The Halston Hit

by Angela M. Sanders

  “You’re distracted.” Apple set down a half-eaten muffin.

  “I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something.”

  “For the wedding? I know it was rough over the past week with the food and venue, but we’re set now. I even got you a great cake.”

  “No, the deaths.” Joanna finished her cup of coffee. Apple had produced a quiche, fruit salad, and a plate of bacon, but a few bites of toast were all she could manage. “Why did VC die? It’s never been explained.”

  “And it may never be. Save your speculation for another day. This morning you’re getting married.”

  “You’re distracted, too. You’ve barely eaten.”

  “I’m not very hungry.” Apple’s smile looked forced. “Must be excitement about the ceremony.”

  The thread that held sympathy for Apple’s pain tightened. “I’m sorry.” Then, another thought. “Gavin won’t be there, will he?”

  “It’s nothing to worry you, but, no, we talked about it. He’s staying home.”

  “In the yurt.” Joanna shook her head. “Serves him right.”

  “The yurt’s not so bad,” Apple said. She rose and cleared their plates. “At least it’s a beautiful morning.”

  And it was. Portland’s springs were unpredictable. Here, old sayings about April showers and May flowers might as well incorporate stanzas about last minute blizzards and blistering sunburns. Today, though, was classic spring. The Mother Goose colors of tulips and daffodils nodded in front yards, and a storybook blue sky spread over it all. At Penny’s house, people would be setting up the chairs for the ceremony, and the caterers would be unloading in the kitchen.

  And VC was dead, but no one knew why. That wasn’t right.

  Apple, hands on hips, looked at her. “You need to get dressed.”

  “I suppose so.” She didn’t move.

  Apple sighed. “Come on. You can tell me about it while you get dressed.”

  Joanna gave Apple an apologetic hug before following her to the bedroom, where her wedding dress hung from the door. A full-length ivory slip lay over the coverlet, with Pepper curled up on its bodice. “Come on, kitty. You can sleep on the quilt.”

  The cat stretched his front legs and took his time settling by the pillows.

  “So, what’s bothering you? Everything’s pretty well wrapped up,” Apple said. “Keep on your kimono. We’ll do your hair and makeup first.”

  Joanna sat at the dressing table, and clicked on the the poodle-shaped lamp she’d fitted with one of the warm-light bulbs VC had brought to the shop. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  Apple took up a brush. “Just because you’re unsettled doesn’t mean the murders aren’t. Justice is done.”

  “I know. But why did Roger Bing kill VC? That’s what bothers me most.” Her head pulled back with each stroke of the brush.

  “Good grief.” Apple’s eyes met hers in the dressing table’s mirror. “You won’t quit until you have it all laid out. Then let’s walk it through. Start with VC. Do you really know what happened to VC?”

  Joanna shivered. “She was shot. Killed.”

  Apple pulled Joanna’s hair up and fastened it with an elastic band before reaching for the Murano glass bowl of bobby pins. “Was there anything odd about it? Anything the police can’t explain?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what to make of it, though.” Something fluttered inside her. She was getting closer to the heart of the problem. “Crisp said that according to the medical examiner, VC would have been facing away from the center of the room when she was shot. The only way that could have happened is if Roger waited for her, hidden near the wall.”

  “What do you know about Roger?” Apple had fashioned Joanna’s hair into an almost pre-Raphaelite up-do with loose curls.

  “He was a competent fry cook. He liked to read travel stories. He felt a huge debt of gratitude to Marquise, to the point where he was saving money to make Marquise’s retirement more comfortable. Lately, he’d been getting money from somewhere else, too.”

  “A second job?” Her work with Joanna’s hair done, Apple sat on the bed and absently petted Pepper. “Your makeup. You need to do your makeup, Jo.”

  Joanna turned back to the mirror and uncapped a bottle of toner to swab her face. “Crisp told me they’d been watching Marquise’s. They’d tracked some criminal kingpin to Old Town, then he disappeared. They gave up after a few days.”

  “So maybe the cook was into something illegal that involved this criminal.”

