A Veiled Deception (4 page)

“Not by a long shot, Dad.”

He did a double take. “Mad, that ambulance is pulling in here.” He, of course, expected me to explain why.

What else was new?

I squeezed his arm as I passed him on my way to the door. “I’m afraid that we need them,” I said and opened it. “Up the stairs, fourth door on the right,” I told the paramedics as I led them to the front stairs.

Dad lowered himself to a keeping-room chair as I returned. “Madeira, tell me that my children are all right.”

Aunt Fiona tilted her head. “Maddie, love, what exactly
is
going on?”

“Let’s go into the taproom,” I suggested, “where we can be more comfortable.”

Eventually the coroner would arrive, and Jasmine’s body would be taken down the front stairs and out the door . . . the way my mother’s had been. And you couldn’t see the front stairs from the taproom.

Bad enough Dad would have to face the police later; he didn’t need to see a replay of the worst day of his life. “Dad, would you like Aunt Fiona to make you a cup of tea?”

Fiona stopped and waited for his answer.

My father narrowed his eyes. “Must be bad, if you think I’d drink one of her twitchy brews.”

Aunt Fiona bit her lip against one of her signature cutting remarks, and I appreciated it.

Twitchy? Hmm. Did he mean witchy?

I believed that our childhood suspicions about Aunt Fiona being a witch had been founded in truth. Did Dad believe it, too?

Good grief, did he know that my mother had actually moon danced with her best friend . . . and taken me along for the ride?

“Fiona,” he said, brows furrowed, his defenses weakening before my eyes, as he took his comfortable chair. “I’d appreciate a cup of tea. Thank you.” He gave me one of those parental looks. “‘Ignorance is the parent of fear.’”

A literary quote for every occasion, I thought. “Who’s the author of that one, Dad?”

“Herman Melville and I never knew how right he was.” Dad then tried to drill the information out of me with his “Dad does the guilts” look, the one he’d given me the morning after that fateful Winter Ball when Nick and I had lost our virginity to each other.

I didn’t break then, either. Nick had successfully escaped at dawn via the tree outside Brandy’s window with no one the wiser.

“Give it to me straight,” my father snapped. “‘I am never afraid of what I know,’

Shakespeare. And, Madeira, I’m smarter than you think.”

Uh-oh. What did that mean? “Where’s Sherry?” I asked, too worried about my sister to consider my unending list of past transgressions. My father picked up his pipe out of nervous habit and put it down again. “I haven’t seen Sherry since she and the Jezebel disappeared so as not to spoil ‘the surprise.’” Dad gave a strained half smile. “When Deborah left, she was fit to be tied that it hadn’t come off.”

Whatever
it
was. “Mary Quant, mother of the miniskirt, where the Hermès could Sherry be?” I looked out every one of the taproom windows. I even lifted the board covering the coach-stop drive-through window. Normally dim, because of the raw boards and corner logs it was made of, the room darkened and grew chill as if with our spirits.

My father huffed. “Madeira, you will explain the ambulance this minute.”

Aunt Fiona brought his tea before I could answer. Not that I was putting off telling him, but I’d rather eat dirt.

Alex owed me big time for this one.

Dad acknowledged his tea with a grudging thanks, raising his mug in approval. She’d not been so foolish as to give him a teacup. “Fiona,” he griped. “Mad still hasn’t told me.”

I sat, hemmed and hawed, sighed and swallowed, and finally revealed what I knew, and until I’d come down, I pretty much knew more than anybody. As a child I thought my father never left his stately academic demeanor behind, but for the second time in my memory, life shocked him speechless. By the time Aunt Fiona and Dad recovered, and I’d fielded a thousand or so questions, most of which only Jasmine could know, Nick and Alex ushered in Detective Sergeant Lytton Werner—or Little Wiener, as I’d dubbed him in third grade. Of all the detectives in all the world . . .

I’d only called him Little Wiener once. Okay, so we were in the cafeteria at the time . . . and the nickname stuck like burrs in his underpants. That’s all I needed today, a detective in a $200 rack suit who owed me for upgrading his geek score. Not that I judged people by their clothes . . . well, yeah, I guess I did. That was my job. But seriously, a bad suit didn’t mean he was a bad detective, I hoped.

