Fashionably Late (The Ladies Smythe & Westin)

by Lisa Q. Mathews

  “Oh, please do bring Dorothy,” Mia said. “I’ll put you guys on the list, but things are kind of crazy here with all the last minute prep. You might need to tell them you’re a fashion blogger for Milan-O! online or something, just in case, and they’ll give you a blue badge. Mummy and I are in tight with all the magazine editors, so if anyone questions it, just text me.”

  “Got it,” Summer said. “This’ll be awesome. Thanks.”

  “See you at eleven.” Mia clicked off.

  Things are already looking up, Summer thought, as she selected a sleeveless pink dress from her closet. After talking to Roland, she and Dorothy might be able to wrap up the Downs case pronto. All they had to do was track down Frankie and haul her in to the Milano PD after they’d finished their quiche and champagne. How hard could it be? The woman was, like, ninety.

  She couldn’t wait to see Caputo’s face.

  Plus, Mia’s fancy brunch—nothing Mia did was ever casual—would be a great distraction from wondering whether Shane Donovan would back out of their date or not. Maybe she’d wait a while to cancel, just in case.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ten-forty-three. Where on earth was that girl?

  Dorothy sat on the uncomfortable black metal bench outside the main building at Hibiscus Pointe, clasping her red leather pocketbook as holiday music played from speakers hidden in the foliage behind her. Summer will be here any minute, she told herself for the sixth or seventh time.

  It would never do to be late for brunch at the Rivera-Joneses’, even after a last-minute invitation. One never knew whether a meal would be sit-down or buffet. But much worse, every lost second meant additional delay in gathering information for the case. This impromptu morning affair was an excellent opportunity for her and Summer to investigate, starting with a few questions for Roland Cho.

  Hopefully he would be sufficiently recovered from his injuries last night—both the head wound and the trauma of his brush with a ruthless thief and possible killer—to speak with them.

  They couldn’t stay at the brunch for long, though, because they had to find Frankie.

  Dorothy sighed and checked her wristwatch. Ten-fifty. Summer had better have a good reason for being late. Hopefully her friend would approve of the light wool red skirt she’d selected from her spare closet. The loose-knit holiday sweater with the pom-pom nosed reindeer, a present from Maddie before she and Harlan moved to Florida, may have been a mistake.

  “Nice Rudolph there, Dotty.” The bench creaked heavily as Gladys Rumway plunked down beside her. “Real festive.”

  Oh dear. If only she could run up to change—but Summer would be here any moment. She’d have to stomach Gladys for a minute or two, even after the woman had called her Dotty. How she hated that nickname. Ernie called her Dot, sometimes, but that was entirely different.

  “Thank you,” Dorothy said. “You look very nice also, Gladys. Are you headed somewhere?”

  “Oh, just to brunch,” Gladys said, with a wave. “At the Rivera-Joneses. A casual little Fashion Week party, no big deal.”

  Dorothy briefly wondered how Gladys had managed to wrangle an invitation, but she quickly dismissed that unkind thought. If it weren’t for Summer’s friendship with Mia, she certainly wouldn’t be attending, either. “How wonderful,” Dorothy said. “Summer and I are headed there, as well.”

  “Yeah, I heard that from Martha Kirk,” Gladys said. “I figured you two could give me a ride, since there’s no shuttle to that part of Swanky Town. And I hate taking taxis,” she added. “Not enough room, you know? I can’t scrunch up my outfit.” She smoothed her extra-tight, geometric patterned Monique’s Boutique pantsuit, which she had paired with a fuzzy, electric blue beret and matching scarf.

  Dorothy refrained from pointing out that Summer’s MINI was not exactly roomy. “The more the merrier,” she said, forcing an extra cheerful tone.

  “So that was something about Roland Cho getting bonked on the head last night,” Gladys said. “Pretty scary, am I right?” She leaned closer, nearly stabbing Dorothy in the eye as she suddenly thrust out an oddly shaped object on a chain around her neck. “By the way, what do you think of my new glitz? I mean, I can’t afford a Cho original or anything, but is this a great replica, or what?”

  “Lovely,” Dorothy said. “Very…colorful.” That was entirely true. The heavy-looking, metal starfish pendant contained gems in every shade of the rainbow. Somehow, she’d missed it at first glance, no doubt due to the busy pattern of Gladys’s jacket.

