Some Like It Haute: A Humorous Fashion Mystery (Style & Error Book 4) (23 page)

“We Kidds are an independent lot. We’re like gypsies.”

“I don’t know many gypsies who move back to the town where they grew up in order to ground themselves.”

Darn that Detective Loncar, he had a point. “When my parents told me they were moving to California and selling the house, I realized that this was the last place I’d lived where I felt like I belonged to something. Now they’re living their life and I’m trying to live mine.”

“If you got into trouble—real trouble—would you turn to them for help?”

“I like to think if I needed them, they’d be there for me.”

“Five years ago my daughter was engaged and had a good job. Now she’s pregnant and alone. She won’t talk about who the father is. She won’t talk about why she broke things off. She’s back in touch with her ex, but I’m pretty sure he’s not the guy. Besides, he’s moved on. She acts like my wife and I are going to punish her for making bad decisions.”

“Are you?”

“She’s our daughter. We want her to be happy.” He stared out the window for a few seconds. “So you like to figure things out. What do you have for me?”

Back to business. “That fire in the trash can in front of my house. I think it was set by Clive Barrington.”

“Is that an accusation or a fact?”

“Back up for a second,” I said, considering the scientific approach of my dad. I pulled the envelope of ash out from my handbag and set it on Loncar’s desk. “Inside that envelope is a sample of hair that I found in the bottom of the trash bin from my driveway. I analyzed it and determined that it’s been dyed blond. That is a fact. Clive Barrington has highlights, which would look the same as dark hair that’s been lightened. That is also a fact. So I came to the conclusion that Clive may have been the person to set the fire.”

Loncar took the envelope. “That is a good piece of deduction, Ms. Kidd. There’s only one problem with your theory.”

“What’s that?”

“Clive Barrington is in Tahiti.”

“When did he leave Ribbon?”

“Yesterday. He’s on a photo shoot. He checked in with us before he left because he knew he was part of an open investigation.”

How very considerate of him.

“What if he checked in with you to make sure you knew he had an alibi, and then he arranged for more fires while he was gone? Wouldn’t that throw you off his scent?”

“Would that be the scent of burnt toast?” he asked.

“Burnt crumpets is more like it,” I said, even though I don’t think he really expected an answer.

“Ms. Kidd, I appreciate that you brought this information to me, but answer this. How would Mr. Barrington’s hair have gotten into the trash can if he wasn’t at the scene?”

“Maybe it was his trash can.”

Loncar leaned back. For the first time since we’d met, the buttons on his shirt did not strain over his belly.

“So let me understand,” I said. “You’re not even considering Clive as a suspect in your investigation?”

“Ms. Kidd, do I need to remind you that there has been no body? There have been no reported deaths. My only role in this is to help Inspector Gigger find an arsonist before somebody dies. We’ve had four fires so far and nobody’s been injured. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Nobody’s been injured except me.”

“You weren’t injured in a fire.”

“So the attack on me is being considered separate from the arsons? Even though everything is Amanda-centric?”

“Unless you can provide additional information about that attack, I’m afraid we don’t have any leads to work with.”

A red button lit on Loncar’s phone. He held his hand in a “hold on a minute” gesture and answered. He told the person on the other end that he was finishing up now. He hung up and caught me trying to read the incoming call number upside down.

“Ms. Kidd, this job isn’t all hotlines and anonymous tips. Sometimes a phone call is just a phone call.”

“So that wasn’t related to our case?”

He crossed his arms again. “You got anything else for me?”

“Nope.”

He stood and I followed suit. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’ll share your findings with Ichabod.” He cracked a smile.

Loncar followed me out of his office. I stopped at the exit doors. “You never did tell me what you found out about Santangelo Toma,” I said.

“Goodbye, Ms. Kidd.”

I drove to Warehouse Five. Detective Loncar might have thought he was doing me a favor by ignoring my question, but as far as favors went, that favor was up there with gifting me a bag of brussel sprouts for my birthday.

I parked by the front lobby doors of the warehouse and went inside. If I’d expected someone to stop me, they didn’t. There was nobody at the information desk, and most of the doors to the studios were shut. I wandered down the hallway and tried a few of the knobs. They were locked.

