So Kimberly had another reason besides Damian to be angry with Lisette. True, protecting her job doesn’t seem like a strong motive. She can be confident her uncle will always throw work her way. Still, it intensifies my suspicion of her, which fills me with a certain malevolent glee.
I lower my voice as if I’m about to confide a secret. “Did you ever meet Lisette’s boyfriend?”
“She had a boyfriend?”
“Some guy named Damian, I heard. You never saw him around?”
“Never once did I see her with a guy.” She lowers her voice to such a quiet whisper I can barely hear her. “Not that that surprised me, to be honest.”
I get her meaning. “I’ve got to go see Oliver.” I rise from the settee. “Command performance.”
“He’s even more of a nervous wreck than usual today,” Tonya whispers. “But since tomorrow is opening night, I suppose we all are.”
Maybe opening night jitters are the reason for Junior’s heightened anxiety. Or maybe he knows the cops now believe Lisette was murdered and fears they’ll soon be on his scent.
En route to Junior’s office, I wonder why Kimberly would be so insistent about being backstage when Lisette fell if she were the murderer. After all, that location gave her the opportunity to commit the crime.
Then I realize that all Kimberly knows is that everyone believes Lisette’s death was accidental. Which means that all Kimberly is trying to do is protect herself against the accusation that she caused Lisette to fall by distracting her with her phone. That would’ve been impossible if Kimberly had been backstage.
There’s something else I shouldn’t forget. At the point in Dream Angel at which Lisette interrupted the production and fell, most of the actors were on stage but most of the crew members were backstage. Meaning any random crew member might be the killer. I know of bad blood between Lisette and Kimberly and between Lisette and Junior but, knowing Lisette, many other feuds might have been raging.
I arrive at Junior’s office. He keeps talking on the phone while he motions me inside. He gestures for me to shut the door and I comply.
“My point is that this is way too big a story to keep under wraps,” he tells whoever he’s got on the line. “It’s going to get out, and soon.”
Hearing that, I bet Junior has been told the N.Y.P.D. is now thinking homicide.
“So what I’m telling you to do,” he goes on, “is twofold. Make sure this doesn’t hurt us. And come up with ways it can help us. Pronto.” He hangs up.
There’s Junior for you, trying to make hay out of Lisette’s murder.
“So,” he says to me, “wanna hear the latest?” And he fills me in on the news I already know.
I do my best to appear shocked and appalled. “Who told you?”
“Longley. He’s on the warpath. How come it took the N.Y.P.D. five days to figure out his daughter was murdered, that sort of thing.” He rubs his forehead much the same way I saw Jason do earlier, when everything got to be too much for him. “Anyway, I don’t like surprises, especially twenty-four hours before opening night. You got a plan for keeping my father away tonight?”
“It’s rock solid,” I lie.
“It better be. I already got an earful from Longley and I don’t want any crap coming my way from my father, too.”
“Why would Warren Longley be upset with you?”
“Can you believe he accused me of killing his daughter?”
Since I daily consider that possibility, once again I have to pretend to be shocked.
Junior goes on. “As if I’d be stupid enough to knock her off half an hour after we had a fight in front of hundreds of people.”
“Better prepare yourself. The N.Y.P.D. might think the same way Warren Longley does. And you don’t have a good alibi if nobody saw you in your office.”
He glares at me. “I went outside and took a walk to clear my head, all right? Plenty of people saw me.”
“Then how come that one time I asked, you told me you were in your office?”
“We’re done here.” He makes a shooing gesture with his hand. “Get out.”
I exit Junior’s office with something new to ponder. Now that the cops have gotten wise to the fact that Lisette was murdered, Junior has changed his story about where he was when she fell to her death. Suspicious? You bet.
I’ve left the theater and am on my way to the subway to head for Senior’s townhouse when I spy the Tin Man in the distance all by his lonesome. Dorothy has gone AWOL, apparently. Since I have a few extra minutes and the Tin Man seems to know everything that happens in Times Square, I head in his direction. “I have a crazy question to ask you,” I tell him.
