Raiders of the Lost Corset

by Ellen Byerrum

  “They don’t know who killed her.” Analiza pushed her hair up again and anchored it with more bobby pins. It was no improvement. “No suspects. That’s what they told me.”

  “My money is on some psycho,” Jolene said, stepping out of the dressing room in her street clothes, tight jeans and a tighter shirt that showed off major cleavage. She handed the silver dress to Analiza.

  “A psycho who uses poison?” Lacey asked.

  “Takes all kinds, sweetie.” Jolene shrugged and grabbed her purse. “I’m out of here.”

  “You can pick this up tomorrow,” Analiza called after her as the call girl jogged down the stairs to her next appointment.

  “What’s going to happen to Magda’s apartment?” Lacey asked.

  “It’s my apartment now.” Analiza busied herself with Jolene’s dress.

  “It makes more sense for her,” Natalija told Lacey, “because it’s right above the shop. Next to mine. So much more convenient. And it’s easier for us to work together. I am helping out right now. In the shop. I’m very good with numbers and handling money.”

  “I don’t know what I would do without her.” Analiza smiled fondly at Natalija, who gave her a warm hug. Analiza turned back to Lacey and her smile faded. “Is that all you wanted?”

  Lacey realized she hadn’t even taken off her trench coat. “Yes. I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am about Magda.”

  “You are not going to look for the killer? Like you did before with those other women?”

  “It’s out of my hands. The police are handling it.”

  Analiza nodded and seemed to remember her manners. “Would you like a bottle of the perfume? Magda’s perfume? There is an extra one.” She made a move as if to retrieve it.

  “No, thank you.” The very thought of the perfume haunted her. Lacey knew she would never wear it, and she knew she would never forget the way it smelled. Besides, she didn’t think Magda would approve of Analiza parceling out her precious scent so cavalierly.

  Lacey took one long last look around the shop, at the costumes and the corsets and the elaborate wigs, at the case where the fake jewels were kept, now all neatly tucked away again. She glanced at the sofa in the middle of the shop where Magda had taken her last breath. She wondered if it had been cleaned since then. Apparently it held no bad memories for the women who still worked there.

  I’m sorry, Magda. I guess I let you down. Now I have to let you go, Lacey said silently to her friend. Then she turned and walked away. The shop door chimed again softly behind her. She ran down the steps and finally took a deep breath when she was outside on the sidewalk. The crisp autumn air and the smell of a wood fire burning in someone’s fireplace made her long for something that she could not name.

  Chapter 32

  “Lacey, there’s cake batter on the ceiling.” Vic turned off the electric beater and stared at the mess hanging over his head like edible stalactites. “And the floor. And your nose.”

  “Really?” She looked up at the ceiling. Sure enough, there was cake batter up there. She gazed at the incriminating beaters in Vic’s hands. “Funny, that’s not what the recipe calls for.”

  Lacey was not often seduced by food. However, in her hunt for the perfect Thanksgiving dessert she had been hypnotized by an issue of the magazine Southern Living, glossy and brazen and full of promises of holiday culinary glory. This issue featured “Our Best Recipes.” The desserts were especially seductive, and diabolically difficult. Every one required skill, discipline, determination, and baking pans Lacey did not possess. She had eyed every photograph, every recipe with mingled admiration and horror. She considered and rejected the Perfect Pumpkin Chess Pie, the Cranberry Apple Cobbler With Cinnamon Biscuits, the Apple Walnut Cake, and the Red Velvet Cake With Whipped Buttermilk Frosting.

  Finally, under the influence of the gorgeous glossy cover photograph, she settled on the preposterously named Pecan Pie Cake, a luscious-looking torte with pecan pie filling garnished with nuts and pastry leaves. It was mesmerizingly beautiful. “Our Favorite Fall Dessert,” the cover copy proclaimed. And Lacey was determined to make it for the Thanksgiving dinner with Vic’s parents, no matter how much batter wound up on the ceiling.

  “Sweetheart,” Vic pleaded, “my mother does not need you to go to all this trouble.”

  “Yes she does. Just remember to turn the beaters off before you take them out of the bowl. Don’t worry, this is just a test run. We’ll make it again fresh the night before Thanksgiving.”

