Larcency and Lace Part 12

I certainly wished he'd tell me, so I'd know what did happen, precisely. "I appreciate that, Lytton. Your questions back at the house, did I answer them to your satisfaction? If you want more answers, ask away."

"I might be back for more."

Whoa. Was that a double entendre on his part? Or wishful thinking on mine?

Neither. Definitely. "I'm a phone call away."

"Have a good day." He left with a wave and didn't look back.

"Have a good day yourself, Detective." I watched him go, freaked out because I remembered the sound of his heartbeat accelerating beneath my ear, and relieved because we were back to formality, if not impolite indifference.

While I waited for Eve, I opened some new boxes of clothing at my door, being careful not to touch any, especially after last night. To my surprise, I found that a set of pristine double-wide, white file boxes held a vintage treasure trove. Designer clothes, half of them couture, mostly from the seventies to mid-eighties, though a few might be older.

Who in the world could have left me such treasures? Who around here could have afforded to buy them new or vintage?

I'd wear most of them, especially the buff-colored suede fringed wrap skirt, and the white-and-beige, leather horizontal-banded three-quarter coat. I moved corners aside with box covers. I adored the ivory beaded silk faille floor-length cape, reversible to black sequined faille. Evening wear at its finest. I resisted the urge to hold it up to search for a label because I didn't want it dragging in the parking lot or taking me back in time.

A poodle skirt topped one box, an aqua silk beaded c.o.c.ktail dress with a petaled skirt, another. I found a beige shift dress that I believe went with the leather dress coat. My favorite was a Cardin burgundy minidress with a pocket high on the chest, which I just might keep for myself.

"h.e.l.lo," a woman called from across the street as she ran my way. "I'm Fiona's next in charge for the Halloween Ball," she said, out of breath as she reached me. "Are you Maddie Cutler?"

She had the most beautiful head of long red curls I'd ever seen. "I am, yes."

"Thank you so much for letting us hold our ball here. Oh, I'm Virginia Statler, and I need a costume today, because I'm on my way out of town first thing in the morning, and I won't be back before Halloween."

"Oh, but my stock isn't here yet."

"What about this stuff?" She started rifling through the white boxes and opened the last two.

I was a little taken aback. I didn't even know what to charge for these things. Normally, I'd research them before putting them out for sale.

"Oh, this is it," she said. "I'll be the heroine, whoever she is, from Flower Drum Song. I'm sure I can find a j.a.panese fan to go with it." She held up a rare j.a.panese wedding kimono. Uber valuable. In j.a.pan, it would cost at least five thousand dollars new. I'd priced them when my old boss Faline held a fashion show there.

"I have at least two if not three j.a.panese fans in my vintage stock in storage," I said, "but as for the kimono, I'd have to look it over for flaws, but it's worth at least three thousand."

The woman didn't blink. "I've always wanted one. I know that's a fair price for vintage, even if it costs more, unless it has a cigarette hole in it or something. I've wanted one for years to mount in Plexiglas on the wall in my living room, which I'll do with this one, after the ball. Do you want a deposit so you can hold it for me?" She took out her checkbook. "Will five hundred dollars do?"

Who knew that I'd find vintage collectors with money to burn right here in Mystic? Normally, I wouldn't take a check from a stranger if I couldn't immediately verify it with her bank, but if I was keeping it for her, I'd have time to do that.

She handed me the check, and before I knew what she was doing, she tried on the kimono, right there in the parking lot. I squeaked and ran behind her to grab the fabric and keep it from trailing in the leafy lot. Virginia talked non-stop the whole time, as if a parking lot sale were normal for something this pricey.

In a dizzying blink, I saw a young man in a white tux walking into a country club. "I certainly hope this is worth the expense," he said to his companion, a young man similarly dressed.

"Think of it as an investment, old boy," his friend said with an English accent. "She's worth a b.l.o.o.d.y fortune, and she's gorgeous besides. You'll have everything you ever wanted, and it'll hardly be a sacrifice to put your shoes under her bed."

She, it turned out, was wearing the kimono with a j.a.panese wig, and she was having a conversation with Marie Antoinette and Cleopatra.

A moneyed costume ball, no doubt about it.

