A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1

by Livia Day

  ‘So it’s usually … perfectly reasonable weird with meringue porn and mermaids chained to bridges?’

  ‘Exactly. But when something bizarre does happen, like the Penguin Appreciation riot at the Antarctic centre, or Miss Drag Queen 2007—well, usually, Darrow has something to do with it. He’s like the muse of odd. He was definitely working on something big before he went away—whenever I asked him what he was tapping away at on that laptop he would act all mysterious. Said he wanted to surprise everyone. But if he’s hanging around Hobart in a taxi, why hasn’t he come by to pick up his rent? I owe him six weeks. Don’t ask me why he can’t do electronic funds transfer like a normal person…’

  Stewart gave up any pretence of working on the mural, and sat cross-legged on his table. ‘Let’s assume Darrow is behind the Trapper thing. Theoretically.’

  ‘Okay.’ I was in no way convinced, but I could entertain the theory.

  ‘Margarita’s cat was practice. That’s logical, aye?’

  I agreed. ‘He wanted to see if the net system worked, before setting it up in Crash Velvet’s spare room. To which he probably has a key, as he does own the building…’

  ‘Getting ahead of ourselves. Next came the postman.’

  ‘Aha!’ I sat up. ‘You said postman. Not postal worker. That narrows it down.’

  ‘Stop tha’ right now. Think about how the postal worker fits into it.’

  ‘Hard to do that if I don’t know who he is…’

  ‘Hush.’

  ‘Well, you said he was based in Dynnyrne. A street or two from my place, which is so creepy I can’t think straight. And Margarita lives near there, too…’ A thought struck me, and I stared at Stewart. ‘Hang on, a postman living in Dynnyrne? In Parliament Street?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said cautiously.

  I was squeaking now. ‘Danny Masterton?’

  Stewart looked at me in outrage. ‘How dae ye dae that? It doesnae count as revealing my sources if ye use telepathy!’

  ‘I used to have a thing with his brother. Plus, he’s shacked up with my stepsister Amy. Or he was last time I talked to either of them.’ I fished for my handbag, which was somewhere on the floor, and found my mobile phone.

  ‘I really hate this city,’ Stewart muttered.

  ‘Accept that you will never again have any secrets, and you’ll survive.’ I got the recording, and left a short message for Amy to call me back. ‘I think it’s an inside job,’ I said as I hung up.

  Stewart didn’t look up from where he was glueing glitter across Wonder Woman’s corset top. ‘A bit cold to suspect yer stepbrother, isn’t it? Or is he a particularly suspicious postman?’

  ‘Stepbrother-in-law. Without the law. And no. I think it’s got something to do with Crash Velvet. I mean, I love them dearly, but they do seem a bit obsessed about self-promotion.’

  ‘A PR stunt,’ said Stewart in a tone of voice that made it clear they were also his prime suspects.

  ‘Maybe. If the cat and the postman—Danny—were practice, then Morris in the net is the main event. And there haven’t been any more traps since he was found.’

  ‘Ye really think the band killed a stray busker to get extra hits to their YouTube channel?’

  ‘Can’t be the first time that’s happened,’ I scoffed, only half serious. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he was a junkie after all, and they found him dead and decided to make use of him…’

  Stewart looked at me blankly. ‘Where do ye get ideas like that? I’ve read about a thousand detective novels, and I dinna come up with dead junkie theories.’

  I pointed my phone at him. ‘Obviously you’re not pulling your weight in this relationship. Do you want to come to a glam party tonight?’

  The first reaction that flitted across Stewart’s face was suspicion. Interesting. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Crash Velvet is playing. Maybe we can find out something useful. Plus: party. A party is an end without a means.’

  ‘Is this some kind of elaborate plan to get me murdered by a jealous senior constable?’

  Ah. Hence the suspicion. ‘Trust me, it’s not his kind of party.’ I was momentarily distracted by the question of what kind of party would be Bishop’s kind. Possibly, it would involve lamingtons. And square dancing. I went a little cross-eyed at the image.

  Stewart’s voice broke my train of thought. ‘If I say aye, will ye stop making that face?’

  I uncrossed my eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Then, aye.’