When I returned to the lobby, I spotted a man on a ladder. He was taking measurements from the ceiling down. He called them down to another man who stood by the window. The man on the floor wore white gloves. Sketches and paintings of a woman’s figure were propped along the base of the room. Something about the sketches felt familiar. I stepped closer. The man on the ladder twisted around and yelled at me.

“Hey, you! You’re not supposed to be in here,” he said. “The building’s closed for an installation.”

I ignored his warning and stepped closer to the nearest painting. The image was of the back of a naked woman. Her hands were behind her, over her backside. The most striking thing about her was her silver hair.

“Who did these paintings and sketches?” I asked the man.

“One of the residents. We rotate the front gallery each month so everybody gets equal exposure.”

“But there was a fashion show here last week and this whole front gallery was empty except for a couple of mannequins.”

“Yeah, funny how things work out. This guy raised the biggest stink about that show and now he gets the front lobby the month before the holidays.”

“These are by Santangelo Toma, aren’t they?” I asked. The man nodded. “Do you know where I can find him?”

“Sure. He’s in his studio. Third door down on the right.”

I thanked him and followed his directions. Like the rest of the hallway, the door to Santangelo’s studio was closed. I tapped a few times and then tried the knob. It opened easily. Inside I found the artist sitting on a stool, staring at a half finished canvas.

Smudges of charcoal were on his fingers and cheek. His clothes looked rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. Red suspenders were clipped to his loose-fitting trousers, over a stained waffle-weave long john top. His pork pie hat rested on the floor on top of a pair of shoes. His feet were bare.

Despite the cold temperature outside, the studio was warm. A small space heater was plugged into an outlet in the corner. A low table next to it held brushes and paints, a glass of cloudy water, and an assortment of oil pencils.

“Santangelo,” I said, making my presence known.

He was startled. He crossed the room and pulled a tarp over the painting, but it was too late. I already knew who it was, and I knew what he’d done.

“That’s Harper, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t make her do it. What’s it to you?”

“You wanted the fashion people to be kicked out of the warehouse. You started a petition to get rid of Amanda. Explain to me how Harper being your model factored into that equation? If you got your wish and Amanda was evicted, you wouldn’t have had access to Harper.”

“She didn’t want to be a part of that life anymore. She told me. I’m the only one who knew she was going to leave town.”

“She told you she was going to Mexico?”

“She said she was going away. She felt bad because my paintings weren’t finished. It was her idea for me to use the mannequins.”

Instinctively, I turned and faced the part of the building where the installation was taking place. The woman’s figure in the silver wig. That’s why the silver wig was in the trash can the night Dante and I had come back. The image in the painting wasn’t Harper; it was a mannequin.

I turned back and stepped closer to Santangelo. I put one hand out on his forearm. “The night of the fire, you took one of the mannequins, didn’t you? From the lobby. You brought it in here.”

“Amanda Ries’ show made it so I couldn’t concentrate. The only good thing that came out of it was meeting Harper. She said she liked the way I painted her. Real. Not like the fashion magazines. Not all airbrushed and Photoshopped. She said when it was all over, that’s how she wanted to be remembered. But then everything got crazy and she left.”

“What do you mean, everything got crazy?”

“That photographer went after her. He wouldn’t leave her alone. On her all the time, saying her career would be over if she didn’t sleep with him. She couldn’t take the pressure.”

The Harper I knew was just a young sixteen year old girl on the edge of cracking. I’d seen it in her eyes. The demands of her job, the ill-fitting garments, the way she’d been treated more like an object than a person. She’d been too young to know how to deal with the demands of the industry and she’d fled.

“Why did you try to burn the mannequin?” I asked.

He looked up at me. Whatever he’d hoped to gain by going up against Amanda and Tiny had left him with little energy and even less spirit.

“After the fire, I knew somebody would find it in my studio and link me to the arson. I didn’t need a lot of time, just a couple of days so I could finish my painting. But the investigators were poking around and I couldn’t concentrate. And I thought if somebody saw that mannequin, they’d think I was responsible. It was bad enough that I was so outspoken with my complaints and started that petition that nobody wanted to sign. I might as well have put a neon sign over my head that said ‘I’m a suspect.’”