When I dizzied my way back to the present, I was carrying Virginia Statler's "train" as she walked around my parking lot, still talking about the Circle of Spirit and her friendship with Fiona. No, she hadn't seen me zone. I'd evidently been sleepwalking while keeping up with her. Good thing she was one of those women who didn't need a second person to take part in her conversation.

In the vision, I'd seen a man who appeared to be looking to marry for money. Why else would his presence there be considered an investment? But I knew better than to jump to conclusions. Whatever happened to the "investor" and the woman in the kimono, I might never know.

One thing I'd learned from Aunt Fiona, who understood these things as only a witch and an empath could, was that I usually got these visions from particular vintage clothing items when the universe wanted them known. "Usually" being a relative term, because the one time I'd read vintage clothing in the past, the items involved a murder.

On this particular day-after one murder took place and one was discovered-my question to the universe would be: which murder do my recent visions involve? Sampson's or the bones? Or were they leading me elsewhere?

I couldn't see Isobel or the kimono having anything to do with Sampson's death. Unless Sampson had been the money grubber investor at the expensive costume party, and the woman in the kimono killed him and set the fire? Random thought. Wild conjecture.

Someone besides Vinney setting the fire? Gut wise, I didn't think so.

Virginia took off the kimono, folded it, and tried to hand it to me. "Can you just set it back in the box?" I asked, afraid to touch it again for fear I'd "see" something more.

"Too bad about the playhouse and poor Tunney," Virginia said, closing her Chanel purse, "but he certainly had motive."

"He did?" I asked. "What kind of motive?"

"I don't subscribe to gossip," she said as she left. "Have a good day."

Nineteen.

Everything in your closet should have an expiration date on it the way milk and bread and magazines do.

-ANDY WARHOL.

Well, d.a.m.n, Aunt Fiona's chatty friend subscribed to just enough gossip to whet the appet.i.te. I only hoped that Virginia Statler didn't know any more than the Sweets did. As for Tunney's motive, maybe I should ask Tunney and Suzanne Sampson about that. Separately, of course.

Turning back to the kimono, I realized something about the woman who probably once owned the clothes in the pristine white file boxes-matching boxes giving the impression they came from the same person. The original owner liked vintage, yet followed fashion trends, and she could afford to do both with panache.

As I put covers back on boxes I noticed that Virginia hadn't put the kimono in its original box, giving me the opportunity to see what other clothes had been packed beneath it. What I saw made my fashionista's heart skip. A cape to die for-capes being my weakness. Beneath it, I could also see a slim black sheath dress to match.

Without thinking, I threw the cape over my shoulders and fastened b.u.t.tons, hidden beneath a slimming black placket. In rust linen with black piping along each vertical seam from neck to hem, I adored the padded shoulders, a la Yves Saint Laurent. The cape had no collar and its zippered pockets were aligned with and hidden in its side seams.

I loved the outfit so much I might keep it for myself. I was wishing I had a mirror when dizziness overtook me, and I barely had time to acknowledge my rash action before I was forced to sit on one of the boxes as my world darkened to match my unfamiliar surroundings.

A man in a pricey gray pinstripe suit slipped a legal-sized set of old green-and-brown ledger books into a home safe.

"What are you doing?" a woman asked from behind him.

At the sound of her voice, his body went rigid. His jaw stiffened, and the tic in his cheek became p.r.o.nounced.

Belligerence transformed his movements from furtive to contentious. "I'm doing my job," he said, his voice as familiar as a newscaster or a weatherman. "Short service today?" he asked.

"I think Father had a golf game."

"Your father or the priest?"

"Both."

The couple spoke with polite indifference, or dislike, either because of a quarrel or out of habit.

Mr. Incongeniality slammed the safe door, twisted the dial with a nervous move, and let a painting slip into place, possibly a Monet, though it could be in that style by a lesser-known artist. A good one.

"I wish you would trust me," he said.

"I might say the same. Why do you bring the books home, slave over them when you have a bookkeeper to do that, and lock them away from me? Or are they a second set of books that no one else knows about? The real story?"

"Nice talk."

They stood in a room paneled in dark walnut. An old-fashioned male-only study with an antique Tiffany lamp in greens and golds.

