Skirting the Grave (18 page)

“Now!” he wrote, a piece of pencil lead flying. He tossed the notebook and missed my trash can on his way out to the Hummer.

“You can’t leave,” I called. “You’re Isobel’s bodyguard.”

He came back, grabbed Isobel’s hand, and dragged her to his truck.

“Guess I’ll be back,” Isobel called on a chuckle, grinning as he practically pushed her into the passenger side. She stuck her head out the widow as he pulled out of my lot. “He really cares for you,” she yelled, and Nick burned rubber.

Thirty-two

Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.

—SYDNEY J. HARRIS

“Eve,” I said, a half hour later. “You look gorgeous; your style is emerging as gothic with a steampunk edge. I love designing for you.”

She posed in her fifties booties and the clockwork pinstriped jumpsuit, rust and black, that I made her. “Your idea for black cameos as part of the copper buttons was brilliant,” she said.

“You have so embraced this style; I could do nothing less than give you the benefit of my design expertise. The purple hair with the rust lock up front is a good touch.”

“Thanks. Kyle likes my style, too.”

“Where is he?”

“He made a quick business trip back to New York for the day, so I came to play with you.”

I whimpered. “I so don’t have time to play with only a day and a half to Brandy’s fund-raiser.”

Eve pouted. “You played with Werner last night.”

“You saw the paper, I take it?”

“That and I heard Tunney’s story about how cozy you looked.”

Good thing she hadn’t talked to Stevens.

“We did get cozy. We danced to fifties tunes.”

Eve about fell off her high-heeled boots. She grabbed the counter and sat on the stool behind it. “Hope is giving me heart palpitations. You’re attracted to Werner.”

“But I miss Nick.”

Eve snorted. “Does Werner know how committed you are to him?”

“Very funny. I’ve tried to be honest. Which hasn’t kept him from wanting more, and that worries me.”

“Tell me more.”

“Can’t. Gotta do alterations, and my intern stepped out with Nick. Work the counter for me, like a good goth, so I can go upstairs and fix fifties outfits for Saturday.”

“Since it’s Thursday, I get your drift. Go, hurry.” She shooed me away like a pesky fly. I hadn’t been upstairs in my sewing corner for more than two outfits when Werner came up the stairs. Sure, I liked seeing him, because I wanted to hear the latest on the case. “Do you have anything juicy to tell me? Have you caught Rickard yet? I’m betting he’s our killer.”

Werner looked good in a trench coat, and he played the handsome, silent type to perfection.

“I shouldn’t let you distract me,” I said getting up to meet him in the center of my mostly empty second floor, except for the caskets and horse-drawn hearses, remnants of my building’s first life as the Underhill Funeral Chapel carriage house. When I got to Werner, he reached for my face with both hands, tilted it, and fit his lips to mine.

My legs turned to jelly, but he held me up, close and tight.

When we came up for air, he didn’t let me go. “I needed that,” he said, smoothing my lips with a finger. “I needed you.”

Oh Lordy, after a kiss like that, what did I remember but Nick’s kisses? This had to stop, I was driving two good men to distraction, and it wasn’t fair.

“We did get Rickard,” he said, “but not the way you mean.”

“I don’t get it, but then I’m having trouble understanding myself right now.”

Werner winked, misunderstanding me, and maybe that was best for the moment. “We found the hearse,” he said, “that picked up Payton’s body abandoned behind a small crematorium in Rhode Island. Rickard was inside. He’s dead. He has a single needle mark that matches Payton’s.”

I stepped back. “Our best suspect is dead? I suppose he can’t have killed Payton, then. Does that make Giselle our killer? What’s her motive?”

He shrugged. “She seems to have greed down to a science with all those homes, yet she could be dead, somewhere, too. And you haven’t heard the worst of it.”

“What could be worse than losing our prime suspect?”

“Payton was cremated with a set of forged papers as good as the ones they used to pick her up.”

“I need to sit,” I said, a bit sick to my stomach.

He walked me over to my sewing area, and we both took a chair. “Why cremate the body?

We knew it was murder.”

“But we don’t know who murdered her or what was in that syringe, which is why she was going to a more comprehensive forensics lab,” Werner said. “We only suspected Rickard; now he’s dead, too. And what do you think Quincy York is going to say to his niece being cremated without permission from her next of kin? News at eleven?”

“So we’ll never know?” I asked.

