I opened the drawer to set the scarf gently inside and found an exotic mauve satin peignoir set, a gorgeous display of 1980s lingerie, trimmed in ivory lace and satin rosebuds designed by Flora Nikrooz. Both pieces were freshly cleaned and tied with a lavender ribbon, a sprig of dried heather tucked in the bow.
From beneath the ribbon, I took a piece of Dom’s stationery to read the note in her handwriting: Mad Dearest, Wear us.
Twenty-two
Judging by the ugly and repugnant things that are sometimes in vogue, it would seem as though fashion were desirous of exhibiting its power by getting us to adopt the most atrocious things for its sake alone.
—GEORG SIMMEL
“What are you playing at, Dominique DeLong?” I called, looking around, as if I might see her ghost. “Are you starring as a puppeteer or casting me in the role of Alice in Wonderland? Because I’m feeling curiouser and curiouser.”
I turned her note over to find a winking happy face.
“Damn. Do you expect this outfit to give me a vision?” God knew I’d already had more visions during this case than in any other of my experience, probably because of my heart connection to the deceased. God also knew how many more there’d be. I eyed the peignoir set and shivered. If Dom knew she was in danger, she’d been playing it for all it was worth and seemed to damn well revel in the game.
No. No one sets themselves up to die, least of all Dom with her joie de vivre, her zest for life. On the other hand, she’d been in show business for years and more than a bit jaded over the entertainment industry. Once a Broadway actress, she’d been knocked down a peg in the eyes of theater society when she accepted the leading role in an off-Broadway production.
I couldn’t quite forget the vision I’d had of her in that crazy seventies room telling someone with a Frankenstein voice and wielding a Hula-hoop that it would be foolish for them to steal the diamonds.
I sighed, giving in to the inevitable, undressed, showered, and put on Dom’s peignoir set, ambivalent about the vision it might, or might not, afford me. At this point, I needed to know every detail about Dominique’s murder, whether I wanted to or not.
I had no sooner moved the Taser from my dress to the peignoir set pocket when a lethargic dizziness came over me, making my limbs feel heavy and not my own, the kind of warning that often presages a lengthy vision.
I hadn’t made it to the bed when my cell phone rang. I worked to fight the vision sucking me under as I answered, sounding a bit tipsy, even to my own ears.
“Go back to Connecticut or end up like your friend,” my caller said through a voice modulator that made the speaker sound like some kind of robot werewolf.
I might be drunk on psychic energy, but I was smart enough to fear the threat more than the fake voice.
I hung up the phone in panic and turned so fast, I smacked my head against the open closet door and heard my phone hit the floor.
Not even the caller would expect me to get out of Dodge until tomorrow, so I didn’t think the threat was immediate. Just as well because I needed badly to lie down.
Scrap it, I wished I was thinking more clearly.
I set a knee on the bed, my racing heart beginning to calm when my doorknob began to turn.
In danger of zoning into the vision seducing me, it occurred to me that the call might have been made from inside the house.
Unable to defend myself against a kitten, much less a killer, I slipped the Taser from my pocket and made my clumsy way to the door, needing to grab whatever I could to hold me up along the way.
I intended to lock the door, but it opened too fast, so I zapped the intruder—possibly the caller—with a knee-jerk move so swift and forceful, I surprised even me.
The twitching body hit the floor like a tree trunk, spasmed a couple more times, and stopped moving entirely. Out cold, or dead.
The possibility snapped me back from the edge like a faceful of ice water. I switched on the light. “Werner?”
I got down beside him and tapped his face. Failing to rouse him, I pried open an eyelid. “Are you in there? Please be alive.”
He groaned but didn’t wake. Whew.
I considered running but the vision in the peignoir set was still pulling me in, playing on my need to solve Dom’s murder.
I got Werner on Dom’s bed, though doing it sapped my fight against the black hole sucking me in.
He half helped as I got his torso, then finally both feet up there and I felt bad when I saw the bloody gash on his brow. He’d smacked his head on the floor, hard.
Now I couldn’t fight the vision long enough to walk around the bed, so I crawled over him.
His moan reassured me as I dizzied my way into a different time and place, me sitting in this very room, in Dom’s boudoir chair, the seafoam gown she’d sent me now in my lap, or in Dom’s lap, actually.
She was wielding a pair of jewelry pliers to pry the pricey cubic zirconias from their settings, while deep inside myself, a fashion designer cringed.
Dom had taken on a tedious process. While I destroyed the gown, I noticed the empty bed with a different spread, blue curtains, and navy watered silk throw pillows. The lampshades now matched the pillows.
I worked quickly, almost in a panic, determined to get the gems from their settings, but why? All I knew was that my heart beat fast while I did, and my gaze kept straying to the door.
Then I saw the box of rhinestones beside me—rhinestones?—and wished I could ask questions. Like, why would I cheapen the dress? But I was alone. Scary alone, threatening shadows closing in on me.
No one from whom to seek help, no one to explain my task. Just “click, snap, click, snap.”
In Dom’s place, I was ruining the gown I had created.
Then the room tilted in jerky, uncoordinated movements, and the vision changed again.
I found myself in Dom’s bed with a man. A great kisser. A wide-shouldered armful with an enviable amount of passion, hands everywhere, big hands, knowledgeable hungry lips, and an uber-talented tongue.