From a round, gaudy-legged marble-topped table, he took an etched, square decanter from its bra.s.s carrier and poured himself a snifter of brandy.

"Isn't it a bit early for that?" she sniped.

Still keeping his back to her, he shrugged. "Whatever it takes."

"To drown out my voice?"

"Those are your words." He hadn't once looked at her.

The gla.s.s-fronted bookshelves lining the room revealed pricey leather-bound books. I couldn't read t.i.tles but I suspected vintage from their muted colors and gold leaf. Autographed pictures of men shaking hands dotted the walls between, and there was no mistaking the White House in the background on at least one.

The place reeked of money and good taste, but not cla.s.s, given the fact that Mr. Hostile needed an att.i.tude adjustment. He slipped behind a huge desk, putting even more distance between him and the woman, a body-language slap in the face. I nearly saw his face then, but he bent to look through a drawer, avoiding eye contact, insulting her further. His ebony hair curled in waves that he tried but failed to tame. He wore a scent I knew well, because my grandfather had worn it, which wasn't enough to make me like him.

"I have work to do," he said in dismissal.

The woman stepped boldly forward, close enough to touch his desk, so close Old Spice mingled with Chanel No. 5. Her hands were milky smooth, long fingered with perfect, clear-glossed oval nails. Her engagement ring in platinum, like her wedding ring, had an emerald-cut diamond the size of Texas.

She leaned forward, an aggressive move, and as she did, a rust linen garment with black piping rested diagonally against her forearm. A cape. "You work," she said with sarcasm. "I'll go to the fair by myself."

"That quilt will never win," he said, without looking up.

She gave a bitter laugh. "Neither will you. I'm meeting Daddy at the club for drinks at six. I'll make your excuses. He and I have a lot to talk about. In case you care."

"I don't."

"I know."

I opened my eyes and looked into Eve's.

She'd parked her car to shield me from the police going in and out of my shop's front door.

I blinked against the glare of the sun. "When did you get here?"

Twenty.

I have no desire to give lectures on the subject of fashion. I put my money on feelings: Wear it and enjoy it.

-GIANNI VERSACE "That was a long zone out," Eve said with concern as she sat beside me.

"My second since I got here, and frustrating. The woman in my vision was wearing this, but I never saw her face." I touched the cape, shivered despite the sun, and stuck my icy hands in its unzipped pockets. "I might have seen the same couple in my first vision. I'm not sure."

Eve held up a caramel latte to tempt me.

I shook my head. "Not right now. Thanks." I was still too connected to my vision to cut the psychic cord.

"By the way," she said, "you just put period to any doubts I might have harbored about your psychometric ability."

"But you're a scientist."

"Yes, well, I'm a scientist who believes in you."

"Thanks, sweetie." My warming fingers closed on a sharp-edged piece of plastic in one of the pockets, so I took it out and held it in my palm for both of us to see.

"A leopard fingernail," Eve said. "It's awfully long."

"Takes a certain kind of woman to wear fingernails like this," I said. "Were animal-print fingernails in vogue at the same time as this cape? I'll have to ask Aunt Fiona."

With fear still wrapped around me, and a strange fingernail in my hand, Eve put the latte's sippy slot to my mouth and about poured it down my throat.

Her action made me want to chuckle, but I didn't dare, because I didn't want to spill coffee on the cape. However, my sweet friend and her sweet, life-giving shot of inner warmth made me feel like myself again. Alive. Happy and in control. No, I didn't know who killed who, but Eve put things into perspective for me.

All in good time. I had to live my own life while I worked to make the puzzle pieces of other people's lives and deaths fall into place. Prepared to do just that, I slipped the fingernail into the cape pocket, zipped it, took the cup from Eve's hands, and let it warm my own.

She nodded. "Glad you're coming out of it."

"Thanks to you."

"Do you think the fingernail belonged to the woman who owned the clothes?"

I shrugged. "Note to me: check local nail salons to see who does nails like this and how long they've been in style."

"You're smart to look for the 'artist,' rather than the canvas. You could find out who has them done that way with some small talk while you're getting your own nails done." Eve smirked. "You'd look great with pumpkins on black for Halloween."

"Don't put it past me. I had ladybug fingernails one of the times Nick came to New York. That's how I got my nickname."