The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries)

by Angela M. Sanders

  Riggs led her down the hall to another locked room with shelves. He pulled down an envelope large enough to hold a modest document. “We checked the papers out and don’t need to keep them as evidence.”

  Papers? Joanna drew in her breath. Maybe Franklin’s papers? Then she wouldn’t have to find this boat after all. Adrenalin shot through her as she turned the envelope in her hands. It was new and didn’t look like it had spent years languishing in a safe deposit box, but Don could have simply transferred the papers to a sturdier envelope. This could be it. Of course, how could he have broken into Franklin’s safe deposit box?

  Back in the hall, Riggs asked quietly, “Is apricot really good for brunettes? I always thought it could make a person's skin look ruddy.”

  “Oh no.” Joanna lifted her purse to her shoulder. “It brings out peaches and cream.”

  In the car, Joanna tossed her purse on the passenger seat and cranked opened the sun roof to let out the late August heat. The roof stuck partway open. Probably wouldn’t close again, either, damn it. She abandoned the sun roof and rolled down her window before pulling the envelope closer. With trembling fingers she used a key to slice through the tape the police had used to seal the envelope, and slid out a paper-clipped sheaf of legal-sized documents. She quickly flipped through the pages. It was a lease agreement with a black slash across each page. “Void” stamped the front. A note with “Don Cayle Investments” engraved on the top fell when she unclipped the pages. She recognized Don’s handwriting right away.

  “Dear Joanna,” it said, “I thought you’d like a copy of a voided lease I’m putting in the mail today to Eve Lancer. When she came to the office this morning to sign it, she didn’t have much nice to say about the vintage clothing store down the street—your store, Tallulah’s Closet. Marnie wouldn’t have appreciated it. Best, Don.”

  Joanna’s hand flew to her mouth. So, Don had owned the Clinton Street Theater. When she’d called to meet him and give him the safe deposit box key, he’d mentioned he had something for her, even told her not to be “hasty” about finding another storefront to rent. As relief washed over her, she started to laugh. Almost immediately, tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she swallowed a sob. She dabbed her eyes with the hem of her skirt and took a few calming breaths. “Thank you, Marnie. Thank you, Don.” No need to worry about Eve moving up the block. At least for the moment. Knowing Eve, she wouldn’t give up easily.

  She slid the lease back in its envelope. Thank God for Don. She had to admit Eve did have some good ideas about how to sell vintage clothing. Joanna had been too complacent with Tallulah’s Closet. Maybe it was time to find some big auctions and go after higher end clothing and clientele, although she’d always stock casual wear and lower-priced items for neighborhood regulars. It wouldn’t hurt, either, to shore up her savings so that money wouldn’t be so tight during the slower, post-holiday months.

  A crow cawed from a young tree in the parking lot, and Joanna’s smile turned somber. She put the lease on the passenger seat and started the car. With one hand she pushed back hair stuck to her forehead. Marnie and Don, both dead. The voided lease was heaven sent, but it wasn’t the papers she sought. Which meant she still had to find Franklin’s boat.

  It was late afternoon now. It couldn't be too hard to get into a boat, especially once it was darker. That is, if she could find which boat at the marina was his. And if she could figure out how to break in.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Joanna considered her options as she drove home. She had little idea how boats were laid out or even how they might be locked. She'd passed her teens reading through Nancy Drew instead of hanging out with Apple's brothers and taking part in stunts like breaking into the tool shed, and she wasn’t sure the reference librarians downtown could help her with this one. Still, a lock was a lock, right? Surely, if you could pick one lock, you could pick another. All she needed was a little instruction.

  The house was stuffy. Her errand here would only take a few minutes. Pepper ran out from the bedroom and wound himself through her legs, looking for a scratch behind the ears. She longed to put on music, fill the vases with dahlias from the garden, and cook dinner, but it wasn't safe yet.

