Nick kicked the cut lock on the polished wood floor aside and opened the darkened closet. Empty. The downer left my heart palpitating, though it picked up speed when Nick stepped inside.
He pushed on the back wall with both hands.
Thump, thump, thump went my heart into overdrive.
The wall didn’t budge.
Nick turned to face us, reached to push on both side walls at the same time, and nearly fell into the well of darkness at the left.
He caught his balance as the wall flipped and a figure hovered over us.
Paisley screamed.
Seventeen
A woman should be less concerned about Paris and more concerned about whether the dress she’s about to buy relates to the way she lives.
—GEOFFREY BEENE
“It’s not alive,” I snapped, trying to stop Paisley’s scream.
Nick aimed the small flashlight on the back end of his stylus at the figure to clear our misconceptions.
“See,” I said. “It’s people sized but I think it’s a garment bag of a sort.”
On the top center of the wall—the opposite side from the one we’d first seen—a vintage leather garment bag hung on a brass hook. “I don’t think a moth could get in here if it tried,” I said to no one in particular. But why the side zippers?
Paisley unzipped the bag center-front—she had a right, though her move shot me with terror—the sheer size and composition of the Bakelite hanger gave away its age. Bakelite items were popular from about nineteen ten to the forties.
But screw the forerunner of plastics, I nearly lost my breath when Paisley removed the dress from its supple leather skin of timeless protection, a leather garment bag showing the patina of age without showing the signs. Ageless.
But the dress: “What an outstanding piece from the golden age of textiles. Like a social-event in chiffon, it’s a cross between a Jacobean and Persian burst of warm, slightly muted earth tones—from creams to reds—on a cool mixed field, featuring turquoise to royal blue forget-me-nots. Most important, it looks like an Oleg Cassini.”
Nick checked the label. “You got that right.”
“Cassini, and only Oleg Cassini, dressed Jackie Kennedy, as First Lady. OMG, we’re in the presence of greatness. That dress survived the test of time. It’s flawless, and look at the colors. Have you ever seen a more beautiful marriage of textile dyes? It’s a classy, spectacular blend of fine lines, flowers that breathe, and impeccable color choices.”
“Don’t you say that about all your vintage clothes?” Nick asked.
“Well, this is a new high for me. And I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen a garment bag like this one. It’s probably worth as much as the dress. I just figured out the side zippers. Look, it folds up to look like a vintage handbag, while hugging the dress and protecting it from anything you put in the bag. It could be a Hermès. It’s that brilliant.”
“Bepah used to paint this dress.” Paisley took the amazing Cassini off the hanger, and held it up to herself, shook her head, then held it up to me, as if for a better effect.
I squeaked but to no purpose and I could not, not, move my legs to step away from its universal pull.
The shiver that ran up my spine had nothing to do with spinning out of my own skin, which I was, but stepping into a smoldering sexual haze. It had to do with the lowering of a zipper, my own, the one down the back of my brilliant Cassini, a dress so fine, it felt like I wore a swath of couture-designed tropical air rather than fabric.
My lover turned me to face him, and I lost my ability to speak. Dante, alive and well, heart beating beneath my hand. He was all rogue, sexual energy radiating off him and warming me, readying me to be his.
Ack!
He took me in his arms to waltz me across an art nouveau bedroom, the shadows alive, giving life to the light, the room bright, and airy, romantic, seductive. A Tiffany glass–type window—likely real Tiffany—stood guard over a satinwood four-poster.
The bed was the centerpiece of the room. Leave it to Dante.
The Waverly fabric, at its peak in the forties, printed in muted art nouveau colors, bloomed on curtains and spread.
I was so busy looking at the room, and wondering how to get away, that I got a second shock when we passed the satinwood trifold floor mirror and saw exactly whom he danced with—the woman I had become—Dolly.
A series of panicked questions, and an urge to run, rushed me, taking my heartbeat with it…for so many reasons.
