Raiders of the Lost Corset

by Ellen Byerrum

  “I’m sorry.” Lacey hugged Stella’s shoulders. “I found her. Can we talk somewhere?”

  Stella stood still in the busy salon as her eyes filled with tears. Lacey couldn’t stand to see her friend cry; she was sure she would be crying herself in mere moments. She handed Stella a tissue and waited while her spunky hairstylist dabbed at her eye makeup.

  A young man whose hair looked like a dalmatian got up out of his styling chair and gave Stella a hug and a tip, oblivious to her tears. She had apparently just dyed striking black spots into his short platinum-blond flattop. “Thanks, Stella! Whoa. It’s radical.” He preened at himself in the mirror and was gone. Lacey glanced at Stella with an eyebrow raised. Stella’s evenly dyed black hair looked positively conservative by comparison.

  “Yeah, it’s a pretty cool look, huh, Lace,” Stella said, looking wistfully after her spotted handiwork. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first.” Then she remembered Magda and sighed.

  “Are you okay?” Lacey said.

  “Yeah. I’m through for the day.” She turned back to Lacey. “We need to do something in memory of Magda. Let’s go get a drink. Our own little wake for Magda,” Stella said, stripping off her black Stylettos smock to reveal an eye-popping purple corset—no doubt a Magda Rousseau Original—over tight black capri pants. Her formerly bright red crew cut was growing out. She had dyed it jet-black and was wearing it slicked back and sleek like a seal. She reapplied her eye makeup and checked for imperfections in the mirror. Her eyes were lined with black kohl, her lips were red as blood and matched her long nails. She looked as exotic as if she were channeling a mutant mixture of Mata Hari and Rudolph Valentino. Lacey whistled softly at the new Stella.

  “New look, Stella?”

  “You like it?”

  “I like it lots. It’s you.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Totally me. Makes me feel dangerous.”

  “Do you need to feel dangerous?’

  “Duh, you bet I do. I need a man.”

  “What about Bobby Blue Eyes?” Stella had been crazy for months about a certain angelic-looking blond dude who loved motorcycles, erotic adventures, and Stella’s very assertive twin peaks—“the girls,” as she called them.

  “You know. History. Down the road. Whatever.”

  “But I thought you guys were, um, cozy,” Lacey said. Stella was grabbing her jacket and striding toward the front door. “A couple. Permanent. Or at least semipermanent.”

  “Permanents don’t last forever, Lace. Life is like hair, you know, sometimes you just gotta cut loose, make a change. And I can’t wait forever for a new man. I’m not like you.” Stella threw her a pointed look that Lacey decoded as You are so pathetic. “A woman’s got needs, you know.”

  Lacey ignored that. She followed Stella out the front door of the shiny Dupont Circle salon. She didn’t want to get Stella started on what a woman needs. And she didn’t want to get into a long discussion about whether what Lacey needed was Victor Donovan, the big dope who still made her heart race.

  They chose a nearby bar that served trendy drinks to a nerdy crowd of Capitol Hill staffers who were trying to look cool. They sat at the bar, lost in their own thoughts, until their trendy drink specials arrived, a Pink Lady with a double shot of gin for Stella and blue champagne for Lacey. Stella took one big gulp of her Pink Lady, opened her eyes wide, and socked Lacey in the shoulder. Lacey spilled a little blue champagne.

  “I know! Everyone can wear their corsets to the funeral! For Magda, you know?

  Lacey blinked. “Corsets?”

  “Yeah, you, me, my assistant manager Michelle, the rest of the salon. All those actresses she costumed. And I know some of her call-girl clients and that corset-kinky crowd.” Stella took another gulp of the pink liquid. “We all got our corsets and bustiers from Magda. It would be one last great costume parade for the old doll.”

  Lacey couldn’t imagine the refined Michelle, a gorgeous black woman, in a corset. If Stella had her way, the funeral would look like some sort of misguided Old West saloon gal musical number, or a corset fetishist’s ball. Lacey was still trying to adjust to mourners showing up in their casual Friday clothes or their barest black cocktail dresses, just because they were black.

