A Veiled Deception (20 page)

I turned my mind to figuring out how to keep the gown’s train, given the new design. Two possibilities came to mind: attaching the train where the skirt swirled out from the fitted body at the thighs or removing the original train and making Sherry a cathedral veil from the same barely there gossamer lace as the coat. I’d had some lace catalogs overnighted from New York and found an amazing Bruges lace—known as Binche or magic lace—from an artisan on the coast of Belgium. There was no question. Magic it would be.

As I gave my name to Deborah’s surveillance robot, I thought about Dolly Sweet, who knew she’d be wearing her Katharine Hepburn dress for her funeral. Seriously, what hundred-year-old wouldn’t? And yet, she’d fooled me into being happy for her. Probably because she thought of going to Dante as something more like a wedding.

It also creeped the scrap out of me to think I might eventually have two chatty ghosts in residence at the carriage house, because Dante
wasn’t
“on the other side,”

though maybe he’d leave the building if Dolly was finally waiting for him. Who knew?

Maybe she
was
what he’d left unfinished, after all, and they were meant to be together for eternity.

One could only hope.

Then there was the matter of telling my dad that I had actually acquired “the shack,” as he calls it, for the nebulous price of taxes.

Cortland House looked less ostentatious the second time around, without the last bright sunburst before dusk gilding it. The dozen or so police cars out front did not add to its ambience.

Son of a stitch! What now? Had Justin’s DNA matched the fetus? I didn’t want my sister to be the prime suspect, but I didn’t want her heart broken, either. Deborah met me at the door by throwing herself into my arms.
Huh?
“Madeira, you’re just the person I’d want beside me at a time like this.”

“A time like what? Why me?”

“Because you tried to help when I fainted last night.”

“But you wouldn’t let me.”

“I was embarrassed,” she said.

Lucky me. A red-letter week: on the downside, a dead body, a sister with a broken heart, and an exasperated father. On the upside, two new friends: a hottie ghost and a strutting society peacock. Or peahen, I supposed. However, knowing Deborah, she’d surely appropriate her mate’s colorful plumage.

With no other choice, I slipped an arm around her and went inside. “What’s going on?” I asked, watching two policemen upending vases in the foyer as if searching for drugs.

Deborah huffed. “They have a warrant!”

“How dare they!”

Her head came up and I tried to look innocent.

“Did they say why?” And did they plan to stay for a week, because that’s how long it would take to search the place. A month, maybe.

“No, they showed Cort the warrant and invaded. When I protested, Cort told me to—” Her eyes filled. “He told me to ‘be quiet.’ He’s never spoken to me like that before.”

About time somebody did, but maybe not Cort. “Is Detective Werner here?”

“I’m right here,” Werner said, coming our way.

Deborah snubbed him and walked away.

Werner scratched his chin as she did. “Did you want me for something, Madeira?”

“Maddie might not,” Justin said, “but I do. Why are you searching Cortland House?”

“The deceased could have had something that somebody wanted badly enough to kill for, something she might have hidden here where she stayed. That’s the scenario we’re exploring. I have a full team in her room.”

Justin’s eyes narrowed. “You have a full team in my mother’s room, as well.”

Werner failed to respond. He knew something we didn’t. Scrap!

One of the maids approached me then, and Werner took the opportunity to disappear. “Mrs. Vancortland wanted me to tell you, miss, that she found her wedding album and left it for you in your favorite room.”

Deborah’s album. Yes!

After the maid left, I hugged Justin on a whim and pulled as quickly away. “Sorry. I’m just so glad that they haven’t arrested you.”

“I
knew
my DNA wouldn’t be a match, Madeira.”

“I’m sorry, Justin. Sherry knew it, too. I’m just in panic mode. I never thought that any of this could happen.”

He hooked an arm around my neck. “You’re forgiven, Sis.”

Aw. Now if he put me in a headlock, he’d feel like a real brother. “That’s you off the hook. Now we can concentrate on getting Sherry off. Stay positive.”

“Is she with you?” he asked, failing to hide his longing.

“No, I came to pick up the gown. I have to get moving on the alterations.”

“If Sherry will still have me.”

“Go and convince her that she will.”

