Pete was at the kitchen table, being interrogated by two big cops. He sat tense in his chair, his hands gripping the edge of the seat. He didn’t notice me come in.
Aileen lounged by the sink, a can of beer in her hand. Her pink-tinged hair contrasted with a bright green, sequined pantsuit. She looked like a disco lizard. She turned to me with a sardonic grin.
“Pretty hopping exhibit, sounds like. Who knew that Civil War artifacts could be so exciting?”
Pete glanced at me, his jaw tightly clenched, arms rigid at his sides, then focused again on Beefy Cop number one. “I haven’t violated my probation,” he said. “You don’t have anything on me.”
Probation! My hands went cold and clammy. So that’s where Pete had been for those seven months in Hollywood—in jail. Not a tale for the kiddos, indeed.
Aileen snorted. “You heard the man,” she said. “He went to the museum and then he came home. No drug dealing, no grand theft auto, not even any shoplifting. He probably did look at some guns—you can’t really help it if you’re looking at Civil War stuff. I never heard that looking was a crime.” She tapped her long black fingernails on the counter. “I think we’re done.”
Beefy Cop Number Two stood up. “You’re a person of interest in this investigation,” he said, prodding Pete with his forefinger. “You’re required to report to your probation officer on a weekly basis. I expect you to be here next time I want to talk to you, get it?”
Pete nodded wordlessly.
“The door’s right over here,” Aileen said, shooing the cops through the hall. “Don’t hurry back!” She slammed the door behind them.
Pete heaved a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “Thanks, Aileen,” he said as she clomped back into the kitchen.
“No worries, Moron.”
Pete smiled faintly. Aileen snagged two beers from the fridge. She popped the top off of one and tossed the other to Pete. “You can’t ever let those guys get the upper hand. But you know that.” She raised her can and toasted him.
He lifted his beer in response and took a long swig. He raised his head to meet my eyes. “I got busted for drugs,” he said in a voice so low I could barely hear him. He hung his head. “I didn’t want to tell you. They let me out on good behavior.”
I took a deep cleansing breath, but it didn’t help. “Drugs? Pete, what the heck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking, was I? Hollywood’s a nightmare, Daria. Don’t ever go there.” He avoided my eyes. “It was heroin. I wasn’t selling, it was simple possession, but I got caught up in a ‘Down with Drugs’ campaign. They hit me with a felony and gave me a three-year sentence. I was lucky to get out in seven months.” He clenched his hands. “I’m clean now, I swear. This was supposed to be a fresh start for me. I guess you really can’t go home again.” He dropped his head in his hands.
“Home,” Aileen said. She held her beer can aloft, like she was the Statue of Liberty. “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
Pete raised his head and stared at her. I did the same.
She shrugged. “Robert Frost. You should brush up on the classics, Moron.” She tossed her beer can into the trash and clomped out of the room.
I watched Aileen go, chagrined to be receiving a life lesson from her, of all people. I extended a hand to my brother. “Welcome home, Pete.”
Chapter Four
After staying up well past two a.m. putting the finishing touches on Colonel Windstrom’s uniform, I slept late the next morning. I woke to sticky heat wafting through my curtains and had to scramble to be ready for Marsha’s fitting at ten. I met Chris’s fiancée at the front door and escorted her into my fitting room.
I used the formal dining room for fittings. The wide front windows let in lots of natural light, and a couple of soft chairs and my antique spinning wheel gave it a cozy feel. A big three-way mirror for clients to admire my handiwork stood near the corner that was curtained off for changing. Clients’ gowns hung on a moveable clothes rack. My favorite piece was the antique dresser under the windows, where I displayed needlework, baby bonnets, and other crafts. It cost me the profits from seven wedding dresses, but it was worth it. Just a touch of its lustrous surface made me feel like a rich woman. I had my eye on a matching corner china cabinet to display dolls, but that would have to wait. For now, the dolls decorated the mantel, with the silhouette of Betsy Ross keeping watch over all.
