Raiders of the Lost Corset

by Ellen Byerrum

  “Butt out! You cause me enough grief here, much less in Paris.”

  “You always get into trouble. And it’s Paris, man. Expense account time.”

  “The stripped-down version of an expense account. Standard per diem. The Eye’s per diem. You know what that means. Starvation. A zero-star hotel. The Métro instead of cabs.”

  “You don’t look too upset about it.”

  “I’m going to Paris, Tony.” She smiled at him wickedly. “You’re not.”

  “I want a piece of it. Besides, what if you run into a killer? I always miss the important stuff. I could use a little of that hero stuff on my résumé.”

  “You want to fight off the bad guys, Tony? I thought you liked to let me do the dirty work. And then you ride in late and lasso the byline.” Lacey stood up and tossed her cup in the trash. “Never thought I’d see the day you’re jealous of me.”

  “A little professional rivalry, that’s all,” Tony said. “I’m the cops reporter, yet you’re the one always hanging around with cops.”

  “I’m done with cops.” She smiled widely and waltzed out the door. “And just for the record, I’m done with killers.”

  Passing Mac’s office door on the way back to her desk, Lacey halted when he waved her in. “Shut the door,” her editor ordered. She did, but remained standing. “This is the deal,” Mac said. “Our publisher has spoken. Claudia says you are to use your own best news judgment on this story. I told her that was a mistake, your best news judgment always leads you astray. And me to a nervous breakdown.”

  “I have a nose for news,” Lacey protested.

  Mac glared under his bushy brows. “Trujillo wants to go. I’m not letting him.”

  “Good. My byline is secure. Tony doesn’t understand fashion, he doesn’t care about the story, he’s just jealous. And I’ve found someone to come with me. She’ll pick up the cost of Magda’s room and pay her own way.”

  Mac looked interested. “Who is it?’

  “Brooke Barton, my lawyer.”

  “That conspiracy nut? Isn’t she a little scary?”

  “More than a little. That’s why she’ll be the perfect companion.”

  He grunted. “Just remember, the French believe you’re guilty until proven innocent.”

  “Who says I’m going to get in any trouble?”

  Mac reached for his blue and white bottle of Maalox, and Lacey reached for the door. “I didn’t have ulcers before I met you.”

  “Sure you did, Mac. You were born with ulcers.”

  “I don’t need any more. Get out of here.”

  She smiled and strode back to her desk to read the crumpled piece of paper that Analiza Zarina had given her. She took Analiza’s basics and added a couple of paragraphs of her own, then printed it and she sent it to Obituaries by e-mail and in hard copy with a note, a personal plea that it be included in tomorrow’s paper, even though it had missed their deadline. She added one of Felicity’s treats du jour, a strawberry cheesecake mini-tart wrapped in a napkin. It was the least she could do. Pays to be nice to the Obit beat, she thought, you never know when they’ll be writing yours.

  There were too many things to do to prepare for the trip; her mental notes were piling up. She had to clean and pack and organize, she had to sort her maps and guidebooks and make phone calls, she had to attend Magda’s memorial service, she had to discreetly stay on top of Detective Broadway Lamont’s murder investigation without stepping on Trujillo’s toes. She had to not get killed by whoever killed Magda. And on top of all those things, she had to field the weekly phone call from her mother, which came later that night.

  “But Lacey, why can’t you come to Denver for Thanksgiving?” Rose Smithsonian asked, and Lacey tried to think of just how to phrase her many reasons. “We always have such a good time. You can invite that handsome Victor Donovan. He seems awfully nice.”

  “It’s just not a good time right now, Mom.” Since her mother had met Vic on her recent visit to D.C., Rose Smithsonian had become way too interested in Lacey’s relationship with him. She had even offered Lacey her personal meatloaf recipe, which Rose noted men always loved. In her mother’s world, Lacey knew this was tantamount to a mother passing down to her daughter their tribe’s time-honored secret love mojo, the Kama Sutra of the Colorado kitchen. But Lacey hated meatloaf. She had sworn she was never going to make meatloaf for anyone, not even Vic Donovan. Especially not Vic.

  “There’s nothing wrong, is there?” Her mother’s voice edged into maternal concern.

