The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries)

by Angela M. Sanders

  Her grandmother had put down her dish towel and laughed. “Honey,” she’d told her, “If you've got a diamond you can buy all the dogs you want.” Could have come straight from Marnie’s mouth.

  Joanna’s smile faded. The accident. After her grandmother’s death, her grandfather had sunk into a depression. She would sit for hours reading in their closet with the comfort of brightly colored house dresses hanging around her, still redolent of Moondrops perfume. She’d tamped down the memory of the accident for years. Now, after this morning at the store, it was back. Without thinking, her fingers sought her grandmother’s pearl ring.

  Joanna pulled a saucepan from the row of well-used pans hanging above the stove and filled it with water. She carried a porcelain bowl to the backyard and pinched green beans from vines covering a bamboo teepee. Back inside, while the potatoes boiled she poured a glass of Languedoc and set the table with a linen napkin and a plate painted with buttercups.

  Why did Marnie come to the store after hours? Yes, she was frail, but would she really have pulled the Lanvin coat over herself and died? She’d wanted the coat back desperately, but had to have been unhinged to break into the store to get it. At least, that’s what the detective seemed to think.

  Maybe if Joanna had given back the Lanvin coat when Marnie asked, she’d still be alive. Or if she’d only checked in on Marnie when she told Apple she would. With a pang she remembered their last, sharp words. She wished her last interaction with Marnie could have been that morning when she had sold her the coat. She’d been so sweet. “You’re family,” she’d said.

  Now Marnie was dead.

  The detective had warned her not to leave town. Her stomach churned, but she suppressed the thought of the autopsy until no emotion, not even curiosity, was left.

  As a girl, she hadn't cried at her grandmother's funeral, either. After the service, a handful of relatives, including her father who had driven all night from Colorado, gathered at her uncle's house. Joanna had sat in the living room and read a book her father brought for her while the adults talked quietly in the kitchen. It had been years since she’d thought about that day.

  Joanna wandered to the stereo and slid an LP of Schubert lieder from its sleeve. “For you, Aunt Vanderburgh.” She nodded at the portrait. The tenor's voice wound through the accompanying piano.

  That night, Joanna, full of beef and red wine, slept without dreaming.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Fridays were Apple's day to work at the store and Joanna's day to find new stock. Estate sales were her favorite part of owning a vintage clothing store, and today they’d be a perfect distraction. This morning she was bound for a sale at a house high on Terwilliger Boulevard. She folded a few large bags and tucked them under her arm—estate sales never seemed to have enough bags. She filled her travel mug with coffee and was on her way while the sun still rose behind Mount Hood.

  The sale wouldn't start for a few hours, but as she expected, a line had already formed at the door of the house. The people closest to the door were arguing about who’d arrived first. She wondered if they would be standing in front of Marnie's house sometime soon. Her throat tightened. She didn’t know if Marnie had anyone in her life to take care of her estate. Or even to arrange a funeral.

  “Hi Susan, hello,” Joanna greeted a few of the estate sale regulars. She spotted Nora's beehive hairdo further up the line and made a mental note to get to the perfume while Nora was waylaid by costume jewelry, otherwise Nora would snag it all for her case at the antiques mall. Ben, an elegantly dressed man with a new Range Rover parked down the block, cased the outside of the house, trampling asters as he peered into the bedroom windows. She didn't have to worry about competition from him since he'd be slapping his “Sold to Ben Cub Interiors” stickers only on furniture.

  In fact, except for one rumpled man studying a textbook, she recognized everyone. Just then, a whippet-thin blonde, take-out coffee cup in hand, strolled up to the student.

  “Eve,” Joanna said under her breath. Damn.

  The student shut his textbook and looked eagerly at the woman, who handed him a twenty-dollar bill and said a few words. He continued to smile at her while she took his place in line and ignored his attention. He slumped off the lawn.

  Now Joanna would really have to be on the alert, or Eve would snatch the best clothes for her online shop. Given the chance, Eve would rip them right off the racks in front of her. And that poor student. Obviously infatuated. Like most men Eve came in contact with.

