Some Like It Haute: A Humorous Fashion Mystery (Style & Error Book 4) (8 page)

“New partner?” I asked.

“Ms. Kidd, my superiors think last night’s fire was an accident. I don’t want to encourage you, but I don’t agree with them.”

“How would that encourage me?”

“I have no authority here. Inspector Gigger is an arson investigator for the Pennsylvania Arsonists Association. He’s using my office and my resources. He has full cooperation from the department. As far as my captain is concerned, there is no ongoing criminal investigation from our office.”

“There was a fire here last night, and Amanda told me about the threats to her company.”

“What threats?”

“Letters that somebody’s been sending her. She said she told the police about them.”

“First I’ve heard of them.”

“Amanda showed them to me. I don’t know if it’s related, but two nights ago I was attacked backstage at her rehearsal. Then there was the fire. I think the two things are connected. Even if she hadn’t confided in me I’d be looking for answers.”

“She confided in you? Why would she do that?”

“I don’t think she trusts anybody else. No offense.”

A few beats of silence passed between us. I hadn’t planned on making it sound like Loncar couldn’t do his job. Truth was, I knew he could, but now hardly seemed the time to offer an apology. Perhaps a nice manly arrangement of flowers delivered to the precinct tomorrow would be better.

“I can advise you to mind your own business, but since there’s no investigation, I can’t do much about it if you don’t.”

“You always tell me to mind my own business. You tell me to steer clear of your investigation for my own good. This time, I’ve already been attacked and hospitalized before there even
was
an investigation.”

He wiped his arm across his brow. “Officially, I have nothing to say. Unofficially? You’re in dangerous territory, and there’s pretty much nothing I can do about it.”

10

“You just said you had no authority here, but I bet you want to know what happened, right?” I said. “I was here. I’ve been here all along. Whoever attacked me told me to stay out of it. That means somebody thinks I know something about something. And I bet that something has to do with whatever happened here. I bet I could help you. Ask me something. Go ahead, ask.”

He glared at me. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’ve got a knack for this stuff. And after that article on you in the paper, my boss won’t get near you with a ten foot pole. He says you’re making us look bad. Just do me a favor? If you figure anything out, keep me in the loop.”

I’d experienced a certain amount of notoriety since moving back to Ribbon, and what at first seemed like a case of bad timing had turned into a mild celebrity status. Carl Collins, reporter for the
Ribbon Times
, had done a small profile on me after I’d saved the local museum considerable embarrassment over an exhibit of hats on loan from a Hollywood actress. When I wasn’t working for Amanda, I acted as personal shopper and stylist to Ribbon’s fashion challenged. It covered my immediate budgetary needs and allowed me to splurge on the occasional heavily discounted off-season garment at the Ribbon Outlet Center. Even Logan had traded up in his quality of life, his kitty bed lined in cast off cashmere sweaters beyond repair.

“No problem.” I looked behind me at where Clive’s car had been. My announcement that he’d been replaced had started a ticking clock and I needed to talk to Amanda and Dante. “Detective, I really have to go,” I said. I waited another second to see if he had any last words of warning for me, and hopped back and forth from foot to foot so he’d think the situation was urgent.

“Be careful, Ms. Kidd,” he said.

I drove half a mile down the street, pulled the car over to the shoulder, and called Amanda. After four rings, her machine picked up. I hesitated before talking. What if Nick was still there? What if Tiny heard the message? I hung up and redialed. This time she answered.

“Amanda Ries Studio,” she said.

“This is Samantha. Can you talk?”

“What is this in reference to?” Her tone was curt.

I guessed from her answer that she was not alone. “I found Clive Barrington lurking around Warehouse Five. There were cops, too. One I know. The other was an arson investigator. I sort of made it sound like you had replaced Clive with another photographer.”

“Please hold,” she said. I was treated to a soft jazz version of a Billy Idol song, which was almost as offensive as her rudeness. She picked back up before the song ended. “I’m back. I’m sorry about that back there, but Nick was here and I told him it was Tiny on the phone.”

“Where is he now?”

