Dior or Die (Joanna Hayworth Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 2) (20 page)

Joanna wrinkled her nose. Construction worker, right. Artisan was more like it, the snob. But why did Clary care about her personal life? It couldn't be that—no. No, he wouldn't be interested in her, would he? If so, he certainly wouldn't be buying gifts for her at her own shop. That Joanna had ever even found him attractive mystified her. He probably didn't know a drill press from a band saw. What's the use of having a boyfriend if you're the one who always has to fix the toilet?

"Yeah, whatever his name is. I didn't see him at the auction."

"He had something to take care of," Apple said. "Here's the scarf. I'm sure she'll love it. Thanks again."

After a minute, Apple opened the bathroom door. "The coast is clear."
 

"Nice work with the scarf. I wonder who it's for?"

Apple put away Clary's credit card receipt. "Maybe Helena. I saw them at the auction. They looked—intimate."

"Ha. That was Vivienne's scarf." The scarf would suit Helena. Clary had good taste. "They can’t be having an affair, though. She’s wild about her husband."
 

"I got the sense there was something between them."

"I don’t believe it," Joanna said.

Apple shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

Joanna pulled Old Blue up the horseshoe-shaped driveway at the side of the convent near the kitchen door. The Toyota's engine shuddered off with a wheeze. Drizzle misted the air, but the garden trellis, choked with clematis, kept Joanna dry as she popped the trunk and began to unload the dresses she had borrowed for the auction.

Curiously, no one came out to help. Light shone from the kitchen, but none of the sisters appeared at the window. Joanna laid the dresses back in the trunk and walked around the side of the house. So that's where everyone was. A ladder leaned against the siding, and standing near its top was Paul, putty knife in hand. Her heart seized. Of course. He'd promised to come back and repair the dry rot this weekend. Clustered at the bottom of the ladder were a handful of Marys watching with various levels of adoration. Mary Alberta, hand on hip, stood at the edge.

Paul glanced down and nodded at Joanna but continued working. Her face burned. She cleared her throat. "Mary Alberta, I brought back Vivienne’s dresses. They're in my trunk. And I was hoping to talk to you about maybe doing some design work for my website."

Mary Alberta, who seemed more interested in the spectacle than in watching Paul sand a window frame, followed Joanna to the car. "Praise the Lord, we just got a check for what we earned from Vivienne’s estate. Mary Frances is doing all the figuring, but we're getting a new roof, a furnace, and maybe even a flat screen TV. Mary Carmen hates to go to the bars to watch her hockey matches."

Joanna's glance stole back to Paul.

"You'd think they'd have something better to do than stand around and gape at someone working. Honestly." Mary Alberta nudged Joanna back to the car. "Although he's your boyfriend and all."

"Uh huh," Joanna said and unlocked the trunk again.
 

"Trouble?"

"Let's not talk about that." She looked at Mary Alberta. "Please."
 

"As you like. I'll help you with those." Mary Alberta slung the dresses over a beefy arm and led the way into kitchen. "Let's put them in Mary Estelle's old room, upstairs."

They mounted the stairs and entered a small bedroom at the front of the convent. Even on the opposite side of the house from where Paul worked Joanna was acutely aware of his presence.
 

Faded wallpaper festooned with roses lined the bedroom’s walls. Two rolling wardrobe racks sat to one side, and a desk with Mary Alberta's laptop filled the niche between the painted chimney of the fireplace and the outside wall.
 

"It's nice to be able to use this room since Mary Estelle died." Mary Alberta hung up the dresses in their wardrobe bags. She paused a moment and looked out the window. "I miss her. But I feel like she's helping me as I work. And I've kept up her subscription to
Vogue
." She pushed open the closet to reveal stacks of fashion magazines, including some from the early 1950s, squashed on the bottom.

Joanna recognized a little of the heartache she herself felt. "You're doing good work. The website you made was brilliant. I’m hoping you’re willing to work on mine. Now that I have Vivienne's dresses, I really need to ramp it up." Yes, and sell at least two of them before the end of the month so she could make her loan payment. "The web designer I hired just didn't get it."
 