I always kept tea or hot cider simmering on the sideboard to complete the relaxing atmosphere. The only hazard was Aileen’s band studio in the basement. She was really pretty good about telling me when the band would practice so I wouldn’t schedule a fitting at the same time. Once I messed up, scheduling Mrs. O'Hare and her daughter for a first communion dress fitting during a practice. When the band kicked in, Mrs. O jumped so high, she knocked her head on the chandelier. I had to give her the dress at half price just to get her back in the door. At the next fitting, she brought heavy ear protection—the kind they wear on airport tarmacs—for both herself and little Amber.
Marsha sank down on one of my easy chairs with a sigh. Her pale skin, shiny brown hair, and wide brown eyes made her look like a china doll, fragile and sweet. Her blue gingham sundress did nothing to hide her condition. She was definitely beginning to show. As I brought her a glass of iced tea, I wondered if she was ever going to tell me that she was pregnant. It definitely made a difference in the fit and even the style of the wedding dress.
“Mama couldn’t come today,” Marsha said. “She says for you to take pictures of me in the dress and of all the details you’ve added, so she can approve it.” She held out her phone with an apologetic smile.
“Oh sure, no problem.” Maybe we’d have a nicer time with “Mama” absent. I was surprised Marsha ever managed enough time alone with Chris to get pregnant in the first place. But that was none of my business.
I pulled Marsha’s dress off the rack and steered her to the changing room. I hoped the gown still fit. With one week to go before the wedding, things were getting dicey.
Marsha was wearing her grandmother’s wedding dress. Like most heirloom dresses, the white satin had darkened over time to a pale ivory. The Alençon lace I’d added to the bodice all had to be tea-dyed to match. That’s where I ran up against Mrs. Withers, otherwise known as Mama. I tried Earl Grey, English breakfast and even generic black tea from Giant Eagle, but the color never came out to Mrs. Withers’s satisfaction. Alençon lace was expensive, so this time I’d only dyed one small piece, in black currant tea for a change. It looked great to me, but then so did the other three attempts.
“Can you do the back?” Marsha emerged from the changing room, a vision in shining satin. A plump vision, to be sure. She held her breath as I strained to fasten the long row of satin buttons in the back. The gaps between them mocked my efforts.
“Marsha, you can’t hold your breath through the whole ceremony. We’ll have to let out the seams.”
“But Mama said only hemming and adding the lace. She doesn’t want any cutting—she said so specifically.”
“Marsha, I know your mom wants you to look beautiful and feel comfortable on your wedding day.” I shook my head. “But at this rate you’ll never fit into this dress by next week if we don’t give you some more room.”
Marsha sank into a chair and hid her face in her hands. The bodice seams strained, and a button popped off the back.
“Come on, you’ll get all wrinkled,” I said, easing her upright again. “Now’s a great time to do it, while your mom’s not here.” I briskly unbuttoned the back and turned her once more to the changing room. “When I’m done with you, your guests will never know the difference.”
“But Mama will.” Marsha’s muffled voice emanated from behind the curtain. “She’ll see that you’ve made alterations, and she’ll guess the reason why.”
“Marsha, why don’t you just tell her? She may have guessed already.”
“She always told me that she’d kick me out if I got pregnant when I wasn’t married. I wouldn’t be her daughter anymore.” She raised teary eyes to my face. “I know she has to find out sometime. But I want to be her daughter on my wedding day.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffled. “Plus, my parents are paying for everything. Chris’s family couldn’t afford to pick it up if Mama cut me off. I’m just hoping the wedding will be so beautiful that Mama will forgive me when she finds out later about the baby.” I handed Marsha a tissue, and she dried her eyes. “Can you fix it so she won’t notice?”
“Absolutely.” I hugged her, wiping a tear from my own eye.
Marsha sipped her tea and chatted about the wedding while I ripped out the bodice side seams and loosened the gathering on the skirt. I threaded my needle and began to run up a line of basting along the seam.