  “Bad form, paying a guy to stand in line for her,” someone behind Joanna mumbled.

  The line began to move. Joanna handed her number to the sentinel at the door. Gold and black flocked wallpaper lined the entry hall. To the right was the living room, which let on to a terrace with a sweeping view of the city. The low-slung couch and swag lamps suggested cocktail parties during the Kennedy administration. The hostess might have worn a chartreuse gown with marabou trim and carried a tray heavy with glasses and a pitcher of Manhattans.

  At estate sales, Joanna was always struck by what people left behind when they died. The golf clubs in the garage, piles of cheap satin sheets in linen closets, and chipped champagne glasses outlined a life. The way an armchair sagged told about the man who watched TV in it for years. The pristine burgundy patent pumps and matching purse, tags still attached, hinted at a life aspired to, if not lived.

  Marnie’s home would tell similar stories, but Joanna didn’t want to think of people tramping through her living room, pawing through her kitchen and bedroom. Marnie had never mentioned anyone who might manage her affairs after she died. It didn’t seem right. Did she have a will or an attorney to help sort things out? Her gut ached.

  The clothing was in the master bedroom, to the left of the entry hall. The estate sale staff had set up racks at the perimeter of the room. Eve was already there, fingers flying through a box of jewelry. Joanna scooped up a Pierre Cardin cocoa silk dress, a Givenchy black moiré evening coat, and some 1960s day dresses, including a few orange and pink jungle prints from one of Joanna's favorite labels, the Vested Gentress. On the dresser she also found an old bottle of Parure eau de toilette. Into her bag they went.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Eve and slipped into the guest room. Eureka! Against the wall stood a rack of winter clothes, including several mod Bonnie Cashin dresses and matching coats, each with its distinctive leather trim. Quickly examining them for moth holes and stains, she flung them over her arm. Eve raced to the rack Joanna had just pillaged and shot her a nasty look. Joanna smiled in return.

  “Oh well, I suppose you need the clothes more than I do to keep your store afloat,” Eve said. “This stuff isn’t that great anyway. My customers expect quality.”

  Joanna locked eyes with Eve. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got in a Lanvin coat from the 1930s.”

  Eve’s eyes lit up.

  Uh oh. She should have kept her mouth shut. Eve probably had some rich customer in New York who’d shell out whatever it took for the Lanvin. Marnie’s Lanvin. No way Eve was getting that coat.

  “Really.” Eve’s voice was studied nonchalance. “It’s at Tallulah’s Closet now? I might need something like that for my new store.”

  “I didn’t know you were opening a space.” Portland could only support so many vintage clothing stores. At least Eve’s would probably be in a ritzier part of town and wouldn’t compete with Tallulah’s Closet. She hoped.

  Eve gave Joanna a mysterious smile. “Look, I’d love to talk, but I’d better get to the rest of the sale before the best things are gone.” She hoisted her Birkin bag to her shoulder. “Ta.”

  Joanna shifted the coats over her arm and staggered toward the check-out table. Eve opening a brick and mortar store? Please, no.

  While an acned teen wearing a “Chick Remmick for Senate” button tallied her purchases, Joanna sifted through a box of keys and loose jewelry near the checkout. She picked one of them up and thought of the saf
e deposit box key that fell from the Lanvin coat, then replaced it gently.

  There had to be some way she could help Marnie. How, though? It didn’t seem right that she should die so alone. At her store. Something was very wrong about the whole situation.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hours later, Joanna’s ancient Corolla hatchback, nicknamed Old Blue, groaned under its load. Besides the morning’s estate sales, at the opera warehouse sale she had scored two large boxes of costumes, including a complete Brünnhilde outfit from Siegfried and some of the chorus's costumes from a mid-century take on Carmen. The day's haul had been so successful that superstition compelled her to try her luck at the thrift stores along 82nd Avenue, too.

  It was just after seven, she was starving, and the closest parking she could find to Tallulah’s Closet was three blocks away. She unloaded one box from the hatchback, then impulsively stacked another on top. By looking to the side she could just about make out where she was headed.