  “And VC found out, and Roger shot her.” Joanna’s stomach gurgled. “Could you bring me a couple of slices of bacon?”

  “Only if you promise not to let your greasy fingers touch your dress.” In a moment, Apple was back with a saucer of bacon and a cloth napkin.

  Joanna chewed a slice, thinking.

  “Anything else?” Apple asked.

  “Just that Marquise says the police started hanging around again. Crisp wouldn’t tell me anything about it.” She wiped her fingers before reaching for the mascara. She didn’t normally wear a lot of makeup, and she didn’t want to wear much today. As she finished, she was lost in thought again.

  Apple handed her the long slip, and Joanna shed her kimono and slipped the undergarment over her head, carefully pressing her lips together so not to stain the silk. Now Apple took the wedding dress from its hanger and held it open for her to step inside. Apple began fastening the long row of buttons from the bottom while Joanna started from the top. After a few, focused minutes, the dress was complete.

  Apple stepped back and appraised their work. “Gorgeous.” Her smile briefly clouded, and Joanna’s heart twisted in sympathy. “Which shoes?”

  “My silver sandals. The ones from the 1930s.” Joanna took them from Apple and buckled a sandal on each foot.

  All this reasoning was interesting, but it didn’t explain VC’s death. Why would Roger wait at the wall? She pictured the area. There was a wardrobe against that wall with a large mirror. The cook was working that night, though. It was a one-man kitchen. If he’d wanted to shoot VC, he didn’t need to hide.

  “Satisfied? We’d better get to Penny’s. You’re getting married in an hour.”

  “It takes only half an hour to get there.”

  “Better safe than sorry. Here.” Apple handed her a flacon of Joy perfume.

  Joanna dabbed some behind her ears and on her wrists. The sleeve’s angled lace spilled over the back of her hands in a bias-cut point. She reached for her grandmother’s bracelet and clasped it on. It was a dime store bracelet dangling a single charm, but it was the closest thing to having her there.

  “I need to make a call,” Joanna said. Apple followed her to the living room and watched as Joanna pulled the pink princess phone to her lap and dialed a number she knew by heart: the library’s reference desk. She got a recording telling her that the library was closed. Shoot. It was Sunday morning, after all.

  “The library?” Apple asked.

  “They’re closed. Just a hunch. Thought I’d ask them about the Shanghai Tunnels. I wonder if they have any record of a tunnel connecting Marquise’s and Imago Mundi?”

  Joanna slipped her lipstick and powder compact into the satin drawstring bag she’d use today. She reached for her keys. The master key to Marquise’s still dangled from the ring.

  “How about a quick stop on the way to Penny’s?”

  26

  “You’re kidding,” Apple said. “You’re getting married in an hour. Can’t it wait?”

  “Come to think of it, why don’t we take separate cars? Then you can explain if I’m a few minutes late.” Joanna was already unlocking the door. “Not that I’ll be late. I’m just going to run in and check something.”

  “In your wedding dress? I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “You know me. I won’t be able to relax unless I’ve checked it out.”

  Apple stared at her. “Yes, I do know you, and I know you’ll obsess. But I don’t like
it. People will be waiting for you. Paul won’t be very happy if you don’t show up.”

  “Come on.” She pulled Apple through the door. “I’m going to show up. I’ll be five or ten minutes behind you, that’s all. Stop worrying.”

  “If you’re later than that, I’m coming back for you.”

  “Fine. Now hurry up,” Joanna said. She waved the dress’s train. “I think I can drive with the train hooked to my wrist. It’s light.”

  “You’re not sitting in that car without something to protect your dress. Just a minute.” Apple ran into the house and returned with a sheet. She laid it over the seat.

  Joanna carefully situated herself in Old Blue and made sure the dress was completely in the car before she shut the door. She hadn’t wanted Apple to know, but she was nervous about delaying the wedding, too. Not that it would be delayed much. But if she counted twenty minutes to Marquise’s—traffic should be light on a Sunday morning—ten minutes poking around in the basement, she’d only allow herself that, then another twenty minutes to Penny’s, well, she didn’t have time to waste. If her hunch was right, now was the time to check it out. Lewis Custard would be at Penny’s setting up the catering.