  “Maybe we could all wear black ones. You know, like formal funeral corsets?” Stella looked so hopeful that Lacey didn’t want to crush her spirit with a dose of conventional good taste. All Stella had learned from reading Lacey’s columns was that if you wore clothes to express who you really were inside, you were in fashion and all was forgiven. Stella liked to broadcast her inner vixen through her clothes. Lacey realized that the “dress-to-express” side of her message resonated with Stella’s rebellious little inner vixen, but the other side of the message, the “dress-to-respect” side, wasn’t what Stella wanted to hear.

  “Well, my own Magda Original corset is not exactly somber enough for funeral wear,” Lacey pointed out. “It’s baby-blue.” She groaned inwardly for giving in to Magda’s flattery and having a corset made in the first place. Where could she ever wear such a thing in Washington? And Stella couldn’t possibly imagine that Lacey would really wear a baby-blue satin corset to a funeral, she thought. Could she?

  “Michelle has three, Lacey, maybe you could borrow one.”

  That suggestion was even more alarming to Lacey. “Stel, it’s not really done, wearing underwear to funerals. Not without wearing something over it.”

  “But it’s for Magda! She’d understand.”

  “She’s French. Heaven only knows what she’d think.”

  “She’d love it!” Stella waved her glass at the waiter for another Pink Lady. “She’d totally love it. La Vie en Rose and all that. It would be like a tribute to her life’s work. Can’t you just see it, Lace?”

  Lacey sipped her blue champagne. She could see it all too clearly. A chorus line of corset-clad women, all shapes and sizes and colors, rocking Magda’s funeral like a late-night cabaret. They would be wearing berets and scarves and fishnet tights. Edith Piaf would be singing. Then Edith would toss them all top hats and canes and they would dance, like the Rockettes or the Folies Bergère. Would Magda rise up from her coffin and join the corseted chorus line?

  “I just want to do something nice for Magda. Everybody’s dying on me, Lacey. First poor Angie. Then that diva supermodel Amanda Manville. Now Magda!” Stella wailed. “What is it about me? I’m like some death magnet.”

  Lacey had asked herself the same question. “Don’t be ridiculous, Stella, you had nothing to do with any of those,” she said. “Coincidence.”

  “I can’t believe Magda is dead.” Stella gazed into her reflection in her fresh Pink Lady, as if to divine what fate it was that caused her friends and clients to die.

  “It’s not you,” Lacey said, wondering how to avoid the subject of Magda’s unknown cause of death. “She didn’t live a healthy life.”

  “That’s true,” Stella mused. Although Stella was in the dark about the lost corset, she was aware that Magda and Lacey were working on some kind of fashion story. “So I guess the big trip is off? The big story, corsets in French couture or whatever?”

  “No. France is still there. I’m still going and I’ll write some kind of tribute to Magda.”

  “Aw, that’s so sweet of you.” She downed some more of the Pink Lady. “Hey! I know. I could go with you!”

  “Uh, right. Okay.” Stella in her corsets and her sleek new look would no doubt dazzle them in Paris. Think fast, Lacey. “So, Stella, do you have a passport?”

  “Oh, hell, a passport! I knew there was something I’ve been meaning to do. Guess it’s a little late now.”

  “This time, yeah.” Lacey wasn’t about to tell Stella how to get an emergency passport application expedited. “But thanks for the offer. Next time.”

  Stella clinked their glasses together. “Deal, Lacey. Do you know how the old girl died? Stroke or something?”

  The question she had been trying t
o avoid now hung in the air. She had only Magda’s word for how she died, though that dying word was “poison.” Lacey had learned the hard way that anything she told Stella would soon be broadcast wider and faster than CNN could ever do it. Even more distressing, Stella would take any of Lacey’s half-formed speculations as the absolute truth.

  “Um, the police came. It was a pretty confusing scene. I don’t think there’s an official determination yet.”

  “Poor Magda. I’m so sorry you had to find the body, Lacey. As you are all too aware, I know exactly what that’s like,” Stella said, wiping a single tear away with one daggerlike fingernail. They were silent for a moment, remembering poor murdered Angie Woods, the hairstylist Stella had found dead in her own salon last spring. “Wow, we’re like totally maudlin here. Tell a joke or something.”

  “Sorry, Stel, I can never remember the punch lines.” Lacey paused for a moment, studying the pretty glass of blue liquid. “Stella, did Magda have any enemies?”

