I approached one of the saleswomen and told her my name, asking for her assistance in matching a button off a garment.
“All I can do is try,” she said, smiling at me as she put on her reading glasses. “If there’s anything distinctive about it, we may be able to help. May I see it, please?”
“Great. I have a photo of it on my cell.”
I pulled it up to show her. She took my phone and spread the image with her fingers to enlarge it.
“To start with,” she said, “it’s gold-toned. That gets us down from the hundreds to the tens of thousands, doesn’t it?”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Just to give you an idea, Ms. Cooper, we have four hundred different styles of buttons for men’s blazers. We have seventeenth-century silver buttons that come from uniforms of British soldiers and coins of the realm. I can show you a little box of fossilized ivory buttons, if that’s what you’re looking for—so, yes, anything that tightens the search is a good thing.”
The woman picked up a jeweler’s loupe to study the image. “Is there any way you can bring this actual piece in?” she asked. “It appears to be broken off on one edge at the top, and again almost in half. It’s always so much easier to see if I have the actual object.”
“Maybe next week,” I said, hoping there would be a way to convince Mike to un-voucher the small piece of metal. “I can try to get it next week.”
“I can’t tell if it’s real gold—like fourteen or eighteen karat—which would put it in an even smaller category. But it would also make it less likely to break in half.
“Okay. Yes, it almost looks like I’ve got half a heart here. That the whole button once was the shape of a small heart. Do you notice what I’m talking about?” she said, extending the photo and loupe to me. “There’s a sharp edge on this piece, where something snapped off. Two places, actually.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “You see these things every day, and I’m just a shopper. Is there anything else you can tell me about it?”
She took the items back from me and studied the photograph again. “There’s an indentation in the middle of this remaining side. It’s possible there was once a stone—like a semiprecious stone or even a fake sparkle.”
“That’s interesting. I can see the indentation. I just didn’t know what to make of it.”
“Are you trying to match this to a particular garment, Ms. Cooper?”
“Yes. I’m not very into this kind of thing, but I’m trying to do a favor for a friend.”
“Nice of you to do,” she said. “Let me ask my coworker if she’s seen anything like it.”
There was a series of antique wooden tables down the center of the shop. The other customer had left, seemingly content with a six-piece set of miniature enameled playing cards—buttons for a shirt for her husband’s poker tournament.
“What do you think?” my saleswoman asked her colleague. “Half a heart? Have you seen anything like this?”
“Well, it’s not a heart at all,” the second woman said.
“That’s the power of suggestion,” I said. “We both agreed it looked like one.”
“In fact, I’ve seen one like it just a couple of days ago. We might have two more of them, if you’re looking to complete an outfit,” she said, striding with great confidence toward a ladder on a track against the wall.
“You have seen this?” I said. “You might have another?”
“Do you know the designer, young lady? It’s off a vintage piece.”
“My friend told me it’s Savage. Wolf Savage. That man who just died,” I said.
“More likely was killed, if you see today’s paper,” the first saleswoman said. “It’s a pity.”
“Vintage Savage,” the second woman said, climbing up the ladder to the top step, just below the ceiling. She pulled a small cardboard box out from its place and balanced it with one hand as she carefully stepped down. “You may be too young to remember some of the fashions from 1991, but it was all about animal prints on the runway that year.”
“I wasn’t that into clothes so much as a teenager,” I said, more interested in why she had been asked about the same button just two days ago. Why, and by whom?
“It was the fashion industry’s response to the anti-fur activists,” she said, holding up the photo of the broken button against the actual piece that was taped to the front end of the box. The word “WolfWild” was printed under the button logo. “Leopard-print dresses. Zebras. Giraffes. The fashion shows looked like a day at the zoo. I’m surprised some of them didn’t eat each other alive.”
“Is that the button?” I asked. “The exact one?”
“We don’t like to disappoint, young lady,” she said, removing a pristine piece of metal from a tiny plastic envelope. “You see, you were mistaken when you two called it a heart. Tried to fool me.”
“I see it now,” the first saleswoman said.
They each had their heads leaned in over the button.
“What makes it unique,” the second woman said, “is that it was a variation on the usual WolfWear button. And we like unique in our shop. We remember unique.”
“May I see too?” I asked.
“In his lower-price collections,” the button maven said, “Mr. Savage used plastic buttons. Ordinary white or black, or color-coordinated to the outfit.”
“But in his couture?”
“You want couture? I’ll show you buttons with diamonds or buttons carved from ancient pieces of lapis. They’re French, all of them. Rarer than hens’ teeth, and we sell them for a fortune. But that’s real couture, Ms. Cooper. House of Worth and Chanel and the like.”
“And the Savage line?”
“Well,” the woman in control of the button said, “American couture. Nothing like the Europeans. Savage didn’t do buttons with real gems or anything that grand.”
“But you said this one is distinctive,” I said.
“In all his higher-priced collections—call them couture if you insist—his buttons were always made in the shape of the animal’s head, like his logo. He worked that feature into all his clothing, which in my view cheapened a high-fashion statement.”