“He just left. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay.” I told Amanda about Clive’s presence at Warehouse Five, but left out the part about Detective Loncar having no authority at the crime scene. Loncar felt like an unlikely ally, but in a way, I felt a loyalty to him. Weird. “Clive said you granted him unlimited access. Is that true?”

“Yes. When we started the whole thing. Tiny set it up. She said, depending on what kind of pictures he took, we could use them for publicity. She had to get him access to the warehouse for when we weren’t there, too, because he said there would be times when he wanted the quiet before the storm, you know, when none of us were there. There’s not much he hasn’t seen.”

“So Clive could have gotten into the warehouse and rigged the platform before your show?”

“Why would he do that?”

“I’m not asking why yet. I’m just asking if he could.”

“Sure he could. But so could a lot of people. Your friend Eddie had access too. Tradava loaned me the mannequins that sat in the lobby. And the food service people came in early, and there are other artists that show their work in Warehouse Five, so they could have gotten in—”

“I only want to know about Clive right now. Has he given you any footage so far? Any preliminary photos to approve?”

“He gave Tiny some preliminary backstage shots to use early on. She handled everything that didn’t involve the actual collection so I wouldn’t have to be bogged down in details. She has his contract.”

“Can you get it to me?”

“Sure. Is that all?”

“No. Dante Lestes is going to be your new photographer.” I chewed my lower lip and debated whether or not to tell Amanda the truth about Dante. “He’s a legitimate photographer, and you can trust him.” I made arrangements to come by her office tomorrow morning and ended the call. Phase one, complete.

I started up the Stingray and headed back to my house. The smell of my clothes was making me ill. Or maybe it was something else. Since the breakup with Nick, I’d been keeping myself busy, trying not to think about how things had gone wrong. But trading one relationship for another didn’t feel right either. I hadn’t mourned the breakup, and a part of me wondered if a meltdown was lingering under the surface.

Six weeks ago, things had been going well. Nick and I had moved into steady-date-Saturday-Night territory, and I’d stupidly traded on our relationship and asked him to put me on his payroll.

Nick was a high end shoe designer. He had started his career working for a few top designers and eventually landed a position as creative director for a French couture house which was expanding from apparel into the accessories market. After he’d built up a name for himself, he literally sold off that name to a couple of financiers and launched Nick Taylor Designs. He’d received professional recognition and cemented his fan base, but felt he’d lost some of his creative control.

Nick had been one of the designers in my vendor matrix when worked for Bentley’s New York. There’d been chemistry from the first time we met in front of his showroom but our positions in the industry kept us on our respective sides of the don’t-cross line. It wasn’t until after I left Bentley’s and moved to Ribbon that we reconnected. He had bought back distribution in his company and invested every dime he had into a relaunch of his brand. I’d given up my lucrative career at Bentley’s to become the trend specialist at Tradava. By all measures, we were both experiencing new beginnings, and the timing for a relationship finally seemed right.

And then we’d found the body of the man who had hired me and I spent some time wondering if Nick was capable of murder. Turns out that’s a biggie when it comes to determining if a relationship is on the horizon.

After that was cleared up—and after the six months he spent in Italy—I was ready to address my affections. Things were fine until I traded on our relationship for a job. Ultimately we broke up.

And then he told me he’d given my name to Amanda to help out with her runway show.

And now, forty-four days later, I was dealing with the aftermath.

Amanda Ries was everything I wasn’t: beautiful, successful, and, apparently, an upstanding law-abiding citizen who didn’t question authority. She and Nick had gone to design school together. I still didn’t quite believe him when he said they never had a romantic relationship. She was Barbie doll pretty, with sleek black hair that fell to her waist and proportions that didn’t come from pizza and meatball sandwiches. I couldn’t compete with someone like that. And because I wanted to show that I was a class act, despite every instinct that I had, I took the job.

The ironic thing was that I had to turn away business in order to fulfill my commitment. But that’s not what this was all about. Nick had asked me to help Amanda, and that had felt good. He’d probably expected me to say no.

I should have said no.

I should have said no, pretended he’d never asked, and gone about my business.

