I was slightly taken aback at the effusive greeting but accepted his outstretched hand.
“Peter Sanderson here. I never had a chance to meet you today,” he said, “but someone told me who you were.”
“I’m so sorry that the show ended the way it did,” I said.
“Really? Oh, you mean what happened to Rowena. Pretty shocking, huh?”
“To say the least.”
“I’m really glad that I have this opportunity to get to know you,” he said, displaying a grin and a set of very white teeth. “I have the feeling that there’s some sort of karma at play.”
“Karma?”
“You know what I mean, fate at work. You’ve had a few of your excellent novels turned into equally excellent motion pictures.”
I wanted to move on but didn’t want to rudely cut our conversation short.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve been fortunate in that regard.” I didn’t add that I wasn’t especially pleased with the film version of one of my books.
“I model to pay the bills,” he said, striking a pose and then winking at me, “but I’m really an actor.”
Ah, I thought. Now I understood what he was getting at. He certainly was good-looking, if not quite as classically handsome as Sandy Black. Peter’s hair was brown with blond streaks, and his jaw sported the three-days-without-shaving shadow so many young men affect. And, of course, he had the narrow frame that couturiers like to drape their designs on. This night he wore a tight-fitting navy blue leather jacket with a zipper that went from one hip to the opposite shoulder, and carefully torn blue jeans, a style that continues to mystify me. I don’t always notice what men are wearing unless it’s out of the ordinary, but I was keenly aware that I was among people for whom the decision of what to wear each morning held great importance.
“Have you appeared in films?” I asked.
“Bit parts, TV walk-ons, but my agent is confident that some juicier parts are on the horizon.” He pulled a business card from his jacket and handed it to me, saying, “I’ve always believed that an actor can do his best work only when he believes in the material, and I believe in your books.”
I was tempted to ask whether he’d read any of them but didn’t want to put him on the spot. “That’s very nice, Peter, but—”
“Let me get you a drink, Jessica. I may call you Jessica, right?”
“Of course,” I said, waving excitedly at a woman in the crowd, “but I hope you’ll excuse me. There’s someone I need to catch up with.”
“Promise me we’ll have a chance to talk later,” he said.
“Let’s see how the evening progresses,” I said.
I hoped I’d disengaged politely. The woman I’d waved to was giving me an uncertain smile, probably trying desperately to remember where she’d met me when, in fact, we’d never set eyes on each other before. “Your dress is lovely. I’ve been admiring it from afar,” I said as I squeezed by her, having spotted Sandy’s mother.
“I didn’t see you come in,” Maggie said.
“Easy to get lost in this mob,” I said.
“I’m relieved that so many people have shown up,” she said, “after what happened to Rowena. I was afraid we’d all be talking to ourselves. Have you heard anything new about it?”
“No. I’m sure that nothing will be determined until the autopsy is completed. How is Sandy holding up?”
“Oh, he’s fine,” his mother said. “He’s over there, conferring with his financial backer.”
I looked in the direction she indicated and saw him at a table with a middle-aged man.
“It must be expensive launching a new line of clothing,” I said.
“Incredibly so,” she said. “Raising money for his line has taken up most of Sandy’s time. Investing in new fashions carries with it a lot of risk.”
“I can imagine. Who is Sandy’s financial backer?”
“Jordon Verne. They met when Sandy was in Hollywood.” Her face turned sour. “That’s a part of Sandy’s life I’d just as soon forget, and I would have thought that he would, too.”
“I meant to ask you about that—” I started to say when Babs Sipos, the model who’d been next to Rowena when she collapsed and whose dress I’d helped zip up, tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hi, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said.
“Hello, Babs. I was hoping you’d be here. I see that you’ve changed into something more comfortable.”
She laughed. “We were supposed to wear our gowns to the party, but I couldn’t wait to get out of mine.” She looked at Maggie. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your son’s designs. They’re beautiful, but I—”
“That’s all right, dear,” Maggie said, but her voice was cold. “I know what you meant, but please don’t say that in front of anyone else. We have press and other important people here. We don’t want them taking away a negative impression. In fact, I see the editor of Couture Model. Excuse me, please.”
“Oops,” Babs said after Maggie had walked away. “I always put my foot in my mouth. I hope that won’t keep me from getting another job with Xandr.”
“I don’t think his mother will tell him not to hire you,” I said. “How are you feeling this evening?”
Her lips turned down in a pout. “I still can’t get over what happened to Rowena. I never knew anyone my age who died.”
“It’s a terrible tragedy,” I said. “She seemed fine when I saw her at the makeup station. Did she show any signs of being ill?”
“Well, she did run to the ladies’ room before we went on. I was afraid she wouldn’t make it back in time—it was on another floor—but she did. I thought it was just nerves, you know. I told her that I was sick to my stomach, too, my first time on the catwalk, but she brushed me off, said she wasn’t nervous at all.”
“Was Rowena a good friend of yours?”