  ‘Excellent.’ I slid off the counter, and rummaged around in my bag for the spare key. ‘You can have this back. I need to go stock up on berries for tomorrow. Come by my place at five.’ I scribbled the address and a few vague directions on one of my Post Its, and stuck it to Stewart’s table.

  ‘Isn’t five a tad early for a party?’

  I blinked innocently. He was going to look so cute in glitter. ‘I was planning to dress you up.’

  Normally a threat like that has most straight boys sweating, but Stewart looked past me, through the window. ‘Is that … a goth in a bustle?’

  I went to the glass, and pressed my nose to it. ‘Why, yes it is. And there’s a bloke in a Red Riding Hood costume, carrying a basket of vintage boots.’

  Stewart joined me at the window. ‘It’s an anti-fashion riot.’

  Dozens of people converged on the café from all directions, some wearing costumes and others just carrying them. There was a tall woman with a silver sequined top hat and a giant plastic bag full of petticoats. There were several men in drag, and at least four women in fishnets. ‘Someone set up a fancy dress flash mob, and no one told me?’ I said aloud. ‘Why would no one tell me?’

  ‘They’re all coming here,’ said Stewart.

  ‘Not quite here.’ I heard the outside door opening, and people crowding into the stairwell. ‘Crash Velvet.’ I ran to the counter and looked properly at the flyer that kCeera had given me earlier. ‘Oh, hell. The idiots offered a reward. This damn thing says they’ll be taking calls on Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘They didn’t publish their address, did they?’

  ‘This is Hobart. Plenty of people know where they live.’ I gazed out at the stream of helpful Crash Velvet fans. ‘Okay, there’s a bloke in fairy wings, and an old age pensioner in a corset. This is officially a happening.’

  ‘They’re between me and my cameras,’ said Stewart, running for the door.

  ‘Use your phone,’ I called after him, but that obviously wasn’t good enough.

  I didn’t see any ruby stilettos or glow-orange fur boots out there. But hey—even if this shower didn’t provide any genuine info about the stolen Wearable Art Treasures, at least the band would get some new costumes out of it.

  I tugged at the cream lace hem of my vintage skirt, and checked my rosebud stockings for holes. It’s a rare day when I feel underdressed to walk the streets of Hobart.

  11

  ‘Were any of them genuine?’ Ceege asked later.

  ‘Not one of them had any of the stolen gear,’ I laughed. After my berry run, I had found kCeera hiding out in my kitchen with Stewart—of course he’d taken the opportunity to interview her. ‘There was some sort of altercation over the ownership of a bedazzled Grateful Dead t-shirt, though. So that was fun.’ Thank goodness it hadn’t got bad enough to warrant calling the police—there was a special kind of sarcasm Bishop reserved especially for that sort of situation.

  I hadn’t seen Bishop since we were plastered across the Hobart media as the latest supercouple, and I was planning to keep it that way for as long as possible. Bad enough that Mum had already called to demand I buy her a few extra copies of the paper, and to sigh about how dreamy young Leo looked in his uniform. Luckily she lives a couple of hours away, or I might have had to accept the Sunday lunch invitation on his behalf. ‘Back to the important issue. Does peach go with silver?’

  Ceege gave me a sidelong look. ‘You can probably get away with it.’

  ‘I can, can’t I?’ I tilted a
hand mirror away from my mouth, and applied an Outback Peach lip crayon. I was going to look excellent tonight, with my new comb-through silver wig, and a go-go dress to die for—assuming I could a) find the dress and b) it still fit me after my recent chocolate biscuit frenzy. It was somewhere in the piles of clothes and dry cleaning bags on the floor of my room, and I was wrapped instead in one of my many quilted dressing gowns.

  Ceege stared at his own reflection in the full length mirror that we’d taken out of his wardrobe and leaned against the fridge. ‘Well, you got away with it at the last glam party.’

  I stared at him in horror. ‘You are kidding me. Damn.’ I grabbed a handful of wet wipes and scrubbed at my mouth. ‘What about silver and magenta?’

  ‘Last October.’

  ‘Damn.’ I threw the little mirror on the table. ‘Do you think it’s time I moved away from the silver thing? Am I getting predictable?’

  Ceege shrugged. ‘There’s always silver and silver.’

  I forgave him instantly. ‘With sparkles?’