  As Joanna turned the corner at the end of the block, her heel caught on a crack in the sidewalk. She gasped as she dropped the boxes and fell backward. Ready to hit the pavement, she closed her eyes, but instead fell into flesh. Someone else’s arms righted her.

  “Whoa! Are you all right?” It was Paul, the workman from the store.

  She stepped back quickly. One of the boxes had toppled open, and costumes lay splayed on the sidewalk. “I’m fine.” She pulled up her shoulder bag. “Lucky you were here.”

  “I just finished the front door locks. Thought I'd get some dinner.”

  “Oh.” She stooped to pick up a poodle skirt and stuff it back into a box. “How’s it going?”

  “Pretty well. Just a little sanding and painting left. It looked like a busy day at the store, too.”

  She cringed. By now Apple had probably extracted Paul's complete relationship history and named his and Joanna's children. “Apple was, uh, all right?”

  “Sure. She was helpful. She even told me I had a shiny aura.” They were right outside the Reel M'Inn tavern. Paul helped her put the clothes back into the boxes. With one hand he gestured at the tavern. “Why don't you join me? It's not fancy, but the chicken and jojos are pretty good.”

  “I really need to get these clothes back to the store. There’s even more in my car. I should check in with Apple, too.” She glanced at the tavern's battered door. She'd never been inside and suspected there weren't enough antacids in town to stand up to a plate of the Reel M'Inn's jojos. Besides, the rest of last night’s steak and a bundle of watercress waited at home to be made into a salad.

  “At least come in and have a drink. By the time you're through, traffic for the dinner crowd on Clinton will have let up and you'll be able to park in front of the store.” Paul picked up a box of costumes, now packed, as if the matter were settled and stepped into the Reel M'Inn.

  She paused, then followed him. After all, a girl had to eat sometime.

  Inside, the small tavern was dark, and smoky. Heads turned as Paul and Joanna entered. Along the bar sat grizzled biker types, and a table of tattooed hipsters played Boggle in the corner.

  A large woman with long, black hair polished pint glasses behind the bar. “Well, hello Paul. The usual?” He nodded. “And you?” she asked Joanna.

  Joanna didn't like beer much, and the wine looked to be a row of small, screw-top bottles. Not promising. She was debating ordering a plain seltzer when the bartender, who had been watching her deliberations, said, “We have liquor, too.”

  “Great, could you make me a Martini?”

  “This is a bar, honey, and, yes, we make Martinis here. That is, unless you'd prefer a vintage champagne? I can send the butler to the wine cellar.” The bartender put down the pint glass and reached below the counter for gin.

  Paul laughed. “Five kids at home. She’s a little short sometimes. Hey, how did Matt do on his science project?”

  “An A-plus—his first ever. He’s so proud of that volcano. We had to put it on top of the TV, even though it’s half blown up now. Thanks for helping him build it.”

  Paul glanced at Joanna then back at the bartender. He seemed genuinely pleased.

  “Volcano?”

  “I’m a man of many talents. Lock installation, volcanos, you name it.” He nodded toward a bar-height table with stools on the other side of the room. “Let’s sit over there.” Fishing hooks and lures were shellacked into the table’s surface. Paul set the boxes of costumes behind his chair, against the wall. Creedence Clearwater Revival played in the background.

  “Is there a pay phone in here?”

  “No cell phone?” He pointed toward the rear of the bar. “Back there, by the bathrooms.”

  Apple answered on the first ring. “Just checking in,” Joanna said. “I cleaned up today. I’ll drop off a couple boxes at the store tonight, and we can sort through it all tomorrow.” A slender brunette in formfitting jeans smiled broadly when she saw Paul. She crossed the room toward him.

  “Sounds good. Not much going on today. The lock guy was there. I’m telling you, that man is hotter than the sun.”

  “Uh huh.” Joanna opened her mouth to tell Apple she had Paul in plain view right then, when the brunette put her hand on Paul’s arm. Joanna closed her mouth again.

  “Oh—and the Lanvin coat sold.”

  The coat. Joanna felt a moment of relief, bittersweet as it was. Part of her wanted to keep the coat since it had belonged to Marnie, but it seemed tainted now, too. Besides, Tallulah’s Closet needed the money from the sale.