  Vic’s jaw dropped. His look said Are you insane? But wisely he did not utter that sentiment. “Listen, I know a great little bakery.”

  “Stop right there, Victor Donovan. This is going to work, if it kills us.” She didn’t want to tell him she had bought an expensive set of beautiful new cake pans, as well as an expensive cooling rack. She felt absurdly proud of herself: She had never owned a cooling rack before. She hadn’t even tallied up all the money she’d spent on ingredients for this extravagant dessert. She actually didn’t know which seemed more ridiculous, trying to find the lost corset of the Romanovs or trying to bake the perfect autumnal dessert from a recipe in Southern Living. At the moment it was a very close call.

  “You will be careful, won’t you?” Vic asked.

  “With the cake?”

  “In New Orleans.”

  “Trust me, Vic.” She popped the cake pans in the oven and surveyed the disaster, looking for the timer. “If I live through this baking experience, I’ll be in New Orleans tomorrow.”

  “You promise not to go chasing crazy leads? Not till I get there?”

  “I promise not to get in trouble.” She found the timer and set it.

  “It always starts like this.”

  “Like what, with cake batter on the ceiling? You know, cowboy, a gal could get the impression that nobody trusts her.”

  “I trust you to go off half-cocked,” he said. “What did Broadway Lamont tell you about the murder? Is anyone in custody?” he asked, with a glimmer of hope.

  “No, but he did confirm he was pissed off. He also confirmed that Magda had been poisoned, big surprise, but the final tests aren’t in yet.” Lacey rubbed her lower back. It ached.

  Vic lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. “You know what we could be doing while the cake is in the oven?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I set the timer for twenty-five minutes.” She winked at him. “Want to go for a speed record?”

  Vic groaned. He settled for a beer and a rundown on her plans for New Orleans while he admired the picture of the fabled Pecan Pie Cake. “What about the leaves on that cake?”

  “I don’t think we need to do the leaves. They look, um, labor-intensive.”

  “But, honey, they’re in the picture. They look mighty pretty.”

  “They’re optional. But if you want the pastry leaves, Vic, why don’t you do them?”

  “You’re on.” Vic surprised her by doing an excellent job of rolling out the pastry dough she had made just in case. He was pretty good with a cookie cutter too. “Now what?”

  Lacey referred to the recipe. “Well, according to the dessert fanatics at Southern Living, to get that autumn-leaves-blowing-in-the-wind look, you have to drape every pastry leaf you cut out over its very own crumpled-up ball of aluminum foil. Artistically. Brush them with the egg mixture, sprinkle with sugar, and bake them on a greased cookie sheet. You make the little pecan sandwiches out of the leftover pastry dough and the pecans. Then we glue them all on top of the cake with extra pecan pie filling to create an artistic autumn scene of tasty blowing leaves.”

  He stared at her. “So this thing takes two ovens, four cooks, and about forty man-hours of labor. If we made one of these to sell, we’d have to charge a hundred dollars a bite.”

  “It’s Southern, Virginia boy. ‘Southern’ doesn’t mean quick and easy, does it?” She crumpled a small piece of foil into a ball and tossed it to him with a grin. “First one’s on the house. Is your mother
worth it?”

  Vic sighed. He took the crumpled ball of foil and draped a pastry leaf over it. Artistically. “More foil, please.”

  Three hours later every pan in Lacey’s apartment had been used, her kitchen was a disaster of unbelievable (though edible) proportions, and their tempers had frayed but never quite snapped. But the cake was beautiful, a work of art, worthy of the cover of Southern Living. They admired it for a moment and then cut into it for a taste test.

  “You know, darling,” Vic said, chewing thoughtfully, “it’s kind of bland. Really bland. Did we leave something out?”

  “Are you kidding? Everything in my entire kitchen is in this cake. Pie. Pie cake. Whatever they call it. It is not bland, it is a masterpiece. You got that? A masterpiece.” Lacey took a deep breath and waggled a mixing spoon at him like a teacher with a slow pupil. “I have one more thing to say here, Vic. I just spent over a hundred dollars on pans and ingredients and untold hours creating this culinary wacky wonder of the world, and my kitchen looks like the night of the living cake-batter zombies. You better reconsider what you just said about my Pecan Pie Cake, if you want to get another bite of anything tonight. Are you with me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. At least we have each other.” He took another bite. “Mighty fine. Best damn Pecan Pie Cake I ever ate, ma’am.” He flashed his devastating smile at her. “Now you try it.”