  In a few minutes, the first guests would begin to arrive. Most of them would be Paul’s family. They grew thick around Portland. Apple’s family had driven down from Washington, too. Joanna’s own family was sparse, and she’d come up with a cousin but hadn’t been able to get in touch with her parents.

  Evenings, Old Town belonged to nightclubbers, but mornings—especially weekend mornings when the few offices that had struck a claim in the neighborhood were closed for the week—belonged to street people. A van from a social service agency crawled up the street, its staff likely handing out coffee and doing safety checks. Joanna parked across from Marquise’s. She knew she cut an odd figure dashing across the street in her wedding dress.

  The key opened Marquise’s, no trouble. She closed and locked it behind her. She stood for a moment in the theater, taking it all in. Without the distraction of a crowd and music, the smell of the building’s old wood, mingling with a pine-scented cleaner, wafted from the walls and floors.

  “Hello.” Her voice sounded unusually loud in the silent theater. “Is anybody here?”

  The theater was quiet. Every time she’d been here before, the room was full of chatter and music and laughter. The silence felt wrong.

  She made her way to the basement stairwell, flicking on the light on her way down. The kitchen was eerily dark, even with the lights on, and she made sure to traverse its floor carefully to avoid Roger’s fate. She felt for another light switch inside the dressing room, and the bulbs above the long stretch of mirror flickered to life. Shouldering past puffs of tulle and spandex, and ducking under a shelf of wigs before turning right, she reached the basement’s far wall, where she’d found VC.

  For a moment, she simply stared at the space. The floral tributes left for VC drooped and shed petals. Unconsciously, mimicking a gesture she’d seen her grandmother do thousands of times, she crossed herself.

  Filling her lungs for courage, she approached the wardrobe. The wall in Roger Bing’s bedroom had been only that: a wall. If there was a door here, a door that concealed illegal activity, it would explain why VC was facing away, yet had been shot face on. VC’s discovery that the door existed might have been enough to get her killed. But there wasn’t a door. Simply an old wardrobe.

  Joanna unlatched the wardrobe to find it packed to overflowing with girdles and slips. It would be crazy to put a door in here. Who could squeeze through? Still, she lifted an armload of undergarments from the rack and laid them over a table. Now that she had enough room to maneuver, she leaned forward and felt along the wardrobe’s back for a crack or something to indicate there was a door here.

  She spent five precious minutes examining the wardrobe’s back wall and came up empty, but for a sliver on her index finger. Plus, her sore knee was feeling the strain of leaning. After giving the wardrobe’s wall a final unproductive pound with her fist, she stepped back and flexed her knee. Drat.

  Well, she’d tried. Fine, she needed to get to her wedding, anyway. She replaced the undergarments on the rack and closed the wardrobe door. A playing card with Liza Minelli wearing a top hat fell from its place tucked into the mirror. She bent to replace it, and pain from her knee shot up her leg. She grabbed her knee and fell against the wardrobe.

  And it slid to the right.

  Joanna sucked in her breath. She righted herself and faced an old wooden door, smaller than the wardrobe that had concealed it. The door might have been a hundred years old, but the bolt that locked it was brand new.

  She paused again. Paul and her guests were waiting for her at Penny’s house. Would she really have the patience to go through the ceremony knowing the secret to VC’s murder might be just beyond this door? She’d be late, for sure. To her own wedding. She shook her head and turned away from the wardrobe.

  Surely at the dressing table she’d find something with which she could pick this lock.

  Joanna followed the lock-picking rules Paul had taught her and first turned the door handle. He’d pointed out that a lot of people could save a lot of time simply by trying a lock before picking it. This one was truly locked. Next, she tried Marquise’s master key, just in case this was a door he’d known about. It didn’t come close to fitting the lock.

