Latte Trouble

by Cleo Coyle

  “Sorry,” I said, “I’m still fuzzy.”

  “I have a cousin who can die from eating peanuts,” said Esther. “Can people die from aspirin allergies, too?”

  As Esther and Moira continued to talk, I turned to open the van’s double doors and spied Bryan Goldin emerging from the Fen bus. Gone were the Billy Idol black leather duds and studded choker. His tattoos were even out of sight. Today, beneath his platinum blond crewcut, the younger Goldin wore a tailored Fen suit, cocoa brown, with a lavender shirt and tie.

  As he stepped down from the bus, he paused to adjust his outfit. He glanced around—no doubt looking to see if he’d been noticed—but he didn’t spot me. After a moment, he checked his cuffs and headed across the park to the Theater tent. I saw no sign of Fen himself, but figured a man as reclusive—and frankly, reptilian—as Fen was would stay out of sight as long as possible.

  For the next hour Moira, Esther, and I moved the espresso machines into the Theater tent and set them up in the spacious main lobby, with the help of a hunky young member of the Fashion Week organizing staff named Chad.

  Esther’s face lit up and she turned on the charm when he greeted us, and surprisingly, Chad, who looked to be a corn-fed midwestern transplant, did not seem put off by the girl’s antifashion braids, oversized sweatshirt, and black-rimmed glasses. In fact, he smiled so warmly at Esther, I suspected she probably resembled one of his old friends back home on the farm.

  Moira, however, was all business as she tested the espresso machines, and the three of them worked so efficiently together they hardly required my presence.

  “Watch for the pastry delivery. It should be here any minute,” I told Esther. “I’m going backstage to have a word with Lottie.”

  “Have a blast, boss,” she replied, clearly distracted by the rippling muscles under Chad’s Fashion Week T-shirt.

  The public was not yet allowed into the Theater tent, so I crossed an empty lobby and entered the virgin-white runway area. The vast space seemed hollow without spectators, and I heard only the ghostly rush of ventilation fans as I walked past the rows and rows of seats to the front of the room. The white canvas walls were pristine save for carefully mounted banks of stage lights, and the smooth, polished runway was desolate.

  The door on stage was bracketed by two mammoth flat screen televisions, each crowned with huge placards bearing the Fen logo. The screens crackled with silent static, and two men in Fashion Week tees were frantically working on the video system, trying to troubleshoot an obvious malfunction.

  I wasn’t sure where to search for Lottie, but I spotted a small door leading backstage and thought it logical to try there first. At the door, a young, beefy security guard gave my badge only a cursory glance before he let me slip into the milling chaos that was the dressing area.

  I knew at once what was distracting the guard—a harem of partially-clad young models traipsed around the room or sat in makeup chairs before wall-sized mirrors. Some wore robes or street clothes, but most were clad in the skimpiest lingerie. One woman—a towering Slavic Amazon—sauntered past the sweating guard wearing high heels and little else, her blond hair down to her waist, her arms casually folded across her breasts.

  Among the ranks of nubile women were plenty of familiar faces—supermodels whose names I didn’t actually know, but whose faces graced magazine covers every month. Sitting near a makeup table, I spied Ranata Somsong—Violet Eyes—was as striking as ever in a belted mauve minidress. She appeared to be a spectator here, however, observing the backstage preparations with naked delight. Next to her, blow-drying and teasing a model with the biggest hair I’d seen this side of a beehive, was Lloyd Newhaven.

  Bryan Goldin was already here. Fen would probably arrive at any moment. Now Lloyd Newhaven and Violet Eyes. The whole gang was here. Were they working together? Separately?

  Though I didn’t yet have all the pieces of the puzzle, I still felt Fen was the mastermind and the man to watch today. Last night, he’d given me an interesting song-and-dance about how he had nothing to do with the poisonings, but that grain alcohol in my plum wine proved he was capable of tainting a drink to achieve his goals.

  I also remembered what Madame had told me on the phone last night. Was Lottie really the one in danger? Or was she herself the one I should be watching?