By high school, everybody had dropped the word “little,” because Wiener the Quarterback had turned into six feet of toned muscle. The nickname had still popped up once in a while on the football field, but by then, he could beat the scrap out of anybody who said it.

Still, I’d stayed the Hermès out of his way for the better part of my life. Werner eyed me. “Still a glamazon, I see,” he noted with scrutiny, resurrecting the ‘hot button’ that had caused his downfall. But from the near side of thirty, having been a grammar school glamazon sounded pretty damned, well, glamorous.

“I hear you make your living taking in sewing,” he said, pen and notebook in hand.

From glam to glum in twelve seconds. “I’m a designer, Lytton. In New York. With Faline.”

“Who’s that? Your cat?”

Four

Disgraceful I know but I can’t help choosing my underwear with a view to it being seen.—BARBARA PYM, 1934

In the midst of my scissor dance with the Wiener, Nick rubbed the side of his nose and cleared his throat.

“Right, the investigation,” I said, understanding his amused reminder. But I still felt as if I was about to be strip-searched. Thank God for the designer label on my padded underwire and lucky panties.

Lucky? Hah. I had now officially lost faith in pots of gold and “the pluck of the Irish.” “Sergeant Werner, you remember my father?”

He nodded and shook my father’s hand. “I took one of your English classes. You failed me.”

Wooly knobby knits! We wouldn’t catch a break if we kissed the Wiener on his toasted buns and welcomed him to the family. “And this is Fiona Sullivan,” I added, revealing none of my angst.

Werner raised a brow, his expression filled with speculation. “Already decided you need a lawyer, did you?” He added to his notes. “One of the best . . . they say.”

“No. No!” I said. “Aunt Fiona’s a family friend. She’s here because she hadn’t left the party, yet.”

“She’s a friend but you call her ‘aunt’?”

I sighed at the non-relevance but knew that my impatience would only make matters worse. “She was my mother’s best friend. We’ve always called her ‘aunt’, because she was there for us after Mom died.”

“So the murder took place during a party,” Werner said, ignoring my explanation as if
I’d
asked the dumb question, “and nobody heard a scream? A scuffle? Anything?”

All I could think about was the fact that we’d all heard Sherry’s threat. Everyone shook their heads, except for Nick. “Well,” he said, “I heard Maddie scream Jasmine’s name when she was trying to rouse her, but only because I was on my way up to find her.”

“To find Jasmine, or Maddie?” Werner asked.

“Maddie, of course.”

“Of course.” Werner looked me in the eye. “So
you
found the body?”

Why did he seem almost . . . entertained . . . by that? Payback?

“Unfortunately,” I said.

He hadn’t blinked since his gaze caught mine and held it captive. “I got the official FBI version,” he said, “now give me yours.”

I told him everything that happened from the time I went into Brandy’s room. He asked who’d attended the party and we all answered at once with different names. He held up a hand. “Just give me the guest list.”

We all looked at each other.

“No guest list?” Werner said. “That’s convenient.”

“It’s not convenient,” I snapped. “It’s small-town, last-minute, word-of-mouth informal: ‘Come and bring your brother’s girlfriend’s sister.’”

“Funny,” Werner said to himself, head down, scribbling. “I didn’t get an invite, directly or indirectly.”

I rolled my eyes.

Werner raised his head in time to catch me. “Attorney Sullivan,” he said, not taking his gaze from me, “start a guest list. Put down everybody you remember, then pass it around so you can each add names that might have been missed. Bring it to the station in the morning when you come to give your official statements.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then I’ll bring in your party guests for questioning.”

Scare tactics. He couldn’t question them in their own homes. A uniformed team came downstairs and spread through the house like fire ants at a picnic. I felt a hot sting at every door, drawer, or box they opened. They snooped into every corner, one going so far as to open my father’s humidor and smell his pipe tobacco.

“She wasn’t smoked to death,” I snapped. “You knew that was tobacco. Smelling it was just rude.”

My father wanted me to shut up, but Werner gave the officer a look that said the man would hear more about it later.

Hmm. Maybe Werner did have some redeeming qualities. Well, one. Aunt Fiona, Nick, Alex, and my father stood back, while I kept track of the officers, and Werner kept track of me. In the kitchen, they checked the leftovers and took samples, spooning a bit from each dish into small clear-plastic zip bags. They also dusted the kitchen for fingerprints.

