Tulle Death Do Us Part (11 page)

“Yes. Before you distracted me, I found an actual scanned police report, here, from 1973, about a minor who stole her mother’s Parisian gown, insured at half a million dollars. But most of it was returned.”

“Most of it?”

“Missing petticoat, worth a paltry seventy-five thou, though losing it reduced the value of the ein-sum-blech. That’s a quote. Stupid word.”

He pronounced “ensemble” with entertainment value, so I chuckled on cue.

He looked insulted.

“It’s not like you to do fashion descriptions. You suck at it actually.”

He wiped his brow with the back of a hand. “Thank God for small favors.”

I chuckled. “Any other blips that night?”

“Yes and no. It’s not a blip. It’s serious. An attendee went out drinking with her friends after the event,” he said. “They took a walk along the water at high tide and a wave swept her off the rocks. Witnesses say the waves were big that night, but that rogue wave came from nowhere.”

“What happened to her?”

“Presumed drowned.”

“Oh,” I whispered, staring down at my gloves, my vision blurry.

Werner looked surprised. “Did you know her?”

“You didn’t give me a name, so…no. It’s just…sad. What about her friends? Are their names listed?”

He shook his head. “No, they were minors.”

They were not minors. They were lying adults who probably thought after all these years that they’d gotten away with it. Except maybe…the man who stood watching my roof get raised?

“Wait,” I said. “Presumed drowned?”

“Her body was never recovered. Her name was Robin O’Dowd. Seven years later, she was declared legally dead.”

“By who?”

Robin had died. She had not swum successfully to shore. I would not have wanted to read the morning papers the day after the country club’s fiftieth.

I wanted answers to the questions the vision left me with, and if I couldn’t get Werner to reopen the case, my only hope was that Deborah’s gown would offer up a few clues. Or some of those old petticoat pieces would, wherever they happened to be forty years later—if they survived.

“Sarge?” Billings called after we heard a door open—it sounded like the kitchen.

Werner grunted. “Billings,” he called. “We’re in here.” He waited for the officer to appear.

Billings tipped his nonexistent cap my way.

Werner had put everything back in my Vuitton case after he’d called Billings.

“Enter this in evidence—”

“Everything but my Vuitton case. You can return it to me when you’re done with it, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Billings, we need to reopen the case file mentioned here.” Werner handed Billings the printed page. “Find the original paperwork.”

“I want the cash box and everything in it dusted for prints, even the scavenger-hunt list. Count the money, have it checked for forgery, try to find a match, prints, the works. See if you can get both cash box and snuffbox authenticated and valued. Were either of them, or any of the items on the scavenger list, reported missing in the past ninety or so years?” Werner slipped the list into a plastic zip bag, too. “Ditto on the two biggest bills. Try to find us a rare currency collector or expert to give us some history on these.”

We watched Billings leave the house, heard him drive away.

Werner got up, came around his desk, and went to the closet for my jacket and purse. “Oh sorry, dropped your purse.” He fumbled around. “Your stuff’s probably mixed up inside it now.”

I bit my tongue, and did not remind him how valuable Vuitton purses were.

Finally, he handed me my bag and held my jacket out for me to slip into. Message loud and clear: Go home, Madeira.

“I guess that’s all the justice we can give it right now,” he said. “Thanks for turning in the box, Mad.”

“Glad to help,” I said, the phrase “obstruction of justice” weighing me down like a funeral dirge in my limbs. Darn Chakra and her preoccupation with petticoat pieces.

I wondered if I could be charged for holding back the
piece the attic box had been wrapped in. I mean, if Werner interviewed Isaac, he’d know I received the box covered in fabric, then I’d be screwed, and not in a good way.

I nibbled my lip over losing that petticoat piece all the way home.

All the lights were on at Dad’s, a nice change. He and Aunt Fiona were at our house and not hibernating.

I heard the screams and laughter before I opened the door. “Are you two babysitting?”

“What do you think?” my father asked as he was hit in the face with strained peas.

Babies Kathleen and Riley, my sister Sherry’s five-month-old twins, were sitting in high chairs at the table, and it looked like Dad and Fee needed help.

Riley, our bouncing baby boy, aimed those peas with loud amusement, his laughter like a bubble of joy, especially when they hit my father’s face. While Kathleen, our strawberry blonde charmer, ate hers with one pinky raised.

“They couldn’t be more alike or more different, could they?” I asked.

Fiona shook her head. “No, they couldn’t.”

“Dad, do you always get Riley?”

“Yes.” He sighed.