One, how had Dolly owned the brilliant print Cassini we found in a creepy closet on Coffin Farm?
Two, given the way my surroundings dated themselves, at Dante’s and the farm, Dolly had clearly been the dress’s first owner. So how did Paisley’s family end up with so treasured a memento that Bepah would spend his twilight years painting it?
Three, if Dante’s hands continued on their current course, I did not want to see, or experience, what happened next.
By sheer will, I closed my mind to the incarnation I’d found myself in, to the touch I rejected—I’d certainly gone far enough here—and begged the universe for a reprieve.
When my knees turned to mint jelly, and Pucci help me, someone—please not Dante, not Dante—lifted me into his arms and set me down on a bed—oy, it was Dante—I got my wish, more or less, because I went reeling through the ether, a bit nauseous, a lot scared, dizzy, and disoriented.
But no longer caught in my throat was the pleasure-sigh I’d released, because—heaven help me—I’d liked where we were going.
This I would never mention to another soul, but Dante Underhill, dead undertaker, was a damned good kisser.
However, I was grateful, oh so grateful, that I would never know what else he was good at.
For two beats, I appreciated finding myself in the shoes of another, outside, where the air was thin, still wearing the Cassini, but this time, I stood somewhere near the top of…the Eiffel Tower?
In this new persona, I saw a man I recognized—let’s call him White Beard—an impatient unnamed courier who looked decades older than his years, frowning as if he’d like for me to take a flying leap off the tower, without a net.
Suddenly I longed for Dante’s attentions. No I didn’t, naughty me. That was just a devil-you-knew kind of thing. I trusted Dante. Well, I used to.
White Beard, I now had to contend with, and so I would.
First, I wondered if he would try to make me fly, as in, would he instigate a free fall?
If he did, I might rip and tear his pristine white suit to shreds before I went over, because I’d fight him to the death. And why I thought that might be necessary, I had no idea.
I understood from my persona that White Beard was here because of something he expected me to give him, and I sure in Hermès wished I knew what that was.
Unsure of how this woman, in whose body I now stood, got here, I deduced that she/I/we must have taken the elevator, because one of our legs felt as if we’d fallen down a set of stairs in the not too distant past. While several of our fingers looked as if they’d been broken at around the same time.
Work injuries, I knew. So…what kind of work? Whimper.
White Beard stepped closer and I got that urge to fight…to the death? But I wouldn’t go quietly.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” I said, not wishing him to think me rude or mute. Some double agents were both. Losing one’s tongue could be a hazard of the business.
Eighteen
I was at Paris Fashion Week, working on a project where I was taking designers from Paris to Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila, to expose them to these markets.
—DOSE MAGAZINE, CANADA
What the zip a ma jig? Was I a spy? I mean, if I was working in the fashion industry, that would make sense, but since I wasn’t me, guess not.
Being in this particular body was quite the matter of how far I’d come and how far and low I’d fallen. But first I needed to nail this new decade.
White Beard wore hi
s white suit with a thin tie, his pants, cuffed and pleated. Late fifties, early sixties?
I looked down to examine the Cassini dress in natural light for the first time. “Brilliant” would be the only word to describe the colors. The fitted waist A-lined to a calf-length skirt, its unique print on the chiffon overdress, utterly brilliant in every way, its black strapless under-layer seemingly invisible, gave it a sheer colorful slit-necked bodice and trumpet sleeves that hung well below my hands, endowing me with both power and femininity.
The hat on my head, a basic muted turquoise pillbox, of Oleg Cassini fame and design, that I could see reflected in the metal rail, incorporated the dress’s colors in a fan dance of plumage to rival the fascinators at the royal wedding, a knowledge that only Madeira Cutler, the interloper in this decade, could bring to the table.
Checking further, and sliding deeper into my host’s skin, I saw that I carried, most appropriately in Paris, one of Hermès’s early Kelly bags, named for Princess Grace because she’d hid her “delicate condition” with one in a famed paparazzi photo.
