The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries)

by Angela M. Sanders

  Only one dress looked as if Marnie might have worn it recently. It was mauve with padded shoulders and a floppy bow that tied at the neckline. It could have been ripped from the set of Falcon Crest. That one she put in a pile for Goodwill.

  “Are you finding everything?” Troy called from the kitchen.

  “Yes, thank you. I'm making a pile on the bed.”

  “Great. Let me know if you need anything.”

  She turned to the dresser. Most likely this was where Marnie's more recent wardrobe of jeans and sweatshirts was stored. If she had any personal letters or photos that she hadn't locked up in the safe deposit box, they might be here, too.

  The dresser was wide and low-slung with a mirror and two columns of drawers. The first drawer she opened was full of underwear and ratty bras, all carefully folded. She glanced at the door, then slid her hands under the lingerie. Nothing but a lavender sachet.

  The dishwasher started up in the kitchen.

  The next drawer down held socks and stacks of tee shirts and sweatshirts. In the third drawer was nothing but jeans and cotton pants with elastic waistbands. Other than the jumble in second bedroom, Marnie was awfully neat, but so far the dresser hadn't yielded anything for Tallulah's Closet. Or anything else.

  The first drawer on the other side of the dresser was more promising. She lifted a silk, bias-cut nightgown in pale apricot and placed it on the bed. Definitely a keeper. A velvet bed jacket and three boxes of unused stockings, along with a nude silk garter belt, joined the pile. An empty bottle of My Sin perfume lay on its side on the bottom of the drawer. Again she ran her hands around the drawer, and again came up empty.

  She was beginning to resign herself to not finding anything to shed light on Marnie's secrets when the next drawer yielded a quilted glove box. She lifted its satin top and saw letters and a few cards. Holding her breath, she stood and crept down the hall to look in the living room. Troy must still be in the kitchen. Despite the Suzie Homemaker business, Joanna didn't trust him. If he wanted to find out who his father was, he could do it himself.

  She lifted the box from the drawer and skimmed through its contents. A small plastic bracelet with faded type reading “Baby boy Evans” dropped to the bottom. Although the bracelet was proof that Marnie had a son, it didn't mean the son was Troy. She took a quick look at a packet of letters from Oysterville. Charlotte Evans. Marnie's mother, perhaps.

  As the envelopes flipped past her fingers, the familiar handwriting on one jumped out. Joanna pressed a hand to her mouth. She checked the return address, and a gasp escaped her lips. Marnie had a letter from her grandmother? They had known each other. She held the envelope flat between her palms. There was no time to look at it now, but this one was going home with her. She tucked the envelope into her purse and returned to the glove box.

  Of the remaining letters, one envelope stood out as newer than the rest. She glanced up at the door again. Other than the dishwasher, the kitchen was quiet. Maybe Troy was in the driveway looking at his new Mercedes.

  She slid the letter from its envelope. The stationery bore Don's name and office address, but it was handwritten and clearly not a business letter. It was dated in April, only four months ago. “Dear Marnie,” she read, “You know I'm not so good at writing or at telling how I feel. As I said, I will give you whatever you need, but don't threaten me. Don't make this hard on both of us.”

  “I'm thinking I just might keep the—Joanna?”

  Her head snapped up as Troy entered the bedroom. The glove box was on the dresser, its top closed, thank God. She lowered her hand with the letter behind her leg. “Hi. You startled me. Look at everything I found.” With her free hand she gestured to the bed.

  Troy glanced at the bed, but his gaze quickly returned to the glove box on the dresser. She slipped the letter into the waistband of her skirt in back, hoping the gesture looked like she was casually scratching an itch.

  “What's that?” He nodded toward the glove box.

  “Oh, I just pulled it out of one of the drawers.” Her heart beat quickened.

  “Did you look inside?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You know, the will only said clothes. No jewelry or anything like that. I’ll take it and look through it later, then.” He pulled the box closer, then put his hands on his hips. “What's wrong? Wait. Do you have something behind your back? There wasn’t any money in that box, was there?”

