Raiders of the Lost Corset

by Ellen Byerrum

  The urn looked a little like a trophy, she thought, perhaps a golf trophy, missing the little man with the club. Another irony, she thought. Was this Berzins’ idea of a prize in his scavenger hunt? She tried to gently pry the lid off and realized that it screwed on. It was too tight to turn, but after carefully running hot water over the lid, she loosened it enough to get it started. One more hard twist and it came off in her hand. She peered inside, waiting with bated breath to see the white of human bones or teeth among soft ashes, or the glint of jewels wrapped in tattered rags from a long-lost corset. But the urn contained none of those things, no jewels, no human remains. It was full of dirt. And what looked like the edge of a piece of paper sticking up out of the middle.

  Drosmis Berzins, you son of a bitch!

  Lacey paced the room for a minute to stop her hands from shaking, then she tipped the urn out carefully on the newspaper. The dirt was caked hard—only the top inch or so was loose. Not having so much as a sharp nail file to dig with, thanks to airline security, she chipped away at it around the edge of the paper with a ball-point pen from the desk, ruining the tip. Chunks of dirt soon made a pile on the newspaper. She hoped for at least an errant diamond or ruby. Nothing.

  The paper that poked up through the dirt turned out to be a small envelope. Inside was a folded-up map of the St. Louis Cemetery Number One, a New Orleans landmark just at the edge of the French Quarter, along with a bill of sale and a deed to a single crypt. And on the back of the deed was a surprisingly long handwritten note in what she presumed was Latvian. Lacey sifted through the larger clumps of dirt, breaking them into dust, revealing nothing; no gemstones, no jewelry, not even a scrap of material. She was chagrined. Sweat was pouring off her forehead. She wiped it off and washed her hands before documenting the mess with her camera.

  Lacey presumed that if she was following Drosmis Berzins’ mad plan correctly, this note, the map, and the deed were the next pieces in the puzzle. Berzins seemed to be damned fond of notes and of leading people around. She funneled the dirt back into the urn from the newspaper, replaced the lid, packed it back inside the package of diapers, and hid it at the back of the top shelf in the closet, behind an extra pillow. She assumed the tiny safe on the wall next to the bathroom would be the first place a burglar would search, and it looked way too easy to break into. Finally she sat down and called Mac in Washington. She heard herself telling him it was urgent for the paper to get immediate permission to open a tomb. No wonder Mac worries about me, she thought. This isn’t your mother’s fashion beat.

  “Your attraction to dead bodies is taking a turn for the worse, Smithsonian,” he said. “Now you want to start digging up crypts?”

  “Just one, Mac. Not all of ’em. I’m sure our crack legal team can pry permission from the Catholic Church to pry open a crypt, right? After all, why do we even have lawyers?”

  “I hope it’s not to bail you out.” He sounded cranky, but no more than usual, she thought.

  Lacey was glad she didn’t have to see the look on his face, which was no doubt stuck in his famous menacing editor mode. He was probably wearing a blue plaid shirt with an orange tie, one of his favorite combinations. “I’m faxing these documents to you,” she told him. “I’d also like to know what the note on the back of the deed says. Did I mention it’s probably in Latvian?”

  “Right. Latvian. Good God. I’ll see if I have an intern to torture,” Mac muttered. “Latvia’s probably got an embassy here, right?”

  “That’s the spirit.” Lacey hung up and trudged down to the hotel’s business center to fax the documents to The Eye. She re-folded the originals and tucked them into her hip pocket.

  Loud knocking at the door woke her up. Lacey’s eyes felt as if they were glued together, but she pried them open and wrenched herself from the bed and stumbled to the door. She realized she must have collapsed, asleep before her head hit the pillow. The last thing she remembered thinking was how pleasant it would be to close her eyes for just a minute.

  “Open up,” Stella yelled. “You dead or something, Lacey? You better not be dead, because I am starved! Come on, Lace, time for lunch.”

  “I’m coming.” Lacey opened the door and yawned as Stella strode perkily into the room.

  “I feel like a new girl.” She turned to Lacey. “What happened to you? You look beat.”

  “Jet lag,” she managed to mumble. “I need to wash my face.”