“Mama took me to order the flowers yesterday. We’re going to have dendrobium orchids—little peach ones to match the bridesmaids’ dresses. All this wedding planning is really stressing Mama out.” She giggled. “You’d never believe how superstitious she is. The florist added up the total for the flowers and it came to six hundred, sixty-six dollars. Mama almost fainted, right there in the shop.” Marsha’s voice dropped an octave. “It’s the number of the beast,” she intoned in a dead-on imitation of her mother. “Mama thought surely my marriage would be doomed, because there’s no way . . .” Her words trailed off as she stared at her wedding dress in my hands.
I looked down in surprise. I hadn’t noticed, but I’d pricked my finger with my hand stitching, and now a bright red smear of blood stained the pristine ivory silk. I snatched up a tissue and met Marsha’s wide brown eyes, filled with fear.
“It’s a sign,” she whispered. “Me and Chris . . .” Then practicality overrode superstition. “Mama is going to kill me.”
I spat directly onto the stain, ignoring Marsha’s gasp. “Nobody’s going to kill anybody,” I soothed, briskly rubbing the offending spot. “It happens all the time—just not usually in front of the bride.” I spat again and kept on rubbing, trying to look professional. “A person’s saliva contains just the right enzymes to match their blood, so the blood comes right out. It works every time.” I spat and rubbed, hoping it would work this time. Marsha watched in horrified silence.
Lucky for me, it did work. I held up the bodice, a bit damp but blood-free. “Good as new,” I said cheerfully.
Marsha recovered her good spirits as I settled down to restitch the side seams.
An hour and a half later, Marsha stood before the mirror in a dress roomy enough to accommodate next week’s inevitable expansion. Careful steaming and pressing had removed most of the stitch holes, so with luck, her mother wouldn’t notice a thing. I sent Marsha happily on her way and sank into the armchair with a sigh. Until the historical sewing took off, wedding dresses were my bread-and-butter, but they always seemed to come with an ample helping of drama.
* * *
After lunch, I folded up Colonel Windstrom’s uniform and caught the bus to the park for his final fitting. The sun baked the top of my head as I made my way down the hill to the Civil War encampment. It was a scorcher, all right. The weatherman predicted record-setting heat for the afternoon. I wore a cotton sundress with spaghetti straps. It was hardly the attire of a respectable nineteenth-century lady, but better than jeans—or at least I thought so.
At the park, a thick line of smoke rose from a campfire in front of the cook tent. A huge cast iron pot hung from an iron tripod, tended by a short soldier with curly dark hair. I narrowed my eyes. Could that really be Emmett McDowell, wrapped in a none-too-clean apron, stirring stew on the hottest Pennsylvania day on record? I wished Pete could see him now. Maybe he would—he had said something about filming the reenactors’ drills today.
As I approached the line of tents, I passed a group of soldiers sitting in the shade, their muskets strewn on the grass beside them. I recognized the burly form of Chris Porter and waved. He called me over.
“Come meet my buddies, Daria.” He wiped the sweat off his face. “This is Skip,” he said, pointing to a thin teenage boy with long black hair and a charming smile, “and this is Finn,” indicating a heavyset young man with a peace sign tattooed on his neck.
Finn stood up and swept off his kepi in a bow. “Just call me Fix-It Finn.”
Chris laughed and clapped him on the back. “He does the best stained-glass repair in town,” he stage-whispered. “He’s the one who hooked me up with this outfit.”
Skip checked his watch and jumped up. “We’re supposed to turn out for maneuvers at two o’clock. Colonel Windstrom will bite our heads off if we’re late.”
Finn leapt to his feet. Chris followed more slowly, dusting off his hands on his thighs. “See you later, Daria.”
I waved to Chris and his friends, watching them head out to a large clearing filled with gray-clad soldiers running and yelling and falling over each other. Several men toting huge cameras hovered around the edge of the field, shooting footage for God and Glory, no doubt. I could just recognize Pete focusing on a hand-to-hand skirmish involving a dozen or so soldiers. Better him than me. I headed for the officers’ tents.
“I’ve come to see Colonel Windstrom for his fitting,” I told the teenage Private Rawlings, on sentry duty again today.