He pulls me away from the mayhem. “Ask away. I’m always game for a chat.”
I realize I have before me a really nice guy, like the Tin Man from Oz itself. “I don’t suppose you remember last Thursday, when our writer Lisette Longley died when she fell down the stairs on stage?”
“Of course I remember. It was so bizarre. For a few days there, it was all anybody could talk about.”
“And you know our director Oliver Tripp Jr., right?”
“He and I chat all the time. Matter of fact, I saw him that night. It struck me because it was before the show was over, so you’d think he’d be in the theater, right? Then I thought about it again the next day after I heard the news about your writer.”
I grab his tin arm. “Are you kidding me? You saw Oliver out here Thursday night?”
“Sneaking around trying to look inconspicuous.”
“Why would he be doing that?”
“Because he was going to McDonald’s.” The Tin Man laughs. “I don’t know why he’s so embarrassed. We all go there. He does a lot. But every single time he pulls a baseball cap down low over his face as if he doesn’t want to be caught dead anywhere near the Golden Arches.” He lowers his voice. “Sorry. Not the PC thing to say under the circumstances.”
“Are you totally sure it was Thursday night when you saw him?”
“Totally.”
I ask the Tin Man to pose for a photo and slip him a ten. If I weren’t so cheap I’d give him more, because he has provided me with truly valuable information.
I can easily imagine Junior hiding his McDonald’s fix. He’s so pretentious about his supposed Japanese-cuisine-only eating habits that the last thing he’d want anybody to know is that he can’t get enough McNuggets with creamy ranch dipping sauce on the side.
I realize during my subway trip to the Upper East Side that this 411 from the Tin Man does not exonerate Junior. He might’ve hired somebody to knock off Lisette and then made a point of being outside the theater, where scads of people could see him, when the dastardly deed was to take place. After all, it took a certain expertise to hit Lisette with that ball bearing. If I wanted to kill somebody using that method, I might well hire a hit man.
No pun intended.
Minutes later I find a black limousine waiting outside Senior’s townhouse. The rear window on the sidewalk side rolls down as I approach. “Not exactly on time, are you?” Senior snaps from inside the vehicle.
I glance at my watch. “Aren’t I a few minutes early?”
“Get in,” he orders.
I guess Senior is no fonder of me now than he was late Sunday night. I settle beside him and the limo slides into traffic. Beneath a black cashmere coat, Senior’s plump person is outfitted in a charcoal gray suit, white dress shirt, and beautiful black-and-white patterned bowtie. I peer at it closely. “Are those feathers on your tie?”
“Guinea-fowl feathers. Handpicked.”
I’m guessing that just like me Senior wants to impress Violet Honeycutt with his wardrobe. “Since I know you love gossipy tidbits,” I say, “especially that have to do with Dream Angel, you’ll be delighted to hear that I come bearing extremely juicy inside information.”
He pretends not to be interested, but I detect a gleam in his eye.
“You are among the very first people to learn
that Lisette Longley did not die accidentally after all,” I tell him. “She was murdered.” I fill him in.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he says when I’m done. “My son didn’t do it. He wouldn’t have the balls to flush a guppy down the toilet.”
Yes, this father/son relationship is truly twisted. Clearly Senior would prefer that the fruit of his loins be capable of committing murder. “This is why I wanted to meet Violet Honeycutt,” I say. “Lisette Longley was her only remaining rival for the apartment in the Belfer.”
“Now there’s a woman who would slit her mother’s throat if it would get her what she wanted.” His admiration is unmistakable. “I take it you’re something of an amateur sleuth.”
“Found that out online, did you?”
He ignores that barb. “And you want me to rev up your stalled investigation.”
Pretty much. “I’m betting that between the two of us, we can pry some useful information out of Violet Honeycutt.”
“Your solo inquiries have gotten you nowhere fast,” he informs me. “Fortunately, I’m here to save the day.”
