Hostile Makeover (19 page)

Chapter 14

Lacey slipped unobtrusively into Snazzy Jane’s with the crowd. She found the store just as hip and colorful as before, but the atmosphere had changed. The staff was overwhelmed with customers clamoring for a piece of Amanda’s brief celebrity. They wanted anything they could get their hands on from the premiere, and now presumably final, Chrysalis Collection. She overheard a woman of about twenty at the counter with a stack of clothes in her arms and a credit card in her fist, just waiting to be charged. She wore a Levi’s jean jacket over a cream-colored cashmere sweater and slacks. Tiny square black spectacles perched on her tiny nose.

“These are
so
going to be collectible,” she said to the woman next to her. “You heard she died, right?”

“You are, like, totally gruesome,” her friend said. “The woman is dead. How you can think of money?” She looked like a student in sloppy oversize clothes, but she held a delicate Chrysalis dress in her arms.

“Commerce is cruel,” the fashion entrepreneur said, signing the charge slip and examining her sales ticket. “Perfect, it has today’s date, the day Amanda Manville died. Trust me, this stuff will
kill
on eBay.” Many others were also lined up, their arms full of pretty dresses, skirts, and tops from the Chrysalis Collection.
They weren’t buying yesterday, but they’re buying today.

A very plain young customer was crying. “I felt like her friend, you know?” she said to Fawn as she charged a violet dress from Amanda’s collection. “Like she understood how it feels to be plain underneath it all?” Fawn withheld her true opinion of Amanda, murmured something soothing, and rang up the purchase. She folded the item and placed it in a special Chrysalis Collection bag, clear plastic sporting the butterfly logo. An instant collector’s item.

In a mirror positioned above the cash counter, Lacey caught a glimpse of Yvette Powers, looking hard-eyed. Today Yvette was wearing a sapphire-blue dress from the collection with clean princess lines in wool crepe with a faux Persian lamb collar and cuffs. She also wore a pair of stilettos in the same blue. She wore her sleek blond hair in a chignon and looked terribly chic, under the circumstances. Lacey approached Yvette gently. “Yvette, Lacey Smithsonian from
The Eye Street Observer
. We met the other day.”

Yvette turned her glance to Lacey, nodding her acknowledgment. “You were the only reporter who gave Zoe credit for her designs. The other papers only mentioned her in passing and gave Amanda all the glory,” she said with just a trace of bitterness. She collected herself. “That’s a stunning suit. Is it designer?”

“Yes, vintage.”

“They don’t make them like that anymore. Except in couture, because of the labor involved. It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Lacey silently thanked her great-aunt, who had left her the suit. She looked around the crowded store. “This place is a madhouse.”

“They’re all here for the Chrysalis Collection. If this keeps up we’ll be sold out by five,” Yvette said, leading Lacey up the stairs to the second floor. “I suppose all the reporters will descend on us now.”

“I’m sorry,” Lacey started to say, but she realized that Yvette was counting on that; she was calculating the effect of Amanda’s tragedy on sales. The racks held only about a third of the clothes that were there the day Lacey interviewed Amanda.

“Don’t be sorry. I know it’s your job, and Amanda was terrible to you the other day. She was terrible to everyone. I almost lost Fawn, and she’s my most reliable associate. We all thought Amanda had gone around the bend with the stress. But please don’t quote me on that.”

“When she said someone was trying to kill her?” Lacey prompted.

Yvette sighed and rubbed her arm. “I need a cigarette, not this damned patch.” She tapped her heel on the floor. “She’s really gone. Nobody believed that someone was going to kill her. We all thought Amanda was just crying wolf.”

Lacey pulled out her notebook and pen. Yvette did not protest. “How long had she been talking like that?”

“I don’t really know. But certainly since she hit town last week. Brad would know better. He’s had more
contact
with her.” Yvette bit her lip and sucked in her breath, then let it out in a sigh. “I was stuck in D.C. while he was in L.A. last month, working out the business end of things.” She snorted, and looked away. “And apparently a lot more. When he came back, I knew he’d been warming her bed. And she wanted me to know. It was exactly what the bitch wanted. Oh, God, don’t put that in the paper.”