  A few seconds at the dressing table and she’d assembled an impressive collection of bobby pins and wig pins. She knelt at the old door, placing a girdle under her knees to protect the lace of her wedding gown and a wig to pad her sore knee. Using a straightened bobby pin and a wig pin—these worked surprisingly well, she’d have to tell Paul—she eased the lock open, pin by pin in the tumbler. She didn’t know she was holding her breath until she let it all out at once.

  There. She stood and stretched her knee again, and pushed the door open. The hinges had been oiled, and the door swung silently. Beyond was Imago Mundi’s basement.

  Joanna thought about the crowd waiting for her at Penny’s. Apple would have told them she needed to make a stop before arriving. If she spent five minutes—five minutes, that’s all—looking around, she’d only be ten minutes or so late. With judicious speeding, it might only be five minutes. Then, after the ceremony, she could get in a quick call to Crisp. He’d take care of the rest.

  The door opened to a short, dark hall with a cement floor and newly sheetrocked walls. The plasterboard was untaped and unpainted, and the ceiling hung low. She dropped her satin bag on the table next to the wardrobe, and unhooked the penlight attached to her key ring, slipping her keys back into her bag. Holding her breath, Joanna crept down the hall and came to a T intersection. To the right, ten or so feet down, the hall ended at the wall. To the left at a similar distance, the hall was sealed by a door.

  So there were rooms here. New rooms. What were they for? Joanna halted. Whatever it was, it was worth killing for, and Roger Bing had played a role—Roger and Lewis Custard. Time was short. She should return to Marquise’s and close everything up. Then again, Lewis Custard was safely out of the way. What better time than now to have a look? She’d take a quick peek in one of the rooms, that’s all, then leave. Who knew? Maybe they were simply storerooms for potatoes and paper napkins.

  She chose the room to her right to investigate first. A steel door locked this room. She tried the knob, and, amazingly, it opened. Her fingers went to the switch next to the door, but she dropped her hand before turning on the lights. Just in case. She lifted her penlight.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t what she saw. The room was clean and tidy, with a linoleum floor so new that it still smelled of vinyl. Three of the room’s walls were lined with tables. The thin beam from her penlight grazed the tables, rested for a moment on a filing cabinet, then stopped at a state-of-the art computer and printer. The printer’s lights blinked red and green. She stepped closer. In a box next to the compute
r were blank passport forms. Thoughts were coming together, and she didn’t like where they led. She was getting out. Now.

  She closed the door behind her and retraced her steps toward Marquise’s. She rounded the corner, then yanked herself back, but it was too late. He was there.

  Out of the dark, a handheld light flashed on, first casting a red glow on its bearer’s hand, then rising to point at her eyes. Joanna blinked against it and raised an arm as her heartbeat exploded in her chest. The light lowered, revealing Lewis Custard’s face.

  27

  “So nice of you to visit, Joanna,” Lewis Custard said. “And so beautifully turned out, too.”

  Joanna was too shocked to speak. She stared ahead, willing her heart to calm. “I thought you were at the wedding.”

  “As the bride should be.”

  “Why are you here?” Joanna finally managed to say.

  “Your friend mentioned you had an errand on the way to your wedding. I was afraid it might be this.”

  Custard was big and likely not too agile, but Joanna couldn’t move quickly in the wedding dress, not to mention her sandals. Besides, he blocked the only access either up to Imago Mundi or through to Marquise’s.

  “Have you seen everything you wanted to see?” he asked. “Or should I give you a tour?”

  “They’re waiting for me. My wedding. They know I came here.”

  “They don’t know what happened to you, except that you were kind enough to call. You thought it would be safer to deliver your message to me, naturally.”

  A call? She didn’t want to ask.

  “You had second thoughts about getting married. Too bad. The groom was crushed.”

  It was now or never. Joanna rushed him, turning sideways to push him with her shoulder as she’d seen football players do in high school. Custard grabbed her by the waist and threw her to the cement floor. Joanna groaned and grabbed her knee. Her sandal caught in the dress’s skirt, tearing a hole in the fragile lace.