Raiders of the Lost Corset

by Ellen Byerrum

  “Magda?” Lacey said. “Magda Rousseau!” There was no answer this time, and Lacey knew she was dead.

  What once was Magda sat on the faded floral sofa in the middle of her workroom, her head leaning back, her fingers still touching the poisoned glass of wine. Her purple shirtwaist dress was old, clean, and well tailored, but the top button was missing. Her short curly brown hair, shot through with gray, perpetually resisted all her attempts at taming it and was now sticking straight up. Oddly, Magda looked at peace, the jumble of jewels and all.

  Magda was probably between sixty and seventy, but looked older. It isn’t the years, it’s the mileage, Lacey thought. Magda’s upturned cat eyes had always sparkled with a bit of humor, as they did even now. Her lips bore traces of coral lipstick and her ghastly white cheeks sported two bright spots of rouge, and her love of wine and vodka showed in the broken capillaries across her cheeks. Lacey stared at the dead woman, hoping vainly that her friend’s death was just an illusion and she might soon rouse herself and say, “All a joke, Lacey! A good joke, no?”

  The sun was sinking lower beyond the room’s one large window. The golden afternoon light glinted on the paste jewels and reflected from dust floating quietly over the scene. It had started out a fine November day, with a hint of warmth in the air, but darkness would come soon enough and a chillier air would seize the night.

  Lacey remembered the cell phone and picked it up from the coffee table to hear a voice.

  “Ma’am, are you there?”

  “Why the hell aren’t you here?” she shouted, her frustration taking over.

  “They will be there soon, ma’am. Please stay on the—”

  Lacey clicked off the phone. She didn’t want to talk to the voice anymore. The heaviness of death settled on her shoulders, leaving her with a melancholy that bore into her bones. She knew she would cry later, in private. But she called on her reporter’s hardness, woven through with cynicism, to help her through the next few hours. She would wait for the ambulance. And the police. She wanted to see Magda through to the bitter end.

  Mac isn’t going to like this, Lacey told herself, and then she thought of all the people who wouldn’t like it. Her editor, Mac, was just one, her erstwhile boyfriend, Vic Donovan, was another, and she put herself at the top of the list.

  “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go,” she said aloud. She pulled out her cell phone again to dial Tony Trujillo, police reporter at The Eye, but she hung up. It was past today’s deadline. Let Trujillo find his own news. Lacey was tired of being in the center of bad news. The small shop would become a circus-like scene soon enough. She saved that conversation until later and put the phone away.

  Feet pounded up the steps to the second-floor workshop. Paramedics stormed through the unlocked door and advanced on Magda, even though Lacey said, “You’re too late.” They paid no attention to her. Lacey gazed at her friend one last time before the old woman was subjected to their indignities. Magda’s strong, dexterous fingers still bore multiple rings, each holding a sentimental memory. She leaned in to take a closer look.

  “That’s funny,” Lacey said aloud, realizing that it was absurd that she would notice anything amiss under Magda’s gaudy garlands of costume jewelry.

  “What’s funny?” a booming baritone voice bellowed behind her.

  Lacey knew that voice.

  Chapter 2

  Detective Broadway Lamont of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department filled the doorway.

  Oh, no. Not Broadway “the Bull” Lamont.

  “Lacey Smithsonian. Good God almighty. What are the damned odds?” His brown face glowed with sweat. He didn’t look pleased to see her either.

  A man and a woman in dark blue uniforms were performing CPR on Magda. As they repositioned her body, blue, green, purple, and red rings, bracelets, and bangles scattered and streamed to the floor, clinking and pinging against one another.

  “Talk to me,” Lamont ordered in that threatening way Lacey had come to know and appreciate. She imagined suspects who faced the huge African-American detective were duly cowed. She felt a little cowed herself, but she wasn’t about to let him see that.

  “Nice to see you again too, Detective.”

  “You call this in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, and—? Don’t make me cranky, Smithsonian.” He looked like he was already cranky. “Who’s the Christmas tree?”

  “Her name is Magda Rousseau.”

  “They said it was poison. You tell ’em that?”

  “That’s what she told me when she was still talking.”