“I don’t understand. Weren’t you all friends?” Lacey put the notebook down before it could inhibit the conversation.

“Friends. Oh, yes.” Yvette laughed bitterly. “We had it out yesterday afternoon. I never realized how much Mandy hated me. Ever since high school. That’s what she said. To me, she was just Zoe’s little sister. I was the one who started calling her ‘Ostrich.’ ” Yvette blinked back a memory. “Mandy looked like one, you know, a sweet, big-eyed ostrich. I didn’t really say it in a mean way. One of those silly things that just pop out. And then it was so funny. Amanda laughed as much as anyone. We were just kids, for heaven’s sake. Lots of kids get tagged with nicknames. We called Zoe ‘Stringbean’ at one time, and I was once known as ‘Kansas,’ as in, ‘flat as Kansas.’ Until I, you know, developed. But the name Ostrich really stuck. So sue me.”

Yvette must have been one of the favored girls who never felt the sting of awkward adolescence, Lacey realized. One of the original alpha girls, a vicious little vixen at thirteen or fourteen who always hit the mark and then protested, “I didn’t mean it like
that
.” Who knew how long Amanda had waited to even the score by sleeping with Yvette’s husband? If Yvette hadn’t found out, it wouldn’t have counted.

Shrugging her shoulders, Yvette added, “Amanda never acted like it bugged her. She was just a nice kid, before.”

Amanda knew that showing pain would just have egged you on.
Lacey’s thoughts must have translated to her face.

“You’re shocked that we were partners?” Yvette continued. “It actually was all Amanda’s idea. Like I said, she never seemed upset about the old days. Life goes on, and suddenly our little Ostrich was this makeover miracle and a famous fashion model. It was like some magic act, changing brass to gold. But it was really the other way around. Amanda was gold before and brass afterward. Although she turned into a solid-gold bitch.”

Lacey refrained from saying that Amanda must have studied Yvette and graduated with honors: mean girl cum laude.

Yvette moved to one of the racks and straightened out the disheveled remains. “You’re not going to write all this, are you?” Lacey said nothing. “We’re not going to stop, you know.”

“Stop what?”

“The Chrysalis line. The clothes are really ninety percent Zoe’s anyway. Her ideas and her designs. Amanda had control—or I should say, demanded control—over some of the details, fabrics, trims, colors, but she took full credit. Oh, we didn’t argue about that. Amanda was the famous one that everyone clamored for. It was her name that raised the financing and sold the line. But Zoe has the talent, and she can still design the line. And we have the rights to Amanda’s name and likeness for marketing.”

“When did you decide all this?” Lacey inquired. She wasn’t shocked, but it seemed a bit cold. Yvette picked up a gold velvet top that had fallen to the floor, her ultrablond hair glinting in the light from the window.

“At the hospital. We were there most of the night with Zoe. But it’s what Amanda would want. You can write that the Chrysalis line will continue in Amanda’s memory. As a tribute,” Yvette added, as if she were testing it out to see how it sounded.

“How is Zoe handling all this?”

“She’s a wreck, but she’ll mend.” Yvette looked straight at her. “I’ve always been her friend, and I’ll be there for her.”

“I’d like to talk with her.”

Yvette looked doubtful. “You’ll mention that the Chrysalis Collection will continue?”

“Of course. It’s news. Fashion news.”

Yvette walked to the counter, picked up a card, and borrowed Lacey’s pen to write on the back. She handed the pen and the card back to Lacey.

“That’s Zoe’s number at home. At their parents’ house, where they stay when they’re in town. She took something to help her sleep, and she’s probably still out. I’ll talk to her first and tell her you’ll be calling later.”

“Thank you.” Lacey tucked the card in her purse.

Yvette looked at her watch. “Don’t call her till after two.”

“No problem.” Lacey was distracted by Brad Powers, who had just emerged from the stockroom with some papers in his hands, which he tucked into his inside suit pocket. He came up behind his wife and laid his arm around her shoulder. Yvette didn’t react; she merely stared at the depleted racks of clothing. “They can have a shipment here by tomorrow,” he said.

She nodded silently and removed his arm. “Is that all you need?” she said to Lacey.

“For now, thanks. Please tell Zoe I’ll call this afternoon.”

