The sound of him clicking off our connection was loud in my ear.
Maggie had been watching me from the far corner of the room. When it was obvious that our conversation was completed, she returned to where I sat.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“He said—well, he didn’t say much, Maggie. Sandy hasn’t been arrested or charged with anything. The police evidently have a videotape from a security camera that shows him at Latavia Moore’s apartment building the night she was killed.”
“She was killed? Someone murdered her?”
I nodded.
“Oh, no,” she said, slowly shaking her head, her eyes pressed tightly closed.
I patted her arm and said, “It’ll work out fine,” not at all certain that it would.
“Why did he go there?” Maggie moaned. “He told me he was through with her.”
“I’m sure you’ll have a chance to ask him that yourself,” I said, “once he’s released. And maybe he wasn’t there,” I added. “The images captured by security cameras aren’t always clear.”
But as I said it I had the sinking feeling that this camera hadn’t lied, and that Sandy had, for whatever reasons, elected to visit Latavia Moore the night she was killed.
Since there wasn’t anything I could do to help Maggie until Sandy was released, I assured her that I’d stay in touch. I didn’t want to be late to the makeup manufacturing demonstration being hosted by New Cosmetics’ Philip Gould. I had more questions for him.
On my way out, Jordan Verne emerged from Sandy’s office.
“Did you find a criminal defense attorney for Sandy?” I asked.
He looked at me strangely, as though I’d asked an inane question.
“His mother said that’s what you were doing.”
“He’s a fool,” Verne snarled.
“Pardon?”
“I told him to stay away from Latavia, but he wouldn’t listen. She was nothing but trouble for everybody who got close to her, including Xandr, and now he’s in the biggest trouble of all.”
“Are you saying that he had something to do with her death?” I asked, surprised at his premature assumption that Sandy had been involved in some way with Latavia Moore’s murder.
“Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?” he said, and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-two
The New Cosmetics Company Store was on the ground floor of a six-story building a block away from Capriccio’s, where its CEO had hosted the party for Sandy and the other designers after their fashion show. Inside the door a young woman dressed in black wearing bright green eye shadow and yellow lipstick accosted me. “Are you here for the demonstration?”
When I indicated I was, she directed me to an elevator in the building lobby next door. I had only a moment to admire the decor of the store, with its sleek gray cabinets and counters accented with Corinthian columns topped with what I assumed were imitation marble busts of Greek goddesses. Glass and mirrors sparkled everywhere, and even though I don’t wear a lot of makeup, I was intrigued to see what was on display. But I’d have to wait.
The elevator took me and a dozen other ladies to the manufacturing floor, where Linda Gould, Philip’s wife, elegantly dressed in a light blue cashmere sweater with an angora collar and matching pastel skirt, took our cards and welcomed us. She gave no indication that she’d met me before, although she brightened considerably when a woman I recognized from one of Sandy’s parties as a magazine editor entered.
A young man in a white lab coat, safety goggles, and yellow steel toe guards over his sneakers ushered us down a hall and into a room with long counters with stainless steel tops. On one side folding chairs were set up in rows in front of a screen. Most of the seats were taken, but I managed to find a chair in the next-to-last row before the lights were dimmed.
The opening image on the screen showed row upon row of young models. I searched for a familiar face, but the pictures went by too quickly before ending with the question WHO WILL BE THE NEW FACE OF NEW COSMETICS?
The film, accompanied by swelling music, was a pastiche of images of merchandise the company offered, including—in addition to every kind of makeup imaginable and the tools with which to apply it—skin creams, fragrances, hair products, and elegant pouches in which to carry all your beauty supplies when you leave home. At the closing credits, there was a round of enthusiastic applause as Philip Gould came forward to explain what would happen next.
We were divided into smaller groups, each led by one of a dozen lab-coated staff members, one of whom was Ann Milburn. I maneuvered myself to follow the group Philip Gould was accompanying, even though I had been directed to join that of a young woman with blue stripes in her hair. Philip led us down the rows of stainless countertops and stopped where another woman in white was filling lipstick molds with a magenta liquid concoction, stopping every so often to hold up a color chart to ensure that her blend was a proper match.
“This is what we call the ‘dirty room,’” he said. “It’s where we work with color.” He launched into a complicated explanation of the elements that go into a new lipstick, including aromatic oils and the minerals that give lipstick its color.
At the next table, arrayed in front of a woman mixing up the lipstick formula, were pots of colored minerals in every shade imaginable, and rows of bottles and vials. She used a metal tool to scoop up a small amount of a mixture in a bowl and deposited it on a piece of glass, using a gloved finger to spread it.
“What she’s doing now is checking for grittiness,” Gould explained. “We mill our own minerals until they are as smooth as talc. Any grittiness and the mixture is discarded and we start again.”
Satisfied with the texture of her mixture, the woman poured her concoction into a lipstick mold and put it on a freeze table to solidify.
