Diane Vallere - Style & Error 03 - The Brim Reaper

by Diane Vallere

  “So the profits from the museum shop now feed the bottom line of the museum?”

  Rebecca nodded and moved from Gauguin to Matisse. “I’m not sure how he convinced the board to approve the money, but he ordered a lot of merchandise—all inspired by the museum catalog of holding—and plans to keep the profits to fund future exhibits and add to the acquisition funds.”

  I stopped sizing dinosaur T-shirts for a second. “He thinks there’s money in that?”

  “He’s counting on it. He said if we focus on the collector market, we’ll make a fortune. This hat exhibit is the test. The hats from Hedy London’s collection are going to be on display. We’re going to sell duplicates.”

  “Tradava is supposed to be producing a collection based on the Hedy London samples,” I said. “That’s why they’re funding the exhibit. Why would they agree to let you sell the copies?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked as confused as I felt.

  I looked at the pile of boxes building up behind her counter. “You told me the trash got picked up on Tuesday mornings. What do you do with it during the week? I don’t think I’ve seen it sitting around back, but you can’t keep it here.”

  “We recycle what we can, but everything else gets carried downstairs to the basement outside of Christian’s office.”

  I thought about the boxes with the little red numbers on the corners. “So if there were empty boxes here, someone might have reused them?”

  “Sure. Dr. Daum started an initiative for us to go green before he retired. Christian hasn’t stopped it, so we’re still trying to keep it up.”

  “Rebecca, why are you so certain Christian is going to stay in Ribbon after this exhibit?”

  She chewed the inside of her mouth, which caused her lips to purse and wiggle off to one side. “This exhibit is just the beginning. I guess it’s normal that he would obsess over his first show. He’s trying to make sure it’s not a disaster. If Eddie hadn’t left such a mess, everything would be different.”

  “Eddie didn’t leave a mess. He’s working on the installation right now.”

  “Does Christian know? Because if Eddie’s finishing the exhibit, then maybe everything will be okay after all.”

  I returned upstairs. Eddie stood on the top of a ladder tying a piece of dental floss to the end of a sleek silver battery. I picked up a beanie and spun it around my finger like a Harlem Globetrotter.

  “Rebecca just told me the gift shop is planning on selling duplicates of the Hedy London hats. But isn’t that Tradava’s role?” I asked.

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “And now that I think of it, Vera Sarlow said something funny back when I first met her. She asked if Tradava had negotiated an exclusive. Was she talking about the copies too?”

  “You’re back to Vera?”

  “I don’t know. The other day we were talking about the exhibit, I think, or at least I was. She was pretty broken up and I’m starting to think she might have been rambling. She said she hadn’t found her brother’s client list.” I used the inside of my foot to shift the base of a mannequin stand until it was lined up with the first three Eddie had already placed.

  “That’s kind of a strange thing to be concerned with when she’s dealing with the death of her brother, don’t you think? Go two inches to the left,” Eddie instructed.

  I shifted the mannequin to his specifications. “Maybe those collectors Christian’s trying so hard to woo are really the clients she wants to get hold of.”

  “Is she planning a funeral or a memorial?”

  “She didn’t mention it. The only thing she wanted to talk about was Dirk Engle’s client list.”

  “Did you find it in the trash? Hold this flashlight.”

  I steadied the dangling silver light while Eddie measured out a length of dental floss and tied it on. “Once I found the yearbook I forgot about the list. I know I cleaned up that night, and I know I carried a bag of trash downstairs and left it where Rebecca told me to leave it. So where did it go?”

  “Good question. Start unwrapping the hats.”

  Eddie scribbled measurements in a notepad while I untaped the ends of the Bubble Wrap that protected each hat. Occasionally Eddie picked up a hat and set it on a mannequin or a pedestal. He’d step back and survey the result, then either swap it out with a different hat or move on to the next mannequin. We continued for hours, stopping only for shots of espresso and bathroom breaks. It took hours, but finally Eddie and I had the exhibit looking like an exhibit.

