The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  “What does your editor think about all the grand dames complaining?”

  Kitty’s eyes rolled dramatically, but before she could answer, a waiter came and took our order—coffee for us both. As soon as he went away, Kitty leaned forward, her gray eyes sparking.

  “Do you know what that great buffoon of an editor said to me?” She stiffened her shoulders and put on a deep voice. “‘Truth is outside your purview, Miss Sharpe. Leave truth to the news.’” She dropped her shoulders and sighed. “He said I’m on the society page, not the front page. He said give the society folks what they want.”

  “So that’s why you want off the society desk?”

  “That and a million reasons. Who wants to write about pink teas forever?”

  “But at least you’ve got all the good gossip,” I said, trying to guide the conversation back on track.

  She looked at me sharply. She’d chosen her pen name well. “I suppose that’s my hint to start spilling the dirt.”

  I grinned and took out my red notebook. “Spill away.”

  The waiter returned and deposited cups of coffee in front of us. Kitty waited until he left to speak. “It’s really a shame about Arimentha McDonough.” She dropped one sugar cube after another into her cup. “She was good for business.”

  I paused in the middle of adding my own single cube of sugar. “How so?”

  “She kept the gossip mill running. She was serious for a while with this future politician type, Philip Leveque. But then they split up all of a sudden about a year ago, for some reason even I could never discover. Ever since, she’s been different. Running off to speakeasies all the time, drinking too much, dallying around, they say, though I haven’t discovered with whom.”

  “What about her date that night, Fitzroy?”

  “I don’t think they were really ‘dating’ per se. Fitzroy DeCoursey is an odd case. He started showing up at every event about a year ago, and he’s ‘friends’ with everyone, but few people seem to actually like him.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “No one will utter a peep against him, so I haven’t managed to figure it out. Yet.”

  “Then how do you know they don’t like him?”

  Kitty shrugged. “Ask about him sometime and watch what their faces do. It’s obvious.”

  I jotted that down in my notebook and considered. The Uptowners obviously weren’t put off by people who looked like department store mannequins, so that wasn’t why they disliked him. Maybe this was another hint he didn’t have as much money as the others?

  “Have you heard anything about him having money troubles?”

  “No . . . not exactly.” Kitty bit her lip. “But there was a rumor going around that he and Jerome Rosenthal had some sort of financial arrangement between the two of them.”

  My brows rose. “What kind of ‘arrangement’?”

  A pair of well-dressed women walked by our table, and Kitty clammed up until they were past, then leaned closer and lowered her voice. “No confirmation, but I assumed Mr. Rosenthal was paying him for his company, if you know what I mean.”

  “So, both Rosenthal and Fitzie have something to hide.”

  Kitty arched an eyebrow. “Don’t we all?”

  I met her gaze steadily over my notebook. “Not me.”

  “How fortunate for you.” Kitty glanced away at an older couple sitting two tables away from us, holding hands. “And unfortunate for Mr. Rosenthal and Mr. DeCoursey that having secrets makes them suspects in a murder.”

  I stirred my coffee slowly. If Arimentha had found out about Fitzroy and Rosenthal’s “arrangement,” one or both of them could’ve pushed her off the balcony to silence her. Fitzroy seemed broke at the bar, so Rosenthal probably had the most to lose. Then again, enough money could be instant insulation from trouble.

  “Okay, what else?” I said, picking up my pencil again. “What do you know about the other three who were there with them that night?”

  Kitty took a delicate sip of her coffee, made a face, and added yet another cube of sugar and a hefty pour of cream from the little pitcher on the table. “The other three were Symphony Cornice, Daphne Holiday, and Daphne’s brother, Claude. Symphony is most recently Minty’s best friend—”

  “Wait . . . did you say—”

  “What? Oh . . . Minty, yes. That’s really her nickname.”

  “Oh.” I suppressed a laugh. The girl was dead after all. But I would have to have a conversation with Marion about leaving out this important detail. “Please continue.”