  She thought fast. Andrew always said that the best defense is a good offense. “Why did you lie about going to law school?”

  His hands dropped to his side. “What?”

  “There's no Professor Rasmussen at the college, Troy.”

  “Well, there used to be—”

  “No, there's not. You're lying.”

  He toyed with the corner of the glove box. “Okay, you're right. I'm not in law school.” His tone was defiant. “But what did it matter to her? She was old and going to die anyway. If she thought her son was in law school, it didn't hurt anyone.”

  “But you used that story to get money out of her. If she knew how you really lived, maybe she wouldn't have sent you all that cash. What did you end up spending it all on, anyway? Beer and concerts? Just because Marnie was getting up there in years doesn't mean it's all right to lie to her.”

  He looked up at Joanna, almost pleading. “But I wanted her to be proud of me. She seemed so frail and had so many questions. I guess the truth just felt like a let down. I didn't want to disappoint her, you know? And then she started giving me money for school, and—well, I needed it.”

  She could imagine sitting across from Marnie at lunch and feeling like you had to prove yourself. She was his mother, after all. Still, lying about being a law student went too far. “That's no excuse.”

  “I just took my LSATs. After talking to Marnie, I got kind of excited about law school. Environmental law. Now, thanks to her and all this,” he waved his hands at the house, “I can actually go.” He unleashed a melting smile.

  He seemed to have forgotten she might be hiding something. For the moment, anyway. Her breathing slowed. Keep the conversation going. “Yeah, you're doing all right, now. You should have this jewelry appraised, too. I think there's some valuable stuff in there.” She pointed at the jewelry box. Bye bye emerald ring. I bet it goes to buy stereo components.

  He didn't move. He looked at her. She grew nervous. As long as she faced him, he shouldn't be able to see the letter. He wasn't a big guy, but he had that strong, wiry look.

  Joanna smiled brightly. “Did you see these dresses Marnie had? This one has a built-in underskirt of tulle.” She stepped sideways to the bed, keeping her back to the wall, and picked up the peau de soie dress. “The tulle is one way to identify it as a mid-century dress rather than one from the 1940s. Sure, they have similar design, but the 1940s dress wouldn’t have a full tulle skirt, just a single, stiff layer to give the skirt some rigidity. A metal side zipper is a giveaway of a 1940s dress, too. It wasn’t until later that zippers moved to the back.”

  Troy’s eyes glazed slightly. She continued her lecture. “Now take a look at this evening coat. Silk velvet. Velvet can be made from a number of different fabrics—cotton and rayon were common—but silk is really special. Notice how there aren’t any buttons to fasten the coat. Know why? Because it had to be able to accommodate a full skirt. That was the profile of the time. This dress, on the other hand—”

  “I’d better get back to the kitchen. The fridge is only half cleaned. Let me know before you leave and I’ll find a box for the cat.” Troy disappeared into the hall.

  She let out a long breath. She put Don's letter in the bottom of her purse with the letter from her grandmother. She wanted to read both right away, but it would be best to wait, continue to look through Marnie’s clothes. Act natural. What else was in the glove box? She'd never know now.

  She lifted a box of scarves from the closet shelf. She thought about Don’s letter. Why did he lie to her? He’d been adamant about no
t seeing Marnie, telling Joanna so at least twice. But he clearly had seen Marnie, and not long ago, either. Like father, like son?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At home Joanna took the letters from her purse and smoothed them open on the table. Feeling ridiculous even as she did it, she drew the dining room curtains. No use tempting fate. Pepper had hid under the couch as soon as she opened his box. His eyes glinted citrine.

  First she picked up Don’s letter.

  “Dear Marnie, You know I'm not so good at writing or at telling how I feel. As I said, I will give you whatever you need, but don't threaten me. Don't make this hard on both of us.” Don's handwriting was uneven, the “g”s and “y”s dipping into the lines below. She read slowly.

