A Toxic Trousseau

by Juliet Blackwell

  “That’s not surprising—she was confused when Maya and I found her.”

  He nodded. “Probably the same thing. Time moves at a different pace on the other side of the veil as well, so I imagine getting over something like that might be unpredictable.”

  “She couldn’t tell you anything else?”

  “She’s very focused on some of the lingerie on the bed. Oh, and towels.”

  “Towels?”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, we don’t actually talk about it. It’s more a kind of . . . mind melding, for lack of a better term. I see images, get sensations. And I saw towels, with embroidery on them.”

  “Wait a minute—didn’t Renee mention something about tea towels?”

  The buzzing sound grew louder as I approached the bed and started sorting through the pile of assorted items—old-fashioned lingerie such as corsets and bloomers and petticoats, as well as embroidered linen towels, both large and small.

  As I picked up and held the items, one after the other, I felt their vibrations. There was a distinct sense of dread and pain and . . . fear.

  It was muffled, faded through the ages, but, like most strong sensations, it endured.

  “These are very old sensations,” I said. “Probably original to the young woman whose trousseau this was.”

  “And are we to assume she simply never married? Or is there a more sinister interpretation . . . ?”

  “Given these sensations, I’m afraid she passed away. I feel pain and fear and a sense of . . . otherworldliness. Madness, maybe? Or someone on the brink of death, with one foot in this world and one beyond.”

  I reared back as a bee flew by.

  “Hey, how’d you get in here?” I held out my hands. “C’mere, sugar.”

  It flew to me, landing on my palm. The bee walked around, exploring for a moment, her tiny feet tickling my palm.

  I could feel Sailor’s eyes on me. “You converse with bees now?”

  “Um . . . not exactly. I mean, it’s not like they talk back.”

  “You’re not afraid it will sting you?”

  I shook my head.

  “This a witchy thing?”

  I smiled. “I don’t know about all witches, but I’ve always been close to honeybees. And they’re not doing well; have you heard about the colony collapse? We need all the bees we can get. Would you open the window, please?”

  Sailor obliged, forcing up the stiff sash with brute strength. I held my hand out the open window, and after a moment the bee lifted off and buzzed away.

  I looked back to find Sailor’s intense gaze upon me.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

  “Nothing,” he said softly, giving me a smile. “Let’s look through the rest of the place.”

  Our search didn’t turn up much more, and we didn’t want to rearrange anything before the police had a chance to investigate, for fear of disturbing evidence. The kitchen was large enough to double as a family room, with a nicely upholstered couch, thick oriental carpet, and huge flat-screen TV in one corner, but despite shiny black granite countertops and cherry cabinets, it was as gloomy and off-putting as the rest of the apartment. A few nice paintings hung on the wall, slightly askew. A mahogany table and two chairs were set up by the window, the table half-covered by a stack of old newspapers; dirty dishes lined the counter, and the sink was full of pots.

  Autumn’s bedroom was similar: nicely furnished but messy. The bed had been made before I yanked off her quilt yesterday to warm her up while we waited for the paramedics, but several items of clothing had been tossed on the floor as though without thought, and the top of a sleek vanity was littered with bills and letters and store flyers, in addition to a jumble of lotion and perfume and a hairbrush. The stack of mail I had picked up yesterday was where I had left it: mostly bills, and the thick manila envelope that I now noted was marked Jamie.

  We went back downstairs, where I riffled through the things behind the counter in earnest, because now that Autumn was dead I wasn’t concerned with respecting her privacy. I was hoping to find a receipt for one very odd, very old trousseau. But there was no sign of a ledger, and I wasn’t nearly adept enough at computers to try to figure out a bookkeeping system, even if I had been brave enough to try to e-snoop.

  In the pile of papers behind the register, along with the brochure for the Rodchester house, was a receipt from the Legion of Honor. It indicated that Autumn had lent some pieces to the museum. And Mrs. Morgan had mentioned that Scarlet worked there as well.

  I jumped when an electronic version of “Greensleeves” filled the shop. As soon as I realized where it was coming from, I grabbed Autumn’s phone and checked the screen.

  “Jamie?” I answered the call.

  “I saw you called last night,” said a man’s voice. “You’ve changed your mind? Price is the same.”

  “I . . .” Dangitall, I should have thought this through. Did that manila envelope hold cash for Jamie? If so, was it for something banal like a used bicycle? Or could it be for some nefarious purpose? Should I play along, pretend I was Autumn? “Yes, I believe I have changed my mind. How much was it again?”

  “You playing with me?”

  “I’m just a little confused lately.”

  “Not surprised, given the size of what you’re dealing with. Tell you what—today’s nuts for me. Meet me tomorrow night, nine o’clock, Pier 39. Buy a ticket to the mirror maze. I’ll find you inside. What do you look like?”

  “Long brown hair. I wear vintage dresses usually.”

  “Good for business, I’m guessing. All right, I’ll find you. Bring the money.”

  He hung up.

  “May I ask why you’re describing yourself to a stranger on the phone?” Sailor asked.

  “I guess we’re meeting a man named Jamie tomorrow night at the mirror maze on Pier 39. Do you know it?”

