The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries) (30 page)

The elevator opened, and two uniformed policemen got out. “You Hayworth?” the meatier one asked. She nodded. He hooked an elbow under her arm and lifted. The other officer hooked her other arm.
 

“What are you doing?” She flailed for her purse, and the meaty officer stuffed it under his arm.

“You’re outta here. No one’s expecting you—Crisp’s busy. And don’t think you can try it again next shift. We have your face on the computer downstairs.” In the elevator, they kept a firm hold on her arms.
 

“I just wanted to ask one thing, that’s all. It has to do with a murder,” she said. “Don’t you care?”

“Not so much,” one of the policemen answered. “And we have telephones here, you know.”

“I tried to call, but he wouldn’t let me finish.”

“There you go,” the policeman said.

“Can I at least have my purse back?”

The elevator dinged to the lobby. The policemen handed over her purse and pushed her out. The door closed. Joanna rubbed her upper arms and turned to see the guard she’d talked to when she arrived standing, arms folded in front of his chest. He nodded toward the front door, and Joanna took the hint.

On the street, she leaned against the cement wall separating the sidewalk from the plaza above and sighed. Great. Now what was she going to do?
 

A hummingbird zipped down from the plantings on the plaza to the park across the street and disappeared into the shrubbery. There on a park bench next to that shrubbery sat Nina’s husband, Gary.

“Gary!” She ran across the street, narrowly missing being hit by a bus pulling away from the curb. She caught her breath as she neared his bench. “Remember me? From Marnie’s memorial service?”

He turned his head away. “I don’t want to talk now.”

She sat down next to him. Her voice was gentle. “I heard about Nina. That’s why I’m here. I came to see her.”

He didn’t respond for a moment, then asked, “They let you in?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Her own husband. They said they’d talk to me later.”
 

Her eyes softened with compassion. Her problems were nothing compared to Gary’s. “Do you—do you know why she did it?”

“Nina is a good person.” He looked small. Joanna waited for him to add more. “She loved Don. I thought that was over, but I guess not. She told me she’d heard something about Don and went to see him. He wouldn’t talk to her, then someone else came, a woman. She knew Don kept a gun. So she...” His voice faded.

A woman. That would be her. “But how—”

“I thought it was over a long time ago. Why did she go see him? She told me it was over after the baby, after she...” This time anguish choked off his voice.

The story began to gel. “Did Nina get pregnant by Don? Then have a—a procedure?”

Gary nodded without looking up.

Shit. “And she wasn’t able to get pregnant again?” Abortion wouldn’t have been legal that many years ago. Lord knew where or how it was carried out.

He nodded again. When Joanna had hinted that Don might be Troy’s father, Nina had been furious. She must have thought Marnie had kept Don’s baby, a baby she could never have. Joanna glanced at the impassive facade of the police headquarters. For all her pain, Nina didn’t kill Marnie or Franklin. She didn’t care about the safe deposit box.
 

Gary’s body wracked with sobs next to her. It was all Joanna’s fault. Don had died for nothing. She remembered him lying on the kitchen floor, his shirt soaked with blood. If she hadn’t said anything to Nina, maybe he’d still be alive, and Nina would be home.

“Gary.” His gaze met hers briefly then dropped to his hands. “I’m more sorry than you can know.”
 

Whatever the hell was going on, it had to stop. She would get those papers and find the murderer if it were the last thing she did.

The sun lowered in the sky. Sauvie Island was only seven miles from downtown Portland but felt much further. Farms and pasture dotted the island, and a few well-to-do Portlanders had built custom mansions with views of the river. She drove with her windows open. Now that summer was near its end, the evening air was cool. The Corolla's engine knocked and hissed every few minutes, but seemed to be driving all right. She’d call the mechanic in the morning.

She crossed the bridge onto the island and drove west along the canal separating the mainland from the island. She pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store to ask where to find the marina.
 

Standing near the cashier with a box of breath mints was Andrew. He wore the black, Italian-cut suit she knew he kept for special events.
 

“Joanna. What are you doing here? Are you all right?”
 