“No one was her friend,” Babs said, taking me aback. She saw my expression and rushed on. “I mean, she could be really snarky, had a real California-girl chip on her shoulder, even though she’s from the Midwest.” She quickly added, “But that doesn’t mean she deserved to die, of course.”
“No, of course not,” I said. “Are you from New York?”
“Nope! I’m a small-town girl, too, the ‘all-American’ type, or so it says on my model card.” She pirouetted in front of me. “Can’t you tell?” She pointed to her nose. “See? Freckles.”
“Did you come here with your family?”
“Not exactly. Well, I mean, my mother accompanied me when we first came two years ago, but then she went back home after dumping me with her cousin in Queens. But my mother’s cousin and I didn’t get along, so I moved in with another model.”
It’s bad form to ask a woman her age, but that rule doesn’t apply to a very young woman. I asked.
“I’m eighteen, but I’ll be nineteen next month.”
I tried not to show my surprise. It’s a courageous move to leave your sixteen-year-old daughter with a relative she doesn’t know in New York, or any other large city for that matter, but I didn’t express that thought.
“Why do you think Rowena had a chip on her shoulder? It would seem to me she was fortunate to have an aunt who could get her a job modeling. I assume that’s what she wanted to do.”
Babs smirked. “She wanted to be a model, and she thought she knew more about the business than anyone else. She played at being an authority on everything, even mixing up her own makeup and always lecturing everyone about what they should be doing like she was an expert. I mean, it was her aunt who was the expert, not Rowena.”
Babs looked to where some of the other models from the show (I recognized their dresses) stood in a knot of partygoers. “See that girl in the amethyst gown? That’s my roommate, Dolores Marshall. Rowena was mean to her. I even heard her use a racial epithet once to her face.”
Dolores’s complexion testified to her mixed parentage—perhaps African-American or Hispanic, and Caucasian.
“Is that the right word, ‘epithet’?” Babs asked. “I mean, you’re a writer. I figure you’ll know.”
“If you mean a nasty slur, you’ve chosen the correct term. That’s an interesting vocabulary choice.”
She shrugged. “I had good teachers and I read a lot.”
“Did Rowena have a roommate?” I asked.
Babs pointed. “Two. Isla and Janine. Isla’s the redhead in emerald and Janine’s the brunette in the ruby gown. I like her dress the best. I asked Xandr if I could wear it, but he said the platinum one went better with my coloring. Whoever he sells it to better hire someone to help her zip it up.”
I thought that at the prices Sandy was likely to be selling his gowns for, that wouldn’t be a problem for his buyers.
A waitress reached us and I plucked a mushroom off her platter. Babs waved her away.
“Aren’t you having anything?” I said.
“Can’t,” she said. “Have to watch my weight.”
I couldn’t help laughing. She was a matchstick in her miniskirt, calf-high boots, and a pullover black shirt cut low.
“We’re all hoping Mr. Gould picks one of us to be the ‘new face’ of New Cosmetics,” Babs said. “Don’t dare risk anything that might make him count us out.”
The redheaded model waved to her, and Babs twirled around grinning.
“Go talk with your friends,” I said. “It was nice to see you again.”
We separated and I headed for the bar, where I ordered a white wine from a young bartender with a goatee. Another actor, if I don’t miss my bet, I thought. As I turned away in search of someone else to talk to, I felt a finger poke my back. It was another bearded young man, dressed in a tan safari jacket and jeans, who carried a notebook.
“Jessica Fletcher?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Steven Crowell,” he said, “the New York Post. Got a minute?”
“Yes, I—but not if you want to speak about what happened today at the fashion show.”
“That is what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. He didn’t look old enough to be a reporter for any newspaper, let alone a large one like the Post.
“Why would you want to talk to me?” I asked. “I was just an onlooker like everyone else. Maybe you should speak with Sandy—er, Xandr Ebon. Rowena, the model who died, was working for him.”
“I already spoke with him. He promised to get together with me privately once the party is over.”
“Then you don’t need me,” I said.
“He happened to say he’s from the same town in Maine that you live in.”
“Cabot Cove,” I said. “Sandy grew up there and—”
“Sandy or Xandr?” he asked, his pencil making scratching noises on the page of his notebook.
“I’m sure he’d prefer Xandr,” I said. “That’s the name he’s using now professionally.”
“What do you think happened?” Crowell asked.
“What happened is that a young and beautiful fashion model just died. It’s certainly unexpected and dreadful, but I didn’t know her. I can’t help you.”
Crowell looked around before saying, “I get the impression that she was disliked by just about everybody.”
I stiffened. He was wading into the sort of gossip that tabloid newspapers are famous for, and I wasn’t about to contribute to the rumor mill.
“I just told you that I didn’t know her,” I said, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Babs Sipos had said about Rowena. I wondered if he’d spoken with her.
“Yeah, but you write murder mysteries, so I thought you might have a particular slant on it. Any thoughts?”
