by Nancy Martin
“A horse,” I said.
Fontayne sighed heavily. “We thought we had this gig sewn up. We’re perfect for the Brinker Bra ad campaign, don’t you think?”
“No, we really want to become Brinker’s muse? Like Kelly was for Calvin?”
“But this horse girl rode in off the street, and suddenly she’s the superstar.”
“Yeah, Brinker loves her?”
“You can totally see why,” said Fontayne.
“But she’s got this boyfriend?” said Fawn, rolling her eyes. “What a loser?”
“I think the newspaper will definitely need your picture,” I said. “But I must find our photographer. You girls should mingle. Stir up some publicity for yourselves.”
“Yeah,” said Libby. “We’ll find you when the photographer gets here.”
“Okay, if you say so. C’mon, Fawnie.”
“Okay, Fonnie?”
They skittered away on their high heels, leaving Libby and me to stare at each other.
Libby said, “What has Emma gotten into this time?”
“Think she’s here?”
“We’d better find out.”
The flash of camera lights led us directly to our little sister.
Fully dressed this time, Emma wore leather pants, spike-heeled boots and a body-skimming turtleneck sweater that framed her fine-boned face. I doubted it was only a Brinker Bra that made her look so sensational. With her long legs and supple body, Emma could pass for a headliner from a Vegas chorus line. Today her hair was short and devilishly spiked, and she carried her whip over her shoulder like a runaway’s pack.
“Hey, sis!” she bellowed when she saw me among the jostling photographers. “It’s about time my keeper showed up! And Libby, too. What is this? Another intervention?”
Chapter 5
“Very funny,” I said as the guys with the cameras reluctantly dispersed.
“A girl’s gotta keep her sense of humor.”
“Em,” said Libby, “you look fabulous.”
Of the three of us, Emma was the one who had turned the Blackbird creamy skin and auburn hair into something downright sexy. Libby tended to look like a ravished concubine from another century, and I . . . well, I hoped I managed to appear to be the dignified one. But Michael had laughed when I said that.
The youngest sister, Emma, had come of age during the great Blackbird depression—the time when Mother and Daddy first ran low on money and started their plunge into the morass of massive debt. Emma had a tantalizing taste of the good life, but it was yanked from under her nose when she was a teenager. Unlike Libby and me, she knew how to “make do.” Unfortunately, she required increasingly large quantities of vodka to do so.
Emma grabbed Libby’s wrist and burst out laughing at her so-called bracelet. “What the hell are you wearing this for?”
“It’s my new company bracelet. I’m a Potions and Passions consultant now.”
“Do you even know what it is?”
“I like it! It’s pretty in a masculine sort of way, and I believe in embracing both your yin and your yang.”
“Well, you’ve certainly got the yang all choked up.” Emma hooted.
“It’s good to see you, Em,” I said. “Your entrance last night was quite a surprise.”
Her grin widened. “Yeah, that was a hell of a production, wasn’t it? How did you like Stoli? The horse, I mean.”
For a while, Emma had parlayed her riding expertise and reckless disregard for her own safety into a decent career on the Grand Prix show jumping circuit. But a few broken bones put a speed bump in her career path. Today she was using the horse as a diversionary tactic, I knew.
I played along. “You were both great. You stole the show.”
“Did you see the Vacuous Vixens, too? Those blond twins? Man, are they nuts.”
Libby said, “I thought they were cute.”
“They follow me around all the time. Give me the creeps.” Suddenly Emma narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s with you? Something wrong with your face?”
“You won’t believe it,” Libby jumped in before I could address the subject more decorously. “Kitty Keough’s been murdered. And guess where the killer dumped her body? Right on Nora’s back porch. Nora found her this morning and fainted on the spot.”
“Whoa.” Emma reached for my arm. “Are you going to faint again?”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, you look fine. Let’s sit down.”