  I passed through the large dressing area twice, but saw no sign of the accessories designer. Then I heard an amplified voice echoing from the theater.

  “…Milan is my favorite show,” a woman’s voice boomed. “The food, the wine—”

  Another loud voice interrupted. “And the men! Don’t forget those delicious Italian men…”.

  The comment was followed by a peel of strained, high-pitched laughter I instantly recognized as Lottie Harmon’s. I hurried through the door, expecting to find Lottie on the runway, microphone in hand. Instead I saw one of the technicians standing next to a video player. I glanced up at the large screens and saw a rewinding image of three women sitting on a veranda somewhere on a Mediterranean shore.

  I ran up to the technician. “Did you just play that tape?”

  He nodded.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  The man shrugged. “A ten-minute retrospective of some kind. It’s scheduled to run before the show starts.”

  “Could you please play it again?”

  The man shrugged and hit the play button. The clip I’d heard was from a television interview for the Italian network RAI. A scroll at the bottom of the screen indicated it had been taped during the Milan fashion show of 1984. The interview was conducted in English, with Italian subtitles running at the bottom of the screen.

  Lottie Harmon, nee Toratelli, sat in a deck chair, her signature scarlet hair lifting lightly on the Mediterranean breeze; her sundress was bright yellow, her long, tanned legs tucked under her. On a chair beside Lottie, her sister Mona Lisa wore a pale green dress. The resemblance between the two women was all the more striking in a moving image.

  Also striking was the difference in their manner—Lottie was loud, extroverted, and flamboyant. Mona Lisa seemed serious, quiet, restrained. Almost invisible behind the glamorous pair, the heavyset Harriet Tasky stood in a black pantsuit, her dirty blond hair stirring a bit in the sea air.

  It was Mona Lisa who spoke of Milan being her favorite show, of her love of the food and wine. It was Lottie Harmon who leaned into the camera and added the comment about “those delicious Italian men.” But it was Harriet Tasky who laughed that distinctive, strained, high-pitched laugh.

  The tape ended abruptly in a shower of crackling static. The man at my side cursed and began to play with the wires. Still in a state of confused shock, I turned. Standing right behind me was the woman who had, for the past year, called herself Lottie Harmon. She was staring in horror at the snowy screen.

  “You,” I rasped. “You’re not Lottie Harmon. You’re Harriet Tasky!”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  WITHOUT a word, Harriet took me by the arm and pulled me to a seat in the back row of the empty theater, far from prying eyes and ears.

  “I was Harriet Tasky,” she admitted in a whispered hiss after sitting beside me. “Now I’m Lottie Harmon. What does it matter to you?”

  “It matters because my friend is sitting in a jail cell and the only way I know how to get him out is to find out what the hell is going on around here!”

  “Shhh, lower your voice,” Harriet insisted. Then the woman’s shoulders sagged. “This week has been hell. First the poisoning at the party, then Rena’s death…” She paused to choke back sudden tears, then just began shaking her head and broke down completely.

  “I’m sorry about Rena,” I said. “I really am. But I need to know what’s going on. The truth. Why are you posing as Lottie Harmon?”

  “Why do you think?” she said after composing herself and wiping her tears. “Harriet was a nobody in this world. Overweight, shy, unglamorous. Never mind that I created half the pieces that sent the Lottie Harmon
label to the top of the fashion world in its heyday. Poor Mona, of course, created the other half.”

  “And Lottie Toratelli?”

  “She was the professional party girl. The very public, very pretty, flamboyant, well-spoken face of Lottie Harmon. I don’t deny she was vital. She made the connections, the front and back end deals. She put the label and its designs in the papers—by making the scene, showing off the jewelry and accessories, bringing in just the right clientele—”

  “The Eveready Bunny,” I murmured.

  “Who kept going and going.” Harriet said this with such irony I tried to read between the lines.

  “Do you mean drugs?”

  Lottie shook her head. “Not drugs. Both Lottie and Mona Lisa had some kind of weird, hereditary allergies. But booze, music, and sex with multiple partners—that was what kept Lottie going.”