  “Eye-catching accessories are the mark of a true fashion icon,” Gladys said. “Even hard-boiled detectives can have a sense of style. Right, Dotty?”

  Dorothy nodded politely, fervently praying that Summer would magically materialize. “So, Gladys, what have you heard from your cousin Merle?” she asked. “Do the police have any new leads on the Downs case?”

  “Possibly, but nothing I can share with civilians,” Gladys said. “Too bad you didn’t decide to team up with me, huh? But the whole investigation is a mess on the cops’ end, if you ask me. They’re slower than road-killed turtles. Of course I have my own theories.”

  “Of course,” Dorothy murmured.

  “Yep. I can’t divulge anything, even to the cops, until I have enough proof to build a watertight case for the prosecutors,” Gladys said. “Besides,” she added, dropping her voice, “things are kinda extra-delicate right now. On top of everything else, the dead woman’s mother went and got herself kidnapped, can you believe it?”

  “No,” Dorothy murmured. “I can’t.”

  “Personally, my money’s on the other daughter, the real estate agent. The one with the flowery name.”

  So much for Gladys’s top-secret theories. “Violet, perhaps?” Dorothy supplied, as Gladys crossed her arms with a smug expression.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Here’s how I’m thinking things went down. She loses big bucks in that housing bubble a while back and never recovers. She needs her inheritance fast, so she knocks off her better-looking sister first. Then she kidnaps her mother and drowns her in an irrigation ditch off I-85.”

  Well, that was certainly a disturbing image. Dorothy tried not to shudder. “I really don’t think…” she began, but stopped short. Hadn’t she also suspected Violet of killing Angelica out of jealousy—and possibly for potential financial gain? And what about that open safe she’d seen in Angelica’s condo? She still hadn’t figured out a way to get back there to take a closer look, without triggering Violet’s ultrasensitive sales radar.

  “Hey, speaking of real estate, sounds like you and Ernest are planning to blow Hibiscus Pointe, huh?”

  Dorothy’s jaw dropped, nearly as far as the reindeer’s nose on her sweater. Everyone knew Gladys was a busybody, of course, but that was extreme, even for her.

  “Well, don’t worry, Dotty, your secret’s safe with me,” Gladys went on. “And no one’s gonna put you down for a home wrecker or anything. You two are just looking for a place for after Grace kicks the bucket, right?”

  Dorothy rose so quickly that she felt dizzy and nearly had to grab the back of the bench. “Gladys Rumway,” she said sharply. “That is a perfectly outrageous idea, and a terrible thing to say. How you could even dream up such ridiculous…”

  Luckily, her next words were drowned out by a squeal of brakes as Summer zoomed up in her orange MINI. “Hi, guys!” Summer called, bounding out of the car. “Ready for mimosas and quiche, Dorothy?”

  “Yes, I most certainly am,” Dorothy said, marching toward the passenger door her friend threw open for her without a backward glance. “Let’s go dear, we’re late.”

  Gladys could find herself another ride to the Rivera-Joneses’ fancy brunch.

  *

  “Summer Sloan and Dorothy Westin,” Summer told the tall, muscle-bound guy in the black tee and tight jacket at the gate of Mia’s mom’s massive brick estate. “We’re on the list.”

  He frowned at his tablet, and then down into the MINI, his ey
es taking in Dorothy’s reindeer sweater. “Yeah?”

  Summer rolled her eyes in what she hoped would pass as extreme fashion blogger annoyance. “Check again. We’re with Milan-O! online, okay? It’s bad enough this event was such short notice. We have a lot of other parties around town to cover today.”

  The guy still looked doubtful, and Dorothy leaned forward. “Fashion Week, you know,” she said.

  He raised one bushy eyebrow, but rechecked his list. “There’s a Summer Smythe here from Milan-O! That you?”

  “Yes,” Summer said, tapping the steering wheel. “Look, sorry, but we’re already late. And we’ve got deadlines to meet.”

  Like anyone had a deadline on a Saturday morning. But it didn’t matter, anyway, because the guy said something into his headset and the ornate metal gates with the gold points on top slowly opened.

