The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries)

by Angela M. Sanders

  A few seconds elapsed as the people at the memorial service stared at him. “Yes, yes, come in and sit down,” Nina said. “Here, let me take those.” She lifted a cellophane-wrapped bundle of birds of paradise from his hands.

  “I'll be damned,” Liz said.

  “My name is Troy.” He hovered near Don. “I hope I'm not interrupting.”

  “You'll have to excuse our silence, son,” Don said. “It's just that some of us didn't know that Marnie had a child. Have a seat.”

  All eyes were on Troy. He set his backpack next to his chair. He wore what was probably concession to dressing for a memorial service: black jeans and a muted grey dress shirt Joanna recognized as a DaVinci from the early 1960s. He could have been any one of a thousand men who moved to Portland to join a band, build bicycles, or simply acquire a few tattoos.

  He waved toward the flowers Nina still held. “Something about them reminded me of her.” Nina laid the birds of paradise on the stage. Impressive choice. The flowers did feel more like Marnie—at least the Marnie in the photos—than did the bouquets of lilies, gold mums, and gladiolas the others had sent.

  Troy surveyed the quiet room, questions lingering in the air. A wide, warm smile broke over his face. “I hope you don't mind my coming. I saw Marnie's obit in The Oregonian, so I called the club about sending some flowers. The person who answered told me about this morning's gathering.”

  He certainly was charming. Nina's expression softened. “We're happy to have you, of course. Would you like some coffee? Maybe a cinnamon roll?”

  Joanna sat back. So, Marnie had a son. She had never said anything about children or a husband. From the looks on the faces around the room, she wasn't the only person caught off guard. She remembered an article she'd read somewhere about a man who trolled obituaries, then went to funerals to steal from the families of the deceased. Could Troy be one of those?

  Troy helped himself to a cup of coffee and two donuts. He wrapped a cinnamon roll in a napkin and set it aside. He held his coffee cup with both hands, elbows out, like a child.

  Ray cleared his throat. “Uh, Troy, it sounds like you've been out of touch with your mother for a while. How did she keep you hidden away so well?”

  For a second, Troy looked confused. Then he relaxed and again flashed a melting smile. “Oh, I see. You're probably wondering if I'm for real. Marnie was my birth mother. She gave me up for adoption right after I was born, and I only met her about a year ago. I always wondered who my birth parents were, so I registered with the adoption agency. I guess Marnie was curious, too.” He reached into his backpack handed a folded letter to Don. “Here.”

  “It’s from Marnie. Says she’s his mother and wants to meet him.” As Don returned the letter, he studied Troy’s face.

  “I keep the letter with me all the time,” Troy said. “I remember exactly what I was doing when it came in the mail. And now...” He pushed his donut away.

  Joanna was still skeptical. Sure, he had a letter, but there was something a little flim-flam about him. The men, especially, seemed to be calculating Troy’s age. Marnie must have been near forty, or even slightly older, when Troy was born. He was fine-boned, like Marnie, but dark haired. Any of these men, or who knows how many others, could have been his father.

  “Your father never got in touch with you?” Mike, the manager, asked.

  “No. Never. As far as I know, he’s not even aware I exist. Marnie knew how to keep secrets, that's for sure.” The tension in the room dropped a notch. “Although she never did talk much about herself, she told me she'd been a performer here. Are these her?”

  Troy went to the easel to look at the photos Nina had pinned up. Nina pointed out a few of Marnie as Goldilocks and then another of Marnie smiling, leaning against the hood of a Peugeot, with her hair blown against her face and a hand lifted to brush it from her eyes. In the distance was the ocean.

  “Where was this one taken?” Troy asked.

  “Why don't you keep it?” Nina said, obviously smitten. “It was taken at the tip of the Long Beach peninsula, near Oysterville. Where Marnie grew up. Ray, too.” She nodded at Ray.

  “That's where the guy running for the Senate grew up, isn't it? He came to speak at the law school last winter. He's doing some great work on roadless issues. I'm focusing on environmental law.”

  Remmick. Andrew’s congressman.