  Lacey bit into her slice. “Damn it, it is bland! Okay, no problem. I’ll adjust the recipe. I’m thinking maple syrup and cinnamon. Lots of maple syrup. It’ll be a Vermont Pecan Pie Cake when we’re done with it. We’ll get thrown out of Southern Living, but who cares? It’ll be great.”

  “We’re really going to do this again? How crazy are we?”

  “You tell me, cowboy. Are we going to go to your folks for Thanksgiving or not?”

  “This is how you approach everything, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” She took another bite of the cake. “Maple syrup, definitely. We’ll whip this thing yet.”

  “You’re relentless. You hit the wall and you just change course and keep going. You didn’t find the corset in France, so you just switch directions and go to New Orleans instead. You could just give up, you know. Forget about the corset. Buy a pie for dessert.”

  “Vic! Give up when we’re so close? I wouldn’t dream of it. And besides, you were the one who told me there was a Rue Dauphine in the French Quarter.”

  “Damn. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Forget about buying a pie, Vic. This will work, we’ll make it work. And as soon as we clean up the kitchen, darling, I have to decide what I’m wearing tomorrow for New Orleans.”

  Lacey Smithsonian’s

  FASHION BITES

  Welcome to Tonight’s Thrilling Episode of What Will I Wear Tomorrow?

  Beyond The Twilight Zone. More gripping than What Not to Wear. More frightening than Fear Factor. It’s every working woman’s own nightly reality fashion show, filmed live in her own closet, starring, well, you. It’s tonight’s thrilling episode of What Will I Wear Tomorrow? Tonight we present for your viewing pleasure a special exercise in terror, entitled, “I Can’t Even Decide What to Wear Today, and I Have to Leave in Fifteen Minutes!”

  We join our heroine, thwarted in her desperate hunt for the perfect outfit, flinging clothes hither and yon like Scarlett O’Hara ripping down the drapes at Tara. Tonight’s episode may be disastrous for your closet, and even more disastrous for your peace of mind. And this show is rated F, for female audiences only. Bye-bye, honey, go catch your bass-fishing show. Please?

  Never let the man in your life see you try to decide what you’re wearing tomorrow. He won’t get the story, the passion, the epic drama. The big lug doesn’t try on five outfits the night before a big day, does he? Why not? Because he doesn’t care. He doesn’t obsess about his clothes and what they say about him. His clothes say, “I’m a guy, duh. So I’m wearing clothes. Big deal.” He doesn’t talk to his clothes. They don’t talk to him. He doesn’t have the sound track from Doctor Zhivago or Gone With the Wind running through his head while deciding what to wear.

  A man seldom perceives the importance of selecting the right clothes before a strategic power meeting or a job interview. A suit’s a suit, right? And jeans are jeans. He may offer such brilliant advice as this: “Tomorrow? Just wear what you wore yesterday, honey. Nobody will remember.” It makes your head hurt, doesn’t it? I thought so.

  What Will I Wear Tomorrow? is a true tale of the life-and-death struggle between a woman and her closet, aided possibly by the one female friend whose opinion counts. Consult Old-What’s-His-Name only for the most crucial basic information: Is it a poolside picnic or a black-tie dinner? Will the President be attending? Will there be metal detectors? What is his mother wearing?

  On What Will I Wear Tomorrow? your clothes sometimes seem to have their own story lines. They can turn into your enemies faster than an infestation of alien pod people. Who knows why the same outfit that was perfect on Monday is perfectly horrible on Thursday? How can you look svelte in that cute dress at 9:05 a.m. only to discover that by midafternoon you look like a hippo, and it’s the darn dress’s fault? Maybe your clothes have cannier writers than you do, and they all want to be villains. Every star knows it’s more fun to play the villain. What’s a fashion-savvy woman who wants to be the star of her own fashion story to do?