  Lamont loomed over the sofa and bent his head close to the busy paramedics to take a good look at the victim. He snorted. “Poison, huh? She got a knife stuck in her, she tell you that? There, right between her ribs.”

  “What!?” Lacey followed his look. With the blanket of faux jewels cleared away, she could see a petite amethyst-and-emerald-handled knife protruding from Magda’s ribs. It looked like a prop dagger, something in a costume drama. A little blood seeped around the wound, staining the purple dress darker. Lamont pulled her away. “My God, I swear I didn’t see that,” Lacey said. “There was so much stuff on her—”

  “Where I come from, we call that a clue, Smithsonian. A big fat clue.”

  “She didn’t say anything about being stabbed. Just poisoned. I was rubbing her feet.” Lacey choked back a sob. “She said they were cold.”

  “Don’t fall apart on me just ’cause you didn’t see it.” His baritone softened ever so slightly. “You’re no detective is all. Or else you’d have noticed there’s something wrong with this picture. A poison victim with a knife stuck in her? What’s up with that? And there ain’t much blood for a stabbing. Ought to be more blood, you know. And what the hell kind of voodoo shop is this place?”

  “‘Bloody thread, knock ’em dead,’” Lacey said in a whisper. Lamont looked at her sharply. She quickly explained, “She’s a corsetiere, a costume maker. For the theatre, among other things. ‘Bloody thread’ was an expression of Magda’s, a backstage theatre expression, she said, a superstition. Like saying ‘break a leg’ to an actor.”

  “Yeah? Impress me with your backstage theatre knowledge.”

  “She said costume makers believe if they prick their fingers while they’re making a costume, it means they’re putting their blood, their soul, into the work and it’s bound to be a good show. At least that’s what Magda claimed.”

  “This ain’t my idea of a good show. Poison and a knife. Doesn’t add up. I don’t like it, not a damn bit.” He looked even crankier than before, if possible. “Especially with you in a starring role.” He lifted his chin toward the deceased. “Knives are your specialty, aren’t they?”

  “Hey! That was self-defense and you know it.” Lacey didn’t like the look on his face. What was he implying?

  “More than once, Smithsonian.”

  “If I’m going to skewer someone, Lamont, it’s going to be in self-defense.” He scowled, but he backed up a step. “Magda was my source. My friend. I was trying to save her life. I had an appointment with her. We were working on a story. A fashion story.”

  “Oh, God, here we go again.” Broadway Lamont’s eyebrow lifted. “You gonna start telling me about fashion clues?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Just as well. Looks stupid on my report.” He snorted. “So how do you get involved in these messes? A pretty woman like you should have better things to do. And you’re supposed to be sort of smart, aren’t you?”

  “‘Sort of smart’?” She could feel her own eyebrow lift involuntarily.

  “If you were really smart, you’d keep your ass outside the crime scene tape.”

  Lacey sighed. “Point taken.” She couldn’t argue with that, and she was determined to stay out of the way, out of trouble. This time.

  “This corset-maker of yours, this Magda Rousseau,” he said, “she work here alone?”

  “No, she has a partner.�
� He waited for more. “Analiza Zarina. She’s usually around, but she doesn’t seem to be here today.”

  “‘Anna Lisa’?” Lamont asked, his notebook and pen poised. “She a foreigner too?”

  “It’s Latvian.” Lacey spelled the name for him. The co-owner of the shop was in her mid-forties, a flighty woman who never seemed to stand still. Analiza’s tumble of curly strawberry-blond hair bounced as she fluttered through the workshop like a nervous sparrow. Analiza sewed at top speed, Lacey remembered, racing her seams through the madly beating machine, the needle clacking up and down. Her sewing machine was quiet now, a length of bright red material draped over it waiting to be turned into a cape, perhaps for a Little Red Riding Hood in a school play. A beaded black sweater hung across the back of her chair; Analiza always complained of the cold. Magda was always the calmer one, the know-it-all, the boss.

  “Any tension between the two of them?” Lamont interrupted her reverie.