  “Don’t be silly, what could be wrong?” Lacey fiddled with the pencils in her desk. She didn’t know why she had pencils: She never used them; she preferred her fountain pen.

  “You’re not tangled up in some scary investigation, are you? Some killer, there in Washington?”

  “No, nothing like that.” The pencils spilled out of her hands. Rose could be spooky.

  “Because your sister and I could come out and help you. Like we did the last time.”

  Wonderful. Rose had decided after her daughters left home to resume playing tennis, to take up golf, and now to start a career as a freelance righter of wrongs. All because she happened to be in town last month, and she and Lacey’s sister, Cherise, had actually been able to help Lacey out in a tight spot. In a rare show of solidarity, the family Smithsonian had brought down a killer. And Cherise had found a good target for her killer cheerleader kick: a killer’s chin.

  Rose wasn’t about to let her forget it. Lacey had to do something to stop their latent crime-fighting (and life-making-over) urges. They were back in Denver, safe and secure, and she was intent on keeping them there.

  “I have orders from Detective Broadway Lamont to keep my posse out of town.”

  Her mother laughed merrily over the phone. “That big detective of yours? He really didn’t say that.”

  “Oh, he really did, Mom. He did. But with the holidays coming, I’m sure you’re busy.”

  “Everything’s organized. The turkey’s ordered. You know, fresh, corn-fed, no hormones.”

  “I’m sure it will be perfect. And besides, um, remember I’m going to Paris for a week. On a story.”

  She heard her mother puttering around in the kitchen, pots and pans clanging about. “You did mention something about that. I wanted your father to take me to Paris once before you girls were born, but he had this fishing trip planned, and, well, my high-school French is a little rusty, so we just went to Steamboat Springs instead and we stayed at one of those cute little fishing cabins and I cleaned all his trout and we had a simply wonderful—”

  “Sounds great, Mom. And I’ll be really tired of plane travel by the time I get back, so—”

  “You’re sure, Lacey? It would be such fun.”

  “And I have plans,” Lacey said, thinking that sleeping for a few days solid over Thanksgiving was a good plan.

  “Plans with Vic Donovan?” Her mother sounded hopeful. “And his family?”

  “Um, I really can’t say yet. Vic’s pretty busy these days.”

  “Well,” her mother said, “I suppose we wouldn’t want to scare him off with one of our big family gatherings so soon. You two lovebirds need some time alone, don’t you? Have you tried my special meatloaf yet?”

  Lacey couldn’t tell her mother she had already scared Vic off all by herself, without any help from her family. Or the special meatloaf. “Thanks for being so understanding.”

  “It’s not too early to think about Christmas,” Rose said, in that way that all mothers have.

  “You’ll have to take that up with my editor.”

  “Oh. Mr. Jones? He seemed nice. Do you have his number?”

  Lacey finally got her mother off the phone, then made a stab at packing. It was useless, she decided. The phone rang and Lacey picked it up, thinking her mother had forgotten something, some secret aphrodisiac to give the special meatloaf a little more zing.

  “Hello,” she said. There was a pause, a clicking sound, then someone hu
ng up. She noticed that her phone machine was blinking. Three hang-ups, no messages. Someone wants to know if I’m home, she thought. But they don’t want to talk to me.

  Chapter 9

  Analiza Zarina hosted the memorial for Magda Rousseau at their shop, Stays and Plays, where Magda had died. She had set the time for late morning on the following day. Once the body was released, there would be a funeral mass at the local Catholic church, but no one could predict when that would happen.

  The obituary from The Eye was taped to a poster and hung on the street-level door that led up the stairs to the shop. When she saw it, Lacey was glad she had added some thoughts to the sparse facts supplied by Analiza. She even had managed to come up with a photograph of Magda for the obit. The paper’s head photographer, Todd “Long Lens” Hansen, had found in his files a shot of Magda fitting a local actress in a period costume, taken for a feature story on the theatre. The photo, which never ran in the newspaper, had neatly captured Magda’s gaze of intense concentration when she was involved in a project. It was a gaze Lacey remembered well. It was lucky, she thought, that Hansen kept voluminous photo files and had a near-photographic memory for his work.