  Mannequins were grouped in conversational stances by different eras of fashion, from the twenties to the seventies. I’d been surprised by the breadth of the hat collection Hedy London had provided, but Eddie explained she’d not only loaned items from the movies she starred in but had also become a collector in her own right, obtaining costumes from studio sales and friend of friend bequeaths.

  In Eddie’s exhibit, mannequins were positioned around the perimeter of the room, interspersed with pedestals and columns that showcased hats, shoes, gloves, and other period-specific accessories. Cat’s turquoise pillbox hat, the only one that wasn’t on loan from Hedy London’s collection, was worn by a mannequin dressed in a snug turquoise velvet dress with a deep V-neck and broad shoulders. The femme fatale was surrounded with others dressed in vintage trench coats, with colorful fedoras on their heads. Eddie had hooked up a smoke machine and positioned it behind that corner, piping in a soft layer of atmosphere.

  Small flashlights had been loaded with D-cell batteries, secured to dental floss, and hung from the ceiling. As long as the exhibit remained free from breezes and seven-foot-tall people who could reach up and grab them, gravity would keep the lights aimed at the hats below.

  I swept the floor and filled the big gray trash bin with scraps of paper, dental floss, empty battery packages, and packing materials. I nestled the empty cardboard boxes inside of each other. The last box I picked up wasn’t empty.

  “What’s in here?” I asked, shaking it. I opened the flaps. A videotape sat inside, half-wrapped in a piece of paper that was rubber-banded to it. As I pulled at the rubber band it broke and snapped my fingers. “Ouch!” I dropped the box.

  The paper fell away from the video. Eddie picked up both. The paper was a lobby card from one of the Hedy London movies I had at home. He turned the tape over in his hands. It was unmarked.

  “There’s a VCR in Christian’s office,” I said. “I hid behind it.”

  “Let’s go.”

  We scampered down the stairs. I put out an arm and stopped Eddie from moving forward. As I listened for sounds that we weren’t alone, I heard Dr. Daum’s voice coming from the front of the museum.

  “Stay here,” I whispered at Eddie. I jogged back up three stairs and joined the former director.

  “Dr. Daum, is there a VCR around here?” I held the black tape up. “Research. Small detail. Eddie and I can’t agree over which movie Hedy London wore the banded beret in. I’d watch it here but I’m afraid we’re going to be at it for a while.”

  “Research is important, even with a millinery exhibit. There’s an audio visual cart behind the door of Christian’s office. You can take it upstairs, just please return it before tomorrow.”

  “Is Christian there?”

  Dr. Daum checked his watch. “No, I believe he’s entertaining out-of-town collectors.”

  “Okay, thanks!” I called out. I returned to the hallway where Eddie stood and held my finger up to my mouth.

  “Dr. Daum says we can take the audio/visual cart upstairs.”

  Eddie looked confused. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “This is our chance. Unlock the door. We have permission to get in there. You get the cart behind the door and make a big production of getting it upstairs. I’ll see if I can find a list of collectors on his desk. Go.” I gave him a push toward the door.

  It took Eddie a couple of minutes to figure out the wheels on the cart were in the lock position. When he did, he pushed it out of the o
ffice and into the hallway. One of the wheels squeaked out an eeeeee-eeeeee-eeeeee, alerting anyone within a five block radius that the equipment cart was on the move.

  Christian’s desk was clean. Any piles of paper I’d seen earlier had been filed. His monitor, computer, and printer were all turned off and his chair was tucked under his desk. The only sign that he was planning to return were the construction worker boots along the back wall. The soles had been cleaned, but traces of dirt still clung to the toes.

  “Samantha?” Dr. Daum said from the doorway.

  I jumped. “Dr. Daum! You scared me.”

  “Did you and Eddie find everything okay?”

  “I think so. I wasn’t sure if we had all the cords we needed.”