  He nodded.

  “I mean, if you’re available? I shouldn’t assume.”

  “Suffice it to say that if you’re going to meet a strange man at night in a mirror maze, I’m going to meet a strange man at night in a mirror maze. Who’s Jamie?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s an envelope for him upstairs in Autumn’s bedroom. I’m guessing it contains cash.”

  * * *

  “How much do you think that is?” I said, gazing at the stack of hundred-dollar bills in the envelope.

  “A few thousand dollars? Maybe more? We could, of course, count it.”

  We could, but I was afraid to touch it.

  “I suppose it could be legitimate,” I said. “Maybe Autumn was planning to buy some clothes from him.”

  “Paying for merchandise in cash instead of by check? And holding business meetings at the Pier 39 mirror maze? Pretty sure that’s not how it’s done in Fortune 500 companies.”

  “It does seem fishy, doesn’t it? Could I use your phone again?”

  After Sailor handed it over, I called Sam Spade and asked him to track down whatever he could about someone named Jamie, and gave him his phone number.

  “So what now?” Sailor asked.

  “Want to go to a museum?” I asked him.

  “Is this just for our erudition or . . . ?”

  “Mrs. Morgan mentioned Scarlet worked at the Legion of Honor. And there’s a receipt here indicating Autumn loaned some garments to an exhibit there. So maybe that’s where they met? Or . . . something? I don’t know. Maybe we can find Scarlet there?”

  He checked his watch. “Your wish is my command. At least until six o’clock.”

  “What happens at six?”

  “I’ve got a couple of readings lined up. Time for me to make some money.”

  “That’s great, Sailor.”

  He shrugged. “Some of these folks are a bit worrisome. But it’s a living.”

&n
bsp; Chapter 8

  “What’s the story, morning glory? What’s the word, hummingbird?” Oscar demanded impatiently when we returned to the van.

  Sailor raised an eyebrow.

  “We had a 1960s musicals film festival last week,” I explained. “Bye Bye Birdie was Oscar’s favorite.”

  “Of course,” Sailor said dryly. “I should have guessed.”

  I cast a suspicious glance at the pink bakery box, which appeared to have remained the way we left it. Oscar was the very picture of innocence, though I thought I spied a little green frosting on his snout. Still, it was hard to tell against his greenish scales. While we were gone he had made his way through an entire bag of ranch-flavored Doritos, two apples, and a king-sized Snickers bar. I was pretty sure the apples had been the last to go down his gullet, and then only because he’d already eaten all the good stuff.

  “What’s the tale, nightingale?” Oscar insisted.

  “It was a bit of a water haul, when it comes right down to it,” I said. “But we found a few leads. We’re heading over to the Legion of Honor now. Want to come along, or should we drop you off at home?”

  “The Legion of Honor’s over near the ocean. Can we go to the beach after? Or maybe hike Lands End trail? Or get brunch at Cliff House?”

  “I . . .” I glanced at Sailor.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” he said. “No reason to hurry back to the shop, remember? When’s the last time you went to the beach?”

  “As I’m sure you recall, I was recently shot at and nearly trapped and killed in a tunnel at the Sutro Bath ruins,” I said. “Does that count?”

  “Not exactly what I had in mind,” said Sailor with a chuckle. “I was thinking more along the lines of lolling on the sand with a picnic basket, watching the waves roll in, searching for seashells . . .”

  “Who are you?” This was a whole new side of a man I thought I had come to know.

  “Did someone say picnic?” Oscar, at least, was true to form. There was no distracting this gobgoyle from talk of food. “Picnics have potato chips! And cookies! And the cupcakes for dessert!”

  “Okay, boys, I tell you what,” I said, laughing. “I’m getting hungry, too. First let’s see what we can find out about the mysterious Scarlet the Dog Walker at the Legion of Honor, and then if we have time we can pick up some fixin’s for a picnic on the beach, like regular Californians.”

  “I hate to burst your bubble,” said Sailor, “But regular Californians do not picnic at the beach in the fog.”

  “I’ll bet some of them do.”

  “Tourists, maybe.”

  “All right, fine. We’ll act like tourists, then.”

  “And then it’ll be cupcake time?” Oscar asked.

  “And then it’ll be cupcake time.”

  * * *

  “Nope,” said the tired-looking middle-aged man behind the desk in the offices of the Legion of Honor. “Nobody named Scarlet on the payroll.”

  “Could she be a volunteer, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Could you check?”

  “You’d have to talk to the volunteer coordinator. But she doesn’t work today.”

  “Is there any way you could check for me? It’s a matter of some urgency.”

  The man let out a long, exasperated breath, as if the burden of my request sat heavily upon his well-padded shoulders. Leaning forward, he started typing and squinted at the computer screen.

  “Lotta volunteers in a place like this,” he grumbled, still clicking on the keyboard and the mouse. “Every art history graduate in the world thinks, ‘Super, I want to be a museum curator!’ Like that makes any sense at all. They had the smarts God gave a goose they would go into computer programming like everyone else in the world. Whoever heard of art history as a major?”

