Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3)

by Angela M. Sanders

  “Okay, I admit I had the same thought. But what does someone gain from keeping us here?”

  “The time to kill off someone else.”

  Listening to Tony’s blunt words, her blood ran cold. “I agree, Daniel’s accident was no accident. But you seem to think that means we’re in danger—you and I.”

  “You’ll see,” he said. “Clarke has got it out for me, I feel it. And you, you’re a little too interested in finding out who did it. I just wanted to warn you to watch your back. Plus, I thought I could show you a few tricks to protect yourself.”

  Joanna examined his expression by candlelight. It was hard to tell if he was more angry or scared. “Why should I trust you?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  “Since we’re being honest here, you have an unusual interest in the lodge. You roam around at night poking into everything. I’m not the only one who’s seen it, either. Plus, you haven’t shared much about your background.”

  “And you have?” The Reverend replied. “I noticed you’ve appointed yourself detective-in-chief. I might be asking you the same questions. I mean, have I given you any reason not to trust me?”

  Joanna didn’t know what to say. She understood why Penny attached herself to him. He watched her diet, kept tabs on her stress levels, and was always on hand with a special tea or broth to strengthen her. He was always looking out for Penny. Still, she could trust no one here, except Penny. “Thanks, Reverend. I appreciate your warning. We’d better clear a spot for the wood.”

  She set down the candelabra and bent to pick up a pair of leather work gloves, when all at once her hand was twisted behind her back, hard. Tony’s hand pressed over her mouth. Heart pounding, she tried to scream for help.

  “Quiet,” Tony said. “I’m going to let you go, but shut up.”

  He released her. She bolted toward the door. He filled the space between her and the hall. “Let me go.” Gasping, she grabbed a ski pole and pointed its sharp end at him. “Move.”

  Tony held up a hand in the “stop” position. “Hush up. I’m not trying to attack you. They can’t hear you upstairs, anyway. I just wanted to show you how easy it would be for someone to grab you if you aren’t careful.”

  Joanna held the ski pole ready to stab.

  “Calm down. I’d tell you to drink a cup of valerian root tea, but I think Penny had the last of it.” He shuffled foot to foot like a boxer getting ready for the ring. “Do you want to learn how to protect yourself or not?”

  He took Joanna’s lack of response as an affirmative. “Okay, here’s what you do if someone gets you. Now, I’m going to come at you from behind again. Hey, relax.”

  He sounded sincere. Con men could. She tightened her grip on the ski pole.

  “Pay attention. Let’s say some guy comes up like this. Are you going to let me show you?”

  Wary, she stared at him. Then she nodded once.

  Gently this time, he stood behind her and reached for her arm. “What are you gonna’ do?”

  “Scream,” Joanna said. “Loud.”

  “Not if he puts a hand over your mouth. You didn’t scream when I grabbed you, did you?” He stepped back. “See? I’m not trying anything funny.”

  “Watch out. There’s a nest of black widows right behind you,” Joanna said. Tony whipped his head around, and Joanna had the ski pole against his jugular vein in a second. “I could make you bleed like a geyser if I wanted to,” she said. Tony swallowed. “Never grab me again.”

  Tony nodded quickly.

  “By the way, there really is a spider’s nest up there, so don’t back up another inch.” The nest seemed to have swollen even from just that morning.

  “Okay. Let’s call it even.” He glanced over his shoulder, then jumped away. Joanna slowly lowered the ski pole.

  “Now, do you want me to show you how to get out of a backward hold or not?” the Reverend asked.

  Joanna’s pulse slowed. He seemed to be on the square. She set the pole to the side. “All right. Fine. Show me. What do I do?”

  Tony took her arm and pulled it behind her back and hovered a hand in front of her mouth. “At this point, your arms are useless, but you’ve still got your legs. What you want to do is stomp down on the guy’s instep. Try it—not hard, though.”

  Joanna rested her boot’s heel above Tony’s foot. “As long as the attacker isn’t wearing boots.”