  After feeding the cat, she clicked on the light to the basement and descended into its damp cool. She found an empty suitcase with a pink ribbon looping the suitcase's key to its handle. She brought the suitcase upstairs and opened it on the couch. Pepper jumped in. She lifted him out, shut and locked the suitcase, then cut the key off the handle and left it on the coffee table.

  “I hope this isn’t a bad idea, Aunt Vanderburgh. I know you—“ Joanna’s speech to the portrait stopped short when she glanced up at the wall, bare but for the broad smear of fresh plaster. Damn. Well, she’d better get on with it.

  Next to the phone was the scrap of paper with Paul's number on it. Her breath quickened as she lifted the receiver.

  Paul picked up on the second ring. The sound of his voice momentarily flustered her. “Hello?” he prompted again.

  “It's Joanna. How are you?”

  “Good. I'm working on some trim for a Queen Anne house up the street. A little tricky, but it's coming along.”

  “I have a suitcase that's locked, and I can't find the key. I wonder, if I brought it to you do you think you could open it? I know you have tools.” All she’d need to do is watch and ask a few questions. A quick trip to the hardware store for a file or whatever would complete her mission.

  “I guess I could try.”

  “Would you have time to try today—like maybe this afternoon?”

  “Sure, bring it in. It shouldn't take too long.” He gave her directions to his shop.

  She hung up the phone and paused for a minute. Then she picked it up again and called the Reel M'Inn to order chicken and jojos to go. It was getting close to dinner time, and she was hungry. She was willing to bet Paul hadn't eaten either.

  She changed into a slender black cotton, sleeveless dress. If she was going to break into a boat, she'd best not attract too much attention. For good luck, she sprayed Tabac Blond behind her ears and tucked the tiny atomizer into her bag. Finally, she traced sheer red lipstick on her mouth and checked herself in the mirror. Too tousled to be Audrey Hepburn, but acceptable. As an afterthought, she draped Apple's Hand of Fatima pendant around her neck. Couldn’t hurt.

  ***

  A blast of smoky, barely cooled air hit Joanna as she pushed open the padded naugahyde door to the Reel M'Inn. The bartender recognized her right away. “Well, if it isn't Princess Martini. All these jojos for you? Or maybe you're saving some for Paul?”

  She felt her face getting warm. “I need his help with something—”

  “I bet you do.”

  “—And I thought he might be hungry.”

  “Then take an extra tub of dressing. The boy likes his ranch.”

  Paul's shop was not far. She parked on the street, then carried the suitcase and the warm bag of chicken and jojos up the alley and rang the bell. Next to a sky blue door was a large roll-up metal door raised about three feet off the ground. A dog barked, then squeezed under the roll-up door and ran towards Joanna, wagging its tail.

  The blue door opened. “Gemma!” Paul said. “Come here.” He patted his thigh, and the dog, a shaggy German shepherd mix, trotted back to him. “Sorry about that. She's really friendly. He took the bag Joanna handed him and looked inside. “This is great—thanks. Come on in.”

  He held open the door, and she passed close enough to him to smell the mix of wood and soap that clung to his skin. Inside, the shop’s ceiling soared two stories high. Stairs to her right followed the wall up to a small loft, and she glimpsed a lamp and the edge of a bed through the railing. The main floor housed a woodworking shop with two thick workbenches pushed against a wall hung with hand tools. A small stove, a refrigerator, and a kitchen table were grouped in the back corner under the loft.

  She hesitated. Being there, where he worked and ate an
d slept felt so—well, intimate. But she’d come here for a reason. Focus.

  Paul set the bag of food on the counter next to a French press and handmade coffee mug with a wide, deep bowl. “Not a palace, but it works for me,” he said.

  Gemma had finished sniffing Joanna's suitcase and hopped into a worn armchair near the work table. From tall wooden speakers, Ray Charles sang one of Joanna’s favorite songs, the one where his “baby” serves him “coffee in my favorite cup.” Paul pulled the dust mask that rested on his neck over his head and set it on a workbench. A speck of sawdust stuck in the hair near his ear.

  “I like it. It looks—comfortable,” Joanna said. “Where are all the tools? You know, the saws and all that?”