  “Nah. She was a doll. You know what a sweet old lady she was.”

  “But some of her clients were a little, um, weird.” Lacey sipped her champagne.

  “You talking about the leather lads or the high-priced hookers?”

  “Both. And anyone else unusual you can think of. I need to know everything interesting about her. For my story. You know.”

  “Don’t think so.” The slim and handsome waiter returned with Stella’s third Pink Lady and set it down. “You know those guys who are into the kinky underwear? When they go crazy, they just kill each other.”

  “Don’t I know it, honey!” the waiter interjected, and winked before moving off.

  “What about the call girls and the hookers?” Lacey asked. “Anybody dangerous there? Haven’t they’ve all been arrested one time or another?”

  “Some of ’em. Cost of doing business,” Stella said. “Sweet girls, the call girls, once you get to know ’em. In fact, Jolene, the really pretty blonde, did you ever meet her? No? She’s a client of mine, I do her highlights. She’s the one who introduced me to Magda. And her girlfriend Sylvania. They wouldn’t hurt Magda, they all love her! Besides, hookers only want to kill their johns. Or their pimps.” She slurped more of her Pink Lady and then choked on it. “Whoa! Wait a minute, Lacey! Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That some bastard knocked her off?!”

  “I don’t know yet, Stel! Like I said, the police haven’t made a determination.” Stella gave her a look that demanded the truth. Lacey looked away. “But yes, it’s probably murder.”

  “Oh, God. But why? Why Magda?” Lacey had no answer for her. “Damn it. Damn it all to hell. Well, don’t you worry, Lacey.” Stella’s voice rose and Lacey put her finger to her lips. Stella lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Don’t worry, ’cause I’m going to help you this time. I’m going to help you catch the bastard.”

  “No, Stella. I’m not getting involved this time.” Lacey put down a bill to pay for the drinks and slipped her jacket on. Not again, she thought, never again. Besides, Magda didn’t ask Lacey to find the killer, only the corset. “Let the police handle it. There’s no way they can call this one a suicide. Let them do their job, Stella, we are not detectives.”

  “Broken record. Like it’s your number-one hit song. ‘Not gonna do it, not gonna do it, not gonna do it.’” Stella smiled. “That’s what you always say. And then you do it anyway. You know you’re gonna. And I’m gonna be there with you. Just remember, this is Stella you’re talking to. I’m your stylist. I know all your secrets.”

  That was exactly what Lacey was afraid of.

  Chapter 7

  Brass buckles clicked beneath her fingers as Lacey opened what she considered her greatest treasure: Aunt Mimi’s trunk. The leather bands were beginning to stiffen and crack, even though Lacey tried to keep them well oiled. The trunk served as her coffee table, her center of calm, her secret refuge. She had inherited the trunk from her favorite great-aunt, and she sought out the familiar security of its contents whenever she was fatigued, worried, and lonely. At the moment, she was all three.

  Magda’s murder and Stella’s pledge to help find the killer were alarming enough, but Lacey felt an empty ache inside that had nothing to do with hunger or danger or blue champagne, and everything to do with Vic Donovan. The Aimee Mann music she was listening to didn’t help, but the mournful melodies and sad stories fit her mood. She had hoped Vic would meet her in the City of Light after the big corset hunt. That wouldn’t happen now. She wondered if she would ever see him again. She forced him from her thoughts and concentrated on Mimi’s treasure chest.

  The trunk was filled with Mimi’s treasured collection of vintage patterns, suits, dresses, and gowns of every description, mostly from the 1940s. Many were still attached to the fabrics Mimi had selected for them but never made. Some were partly made but not finished. They were beguiling. Some were more than half completed, some had photos clipped of movie stars outfitted in similar attire, all were intriguing. Lacey was slowly having some of the stunning outfits made for her. It was an expensive luxury, but worth every penny. Grateful that she and Aunt Mimi had the same taste and style and were the same size, petite with real women’s curves, Lacey loved to imagine where she would wear such beautiful clothes. The trunk brought her closer to Mimi and it contained more than its share of mystery in old letters, photos, fabrics, and memories, a time capsule from Mimi’s adventurous life. Even a short trip through the trunk left Lacey feeling better, as if she had stepped through a door into another time and place, and right now she had to get the sight of Magda’s amused dead eyes out of her mind.