“Detective Loncar is surprisingly understanding when it comes to stuff like that,” I said.

Santangelo looked up at me. “You saw me. The night I set fire to the mannequin in the Dumpster. I would have put it out but you saw me. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t risk my reputation, my show, my paintings. Not now.”

I felt like I’d slipped into a world where people were commodities and creative pursuits were paramount. Somewhere along the way the humanity of life had been traded for fame and fortune, for false niceties that hid felonious rationalization. In all of my years in fashion, I’d never encountered people like this, who saw destruction and vandalism as justifiable when it came to protecting their craft.

I backed away from Santangelo. His words said that he was sorry for what he’d done, but his actions told me that he’d do it all again if it meant protecting himself. If anybody was a victim in all of this, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Harper. It wasn’t me. It was Amanda.

I fled Warehouse Five for home. Santangelo had given me more information than I could process on an empty stomach. After finishing the Neapolitan ice cream directly from the carton, I slowed down. Sure, the artist in residency had screwy motivation, but he’d done little more than try to protect himself. The person who had been out for himself all along was Clive.

I spun the empty carton of ice cream until I found Clive’s number. He answered after several rings. I hadn’t calculated the time change, but Tahiti was on the other side of California, so it was earlier than here, and I wouldn’t have minded waking the British bum up.

“’Allo, darling. How are you? Enjoying a bit of a rest now that you’ve some time on your hands?”

“You might have fooled everybody else, but you haven’t fooled me. I know about your history with the minor. Your career was almost destroyed. What did you offer to Amanda to get her to hire you?”

Amanda gave man opportunity to redeem myself and I gave her legitimacy. My documentary would have done for her what Unzipped did for Isaac Mizrahi. She would have been more than a designer. She would have been a star.”

“But you risked it all by making a play for Harper.”

“I’d like to see you prove that bit of rubbish. Amanda and I had an arrangement. A couple of hours in the editing booth, and I’m certain to have a magnificent narrative of what happened.”

“But there wasn’t any show, and Amanda can’t want your photos now.”

“I have no loyalty to Amanda. I’ve spoken to editors at the major magazines and there’s extreme interest in what I shot. Six different galleries are bidding on the opportunity to showcase the images and the tabloids are talking six figures per image. Why shouldn’t I take advantage of the situation? Exclusive footage of fashion in flames. Much better than what I might have gotten if the show went off without a hitch. You might say I got lucky.”

“If the fire inspector can link you to the arson, I wouldn’t call it lucky.”

“Ms. Kidd, a photographer needs to know how to chase the light. That’s what I did. Chased the light.”

“And if someone had gotten injured in the process of you chasing it?”

“Then I’d have sold my film to the highest bidder and walked away. But alas, that wasn’t to be the day I struck gold.”

Again I thought of the strand of dyed blond hair. “Is your hair color natural?”

“I hardly think that’s relevant,” he said.

“The police can link a person with dyed blond hair to the fire,” I said boldly. I didn’t say
which
fire.

“A little Sun-In can hardly be called dyed. Now if you’re done with your interrogation, Ms. Kidd, I have sixteen swimsuit models waiting for me on a white sand beach. You do know that I’m in Tahiti, don’t you? Where I’ve been for twenty-four hours. I’ve spoken to Inspector Gigger and Detective Loncar. If they were content to let me do my job, I suppose you should be too.”

I made a fist and punched the cushion on the back of the sofa. “Thank you for your time,” I said with as much cordiality as I could muster.

“Cheerio, lass,” he said in return, and hung up.

Clive stood to make a lot of money from those photos, and if he’d been pressuring Harper for sexual favors, then he surely had no moral compass and clearly would destroy Amanda in the process of getting rich. If he was telling the truth about being able to sell the photos now that he’d been terminated, then my suggestion that Amanda replace him with Dante had created a situation for her. It had made things worse. Amanda Ries might have fabricated some of her troubles, but as far as I was concerned, they were far from over.