Shortly thereafter we arrive at the Chelsea location of the fashion show. The signage indicates that the designer whose swimwear collection we are assembling to admire is none other than Hugh White, an Australian wunderkind I’ve read about in fashion blogs. I tell Senior how exhilarating this is, but he appears unmoved.
Happily, our names appear on the correct list and we are ushered inside the warehouse-like building. The floors are polished oak, the ceilings are high, and the excitement is palpable. The crowd isn’t terribly young, but it is phenomenally chic. I was wise to dress in black: I fit right in.
I hold onto Senior’s arm as we move across the large anteroom. He doesn’t seem to mind. I’m not bad eye candy, if I say so myself. “I don’t see Violet Honeycutt, do you?” I whisper. “But look, there’s Keira Knightley! And, oh, my God, Rihanna.”
“Spare me,” he mutters. “And why is there no champagne?”
I’m guessing Senior is peeved because no one is recognizing him. Finally a middle-aged brunette makes a bashful approach and Senior gets a chance to preen.
Female minions wearing headsets—much like those who manned the Longley event—begin herding the crowd into a dimly lit inner sanctum. Primal music pounds so loudly I can feel the beat in every fiber of my being. I’ll get a headache, but it’ll be worth it, for I can already tell that an unforgettable backdrop has been created for this show.
Fashionistas like me know that bizarre backdrops are all the rage these days. One designer did a pretty amazing recreation of a football field to showcase her fall/winter collection. A Paris show was held in the Louvre’s courtyard. And one time, models pranced atop the Great Wall of China.
Here, images that conjure Australia—from the Sydney Opera House to famous Bondi Beach to a koala hugging a tree—are projected onto a stage whose floor is strewn with sand. But what’s remarkable is the runway. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s very narrow—only about eighteen inches wide—shaped like a horseshoe, and suspended over a pool of water contained by glass walls. So if a model takes a wrong step, she’ll tumble into the drink.
A minion sporting a ballerina-style bun escorts Senior and me to our front-row seats. There’s an empty chair beside us that I dearly hope is earmarked for Violet Honeycutt. I’m struggling to contain my excitement when a longish silver shape slices through the water beneath the runway. I clutch Senior’s arm. “Did you see that?”
Around me I hear gasps. “Is that a fin?” a woman behind me cries.
Seconds later I see that yes, indeed, a fin is poking out of the water. The creature to which it is attached does another pass in front of us as if to make sure we get a clear view.
“That’s a blacktip reef shark,” a ponytailed minion informs us, a note of malevolent glee in her voice. “They’re common down under. We flew five of them in. We are showing swimwear, after all. Hugh is thrilled.”
I’m glad somebody is. “If there are sharks in the water, why is the runway so skinny? What if a model falls in?”
“What if she does?” The minion responds so casually that I half wonder if that’s exactly what the powers-that-be hope happens. “These sharks aren’t considered dangerous.”
“Easy for you to say!”
The minion arches her brows at me. “The worst they’d do is nibble on the model’s feet. They’re known for that. Anyway, they’re babies.”
My idea of a baby has a velvet bottom, doe eyes, and toothless gums. These so-called babies could star in Jaws 3.
Murmurs course through the crowd and I see that Violet Honeycutt has deigned to join the gathering. She’s cutting a swath through the throng much as the sharks would do if they weren’t relegated to the water. Her bearing is regal; her ash-blond hair is styled in its trademark bob with sideswept bangs; and her whisper-thin person is encased in an haute couture day dress. It’s cut from coral-colored georgette with an abstract-dot print and features flutter-cap sleeves and pleating at the front center.
Violet Honeycutt is not the youngest of chickadees, but it is impossible for a human female to look more perfectly put together. She’s also quite imperious. She acknowledges not a soul as she sweeps through the room, people stepping back and away from her as if she were royalty itself.
Which in the fashion world, she is. And she’s headed straight for me.
Or should I say for Senior. She halts in front of him, produces a small smile, and clasps his hands in her own. “Oliver, my dear,” she says.
They exchange air kisses on both cheeks, European-style. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since the Maldives,” Senior says.