  All the time, Lacey thought. The women were always sniping at each other in a familiar, comfortable way. Magda grumbled at Analiza for wasting expensive material; Analiza groaned that Magda would worry about the price of air, if she could. They even argued over that costumer’s saying of Magda’s, “Bloody thread, knock ’em dead.” Analiza insisted it was “Bloody stitch, all get rich.” “Just general coworker kind of tension,” Lacey told Lamont. “Like siblings.”

  “The kind that ends with a knife between the ribs?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought so, but—” She shrugged.

  “So, what’s so ‘funny,’ Smithsonian? That’s what you said when I came in.”

  “There’s nothing funny here anymore, Broadway.” Lacey tried to get a glimpse of Magda, but her view was blocked by the medical team. They were still in a flurry of activity, but they seemed to be losing enthusiasm. Faux jewels covered the floor like colored raindrops in a pool of fading sunlight. “There was a pin, a broach she always wore, but she’s not wearing it now. I thought it was funny that it’s missing. It’s hard to ignore, it’s so gaudy.”

  “Gaudy? In this mess? How could you tell?” Lamont glowered. Lacey realized the statement sounded ludicrous considering the outrageous bejeweled mess covering the sofa and spilling onto the floor. She looked again, but the pin was not among the scattered plunder.

  “Sarcasm from Broadway Lamont. Who would have thought?”

  He grunted. “Sarcasm’s cheap; take all you want. This broach thing valuable? Something someone would kill for? Or maybe this scene started in a robbery, ended in something else?”

  “I never saw her without it. That’s all. Maybe it wasn’t so cheap after all. Maybe someone took it. Or maybe she just wasn’t wearing it today, didn’t go with her outfit.”

  “So this is one of your so-called ‘fashion clues,’ huh?”

  She shrugged and the detective rolled his eyes. Lacey felt a chill in the air. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the sofa where Magda still lay. “Hey hey hey! Crime scene!” Broadway yelled and she jumped up involuntarily. “Keep off the furniture.”

  She moved and silently urged her nerves to calm down. “I didn’t say it was a fashion clue. I just noticed it was missing.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Killer takes a souvenir. Something pretty to pawn, maybe. I’ll need a description of this whatchamacallit from you, Smithsonian.” He took out his notebook again.

  “Maybe she left it in her room,” Lacey continued, “in a jewelry box or something.” He looked perplexed. She pointed up. “Magda lives upstairs. She keeps her key ring on a peg near her sewing machine.” Lacey walked quickly to the sewing machine and pointed but did not touch. The keys were hanging there. Lamont looked a little happier.

  “Now that’s more like a real clue. Let’s go, Smithsonian,” Lamont said. He snapped on latex gloves and grabbed the keys with his big right hand. “Probable cause for a search. You better show me the way.”

  Chapter 3

  Lacey ushered Detective Lamont past a hanging rack of brightly colored velvet and satin costumes to the back of Magda’s workshop and through a door propped open by a small bust of Shakespeare. She led him up a dim narrow staircase illuminated by a bare forty-watt bulb. At the top of the stairs two front doors with chipped white paint were angled across from each other. On the right, Magda’s door led to the rear of the building, her apartment facing the small backyard and alley. From the other door the tantalizing aroma of baking bread hovered in the air.

  The workshop and apartments were located in an older house in the Eastern Market section of D.C., east of Capitol Hill, in an area where gentrification had turned the neighboring houses into stratospherically priced homes for the well-to-do and into chic storefronts. It was only a matter of time before this one too would receive a stylish makeover that would displace the remaining residents, one of whom had just been displaced by death.

  Lamont opened the door. Magda’s apartment wore an air of proud but shabby gentility. The paint was old and chipped above the doorjamb and there were cracks running down the walls. An ancient Aubusson carpet covered the floor with flowers in faded shades of ivory, blue, and rose, worn and threadbare in places. Still, it had a certain je ne sais quoi, as Magda would say.

  Lacey’s visits had been restricted to the minuscule living room where she and Stella often shared strong coffee with Magda after fittings. Lacey remembered mismatched china cups and plates that held croissants and jam perched on the marble-top coffee table. Now it was full of sewing and pattern magazines and a travel magazine about France.