She helped me to a bench, and I sat, trying to force the image of Kitty’s dead body out of my mind’s eye again. Spike woke up and poked his head out of my bag. He barked joyously at Emma. She pulled him out and gave the puppy a roughing-up. Libby, meanwhile, told Emma the whole story.
When she was finished, Emma cursed. “And Mick’s in jail? No wonder you look ready to keel over.”
“He’s not in jail. He’s being questioned. His lawyers are with him.”
Emma nodded, stroking Spike into submission. Like most male animals in Emma’s thrall, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Nobody has lawyers like Mick. But hell, what happened to Kitty? Who killed the old bat?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Leaving her on your porch was a hell of a calling card. It had to be somebody who knows you.”
“That had occurred to me.”
Emma frowned. “And while the police grill Mick, the real killer’s getting away.”
“Yes.” I took a deep breath and spilled my guts. “Kitty asked me to cover the fashion show for her last night, and when I got there I was told she had been barred by Brinker himself. But she had his name written in her appointment book for yesterday. Which makes me wonder if they had some kind of argument.”
“Did Brinker and Kitty even know each other?”
“I assume so. And there was another name in her book—Lamb. Did you know Hemorrhoid Pierce has changed his name to Lamb?”
She nodded and hefted Spike under her arm. “Yeah. And he’s been hanging around Brinker all week.”
That news surprised me. “As friends?”
She shrugged. “They weren’t throwing punches in public, if that’s what you mean.”
“What’s going on between them?”
“I dunno. You think one of them killed Kitty?”
I rubbed my forehead, feeling my headache coming back. “I feel they’re involved somehow. I need to figure out why she wanted to meet with them.”
“Who do you plan on asking first?”
“Brinker’s not exactly my favorite person.”
“Or mine,” Emma said.
I shot a glance up at her. “How did you manage to get hired by him?”
“I don’t know if Brinker even knew who was hired. One of his assistants called me.”
I bet Brinker knew exactly who he had put on his payroll. But I didn’t say so to Emma. Had she blocked from her mind what had happened many years ago?
“Right now,” I said, “I need to find the Intelligencer photographer to take some photos, and then need to get some quotes. With Kitty gone, they need me to get her column written this week.”
“Has the poisoned pen passed into your hands?” Emma asked, one brow arched.
“Not yet. Maybe never.”
“We could use some help,” Libby said to Emma. “And you need to keep your mind off the booze, right? Want to give us a hand? We could be like Charlie’s Angels.”
“Lib,” I said, “take it easy.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Emma asked me, her voice suddenly cold. “To make sure I’m clean and sober?”
“No, Em,” I said. “We only—”
She shoved Spike back into my arms. “I can take care of myself, you know. I don’t need to be locked up in a cage.”
“If you start thinking of it as a prison, you can’t—”
“Just shut up,” Emma snapped. “Did you come to get a urine sample from me, too?”
“We love you, Em.”
“As long as I’m conv
enient,” she said. “As long as I don’t make trouble. Well, I’ll never be a good girl like you, Nora, so get used to it.”
Libby looked distressed. “Did I start an argument? I only meant—Hey, did you meet any nice men in rehab?”
Emma grinned nastily. “Of course I did. A real find. We tunneled out together a couple of nights ago. You might have heard of him; he’s famous. Well, infamous, really. Want to meet him?”
“Emma—”
“Oh, yes, please, Em!” Libby said.
“You’re gonna love this one,” said our sister. “Right this way.”
I stuffed Spike back into my bag and followed.
Emma chose her men on the basis of their shock factor. It started with Jake, her husband, a professional football player who once posed in the buff for a women’s magazine. After he was killed, she took up with a defrocked evangelical minister who scouted parishioners for his new congregation in an adult bookstore. After that, she found a skinny kid who went around competing in all-you-can-eat chicken wing contests. And then there was the taxidermist. Don’t ask.
So I wasn’t exactly surprised when Monte Bogatz walked out of the train station men’s room, looking like Buffalo Bill had wandered away from the Wild West. He wore a squashed cowboy hat and lots of fringed leather and a belt buckle shaped like a bucking bull. He hastily tucked a silver flask into his hip pocket.