I wet a towel and came back to wash my father’s face. Fee and I found that highly amusing, and the babies joined in our merriment. Before long, my grumpy father was laughing louder than all of us.

The scent of chocolate wafted through the room, and I knew that my mother saw her beautiful grandchildren and how happy Dad and Fee were.

“Mom approves,” I said.

“I’ve come to accept your mom’s signature scent, but it gets me every time. Happens mostly when the babies are here.” He furrowed his brows. “Or you are.”

When the babies finished eating, they, too, needed cleaning up. “I want to fix their curls,” I said, and I went for the comb in my purse rather than run upstairs.

When I opened it, I squeaked. Inside I found the zip bag with the small piece of petticoat from around the diamond snuffbox. Werner hadn’t dropped or fumbled my purse; he’d been shoving the evidence bag in there. Invisible, like it never happened. And I would return it the same way, first thing Monday morning, which meant that I should read it tonight.

I combed the babies’ hair, played with them, and helped Fiona give them their baths, the two of us alone together for a bit. “Are they staying the night?” I asked.

“Yes, your sister needed a break.”

“Obviously she didn’t intend for Dad to keep them by himself.”

“She’s very cool about us being together,” Aunt Fiona said. “Your dad appreciates that his family accepts us as a couple.”

I chuckled. “Stubborn man.”

Aunt Fee raised her brows. “Guess who takes after him?”

“Who, me?”

“I need to run something by you,” she said, putting Riley back in his chair. “Sherry suggested that your nieces and nephews call me Nana—when they can talk, of course.”

I hugged her. “That’s wonderful. What was dad’s reaction?”

“His eyes filled. I didn’t know if he was happy for me or sad that your mother isn’t here.”

“Would a bit of both be so terrible?” I asked.

Fiona’s frown lines relaxed. “I guess a bit of both would be normal.”

“Face it, Fee, you are Nana to dad’s Poppy, and he likes it that way. Look ahead, not back, and if you do look back now and again, try to focus on Mom throwing you kisses of approval, will you?”

Her eyes filled, and after another, longer, but silent hug, we each chose a rocker. I rocked my godson—mine and Nick’s—while Fiona rocked Alex and Tricia’s goddaughter.

After we put them down in the nursery Dad had set up, with cribs dating back to my day, we went downstairs, where Dad watched the History Channel.

“I have to say good night to the two of you,” I said. “You’ll probably be asleep by the time I get home.”

“I didn’t think you were going out again.”

“I didn’t think I was, either. But I realized there’s an outfit I want to get a bead on.”

“One bead?” My father asked. “You can sew a bead on tomorrow morning in, like, two seconds. Why go out again tonight?”

I kissed his brow. “To give you two some space,” I said. “And really, I do have to spend some time on a particular piece.”

I saw the knowledge register in Aunt Fiona’s expression. “Get a bead on,” she repeated. “I get it. You gonna be okay? Want company? The twins are down for the count. Your father can handle them.”

“It’s a bead, Fiona,” my dad said, patting the space beside
him on the sofa. For a lit professor, he could be pretty literal. Of course he was distracted by Aunt Fiona; one look at her, and his metaphors morphed and popped like soap bubbles. Or he was being obtuse on purpose because he wanted me out of there.

I wanted to ask when he’d traded sitting strictly in that tweed chair, which bore the imprint of his body, for the sofa, but I knew better. “Have a good night, you two.”

It got dark early now, I thought as I drove to the shop. I liked that I’d had motion-detector spotlights put up around the shop. No more dark parking lot all winter.

Thank goodness I also had an alarm system now, I thought, beeping myself in and then resetting it after I’d locked myself inside.

I hated walking into an empty shop. I had gotten used to having someone there to greet me, even a spectral someone. “Dante Underhill, I don’t like it when you stay away. Are you hiding? I find that hard to believe. Like, what can I do if I’m upset with you, kill you?”

I put on some soft lighting in the sitting area, a couple of my mother’s favorite lamps. “Anyway, I’m here to read a piece of fabric, so I might talk like a dead person or something, just so you don’t get scared.”

I chuckled. “Little tidbit for you to chew on: I miss you. I liked hearing you chuckle a couple times before. I knew that at least you were not upset with me.”

I felt his feather touch on my cheek.

Then he was there, my Cary Grant clone in tux and top hat, looking into my eyes and caring that I missed him. “Thanks for not leaving that blasted music on every night, after all,” he said.

“Despite your flamboyant past, you have integrity, so I figure there’s a reason you’re not talking.”

“The name of the person who left the box doesn’t matter to your case, Mad. I promise you. But it would matter to the quality of his life to be named. He was used. I need you to trust me on this.”