  Lacey had never seen Magda’s bedroom, but Lamont beckoned her to it, flipping the light switch. It still held a lingering trace of Magda’s distinctive perfume and of the sachet in her chest of drawers and closet. A single bed, neatly made with a yellow daffodil-patterned spread, was flanked by small white wooden end tables. On the tables were twin lamps, dancing ballerinas holding up the white and yellow shades. Magda must have loved the ballet, Lacey realized; there was a large painting of ballerinas above the bed. Next to a small window, a plain white dresser was topped by a white leather jewelry box. When Lamont opened the lid, a ballerina sprang up, dancing to a tinkling music box air from Swan Lake in front of pink satin lining.

  This is a little girl’s room, Lacey thought. She wondered whether Magda had ever had a man in her life. Lacey had vaguely thought of her as a widow, but she realized she had never mentioned a husband, deceased or otherwise. Besides the daily demands of her costume business, she seemed to have only one ambition—to find the lost corset.

  “Come here.” Detective Lamont motioned Lacey over. He gently poked through the jewelry box with a pen from his pocket. “You see it in here, that broach thingy? Maybe the perp never made it up here.”

  She gazed at the pieces. A couple of necklaces, faux pearls, earrings. “No. It’s not there.”

  “What did the thing look like? Can you draw me a picture?”

  “Would now be a good time to tell you I got a D in eighth-grade art? I barely mastered circles and stick figures.”

  “You’re hopeless, Smithsonian. Can you at least describe the damn thing?”

  “Yeah, I can describe the damn thing. It’s a round pin with a fluted edge, about the size of a golf ball, silver with lots of colored stones, red, blue, and green.”

  Lacey was no authority on the life and dreams of Magda Rousseau. She’d probably met her no more than a dozen times crowded together in the last few months, often in the company of the inimitable Stella, the hairstylist they had in common. But every single time, Magda had worn the gaudy pin. She said it “went with everything.”

  “Maybe it had sentimental value,” she said, thinking it might have been a gift from a man, a lover. But the room wasn’t talking. There weren’t even any photographs of Magda, or of anyone else.

  “We’ll let Forensics poke around up here. When they get here. Let’s you and me go have a chat, Smithsonian.” He sighed loudly and followed her back to the living room and d
own the stairs to the costume shop. With his lumbering gait he reminded her of a big bear. A big bear who also happens to be a big drama queen, she thought.

  The paramedics had given up and were standing by amid the uniformed police. Magda lay on the sofa now, her eyes half open in that teasing way, the weird smile in place, as if she were rather amused by the proceedings occasioned by her death. Lacey hoped she was.

  Behind Lacey, Lamont said, “Top button’s gone off the dress.”

  She turned and looked at the dead woman again. Magda’s face looked chalky. “That’s where she would have worn the pin. Maybe to hide the missing button.” She pointed to a tiny rip, wondering if the same someone who spiked Magda’s wine took the gaudy piece of jewelry. But was that the same someone who spiked her ribs with a gaudy dagger? And why try to kill her twice? Was it possible there were two killers?

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Not to drink the wine.” Lacey indicated the bottle of Pinot Grigio sitting on the edge of Magda’s sewing machine.

  “We’ll have it tested.” He signaled to another cop to collect it and several other glasses scattered around. “She didn’t tell you what kind of poison? Arsenic, rat poison, cyanide?”

  “She just stared at me with that look.”

  “Dead people can be damned uncommunicative,” he said. “But hell, that’s what autopsies are for.”

  “Right. An autopsy. How are things going down at the morgue?” Lacey had heard horror stories about the D.C. morgue.

  “It’s a damn mess.” Lamont rubbed his chin.

  “How long will it take?”

  “Do I look like I got a crystal ball on me? So how’d you meet this Magda Rousseau?”

  “A friend. I met Magda through a friend.” It’s all Stella’s fault. Lacey met Magda because Stella had a passion for exotic fashion, which included leather bustiers, sequined halters, and full-fledged boned and brocaded corsets. Because Lacey was the fashion reporter for The Eye Street Observer, Stella insisted Lacey should write a story about her friend Magda Rousseau. Stella had modeled Magda’s latest laced-and-boned creation and promoted the old woman’s craftsmanship and design sense as a subject for one of Lacey’s “Crimes of Fashion” columns.