“Sure, I'm fine.” Odd that he'd ask. “I'm going to visit a friend, that's all.”

“I didn't know you had friends out here.”

“Well, I do. I just wanted to check where his houseboat is moored.” She emphasized the “his.” “Anyway, what are you doing here?”

“Another fundraiser for Remmick. You know the founder of Yoga Heart dotcom? He has a spread just down the road past the marina. Should be an interesting crowd. Vegan hors d'oeuvres.”

She made a face. “Well, I'd better go.” She turned toward the cashier. “I don't want to be late.”

“All right. Well, have fun.”
 

She heard the purr of his BMW a minute later as it left the lot. The cashier drew a crude map to the marina. She took it back to the car and set it on the passenger's seat. Old Blue's starter whined once and then twice but wouldn't turn over. The third time she turned the key, she heard nothing at all. Damn. She was so close. The marina wasn’t far by car, but at least half an hour by foot. It was getting dark, too. She tried the ignition once more, and this time the Corolla reluctantly sputtered to life.

She crept down the road atop the dike. Whenever she tried to shift above second gear, the car jolted in protest. After an excruciating few miles, she saw a line of boats—mostly houseboats but some fishing and cruising boats—moored on the canal below the road as the cashier had said. The outlet road to the marina led down to a small, unlit gravel parking lot. As she shut off the engine, it emitted an ominously final bang, shaking the entire car. She smelled burning oil and groaned. After she checked out the marina, she'd find a pay phone and call a tow truck. Old Blue wouldn’t make it back to town under her own power.

A mercury light affixed to a power pole partway down the marina buzzed to life as night fell. Traffic hummed faintly along the two-lane St. Helens highway on the mainland. Otherwise, it was quiet.
 

She strode across the parking lot and stepped gingerly onto the wooden pier. The water flowed deep and heavy below her. Windows glowed pale yellow in a few of the houseboats, and one man sat on his deck facing the canal, the tip of his cigarette a bright speck of orange. She moved confidently, as if she belonged.

If Franklin still had the boat she'd seen in Nina's photos, it would be wooden and big enough for a bed, but not too large. She wished she'd thought to bring a flashlight. The canal was almost black now, reflecting waves of fuzzy light from the lamp down the pier.
 

About two-thirds of the way up the marina was moored a wooden boat that fit the bill. She knelt to read its prow. “Goldilocks,” it said in chipped black paint on a green background. Bingo.
 

Was that a car slowing on the road above the dike? No, nothing but the lapping of water against the pier. She stood up, then stepped gently onto the boat. She paused and again looked toward the parking lot. No one could see her.

At the front of the boat, pointed toward the canal, was a windowed cabin. A coil of rope sat on the deck next to a bucket, but otherwise the deck was clear. She pulled down the door handle. Locked, of course. She looked around the perimeter of the cabin. This was the only way in. Too bad she hadn't got that lock picking lesson.

One of the windows toward the rear of the cabin didn't close as tightly as the others. She pried her fingernails under the window, which was designed to open out, and it gave a fraction of an inch before the latch stopped it. A nail file would have been perfect to slip in the crack to open the window's latch, but she didn’t have one. Apple’s necklace clanked against the boat as she leaned forward. Yes. She lifted the Hand of Fatima pendant over her head then slid its thin edge through the window. It easily flipped the latch, and the window opened.
 

Although she could now reach inside, it was too small to crawl through and too far from the door to reach the inside handle. She could, however, reach through and unlatch the window closest to the door. Once that window was open—its latch stuck for a moment—she slid her arm into the cabin up to her shoulder and unlocked and opened the cabin door.

Inside the cabin she stood listening. Besides faraway sounds—something dropping in the water, maybe, and the honking of an early flock of geese headed south—the night was still. She shut the windows.