  Think about the clothes you love and that always love you back. Analyze what they have in common, why they are so flattering on you, whether it’s an Empire waist or a straight skirt or the perfect colors that flatter your skin tones. Memorize these golden outfits. Use them as your touchstones when you’re shopping, when you’ve forgotten momentarily who you are and what you look like. (It happens to all of us.) However, a warning to all of us obsessive-compulsive types: This does not mean you have to chart your successful outfits on a spreadsheet, seal them in Ziploc bags, and hang them in your closet labeled by the days of the week. Although, come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea.

  How much of your wardrobe is stuffed into a dark corner where you can’t see it? Are you often surprised by what you find there? Do you lose track of something you bought on sale in the spring, only to find it in the fall? Do you remember buying great clothes that have somehow slunk into that dark corner, never to be seen again? Seize control of your closet!

  We all need fewer clothes that work better and harder. (Or bigger closets.) Always thin the herd of the weaker specimens. Be ruthless. One way to be sure you’ll always know what to wear tomorrow is to get rid of the clothes that don’t work for you today, especially the sneaky ones that turn on you in the middle of the afternoon.

  If you only have clothes that work together and flatter you, then you won’t make any wrong choices. It’s a theory, right? Of course, that only happens in the movies, where the heroine has the giant walk-in closet with all the bells and whistles, the shoe racks, the skirt rods, the clear glass drawers for everything from sweaters to scarves. It’s a Hollywood fantasy.

  But you can avoid the trauma of another nerve-shattering episode of What Will I Wear Tomorrow? Take control of your own fashion story now, don’t wait until showtime. And soon What Will I Wear Tomorrow? will be the feels-good, fits-right hit of the season.

  Chapter 33

  Lacey and Stella hadn’t even arrived in the French Quarter and already the taxi driver was dissing her choice of accommodations.

  “Dat Beaumont House Hotel? I ain’t take nobody dat hotel three years or mo’. Why’n’cha stay at de Royal Sonesta or de Fairmont? Now dat’s a hotel, cher, you wanna talk hotels—”

  Lacey was sick and tired of people bemoaning her choices, but she didn’t even have to respond—the taxi driver kept up a solid string of commentary throughout the drive. They should eat at Brennan’s, he said, and Emeril’s. He was encouraging them to drop a lot of cash in the Big Easy. She wondered if he got a kick-back. And nobody says “Da Big Easy” in New Orleans, he informed them, o
nly outsiders, and besides that, cher, the city is correctly called “Nawlins.”

  Stella had a hangover and was feeling queasy, but that wasn’t keeping her from flirting. “That’s so cute. You’re cute too, cutie. You remind me of a nice old grandpa.”

  “Grandpa!” He chuckled. “Ah’ll show you a grandpa, cher.”

  While Stella flirted with the taxi driver, Lacey was wondering how to lose her friend while discreetly checking out the address on Rue Dauphine. This was such a fool’s errand, she told herself. Drosmis Berzins was long dead, and the entire landscape could have changed. Yet time was said to move slowly in the Big Easy. Nawlins, she corrected herself. The seasons seemed to move slowly as well. Though Indian summer had lingered in Washington, it brought crisp golden days and chilly nights. But here in New Orleans, the November air was positively balmy and the breeze cuddled the skin rather than chilled it.

  The taxi pulled up to their hotel on Decatur Street. “So what’s wrong with this place?” Lacey asked, but the driver shrugged. “Nuttin’. ’S aw right. Y’all be fine here.” The Beaumont House Hotel was proudly pink with filigreed white balconies decorated with hanging ferns and baskets of flowers. It looked to Lacey as if it had put on a party dress just for her.

  “Y’all take care now, cher. Y’all need a cab, ya call me, hear?” He hauled out their bags and handed Lacey his card.

  “Thank you! We love the hotel! It’s totally girly,” Stella told the driver. He grinned and took off to counsel other tourists on how best to spend their money in Nawlins.

  “Wait till you see what I brought,” Stella announced on their way up in the elevator. Can’t wait, Lacey thought with a smile. No doubt a suitcase-full of tarty Bourbon Street outfits. “This is a wild and crazy party town, Lacey, not like D.C. So I pumped up the color, like you told me.”