  Analiza’s handmade poster issued an invitation to all of Magda’s friends to attend the memorial. The small room was full when Lacey arrived. The racks of costumes had been pushed to the walls under the unseeing eyes of the wig heads, and five rows of folding chairs had been set up in the middle of the shop facing a tiny podium borrowed from a theatre. They weren’t enough; the crowd of clients, neighbors, and friends jammed the place shoulder to shoulder.

  Lacey stood in the back, wearing her black Bentley suit from the 1940s, one of her most treasured vintage outfits from Aunt Mimi. Magda had admired the suit’s amazing lines and tailoring. Lacey could not bring herself to wear the corset, not even underneath the suit, no matter what kind of guilt trip her corset-loving stylist tried to induce. She spied Stella across the room, wearing her idea of a compromise, a black leather jacket and skirt ensemble worn with a scarlet corset. She was flanked by Stylettos’ assistant manager, Michelle, and another stylist, both in similar get-ups. More people arrived as a young woman Lacey didn’t recognize strummed a guitar and started to sing something she said was a Latvian folk hymn.

  Magda would be pleased to see how many people showed up, Lacey thought, but she wondered what the deceased would make of her motley crew of mourners. Analiza was in black, wearing what looked suspiciously like a costume from the “what to wear to a funeral if you’re theatrical” collection. Magda had often complained that Analiza “wore the inventory,” adding to the wear and tear on the costumes they rented and sold for a living. But today, the woman looked sadly charming, if rather lost, in a flowing black dress with a fitted bodice that laced up into a modified corset. It had a romantic handkerchief hem and long, dipped sleeves. She wore her tangle of red curls loose, restrained only by a black silk orchid behind one ear. The full effect of Analiza’s outfit, Lacey thought, was rather like a slightly deranged Ophelia attending Hamlet’s funeral; that is, if Shakespeare had seen fit to let her live to the end of the play.

  Looking like she was channeling a Breakfast at Tiffany’s vibe, Natalija Krumina turned heads in a sleek sleeveless black dress. She rushed toward Analiza and embraced her like a sister. Lacey noticed both women’s eyes were dry. She sat down to listen to the service.

  The first speaker was a very grand local actress of a certain age, wearing one of Magda’s elaborate Victorian gowns from her role as Lady Bracknell in a Washington production of The Importance of Being Earnest. She gathered up her voluminous skirts and de-claimed for the mourners a selection of famous theatrical quotes and comments on costume, clothing, and fashion, concluding with several epigrams from Oscar Wilde. “Fashion,” she quoted the great Irish playwright, “is what one wears oneself. What is un-fashionable is what other people wear.” Furthermore, as Wilde said, “One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art,” and she noted to general laughter that “while many of Magda’s clients might not be themselves great works of art, at least they could wear them, courtesy of dear Magda.”

  The other mourners included a woman Stella introduced to Lacey as Jolene Franklin, a strikingly well-tended blond beauty. Stella had described Jolene privately to Lacey as a very high-priced Washington call girl who thought nothing of special-ordering five-hundred-dollar corsets from Magda, sometimes three or four at a time. She looked as regal as an expensive trophy wife. In her mid-thirties, Jolene Franklin was studying to be a stockbroker under her real name, whatever that was. Even Stella, the gossip bureau for the Dupont Circle hairstyling world, didn’t know. She also had some Latvian connection, Stella said, but she couldn’t recall what it was. Lacey admired the warmth and solidarity of Magda’s ethnic community. The Latvians, it seemed, had hung together after emigrating to America. Although Magda grew up in France, had spoken French from birth, and considered herself a Frenchwoman, her Latvian ties seemed stronger.

  The stunning black woman who went by the name Sylvania was another top-drawer call girl. She and Jolene often worked together, Stella said, entertaining lobbyists, diplomats, and politicians. Sitting together cozily, they presented an elegant salt and pepper set, the blond Jolene dressed all in black, and Sylvania, her chromatic opposite, wearing a tailored suit as white as the driven snow. Lacey wondered whether this appearance fell under the heading of advertising, or perhaps they were off to a joint assignation after the service.