At the front of the cabin was a steering wheel and a swivel seat. The smell of damp canvas and mildew permeated the cabin. In the thin moonlight she made out a wooden dash dotted with chromium-rimmed gauges, some of the chrome flaked off and the gauges cloudy. On the far side was a bench whose padded lid looked like it might lift for storage underneath. It didn't have a lock. Joanna raised it. Nothing but a pair of rubber boots, a rain slicker, and a gas can. Nothing else in the main cabin would hold papers.

At the rear of the cabin, a door led down into the boat’s hold. She paused a moment, her fingers on its handle. It wasn't too late to go back to her car. She could call a tow truck, and within an hour she'd be sitting in Apple's living room drinking chamomile tea. Joanna remembered the torn piece of dress left under her windshield. She couldn’t return to Apple’s. She had to find the papers.

She opened the door. Again, she regretted not bringing a flashlight. From the scant light shining through two portholes she made out a bed, larger than a single but not quite a double, straight ahead. A bed where Marnie had spent time so many years ago. On both sides of the small hold were storage benches like the one in the cabin above. She ducked her head and felt her way down the stairs. To the right, next to the bottom of the stairs was a bathroom, its door ajar. It was barely large enough to hold a person. To the left of the stairs was a door to what looked like a storage area under the cabin.

One of the benches was fastened with a small padlock running through a metal latch. Her necklace wasn't going to be able to open this one. She set her purse at the foot of the bench, then lifted the seat and tugged. The metal latch gave a little in the old wood it was screwed to. Maybe the necklace would work after all.

She slid the edge of the pendant into the cross-hatched head of one of the screws attaching the latch to the top of the bench and turned. The pendant's soft silver bent, but with a few minute's work she had removed the latch's first screw. She swiftly undid the other and lifted the bench's seat.

Inside was a worn manila envelope with its flap open. Her breath quickened as she slid out the papers. It was too dark to make out what they said, but the papers were yellowed at the top and had been fingered through many times. This must be what Franklin had taken from the safe deposit box. Had to be. Relief flooded over her. Now to get out of there.

Just then, the boat rocked slightly. A wave on the canal? Maybe a boat was passing by. The deck above her creaked. No, someone was definitely on the boat. She hadn’t thought to lock the cabin behind her. Heart racing, she placed the envelope back into the bench and silently closed the lid. She moved lightly across the room and flattened her back against the wall next to the stairs.
 

The cabin’s outside door opened above her, and a man’s shadow fell across the entrance to the hold. Her body vibrated with adrenalin. The person came down the stairs and stood inches from her at the entrance to the hold, the only way out of the boat. Screaming would do no good, but if the stranger took one more step, she could throw her body forward and maybe knock him down.
 

“Joanna?” a voice said tentatively from the stairs.

Paul. “What are you doing here?” She almost cried with relief.

He stepped into the hold. “I tried to call you. I felt bad about the way we left things. You weren't answering your phone, then I remembered you were staying with Apple. I had a hunch you might come here.”

“So you followed me?” Her voice was louder than she'd intended.

“Hush. Come on, we'll talk about it later. Let's get out of here.”

“Wait, though. Look what I found.” She lifted the bench's seat. “Remember how I told you Franklin had hidden some papers? This must be them.” She held the envelope and slid out its contents. “They don't look like any legal documents I've ever seen, but they're old, and obviously some sort of record.” She held it closer to the porthole's light and flipped through the pages. “They're covered with handwriting. Strange. Mostly names and dates.”
 

“Great. We’ll look at them later. Let’s leave.”

The boat rocked again. They looked at each other. Joanna dropped the papers back in the bench, and Paul grabbed her arm. He opened the door to the bathroom and pulled her in, closing it behind them. The room was barely large enough for both of them. He bent over her, his arms around her waist, leaning against the wall separating the bathroom from the stairs to the cabin above. Neither of them could stand straight. Her arms hung at her sides, but her face was pressed against his neck. His pulse throbbed.

She wondered if someone had seen Paul come on to the boat. A security officer, maybe. Her breath was ragged. If that was so, why didn't he say so? Her back began to ache from the strain of bending. As if reading her mind, Paul slid his other arm behind the small of her back, letting her lean against him. His mouth was near her ear. She smelled skin and sawdust.