  ‘Dude, do you have to ask?’

  Someone pushed our front door open. ‘Hello?’ Stewart called.

  Ceege lifted his eyebrows. ‘Accent.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, giving him a girlie squeal-face. ‘Back here, Stewart.’ I scrabbled through my lipstick shoebox. ‘Cee-ege, I can’t find my tube of sparkles.’

  ‘The pink sparkles?’

  ‘No, the sparkle sparkles.’

  ‘That’s the Italian shoebox,’ he grunted. ‘Try the French.’

  I blew him an air kiss. ‘Genius!’

  By the time Stewart made it through the mess of our main hall to the kitchen, I was on my tippy toes, trying to lever the French shoebox down from the top of the fridge. Stewart reached over me, lifting it down easily.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘This is Ceege, my housemate. He’s an engineering student, but don’t hold that against him.’

  ‘All right, mate,’ said Ceege. ‘Beer?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Stewart. He didn’t seem freaked out that Ceege was wearing a bugled orange mini-dress, a shoulder length wig in the same shade, and make up that could only be described as Drag Queen Chic. So that meant we could keep being friends, good to know. ‘Tabitha, when ye said you wanted to dress me up for this “glam” party…’

  I brought the sparkles out of the shoebox in triumph, along with two canisters of spray glitter. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have three sisters, and I’ve still never been more worried in me life.’

  I gave him my best smile. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit.’

  * * *

  I’ve always loved dressing up. I may have a shade too much boob or hip to fit perfectly into half the clothes I fall in love with (my 1920s phase was … unsatisfying) but that just adds to the challenge. Maybe I’m getting too old for fashion play, but … hell, life’s too short to be a grown up.

  Dressing up other people is even more fun than dressing myself. Stewart had given me something easy to work with, starting off with white jeans and a close-fitting black t-shirt. He fought me on swapping the t-shirt for a sequined tank top, but allowed me to use my glitter spray on the jeans. I also managed to work some pink enamel and sparkles on his sneakers while he was distracted.

  I was allowed free rein over his hair, and happily broke out four kinds of gel for the occasion, giving him sparkly spikes that caught the light when he turned his head.

  He let me decorate his face, too. I highlighted the planes and angles with streaks of black and silver. He gave me a suspicious look when I broke out the mascara, but allowed it.

  Friendship eternal, then.

  Ceege found my dress—finally—in one of the overstuffed downstairs cupboards, and zipped me into it. ‘Sure you can breathe in this thing, Tabs?’

  ‘Don’t need to,’ I gasped. ‘Party dress.’

  ‘You so should have laid off the Tim Tams this week.’ He’s so judgy. We don’t all get our party frocks made to measure.

  Stewart shook his head, grinning at us both. ‘I warn ye, Tabitha, if we get to this party and everyone’s wearing ordinary clothes, I’ll be most displeased.’

  * * *

  Stewart needn’t have worried. When we fell out of our taxi some time later, the streets of Taroona were filled with gaudy butterfly people, all heading for the same place. It was a big, fancy house—all windows and water view and shiny black furniture. The music poured out of it like the house itself was a huge, pulsing stereo.

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘They must have really bribed their neighbours.’

  ‘Or drugged them,’ said Ceege.

  The second we stepped in the door, we were pounced on by a vampire in gold earrings and a few wisps of satin. ‘Tabby, sweetie,’ she hollered in my ear.

  ‘Hi, Meryl,’ I shouted back. ‘How’s the band tonight?’

  She gave me a funny look. ‘There’s a band?’ Then she saw Ceege. ‘Oh, C.J. darling, look at you, all fabulous. Come and have a champagne cocktail with me, they’re to die for.’

  Ceege scowled at her under his day-glo makeup. ‘Mez, you couldn’t get one of those ponced-up wank drinks down my throat if I was tied to a bed and unconscious. Where’s the beer?’ He nodded briefly to Stewart and I, then elbowed his way through the crowd in search of drinks, applying a spiked heel to anyone who didn’t move out of his way fast enough.

  We weren’t making as good progress through the glam costumes and pressing bodies as Ceege had managed. As we squeezed through the kitchen door I caught a whiff of stale cigarette smoke and saw a familiar figure leaning up against the fridge. ‘Locks?’

