I scoffed. “Nobody breaks that many by accident.”
“Maybe Lolique didn’t care about her nails or the clothes. They surely belonged to McDowell’s first wife.”
“I thought that, but they keep leading me to an Isobel when the councilman’s first wife was named Gwendolyn.” But I’d flashed to Isobel wearing the cape with the diamond on her finger, the diamond from the quilt. “When exactly did his first wife disappear?” I asked.
Aunt Fiona slipped a garment bag over an early Versace. “McDowell didn’t live in Mystick Falls back then, so nobody knows the details.”
Right. Groton, I remembered. But unfortunately, the only connection I had between the woman in the cape from these boxes and McDowell’s first wife was psychic and worthless at best. I wondered what Natalie knew.
When Eve and I left to pick up my car, Aunt Fiona stayed to finish hanging the clothes from the white boxes.
“You’re quiet,” Eve said. “I thought you’d be chatty after spending the night with Nick.”
“You’re fishing, Meyers.”
“No, you’re too quiet. You and Nick didn’t break up or anything, did you?”
“You wish.”
She gave me an innocent look. Not.
“It’s just that we’re on our way back to the dealership and whatever was bothering me when we left there is bothering me again, but I still can’t put my finger on it.”
“I’ll tell you what I remember from the last time we were there: that portrait of the councilman’s late wife. Was that a rock on her hand or what?”
I looked sharply over at her. “Was it an emerald-cut diamond?”
“I’m not the fashionista here, but it was the focus of the entire portrait. How could you not notice it?”
How could I not be sick at the thought of it? But if the ring in the portrait matched the one I found in the quilt, that would tangibly connect Gwendolyn McDowell to the quilt and cape set. Who the heck was Isobel?
“Sorry I have to drop you and leave,” Eve said. “But I have a ton of schoolwork.”
“No problem. I’m driving that beauty out of here.” My Element sat in the parking lot, shiny clean and registered. I needed to go in for keys, warranties, and registration, but I wanted a better look at the portrait, so after the car became mine, I went to the ladies’ room.
On my way back, I stopped to examine the picture, and my knees nearly buckled. Gwendolyn McDowell sat for that portrait wearing the Lucien Lelong gown.
Lolique had definitely given me the first Mrs. McDowell’s clothes, the gown in the portrait being a tangible connection. Now if I found that same ring in the quilt, we’d have a second connection. I wished I could reveal my psychic visions to Werner, especially of the well, but I’d take what I could get . . . for now.
I wanted to match the ring in the portrait to the ring I found in the quilt, but I needed to see it up close.
At nearly closing time, with the place quiet, McDowell did not sit behind his desk. I ran up the employee stairs and down the upper hall beneath which the portrait hung. From there, I leaned over the balcony, as far as I could, to see the ring.
Yes! Emerald cut and twice the size of Texas. Definitely the ring I found in the quilt. I wanted to scream with elation, but euphoria turned to panic when I got bumped from behind with enough force to keep from calling it an accident. I hung forward too far over the rail to be safe.
I lost my grasp for a flailing minute and my bag slid off my arm and hit the floor, pieces flying everywhere.
Broken, as I knew I would soon be.
Someone screamed. Maybe me, then someone pulled me safely back from the precipice.
“Natalie! Thank you,” I gasped, heart racing. “I think someone pushed me. Did you see what happened?”
“What were you doing up here?” McDowell came from a nearby office. “Are you all right, Ms. Cutler?”
Natalie looked startled, shook her head, and left.
“Thank you,” I called, but she didn’t look back.
“I wanted to see your wife’s ring up close,” I told McDowell. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’m kind of a fashion nut, you probably know. Do you still have the ring? Is it for sale?”
“No,” McDowell said, his face suddenly devoid of expression and color. “It disappeared with my wife, a tragedy you keep bringing to my attention.”
“My apologies. I’ll get my bag and my car.”
The minute I got into my Element, I felt safe but needed to hear Nick’s voice.