“Why, howdy, little ladies!” He tipped his Stetson when he laid eyes on Libby and me. “I bet you’re Emmy’s sisters.”
“Emmy’s just finished telling us about you,” I said. “But, of course, we know you by reputation.”
Monte’s gap-toothed grin made him famous at the age of six, when he stepped on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and yodeled his first hit song, “Roller Skates and Heartache.” He enjoyed a short career as an aw-shucks country kid with a golden voice until booze got the best of him and better-looking rockabilly stars took over the country music scene. His last hit, “I’m Saving Myself for Marriage While Mama’s Saving Her Pennies for Beer,” fell off the charts at least a decade ago.
Looking at him now, I figured Monte was on the fast track to nowhere. His child-star cuteness had given way to a squinty stare and a loose, boozy smile. Thirty years old, but looking forty-five, he had the bowlegged walk of an arthritic cowpoke heading for the bunkhouse. Not long ago, however, I’d seen him on television advertising western-style baby clothes for a huge discount chain, so maybe he wasn’t washed up yet.
Spike poked his head out of my handbag and gave a surly snarl.
“Well, hello, little feller. What kind of varmint are you?”
Spike informed his admirer that he was a vicious beast capable of ripping a man’s arm off.
Monte Bogatz yanked his hand back in the nick of time. If he was drinking this early in the day, at least it didn’t affect his reflexes. I shoved Spike back down into my bag.
Libby, who hadn’t spotted the flask, was starstruck. “Oh, Mr. Bogatz, could I have your autograph?”
“Why not?” he said, looking down her cleavage with the air of a connoisseur. “We’re practically family. But call me Monte, sugar. Everybody does.”
“Hold off on the autograph,” Emma said. “Let’s get out of here, cowboy. We’ve got a train to catch.”
“Whatever you say, little lady.” He snaked his arm around her waist. “You’re gonna show this country boy the bright lights of Broadway, right?”
“Right. Let’s go take a bite out of the Big Apple.”
“Emma, wait,” I said.
“Forget it,” she said. “If I’ve got problems, I’m gonna enjoy them.”
I couldn’t stop her, I told myself sternly. I couldn’t change her. I could only stand by and be supportive while she made her own choices. I wanted to repeat my new mantra aloud. I could not make my sister’s choices.
But as Emma stalked away with her new boyfriend, I could hardly prevent myself from chasing them. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe I’d been protecting Emma too long. Maybe I should have let her fight her own battles from the beginning.
“What should we do?” Libby asked, distressed as we watched Emma head down the road to ruin with Monte Bogatz. “I don’t have my handcuffs with me.”
“Let her go.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but that’s what she wants.”
I sent Libby to scope out the train station in search of Brinker or Hemorrhoid. Meanwhile, I went looking for the newspaper photographer who’d been assigned to today’s event. I found Lee Song already snapping pictures of Fawn and Fontayne. He crouched on one knee, shooting upward to emphasize their long, bare legs.
“Enjoying your work?” I asked him.
Lee smiled at me and stood up. “Some days, I’d do it for free. Hi, Nora. You okay? You look—”
“I’m fine.”
“I heard Kitty kicked the bucket. Sorry, Nora. You look upset.”
“Stan said he was saving space for this story. I hope you can fill up the page with pictures.”
“Yeah, but you’ll need a quote from Brinker, if you can get close enough.”
I never wanted to get close to Brinker, and my expression must have given away that involuntary thought.
“I don’t blame you.” Lee pointed. “He’s over there. Last I saw, he was pouring champagne over some girl’s breasts. She was crying.”
“He hasn’t changed, then.”
Chivalrously, Lee tagged along as I headed into the throng that was gathered beneath a cloud of shiny pink helium balloons all grouped in breastlike pairs and each bearing the Brinker Bra logo. Several dozen absurdly dressed people mingled around a makeshift bar while models in Brinker Bras circulated the perimeter.