  “Yeah, and let’s use some concealer on those dark circles.” Stella followed her to the bathroom while Lacey pressed a cold washcloth to her face. “Hey, you want me to do your makeup? My treat. Just close your eyes. You won’t know yourself when I’m done with you.”

  That opened Lacey’s eyes wide. She gazed at her stylist, who was still channeling her look from some 1920s film star, her shiny black hair slicked back and her eyes rimmed dramatically in black kohl. The bloodred lips added the only color in her face. Stella’s clothes, on the other hand, were modern with a touch of vintage Madonna, a purple micro-miniskirt and a tight pink bustier top, spilling even more cleavage than usual. She completed the look with jeweled pink flip-flops and a silver purse shaped like a stuffed bustier.

  “That’s okay, Stel. I’ll do it. I need the practice.” She freshened up, grabbed her shoulder bag, and ushered Stella out the door to the elevator.

  They stopped at a café just past Jackson Square down Decatur Street, famous for its muffuletta sandwiches, or so it said. Stella ordered the seafood gumbo, “extra spicy,” for her fast-fading hangover. Lacey had the jambalaya.

  “I know a great place for Hurricanes and hot jazz up on Bourbon.” Stella had a weakness for the famous cocktail that was sold all over the Quarter. “You can walk around in the street with a drink here, Lace, did you know? So cool!” Of course Stella would have to go to Bourbon Street, the loudest and craziest street in the Quarter. She needed some beads, she told Lacey with a wink. “And a man. And ‘the girls’ and I know how to get ’em.”

  “Later, Stella,” Lacey said between succulent bites of the Southern dish. She turned the pages of her guidebook with one hand. “You and your sassy girls there can have all the beads and all the men they can handle after I go back to bed, but first we have to go on a cemetery tour.”

  “Cemetery?” Stella’s black-rimmed eyes looked stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “The cemeteries in Nawlins are fascinating, I hear.” Lacey handed Stella a brochure with the tour schedule. “Look, the tour starts at a bar. I bet they’ll make you a Hurricane to go.”

  “But I thought we were going to party. I want lots of Hurricanes.”

  Lacey lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Remember, we’re on a secret mission here!”

  Stella’s eyes grew even wider. “Lacey! You mean the cemetery is important? Like a clue?” she whispered back.

  “Exactly like a clue.”

  “Wow, Lace, why didn’t you tell me? Well, then, let’s rock that cemetery! Do we need weapons?”

  “I hope not. That’s why we’re going in broad daylight.”

  “Maybe switchblades or something? With your record, Lacey, we gotta be prepared. Like Boy Scouts, you know. Make that Girl Scouts. Gee, I’m feeling lots better.” Stella leaned back and waved at a couple of businessmen wearing convention badges. They were enjoying the view of her “girls” and their impressively bustiered cleavage. Lacey paid the bill and pulled her away.

  On their way to the bar where the tour started, Lacey’s attention was diverted by a store window full of fantasy dresses, delicate chiffons and silks with an early-twentieth-century garden party feel. F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Tennessee Williams, she thought. The boutique was called Passion Flowers. The dresses were lovely, but Lacey couldn’t imagine where she might wear one. Perhaps high tea with the ambassador? Cocktails at the governor’s mansion?

  She wanted to press on, but Stella’s eye was caught by one of the elegant formal dresses. It wasn’t the punk stylist’s usual style, yet she stood ri
veted before an ivory dress, a full-fevered Blanche DuBois number right out of A Streetcar Named Desire. The dress fell softly to the hips with a dropped waist and full skirt. The three-quarter-length sleeves floated down the arms. “You could wear that to a wedding,” Stella said wistfully, reluctantly tearing her eyes away. “If anybody ever went to a wedding.” She sighed. “Not us, huh, Lace?” Lacey couldn’t remember the last wedding she’d been to. But she agreed the dress would be perfect for a wedding.

  Across the street, more New Orleans fantasy apparel was on display, hundreds of elaborate one-of-a-kind hats with colorful straw brims, hats that would never be worn in the real world, Lacey thought, at least not her real world. But this was Nawlins, not the stiff bureaucratic capital she had just left. She would love to see a party where such sweet excess would be the norm. The store was named Chapeaux de Paris, but Lacey hadn’t seen anything like it in Paris.

  “I gotta try one of those hats,” Stella announced and marched into the store, with Lacey trailing behind.