  “So, Minty,” Kitty said, with a small guilty smile, “was best friends with Symphony for the last year or so. They’re both seniors at Sacred Heart and neither have siblings, so maybe that’s why they bonded? They seemed very different in personality otherwise. Symphony lives with her parents a block away from Minty in the Garden District.”

  Of course, they went to Sacred Heart, the only school more ritzy than Ursuline. I paused with my pencil over my notebook. “What does Symphony look like?”

  “Tall, auburn hair?”

  I drew a line underneath her name. “That’s the one who gave me a hard time the night of the murder.”

  Kitty tasted another tiny sip of her coffee. “I’m not surprised. Her mother is one of those who called the editor about me.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “What about Daphne Holiday? What’s she like?”

  “Brunette and small. Ambitious. Graduated from Sacred Heart last year. She’s a tennis player, plays obsessively three hours every day from eight until eleven in hopes of going on the professional circuit, or possibly just killing time until she gets a marriage proposal. She is currently involved with Minty’s former boyfriend, Philip.”

  “The politician?”

  She made a moue of distaste. “He’s going places, that one. When he donated a thousand dollars to the Children’s Toy Fund this Christmas, he made sure the paper knew about it so we’d send someone out to get a photograph. He’s good-looking and never a hair out of place, but to me, there’s something cold and false about him.”

  “Like he wouldn’t actually want to come too close to those poor kids?”

  “Precisely.”

  “So why was Daphne with Minty on New Year’s Eve and not him?”

  Kitty shook her head and picked up her coffee but didn’t drink it. “That I don’t know.”

  “What about Daphne’s brother?”

  “Claude used to have a crush on Minty, but then he’s had a crush on every girl in the Garden District at some point. I don’t think he’s a serious contender.” She leaned forward like she was telling a secret. “Weak stomach.”

  I tapped my spoon on the table, remembering the boy who’d vomited on the cobblestones of our courtyard that night. “If not him, who do you think is a contender?”

  Kitty propped her chin on her fist and looked around at the other customers, as if she might find the answer right there in the coffee shop. “I’d wager it was someone with a romantic connection . . . Money doesn’t motivate these people enough. They’ve never even had to think about it.”

  “But what about Fitzroy? He was the one so eager to blame Marion for everything. And he was the last one to see her alive.”

  Kitty pointed her spoon at me. “That you know of.”

  “Okay, true.” I sighed. “So now what? I need to talk to these people, right? How do you do it?”

  “I don’t.” She rotated her coffee cup, looking smug.

  “What do you mean you don’t talk to them?”

  “I talk to everyone else. I talk around them. And I listen. I stand out now”—she touched her bright red hat with the nine-inch black plume sticking up—“but when I go to one of their events, I blend into the woodwork. They hardly even notice I’m there. None of them even know Kitty Sharpe’s face.”

  I was a little impre
ssed but tried not to show it. “Then I need to go to an event. And I need to blend in. But what kind of event?”

  “Just so happens . . .” Kitty looked pleased with herself again. She slipped a folded newspaper out of her red handbag and slid it across the table.

  First Debutante Ball of the Season to Be Held at Roosevelt Hotel

  Carnival season is here again, and with it come the debutantes in their angelic white finery. A glittering gala marking the opening of the debutante season will be held in the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel on Saturday, January 4, at 8 o’clock in the evening.

  “That’s in two days!” I said, not bothering to read the rest.

  “Indeed.”

  “So, you’re saying that if I somehow manage to get into this ball, I’ll be able to overhear all the gossip I need?”

  Kitty stirred her full cup of coffee again. “Precisely.”

  “Will they really be talking dirt about Minty when she was just murdered?”

  “Of course they will.” Kitty laughed as if I were impossibly naive, which made angry heat rise up my neck. “Everyone will have a theory about who killed her, and you can hear them all.”