  Nina glanced at her husband. “Yes, I believe they knew each other.”

  The service took on a new energy. Everyone stood, talking to each other and trying to chat up Troy, the women especially, giving him maternal pats on the shoulder to which he'd respond with shy smiles. Nina took Don aside for a moment. Don shook his head and pulled away, and Nina, head down, walked toward the restroom. Troy and Joanna chatted a little about law school, and Troy gave her a card for his art installation business. “It doesn't pay much, but it's helping me get through school.”

  Mary's was scheduled to open for the day soon, and Tallulah’s Closet would, too. She rose to leave. She should feel happier and more settled about Marnie. After all, she'd had her chance to talk with Marnie's friends—and her son, if he was her son—and to say goodbye to her. She'd even found a potential source of stock for Tallulah’s Closet with Wendy, who said she still had some of her show clothes, now several sizes too small for her.

  But the thought that someone wanted Marnie's key, and the uncertainty, at least in Joanna's mind, about Marnie's death kept her uneasy. Maybe once she talked to the police she would relax again. Since Marnie had died, her world seemed to have turned upside down. She looked forward to the day she could kick back on her chaise longue with nothing more taxing to think about than mapping out the next Friday's run of estate sales.

  She hugged Nina and inhaled her aura of cigarette smoke and gardenias. “Thank you for arranging all this. I'd better get back to the shop, it's almost time to open it.” On impulse, she gave her a little squeeze at the end of the hug before letting go. “Let’s not lose touch.”

  “Maybe we can have lunch. Soon. I’ll tell you some stories about Marnie back in the day.” She glanced back at Troy. “Crazy about the son, isn’t it?”

  “That would be nice.” Nina might have been moody to begin with, but she was a good friend to Marnie, even after all these years.

  “Will you take one of these photos? How about this one?” Nina handed her a photo of Marnie standing outside the club in a silver lamé cocktail dress.

  “Isn't that one of her hostess dresses? She sold me that dress.”

  “Yes, it is. Perfect, then,” Nina said.

  On the street, Joanna tucked the photo into her purse. She slid it in an inside pocket next to the key that had fallen from the Lanvin coat.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Joanna hoped to find someone fixing the bathroom window, but Tallulah’s Closet was dark. She flipped on a few lights and picked up the phone to leave another message for the landlord. She’d call the police, too. As she began to dial, the door behind her chimed.

  “Finally,” she said under her breath and turned, expecting to see the landlord. But standing at the door was Laura Remmick, the congressman's wife. Although they’d never been introduced, Joanna recognized her from events she’d attended with Andrew. Laura stood out even among Joanna's carefully tended racks of vintage clothing like a Manolo pump in a box of Hush Puppies. Joanna's expression morphed from surprise to a welcoming smile. Outfitting a congressman's wife would be a real coup. The broken bathroom window could wait a little longer.

  “Hello. Are you looking for anything special today?”

  Laura Remmick ran a hand through her caramel highlights. “Oh, I'm just looking. But I wonder if you have any cocktail dresses, maybe from the early- or mid-1960s? My husband drags me to all sorts of events, and I'm so tired of what's in my closet.”

  “You’re Laura Remmick, aren’t you? I admire your husband.” Silently, Joanna thanked the vintage clothing gods. No matter how boring the congressman's wife might fi
nd boutique cocktail dresses and designer suits, few women of her sort ended up on the working class side of the river at a vintage clothing boutique. Laura was spot-on about choosing 1960s dresses, made for women with her slender hips and a modest bust, rather than 1950s dresses which tend to suit curvier figures better.

  “Why don't you check the rack behind you?” Joanna said. “Most of our best black cocktail dresses are hanging there. I'm just opening the store. I'll put out the sidewalk sign and be back in a second to see what I can find for you.”

  When she returned, Laura was still standing where Joanna had left her.

  “Where do you get most of your clothes?” the congressman's wife asked.