  “But not you and Mona?”

  Harriet waved her hand. “Oh, Mona went clubbing a lot at first, but then she got pregnant by some one-night stand and decided to have the baby. She settled down and became the more responsible sister. I tried the club scene for awhile, but the way I looked…well, let’s just say I got tired of buying drinks and drugs for guys who treated me like crap.”

  I let the words hang for a moment. “I guess it was tough for you and Mona—working hard and never getting the credit you deserved for your design work.”

  Harriet shrugged. “It didn’t matter, really. We were all getting rich. That had been the plan—and the deal—all along. Things were going great, until that bastard Stephen Goldin started playing his games.”

  “Fen?”

  She glanced away, her eyes glazing a bit. “Stephen was really something back then—brilliant, cocksure—a straight young clothing designer in a business saturated with gay men. Lottie was drawn to him immediately; Mona soon after that. Moths to a flame, as it turned out.”

  “So he encouraged both women’s affections?”

  “Encouraged? He reveled in it. For years, he played a twisted cat and mouse game with both women—flaunting his relationship with Lottie, while daring Mona to reveal her own affair with him to her wild, possessive sister. Fen was playing a dangerous game, but no one knew how dangerous until it was too late…”.

  Her voice trailed off, but I knew where she was going. “Harriet,” I said softly, “I know Mona died in Bangkok.”

  Lottie nodded, closed her eyes. “I saw most of the crap come down in that sick menage a tois, but I managed to miss Armageddon Day, which finally occurred in 1988.”

  “What happened?”

  She sighed, opened her eyes. “Fen took both sisters to Thailand on phony passports. He had one too. They were planning to smuggle gems out of the country and avoid duties and customs. But with his libido, Fen was probably planning to sample Thailand’s notorious sex industry, as well. Anyway, Mona took her little daughter on the trip, maybe to use her as a decoy, so the authorities wouldn’t suspect them of being smugglers. It was all a stupid, tragic mistake. I didn’t find out the truth about Mona’s death until years later. Lottie confessed it all to me herself, at the end…”.

  “The only news item I found on Mona’s death said she fell off a balcony—”

  “She was pushed,” Harriet corrected, shaking her head.

  “Did Fen do it?”

  “Fen and Lottie had been bickering—badly. By this time, they were on the verge of splitting for good. The break finally came in Bangkok, but before Fen stormed off and flew back to New York without them, he threw his affair with Mona in Lottie’s face. Lottie had always been impulsive and, at times, short-tempered. The lifestyle she’d been leading—all the alcohol she consumed daily—had made her downright dangerous. She stormed into Mona’s hotel room and confronted her. Mona struck out and Lottie struck back. They began to struggle…Lottie pushed her own sister over the balcony, and it happened right in front of Mona’s young daughter.”

  “Oh my god.”

  Harriet paused. “That pretty little girl…I think she was only six years old at the time. I didn’t know her that well because Mona had hired a full-time nanny at home and brought her by the studio only once or twice. The daughter, what was her name? Maria or Maura, something like that. She must be in her early 20s by now. I just hope she’s forgotten what she saw, or made peace with it, anyway.”

  “What happened after Mona’s death?”

  “It was hushed up, I can tell you that. The little girl’s father was out of the picture so Mona’s daughter was sent to live with a relative in the northeast. Boston, I think.”

  “And Lottie? What happened to her?”

  “She got away with murder, that’s what happened to her. Mona’s death was quickly ruled a suicide. And Lottie returned to New York in time to debut the new season—but she didn’t. She dropped out, cancelled orders, shut down the company and went to Europe. Murdering her sister then covering it up, orphaning her niece, and losing Fen, too, it was too much for her. She just quit.”

  “And Fen?”

  “He moved along…to other design partners, and presumably other sexual ones. I moved to London to start a new life—I still had plenty of money, so I opened my own vintage clothing business. I lost the weight I’d carried my whole life, and things were going okay. Then I heard about Lottie…”

  “What about Lottie?”