  “I’m quite sure everything you needed was on the cart. I must lock up for the night, so if you don’t mind,” he held his hand toward the door, palm-side up. I walked past him to the elevator.

  When I caught up with Eddie, he stood in front of the TV with the video in his hand. He popped the tape into the machine and static filled the screen until a black and white of Hedy London replaced it. She rested on the arm of an overstuffed sofa and her smile lit up the screen. She wore a striped boat-neck sweater and sailor pants. One leg dangled while the other supported her. The date stamp on the bottom right corner of the video said December 12, 1998.

  “Ms. London, would you like to introduce this footage?” an off-camera voice said.

  “Yes, what we are about to see is a series of outtakes from my earlier pictures.”

  “And how did this footage become available?”

  “Through the generosity of my lover,” she said, smiling at the camera with darkly painted lips. One could only wonder if the cameraman was embarrassed by her admission.

  We stood transfixed, as her casual image was replaced with silent footage of her in a pegged skirt and matching fitted jacket. A fox stole was clamped around her neck, and a pillbox hat sat on top of her head. She walked down the street, hips swaying ever so slightly. It was Hedy London, the starlet, the woman who had first captured the attention of moviegoers decades earlier. As much of a fan of old movies that I was, it wasn’t the familiarity of the movie that struck me. It was the familiarity of the hat on her head.

  “Recognize anything?” I asked Eddie.

  “No, and I thought I saw all of her movies.”

  “I’m not talking about the movie, I’m talking about the hat. You know that hat. It’s Cat’s hat, the one she was mugged for.”

  29

  “But Cat said her hat wasn’t in any Hedy London movies. The only way someone would recognize Cat’s hat as a Hedy hat was to watch this video.”

  “I think we should go back to the exhibit and take a closer look at that hat.”

  We went back to the gallery. Eddie reached past the dental floss and picked up Cat’s hat. He flipped it over and together we stared at the label. It was a small rectangular tag, frayed on one edge from the passage of time. The hat maker’s logo was on a diagonal, stitched on in red thread. One corner had become unattached and curled up, making it hard to read the decorative font.

  I picked up another hat from the grouping of fedoras and looked at the label. This one was in much better condition. We compared the two. It seemed as though they were by the same maker. After checking an additional three of the hats, we concluded one thing: Cat’s hat had seen more action than the others. Maybe that’s what happens when a hat finds its way onto the black market.

  “Who do you think the video was meant for?” Eddie asked.

  “I’ve been wondering about that. Seems to me it was intended for someone in charge of the exhibit, and that leaves a couple of people.”

  “Two, right? Dirk Engle and Christian Jhanes.”

  “Don’t forget Vera Sarlow. She was the original curator of this exhibit. She said she wished she’d been more involved, but it wasn’t meant to be. Nobody’s talking about the fact that she had access to the entire exhibit, that she has a connection to Milo Delaney, that she is a little bitter about not being here anymore. You know what? I think I need to know more about that.”

  “What are you going to do, march into her store and ask her why she was fired?”

  “No, not exactly. I have a better idea.”

  I drove Eddie to his apartment. Sooner or later he was going to remember he paid rent, and I wanted to reacquaint him with the concept of our own independent lives. He got out of the car and leaned over the passenger-side door before shutting it.

  “You headed home?”

  “No, I’m heading to Nick’s showroom.”

  “Dude, there are these things called phones. You can talk to people who aren’t in the room. They’re very high tech. Some of them don’t even have cords. They’re especially useful for people who look like you look right now.”

  I glared at Eddie. “You’re no spring daisy yourself.”

  He slammed the door and left.

  I pulled around the block and headed back toward the highway. Before I hit the entrance ramp I pulled off into a parking lot and called Nick. I wasn’t sure if I was calling him in the role of girlfriend or showroom manager. No matter which role I chose, I was only marginally performing the duties.

  The phone rang three times before he answered. “Nick Taylor,” he said.