But I didn’t. Because Amanda, aside from being Nick’s maybe-former girlfriend, was a talented designer, and after a year of false starts in jobs that fell short of my own expectations, I recognized that working with her would allow me to fall back on my passion for the industry. I had a high taste level, proven instincts on trends, and was a good at multitasking. Besides, confronting my own pettiness about Amanda’s relationship with Nick was like putting a pin in it. At least that’s what I’d hoped.

I pulled up in front of my house. I’d been planning to park the Stingray in the garage, but a brown minivan was in the driveway. I drove past the house, pulled into my neighbor’s driveway, backed out, and parked by my mailbox.

A disheveled woman stood by the door to the garage. “Samantha Kidd?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She pushed the hood off of her head. “I’m Molly Diers. I need help. I would have made an appointment, but I finally got a sitter and it’s kind of an emergency. Can we do this?”

It took the better part of a minute for my brain to switch gears from arson and attack to the rest of my life. If the woman in front of me hadn’t appeared so in need of fashion help, I might not have ever made the connection.

Molly Diers wore an oversized olive green snorkel coat over a pair of pants printed with superheroes. Her feet were shod in dirty camel Uggs that had seen better days, and there was a smudge of something green on her cheek.

“Follow me,” I said. I unlocked the garage door and walked across the concrete floor to the door that opened at the top of the basement. A wooden staircase led down to my converted home office.

When I first moved back into the house, the basement had held several mismatched bookcases filled with magazines, memorabilia, and paint cans. The basement had flooded, thanks to my parents never having the foundation sealed, and most of the contents had been damaged to the point of ruin. I’d arranged for a trash pick-up and tossed everything but the clothes I made in high school.

Once emptied, I was left with a twenty-foot-long room with exposed brick walls. Five packs of yellow rubber gloves, several bottles of vinegar, a jug of bleach, and an industrial fan had removed traces of the flooding. Now the walls were decorated with fashion sketches, the room where my dad had brewed his homemade wine had been turned into a fitting room, and the rest of the space had been outfitted with bars for clothing samples and shelves for accessories. A discarded architect’s table served as my desk.

Molly followed me down the stairs. I flipped to a blank page on a yellow legal pad.

“Molly, have a seat. Let’s talk about what you want.”

“That’s easy. I want to look good again. You should have seen me back in the day. Fashion was my life. I’ve been married for seven years and the bastard left me. After two boys, I don’t even feel like a woman anymore.”

I jotted
single mother-seven years-woman
on the legal pad and underlined woman three times. “Tell me about your daily routine.”

“I get up, feed the hellions, get them off to school. Five hours later I pick them up.”

“What do you do all day?”

“I pick Cheerios out of my hair.” I considered writing that part down. “Do you have kids?” she asked.

“No.”

“So you don’t understand. You have no idea what kind of a terror two boys can be. They wreck everything.
Everything
. Meanwhile my rat-ex-husband already has a new girlfriend half his age. He gets the boys every other weekend and the boys think he’s a god. What do I do all day? Once I get them off to school, the house is quiet. I can relax. I have five hours to pretend my life turned out differently.”

Molly Diers didn’t need a stylist, she needed a therapist. “How do you dress now?” I asked.

“You’re looking at it. If it doesn’t have an elastic waist, I’m not interested.”

I felt like I was on the Punk’d version of “What Not to Wear.”

“I have to be honest, Molly. I don’t think we’re going to be much of a match, style-wise.”

“You can’t turn me away. I need tough love. I read about you in the paper. You take on killers and whackos and police and you lived in New York. When I was fourteen, I used to walk around my house with a book on my head. These days, high fashion is a T-shirt without a stain. Besides, the boys are back in school and I need to look like I can hold down a job. I need you.”

Already I felt bad for turning her down. I looked at my calendar. Amanda’s name had been written in, but that job ended with the runway show. I flipped the page to next week and the week after that. All clear. If it wasn’t for Molly Diers, what would I be doing? Looking for arsonists, flirting with Dante, and pining away over Nick. Maybe I needed Molly Diers, too.