Steeling myself, I plunged in.
I found Brinker talking with the fashion columnist from the other city newspaper, Dillard Farquar, a refined gentleman who’d been around since Diana Vreeland’s heyday.
In his middle years, Dilly had grown bored with his life of inherited wealth and decided to make a career out of what he loved most—clothing. Within a few years, he became the city’s patrician arbiter of style, not to mention an instantly recognizable celebrity.
Still the picture of polished elegance at seventy-odd years—the years he admitted to—Dilly wore a natty blue blazer with his own family monogram on the pocket, plus a crisp shirt, flannel trousers and ascot. Like an architect, he kept a pair of round black eyeglasses perched on his aristocratic nose. His primary fashion statement, of course, was the Farquar fortune—a reported $90 million made in cutlery. His great-grandfather descended from a long line of French fencing masters and invented steak knives.
In addition to his long career interpreting fashion trends for Philadelphia, Dilly was best known for an often-repeated story. Minutes before a face-lift procedure, he had supposedly grabbed the hand of his Main Line plastic surgeon and told her, “If I die on the operating table, dear heart, please don’t stop. I must look good in my casket.”
He caught sight of me waiting for Brinker’s attention.
“Nora!” He broke off scribbling with his trademark Montblanc pen. “Don’t you look lovely today. My God, is that a Dior coat?”
I had put away the pink chinchilla and found a coat more politically correct this afternoon. “It is. One of Grandmama’s favorites. Hello, Dilly.”
He kissed both my cheeks. “It’s stunning. I’ve always loved that reversible design, so clever of Dior. Brinker, do you know Nora Blackbird? You should. If anyone in this town innately understands fashion, it’s Nora.”
Brinker looked as if he’d like to burn my Dior coat with me in it.
It all came back to me in a rush, and I could see he remembered every nanosecond of our fateful summer, too.
A few days after Oriana and I found him branding Hemorrhoid with a cigarette, he’d sought me out and cornered me in the deep end of the pool. He untied my bikini top and threw it over the diving board like a captured flag. I kicked him in his Speedo
, which should have been the end of it.
But it hadn’t been.
Now in his midthirties, Brinker looked like a TV version of a Special Forces agent—head shaved smooth as a bullet, muscles bulging beneath a plain olive T-shirt. He had cold black eyes—surely contact lenses—a hawk nose, and a macho tilt to his chin. My first thought was overcompensation. In one hand, he gripped the neck of a champagne bottle—an empty one, I noted. With his other hand, he pointed his video camera.
As Dilly introduced me, Brinker’s camera zoomed in on my face. “Hello,” he said from behind the lens.
“Would you mind putting down the camera?” I asked.
The videotaping was his way of forcing people to participate in their own humiliation, and I was surprised when he honored my request. But Brinker also had a mean habit of studying a person before lowering himself to speak. I recognized it now as a comedian’s trick of putting his audience in their place before starting on his material. He defied heckling by displaying his own superiority.
I endured his scrutiny for a long moment, waiting for the put-down.
Then he said, “I remember your face, but not your name.”
I managed to smile despite his inability to remember Dilly’s introduction. “I’m Nora Blackbird.”
“Oh, yes. You’re thinner now. It suits you.”
During his short time in the fashion business, he’d learned the advantage of remarking on everyone’s weight. I said, “Congratulations on your success.”
He smiled, too, suddenly turning on the force of a powerful personality like a sunlamp. “Have you tried it yet? The Brinker Bra?” He let his gaze slip down to my breasts and linger there.
“Not yet. Do you expect every woman in America to buy one?” I had my notepad in hand, pen poised.
“She’s going to buy several,” he said. “In various colors, all the styles. The Brinker Bra will become an indispensable part of every woman’s wardrobe.”
Dilly Farquar glanced wryly at me as if to say Brinker had already given him the same canned baloney.
“What was your inspiration?” I asked.