“The Colonel is busy at the moment and can’t be disturbed,” he said in a husky voice.
Great, now I’d have to wait for the all-important colonel! I fidgeted in the heat, staring at the sentry’s hands gripping the inevitable musket. Those strong, shapely, feminine hands. The private’s hair and face gave no hint as to gender, but the hands were definitely those of a woman. A woman dressed up as a boy, to fight in the battle, just like Chris and I had talked about. I looked back at Private Rawlings’s face, noting the curve of her cheek and the hint of a smile on her lips.
“You’ve found me out,” she said.
I glanced over my shoulder. “I’ll never tell.”
“Half the guys know already, and the other half aren’t worth bothering about. Except for the officers.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “There’s a bet on to see how long I can keep Colonel Windstrom thinking I’m a teenage boy. I get five hundred dollars if I can make it through the entire encampment.” She held out her hand. “I’m Private Billy Rawlings in eighteen sixty-two, or Torey Brand in real life. You can call me Torey.”
“Daria Dembrowski,” I replied.
“The seamstress. I wanted to ask you—could you fix my coat for me?” She looked around, then shed the coat. “I borrowed it from one of the guys, and it’s way too big.” She turned it inside out to show me a bunched-up line of fabric running down the back of the coat, held together by safety pins. “The arms are too long—I just roll them up.” She shrugged. “It’s probably authentic, but it sure looks sloppy. How much would you charge to fix it?”
I pulled out my tape measure and jotted down her arm and chest measurements in my notepad. “It’s no big deal—I can do it for twenty bucks. And it’ll be a lot more comfortable than it is now.” I bundled up the coat, but she stretched out a hand.
“I need to wear it until the end of my shift. Can I drop it off with you later on?”
“Sure.” I gave her my address, and she thanked me with a boyish half-salute.
“Let me check on the colonel for you.” She disappeared into the tent.
“Hey, I know you!”
I turned, wondering what other old acquaintance I would see dressed up in Civil War garb. I was completely unprepared for what I saw.
A man with blond hair swept back from his forehead into a ponytail and a camera dangling around his neck waved cheerfully with a cocky grin. I couldn’t believe that horrible photographer had the nerve to show his face here.
“You’re the gal I knocked over last night, right? You didn’t get hurt or anything, did you?”
I rubbed the painful bruise on my thigh, and turned to stare at a passing airplane marring the authentic nineteenth-century atmosphere.
“I’m Sean McCarthy,” he persisted. “We never were properly introduced. You are?”
I sighed. “My name is Daria Dembrowski,” I said coldly.
He gave a delighted little laugh. “Dembrowski? I’ll bet you got a lot of grief for that at school.”
Anger flushed my cheeks as I remembered kids chanting “Hairy Daria Dumb Brewsky,” over and over. All through middle school Scotty Pilchner called me “Dummy,” until Pete found out and put a stop to it. I didn’t need any cracks about my name from this impudent, brawling photographer! I turned my back and started humming softly to myself.
McCarthy just laughed. “Aw, don’t be mad,” he said. “I want to ask you about the museum last night.”
I turned to face him. “I can’t believe you have the gall to bring that up,” I snapped. “In fact, I can’t even believe I’m seeing you here—you ought to be in jail!”
“True, very true. I actually did spend a good part of the night at the station. They charged me with disorderly conduct, and I got Colonel Windstrom for assault, and there we were. We hashed it out for a couple hours and finally agreed to let bygones be bygones. No harm done.”
I rubbed my bruise again. “Not unless you mention the missing doll—or did you turn her in while you were at it?”
Torey stepped out of the tent, casting a swift glance at McCarthy. “Colonel Windstrom can see you in about fifteen minutes, ma’am.” She resumed her post, eyes straight ahead.
“Ah, the doll,” McCarthy said, his face suddenly sober. “In point of fact, I didn’t have the doll. That’s what I was hoping to ask you about. Any idea who might have stolen it?”
“My best guess is an obnoxious photographer who took hundreds of illegal pictures of the doll just before she went missing.”
Uniformly Dead Page 5