  I looked at her warily. “Will you be there?”

  “I will.” Kitty patted her hair. “But don’t expect to see me. I’m good at blending in, remember?” She looked me over appraisingly again. “Do you think you can get in?”

  I scowled at her across the little table. “I can get in.”

  I didn’t mention I had no idea how.

  CHAPTER

  13

  IT WAS THURSDAY night, our third busiest of the week, so I went straight from the coffee shop to work at the Cloak, my mind buzzing with all the things Kitty had told me.

  “Hey, Millie!”

  I turned on the banquette outside the club and saw Bennie, carrying a crate with bottles tinkling together inside it. “Hold the door for me!”

  I propped the door open with the heel of my shoe. Bennie flashed me a smile as he brushed past me, and an idea came to me.

  I caught up with him at the bar, where he was unloading bottles into one of our hideaways, a secret opening behind a panel of the wall. A piece of the hay the Altobellos used to cushion the bottles had floated up and landed in Bennie’s black hair. I plucked it out and slid onto a stool, twirling it.

  “Why, Bennie Altobello, you’re just the man I wanted to see.”

  Bennie looked over his shoulder, his mouth quirking to one side. “Let me guess. You need a favor.”

  “Actually, two. Sit and talk to me a minute,” I said, gesturing broadly to the stool beside mine.

  Bennie brushed the hay off his hands and sat, his smile cautious.

  “The first one’s really a favor for Marion. Can you get his stuff from your grandmother’s place for him? He’d hiding out at my apartment.”

  Bennie sobered. “I saw the cops over there. Nonna is furious!”

  “So you’ll help?”

  “Of course.” He nudged me with an elbow. “What’s the other thing? I know you started with the easy one.”

  I grinned. “Depends on how you define ‘easy.’ Doesn’t your friend Eddie work at the Roosevelt Hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “And haven’t you filled in for him a couple of times?”

  His answer was slower this time. “Yeah.”

  I scooted closer, touching his knees with mine. “Here’s the thing—I need a way to get into the party there Saturday night.”

  His brows drew together in a frown. “Why?”

  “Someone there might have dirt on Arimentha McDonough’s friends.”

  Bennie leaned back, his eyes widening. “I don’t know if that’s a great idea.”

  “Sure it is. This gossip columnist girl told me it’s the best way to—”

  Olive appeared beside our barstools, her tray laden with fresh-washed glasses. She glanced at our touching knees, then started unloading the glasses onto the bar right between us, so we had to scoot back to give her room.

  “You two look like you’re plotting something,” she said with a sly look at me, her hip bumping against my thigh.

  “Bank robbery,” I said. “Don’t tell the cops.”

  “Only if you promise to split the take.”

  The jasmine scent floating from Olive’s smoothly sculptured hair was distracting. “Ten percent. Take it or leave it.”

  Bennie cleared his throat. “Actually, Millie is trying to talk me into sneaking into the Roosevelt Hotel with her.”

  Olive’s brows rose, her gaze flickering sideways toward me. “That so?” She plunked a glass on the bar with a little too much force.

  “Yes,” Bennie answered, though I was pretty sure the question had been for me.

  “It’s not how it sounds.” I shot a glare at Bennie. “I need to crash the debutante ball there Saturday night. And Bennie has been a waiter there before, so all he has to do is dress me up as a waiter, too.”

  “But they only hire male waiters,” Bennie said.

  I set my fists on my hips and sat up straighter on my barstool. “Don’t you think I can pull it off?”

  Olive plunked down another glass, this time brushing my arm with her elbow. Her gaze flickered over my body, and a coy smile curved up the corner of her lips. “You look like a woman to me.”

  Heat fluttered at the back of my neck. Bennie looked from Olive’s face to mine and scowled. “Well,” he said, “Eddie still works there and could probably get us a couple of uniforms.”

  “Perfect. Then where should we meet?”