“That was exquisite, wasn’t it?” She glances at me and frowns. I suppose I am being presumptuous standing there listening. And staring, because I can’t believe I’m breathing the same air as THE high priestess of style. She returns her cool gaze to Senior. “And that is?” she says to Senior.
“Happy Pennington. She’s following me this week.”
The Divine Miss V doesn’t care to hear more. She sits and Senior follows. “I would prefer that one of our people follow you, for that profile you keep refusing.”
“That is precisely what I’d like to discuss,” Senior replies, which I hope is only a prelude to a conversation about the Belfer Building and how exactly our doyenne landed her new digs.
They put their heads together. Clearly I am dismissed. I take my seat to Senior’s left and snap a discreet selfie, of course with Violet Honeycutt and Senior in the background. I post the photo on every social-media platform imaginable, hoping oodles of people will re-post. That would be sure to warm the cockles of my pageant owner’s heart.
Time passes and nothing happens. I find this surprising and can tell that everybody else does, too. Eventually Senior pokes my arm and gestures toward the runway. “This should’ve started a long time ago. Find out what’s going on.”
I grasp from Ms. Honeycutt’s scowl that she is not pleased to be kept waiting. I go in search of information and locate the minion whose brunette locks are twisted into a ballerina-style bun. “One of the models refuses to go on,” she tells me in a whisper. “She saw those sharks and had a meltdown.”
“Well, then, make do without her. Or Violet Honeycutt will bolt.”
The minion pales. “That would kill Hugh. Stay here,” and off she bustles. A minute later she’s back. “Hugh needs thirteen models. It’s his lucky number. Someone’s on her way.”
Seconds later I’m delivering this 411 to Senior. Violet Honeycutt overhears and rises to her feet. “This is ridiculous. Who can devote this kind of time to swimwear?”
Senior turns to me with a smirk. “You fill in for the missing model.”
I’ve never heard a worse suggestion in my life. “No. I couldn’t possibly.”
Violet Honeycutt fixes her steely eyes on my face. “Do it. Or I leave this instant.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Yes
, that’s perfect. You can fill in.” This comes from the minion with the bun, who apparently followed me to my seat to find out just how peeved Violet Honeycutt might be. “You might be old, but you look pretty good. And you’re thin.”
“Yes, that about describes her.” Senior chortles. Clearly he’s finding this chance to humiliate and terrify me all at the same time extremely amusing. Well, what does everybody say? Revenge is sweet. He turns to the minion. “She’s won pageants, you know.”
The minion’s eyes light up. Now she’s really thinking I’m a live one.
“And this is swimwear, did you say?” he goes on. “Right up her alley.”
The old letch. I could kick him in the shins.
“I haven’t been trained for this runway,” I say. “It’s highly technical.”
“You underestimate yourself.” Senior shoves me toward the minion. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”
I could fall in the water and get my toes nibbled off by baby sharks. They could miscalculate and bite my nose instead. Then when I start bleeding, all five of them could swarm me in a feeding frenzy.
Violet Honeycutt sits back down. “Why are we still discussing this? I already told her to do it. And if the show doesn’t start in two minutes, I will leave.”
Her Greatness has spoken. And as if to illustrate her resolve to depart, she glances at her watch, which even in my frazzled state I note is a Patek Philippe made of white gold and fully set with diamonds. Maybe if I owned that, I wouldn’t have a moment to spare, either.
The minion grabs my arm and pulls. “Please,” she whispers, “Hugh’s career will tank if Violet Honeycutt walks out of his show,” and before I know it I’m allowing myself to be dragged backstage into a gaggle of bikinied females. If they weren’t half my age and wearing outrageous neon-colored makeup, it would be a lot like pageant night. As it is, these girls look even more unnerved than the usual run of contestants. And I can explain that with one five-letter word: S-H-A-R-K.
A towering young man with a bleached blond crew cut materializes in front of me. “Here’s our thirteenth model,” the minion informs him, and I realize this is Hugh White. “Violet Honeycutt threatened to walk out,” she adds, “if we don’t start immediately.”
Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway Page 26