  “I do most of my work with those.” He pointed to a row of chisels hanging above a workbench. Hand planes lined the back of the workbench beneath them. “There aren't a lot of us left, woodworkers who stick with hand tools, that is.”

  She understood the appeal of handmade trim. Just like a handwoven rug or a blown glass goblet, the almost imperceptible imperfections woke the eye to its beauty.

  “This must be the suitcase.” He lifted it onto the kitchen table and tested its latch. “It's locked all right. How about if we eat first and then deal with it?” He set the suitcase on the floor and pulled two hand-thrown plates from a freestanding cupboard. He placed one in front of Joanna.

  The intimacy of the gesture both warmed and rattled her. “These are wonderful.” Joanna felt the cool heft of the ceramic plate.

  “My sister made them.”

  “Nice. Does she live around here?”

  He didn't respond for a moment. “No,” he said at last.

  Neither talked as Paul opened the box of food and using a fork lifted jojos and chicken to each plate.

  Feeling as if she’d somehow misstepped, Joanna changed the subject. “How did you get into woodwork?”

  He seemed to relax slightly. “When I was a kid, I used to get into trouble a lot. I was always fooling around with things, taking them apart to see how they worked. Once my mom found me with a screwdriver in my hand and the TV set in a dozen pieces.” He sat down. Gemma sighed from her armchair. “She didn’t know what to do with me with my dad gone and all, but my uncle took me under his wing. Remember? I told you about him.”

  She nodded. The uncle in prison.

  “I don’t think my mom knew about his—activities.” The break-ins. “After the TV incident I spent most of my time after school with him in his wood shop, his ‘straight’ career. School didn't really do much for me, but I loved the shop.” He went to the refrigerator for an O'Douls. “You want one?”

  “No thanks.” She touched the edge of her plate. “These really are gorgeous. The sheen almost looks like the glaze on a donut. Tell me about your sister.”

  He set the bottle on the table and sat down. “Well, she was my little sister—“

  Was?

  “—She died. A car accident.”

  Joanna felt a flush rising from her neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She thought of her grandmother. She knew what he must be feeling.

  “No. It’s all right. It was a while ago. She was in high school.”

  He hesitated as he spoke, and Joanna caught a hint of something familiar. Yes. She understood.

  “You blamed yourself, didn’t you?” she asked.

  He looked up in surprise. “I guess I did. How did you know?”

  “It’s natural. But I bet you weren’t anywhere near.”

  “Not near, but I should have been. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her while my mom was at work, but instead I was at my uncle’s shop.” He fidgeted with the bottle cap. “She shouldn’t have been alone.”

  Her throat began to close. She wanted to tell him. Take a risk, came Apple’s voice. You’ve got to do it. “I know how you feel. My grandmother died in a car accident, too. When I was a girl.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I don’t know, I—“

  “It’s hard to talk about, isn’t it?”

  A hundred images flashed in her brain. “Yes,” she said finally. “The accident was my fault.” There. Now it was out.

  “Your fault,” he repeated. “But you said you were little.”

  “I was. But she wouldn’t have died if not for me.”

  “Tell me,” he said. Just as he had that night at the Reel M’Inn, he leaned forward and focused his gaze on her. He was listening.

  But where to begin? She remembered weeks when her mother would lay in bed, staring, unseeing, at the ceiling. Her father was long gone. When the county social worker drove her to her grandmother's, Joanna hadn't said a word. She sat in the backseat and focused on tracing a perfect circle in the fog left by her breath on the window.

  “When I was a kid, I went to live with my grandparents.” Everything was different there. After a while, she had come out of her shell. She made up funny songs and sang them while she and her grandmother picked blackberries early in the morning, before the summer heat set.

  “One day...one day I was in the backseat of my grandmother's car.” An old orange Datsun, tiny compared to most of the cars on the road then. “We were driving into town, and I was chattering nonstop about something. We were on a winding, two-lane highway. You couldn't always see well coming through the canyon.” Her throat tightened. “My grandmother was concentrating on driving, but I wanted her to see something I'd drawn. She kept saying, 'Just a minute, honey,' but I didn't listen. Finally I pulled her shoulder back.”