  “I thought you wanted to go to Trashy Diva,” Lacey said, a boutique that was much more up Stella’s alley, featuring corsets that were nearly the equal of Magda’s, bustiers, and retro dresses, sophisticated copies of clothes from the Forties and Fifties.

  “That goes without saying, Lacey, it’s like my favorite store on earth. But just look at these hats!” Stella swooped up an elaborate black-and-white straw chapeau with an elegantly twisted brim, decorated with feathers and bows. “Wow! How do I look?”

  “That’s really something,” Lacey said, not knowing quite what to make of Stella in that spectacularly un-Stella-like creation. “Where do people wear these hats?” Lacey asked the saleswoman, a young blonde named Annabelle wearing a simple yet elegant chapeau.

  “Oh, just anywhere,” Annabelle exclaimed in a soft Southern accent. She was fresh-faced, wearing a natural straw chapeau with a brown bow. It went well with her brown-and-white polka-dot vintage shirtwaist dress. “A lady needs hats for all sorts of occasions.”

  Yes, these were exactly the kind of hats a woman needed in her closet, Lacey thought, just waiting for that special moment in time, that fairy-tale event that will probably never happen, but Annabelle went on. “Oh, and you wouldn’t believe how many women buy them to wear at the Kentucky Derby. You know, it’s such an elegant event and they want to wear something unusual they can’t find at home. We ship our hats all over the world.”

  “I never thought of that.” Of course, the Kentucky Derby was a rarefied fashion event as well as a very Southern tradition. Lacey wondered if she could ever convince Mac to let her cover something like that for a fashion story. Right, she thought. After this adventure, I’ll never even get to leave the office for lunch again.

  “Oh, my, yes,” Annabelle said. “An English lady just ordered six of our hats to take home with her. And of course they’re all custom hats. No two alike.” She indicated a milliner working on a hat in the open workshop area.

  “I think I’m in love,” Stella said, gazing at herself in the cherrywood-trimmed cheval.

  “With yourself?” Lacey teased.

  “Well, of course. But I’m in love with this hat too.” Stella removed it reluctantly and turned over the price tag. Her jaw dropped. Her look clearly said it couldn’t possibly be that expensive. She put it gently back on the hat rack and patted it with a sigh. “I may be back for it later.”

  “Dare to dream,” Lacey remarked with a smile.

  Stella stared at her and her eyes went wide. “Lacey, you’re right! I will be back for it later!”

  “I didn’t mean you had to buy it.”

  “You only live once,” Stella said, and Annabelle nodded in agreement. “I might as well have the hat,” she said as Lacey led her out the door. “I’ll get married in it. Or buried in it. Whatever.” Stella threw a backward longing glance at all the tempting eye candy.

  Outside, the scent of flowers from hanging baskets floated down from the second-floor balconies, but the perfume of blossoms was soon forgotten as they passed an antique shop and the open door released the sharp tang of mildew. Lacey picked up the pace and they soon arrived at the bar on Ursulines Street where they would join the tour.

  They were greeted by Philipe, their guide, a tall, lanky man wearing a top hat, a blue brocade vest over a white shirt, and black slacks, and carrying a cane, adding a touch of drama. Philipe spoke with a sexy French accent and explained, in response to Stella’s flirtatious questions, that he was French, not Cajun or Creole, but he had been guiding these tours for several years and he also moonlighted as a jazz guitarist. And yes, he was single, he added, with a wink at Stella.

  In addition to Lacey and Stella, several couples were lining up for the tour, chilling with cold drinks. An overprocessed blonde in a tight turquoise top with silver spangles and tight white capri pants held a cigarette in one hand and a Hurricane in the other. Her chubby husband wore cut-off jeans and a T-shirt, and Lacey wished he hadn’t, as a public service to the world. Another couple in their late thirties wore matching blue jeans and white shirts. Nearly everyone had a drink. Lacey wanted to be awake and aware, so she sipped an iced tea. She planned to get Philipe’s attention and ask a few questions quietly before the tour.

  “Good God, Smithsonian, what is it with you and graveyards?” That increasingly annoying British accent close to her ear made her jump.