  “Look at all these enormous white tents,” Dorothy said, as they drove to the end of the long, crushed-shell driveway. “And so many people. I still can’t believe Mia and her mother were able to pull off a party of this magnitude so quickly. Literally overnight, in fact.”

  “They had help,” Summer said, trying to remove a spot of to-go coffee from her pink dress as a teenage kid in a white polo and navy shorts ran up to take the MINI. “It’s amazing what some decent connections and a whole lot of money can do. Trust me on that.”

  “Well, we’ll have to take full advantage of this opportunity,” Dorothy said. “Remember, every minute here counts for the investigation. And if either of us spots Frankie…”

  “We call Donovan,” Summer said. “I mean, Caputo.”

  When she’d told Dorothy what she’d learned about Frankie’s past, her friend had seemed even more upset than she’d expected. “I can’t believe we let her get away,” Dorothy kept muttering, over and over. “She had us completely hoodwinked.”

  “Don’t feel bad, Dorothy,” Summer said. “She’s just slippery, that’s all. She’s a jewel thief.”

  “And a possible murderer,” Dorothy reminded her.

  “True,” Summer said. “But we can’t beat ourselves up over temporarily losing track of her, or we’ll never get the case solved. Right?”

  “Right.” Dorothy sighed.

  In almost no time, they got their blue badges and were ushered by a very tall young woman in a tiny white dress to an even more crowded area behind the house.

  Roland Cho and a handful of other designers Summer had seen at the Majesty show were circulating among the guests, Bloody Marys and mimosas in hand. Perfect.

  “Oh, good, Roland made it,” Dorothy said. “He must be feeling better.”

  Summer followed her friend’s nod toward one of the smaller pools, where the designer, his hair spiked even higher than usual in a futile attempt to hide the ginormous bump on his head, was surrounded by a group of fawning older women. Whatever he was telling them—probably the story about him being clobbered and robbed last night—they were hanging on his every word.

  “Yep,” Summer said. “He seems perfectly fine.”

  Weirdly, the guy was wearing some kind of blue seersucker zoot suit deal. High waist, big-shouldered jacket, wide-leg trousers, suspenders, the whole thing. Ugh. That might work okay for him back in New York, but it looked pretty out of place here in Milano.

  Roland suddenly looked in her direction and caught her staring at him. His nose twitched just a teensy bit before he turned his back on her.

  Jeez. How had he fooled everyone into thinking he was so great? The guy made her skin crawl like it was covered with bugs. And even though he was a total jerk, she and Dorothy were trying to help him.

  Not because they felt sorry for him, at least in her case. But if Roland could identify the person who had given him that lump on his head, they might figure out who’d murdered Angelica.

  They’d probably get his ugly jewelry back for him at the same time, too, if it wasn’t fenced already. Then he’d be groveling with gratitude, and there was a decent chance he might even offer them free jewelry like he’d given Mia. And then she’d get to say, super politely, “Oh, that’s sooo nice of you, but no thanks.”

  On the other hand, his designs were worth some bucks. Maybe, if he happened to gift her any especially hideous pieces, she should accept them, anyway, and sell them to raise some super-quick cash.

  Was that wrong? Yeah, probably.

  “Why don’t we get our food now and talk to Roland as soon as he’s free?” Dorothy said. “The buffet tables look wonderful.”

  Summer was more than happy to grab a flowery plate at the first omelet station and load up on fresh berries and crispy bacon. Just a few feet away, a chocolate fountain burbled, and the orange and grapefruit juice in the faux-crystal pitchers looked fresh-squeezed.

  But ugh, there was Monique, having champagne added to her flute of OJ. Summer tried to stoop a little behind Dorothy so the woman wouldn’t see her. The last thing she wanted was Monique asking her about that semi-trashed red dress. Hopefully she’d have a chance to drop it by the dry cleaner first. What a waste of money.

  “Hey, Summer. I figured you might show up.” Zoe, with her agent right behind her, reached across her to pluck the biggest strawberry from the pile with her freshly manicured French tips.

  “Oh, uh, hi, Zoe,” Summer said, trying not to sound surprised. How did she know Mia, and why would Mia want her anywhere around here? “What’s up?”

  She had to give the girl points on her outfit, though. The short lavender dress with the cutout shoulders was pretty cute.

  “Aleesha got me on the list,” Zoe said. “Because I’m one of Roland’s best clients. We haven’t officially announced it yet, or anything, but I’m co-designing an amazing new jewelry collection with him.”

