by Nancy Martin
Delilah popped her eyes wide. “I want details! Your love life is always interesting. We’ll meet for a drink, howzabout that?”
I knew Delilah was always too busy to meet for drinks, but her invitations sounded sincere. “That would be great,” I said. “Where do you want me now?”
With a sorrowful shake of her head, she said, “I want you mingling with the crowd when you look this fantastic, but I suppose you should be out here with the rest of the press as guests arrive. We’re trying a red carpet theme, see? Make a fuss over the guests as they get out of their cars. Just don’t snap any pictures of tacky girls flashing their va-jay-jays, okay? We’re gonna keep things classy tonight.”
I saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
She rushed off to check on matters inside the hotel, and I joined the jostling pack of reporters assembled to greet the guests. I recognized a couple of real journalists, but the rest were actors hired to look like paparazzi. One local television reporter was doing a sound check with her microphone.
Her cameraman gave me a wave, which I took to be a greeting until he called, “You’re in my shot, honey!”
Chastened, I found a spot near the velvet rope and readied my phone camera. Behind me, a pair of gigantic lights projected twin spinning beacons up into the night sky. The lights generated a lot of heat, and the cooling fans created a low roar of background noise that made even the slightest conversation with my fellow journalists—real or pretend—very difficult.
What transpired after that was a long, exhausting half hour of making party guests feel like celebrities. Most of the men eschewed traditional evening clothes in favor of what was currently called “creative black tie.” Personally, I thought it was hard to top a good Armani tuxedo with a perfectly knotted bow tie, but I didn’t see a single one. Plenty of open collars with satin lapels, though, and even a T-shirt under a tux jacket here and there. A few heavy necklaces, too.
I took a number of photos of women in excellent dresses, and I silently composed a few good lines I could use in my column. Ruffles and sequins seemed to have given way to svelte gowns with minimal decoration, just jaw-dropping jewelry.
Shoes seemed to be of the hobbling variety. I could appreciate a great pair of shoes, of course, but I was ready for the super-high, straps-up-the-ankle fashion to go the way of the dodo. One young woman took a tumble off her shoes on the red carpet. Someone called an ambulance for her.
When I estimated that three-quarters of the guests had arrived, I packed up my camera and went into the hotel to rub elbows and gather some quotes.
The hospital fund-raising drive had been going on for three years, and the gala marked the successful end of the project. I guessed the drive chairpersons planned to announce a triumph, so I cornered one of them before the cocktail hour was over.
“Nora! Darling, what a pleasure to see you. And what a fantastic dress! How have you been?”
My husband, Todd, had gone to medical school with Darcy Hickam’s husband, so we’d done a fair bit of socializing before Todd’s behavior turned. Darcy was kind but distant to me during Todd’s worst years—perhaps recognizing that there-but-for-the-Grace-of-God-go-I—but tonight she turned on the charm. Her day job was managing partner in a big PR firm that had recently landed a national account for a car rental company, so Darcy was no stranger to hard work under big pressure or to saying the right sound bite when needed. Tonight she looked very lean and fit in a purple dress cut down to her wow, and her hair was swept up and teased into an extravagant whoosh with what surely were extensions cascading down her back.
She gave me two air kisses.
“I’m great, Darcy. You look fantastic. And the fund-raising drive is a huge success.”
“We worked our buns off,” she said. “But it’s the most worthy cause I know. My grandfather donated the whole second floor of the hospital back in the day—but you knew that, right? So I took it as my personal responsibility to make exactly the same kind of contribution. Listen, could you do me a favor?”
“Just ask.”
“Will you find Jack Lantana and his trophy wife? Maybe take their picture for the paper? He’s the guy who won a big defense contract two years ago, and now he’s a gazillionaire. We’re hoping to talk him into donating a million dollars, and it’d really help, I think, if they got some publicity tonight.”
“Already done,” I said.
She squealed and gave me an exuberant hug. “You’re the best. A step ahead of me. Thanks, Nora.”
As I talked to her for a more few minutes about the hospital project, I jotted down the best of her remarks.
“What will you do now that the drive is over?” I asked finally.
She smiled. “Jake and I are having a baby—just as soon as I can get pregnant, that is. We almost put off having kids too long. Now I can’t wait.”
“Wonderful,” I said, trying to put some enthusiasm into the word.
“What’s going on with you? I’m sorry to hear your aunt Madeleine died. She was quite the lady.”
“Yes, she was.”
“My mother used to be very close with Madeleine.”
My ears perked up. “Was she? I didn’t know that.”
Darcy’s mother, a principal ballerina with a big New York company, had come to Philadelphia to marry Dwight Hickam, an investment genius who took his millions and retired early to become a full-time ballet aficionado. Natasha and Dwight were still very big in the arts community, long after Natasha left the barre.
“Yes,” Darcy said. “Madeleine helped Mom defect. Didn’t you know that?”
“You’re kidding!”
Darcy nodded. “Mom was started at the Kirov, but was allowed to dance on tour in Europe. She met Madeleine somewhere—I forget—and told her she wanted asylum. So Madeleine orchestrated everything. I guess I have her to thank. Otherwise, I’d still be a gleam in Daddy’s eye!”