“How foolish of me not to recognize it. It’s not half a heart, it’s half of the wolf’s face.”
“Sort of like a Rorschach test, isn’t it? Half a face and that notch where the little ear chipped off, too,” she said to me. “Anyway, the animal’s eyes were always made of plastic in Savage pieces. That’s what’s missing from that small hole in the metal. A plastic eye that matched the color of the design—red, blue, green. And an ear.”
The first saleswoman spoke up again. “Yes, the missing ear threw me off, too. That’s why I thought it might have been a heart. This little critter must have been in some kind of fight, and he was certainly the loser.”
Perhaps there had been a fight—a struggle in Wolf’s hotel room.
I thought of Hal Savage’s cufflinks with the ruby-red eyes. “What color eye does this button have?” I asked, reaching for it.
“Black eyes, Ms. Cooper,” the second saleswoman said. “All the animal prints had some black in their designs—leopards, zebras, tigers. So Mr. Savage used black plastic—it was supposed to look like crystal—for the eyes on this one collection. And he had a series of reverse buttons made, too.”
“Reverse?”
“Yes, if the cuffs of the silk blouses had gold-tone buttons on the cuffs, with black eyes, Savage sprung for black onyx buttons for the opening of the garment, with little gold dots for eyes.”
She reached into the cardboard box and came out with the black onyx buttons. “Big splurge for WolfWear,” she joked.
“I’d certainly like to take two of these gold ones, that match my broken button,” I said. “And two of the onyx, please.”
“The metal ones with black eyes are forty dollars each.”
“Forty? They’re useless old buttons.”
She laughed.
“You’re the second one in this week. Must be a rush on old Mr. Savage because of the show at the Costume Institute.”
“So you’ve gone and raised the price on me, haven’t you?” I said, laughing along with her.
“Just a bit. You can have them for thirty. But the onyx are seventy-five dollars apiece. I can’t do any better for you on those.”
“Very, very tender buttons, indeed.”
I gave the woman my credit card and waited while she wrapped the onyx fastenings in a little cloth bag, separate from the metal ones.
“Tell me, who’s my competition?” I asked. “Who else has a broken button on her wild animal? My friend might be wearing her blouse next week.”
“She won’t want to see herself coming and going, will she?”
“Certainly not. Maybe your other customer—the woman who bought the other button—she works at the Savage company?”
“Your first mistake is it’s not a ‘she,’ Ms. Cooper. I sold the button—just one of the gold-tone ones—to a man. A very polite man who came in the other day.”
“A man? Did he say why he wanted it?”
“A sale is a sale. I don’t ask questions. And he paid cash for it, so I can’t even help you with a credit-card receipt.”
“Older than I am?” I asked, thinking of Hal Savage.
“More or less your age. Could be younger.”
“Can you describe him at all?”
“Nice-looking fellow. He was wearing a navy-blue jacket—sort of a ski jacket—with the collar up against the weather. Sunglasses and a baseball cap snug on his head. Nothing unusual, but then I couldn’t see much of him.”
Reed Savage? Or someone else who worked for the company?
“Do you happen to know what day it was?”
She thought for a minute. “I was off yesterday. Let me see. It must have been Wednesday morning. First thing, shortly after the shop opened.”
I don’t think Reed Savage had even arrived from London then. But it was certainly after Wolf Savage had died.
“You should know the same man also bought a dozen gold military-style buttons from the Ralph Lauren collection of that same year,” she said. “Could be a collector, Ms. Cooper. You just never know.”
“I guess it could be as simple an explanation as that.” I didn’t believe it for a minute.
“I mean, it’s not like that little piece of metal—with an ear, without an ear—it’s not like it’s going to help Wolf Savage one iota now that he’s dead.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
It was ten thirty when I tried to call Mike. I thought the autopsy would have been wrapped up by this time.
I hailed a taxi and directed the driver to Seventh Avenue, then I dialed Joan Stafford’s home number in DC.
“Can you talk?” I asked.
“Back up a minute. How are you, my friend? Have you readjusted to city life?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“What does Mike think?”
“Let’s just say it’s delicate, okay?”
“Aha! Then Mike might be back on the open market soon.”
Joan was as clever and funny as she was smart. She could make me laugh at everything about myself, and about most other situations. She was an accomplished playwright, but longed more than anything else to help Mike solve a case.
“Dish with me,” she said. “Wolf Savage was murdered?”
“Looks that way.”
“Don’t you know? I saw Mike’s picture in the paper at the press conference,” Joan said. “Don’t hold out on me.”
“I’ve got nothing to tell yet. Remember, I’m on leave?”
“But you share a bed with the world’s hottest detective, Alex. You must have your ways.”
“I may be slipping, Joanie. I have no information for you.”
“When my first play debuted in London ages ago,” Joan said, “Reed Savage came to the opening-night party. He’s divine. I could have gone for him but he had the cutest wife in tow. Then I heard he split from her. I think he sort of liked me.”
“Every man alive likes you,” I said. “Most especially your husband.”