  The logging truck had struck the driver's side of the car, hurling the Datsun against the shale embankment, where it flipped on its back in the road. Her grandmother's scream against crunching metal haunted her sleep for years. It was half an hour before an ambulance arrived. The logging truck's driver had pulled her from the wreckage and set her in the cab of his barely damaged truck. She was bruised and had a lump on the side of her head, but was otherwise unhurt. “Close your eyes,” he'd said again and again. “Close your eyes. Don't open them.”

  “It was my fault,” she repeated. “She died.”

  Paul slid his hand across the table, palm up. “I'm sorry,” he said simply.

  Surprised even as she did it, she rested her hand in his. His callused thumb touched the side of her palm. His dog jumped down from her chair and stared up at them—or more likely, their plates. Feeling self conscious, she withdrew her hand and picked up a jojo.

  “Did you hear about Don Cayle from Mary’s Club?” Paul asked.

  “Uh huh.” She took unusual pains arranging the chicken on her plate.

  “He was murdered.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  He picked up his fork and set it down again. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She avoided his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I just asked you about Don Cayle’s murder, and you don’t want to talk about it. What’s up?”

  The emotional energy in the room had taken yet another turn. The chicken in her mouth turned to cardboard, but she continued chewing, then swallowed. “I told you that I’d heard about it. I’m not sure what else there is to say.”

  He started nodding, but ended by shaking his head. “You’re not satisfied, are you, about Marnie’s death? And now Don.” He nodded toward the locked, empty suitcase now sitting next to the table. “What’s the deal with the suitcase? And I see that you're dressed with a little more restraint than usual. All black.”

  Joanna continued to avoid looking straight at him. “It's not exactly the time for cheerful dress, is it? As for the suitcase, I just happened to notice when I was taking a few things to Apple's that it was locked shut. I thought maybe you could pick the lock for me.”

  He pushed his chair back and folded his arms. “Why are you taking things to Apple’s?”

  Uh oh. She was getting in deeper. “Well, my house was broken into the day before yesterday.”

  “Your house was b
roken into.” He tapped his finger on the table a few times. “You’re up to something, aren't you? You're not a very good liar. You want to pick a lock, and you hoped maybe I could show you. You don't need the suitcase at all. That's the truth, isn't it?”

  Frustration piled on top of the emotion of the last few weeks set off a wave of anger. “What if it is true?” Her voice rose. “What's it to you?”

  “Joanna, your store and house were broken into, Marnie was found dead, and Don was shot and killed. I don’t know what’s going on, but this isn't anything you should be messing around in.”

  First Apple, now him. Trying to stop her. She stood up. “I want my life back.” The force of her voice startled her. The dog sat up, alert.

  “Where’s your boyfriend, anyway? Why doesn’t he talk some sense into you? I didn’t see him at the neighborhood hearing, either.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This wasn't going at all the way she'd planned.

  Paul barely paused. “Besides, what makes you think you know something the homicide bureau doesn't?”

  “Listen. I’m almost positive this whole thing centers on some papers hidden on a boat at Sauvie Island.”

  “A boat?” He shook his head. “So you thought you would sneak down there tonight. In a dress, no less.” Then, more emphatically, “Don't do it. It isn't worth it.”

  She refused to look at him. She was too upset to talk. What was she thinking, telling him about her grandmother? She sat down again, but turned her head away.

  He leaned back and took a breath. “Look, I'm sorry. None of this is any of my business. I guess, well, with my sister and everything I didn't want to see someone else get hurt.” His voice had softened, and he pushed aside his plate. “Remember how I told you about my uncle, the one in prison for burglary?”

  She nodded but still wouldn’t raise her head.

  “He and Don did a job together in the early 1960s. When all this came up—Marnie, your store—I went to talk to him.” He paused. “Are you listening?”