  Reminding her of a pirate’s treasure chest, the trunk added just the right panache to her shabby-chic living room. Lacey lifted the heavy lid and steadied the top. A whiff of decades-old lavender sachets wafted up delicately and tickled her nose, evoking her Aunt Mimi. She wondered what Mimi would do. Would she abandon Paris as a lost cause, or grab this once-in-a-lifetime chance with both hands?

  Go, girl, trust your instincts. That’s what feminine intuition is for, isn’t it? Lacey imagined her saying. Don’t forget your war paint!

  Of course Mimi would be on her side. Lacey lifted out a black-and-white photograph of Mimi in her early thirties. She was a beauty who never married, although she had plenty of boyfriends and one long-term romantic relationship that the family wasn’t supposed to know about. Lacey looked quite a bit like Mimi with her high cheekbones and expressive green-blue eyes. But while Mimi’s hair was a vibrant auburn, Lacey’s was a light brown with subtle highlights, courtesy of Stella.

  Lacey set aside the photo and lifted a special garment left to her by Aunt Mimi, a tarty black lace and satin number with seven stays and twelve hooks and eyes. A corset in the style known as a Merry Widow, it was wrapped in tissue tied with pink ribbons. Lacey couldn’t imagine how women in the Forties and Fifties had worked up the nerve to buy such things. She had nearly died of embarrassment being fitted by Magda for her new blue satin corset, and Mimi’s Merry Widow was at least as racy. It sucked in the waist and ended at the top of the hips. Lacey had worn it several times under a couple of her vintage outfits to get just the right hourglass silhouette. Literally it was breathtaking, and with the garters and stockings attached, it made her look like Bondage Barbie. Only the whip was missing.

  Lacey thought of the baby-blue satin confection of a corset Magda had insisted she needed and which Stella thought was appropriate funeral attire. While Stella was interested more in the naughtiness factor, heavy on red and black and va-va-va-voom, Lacey’s custom corset was delicate and pretty. With the right skirt, it might even be appropriate evening wear. Corset tops were everywhere these days and Stella was right, underwear had somehow become outerwear. Lacey had even attended a wedding where the bride’s gown was a corset top paired with a full satin skirt. It was demurely sexy and romantic, and it had also succeeded in giving the petite bride actual cleavage, a dream come true.

  Lacey went into her bedro
om and pulled the slim box from the top of the closet. She lifted the lid and carefully removed the blue tissue paper covering it and appreciated the sexy garment. It was truly one of a kind. Lacey loved pockets and Magda happily complied with her whim for a secret pocket stitched into the corset. It was so slim that only a folded bill or two would fit inside.

  She and Magda had discussed how jewels could be sewn into a corset without the agony of bumps and bulges gouging into the wearer’s skin. Lacey didn’t see at first how it could be done. But it was possible, Magda said, if there were layers built into the corset, perhaps a quilted layer with the jewels laid flat, then more layers sewn on top or inside. She had thought about it for a long time; she told Lacey the comfort level also depended on how tightly laced it was. If the Romanov girls had been losing weight in their long captivity by the Red Army, there would be more room in their clothes to hide jewels. It sounded mad, yet plausible.

  With Magda gone, Lacey was now seized by a sudden fierce desire to tell the whole story, legendary lost corset and all, to someone. She felt as if she might burst. Lacey rationalized that if she were in Paris alone and danger reared its ugly head, someone ought to know, someone who would understand the situation and could be reliably sworn to secrecy, unlike Stella. Someone who was bound by attorney-client privilege, and not by the gossipy soapsuds of a shampoo bowl. She had to speak to Brooke Barton, Esquire, her friend and occasionally her lawyer. Lacey lifted the receiver and dialed.

  “You can’t go alone, Lacey. It’s simply not safe.” Brooke’s voice was tense, but Lacey knew it wasn’t fear but excitement that it betrayed. “I’m going with you! When do we leave?”

  Brooke had raced right over to Lacey’s apartment overlooking the Potomac River upon hearing the news that Magda Rousseau was dead and possibly murdered. She was still in her attorney-gray suit of the day, her blond braid coming loose. She kicked off her shoes and inquired whether there was anything to eat or drink.