  Yes, it's true that I've been keeping track of you over the years. You aren't always so good at taking care of yourself, and I wanted to be around if something went wrong, so I hired someone to check in on you from time to time. You can imagine my surprise when the man I hired told me you met your son, our son. Why didn't you tell me?

  I always wanted a child, and now I find out I have one. I know you want me to leave you alone, and I will. But I won't let you get in the way of my son meeting his father. You can't keep him from me, Marnie. I'll find him. In the meantime, take care of yourself. You know I'm always here for you if you need me.

  A mark above Don's signature made her think he may have started to write “love” but abandoned it mid-stroke. He signed the letter simply, “Don.”

  Well, well. So, Don really is Troy's father, Joanna thought. Or at least he sounds sure he is. He isn’t trying to hide his paternity at all—instead, he probably wants to prove it.

  As the full implication of the letter settled in, she started to laugh at the absurdity of her fear. There wasn't some murderer on the loose ready to do anything to get his hands on Marnie's safe deposit box. No, it was just Don, and he simply wanted to take responsibility for his child. Relief flooded over her. Everything was going to be all right. She set down the letter and pushed herself from the table. This called for a Martini.

  “We’re celebrating, Aunt Vanderburgh,” she shouted into the living room as she took an ice tray from the freezer. He must have visited Marnie after she sold the coat to Tallulah's Closet. He probably insisted on meeting Troy, and Marnie said no. She might have had a heart attack from the stress. Her body was already in bad shape thanks to cancer. But that didn't explain how Marnie ended up at the store. Joanna’s hand slowed as it reached for the shaker. If something happened to Marnie when Don was there, he would have called an ambulance for sure. Unless he had already left. Or something else entirely different happened. After all, people kill people they love all the time.

  “What do you think, Auntie V?” Gin bottle in hand, she looked at the portrait. “You’re right. The letter is too loving. Breaking into Marnie’s, the store—all that was just to figure out how to find Troy and maybe get proof that he’s Troy’s father.” She poured the gin and a hint of vermouth into a cocktail shaker. “And to think I was so terrified.” And to think of the ugly scene with Remmick. On second thought, she’d make the Martini a double.

  After a good shaking—in The Thin Man, Nick Charles said to shake Martinis to the waltz, so she hummed a bit from The Blue Danube—she poured it into a cocktail glass with bamboo fronds etched on its side. If only she could call Don right then to tell him about the key, just to put his mind at ease, but she didn't have his home phone number. Well, the call could wait until morning when he’d be at his office. In the meantime, she would sleep easily. Don wouldn't hurt her. The safe deposit box held something he wanted public, not something he would kill to hide.

  She took a sip of the Martini. Piney and glacier cold. “The pleasures of gin,” she said to Pepper, who had emerged from under the couch and sniffed at the fireplace. “Something you’ll never know.” Now for her grandmother’s letter.

  This one was brief, just one leaf of writing paper, and not even filled. Her grandmother was setting a time to meet with Marnie at the tea room at the top of Meier & Frank, an old downtown department store. “It won’t be for long. We’ll have to meet while Bill’s at the doctor’s. I’m so sorry—I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I’ll bring pictures of Joanna. She just won the second grade spelling bee.” Her heart leapt at the mention of her name. “Love, Nell.” Nell. Joanna’s grandmother’s name was Helen, but she’d been called Nell as a girl.

  Grandma, her grandma. This tiny connection to her radiated warmth that the gin couldn’t match.

  She took her cocktail to the chaise by the window. Pepper was working his way around the room, investigating the baseboards.

  Marnie had known her grandmother. Marnie’s raspy voice came back to her. “You’re family.” Maybe not a blood relation, but in a small town close friends were family. Nina said Marnie had been treated like an outcast when she started at Mary’s Club. Maybe her grandfather had forbid her grandmother to visit her.