“Square one, Mad. We have to start from square one.”

“You must have some evidence from the autopsy?”

He unbuttoned his coat and threw it over my workbench. “I do, actually, but I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s a rare blood type.”

“Rewind, please?”

“When I finished with the financials, I looked over our suspects’ and our victim’s medical records. The twins and Payton shared the same rare blood type.”

“No surprise. Mothers were twins, fathers are brothers.”

“Only two other suspects have the same blood type.”

“The candidate and the embezzler?” I guessed. “The girls’ fathers? Nah, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

“ ’Fraid you’re right. Grand-mère has their blood type . . . and so does Ruben Rickard.”

“Hel-lo. Did you ask the old lady how he’s related?”

“Sure I did. She’s here in Mystic, by the way. She’s staying over at the Pearl Seahorse with her son and his entourage. She says Ruben Rickard isn’t related.”

As a carhop call girl, she’d been carrying a baby and had chosen Slick, the wealthy, as its father. How would a kid feel if he’d been sold, even for big bucks? But I was reaching, drawing my own conclusions. “So,” I said, “are you going to research Rickard’s adoption?”

“You pull that out of the air?”

“Logical conclusion. So how rare is their blood? Do Rickard’s parents have the same type?

And are they his natural parents?”

“Evidently, half the people on Kingston’s Vineyard have that blood type.”

“Right, old Kingston’s thirty-two children settled there. Sounds like a good place to start looking into Rickard’s family tree.”

“You astound me,” Werner said. “You get right to the root of the problem. Zip, no forethought.”

If only he knew. “I spent my life getting into trouble for speaking without thinking. My father hates it. Now, you commend me for it. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”

“I sure hope it’s more than that.”

Oh, bad timing to answer that, even if I was sure of the answer, which I wasn’t.

“Have you told Quincy York yet that his niece has been cremated without her father’s permission?”

“I stopped here first for moral support, and maybe a kiss? Quincy’s gonna call another press conference, and I’ll rightly be raked over the coals for losing his niece’s body and letting her get cremated.”

“It’s called a crime, which you didn’t commit. Werner, skip the candidate. Go see his brother, Patrick. Tell him what happened to his daughter. See if he’ll sign off or give permission after the fact. He seems like a man who would empathize with the need for forgiveness.”

“You’re right. Patrick needs to know, not Quincy.”

“Right,” I said. “The candidate should look to his own family. He loses track of them, then he’s surprised bad things happen.”

“Bad things?”

“Like his wife’s plane crash. That was horrific. I wonder if Rickard had anything to do with that.”

Werner froze. “Are you a conspiracy theorist?”

“Not especially, but when you talk to Grand-mère, try asking her what happened to her husband.”

“Because?”

“Nobody talks about him. Ever. Like he never existed.”

“Mad, you’re making me crazy with theories that don’t have anything to do with Payton’s murder.”

In for a penny. “Did you investigate Madame Robear? It still bothers me that the owner of a modeling agency initially identified Payton as Isobel. It’s just so odd that she would get the identification wrong.” Because even though Isobel modeled for her, I think Giselle worked for her as a call girl.

“I tried to contact Robear,” Werner said. “She’s put her modeling agency in the hands of an assistant and skipped the country. She left no forwarding address.”

“I worked with her models in New York, you know? She might once have mentioned an Anatole Sevigny from France.” She might, though she hadn’t. “She could be at his place as we speak, Château Sevigny. Call him; ask him about Madame Celine Robear.”

“You’re sure honing your sleuthing skills, Mad. Are you bucking for my job?”

“Nope, I’m bucking to clear Isobel’s name and put her family in jail, if they’re guilty, which I think they are. As sin.”

“I think you’re right,” Nick said, stepping into the light, his hand on his sore jaw.

“How does it feel?” I asked.

“It hurts, but I’m glad I can talk again. Isobel said I’m supposed to be your bodyguard now, too?”

Werner cleared his throat. “Give her up, already.”

“It’ll never happen,” Nick said as he went downstairs.

Thirty-three

A designer can mull over complicated designs for months. Then suddenly the simple, elegant, beautiful solution occurs to him. When it happens to you, it feels as if God is talking! And maybe He is.

—LEO FRANKOWSKI

Go home, Detective, Nick said a half hour later, checking his watch as we all admired Isobel’s skill while she did her first public solo fitting.