“Good grief, she wasn’t poisoned,” I said. “She was strangled.”

“With a bridal veil bearing your fingerprints.” Werner spoke so close to me, he startled me and nearly smiled when I jumped. “Another statement like that and I’ll assume you know what you’re talking about.” He made a few more notes. “Tell me again why your fingerprints are all over the possible murder weapon.”

“Jasmine couldn’t
breathe
!” I snapped.

“So she was struggling?”

“No.”

“Twitching?”

I released a breath and shivered. “No.”

“Not even a little finger?”

“Wait a minute, people pass out cold all the time and they’re roused.”

“So you gave her mouth-to-mouth?”

“No, damn it. I panicked, untied the veil to allow air into her lungs, and sat her up so she could breathe easier. I wish I had thought to give her mouth-to-mouth.”

“Panic,” Werner repeated. “Do you always panic, as if you’re personally responsible, when somebody’s hurt? Did you panic at every body you saw on the New York streets?”

I tamped down the precise fury that had driven me to mock this man when he was a boy.

I’d panicked because my sister would likely be blamed, damn him. “This is our home,” I said. “Jasmine Updike was a guest here. Of course I felt responsible.”

“Good enough.” Werner removed his sharp, assessing gaze from my expression, and walked around the main floor, poking into the buttery, chimney cupboards, kitchen cabinets, fireplaces, hutches, jars, and canisters, before making his way back to the den.

“Stairs,” he said. “How many sets of stairs in this house?”

My father cleared his throat. “Five.”

“Five?” Werner frowned and looked at me for an explanation. I ticked them off on one hand. “Front stairs, back stairs, keeping-room stairs, cellar stairs, and attic stairs.”

“Well, that explains how a killer could slip away so easily in a house full of people. The wedding dress upstairs,” he said, changing tack. “Who does that belong to?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never seen it before.”

His gaze slid from me to Nick and back. “I would have expected it to belong to you.”

“Me and Nick? No way.”

Nick winced.

My father sighed. “It’s the Vancortland family wedding gown, the surprise Deborah was going to give Sherry.”

“Dad, how could you let Deborah do that?”

Clueless, my father furrowed his brows. “What? Why not?”

“You should have told Deborah that I planned to design Sherry’s wedding gown. We’ve only talked about it all our lives.”

My father cupped his neck and stood to stare out the window, probably wishing again that my mother were here.

Nick cleared his throat. “Mad, I moved the gown as soon as Sergeant Werner gave me the okay. It’s in your closet like you asked, so Sherry wouldn’t connect it to the murder, in the event she ended up wearing it.”

I questioned Werner with my look. “So you knew from Nick that it was probably Sherry’s?”

Werner shrugged as if he could care less what I thought.

My father straightened and tilted his head my way. “
You
knew it was likely Sherry’s, as well.”

“It’s a wedding gown, Dad, and Sherry’s about to get married. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make the leap. Sure,
I’d
like a vintage wedding dress, if the time ever comes, a gown I’d prefer to choose myself—but Sherry isn’t me. And Deborah isn’t Sherry’s favorite person.”

My father shook his head. “And you expected me to think like you and make sense of all that emotional and preferential information?”

“Dad, it’s okay. Now that I think about it, Deborah probably wanted to make a scene of presenting the gown, so she’d look gracious and generous. In company, Sherry wouldn’t have been able to say no without looking like an ungrateful brat. Then again, maybe that’s what Deborah wanted, a public rift, so Justin would have to choose between them.”

Werner raised a brow. “Suspicious, aren’t you?”

“And you aren’t?”

“Suspicion is my job.”

“I’m the closest to a mother Sherry has, so it’s my job to protect her.”

“Why do you think she needs protecting?”

“Have you ever met Deborah Vancortland, her soon-to-be mother-in-law?”

Werner coughed. “Enough said, but it’s only your job to protect your sister to a point. Wait, isn’t she your
baby
sister? And
she’s
the bride?”

Score one for the Wiener.

Sherry came rushing in, breathing hard, as if she’d been running. “Mrs. Sweet said there’d been an ambulance here. And what’s with the cop cars? Did somebody get sick? Was it the cake? I’ll bet it was the cake.”

“Why would you think it was the cake?” Werner asked without introducing himself.