Mary Alberta's thoughtful look disappeared. "Come downstairs and let's talk about concept. I'm thinking we could go with a hyper-sophisticated, stark layout similar to Irving Penn's late 1940s, early 1950s fashion work. If you know anyone skinny enough to model for it, that is." She unplugged the laptop and started down the hall. "Alternatively, I see an elegant, slightly Dada interface with visual references to Luis Buñuel."

Luis Buñuel? The TV would be showing more than hockey games, Joanna noted.
 

Downstairs, white streaked the edges of the a few of living room's windowpanes. Mary Alberta, seeing her glance, said, "Paul replaced the bottom pane and fixed some dry rot." She put her hands on her hips. "Did he cheat on you?"

Joanna's jaw dropped. "No, nothing like that."

"I didn't think so. Doesn't seem the type, but you never know."
 

Mary Alberta plugged the laptop in an outlet near the coffee table. Images of Vivienne's dresses sprang to life.
 

"Such lovely dresses," Joanna said. "Did Vivienne know the Mother Superior a long time?"

"A while. I think they went back some years but hadn't seen each other until recently. They ran into each other at the hospital, of all places. Mother doesn't leave the convent much, and usually the doctor'll come here, but that time he wanted her for X-rays."

Joanna shifted to avoid a spring in the sofa that poked at her rump. "When was that?"

"About a year ago, give or take, I'd guess. So, maybe you were cheating on Paul? Looking around a little?"

"Mary Alberta. Absolutely not. I told you I didn't want to talk about it."

"Well, you're asking a lot of questions, and we're supposed to be talking business," she pointed out. Something interrupted Mary Alberta's line of sight. She bolted to her feet. "I'm going upstairs for a minute."

Joanna turned to see what had distracted her. Paul came into the room, almost brushing shoulders with the sister as she hurried down the hall.
 

"How are you? I heard about Poppy. I'm sorry." He kept his distance.

Breath quickening, she stood. "I'm fine." What a stupid thing to say. She was not fine. "I mean—" Her voice broke. "Did you get my phone messages?"

He nodded. "Yes. Sorry I didn't get back to you right away." He glanced out the window. "I needed to take some time to think."

This did not sound good.

 
"I’m too worried about you. You promised me you’d stay out of Poppy’s business, but you didn’t."
 

"But I—" She faltered.
 

He shook his head and looked away from Joanna. "You broke your promise. And look what happened."
 

A lump hardened in Joanna's throat. "I know. But what choice did I have?"

He took a deep breath. "I’m sorry about Poppy. You two were friends. I know how awful you must feel. But there’s nothing more to say. I’m afraid this would be just the beginning for you."

"Look, I made a mistake in not telling you, okay? You can trust me."

He shook his head and looked away. "I care about you. I do. But we need to take a break. Take some time apart and think about things."

The corny old songs were right, the pain really does burn in the heart. In this case the pain seemed to occupy her whole chest cavity. She sank to the couch and leaned back. Of course, "a break" is what he said. Just a break. Maybe he'd realize he missed her and they could work things out. Or—her heart twisted again—he'd be happier without her.

"Do you understand?" he asked.

She pulled her cardigan tighter. "No," she said in a small voice. "But I’m not sure that matters." So that was it. They locked eyes for a moment before he turned away.
 

***

The hall door opened and the Mother's wheelchair ground across the floor. With a push, the Mother heaved her chair over the molding dividing the living room's worn carpet from the wood in the hall. "That Paul is a lovely man. Thank you, Joanna, for bringing him to us. Truly a blessing."

Mary Alberta appeared behind her. She drew a finger across her neck and shook her head. "She doesn't want to talk about it, Mother. They're taking a break. And she's asking a lot of questions. Probably thinks we might have killed the auctioneer who handled Vivienne's things."

The Mother smiled benignly. "Of course she does. Hysterical, probably, from romantic problems."

"It's not like that. You were listening, weren't you?" Joanna shot a glowering look at Mary Alberta.
 

"Child," the Mother said, "I know you told me you wouldn’t follow up on Vivienne’s death—"

"That doesn’t matter anymore," Joanna said, her voice dull. "The person who killed Vivienne might have killed Poppy, too. I’m convinced it wasn’t suicide. I want to find the murderer." She had nothing to lose now.