  “Awesome.” Summer concentrated on piling extra tater tots onto her plate. Zoe had been at Majesty last night. Could she have tried to bump Roland off to drum up a little pre-publicity for the jewelry premiere?

  Nah. No publicity was bad publicity, everyone in the biz always said—but if Zoe got caught, even ZeeZee and Aleesha couldn’t save her butt from cooling her heels for a long time in jail. Unless she got redirected to another extended vacay in rehab.

  She still couldn’t see the brat as an actual murderer, though. Killing people took a lot of effort.

  On the other hand, jetting all the way to Florida and stalking her everywhere just to try and get a part in a stupid movie definitely took some effort.

  “We’re going to have a big launch party in LA,” Zoe said. “Maybe I can snag you and your dad some invites.”

  The chef handed Summer her fluffy Western omelet, but her appetite was rapidly plummeting. “Great,” she said. “Maybe we’ll be able to make it.”

  Didn’t Zoe get it? She was not going to beg her dad to put her in that movie. That was Aleesha’s job, not hers. Syd would never do it, anyway, because he knew Zoe and all her crazy stunts could end up costing him big bucks.

  He was no dummy.

  “Well, just so you know, I’m going to have a really big surprise for you real soon,” Zoe said. “You’re going to love it.” She popped the giant strawberry into her mouth and walked away. Aleesha threw Summer a semi-apologetic smile and scurried after her client.

  A surprise? Was it a good one or a bad one? Summer wondered. Hard to tell.

  “Oh, hello,” a well-dressed woman in a giant, Kentucky Derby-worthy hat greeted her as Summer placed her heaping plate down on the table next to Dorothy. “I see you two are both with Milan-O! magazine.”

  “What?” Summer said. Dorothy gave her a tiny nudge and she quickly remembered. “Oh, yeah, right. We’re not with the magazine, actually. We’re bloggers.”

  “How interesting,” a second, older woman said. She smiled at Dorothy. “I think it’s wonderful when seniors embrace the online world. I’d love to follow you on social media.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Summer said. “She’s all over it. Facebook, Twitter, Insta, Snapchat…take your pick.” Beside he
r, Dorothy’s forkful of Eggs Benedict froze in midair.

  “It’s Dorothy, right? How do you spell your last name?” the second woman said, bringing her phone out of her Chanel bag.

  Dorothy’s badge must have fallen off back in the pool, too. “E-A-S-T-O-N,” Summer answered for her quickly, just as she spotted Roland moving away from his eager fans toward the pool house. “Sorry, but we have to go. There’s someone over there we need to interview for our next blog post, and we can’t let him get away. Come on, Doris.”

  Dorothy quickly gathered her plate. “So nice meeting you,” she told the women. “Bye now.” She hurried after Summer. “Thanks for rescuing me,” she said. “That was a close one.”

  “Rats,” Summer said, as they crossed the pool deck. “Roland was heading into the pool house, but now he’s talking to Mia. Guess we’ll have to wait.”

  “No, let’s go over, anyway,” Dorothy said. “I’m sure she’ll just be a minute, since she’ll need to keep circulating among her guests. We can just say hello and thank her for inviting us.”

  “Oh, hey,” Mia said, as Summer and Dorothy came up. “So glad you ladies could make it. I was just telling Roland, I’ve got more major drama on my hands.”

  “What’s wrong?” Summer asked quickly.

  Her friend looked amazing in her simple white halter dress, accessorized with a gold pendant set with the huge diamond from a former engagement ring. But still, in spite of her perfect makeup job, she looked tired and upset.

  Mia sighed heavily. “I think we’re going to have to cancel Mummy’s resort wear show for sure now. We have exactly one model left who’s willing to do it. Bryana something.”

  “Hey, I know her,” Summer said. “Sort of.”

  “Well, Mummy and I tried. But after what happened to Angelica Downs and then poor Roland last night”—she looked sympathetically at the designer beside her—”none of the others are willing to risk it, even with the massive bonuses we offered. Mummy’s whole fundraising plan for the new Milano Palms Senior Center is up in smoke. And it’s so late now, we can’t get even partial refunds from any of the vendors. The show was set for Tuesday afternoon.”