  Lacey also recognized several other actors, including two young women who had each been nominees for the Helen Hayes Award, Washington’s version of the Tony Award. Magda had fitted them for costumes while Lacey watched, marveling once again at how some actresses could transform themselves into fabulous creatures on stage and yet be content to look like an unmade bed offstage. They wore no makeup and shambled into the shop in black jeans and Doc Martens, T-shirts and flip-flops. Even though it was November and the temperature a scant 60 degrees, they apparently weren’t giving up their offstage casual wear for a mere memorial service. No doubt that was fine with Magda, Lacey reflected, who often saw her clients at their most vulnerable. She worked her costumer’s magic to cover up their inadequacies with just the right undergarment, just the right perfectly turned-out gown or costume.

  “See how they need me,” she might say. “You are what you wear, eh, Lacey?” If she were here, she would be thinking how to costume them properly for this very event. Lacey smiled at the thought.

  Detective Broadway Lamont sidled his bulk up to Lacey. “Any fashion clues I should know about?” he asked with his big dead-pan face.

  “Only fashion crimes,” she said. “Lots of them. Are the toxicology tests in? What about the dagger?”

  “What world you live in, Smithsonian? Does look like poison, though. Don’t know which one yet.”

  She nodded. The room had grown quiet for the next speaker. Analiza Zarina stood at the podium and launched into a long, rambling reminiscence about her late business partner Magda and the various shows they had costumed and the local celebrities they had supplied with custom-made gowns and corsets. “We were as close as sisters,” Analiza said. “Closer.” None of the familiar siblinglike banter that Lacey had witnessed was apparent in her words today.

  Lacey had brought a copy of her latest column to give to Analiza, the one about Magda, but she was unprepared when the woman called on her next to say a few words about the deceased.

  Stella dragged Lacey up to the podium. “Go up there and tell all these people about Magda, Lace, the way only you can.” A genius at mixing guilt and flattery, Stella uttered a few words of her own and then turned to Lacey. Thankful at least that Stella had passed up the opportunity to show the gathered crowd all the intimate intricacies of corsetry using her own ensemble as an instructive example, Lacey cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and called on her long-ago college acting experience. She spread her column on the podium and read from it.

&nbs
p; CRIMES OF FASHION

  Behind the Seams: Corsetiere Magda Rousseau Slain

  By Lacey Smithsonian

  “Bloody thread, knock ’em dead.” Everyone who knew Magda Rousseau has heard her say that. The saying comes, she said, from an old tradition among theatrical costumers, a belief that if the seamstress accidentally pricks her finger and spills a drop of her blood on a costume, the show will be a hit. “Bloody stitch, all get rich” is another version of the same saying. “Prick a finger,” Magda told me, is to a costumer a good-luck wish akin to telling an actor to “Break a leg.”

  Magda pointed out that it was impossible, of course, not to prick your fingers while sewing so many elaborate costumes under the short deadlines of the theatre world, so nearly every costume holds a tiny good-luck drop of the seamstress’s blood. And along with that drop of blood, Magda always poured her heart and soul into her work. She died this week in her costume shop in the District, still pouring her heart and soul into her work.

  Our community is diminished by the loss of Magda Rousseau. You may not have known her, but if you attend Washington theatre, you have seen her work on stages around town for many years. An artist with a needle, a poet in fabric, a corsetiere of the old school with a loyal clientele, Magda was also a stern taskmistress and a loving friend who…

  Lacey finished her reading and sat down to appreciative murmurs from the other mourners, only to be corrected by another costumer. A large woman in a black corset bodice gown stood up to lecture her that the correct saying was actually “bloody dress, good press,” a play, she elaborated, on a phrase that actors say but don’t really believe, “bad dress, good press,” referring to a show’s dress rehearsal. If that rehearsal is dreadful, she said, it’s thought to predict that the press notices for the show will be glowing. The woman then went on to lodge a vociferous complaint about the new theatre critic of The Eye, whom she called “the Butcher of the Beltway,” one of Mac’s new hires whom Lacey hadn’t even met yet, but whose assaults on local theatre were apparently all Lacey’s fault as the Voice of The Eye.