  “Where are you?” Apple asked. “Sounds like a bar.”

  “It is. I’m getting some dinner.” The brunette traded a few words with the bartender as she slid her empty glass across the bar, then cast a glance Paul’s way as she left. He was studying the shellacked table top. “That’s great about the coat. Anything else?”

  “Well, I’m not sure it's anything to worry about, but twice today I've seen a stocky guy checking out the store. He was lurking around the front window, and when he saw me looking at him, he pretended to go into Dot's. I saw him again a few minutes later. Something felt really off about him.”

  “Did he look like, you know—” Vintage clothing stores attracted some unusual types, including a few lingerie fondlers. These were mostly middle-aged men who wanted to caress nylon slips and lace-trimmed camisoles and talk about them. They never bought, and they chewed up time she could be mending or helping customers.

  “No, not one of the regular fondlers. And he didn't come in. I just got a desperate vibe.”

  “I suppose it's nothing to worry about.” Apple’s “vibes” flowed freely. But then Marnie... “I don’t like the sound of it, though. If you see him again, can you let me know? I wrote the detective’s number next to the phone.”

  Joanna replaced the heavy handset and returned to the table, where the bartender was setting down an O’Doul’s, a glass, and a surprisingly good looking Martini. “I don't need the glass,” Paul said.

  “I thought you might want to class it up a bit with your friend here,” the bartender said without looking at Joanna.

  “I think two orders of chicken and jojos will be class enough, thanks—is that okay?” Paul said to Joanna. The bartender left. “I hope you don't mind that I ordered for you. You look hungry, and I know I am. And you're going to need something in your stomach if you plan on drinking that,” he said, pointing to the Martini. “I have a feeling the gin here doubles as paint remover.”

  She took a sip. “Paint remover or not, it tastes pretty good right now.”

  Paul leaned back. “Sorry it's taken so long to get the locks done. I’ve had a couple of other projects going on. I can’t believe you went so long with only a lock in the door handle.”

  “I've been making do for three years now. I guess an extra day doesn’t matter.”

  “Three years—that's a while. How did you come to own a vintage clothing store?”

  “It wasn't my first plan. I thought I’d be p
ractical, so I went to law school right out of college. But it didn't feel right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She considered her answer. “It's hard to explain, but it was like I was living in a strange country, and all my people were on some other island. You know what I mean?”

  He leaned forward. “I’m not sure.”

  “I was doing okay at law school, but I kept thinking, 'Is this all?' After I interned at a law firm that first summer, I knew I couldn't be an attorney.” She took another sip of her Martini. “One Friday I went to a party at one of the partner's houses up on Alameda. The living room had a mammoth leather sectional and a postmodern painting that they probably never looked at. The partner kept trotting out cult Cabernets and talking about his latest trip to Italy, but I felt like he didn't really care about either, he just liked having them.” She winced remembering what the women in the firm wore: expensive but ill-fitting suits, generic David Yurman necklaces, and loads of chunky highlights in their blown-out hair. The host made a production out of cooking his “special” paella on the grill.

  “So, in desperation I took a career test. It was a test where you look at a list of qualities and then rank the ones most important to you. You know, ‘organization,’ 'idealism'—things like that. One of the qualities was ‘beauty.’ I'd never thought about it before, but I realized that beauty was really important to me. Not that things have to be beautiful in a traditional way—”

  “But that they’re beautiful in how they are what they are,” Paul said. “I get it.”

  “Yes.” The gin absorbed seamlessly into her bloodstream. It must have been weeks since she’d talked this much, except to Apple. She looked at Paul more closely. “For instance, think about a model home or a hotel lobby. No matter how perfectly everything in them was chosen, often they're not beautiful, because they're not honest. They're dead.” Reminded of Marnie, she paused at the last word. “Anyway, I'd always loved old clothing, and one day it occurred to me that it was what I should be doing—finding and selling vintage clothes.” Gosh, she couldn’t shut up. She raised her glass to her lips again. “Am I boring you?”