  “Samantha Kidd,” I replied. It was the same way we’d answered the phone back when he was one of my vendors, on the off-limits list of men to consider dating, though years of not acting on the attraction had somehow allowed the flirtation to filter into the way we said our names. For the first time since I’d taken the job with him, I felt like it was old times.

  “Samantha Kidd,” Nick repeated. “It’s been a long time since I heard you answer the phone like that.”

  “Nick.” I hesitated. When I dialed his number, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but now there was only one way I could see the conversation going. “This isn’t working out like I’d hoped.”

  “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “I’m talking about the job. Only I’m not talking about the job.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  I sighed. “I think maybe we should see each other, talk about this in person.”

  “This sounds serious.”

  “Can you meet me at J&D Pizza on Penn Avenue in half an hour?”

  “J&D Pizza? Not Brothers?”

  “I’m branching out.”

  “Half an hour. I’ll see you there.”

  I looked in the rear view mirror and realized how right Eddie had been about my appearance. Circles from a lack of sleep colored my under-eye area, and my hair had flattened from being pulled up in a ponytail. I’d chewed my lipstick off somewhere during the hours at the museum and had little other than a ring of red around the outside of my lips.

  Half an hour wasn’t enough time to go home to freshen up or change. It was barely enough time to stop at the mall, pick out a new outfit, change in a fitting room, spritz myself with a tester from cosmetics, and brush on a sweep of blush to my cheeks, which is what I did. I pulled my hair into a low ponytail and secured it with a multicolored scarf I kept in the trunk for accessorizing emergencies.

  I’d been impressed with J&D’s Pizza when I stopped here a couple of days ago, not the least of which was because they were directly across the street from Vera Sarlow’s hat store. I drove past the restaurant, parked on a side street, and walked back up Penn Avenue, checking out the front of the store. Like the last time I was here, the sandwich board out front advertised the Milo Delaney public appearance tomorrow. Hey, Nick and I could talk anywhere. Why not talk and conduct surveillance on a suspect at the same time?

  Nick was already inside the pizza shop when I entered. He stood from a table by the side wall. “Kidd.”

  “Taylor.” I looked around. The table by the front window with the clear view across the street was available. “Can we sit here?”

  “I thought this would be a little
more private—” he started, but I interrupted.

  “The sun’s going to be in one of our eyes if we sit there,” I said. “This one in the front is perfect.”

  He carried a bottle of water and two glasses to the front table.

  “What’s this about?”

  “We should order first.” I hopped up and went to the counter. “Large round.” I twisted around, looked at Nick and then back at the pizza man. “Pepperoni on one half, anchovies on the other. Do not let them touch.”

  The man tapped a few keys on the register and I handed him a twenty. I stuffed the change into a large mayo container that had “Tips” written on it in red marker and went back to the table.

  “Did you get the shoes for the Hedy London exhibit?” I asked.

  “Yes. They arrived this morning.”

  “And what about Milo? Did he finish with the hats for the exhibit?”

  “I imagine so. I haven’t heard otherwise. What’s up, Kidd?”

  “Nick, for the rest of this conversation, can we pretend I don’t work for you?”

  “I think that should be pretty easy.”

  I looked out the front window for a second. “I know we need to talk about all kinds of things, and I’m not avoiding you, but I can’t do it right now.”

  “Kidd, you’ve been burning the candle at both ends trying to help me and trying to help Eddie. I don’t like how distant we are right now. It wasn’t fair for me to snap at you like I did.”

  Exhaustion kept me from replying. I closed my eyes. I nodded off for a second and then snapped to attention when my chin hit my chest.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I took a swig of water directly from the bottle and then was immediately embarrassed by my poor table manners. Nick smiled at my faux pas, and the creases around his eyes deepened.

  “Kidd, slow down. Here comes the pizza. Have a slice. It’s okay if you want to drink Pellegrino from the bottle. I kind of like that about you.”