She was a fashion professional. She knew the primo designers by pecking order, she aced style, knew the lingo, fashion gossip, and how to do a difficult fitting while complimenting a customer with both the outfit and the right words.

I looked forward to seeing her altering skills, but I was already certain she was the right York for me, the model who went to fashion school.

Brandy had actually found me a great intern, albeit with a wacked-out family. What I saw was what I got: Isobel York in the flesh, too blatantly honest—annoyingly so, sometimes—to be her own twin. Much too spontaneously indiscreet to be a call girl. And she couldn’t be submissive if her life depended on it.

Meanwhile, Nick had been doing some disgruntled pacing since Werner told him to let me go. “Detective, isn’t it time you went back to the station?” Nick suggested. Eve chuckled at seeing Nick thwarted. “Jaconetti,” Eve said. “I always said you took Mad for granted. Seven years she lived in New York, and you visited like three times.”

Nick ran a hand through his hair. “I was on assignment.”

“Interminably? You knew she’d be there waiting, whenever. Now maybe she won’t be.”

I turned to Nick. “I’m doing some private sleuthing on Payton’s case. No need to worry about me.”

Nick scoffed. “You mean the detective doesn’t mind, for the first time ever, that you’re sleuthing? That doesn’t tip you off to his intentions?”

“We’re collaborating.”

Werner gave Nick a cocky grin. “Yes, we are.”

“According to Mystick Falls gossip,” Eve said, examining her copper fingernails, “Werner’s attentions tip Mad off to his intentions.”

“Eve!” I snapped.

Dante, my ghost, who loved gatherings this size, chuckled and winked.

“Sorry, Mad, but it’s out,” Eve said. “You two have been seen all over town, sometimes standing a bit close, sometimes with a bit of lip action. Tunney or the Sweets could give you a list of times, locations, and the corresponding body moves.”

Isobel walked her interested customer to the door while I thanked the stars that my phone rang. I answered and let Nick cool off a bit.

“Good news,” I said, hanging up. “The MacKenzie Carousel is being set up at Cort’s now. Rory and Vickie MacKenzie are there. They’re not charging her for this stop on their tour, and they’ve made a big donation to the Nurture Kids Foundation.”

“That’s wonderful,” Isobel said, returning from seeing her customer out. “Are we going to be able to close Vintage Magic to attend?”

“It’s my sister Brandy’s event. We sure are.” I looked around the shop to make sure my pregnant sister didn’t walk in. “We’re also closing on Sunday for my sister Sherry’s baby shower.”

Isobel clapped her hands. “What’s the itinerary for Saturday?”

There’s a garden party–style vintage car show in the afternoon, with models wearing fifties designer clothes to show off the cars. That’s when you can ride the carousel Rory’s ancestor carved that Rory maintains.”

“I can’t wait,” Isobel said. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything. What does it cost to get in? I mean there has to be a charge if it’s a fund-raiser.”

“It’s five hundred dollars a ticket,” I said, “but I’ll need you there. You’re hired for the day, so no cost to you.”

“Grand-mère probably won’t like that. Bet she’ll pay for my ticket. She’s a pushover for anything that supports kids without parents.”

I’ll bet. “I’d like to meet Grand-mère.”

“Maybe my whole family can come? The Yorks are rich enough, and maybe it’ll get Daddy’s attention away from the campaign for a bit. He might actually see me.”

“I hope your dad looks good in a tux, because in the evening there’s a bachelor auction, and he’s agreed to be auctioned off.” I knew he’d do anything for publicity, which is why I wasn’t afraid to ask. “I’ll bet your father will bring a pretty penny. Nick and Werner here will be up for bid, too.”

They groaned, suddenly on equal ground.

“Who are you gonna bid on, Mad?” Isobel asked, looking at Nick and Werner as if she’d take the one I didn’t want.

“I don’t plan to bid, thanks. Right now, I’m off to the Vancortland estate. Coming, Eve?

Isobel, can you and Nick lock up?”

Isobel slipped her arm through Nick’s. “Will do, boss.”

“Werner, guess it’s back to the station for you.” Nick sounded hopeful.

“Werner might want to come with us and talk to Brandy,” I suggested. “She got mugged that fateful day, which is what kept her from meeting Isobel on the train. Brandy might have been able to tell that Isobel wasn’t herself—she was Payton. And, Werner, Brandy might have seen her own mugger.”