“The police want me to hang around,” Justin said, “so I called her. She’ll be here any minute.”

“But I need her for a fitting. Never mind,” I said at his disappointment. “I’ll fit her here in the sewing room, but you—” I poked him in the chest with my index finger. “You have to get lost while I do.”

“We have a sewing room?”

“Sure. Your mother usually keeps the door closed, but the wedding gown’s in there, so stay away.”

Justin turned toward the doorbell. “That’ll be Sherry. Let me have her for a while, Mad, before you start fitting her? I need her to forgive me.”

I waved him away. A minute later, I found Werner in the sewing room examining Sherry’s gown.

He looked up in surprise.

I crossed my arms. “Lytton, if you take that gown as evidence, I’ll beat you.”

“Threatening a law officer, Madeira?”

“My sister will be wearing that in less than a month to marry Justin. Seriously, tell me it’s not evidence.”

“It doesn’t appear to be, but the Vancortland museum is enough to distract anyone.”

“Even a detective?”

Werner raised his chin and I knew enough to shut up. “What are you doing here?”

he asked.

“Fitting my sister for that wedding gown.”

“So where is she?”

“She and Justin are making up after last night, I hope. They’re in love, but they’d be happier if Jasmine Updike had never shown up.”

“Jasmine would be happier, too.” Werner checked his notes. “She showed up the week after the announcement of your sister’s engagement hit the society pages.”

Whoa. Jasmine and the cake lady had come to Mystic around the same time?

Was there a connection?

Twenty-four

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken.—WILLIAM HAZLITT

Werner went back to searching the sewing room, probing and examining objects while I got ready to fit Sherry.

“I’ll bet the news of your sister’s engagement to Vancortland the Fifth hit every society page in the country, knowing Mrs. Vancortland.”

“I’ll take that bet. I saw it myself in the New York papers, and though Deborah was never fond of Sherry, she certainly shouted that engagement far and wide.”

“Well,” Werner said, “she hadn’t met Jasmine yet. And methinks the lady likes publicity.” He pointed to a framed newspaper clipping of Deborah’s wedding announcement on the wall.

I hadn’t noticed that before. Was Deborah trying to impress an old ghost? I wondered. “Deborah likes publicity, but not gossip.”

“You were right; she isn’t in mourning.” Werner took a book from the shelf. “If you ask me, she seems relieved—”

We locked gazes, mine of surprise and Lytton’s of regret, probably for his slip. Could Deborah be the killer? “Lytton, what are you really looking for?”

“You know I can’t discuss an open case.”

“But I helped you. Does it have anything to do with the picture of Deborah and Mrs. Updike together as girls? Because that tip came from me, don’t forget.”

“For that, I thank you;
great
lead, which is more than I
should
say. Have you learned anything else that might help?”

“Oh, so I can share with you, but you can’t share with me?”

He shrugged. “We’re both trying to free your sister of suspicion. Isn’t that enough?”

“You got me, but all I have is homegrown gossip.”

He sighed. “I’ve had Mystick Falls gossip to my arm-pits. Why don’t you leave the investigating to us?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, my sister got screwed out of a mother, and preparing for her wedding
should
be the happiest time of her life. Sherry needs to catch a break here.”

“You did good by her, Mad, mother-wise.”

“I’m your thorn and you’re being nice to me. I don’t know how to deal. Cut it out. Anyway, I want her to have the wedding of—” I sighed. “Deborah’s dreams.”

Werner chuckled. “Mrs. Vancortland is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Why, thank you, Detective,” Deborah said, walking in on us. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Humble
and
dense.

She put her arm through Werner’s. “Tea is being served in the drawing room, but it’s being delivered to your men on the job, assuming they’re not allowed to stop ransacking. We hoped you’d join us, Detective. Madeira?” She offered me her other arm.

“No, thanks, really.”

Werner gave me a “help me” look as Deborah escorted him out the door. He probably only acquiesced for a chance to grill Deborah, who’d loved Jasmine one minute and forgot she existed the next.

I jotted down the date of Deborah’s wedding, embossed in gold on her album, so I could compare it to the date of Justin’s birth, which I’d get from Sherry later. In Deborah’s wedding album, I found angle shots of her in the gown. I grabbed my sketch pad, and sketched the dress, old and new, fully prepared, if I heard footsteps, to slide the pad into my ’93 Jean Paul Gaultier “Bag of Biblical Proportions.”