Yvette walked off without looking at her husband, who tried to disguise his discomfort. “Is there anything I can do for you?” He put his hand on Lacey’s arm.
A hands-on kind of guy.
She shrugged his hand off as delicately as she could, refraining from slapping him and telling him to back off. Powers looked a little irritated. She quickly shifted gears.

“The shipment coming tomorrow, is that more Chrysalis clothing?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s the last I can get my hands on, for now.” There were shadows under his eyes; his chin and his head were both stubbled. Obviously time for a shave. “The California boutiques and department stores have locked down their supplies for their own premieres next week.”

“What about the line for next season?”

“At the factory now. Contracts are filled for the spring. After the debut, the girls planned a sort of limited-edition collection for the holidays. That was what the photo shoot was for last night. Ads for the holiday collection.” He mused on something, perhaps wondering if he could increase orders now that people were clamoring for the clothes. “Zoe’s working on sketches for next fall.”

“Zoe really is the design machine behind Chrysalis?”

“Well, Amanda had her role. A major role with the media and the image and all. But Zoe is the woman with the original ideas.”

“How did the opening reception go?”

“Positive. Very positive. But with Amanda gone now, who knows?”

“Were you in love with her?”
Is that out of line?

He looked at Lacey sharply. “Love? What I did with Amanda was so stupid and . . . and I’m not going to talk about it.”

“All right. Next question. Where were you when Amanda was shot?”

He didn’t seem to think it was an odd question, perhaps because the answer had been polished by police questioning. “It’s been tense lately. We were having drinks at Childe Harolds, the three of us, Yvette and Zoe and I. Amanda hated having us all milling around before a shoot anyway; it made her . . . um . . . too nervous. We were just going to wander over to see the shoot later, after a glass of wine. Someone ran into the restaurant and started shouting to the bartender about a shooting in the Circle. Zoe ran out, followed by Yvette. I had to stay for a minute to pay the bill. By the time I got out there, the police and ambulance and paramedics were all over her. I couldn’t get past them.”

“I see.” Lacey said, writing it down, realizing that she might never know the actual truth. Brad Powers excused himself before she could ask another question.
Everybody lies.
But then, she reflected, a journalist was obligated only to attribute the right statements to the right speakers, whether they were lying their heads off or not.
You simply have to make sure the lie is correctly quoted.

From her vantage point on the second floor, Lacey saw Powers greet a camera crew heading into the store, no doubt wanting a pithy news bite, so vital now that supermodel Amanda Manville was dead.
It doesn’t take long for the vultures to gather,
Lacey thought, knowing that she too was guilty of seeking the story first, wanting a scoop, and knowing that her take on the matter would be unique. The eyewitness account. She slipped out of the store quickly, feeling like a vulture, but a vulture with a scoop.

The crowd in the store was getting thicker, but today there was no security for crowd control. She wondered where Turtledove and the other bodyguards were.
Out of a job?
She passed by a group of about ten young women holding a sort of vigil at the door, Amanda fans comforting each other.

On her way back to
The Eye
, Lacey asked herself what Amanda would really want. She didn’t want to die, but would she care that her clothing line would survive? Or would she want it to end with her? Lacey wondered. Amanda couldn’t speak for herself now, but the survival of the Chrysalis Collection was a good story. And a good spin on Amanda’s death, for those who would still profit from her name.

Chapter 15

The cab dropped her off on Eye Street across from her office, and Lacey longed to linger in stately Farragut Square. It was one of those brilliant jewel-like fall days that make the city of Washington a picture postcard. The square was wrapped in deep green foliage, accented here and there with a few scattered gold and orange leaves previewing the fall. Crimson flowers greeted the day. Autumn tarries in Washington, but there was no rest for this reporter. Waiting at the front door of
The Eye
was Detective Broadway Lamont. She sighed and trudged across Eye Street to meet him.

He seemed out of place there, and it took her a moment to gather her manners before she said, “Detective Lamont. How nice to see you.” She had hoped she’d left him behind at the Violent Crimes Branch.

“Smithsonian,” Broadway said by way of hello. “I’ve been reading all about you.” He displayed some old copies of
The Eye Street Observer
. “Courtesy of your boss.”