McDowell watched me from the showroom. I shivered, turned my back on him, and called Nick.
“Hey, ladybug. Are you wearing your lucky panties?”
“I must be. I just didn’t get killed,” I explained.
“I should be there to keep you out of trouble,” Nick said, “but I can’t, so stop taking chances! Is Werner on the case?”
“He is. I may have underestimated him in the past.”
“You may have. When is your grand opening?”
“Halloween. Can you be there even if it’s late? We’re having a costume ball upstairs from eight till dawn. No costume necessary. Try to come, will you?”
“Don’t count on it, okay?”
I sighed inwardly. No sense in making him feel worse. “Okay. I’ll just hope.” Good thing he couldn’t see my eyes fill up or he’d know what a real scare I’d had. “Nick, did you find anything on that missing persons search I asked you to do?”
“Nothing. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. It’s wild here.”
“Wild like in the jungle?”
Nick sighed heavily.
“Never mind. Listen, it turns out that the owner of the bones didn’t live in Mystic when she went missing. Try Groton”—site of the first Goodwin dealership—“and plug in Gwendolyn Goodwin McDowell this time. Oh, and look up Suzanne Sampson, too.”
“Gotta go, ladybug.”
“Did you get that?” I asked, but he’d hung up.
Thirty-one
My vision: A nymph who, in her heart of hearts, is a leopardess.
-JOHN GALLIANO
Still shaking inside, I chose my sixties Pucci “waterfall” handbag with its bold geometric design as a palette to dress for drinks with Eve and Lolique. I paired a purple V-necked sheath of my own design with a wide aqua cinch belt and teal cork sandals.
Eve, in black, wore bell-bottoms, a belted safari jacket top loosely laced up the front over a white shell, and over that, the sweater we’d confiscated from Vinney’s. “Nice outfit,” I said when she picked me up. I’d been too shaky to drive when we talked on the phone, so when she offered, I agreed. “Where’d you get the awesome boots?”
“You mean my Fendi platform, lace-up boots?”
“With heels. Go you!”
“See, I have this friend in fashion who’s been a good influence on me.” Eve wiggled her ladybug pinky.
“I’m so proud.” I hadn’t told her about my close call that afternoon, but I couldn’t talk about it yet. “I forgot to try and get a vision from that sweater,” I said.
“I know. That’s why I grabbed it, then I thought it might add to my layered look.”
“I’ll take it home with me later. I read Lolique’s newspaper column today,” I said. “I think she’s hiding a brain behind that big hair, voluptuous figure, animal prints, publicity stunts, and celebrity.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Eve, she planted so many fingernails in those outfits, she would have thought I was a moron if I didn’t go looking for her.”
“Why would she do that? She found us.”
“Impatient? I don’t know, but she must have a reason, and I’m going to find out what. Listen hard with that uber brain of yours, tonight, will you? Watch her body language. Memorize every bit of the conversation.”
“I always do.”
“You know, for a second, I thought she gave me the clothes because she wanted me to read them, but that’s impossible
. Only you, Sherry, Nick, and Aunt Fiona know that I’m psychometric.”
“Maybe she did give them to you for a reason. That might be right.”
I shrugged because I couldn’t imagine what the reason would be. “Where are we meeting her?”
“At Cubby’s.”
“A sports bar? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have dressed down.”
“Don’t toy with me,” Eve said. “You don’t know how to dress down, but I’d pay good money to see you try.”
At the bar, we were escorted to a table on the deck overlooking Mystic River where Lolique waited.
Was she for real? Between her fluffy name and leopard nails, I half expected her to be wearing a midriff-baring leopard corset and mini skirt with fishnets and thigh-high boots, though I mentally conceded that she wouldn’t bring a whip to a restaurant.
I was almost wrong. She wore a yummy, uber-expensive butterscotch leather skirt, a black cashmere top with an “oops, my boobs fell out” V, and a politically incorrect genuine leopard jacket. She also wore a loose chain twenty-four-karat gold belt—or so it appeared—with a Prada bag and matching shoes I’d die for.