As I sketched, it came to me. Deborah had been slim as a reed. The gown hugged her torso from cleavage to thighs. I knew body styles. Her stomach was concave, never mind convex.

So the gossips were wrong. Not pregnant at her wedding. What an odd coincidence for the gossip to come out now, as if it mattered . . . now. And who started it?

The doorknob turned, and that fast, my sketch pad was in my bag. Sherry slipped in through a sliver of a door opening.

Justin tried to charm her into letting him in, but she blew him a kiss and locked him out.

I chuckled. “Bit hard to get away?”

“You have no idea.”

“I guess I don’t. I take it the wedding is still on?”

“Sorry, Mad, I didn’t mean to sound smug.”

I hugged her. “Happy. You sound happy, which makes me happy.”

“You’re the best.”

“Strip. I have to start pinning. Why you insisted on getting married so soon—” I stopped and examined her figure.

Sherry put her hands on her hips and huffed. “I’m not pregnant. I’m in love. It’s getting harder to sleep alone.”

“Which is why Justin spends half his nights at our house.”

She played coy. “Hardly the same. It isn’t
our
house.”

“You’re moving into Justin’s downtown Victorian, I take it?” I slipped the gown over her head.

“Yes, and I love what I’m doing to make it mine. Changing curtains and rugs, redecorating the master suite, and making Justin sleep in a spare room when he’s not at our house, so we can use our decadent new bedroom for the first time together as a married couple.”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“After you open your shop, you can come to lunch during school breaks. We’ll be just around the corner from the carriage house.”

“Hmm. Guess my shop is old news, and I haven’t seen the paperwork yet.”

“Yep, everybody knows. I’m happy for you, Mad, but I’m selfishly happy for me, too. I’ve missed you something fierce since you went to New York. Dad, too, though he’ll never admit it. And Nick, he’s probably doing cartwheels in his rigid FBI-controlled mind.”

I chuckled as I buttoned her into the gown.

“Why haven’t you and Nick tied the knot?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Neither of us is ready to step into the inferno.”

Sherry paused and then nodded her head in understanding. “The minute you get close to the heat, you both pull away?”

“Bingo! I like to think of it as fire dancing. Nick is my perfect partner.”

“Don’t worry,” my baby sister said. “You’ll know when you’re ready.”

“I’m not worried. I’m enjoying the dance. And I’m really excited about my
potential
new shop. You know, this gown is a little tight in the breasts for you. You’re bustier than Deborah, so I’ll have to adjust the darts—but I have plenty of material. You also have a smaller waist and trimmer hips.”

Sherry began to hum “Get Me to the Church on Time,” like the happy bride I wanted her to be, but when I finished pinning the gown’s torso and moved up to pin the pouf from her sleeves so she could see what they would look like, my world shimmered. Once again, I saw a different bride in a different time, but in the same place. Pearl was all decked out. Gown and veil, pricey necklace and earrings. The gloves covering her work-worn hands seemed to give her confidence. She held herself straighter and looked taller, hands relaxed at her sides. She looked down at her seamstress. “I’d like the shoulders plainer with less pouf.”

Ah, Pearl had an eye for style.

“Yes,
miss
,” the seamstress said with a bite in her tone, a resentful staffer forced to treat a peer as her better.

The door flew open and hit the wall, startling everyone, even me. Deborah in a snit, a sight to behold. “Get out,” she snapped at the seamstress, who was only too happy to comply, and fast.

Deborah stared at Pearl. A definite if-looks-could-kill, poison-dart look. Oy. Lucifer’s mistress, her toxic smile revealing a side of Deborah I’d only suspected. “Take. Off. My. Gown.”

Pearl raised her chin. “It’s my gown,” she said, way less confident than she pretended, her shoulders no longer as straight, one hand on her heart, the other clutching her pearl necklace. “Cort is marrying me. He
loves
me.”

Deborah smiled. “Not enough to keep him from sleeping with me at the country club, where—you’ll notice—he
doesn’t
take the help. Cort is marrying me, not you.

“
I’m
carrying his child.”