Without turning her head, the Mother shouted, "Mary Frances, make some tea. The good tea. Enough for two." She rolled her wheelchair further into the room. "Then sit down and put that romantic nonsense out of your head for a minute. We have a lot to talk about."

Joanna obeyed, lowering herself onto the sofa.

"I've been getting a very bad feeling about Vivienne's situation," the Mother Superior said. She cranked her wheelchair a few inches closer. "Our money's been released, and I should be relieved. Something is wrong." She leaned back. "I'm overdue for a report. Talk to me. I need some insight."

Joanna remembered Apple's observation that the Mother "was psychic, too." Apple was pagan, and Joanna'd spent hours hearing her chat about spells or ponder the meaning of a dream. But a nun? It was hard to imagine the Pope being keen on clairvoyance. "What do you mean about a 'very bad feeling'?"

"Your friend, the one named after a fruit. She gets it."

"Apple." Joanna sat, hands in lap, and waited for an explanation. Warm tea would feel good. The waning adrenaline from her talk with Paul added to her exhaustion left her hands cold and shaky.
 

"Maybe you think it's strange I get these feelings. It's not. I'm an old woman, Joanna, and I grew up in New Orleans. We learned to pay attention to these things."

Mary Frances returned with a tray—its silver worn in patches—a teapot, and cups. "I brought out the good teapot since you're using the good tea. I hope that's all right."

"It's quite all right, thank you." Mary Frances's wimple fluttered as she left the room. "Would you pour this for me?" the Mother asked.

Joanna lifted the teapot. Bone china. The tea's amber shadow shone through painted lilies on the teapot's thin wall. The tea was fragrant with vanilla and fruit.

The mother breathed its perfume and the muscles in her face relaxed. "Marco Polo. One of my favorite blends. A former donné sends us a tin every Christmas."

"But what about the church? What does it think about these feelings you get?"

The Mother swatted air with her free hand. "Pshaw. God gives us gifts. Look at the Bible, it's full of visions." She set the cup in its saucer. "My mother, for instance. She could cure just about anything with one of her special herbal mixtures. I, on the other hand, have the gift of knowing things—some things—before they happen. Oh, it's not like I get a full picture of whatever it is," she added hurriedly. "I just get a feeling, a snatch of sound. An image."

"But maybe it's all the subconscious. You notice someone's discomfort or sense a sort of change in the weather, and that's where these psychic flashes come from."

"Maybe." She reached for her cup again. "You have a gift, too, you know."

"Me?" This ought to be good. Joanna was as practical as they came. Her greatest gift was putting together an outfit around a plaid 1940s suit jacket.

"You notice things. You didn't think I saw you watching the tea through the porcelain pot?"

Joanna laughed, a little relieved. "Who doesn't?"

"A lot of people don't. Tell me, what's on the table next to my bed upstairs?"

"What?"

"Tell me."

"All right." Joanna turned her head to the right and let her gaze soften. A picture of the Mother's nightstand assembled itself in her brain. "A green orchid with ruffled petals tinged in carmine red. In a pink cache pot."

"A lot of people would have noticed that, although perhaps not the exact colors. What else?"

"A Spode saucer in the primrose pattern with a chip on one side and what looked like pink macaron crumbs on it; a pale blue folded handkerchief, cotton; a pair of red clear plastic reading glasses. And you're missing one of the two knobs on the drawer." Joanna hesitated. "One more thing."

"Yes?"

"A paperback copy of a Mickey Spillane mystery with what looked like a prayer card stuck in as a bookmark.
My Gun is Quick
," she finished.

The Mother sniffed. "Jesus is always in our minds, but perhaps not always in our reading material. But you see what I mean. You pay attention, daughter. You see things, feel them, smell them. Vivienne had that gift, too." Her voice quieted. "You'd be surprised how rare that is."

"That's not so rare."

The Mother held up a hand, palm out in a "stop" gesture. "It is. But that's not all. You make things come to you."

Joanna had raised her teacup partway to her lips, but she lowered it. It clinked in the saucer. "Make things come to me? I don't understand."

"You think about things, and they come to you. If you want something, you will manifest it."

Joanna remembered Paul and shook her head.