I checked my shoes, too, as I pretended to search my bag for whatever the courier wanted, a note perhaps?
Little bone buttons, I was packing a nauseating matter of good news–bad news. My persona knew exactly how to use the small revolver in my bag, and her fingers itched to do exactly that. The good news, my fingers were stronger than hers—because hers had been bruised—so White Beard would live to spy another day. Meanwhile, I was wearing a pair of vintage “invisible” Ferragamos from the war years, 1947 to be precise. I recognized the invisible nylon uppers which characterized the famous style. Amazing.
I had dressed in Ferragamo, Cassini, and Hermès; how rich was I? And what price had I paid for my lifestyle? In life and limb? In self-respect? In the cost to my family?
Who the scalloped-stitch was I that Dolly would have given me a one-of-a-kind designer original Cassini, which in the forties would have cost more than a small house? Not that any of it would matter, if this exchange didn’t go well.
Problem was, I didn’t seem to have a note to give White Beard, and I closed my fist firmly against using the gun. I gave him a seductive look that brought him closer and I spoke in a whisper: “Ferragamo, ’forty-seven. Kelly, ’fifty-seven” (the year Grace’s first child was born). I only hoped the fake-out sounded official.
I trembled and touched my brow for good effect, but the move only seemed to frighten him.
White Beard looked around, gave a half nod, turned, and disappeared.
I damned near passed out, with the sheer loss of blood to my head, given the depth of my relief and inner trembling.
As I searched for an elevator with my gaze, and I finally spotted one, the doors parted revealing the man I adored. My husband. Gray at the temples, suave, sophisticated. And as we met halfway, and kissed, he wove our fingers together.
That’s when Madeira Cutler realized that the spy’s approving husband had only four fingers on his right hand.
White Beard watched from behind a beam while I urged my husband into the elevator. When the door closed us inside, a million questions tumbled toward me, and as I tried to decide what to ask first, everything went dark.
I swallowed rather than choked, and recognized the taste of cola.
“Not blood?” I said, opening my eyes to see Nick propping me up on a bed with a bright quilt in a drab room.
Of course, I recognized the loose weave prints on the quilt. More scattered florals had been turned into stars for this quilt. Tonal aquas to blueberries. Soft pinks to raspberries.
On most farms, every quilt, apron, diaper, bonnet, dress, nightgown, dish towel, even the pillowcases, since some bags had scalloped edges, had arrived containing sugar, animal feed, or seed.
Paisley looked so “at home” in this “teen girl’s” bedroom, and as pleased with her surroundings, as she’d been in her toy room, this must be her room, the one she’d most recently occupied. “The quilt is beautiful,” I said, making up for my toy room faux pas.
She beamed. “I made it myself.”
“Good job. No, great job. Wonderful sense of color.”
“Thanks. Now what did you see when I touched you with the dress?” she asked.
You’re a bold one, I thought. And wouldn’t she freak if I said I was her grandmother in that scenario? Or someone very much in love with her grandfather.
She held up her right hand, touching her ring finger with her thumb. What a stinker; she was trying to read my expression, like she’d catch my eyes going wide at the knowledge of his missing finger.
Yes, I thought, stone-faced, I saw a man with a missing finger, but you’ll never know.
“Was my grandmother beautiful? I know that was her dress. I think she married Bepah in it.”
Whoa, hard not to look surprised that time. From my glimpse in the mirrored rail, I’d seen beneath the hat that she had black hair sleeked back with a perfect bun; out of style in that respect only. So maybe not as rich as I surmised. Maybe she’d borrowed Dolly’s dress for the wedding, as she may have borrowed the entire outfit I wore that psychometric trip.
I got the feeling that Paisley’s grandmother, Rose presumably, must have been very French, because I realized now that I’d had to wait for her to do her thinking in French then translate so I could understand.
“What happened?” Nick asked me.