“If I were guessing, I’d say the unfortunate young woman must have had a congenital weakness and succumbed to it. I feel terrible for her family. Now please excuse me.”
It occurred to me that I’d already had to extricate myself from two awkward conversations, and hoped that it wasn’t a harbinger of what the rest of the evening would be like. As it turned out, subsequent conversations, almost all of them with people I didn’t know, were pleasant enough and didn’t find me looking for excuses to escape. I enjoyed time spent with Grady and Donna, whose contribution to the fashion show had been enthusiastically acknowledged by Philip Gould, who introduced me to his wife, Linda. She was a head taller than her husband, heavily made up, and very thin. Although close to my age, she was obviously a devotee to plastic surgery with a forehead so smooth it limited the facial expressions she was able to form. I wondered if having a husband surrounded by beautiful models motivated her to keep herself looking young. Philip, as he insisted I call him, took pains to thank me for coming. He also told me I looked lovely, but only after revealing that his company, New Cosmetics, was putting out a line for “mature women.”
“About time you paid some attention to the women who really support the business,” his wife remarked coolly. “Those baby-face models don’t care about quality as long as there’s glitter in the tube.”
Philip laughed. “I promise there won’t be any glitter in the new line.”
“Just cat’s eyes and flaming lips,” his wife said with a small smile.
“We have to follow the trend, Linda.”
“No, dear. You have to lead it.”
I caught up with Sandy later on and had a truncated conversation with him. His mother’s allusions to her son’s Hollywood days as being unpleasant enough for him not to want to relive them crossed my mind a few times during the evening, but I didn’t raise the topic when I saw him. He appeared to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I wondered whether it was Rowena’s death or the lengthy meeting he had with his financial backer that was the major contributor to his heavy mood. Or could he possibly be more bothered by the temporary loss of the gold gown Rowena had been wearing when she died? There was a piece of me that bridled when he’d expressed worry over that. A child’s death—and that was what she was, a seventeen-year-old child—should take precedence in our thoughts over any inconvenience it occasions. Although I suppose that’s naive on my part. Most people see the world only from their own narrow perspectives. And to Sandy, Rowena was a model he’d been pressed into hiring by her aunt, nothing more.
I hadn’t expected to see Rowena’s aunt, Polly Roth, attending the festivities, and her absence was understandable. I thought with sympathy that she carried a miserable burden having to notify the other members of Rowena’s family about their loss.
On my own, I wandered around the room, eavesdropping on snippets of conversation. I heard one elegantly dressed woman tell her companion, “Yes, he’s gorgeous, but his evening gowns crease too easily. You don’t dare sit down.”
“Then how do you get to an event?” her companion asked.
“Either you put it on after you arrive or have someone waiting there with a steamer. I just can’t be bothered.”
* * *
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of emerald. “I borrowed her coat to come here tonight.”
“You didn’t,” gasped her brunette friend.
“Why not? She’s not using it.”
* * *
“Hey, Phil, care to give the Post a hint regarding your ‘new face’?”
“You’ll hear the announcement when everyone else does, Crowell.”
* * *
“I heard her husband caught them in flagrante, as they say.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that face across from me at the breakfast table.”
* * *
I decided to call it a night after two hours and started to make my way toward the stairs, but was intercepted by Peter Sanderson again.
“Jessica! You can’t be leaving. We haven’t had a chance to continue our cha
t.”
“Perhaps another time,” I said.
“Still have my card?”
I patted my handbag and smiled.
“You must call me so we can talk about your next project.”
And your acting aspirations, I thought.
I managed to slip away without confirming that I would call, and was halfway to the staircase when I thought I saw Detective Kopecky standing by the bar, a drink in his hand. I backtracked to be certain I was right.
Why would he be at the party? I wondered.
I approached him and said, “It is you. I thought I recognized you. How do you come to be here tonight?”
“It’s a pleasant way to spend an evening,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
“Do you have an interest in fashion?” I asked.
He chuckled and sipped his drink. “One look at me and what I wear and you’ll know the answer.”
“I think you look just fine,” I said.
His bloodred tie contrasted with the pale blue button-down shirt, gray tweed sport jacket, and gray slacks that he wore.
“What about your wife? Is she a fashion fan?”
“My wife always said that I had a terrible sense of clothes,” he said pleasantly. “Ever since she died—breast cancer last year—I’ve been trying to dress better.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he said, waving away my apology. “As for fashion like these people define it? As long as my clothes don’t have gravy stains on them, that’s good enough for me.” He looked back at the bartender. “Buy you a drink? They’re cheap, just a buck in the tip jar.”
“Thank you, no,” I said. “I’m on my way out, but may I ask you again what brings you here? I’m just curious.”
“That man over there, Mr. Gould, gave me a pass to the party. I got talking to him this afternoon. I had nothing else on tap this evening, so I figured a couple of hours with the city’s beautiful people might be fun. Since my wife—there I go again—since she passed, I try to fill my off-duty hours.”
Design for Murder Page 4