  As she lifted her Martini, the tiny ruby in her ring caught the sun. She set down her drink and held up her hand. A smile spread over her face. Her grandmother’s ring—Marnie had recognized it. That first day. That’s how she knew. That’s why she kept coming back, staying longer. If only Marnie had said something. They’d have had so much to talk about.

  Joanna took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. For the first time in days, she was beginning to relax.

  A raven alit on the roof of the house across the street and tucked in its wings.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  As Joanna lazily finished her second Martini, the doorbell shrilled through the house. Pepper launched off the couch and ran into the bedroom. She put her eye to the peep hole. It was Apple, and even through the fish-eye distortion of the lens Joanna could see she was agitated.

  Joanna yanked open the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “Put on your shoes—we’ve got to go.” Apple burst past Joanna and picked up her purse. “Here.”

  “What?” She obediently fetched her shoes.

  “The neighborhood association meeting about the theater starts in five minutes.”

  “But Eve said—”

  “Eve lied to you. I only found out by accident when one of the members stopped by Tallulah’s Closet.” She stopped suddenly. “Have you been drinking?”

  “A little. But apparently not enough.”

  Apple sped to the old chapel of St Philip Neri. Years before, the congregation had moved into a new brick church and left the smaller original chapel for events and meetings. A cinder block propped open the heavy oak door to let in evening air. The few neighbors who showed up fanned themselves with meeting agendas.

  “Ladies, have a seat. We’ve already started,” a heavy woman with a cap of grey-streaked hair said from the pulpit. She leaned on her cane and waved her free hand toward the mostly empty rows of folding metal chairs. Joanna recognized her as a visiting nurse who lived a few blocks away and walked her poodles each afternoon past the store. Eve sat in the front row, hands folded in her lap.

  Behind a table on the stage were five chairs, four of them filled with other neighborhood association members. One was Deena, the exuberant redhead and former rock and roll groupee who owned the coffee shop across from the theater. Next to her sat a tattooed man with horn-rimmed glasses. Joanna knew him as a local filmmaker whose girlfriend shopped at Tallulah’s Closet. The other two were a thin, bearded man Joanna didn’t recognize and a woman sporting dreadlocks and a “Powered by Kale” tee shirt.

  “Here, drink this.” Apple handed Joanna a styrofoam cup of thin coffee and slid into the chair next to her. Joanna took a sip and put the cup on the floor under her chair. She was plenty sober.

  Damn that Eve.

  “Now that the meeting minutes have been approved, we’ll move on to the business of the evening: permit hearings. These permits have already been approved by the city, conditional on the neighborhood’s agreement. We have two items to consider. Item one, conve
rsion of the yard behind Maclay’s Barbecue into an outdoor eating area. Mac, would you like to present your case?”

  Mac Maclay, his body slow, possibly from a surfeit of brisket, lumbered to the stage. He mopped sweat from his brow, peeked over his notes at the audience, and quickly retreated behind his papers. “I thought it would be nice to take that area where the dumpsters—”

  “Speak up,” the nurse said.

  “Take that area where the dumpsters are,” Mac said more loudly, “and put out some picnic tables where folks could eat.” He pulled out his handkerchief once more to pat down his forehead.

  After a moment of silence, it appeared Mac had concluded his remarks. The bearded man on stage raised his hand. “And what do you propose to do with the dumpsters?”

  “Move ‘em.”

  Another long pause followed. The nurse rose from her seat. “If you’re finished, you can take your seat now, Mac.” He gratefully stepped down. The nurse turned to the other two people on stage. “Any more questions?” They shook their heads. “Anyone in the audience have anything to say?” Other than the rustling of agendas, the room was silent. “Then let’s vote.”

  “I vote aye,” said the bearded man.

  “Aye,” said Deena, the coffee shop owner. Joanna had already mentally removed Deena’s overly busy necklace and had dressed her in an early 1970s patchwork sundress. “I have to add I think Maclay’s is the best Scottish barbecue in town.”