As deep as Joan’s literary knowledge was, she also had an encyclopedic memory for anyone who had ever been in the society columns. She had attended their balls, dated their brothers, been at their premieres, knew their net worths, remembered their sins, and rarely forgave them.
“Think Savage,” I said. “Think of the time we were at that benefit and some of his gowns were being auctioned.”
“We must have been tipsy. You bought one and I remember buying two. I swear the tags are still on them.”
“Blood oath. You cannot tell this to Mike or he’ll have my head, Joanie.”
“Go on.”
“I think I can wangle my way into the Savage fashion show on Monday night.”
“At the Met? Temple of Dendur? You must take me with you. I’ll fly up—”
“Joanie, Joanie. Big fat no. I’m talking about sneaking in somehow. There is so much intrigue within the family, within the company, that I just think it pays to be under that roof with all the drama inherent in the situation.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about the case.”
“I don’t. But what a great way to try to find out,” I said. “The problem is I only have one fancy Savage gown.”
The ladies who graced the rows of seats at the big shows always wore their best looks of the designers’ past seasons. Saint Laurent and Versace and Michael Kors boasted a lineup of high-end customers who pulled out all their classics. I couldn’t go to a Savage extravaganza wearing de la Renta. It just isn’t done.
“Wear it, Alexandra. You have to wear it.”
“Do you remember the one I bought?”
“I’m thinking white and flowy, right? Am I close?”
“It’s a toga, Joanie. That long white gown with the gold braiding.”
“Stop! Don’t even think about it. It was almost comical when you tried it on, Alex. You looked like the handmaiden to Elizabeth Taylor when she gave Cleopatra the asp in that endless movie,” Joan said. “Bad idea. Fashion mistake in the first degree. Not your look.”
“Damn. That’s why I was calling. I have to wear Savage.”
“But not a white toga, and not in the middle of November. The fashion police will arrest you,” Joan said. “You’ll have to wear one of mine.”
“Are they in DC with you?”
“No, they’re at my mother’s, in the guest-room closet. She’ll be so happy to see you. I bet she’ll lend you her pearls, too. She’s got a fortune in eight-millimeter pearls that you can wrap around your neck two or three times. No one will notice the dress.”
“What are they like?” I asked. “I’m tempted.”
“One is too summery, too floral. The one I have in mind is Wolf’s take on the Downton Abbey period. I just never had the occasion to wear it.”
“Tell me, am I an upstairs member of the family or a downstairs kitchen maid?”
“Upstairs. Very racy. Kind of flapperish. It’s black silk with a dropped waist. Short and sexy. Think about it, Alex. If you stop at that store on Second Avenue and pick up one of those Lady Mary Crawley black, cropped wigs and put on a glittery headband, no one—I mean no one—will recognize you.”
I laughed. “You are so melodramatic, Joan.”
“But I’m not wrong. You’ll be deeply undercover. You could even fool Mike if you wear some dress style that’s against type, and with dark hair. To him, you’ll always be ‘blondie.’”
“This has real possibilities, Joan. I may drop in on your mother tomorrow.”
“I should come to town to help you dress.”
“Stay put.”
“But if you solve the crime, do I get credit?”
“An honorary gold shield, I promise,” I said. “Gotta go.”
The cab stopped in front of 530 Seventh Avenue. I paid the fare and jumped out, dodging the usual foot traffic of men wheeling
hand trucks and assistants dashing up and down the avenue with patterns and samples and fabrics of every kind.
I stood in the lobby and tried Mike’s phone again. This time it went to voicemail. “Call me. I’ve got an idea.”
I thought about waiting till he returned the call, but I always preferred the element of surprise. It was after eleven A.M. and I knew the autopsy wouldn’t have taken this long.
I pressed the elevator to go to the WolfWear offices on the twenty-eighth floor. I was anxious to see if Mike and Mercer were already at interviews with Reed and Hal.
The reception area was packed with even more flower arrangements than the day before. I could barely see the top of the head of the woman behind the desk.
“Good morning,” I said. “I’m looking for two gentlemen who are supposed to be meeting here this morning.”
“Who are they?”
“Mr. Chapman and Mr. Wallace,” I said.
“Oh, the detectives,” she said, getting up from her desk to walk me to the hallway door. “They’re in Miss Lily’s office.”
“Lily Savitsky? She didn’t have an office here yesterday.”
The receptionist smiled at me and opened the door. “Well, she certainly does now.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Alex,” Lily said, “I didn’t know you were coming. You didn’t miss much—we’re just getting started.”
Mike was out of his chair and into my face. “What’s the part of ‘stay home’ that you don’t understand?”
“I honestly have to thank you,” Lily said. “It’s because of you that my father’s body was autopsied this morning.”
“It’s really these guys—” I started to say.
“Could you please give us five minutes in here, Lily?” Mike said. “I need a little time with Alex.”
“Sure.” Lily squeezed my hand as she walked past me and left the three of us alone.
There was nothing to mark the office as her own. It was an empty room with an empty desk and equally empty shelves. It looked like it was her first day on the job.
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