  “Her drinking intensified. One day I got a phone call from a hospital in Paris, asking if I’d be willing to pick up a Lottie Toratelli. She’d given my name as next of kin. I later found out she’d burned through most of her money, and was now a full-blown alcoholic.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took her back with me to London, put her in rehab, then made her a partner in my business. She didn’t have much cash to buy into it, so we agreed that she’d sign over some property to me, including the Village townhouse I’ve been living in for this past year. We were doing okay, Lottie and I, running the vintage business in London, until a stupid, senseless accident occurred that changed everything….”

  Harriet paused. I gave her time to gather her thoughts.

  “We had received a consignment of vintage clothing from a British estate in Cornwall—all vintage prewar top of the line fashions, perfectly sealed and preserved. Lottie and I began opening the plastic bags to conduct an inventory. Suddenly Lottie got sick, then she had a seizure. I called an ambulance and took her to a hospital. It was too late to help, and Lottie died the same day.”

  I blinked in shock. “How?”

  “The doctors said it was naphthalene poisoning, from the chemicals in the mothballs. Lottie was always allergic to aspirin. Turns out the adverse reaction to naphthalene is part of the same allergy, only much worse. After Lottie was gone, I saw to everything, including Lottie’s deathbed request that she be cremated as quietly as possible, without even her family being notified. I understood how she felt because during her long rehab, she confessed to me that she’d killed her sister.”

  “So why did you resurrect Lottie Harmon? Did you need money?”

  “It wasn’t the money I wanted.” Harriet sighed. “With the sisters dead, I had the sole claim on the label. I had been doing all that great work for all those years, laboring in obscurity…I wanted to know what it was like to be the one applauded, and featured in the magazines, the one invited to the parties…the genius, the star…”

  I recalled David Mintzer’s comment about the poor little guys laboring away in the shadows who get ignored, or thrust aside—apparently Harriet Tasky had been one of them, just waiting for her chance to break out, to step into the limelight.

  “It wasn’t an easy road,” Harriet continued. “When I first tried to get things going again, I called Fen, hoping to interest him in a partnership. I wasn’t happy about dealing with a snake like him, but I saw it as my only avenue back into the business.”

  I could imagine what happened, and Harriet confirmed my suspicions. “The prick wouldn’t even take my call. After repeated tries, I call
ed him again—but this time I told the receptionist I was Lottie Harmon and was put right through. He took Lottie’s call, all right.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I thought I knew Lottie well enough to be able to play her. I had a whole spiel down and it worked pretty well. He thought he was talking to Lottie Toratelli, and I cut off the conversation before he became convinced otherwise. He begged to see me—that is, Lottie—but I put Fen off. When I hung up, I knew what I had to do.”

  Harriet faced me, her tone defiant. “Maybe it was extreme, to most people, but I saw my next move as a rebirth. I’d already lost the weight, and was trim and toned. A nip and a tuck, a nose job, some work on the chin and cheeks, enhanced breasts, hair dye and a little liposuction—”

  “And you were Lottie Harmon…a brand new Eveready Bunny.”

  “I even changed my name—legally. And you know what? It worked,” Harriet insisted. “I’ve had to keep Fen at arm’s length—not hard since he frankly repulses me—but things had been going great. So many people have helped me, like Tad and poor Rena….” Lottie began to cry again.

  I sat in silence for a moment. It was a lot to take in, a lot to process…I was about to tell Harriet about Fen, to see what, if anything, she knew of his scheming against her—when a Fashion Week intern appeared.

  “Excuse me, ladies…we have to clear the Theater now. We’re going to start admitting the guests in the next half hour.”

  “Goodness!” Harriet rose and wiped away the last of her tears. “I have a million things to do before the runway show.”

  I rose too, and she grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Okay, Clare, now you know. I told you the truth because you guessed and because you asked. I honestly don’t know how hearing about the past is going to help you solve your friend’s present problem. I hardly knew Ricky Flatt, but I have to ask you to keep my confidence.”

  “But there’s more for us to discuss, Harriet—”