“That’s fascinating,” I said. “Madeleine didn’t talk about those days. I’d love to chat with your mom sometime.”
“She’d enjoy that. On the other end of the spectrum, how’s Lexie?”
I didn’t like Darcy’s change of tone, but I said, “I hope to hear from her very soon.”
Darcy eyed me. “You’re loyal. That’s nice.”
I wanted to like Darcy. I respected what she’d done for the hospital, and I was happy for her plan to complete her marriage with children. But her dismissal of Lexie when Lex most needed her friends—it felt as if a sharp foil had pierced my social armor.
“Write her a note,” I suggested.
“Oh,” Darcy said, “I wouldn’t know what to say. And we were never really close.”
“Of course,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Well, congrats on a wonderful party. You should be proud.”
I roamed the room after that. I found myself thinking about Lexie, though, and had trouble concentrating on my job. She would have enjoyed such a party. I could almost see her holding court near the bar, keeping a flock of men in thrall as she sliced and diced the current economic scene while wearing a killer dress and diamonds to die for. Afterward, we might have strolled down the street for a drink at a popular bar to dissect the evening’s gossip.
With my mind elsewhere, I nearly bumped into a pack of old friends surrounding a Philadelphia actor who’d gone off to Hollywood to play a TV doctor. Tonight he had been invited to simply charm the donors. I shook his hand and took his picture with some well-dressed people—a perfect shot for the newspaper’s Web site coverage of the hospital fund-raiser. Attractive people having fun often encouraged more donors to give to worthy causes.
Recorded music made it hard to hear any conversation, as movie themes blared from speakers around the ballroom. I almost had to plug my ears when the James Bond theme suddenly blasted from behind me.
Deafened, I moseyed off to circulate among the older partygoers. The gray-haired crowd was just as beautifully dressed and appeared to be having a delightful evening, too, although more
low-key. Everyone seemed pleased to be a part of a good cause. I took a few more casual shots without really thinking about whom I was photographing.
Suddenly I realized I had framed two people who surprised me.
Simon Groatley and Shirley van Vincent were standing aside, talking intently.
Arguing. Groatley’s face was as red as brick, and Shirley seemed to be lecturing him. Considering he was a womanizing old goat, I was surprised to see him taking her scolding like a chastised husband.
I took another picture quickly, then turned away before they caught me staring. I hadn’t realized they knew each other.
The lights flickered, indicating the dinner hour, so the crowd moved toward the tables in the ballroom. I found my seat between two couples who had been friends of my parents, and they regaled me with hilarious tales of Mama and Daddy dancing at parties.
I was glad to sit with people from whom my parents had not stolen. Maybe I had Delilah to thank for that. I didn’t often get to hear from people who loved Mama and Daddy for what they really were—fun-loving, upbeat people without a negative bone between them. Sure, my parents were foolish and profligate. They were imperfect parents, but I loved them. Maybe that was a lesson to remember.
A sumptuous dinner of lobster tails and tender steak came next. Long ago, I had learned that people who have given very large sums of money expect a quality meal for their tens of thousands, so smart event organizers didn’t skimp on the food.
After the meal, we heard twenty short minutes of speeches thanking dozens of people for their generosity. Darcy was given a cut-glass bowl for her devotion to the cause. Then the orchestra burst into toe-tapping tunes, and the crowd mobbed the dance floor.
I made my way through a knot of people waiting for drinks at the bar and eventually found Shirley van Vincent sitting by herself at a large round table in an alcove. I had spotted her from across the room and waited until she was alone.
I slipped into a chair beside her, surprising Shirley as she took a sip of coffee.
“Hello, Mrs. van Vincent. I want to thank you again for giving my sisters and me a ride into town in your coach the other day.”
She carefully swallowed her coffee—maybe she was composing herself—and then she set the cup down firmly in its saucer. “It was the least I could do, considering Emma’s shameful condition.”
I refused to take offense. “Emma looks well, though, doesn’t she?”
“She’s never had a problem with her looks.”
Shirley van Vincent looked pretty good, too. I hadn’t expected her to clean up so well, but I reminded myself she had been an ambassador’s wife. She had changed her horsey garb for a satin ball gown that was probably as old as the one I was wearing. Its color had faded to a dusty rose that was becoming with her white hair and pale skin tone. There was nothing dusty about her demeanor, though. A gold and ruby necklace gleamed on her neck. The hard stone matched the glitter in her eye. She had placed her evening bag on the table, and I could see a silver cigarette case poking out. As soon as she got the chance, I figured she planned on sneaking a smoke.
I said, “I hear the police discovered another body. This time on your property.”
“Bunch of old bones, that’s all. But they’ve got yellow tape stretched all over my woods. I told them I want it cleaned up before my horse show. They stopped us from finishing setting up while they sniff around my land. I’ll have to get up before dawn tomorrow to show the electricians where to place the loudspeakers.”
Everyone had their priorities, I thought.
She pulled her cigarettes out of her evening bag and snapped the bag shut. “I hear your aunt Madeleine didn’t die in a volcano, after all.”