  The drug dealer waved his fingers at me. The only concession he’d made to the dress code of the party was a sparkly gold daffodil stuck into the buttonhole of his grimy stockman’s coat.

  ‘I thought you weren’t invited,’ I said from the doorway.

  Locks looked smug. ‘I wasn’t, cutes. Ask anybody.’ He grabbed a handful of jaffas from a nearby bowl, and tossed them into his mouth.

  The crowd surged. Stewart and I ended up several feet from the kitchen door. He grabbed my arm. ‘Do ye think that Locks fellae is involved in the case?’

  At least he hadn’t said ‘murder’ or ‘mystery.’ Though ‘case’ wasn’t much better. I was starting to feel like a character in a Trixie Belden novel.

  ‘Probably,’ I sighed. ‘Come on, let’s head upstairs. I think the band will be up there.’

  I slid and wriggled through the crowd, dragging Stewart after me. I got to the staircase with minimum bruising, but Stewart caught a few stray elbows in my wake.

  The upstairs floor was open plan, a huge expanse of floor and glass. It wasn’t quite dark yet, and I could see the sharp grey-blue of the Derwent filling the windows along one whole side of the house.

  The music was louder here—I could feel the beat through the soles of my high heels—but I couldn’t see the band.

  The room was full of glammed-up dancers. There was glitter and hairspray and leather corsets everywhere—like a David Bowie theme party if Bowie was going through a modern goth phase, and had possibly mated with Austin Powers. ‘How are we going to get to the band?’ I yelled at Stewart.

  ‘We could dance!’ he yelled back, not sounding overly enthusiastic.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask!’ I said, and threw myself at him.

  Twenty minutes—or three hours or something—later, we clawed our way to one of the ocean windows and leaned against the glass, hot and sweaty and basically stuffed. ‘What were we doing here again?’ I gasped.

  Stewart looked as dazed as I felt. ‘I d’know. There was definitely a plan.’

  ‘I vaguely recall a plan…’ I leaned on his shoulder. ‘I used to have party stamina. I think I’m getting old.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s all downhill once ye hit yer thirties.’

  I gave him a Stare. ‘I’m twenty-six.’

  He bumped his head gently against mine. ‘Lightweight. Age is no excuse. Ye aren’t
even trying to do this in jeans.’

  I spotted something odd out of the corner of my eye. ‘Stewart, did you read that Wearable Art Treasures flyer, where it listed all the missing items?’

  ‘Sure, I blogged it this afternoon, to go with the pictures I took of all the phoneys that responded. Had to do a round up of all their tweets. This city takes its fashion very seriously.’

  ‘Do you remember the details about the gold spiked belt?’

  ‘Handmade by a local artist, gold leaf embedded in the handwoven fabric, gold leather spikes at a forty-five degree angle,’ he said as if he had the flyer right in front of his eyes.

  ‘That’s the one,’ I said. ‘One of a kind. And it’s over there, moshing.’ I pointed, and the belt in question swung in and out of view, surrounded by corseted women.

  ‘Hey,’ said Stewart. ‘The same fellae’s wearing those steel-capped boots with Elizabethan spurs, too. Or something tha’ looks exactly like them…’

  ‘Get him,’ I said, and lunged forward into the crowd. Stewart came after me, but I was faster because of being shorter, and having the ability to crawl between people’s legs. I latched on to the knee of the Wearable Art Treasure Thief, and climbed up.

  ‘Hello, Owen,’ I said, as Stewart caught up to us.

  The Crash Velvet guitarist stared at me. ‘Café Babe! Love the magic blue muffins. I’m like, addicted now!’

  ‘So, ye found yer Wearable Art Treasures then,’ Stewart shouted at Owen’s ear.

  The guitarist looked alarmed. ‘Well, you know, turns out they weren’t stolen,’ he said. ‘They were … lost, right?’

  ‘I expect the drummer had them in the back of his ute, and forgot about it,’ I yelled above the music.

  Owen brightened noticeably. ‘That’s, yeah! Exactly what happened. Or something. No, wait, that wasn’t the story. They were returned. In a parcel, right? All good.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Can you spell “insurance fraud”?’ Though that didn’t make much sense. Unless it was an incredibly stupid attempt at insurance fraud.