Despite her lack of concern for animal rights, she signed autographs with flair and enthusiasm, her rings, all four, gleaming like they’d come off a pirate ship.
Once we sat at her table, the celebrity hounds backed off. Eve introduced us before we gave our drink orders.
Never having been one for equivocation, subtlety, or small talk, I let Eve take the lead with what Lolique seemed to like most: fan worship, however fake.
Me? I needed to chill before I put the knot in my knickers on the table, metaphorically speaking, of course.
“I must say, Madeira,” Lolique purred, “I didn’t figure you for a margarita girl but a fine white wine.”
“And I spotted you correctly as the dirty Manhattan type.”
Lolique raised a brow. “I’m a ‘what you see is what you get’ kinda girl.”
How scary was that, considering what we could see? “Lay it on the table, do you?” I asked.
She winked and called for another, dirtier Manhattan. “Whether people want me to lay it out or not, that’s how I made my rep.”
“Mind if I lay it on the table, then?”
She nailed a cherry. “I’d find that refreshing.”
I leaned forward. “Good. Why did you leave me a fingernail trail, like bread crumbs, to make me come looking for you?”
She chuckled and raised her glass. “You’re a smart one!” She sipped her drink. Slowly. Like she needed time to compose an answer. She set down her glass. “I wanted to sweet-talk you into letting me do a story about Vintage Magic.”
“I was under the impression that you never ask permission, and you already did a column about me.”
“Not a gossip column, a real story. We have a lot in common, you and I.”
I so did not think so. “Like what?”
“A love for vintage and couture fashion, a love for this town—”
She was a good little liar. Eve bumped my knee with hers. She thought so, too.
“You could have waited to drop off those boxes until I was there so you could ask me straight out. And while we’re speaking of vintage couture, the clothes you left are amazing. Thank you doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“Well, the drinks are on you, then.”
I raised my glass. “On me.” I’d have to read between the lines to figure out what the town’s biggest celebrity really wanted. “You can do a story about Vintage Magic, right before my grand opening to plug the event.”
“Deal.” She shook my hand. “When would be a good time for me to come by the shop and talk to you? I don’t feel like working tonight. Do you?”
I shook my head, agreeing with her and wondering what her real goal for tonight was. “Tomorrow at noon,” I said. “You can pick up some scarecrow clothes.”
While checking her vibrating BlackBerry, she looked curiously up at me, so I told her about the contest.
Eve got another beer and I got another margarita.
“I’m jonesing for a cigarette,” Lolique said, “because I know I can smoke out here, but I also know how bad secondhand smoke can be, so I won’t. I usually only smoke around my husband so I can inherit sooner.” She laughed at her own joke.
Eve and I about choked on our drinks.
“I tell him that all the time. He doesn’t laugh like he used to.” She shrugged.
I recovered first. “How did you and Councilman McDowell meet?”
“We met accidentally on purpose lots of times over the course of a few months before he finally smartened up and decided to rescue me.”
“How lucky is he?” I raised my margarita to soften my snark.
“You’re right. I’m a catch.” She ordered a third and told the waiter to keep ’em coming. “Saw him on TV again tonight, the blowhard. He practiced his playhouse fire speech the night before it burned, you know?”
I set down my drink. Was she trying to frame her husband, or was she planting seeds like a good little gossip columnist? I did not know if I should take this woman seriously or not. “Lolique,” I said, “that sounds a bit like an accusation.”
“Not really. He’s ready for any disaster. Hell, he’s ready to be president of these United States. I just thought the fire speech trumped his usual weird. He didn’t like that I caught him at it, either.”
I shook my head. “Is this something you should be telling the police?”
“Oh, Lordy, no. If I do that, I’ll never inherit the old goat’s money. Eve, why are you wearin’ the goat’s sweater?” Lolique fingered the wrist of Vinney’s cardigan.
Eve straightened. “This is my boyfriend’s sweater.”
