gently. She struggled into the latex gloves that Molina extended and smiled at Temple.
"Now I remember what you got here last! That sixties hot-pants outfit with the cute little marabou jacket."
"Ah, I bought that as a curiosity. Not to wear." Temple eyed her audience, who eyed her back. Nobody believed her. "But you've got a great memory for clothes, Bernice. I thought you might remember these."
Bernice unfolded the items, shaking her head. "Your stuff I remember. It's always different. I never thought I'd unload that size-six sixties outfit, and that was when sizes were smaller than they are today. But this stuff. it's . . . pretty routine. I don't charge much for it and it usually ends up on a discount tack. Hmmm.
Size 14."
They waited, while the dachshund sighed and curled into a cozier sleeping position, apparently bored with their business.
"That's interesting."
"What is it?" Temple asked.
"I did get a pile of stuff like this a couple months ago, all in size fourteen. I think somebody died."
"So do we," Molina added.
Bernice didn't quite make the connection that the clothes in question had last covered a corpse.
"Let me get my book," she said, lumbering through the many racks to the back of the store, doffing the latex gloves as she went.
Temple responded to Molina's look. "Bernice assigns a number, price, and description to each outfit so she can reimburse the consignors."
"So there's actually a chance that she might be able to identify where these clothes came from?"
"And where they went, if the buyer paid by credit card or check."
"Didn't look like a credit-card spender to me," the male detective put in.
"If it was cash--" Temple shrugged. "Unless she signed up for Bernice's mailing list, but it'd be hard to tell who was who."
"This the only resale shop that smells like 'Strawberry Fields Forever!' " Molina wanted to know.
"It's the most obvious, for some reason. Resale clothes can smell . . . stale, more so than vintage clothes, because those really haven't been worn in decades. But you should--"
Molina's Medusa look at Temple would have turned fire to ice.
"Here she comes. Now we'll find out something."
"--know that," Temple trailed off in a mutter.
At Molina's words, hailing the return of Bernice, the male detective had immediately focused on the arriving hard evidence.
Gee, Temple hadn't meant to give away Molina's experience in finding vintage clothes for her Carmen persona.
Bernice hefted the massive ledger to the countertop, pushed her glasses firmly against the bridge of her nose, and began paging through the hand-written entries.
"I'm guessing November."
"We're in a hurry," Molina said.
"Don't get your culottes in a twist; there were at least sixteen items in the consignment I'm thinking of; should be easy--yes, here it is. November twelfth. hmmph." She stared through the lowest trifocal bar on her lenses at the mounded clothes. "Navy poly suit. Yup."
"You have a record of the buyer?" Molina demanded.
"Might. Now l have to look in the receipts."
Bernice reached under the counter and pulled out a . . . shoe box. "l think this sold before Christmas. Let me see--"
Molina and her minion openly fidgeted, while Temple, unhurried, window-shopped the display case.
Bernice's unlipsticked mouth made a sound between a "tsk" and a smacking kiss. She was nodding as she pulled a small yellow paper from the shoe box. Temple noticed the brand was Red Cross, not exactly her high-flying style.
"Used a check."
"Did you get a name" and address?" Molina asked almost breathlessly.
Bernice shook her penned lamb's fleece of white hair. "Nope. It's one of those temporary checks they give You when you an account."
Temple aborted a smile at Molina's exasperated expression.
"But I got a driver's license number. Will that do?"
Bingo! Cop faces beamed.
"I wonder if I could see that mesh metal belt," Temple told Bernice while the detective was squinting at the yellow receipt, writing clown the long string of numbers.
"That'll have to wait until you're on your own time." Molina scotched private enterprise as she stacked the "clothes and picked up the brown bag. "Thanks very much for your trouble," she told Bernice.
By then, her minion's notebook held not only what could be the dead woman's license number, but Bernice's name, address, and phone number at work and at home.
All three traipsed outside and stood for a moment in-the silent communion of a job well done at last.
"Detective Morris Alch," the man told Temple. "I met you on that cover-boy case."
She almost blushed at having her mind read.
"What a lame operation," Alch said. "Are the used places all this informal?"
"We wouldn't have gotten anything from a regular clothing store," Molina pointed out. "No sales clerk would have "ever remember a particular item." She turned to Temple. "Did that
'sixties hot-pants outfit' reek of strawberry air-Freshener too?"
"I didn't know you cared."
"I don't. Answer the question."
"Yeah, but I hung it off the balcony for a couple of days-until the smell was almost gone, then I had it dry-cleaned. And I kept it separate from my other clothes for a few weeks until it really aired out."
"The victim didn't bother doing any of that, obviously. I wonder why."
"Maybe she wasn't as sensitive to smells. So. We're done?"
Molina's smile was almost sadistic. "Noooo. We haven't visited Grizzly Bahr yet." She turned to Alch, smile still lethal. "Next stop; you should enjoy this too."
*****************
Temple had only visited a medical examiner's facility in Manhattan, but she recognized this one immediately after they had been allowed through a secured door.
Once again her nose for news was causing her trouble. She could smell that faintly sweet, faintly rotten tang in the air, so subtle you thought you were imagining it because you expected it.
Grizzly Bahr lived up to his name: a big, burly man in his sixties with sun-freckled face and hands, and a larger-than-life manner.
"Civilian?" He cast one corrosive glance at Temple from under albino thickets of eyebrow.
He might as well have said, "Fresh meat?"
Molina nodded. "Now. What about the second victim's body?"