  “Oh, all over. I get some from thrift stores and estate sales. People come in and sell me clothes, too. Of course, I dry clean and steam everything before I put it out for sale.” She pulled from the rack a black lace cocktail dress threaded with a thick, sky blue ribbon around its empire waist. “You look like you're about a four. What do you think of this one? The vee in the back is really nice. And see how the ribbon makes a sash to the hem? It looks Audrey Hepburn in front, then you turn around and it's Sophia Loren.”

  “How cute,” she said without conviction. “I bet a lot of interesting people come in to sell clothes. Real characters, I mean.”

  “Definitely. Definitely characters.” Joanna pulled another black cocktail dress for Laura to try, this one a form-fitting sheath with a trapeze of silk chiffon over it, weighed down and given motion by a quadruple row of tight ruffles along its hem. She took a pole made from a broom handle from behind the counter and lifted a Pucci dress, the pride of store, from a hook on the wall. Finding a mint condition Pucci these days was akin to stumbling on a Picasso at a garage sale. It was more expensive than most of her customers could afford. Laura could definitely afford it, and its high-waisted cut and swirling pattern of pink, mauve, and celery green would accentuate her blue eyes.

  “Sweet dress,” a trim black man said as he came in the store.

  “Hi, Kevin,” Joanna said. “I put aside a few pieces for you.”

  “Thanks, doll.” Kevin was better known in some circles as the drag queen Poison Waters. In street clothes he looked like a junior architect. Only his carefully plucked eyebrows gave away his profession.

  Laura ignored Kevin and plowed ahead with her questioning. “Who brought in those dresses, for example?” She pointed at the cocktail dresses Joanna had put in the dressing room for her to try.

  “One came from an estate sale in Sellwood, and the other I found at a thrift store. I bought the Pucci at a church rummage sale, believe it or not.” Why was the congressman's wife so stuck on where Joanna got her clothes? Most women cruised the racks eagerly and methodically, intent on snagging the best of the one-of-a-kind gowns. This one seemed to want to stand around and talk. Finally Laura went in the dressing room and drew the leopard print curtains.

  “Laura Remmick?” Kevin mouthed and raised his eyebrows.

  “Can you believe it?” she mouthed back, then said to him in a normal voice, “I thought you might like these Vendôme pearls. Look, gumball-sized baroque, perfect for the big girl. I had to wrassle them off Barbara Bush.”

  “I bet that was easy,” Kevin said in Poison's voice.

  “And I found some size twelve lucite mules for you, too, although they might be a little narrow.”

  Laura emerged from the dressing room wearing the Pucci dress. Her shoulders and arms were perfectly sculpted, and she had the smooth, evenly brown legs of a woman with regular appointments at the tanning booth and the waxer. The dress's wild pattern might make it a risky choice for a Washington cocktail party, but it fit like it was made for her.

  “You look fabulous,” Kevin said.

  “Thank you,” she said, although she barely glanced at herself in the mirror. “Do you ever get clothes from, oh, I don't know, entertainers around town?”

  “No one particularly famous, if that's what you mean.” She was definitely fishing for information. But why?

  “What about Marnie?” Kevin said. “Wasn't she a dancer in the fifties-sixties?”

  “That's interesting.” Laura seemed to perk up. “She just died, didn't she? I read about it in yesterday’s paper.”

  Well, well. Joanna rested a hand on the back of Kevin’s chair. So, all this questioning was about Marnie. Didn't someone at the memorial service say Remmick knew Marnie? “Yes, not quite a week ago.”

  “What was she like? She must have been attractive to be a showgirl and all.”

  “She used to be a real bombshell. Wait, I have a photo right here.” Joanna retrieved her purse from under the tiki bar and pulled out the photo Nina gave her. “I have the feeling she did what she wanted without caring what the rest of the world thought.”

  Laura studied the photograph, the thumbnail from her French manicure resting over the black and white image. She paused a moment, as if uncertain where she wanted to take the conversation. Finally she said, “What kind of clothes did she bring in?”

  “A lot of dresses with Polynesian prints, strangely enough. A few items from her working days, too. She did bring in a gorgeous coat, a Lanvin.”

  “I'll try it on, please.”

  Her stomach clenched. “I’m afraid you can’t. It was stolen last night.”