“The Food and Drug Administration governs everything that goes into our cosmetics,” Gould said. “Of course, they’re a little lax when it comes to ingredients from the Far East, which is why it’s so critical for you ladies to buy American-made cosmetics. We only use the purest and safest materials in nature: beeswax, shea butter, jojoba, to name a few.”
I thought of the Chinatown receipt I’d found in the garbage at Rowena’s apartment. Fu zi was not a safe ingredient, yet someone there had bought it. Had one of Rowena’s roommates made that purchase? Had Isla? And had she pointed a finger at Rowena to deflect suspicion from herself?
Gould wrapped up his speech with “New Cosmetics makes roughly ten thousand lipsticks a day between our New York and our Cleveland plants. That’s more than three-and-a-half million lipsticks a year. Who buys them, you want to know? You do.”
An assistant carrying a box of lipsticks came up beside him. Gould plucked one out and held it up. “Back in the eighties, the average woman used to own seven lipsticks. Today, she’s more likely to have twenty-five or more. Surveys of our customers show the numbers run much higher.” He handed each of us one of his lipsticks. “Lipsticks from New Cosmetics have greater staying power, more vivid color, and are completely natural, so if you chew it off, there will be no adverse effects. Thank you for coming today.”
As we filed out of the “dirty room,” each of the attendees received a coupon to use at the New Cosmetics store downstairs. I looked for Ann Milburn but didn’t see her. I wanted to follow up with her about something Philip Gould had said. I lingered near the elevator, waiting until the others had left before asking one of the white-coated employees if she’d seen Miss Milburn.
“She went downstairs with the first elevator group.”
I thanked her and asked where Mr. Gould’s office might be. She pointed me to an open door. “But he isn’t there right now,” she said, smiling.
“Do you mind if I wait for him?”
“I don’t mind,” she said, “but I have no idea when he’ll be back. He might have gone out.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I said.
I entered Philip Gould’s office and looked around. The walls were painted a pastel blue, similar to the color his wife wore that day. Someone once told me that sky blue is a color that inspires creativity. I wondered if Gould had considered that when selecting the paint for his office. Large photographs of models’ faces marched across one wall, and a huge framed advertisement asked WHO WILL BE THE NEW FACE OF NEW COSMETICS?
Who indeed? I wondered. Rowena considered herself in contention for the role, and Polly Roth had said she was lobbying for Rowena to get it. How had she been lobbying? Had she been using her friendship with Gould to advocate for her niece? Was Polly just a friend or another of Gould’s paramours? Claude de Molissimo had suggested that Ann Milburn was his mistress. Could the New Cosmetics’ CEO have more than one? Were any of these rumors true?
“What are you doing in here?”
Philip Gould stood in the doorway to his office, his face set in a cold expression.
“Waiting for you,” I said, taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“And if I don’t have time to talk with you? I’ve already given you more of my time than I have any other stranger. What makes you think you can just waltz in here and demand my attention? I’m not interested in the needs of your books, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Actually, I’m not here to ask you about Fashion Week,” I said.
“Then what is it you want? Tell me and get out!”
“I wanted to ask you about this,” I said, handing him the card signed “Love, P” that I’d taken from Rowena’s apartment.
The bluster seemed to seep out of him.
Linda Gould stepped through the door. “Are you all right? I could hear you yelling down the hall. We still have some VIPs here.”
“I’m fine,” Gould said. “Close the door and I’ll be with you soon.”
Linda gave me a worried look but did as he’d said.
When we were alone, he sank into the chair behind his desk. “Where did you get this?”
“At Rowena’s apartment. That was quite an extravagant gift you gave her.”
“What do you mean?”
“The mink coat from Chi-Chi Furs. She referred to it as a ‘parting gift.’”
“What do you want? Are you blackmailing me, too?”
“Nothing of the kind,” I said. “I’m only after information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Rowena Roth was poisoned.”
“Oh my God, it’s really true?”
“Did you have anything to do with her death?”
He shook his head slowly and when he looked up I could see that his eyes were damp. “If I tell you everything, will you swear not to tell my wife?”
“Absolutely, but I cannot promise not to tell the police if what you say sheds light on her murder.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did you give Rowena a fur coat? Were you having an affair with her?”
“I’m bad, but I’m not a cradle robber. Even though she was accustomed to wrapping men around her finger in Ohio, New York is another story. There are a million Rowenas in this city. I think that came as something of a shock to her.”
“What came as a shock?”
“That she wasn’t the most beautiful, just one of many beautiful models trying to make it in New York. Without the power she was accustomed to, she looked for other means to get her way.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”
“Rowena and her aunt Polly had been pressing me to pick her as the new face of our company. I’d already selected another model, but I didn’t say anything at first. Then Rowena caught me with, well, let me just say with a friend, and she threatened to go to my wife, Linda, if I didn’t name her as the new face.”
“So she tried to blackmail you?”
He nodded.