I looked at Paisley, refusing to reveal my ability to read clothes, though she’d seen me zone enough times.
“I can take the truth,” she said. “I’ve been locked up my whole life. I have a right to know about my grandmother’s wedding dress. It was Bepah’s prized possession.”
Maybe she did have a right to know, but not from me, and not at the risk of exposing my gift, or upsetting her, because frankly, we still didn’t know if Paisley carried a gun in her own purse. Family loyalties often ran deep. The sins of the ancestors and all that.
“Why does everyone treat me like a child?” Paisley shouted, a bit dramatic, and stomped down the backstairs like an eleven-year-old. Though maybe that was how she got attention here.
I remember Aunt Fee saying that I might live and work in New York—back when I did—but the minute I walked into my father’s house, I became his little girl. In other words, I expected him to fix my problems.
Paisley might simply be falling into type.
“Give,” Nick said.
“I sensed that her grandparents were spies,” I whispered, “or at least her grandmother was, likely with her grandfather’s knowledge.”
Nick sat straighter.
Because Paisley could be creeping up the near front stairs at this very moment, I didn’t mention the double agent part, which might mean cutthroats from more than one side would like to get their hands on Ms. Paisley Skye, or us for harboring her, or for family secrets, like whatever she might have witnessed in front of a dark church one night in the eighties.
Come to think of it, Paisley might have been in Paris the night her father was shot. “Hey,” I snapped. “Dolly’s in Paris. She—” I stopped. She owned the Oleg Cassini dress before Paisley’s grandmother did.
Nineteen
This is my costume. I’m a homicidal maniac. They look just like everyone else.
—WEDNESDAY ADDAMS, THE ADDAMS FAMILY
“Nick,” I whispered so Paisley wouldn’t hear. “Next time you do a computer search for the location of our instigating crime, Paisley’s father’s death and her mother’s kidnapping, I mean, try doing a search for it in Paris. Also, I heard from a reliable source that Dolly’s brother owned the Mystic Photography Studio. Maybe Dolly went to France to find him or what’s left of his family.”
“Because of a resemblance?” Nick asked, looking at me as if I had two heads.
“Zany zigzag stitch, I’m a sleuth, I’m not God.”
Or…Dolly saw little Paisley Skye and took the obvious step seeing her called for. Dolly may be a spy herself—wouldn’t that be a hoot?—
and coming face to face with Paisley was a sign she should move on something. Like alerting the French authorities…or the money launderers.
I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Dolly knew a spy, once upon a time, and she lent said spy—possibly a fellow agent—a dress to get married in.
I chuckled but felt like Humpty Dumpty, cracked and ready for poaching.
“Do you think Dolly could be a spy?” I asked Nick, pulling his face close to mine.
He chuckled, moving his teasing lips against mine. “Like you said. A sleuth, not Houdini.”
“Did you get a chance to talk about what you saw, Madeira?” Paisley asked, returning with three pieces of peanut butter fudge, offering one to each of us.
We watched her eat her own, but we left ours on the nightstand, and when I got up, I slipped them into the wastebasket, for later forensics retrieval.
“Everything I see, if you care to know, Paisley?” Nick asked. “Spells concern. You might have been smarter never to leave here.”
“But if I hadn’t, I would never have met the two of you,” she said, backing into the den off her room. “You’re my best friends.”
That was the saddest commentary on a young girl’s life I’d ever heard. We’d known her two days.
I gazed out the front window, because for the life of me, I couldn’t let her see how sad that made me. “Hey, the sun’s going down. Let’s look around outside before we leave.”
Paisley agreed, so we followed her around the yard, lagging behind so we could talk. I think she knew, and maybe she trusted that we had her best interests at heart.
I wished I could say that I totally trusted her to put our best interests first.
Nick ran a hand through his hair. “I need to get an FBI forensics team out here. I should already have called it in.”
Cloaked in Malice Page 9