“How did you hear that?”
She toyed with her cigarette case. “News gets around in the neighborhood. So it’s true? It was Madeleine in the elevator?”
I sidestepped the question. “You must be as distressed about her death as I am, considering you were friends.”
“We were friends once.” With her own brand of diplomacy, she said, “Must have been bad, the way she died.”
“Yes. And worse yet, I have a feeling it wasn’t an accident.”
Shirley fumbled the cigarette case, and it clattered to the floor.
I reached down and retrieved it. Returning it to the table, I saw that Shirley had turned very pale. I said, “I wonder if you have any thoughts about who might have disliked Madeleine enough to want her dead. People in international circles, that is.”
“Not my husband, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Heavens, why would I think that?”
With a shrewd glare, she said, “Don’t pussyfoot with me, young lady. Surely you already know Madeleine worked closely with my husband. But he had a clear mandate to act only within international law. I started out as his secretary, so I saw firsthand what he put up with when it came to her. What Madeleine did, she did without my husband’s participation.”
“She helped a lot of people,” I said. “Russian defectors—”
“She made life very difficult for my husband. She was reckless and didn’t care whose reputation she sullied.”
“Did Madeleine sully Mr. van Vincent’s?”
“Certainly not. He retired with his integrity intact.”
I sensed there was more to her side of the story. “But—?”
“He didn’t have an affair with that woman,” Shirley spat out. “I’ll go to my grave denying that rumor.”
I was about to protest when she said that. It had never entered my head that Madeleine and Vincente van Vincent had been intimate. But I saw her jealousy then, and realized that Shirley—a lowly secretary before she married the boss—was still touchy where the smart, beautiful and dynamic Madeleine Blackbird was concerned.
Quietly I said, “I only want to learn more about Madeleine.”
Shirley’s demeanor finally cracked. “Young lady, your aunt was no paragon decent young women should be looking to. The faster you bury that woman, the better for all of us.”
“I can’t help wondering who killed her.”
“I think you’ll discover Madeleine burned a lot of bridges wherever she went. You won’t have any shortage of suspects in her murder.”
“Simon Groatley?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Madeleine’s lawyer. Simon Groatley. You were speaking with him earlier this evening.”
“You must be mistaken,” she said shortly. “I don’t know any Groatley. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Eleanor, I’m going to powder my nose.”
She rose from the table, snatched up her bag and left. She didn’t head for the restrooms, though. She went straight for the door to the hotel terrace, where she probably intended to smoke a cigarette.
She had lied to me, bald-faced. Why deny she knew Groatley?
I wished I’d had time to ask her if she’d seen Madeleine and Pippi the day they made their good-byes to friends in the neighborhood. Shirley might have been one of the last people to see either one of them alive.
I was thinking I could slip out and go home to ruminate a little more on the possibilities when someone tapped my shoulder and asked, “May I have this dance, Miss Blackbird?”
I turned to find Simon Groatley himself looming over me. He extended his hand for mine.
I could hardly say no.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I quickly discovered Groatley was the kind of man who insisted on holding his dance partner as if she might wriggle free and run away like a frightened deer. Clamped to his chest, I could barely breathe as he whirled me into the crowd of dancers. He had a commanding ballroom style, too, moving me purposefully around the floor in time to the music, taking long strides. I suppose he thought he was sweeping me off my feet.
When we reached the opposite side of the dance floor from the orchestra, he eased back a few inches—making enough space to force conversation. And to get a gander down the front of my dress.
He
said, “I hear you’ve been asking questions about Madeleine Blackbird.”
“Can you blame me?”
He laughed. “What do you expect to learn? Some deep, dark secret about her?”
“She had a lot of secrets, I think.”
“None of them very interesting,” Groatley assured me. “What matters now is that we clean up her estate and let the past go.”
“So you’re going to handle the estate quickly? Save the family a few billable hours?”
Another deep laugh. “These things take time.”
“Is that what you discussed with Mrs. van Vincent just now? The estate?”
“I thought she might be interested in buying the land once the rest of the details were settled.”
“You weren’t discussing Madeleine?”
“Why should we?”
Truly curious, I asked, “Aren’t you interested in how she died?”
“My job usually begins when my client dies.”
“Oh? I thought your job began when you first start to help a client plan her estate.”
His face flushed dark red, and he gave me a cold look down his nose. “You’ve grown up a lot since I first saw you drawing in a coloring book at your grandfather’s feet, Nora. May I call you Nora now? I did back when you wore pigtails.”
I had never worn pigtails in my life, but I let that detail pass. “I’m very upset to learn that my aunt died a horrible death. I think she was deliberately murdered, but you seem to have a cavalier attitude about it, Simon. May I call you Simon?”
“I’m not the least bit cavalier. But determining how she passed away is something that should be left to the professionals. Let the police handle the investigation. Right now, our job is to work together to settle her estate and move on. Surely a lovely young woman like yourself has more important things to do with her time.”
“I care about how she died.”
“How can I encourage you to care a little less?”
I missed a step and stumbled. I didn’t fall, of course, because of the grip he maintained on my body. “What are you suggesting?”