  “Oh. Pity.” The word ‘stolen’ had no effect on her. “The showgirl, Marnie—did she tell you much about her life?” Laura asked as she closed the dressing room’s curtains behind her.

  “Not much.” Joanna cast a glance at Kevin, who was sliding a pedicured foot into a pearly beige pump. If it had been she and Kevin alone, she would have spent half an hour filling him in on finding Marnie’s body, the broken window, the memorial service, and Marnie's surprise son while he sat in the big, zebra-striped chair by the shoe display and ate take-out from Dot’s. “I heard she used to live in Oysterville, where I understand your husband grew up.”

  “Yes, I asked my husband if he knew her, and he said they went to high school together.” When Laura pushed aside the curtains of the dressing room, she had changed back to her street clothes. Joanna noticed something new, a little vulnerability.

  Laura brought the Pucci and the black cocktail dress with the chiffon overlay to the counter. “I'll take these.”

  “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to dress for constituents.” Joanna thought of her own wardrobe. She wouldn’t be marrying a senator any time soon.

  “Once I wore red nail polish when Chick and I were interviewed for a morning show. By the time we got back to the office, they’d already had five calls saying that it wasn’t proper for a congressman’s wife to have red nails.” She examined her tasteful manicure. “That was early on. I know better now.”

  “You can’t please everyone.”

  “No. That’s true. But when Chick and I got married—well, people said things.”

  Joanna remembered the brouhaha in the papers and the sniping Laura took for being the “trophy wife.” “Oh, people always say things. Likely, they’re jealous.” Laura’s hopeful face made Joanna realize she was looking for comforting words, even after all these years of parrying public opinion. “As long as you and your husband are happy together, they should be happy, too.”

  “Oh, we are. Happy, that is.” Laura looked earnest. “It’s just that, well, Chick is a little older than I am—”

  Joanna nodded. A “little” older being close to thirty years. The congressman had to be near seventy. A well-preserved seventy, but not exactly in the first blush of youth.

  “And, naturally, he had a past. He was a bachelor for a long time, you know. He has to spend a lot of time away from home. So people talk.”

  “He was a bachelor for a long time, but he married you. That should tell people something.” The intimacy of trying on clothes had sparked discussion of everything from stretch marks to fears of eternal spinsterhood, but Joanna never thought she’d be talking to the wife of a congressman abou
t her insecurities.

  Laura picked up her purse. “Sorry for going on and on. I’d better be leaving.”

  “I'll wrap these up for you. I'm so glad you found a few things you like.” Selling the Pucci would pay the store's rent for a few weeks. Laura hadn't even glanced at its price tag.

  Joanna pulled a sheet of hot pink tissue and laid it on the counter. “How did you hear about the store?”

  “From my husband's chief of staff in town. I understand you know him.”

  “Yes, Andrew.”

  “With the polls so close, we’ve stepped up the functions, and I really needed to boost my wardrobe.”

  She wrapped the Pucci then slid the second dress off its hanger. “Did you get the chance to try this on?” She held up the black cocktail dress. “Sometimes they fit differently.”

  “I'm sure it will fit fine.” Her voice had reverted to the confident, indifferent tone of someone who is always pleasant without really being engaged. She smiled, showing perfectly aligned, china white teeth. She tapped her credit card on the counter.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After Laura Remmick and Kevin left, Joanna returned to the broken bathroom window. She moved the cardboard to the side, and, using a hand towel, carefully pushed the window the rest of the way open. She brushed shards of glass to the floor and lifted her skirt to step up on the toilet and look outside. There was just enough clearance for her shoulders. If a bigger person had tried to come in, he wouldn't have had much room to maneuver.

  She leaned out further and looked down the narrow alley. Tallulah’s Closet didn't have a back door. To the right, dumpsters hulked. To the left, light shone between the buildings.

  Joanna’s imagination replayed the scene. The intruder would have parked a few blocks away, then, without drawing attention to himself, slipped into the alley behind the video rental store. Keeping close to the buildings, he’d be less conspicuous. Dot’s closed at two in the morning. Maybe he waited until then. She swallowed hard.