“But you didn’t give in.”
“This is business. It’s bad enough to be manipulated in your private life. I wasn’t about to let her direct my business decisions. She kept pressuring me until I finally told her I’d already chosen Isla Banning as the new face, and it was too late to change my mind. Millions have been invested. All our marketing materials are set to launch as soon as the announcement is made.”
“So you gave her the coat as a consolation prize?”
“You could say that.” He tossed the card on his desk. “I didn’t tell Polly. She was having a hard enough time trying to contain Rowena. And then the kid drops dead. I swear to you I had nothing to do with her death, but if I’m being honest with myself, I have to admit that I felt a sense of relief.”
“And you didn’t attempt to get the coat back?”
He waved a hand as if dismissing the idea. “What am I going to do with it? I don’t care what happens to the coat. If Polly ends up with it, good for her.”
“Does Isla know she’s going to be named the new face of New Cosmetics?”
“Sure. She’s in all the new marketing materials. We’ve been shooting ads for a month. But we swore her to secrecy. She had to sign a nondisclosure agreement that threatens financial penalties and to cancel her contract if she breaks her promise.”
I wondered if Isla had truly been able to hold back such a delicious secret, especially in the face of an antagonistic roommate with her eye on the same prize. “Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you pick Rowena for the role?”
He heaved a sigh, and held up his index finger. “First, she was too headstrong. We need someone on the team who wants it so much she’ll accommodate our calendar and all our needs. Rowena was more accustomed to making demands on everyone around her. Second, she was too young and we’d have to go through hoops to complete all the paperwork that hiring an underage model requires. Isla has a little mileage on her. She doesn’t know we know that, but it suits our purposes. The women who use New Cosmetics are all ages, not just teenagers. And third, Rowena wanted to be in competition with us. She was always bragging that her eye shadow, her lipsticks were every bit as good as ours. She even posted a video to that effect on YouTube. Why would I want a young woman to represent my company who thinks she can make the same products in her kitchen? And then she tried to blackmail me. After that, her fate was sealed. She screwed herself out of the job in every way possible.”
“You’ll tell the police all this if they question you again?”
“If I have to. Has any of this been helpful to you?”
“Very much so. But before I leave, I was hoping to speak with Ann Milburn.”
Gould held up a hand. “What do you need with Ann?” he asked.
I smiled. “My questions for her have nothing to do with you.”
“You’re sure?”
I held up my hand. “Scout’s honor!” I said.
Gould paged Ann Milburn and two minutes later there was a knock on the door.
“Mrs. Fletcher has a few questions for you, Ann.” He looked at me. “Do you mind if I sit in?”
“Not at all,” I said.
Ann Milburn gingerly lowered herself into the chair next to mine. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about Rowena Roth,” I answered.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t have anything to do with her dying.”
“I don’t think you meant to,” I said, “but you may have inadvertently contributed to her death.”
She glanced nervously at Gould. “How did I do that?”
“Prior to the fashion show, Rowena presented you with a lipstick she had made for her roommate Isla, but Isla rejected it. Do you remember?”
“Yes. I was surprised. It was the first nice gesture I’d seen Rowena offer either of her roommates. Usually, she talked disparagingly about them. But she told me she’d made it especially fo
r Isla, and would I surprise her with it? I guess you were there when Isla rejected the gift.”
Gould sat up straight in his chair and glared at her. “And you would have used one of that kid’s homemade concoctions on one of our models before a show featuring New Cosmetics? What were you thinking?”
“Philip, it was the same color as the lipstick Xandr Ebon had selected for his models, and I was trying to make nice to her. You know how she was. She was ready to make trouble any time she didn’t get her way. I figured no one would know, and maybe she’d leave you alone.”
Gould sat back with a heavy sigh. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Well, it’s done and what’s the harm anyway?”
“The harm is—”
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to interrupt their argument. “Miss Milburn, do you still have the lipsticks that you used on Xandr Ebon’s models in the show?”
She turned back to me. “I . . . I don’t know. I guess so. I had them in the pocket of my pink smock.”
“And where is that pink smock now?”
She looked around in confusion. “I’m not sure. I haven’t worn it since then. We wear white lab coats in the manufacturing rooms here. I think it should be hanging in my office on the back of the door.”
“Would it be possible to see it?” I asked.
“I think so,” Gould said. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Caroline, would you please bring me the pink smock that’s hanging on the back of the door in Ann Milburn’s office?”
We sat quietly until there was a knock on the door, and a young woman entered carrying a hanger holding the pink smock Ann Milburn had worn the morning of the fashion show.
The makeup artist took the hanger and patted the pockets of her smock. She pulled out two tubes of lipstick and held them up. “See, they’re basically the same color. This one has an NC on it for New Cosmetics, and Rowena copied our style by putting RR on hers.”
“May I see?” Gould asked.
“Don’t touch them,” I said.
Milburn’s faced paled. “I’m touching them.”
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