  “The other thing is to go for the knees. Lift your leg and drive your heel into the guy’s knees. On the inside. Knees are meant to bend front and back, not side to side. It hurts like a son of a bitch.”

  “Where did you learn all this stuff? Don’t tell me there’s a martial arts monastery out there somewhere.”

  “There are predators everywhere, Joanna. Don’t doubt it.” Now the old New Age Tony was resurfacing. “Love is always the best answer.”

  “But you can’t love away a gun.” Or any one of the hundred other ways to murder someone.

  “True. But you can stay the hell out of trouble. That’s what we need to do, you and me and Penny.”

  She was convinced the Reverend wasn’t simply the peace and love minister he pretended to be. Clarke suspected the truth was in the background report. Penny, despite her willingness to play along, had to know it, too, on some level. What did Tony want from Penny? And maybe the bigger question—why did Penny tolerate it? He was a complicated man.

  Joanna picked up the tumbled skis and poles and leaned them against the storage room wall with the others. The stack of wood against the opposite wall had dwindled over the past day. “Not much wood here.”

  “We can bring in some more from the garage.”

  Joanna blew out her candle and reached once again for the leather gloves. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  Snow walled in the short walkway to the garage, leaving only a narrow trail. Joanna’s sweater was thick, but not thick enough to ward off the chill. She rubbed her arms.

  The Reverend opened his mouth to speak, but Joanna cut in. “Don’t tell me the Buddha has something to say about the cold.” As soon as the words left her mouth she slipped on a patch of compacted snow and nearly slid into a garbage can. Tony grabbed her arm to steady her.

  “I was just going to tell you to watch the ice.”

  They arrived at the garage’s thick wooden door. Tony tried its handle. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Daniel was in here just yesterday. It should open.”

  “Must be frozen shut,” he said. He shoved his shoulder against the door, and it made a cracking sound—ice—as it opened.

  The scent of cold, damp wood and oil greeted them. Joanna lifted the candelabra. The garage was large enough for three vehicles. Beyond Bette’s BMW hulked one other car under a canvas tarp. Split logs—enough perhaps to get them through the evening, but that’s all—were stacked along the back wall.

  “Do you see a wheelbarrow?” she said. “It would help with the wood.”

  Tony stood mute. “Father?” she tried again. Tony stared, wordless, at the canvas-covered car.

  “Master?” Joanna said, filling her arms with logs.

  “Yes?”

  “The firewood. What do you think of loading it into a wheelbarrow?”

  “Just a minute. Hold up the candle.” He lifted the edge of the canvas fastened over the car beyond Bette’s. He untied a rope and uncovered the car. It was a mahogany-red roadster from the late 1920s, Joanna guessed, in mint condition, too. She wasn’t good at placing the dates of automobiles, but if she closed her eyes she could imagine Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby driving a car like this one. Painted in gold script on the trunk was “THE HORNET.” A tingle ran down her spine. She put the wood down and set the candelabra on the roof of Bette’s car.

  “Wow,” Tony said. “Would you look at that?”

  “Gorgeous.” Who’d have figured he was such a car nut? She would have expected him to have driven up in an old VW bus or a compact hybrid. But this was an unusually beautiful vehicle
.

  The Reverend tried the passenger side door. It opened. Joanna slid off a work glove and touched the cold leather seats. This was the car in Francis Redd’s journals, the car in his dreams. He wrote that he rode the Hornet down the mountain. Carrying something.

  She straightened. “The trunk. Let’s look in the trunk.”

  The car’s trunk was also unlocked. Joanna knocked on the trunk’s floor. Sure enough, it sounded hollow. She felt around its inside edges and, just as she’d expected, found a latch. She lifted the trunk’s false bottom to reveal a deep pocket. It was dusty, but empty.

  “A bootlegger,” Tony said. “He was a bootlegger.”

  “Yes.” Yes, that was it. Redd had been a bootlegger during Prohibition. That explained the strange storage nook in the hidden staircase, too. “This trunk would hold ten cases easily.”