  I bit my tongue to keep from asking why, given his disdainful attitude, he was working at a fabulous art museum like the Legion of Honor. As my grandmother used to say, “Some people can’t even enjoy their ice cream cone for the drips.”

  He scrolled through a list on the computer screen, tilting his head back to read through the bottom section of his bifocals.

  Finally, he wrote something on a Post-it and handed it to me.

  “That’s all I got.”

  I read the note aloud: “Victorian clothing?”

  He nodded. “Only one Scarlet listed, and she was a volunteer for the Victorian clothing exhibit, Vintage Victoriana. You need a special ticket for that.”

  * * *

  It cost an extra ten dollars apiece to get into the special exhibit, but I figured it was for a good cause. I intended to take a quick spin through the show, just long enough to see if anyone knew Scarlet or if some other clue as to how to find her might appear. But to my surprise Sailor lingered, even after the security guards and ticket takers explained that they didn’t know the volunteers who had helped set things up. He seemed content to study the contents of the glassed-in cases. I had assumed he hung around Aunt Cora’s Closet mostly because of me; it hadn’t occurred to me that Sailor might be a vintage clothing buff. Then again, vintage clothes did have a way of winning people over.

  “What?” he asked me.

  “What, what?” I asked in return.

  He smiled, his gaze fixed on a placard reading,

  Mantle, Paris, c. 1891; Emile Pingat, France, active 1860–1896. Wool; simple weave with silk velvet studded with embroidery of silver-and-gold thread, pearl beads, ostrich-feather trim

  and

  Visiting Dress, France, c. 1855. Silk; simple weave adorned with weft-float brocade patterning upon satin background, silk-and-metallic-thread ribbon trim

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I didn’t realize you were interested in old clothes. You don’t seem nearly so enamored with the merchandise at Aunt Cora’s Closet.”

  “That’s because I don’t want to be invited to join you on wash day. I’ve seen how you recruit helpers for the laundry.”

  “Very funny. But seriously, do old clothes appeal to you?”

  “Not the textiles themselves. What draws me is the history, what the fashions say about the time and place, the social and cultural mores. That sort of thing. Lots of people find it fascinating, obviously; look how crowded the exhibit is.”

  It was a weekday, so the throngs were probably at their thinnest, but there were still plenty of visitors milling about.

  “Are you picking up on anything?” Sailor whispered.

  “Not really. I wish I could touch it.”

  “I know what you mean,” said a woman who had overheard me. “Can you imagine being that tiny and wearing something like that? The last time I was that small I was still in middle school. I know a few women who could fit into it, though.”

  I smiled.

  But the woman’s comment made me think: Autumn had been quite petite. I bet she could have worn these garments.

  “You know,” I said to Sailor in a low voice, “Renee mentioned Autumn had tried on the Victorian ball gowns from the antique trousseau. Usually ball gowns were worn over corsets and petticoats, and a woman who could afford a gown like that also had servants to help her get dressed.”

  “Must have been nice,” Sailor said.

  “Not just nice—necessary. It was impossible for a woman to put on a fancy dress like this given all the accoutrements and scores of tiny buttons or hooks that fasten the dress in the back.”

  “The invention of the zipper must have changed all that,” Sailor mused. “So where are you going with this?”

  “It occurred to me that Autumn would have needed help getting into those Victorian ball gowns. So maybe Scarlet tried on the dresses with Autumn and they helped each other.”

  “And if she did—what would that tell us?”

  “I have no idea.”
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br />   The dresses were works of art, full of fanciful poufs, swags, and drapes. But as pretty as they were, the idea of actually wearing one held no appeal. Wealthy women of the era were clad in many pounds of fabric and ornamentation, such as beads and jewels. And that wasn’t even counting the physical restraint of being encased in tight-fighting corsets and clothing, not to mention the absurdly narrow high-heeled shoes they wore, wildly unsuited to cobblestone streets and slippery surfaces. I’d take the comfort and ease of movement of modern clothing and footwear any day.

  We moved on to a display of gloves and shoes, which seemed almost comically elongated.

  Gloves and Shoes, Austrian, 1850s. Empress Elisabeth of Austria was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Her elongated figure set the standard for constricted, elegant beauty. This pair of almost fantastically slender Adelaides and gloves were given to her by one of her many admirers. The fashion for straight shoes was a boon to cobblers as it freed them from the need to make two versions of the shoe, the left and the right; they needed only a single last per shoe size.

  “Can you believe this? Who could possibly fit into something like that?” I asked, imagining that even a child’s hands and feet would be wider than the gloves and shoes on display. When Sailor didn’t answer, I glanced up and saw he had drifted off to the next case.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was distracted by the sleeve plumpers.”

  “The what, now?”

  He gestured at a mannequin wearing a cotton sateen corset, frilly petticoats, and large down-filled balloons fitted high on the arm. “Sleeve plumpers.”

  “Well, in the 1980s women wore shoulder pads. I guess it’s the same concept.” I gave him a sidelong look. “You sure you aren’t perusing the corset?”

  He gave me a crooked grin. “I’m not going to deny this stuff might lead a person to certain . . . ideas. You get some corsets in the shop occasionally. Ever try one on?”