  But Bennie was still glowering. “Eddie needs that job. We can’t get him in trouble. If we do this, you need to be discreet.”

  I pretended to fluff my hair like Marion. “Who, me?”

  Bennie didn’t look reassured, but Olive coughed to hide a laugh. She made a show of setting down the last glass and whisking a dish towel over the lot. She tweaked my elbow and met my eyes again. Then she winked and murmured near my ear, “Discretion is overrated.”

  * * *

  Back at home after work, I crawled into bed beside Marion, who wanted to hear everything that had happened at the club tonight and especially everything I’d learned from Kitty Sharpe. He listened carefully, making only minor interjections, until I got to the part about Minty being formerly involved with Philip Leveque. Marion spluttered and sat up straight, dragging the quilt with him.

  “Hey!” I cried, but he ignored me. His eyes were urgent and shining in the dark.

  “Philip Leveque? You’re sure?”

  I sat up, too. “Of course. Who is he?”

  Marion’s gaze flickered away from mine. He turned and propped his elbows on his knees, facing the foot of the bed. He blew out a heavy breath. “He’s my brother.”

  It was my turn to splutter. “Your . . . what . . . ? The one who sent you—”

  “That’s the one. And then Arimentha went and dated him?” Marion shook his head. “She sure didn’t mention that in her letter.”

  “Her letter . . . ?” I said, confused, but instantly remembered the note Minty had scrawled on the back of the circus playbill. The last time I’d asked him about it, he’d said he hadn’t read it yet. I clapped my hand over my mouth, suddenly remembering the cops had been in his room this afternoon. “Please tell me you burned it.”

  Marion shook his head miserably. “I should’ve.”

  Dread filled my chest. “Where is it?”

  “Inside the sleeve of my Bessie Smith record.”

  I’d given him that record for Christmas. So now a letter from his ex–best friend was hanging out in a gift from his new one. Perfect.

  “Maybe the cops didn’t think to look there.” I nudged Marion’s shoulder gently. “How bad is it if they find it? What does it say?”

  Marion t
wirled a curl tightly around his finger. “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is it has her name on it, and mine.”

  I hated to hear the despair in his voice. “I bet they didn’t find it. And I’ll get Bennie to bring it when he gets your stuff.”

  Marion was silent.

  “Now that you know about Philip and Minty,” I said, “do you think he could be the killer? He did throw you in an asylum, so that makes him capable of just about anything in my book.”

  “If it threatens his reputation and ambitions, yes,” Marion said glumly, twisting another curl. “But I doubt if he would ever set foot in a ‘low-class’ French Quarter speakeasy. He barely deigns to cross Canal Street except to go to Galatoire’s. Besides, you said now he’s seeing that Daphne girl.”

  “Don’t you remember any of these people? Weren’t some of them your friends, too, once?”

  Marion puckered his lips as if tasting pickle juice. “I stuck with Arimentha mostly, and she with me. I went to an all-boys’ school, so she was the only girl I knew, really.”

  “What about Symphony Cornice then? Kitty said she was Minty’s best friend.”

  “Not when I was around, of course. But I remember her, I think. Reddish hair? Personality like a block of ice?”

  “That’s her. Apparently, once you were out of the picture, she moved in fast. Wanted a piece of Minty.”

  Marion’s nose wrinkled. “I hated that place, you know,” he said, his voice softer. “I’m so glad I’m out of there.”

  We were both quiet for a moment, the only sounds the wind whistling through the shutters and Aunt Cal and Mama climbing into their creaking bed next door. I could almost feel Marion thinking, remembering. I wanted to drag him back to me, to the present.

  “So, who do you peg for the murder?” I said.

  Marion paused momentarily in the darkness. “Her date maybe? What was his name?”

  “Fitzroy DeCoursey.”

  “That sounds like a stage name.”

  “Maybe he’s got a future in drag.”

  Marion looked contemplative. “He was sort of pretty.”