  Tony plunged his hands into the trunk’s cavity and frowned. “Hand me your candlestick.”

  “It’s empty, Tony. We both checked. Is this more of your ‘curiosity’?”

  After another search of the trunk, he gave up. “I bet the repeal of Prohibition busted him.” Tony took a last look at the trunk and shut it. He leaned against the car’s sloped chassis. “The lodge would have been a good place to hide out, though. He might have had a couple of stills in the forest. Who’d know?”

  “His disappearance could have been a trick to slip away from the law. But why would he leave his beloved lodge—and family?”

  “Family’s tricky.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged and gestured toward the lodge. “Just look at them back there. Driving each other insane when they need each other most.” He folded his arms in front of his chest. “What about you? Any family near? Married?”

  “No.” The lump in her throat tightened. “And you?” Reverend Tony seemed to have emerged fully formed from central casting. She leaned on the roadster next to him.

  “My parents are dead. No siblings. Just me. I suppose it’s best for the life I’ve chosen, though.”

  A creak above them jolted Joanna upright. “Did you hear that?”

  “The snow. We’ll be lucky if this place doesn’t fall on our heads.” He bit off a laugh. “Or it’s that ghost Penny keeps talking about.”

  “Could be Francis Redd died right here, killed by a rival group of bootleggers.” She’d said it offhand to continue the fantasy, but thinking of the bunker-like walls and miles and miles before another dwelling—well, maybe it wasn’t so far from the truth. Her breath quickened. If someone screamed in here, the noise would never reach the main part of the lodge.

  “The house is getting to you. Besides, he left after World War II, long past prohibition, remember? Come on.”

  Joanna relaxed a little. “You’re right. Let’s carry in the wood. We’ve been away a while. They’re going to think you killed me.”

  “Or vice versa,” the Reverend said. His breath hung in the air. “But I can tell you this. If we don’t figure out who did it soon, we’ll end up like Frenchie.”

  “His name is Jules.”

  Tony didn’t respond, but continued to examine her.

  “You really think I could be the murderer?” she asked.

  He looked away. “Nah. Too repressed. Besides, there’s nothing in it for you.”

  Repressed? He sure had a lot of nerve. “What do you—”

  “Listen. I know you didn’t do it, and you know I didn’t do it.”

  Joanna raised an eyebrow.

  “What? You haven’t been listening to Clarke, have you? Get real,” Tony said. “If I’d wanted to off you, I could have done it already.”

  He had a point, but he wasn’t yet entirely in the clear. “Tony, I saw Penny come out of your room just before the chef was murdered. What was she doing down there in the middle of the night?”

  He was blank-faced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw her when I left the kitchen. And the light had been on in your room just a few minutes before.”

  “Penny was not in my room, I guarantee you.”

  Joanna hesitated. She was sure she’d seen Penny, but that didn’t mean either of them was a murderer. The Reverend might be covering for her. Or Portia, come to think of it. It could have been Portia she’d seen.

  Tony took a step closer, his voice low. “We need to stick together and figure out who did it. You’ve got an in with Sylvia. I’ve seen how you two talk together. I’m not going to have any luck with Clarke, so you give him a try. Dig around for a motive. Me, I’ll work on Bette and Portia. We’ll flip for Daniel.” He leaned back again. “Come on. What do you say?”

  She did need an ally, and it was true she and he were the only outsiders left. The Reverend was an odd duck, but his care for Penny seemed genuine. She took a breath. “There’s something you should know. Under his mattress I found—”

  The door to the garage swung open. Clarke and Portia stood just outside. “What’s taking you so long?” Clarke said. “I thought I’d better check.” Although he spoke to both of them, his eyes were fastened on the Reverend. He gripped a fireplace poker, sharp end up.