  “Hell and damnation, Griffin! What are you doing here?” She turned to glare at Nigel Griffin, not wearing his shabby trench coat for once. He looked very out of place among the T-shirted tourists. “I’m here on vacation here, you Brit twit.”

  “Really? What do you expect to see here? The ghost of Marie bloody Laveau, the bleeding Voodoo Queen?”

  “If you don’t like it, don’t go! And leave me alone!”

  “I have to go; I just bought the damn ticket.” He showed the ticket stub. “Purely for the pleasure of your company.”

  “If it’s pleasure you’re after, you’re on the wrong tour,” she sneered at him. Lacey tried to hide her alarm that he would actually follow her to New Orleans. She would have Brooke conduct an electronic sweep of her apartment when she returned to town. Maybe get a restraining order against him. Or maybe just let Vic teach him a lesson.

  “I’m hurt, Smithsonian. After all, we spend so much time together. These long chats warm my heart.”

  “Shut up,” she growled at him. “How did you find me?”

  “I have my ways. I find things, remember?”

  “Find your way out of my life, Griffin.” Lacey was seething. Stella, on the other hand, seemed to find this new male presence with the British accent enthralling. She didn’t even seem to mind his boring-for-Stella khaki slacks and blue oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves, as Lacey thought she would. She would definitely have to have a ladies’ room conference with Stella, as soon as possible.

  “I still don’t understand this cemetery mania. In Paris you’re at Père-Lachaise in the rain waiting for Jim Morrison to rise from the dead. And here you are waiting for the crypt keeper to lead us off to the boneyard. What does it all have to do with the bloody egg?”

  Lacey threw Stella a desperate look, pleading with her silently not to reveal anything about their mission in New Orleans. Philipe was rounding up the stragglers and leading the way to Rampart Street and the cemetery.

  “Oh, but these Nawlins cemeteries are fascinating, you know, full of your better class of zombies,” Stella said, placing her hand ever so lightly on Griffin’s arm. “Or so Lacey tells me. You have such a cute accent, I bet you’re English. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Lacey could hardly keep herself from slapping that hand away. Leave it to Stella to develop an instant crush on Mr. Goofball Menace.

  Griffin regarded Stella’s twin peaks with a slow smile. “And who might you be, luv?”

  “Stella Lake, pleased to meet ya. I’m Lacey’s friend. And her stylist.” She grabbed a lock of Lacey’s hair. “See? Those are my highl
ights.” Lacey gently removed Stella’s hand and backed away from the two of them. “My work is my art,” the stylist bragged.

  “Nigel Griffin. Call me Nigel. And I can see it is, Stella luv. You’re a work of art yourself.”

  “So, Nigel”—Stella’s New Jersey accent nasalized his name—“call me Stella.” She beamed at him. “Love your accent, it’s totally James Bond. So, are you shaken or stirred?”

  “You’re a piece of work, Nigel Griffin,” Lacey snarled. “What are you hanging around me for? I wrote the story. It ran in The Eye Street Observer. There’s no egg. Go bother someone else.”

  “I daresay you could have chosen better adjectives to describe me. ‘Romantic,’ for example. ‘Handsome.’ Or ‘dashing,’” Nigel said. “I don’t think you did me justice.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t use the adjectives I’m thinking of right now. And a few nouns.”

  “Sticks and stones, Smithsonian.” Nigel smiled. The tour arrived at the front gates of St. Louis Cemetery Number One. Philipe turned to command their attention and the group fell silent.

  “The City of the Dead awaits you,” he began, sweeping his cane grandly over a cemetery unlike any Lacey had ever seen. “As you will see, this city houses the dead above the ground, not below.” Lacey gazed at the monuments and tombs, following the group as they listened to Philipe explain the peculiar challenges of disposing of the dead in New Orleans, a city lying mostly below sea level, and how the cemetery was established in the early days of that predominantly Catholic city. He pointed out the tomb of the voodoo queen Marie Laveau, with its offerings of alcohol and coins from her adoring fans. Lacey marveled at its multiplicity of Xs ceremonially scratched into its whitewashed walls in homage, Philipe said, by her fellow voodoo practitioners, a practice no doubt frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Lacey noticed that many of the tombs were freshly painted and well cared for, while others, revealing the red brick under their white stucco, were neglected and falling into ruin. Several crypts gaped open, empty save for dust and broken bricks.