“Not if it has a little bitty cigarette burn under the left arm.” She accepted a fresh drink.
Eve raised her left arm, and there it was, a little bitty cigarette burn.
“Is he doin’ you, too?” Lolique asked, clearly having at least one Manhattan too many.
“Councilman McDowell?” Eve looked both shocked and nauseous. “I don’t think so!”
Lolique waved away her protest. “I don’t even care.”
“Here,” Eve said, “you want it?” She started to shed the sweater, but I kicked her, because now I really wanted to try and get a visual from it. Why would McDowell’s sweater be at Vinney Carnevale’s house on the night Vinney robbed my shop?
“You keep it,” Lolique said. “He’s been bellyachin’ about losin’ it for days. He loves the damned thing because she gave it to him. He only wears it in his sanctum sancto rum, anyway. That means his office. Now I’ll get some kicks knowing where it is while I’m forced to listen to him whine.”
“You don’t seriously think your husband and I . . . ?” Eve sipped her beer, because she couldn’t finish her sentence.
Lolique chuckled. “Honey, I’d sell you the schlub if I could keep his money and get away with it.”
“I. Don’t. Want. Him,” Eve said. “Never did. Never would.”
Lolique looked puzzled. Bad for wrinkles. “Who is your boyfriend?”
Eve hesitated. “Vinney Carnevale.”
Lolique slapped the table. “You are so screwed.” She chuckled. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I did not know.” She got up fast and without grace. “Potty break or I’ll pee my pants.”
The flamboyant columnist waved to her adoring public as she crossed the bar. I turned to Eve. “You and the councilman?”
She returned my skepticism. “You and Jaconetti?”
“Seriously,” I said. “Is she trying to pin the fire on McDowell?”
“She seriously is, but what did she mean by saying I was screwed? For dating Vinney? I figured that out, but she meant something entirely different, in a nasty way. Mad, why did we find the councilman’s sweater at Vinney’s the night of the fires? What can that mean?”
“That means,” I said, “I can’t wait to get my hands on it to see if Sampso
n’s death was in any way connected to . . . Gwendolyn’s.”
Eve frowned. “Who the hell is Gwendolyn?”
Thirty-two
The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.
—DIANA VREELAND
“I suspect that Isobel is Gwendolyn,” I whispered. “Shh. Here comes trouble with a capital L.”
After a few more Manhattans, Lolique listed like a sail-boat in a high wind, and though she wanted to drive her Beemer when we left, I took her keys from her. “We’re taking you home. No arguments.”
“Where to?” Eve asked.
“To my castle, Jeeves,” the six-foot sexpot said as we folded her into Eve’s little sports car.
“The name is Eve and where may we find your castle?”
Lolique ticked off a set of convoluted and confusing twists and turns. “If you drive off a cliff into Mystic River,” she said when she finished, “you’ve gone too far.”
“Great,” Eve mumbled as she started her car. “Directions from an inebriated bimbette.”
“I wasn’t with the Bimbettes, I was one of the Florettes, a troupe of world-class exotic dancers. That’s where I got my stage name, LaFleur—that’s French for the flower. And that’s where the old goat rescued me. He said I made him laugh, so he pried me off my pole and carried me to his castle, like a rich prince in an antique Jag. Then he took off his hair. Rude awakening.”
I snorted.
Eve grinned, reached over, and gave me a playful shove.
As we drove through the farthest reaches of the Mystick Falls woods, Lolique was lying on the tiny backseat of Eve’s Mini Cooper, her legs in the air, walking her spikes across Eve’s closed convertible top.
Eve looked in her rearview mirror. “You put a hole in my roof, you’ll pay for it.”
“I can afford it. I’m rich!”
Lolique said the word “rich” the way Tony the Tiger says “great.” But it was obvious that flaunting her money was part of her celebrity persona. Still, you’d think she’d be herself once in a while. Though she did say that she was “what you see is what you get.”
Larcency and Lace Page 14