  “Just about ready to bring the firewood in,” Reverend Tony said. “Now that you’re here, you can help.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Is that all there is?” Daniel asked as they brought the wood to the great room. He elevated a leg on the end of the couch. A novel and a guitar lay on the floor. Marianne and Sylvia sat across from him. The girl was still engrossed in her book, although she’d turned so her legs went up the back of the lips couch as she lay on the bottom lip of the open mouth. She flipped a page.

  Joanna perched on the hearth and warmed her hands. “That’s it.”

  Daniel swung his leg down and grimaced when his ankle hit the floor. “I wish I knew how long we’re stuck here for.”

  “We’re stuck, we’re stuck,” Marianne sang as she flipped a page.

  “Honey,” Sylvia said. “We’re talking.” She glanced at Daniel, who’d dropped his head. “Marianne, will you please take your book to the library?”

  “Why?” She turned right-side up on the couch.

  “We need to talk about grown-up things for a few minutes.”

  “Are you going to talk about me?”

  “No, honey.” Sylvia reached over and shut Marianne’s book. “Take this to the library. You can look at the insects on the walls.”

  “I’ll go with her. Come on child, let’s check out some bugs.” The Reverend cast a meaningful look back at Joanna. Get info from them, it seemed to say.

  Marianne slid off the couch and emitted a dramatic sigh. “Vespula, vespula,” she sang and trudged into the library.

  When Marianne and Tony were settled, Sylvia leaned forward, her voice quiet. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here, and if the wood doesn’t last—” She bit her lip. “Bette’s already losing it.”

  “Where is Bette, anyway?” Joanna asked. Portia and Penny weren’t in the great room, but they were likely together in Penny’s bedroom.

  “I’m afraid we had a little altercation,” Sylvia said. “I gave Marianne a piece of cheese, and Bette tried to give me diet advice.” She frowned. “She told me Marianne was” —Sylvia glanced behind her at the library— “too fat. In front of her and everything. How dare she.”

  “Marianne is perfect exactly as she is.” Joanna could imagine Bette passing along what she thought was sound mother-to-mother advice. She shook her head.

  “As the little girl likes to remind us.” Daniel smiled. “I guess everyone has a different approach to motherhood.”

  “That’s what I told Bette. She took her magazine and champagne and huffed out of here. I don’t know where she went.”

  “Oh God. I’m sure she’s just overwhelmed by—” Joanna struggled to find the words. The murders? Her daughter’s botched wedding? The fact that they might freeze or starve to death? “Well, the sooner we’re home, the better. For a lot of reasons
.”

  “If only I wasn’t so clumsy.” Daniel lifted his ankle. “I know I could have made it to Timberline Lodge. We could have been home by nightfall.”

  “Daniel, when you went into the storage room, were the skis and poles already on the ground?” Joanna asked.

  “I honestly can’t tell you. It was dark. All I know is that I stepped in, and suddenly I was on the ground.”

  Sylvia seemed to grasp her meaning right away. Again she glanced back at the library, where Marianne had settled with Bubbles into an armchair. The Reverend was in the adjacent armchair, staring at the carved hornet. “You don’t think someone wants to keep us here?”

  “Could be.”

  “I had no idea—” Daniel’s voice faded. All three looked at each other. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I wish I knew,” Joanna said. Marianne’s singing drifted from the library. Daniel sounded like he was telling the truth, but he could have easily jumbled skis in the storage room and purposely tripped on them.

  Sylvia took a deep breath. “We’ll follow the plan. We’ll stick together in twos, like Clarke said.”

  “We’d better take stock of our food, too. Plan a few meals ahead of time,” Joanna said.

  “And eat as many perishables as we can now,” Daniel added. “Although I guess keeping things chilled won’t be a problem.”

  “Why don’t I check downstairs, in the kitchen?” Joanna said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Sylvia said, “If you’ll keep an eye on Marianne, Daniel.”

  Daniel glanced at the girl, singing to Bubbles while Tony, absorbed, turned a page of her book. “Sure. Take your time.”

  ***

  Bette sat in the dark with a fox fur chubby pulled over her caftan and a single candle burning on the counter behind her. Sylvia and Joanna exchanged glances.