I wasn’t sure if I was kissing one of Dom’s lovers, or Ian, her ex-husband—ugh. Please don’t let it be Ian.
I wanted to open my eyes, but they felt glued shut, as could only happen in dreams. No matter, I felt it best not to know the name of my dream-state lover.
Unfortunately turned on, I found it impossible not to return his enthusiasm, all our body parts meeting, dangerously well, ebbing and flowing, a coming together filled with depth and sizzle.
The phantom in my bed cupped my cheeks, held my face in place, made a meal of me, and whispered my name.
My name. Madeira. Not Dom or Dominique.
I woke, pulling from the kiss expecting to look straight into Nick’s eyes.
Instead, I was looking into . . . Werner’s?
I jumped from the bed as the door opened.
Eve stood for a minute like a doe in headlights, then she barked a laugh and added insult to injury by applauding. “Sinsational!” she snapped, her grin wide. “Can I tell Nick? Please, can I tell him? Can I, huh?”
“Has the world gone mad?” I asked, finding my bruise the hard way, by smacking it with the palm of my hand. “Ouch!”
“Madeira Cutler, you wicked girl.” My erstwhile friend chuckled. “I’ve never been prouder.”
Werner had never actually awakened. And I didn’t know which made me wince more, the demented porker noises he was making or Eve’s satisfaction in them.
“Do you mind?” I asked her as I sat on my side of the bed to clear my head.
“Not at all,” Eve said, closing the door and coming closer to me, her grin making me want to erase it in a satisfying way.
Hands on her hips as she took in the sight of us, Eve shook her head. “Did you guys smoke a joint or something?”
“No, but I did have crazy dreams, that I’m now afraid might have been real, about zapping Tasers and a man shot down in his prime.”
“Why do you have dry blood on your head? And We
rner, too?” she asked. “You into something kinky? I was gonna ask if you were decent when I came in, but now I know the answer. You’re engagingly and interestingly indecent, given that honeymoon-type negligee you’re wearing.”
“Stuff it Meyers.”
“Too bad Sir Galahad is boringly, respectably dressed beneath that blanket. Sheesh, what a downer. Way to burst a girl’s bubble. There go all my fiendish hopes and dreams.”
Eve rescued my cell phone from the floor. “What’s Nick’s speed-dial number?”
Twenty-three
Fashion is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as sex, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.
—RENÉ KÖNIG
Werner looked stoned as he woke with a snort and sat up like his hair was on fire. He also looked like he’d been beaten and left for dead.
Then there was his reaction to finding me in his bed. It was a mix of gladness, shock, and embarrassment.
Wooly knobby knits, were that man’s pupils dilated or what? I might as well be a two-headed sasquatch the way he was looking at me.
His suit of gray pinstripes, now a wrinkled shambles, gave him the look of a homeless off-duty detective. Given the confusion written on his bloody brow, his brain appeared to be working in the way his suit fit, both him and it, off the rack, barely on a hanger, aka hanging by a thread.
The way he regarded Eve and I, he didn’t know his own name, never mind ours.
“What I wouldn’t give to have planted a camera in this room last night,” Eve said, laughing like she’d been chasing a rainbow and caught it. “Seriously, where’s the fed? Did you trade him in, finally? Thank God.”
“Can it,” Werner and I said, both with a wince because of our bruises.
He scrubbed his face with both hands, sighed, and looked at me. “Please tell me that we did not sleep together.”
“We did not sleep together,” I said, trying to convince myself while examining the robe of the peignoir set. Two diaphanous layers did not a covering make. Afraid to grab a wrap or coat from Dom’s closet, lest I be given an unwanted vision, I chose a crocheted throw, made of roses in pinks and greens, from the foot of the bed and used it as a shawl. There, now I felt more in charge.
Werner gazed up and down my body, looking rather affronted.
“Well,” I said, “your pupils may be dilated, but your eyes can still twinkle.”
“You’re sure we didn’t sleep together?” he asked.
“You so did.” Eve, the Cheshire Cat, sat at the foot of the bed, her back against the footboard, ankles crossed, as if she were settling in for a juicy chat.
“We apparently slept in the same bed,” I said, mostly to myself, “but I have no memory of how we got there. Werner? Do you?”
He opened his hands, regarded his palms, and his eye twinkle returned. “I have tactile memories.”
I resented the traitorous thrill that skittered up my spine. Oh goodie. Not.
“Give that man a lottery ticket,” Eve said. “It’s his lucky day.”
I closed the crocheted throw tighter over my breasts as I paced, until I saw the crack in my cell phone, which bothered me, a lot.
Werner raised himself on an elbow. “Mad, Madeira, did I, I mean, did we . . . ?”
“He means,” Eve said, tongue in cheek. “Was it as good for you as it was for him?”
“Eve, you’re not helping at all,” I said, taking pity on Werner. “I wish I could remember.” Broken cell phone case—stepped on, thrown, dropped?
“Let’s just forget whatever it was that happened,” Werner said, as if that could be the end of it.
Eve rose to the occasion. “Unless Mad got pregnant.”
Werner and I whipped our gazes her way like we were fine brass gears moving as one, hungry attack gears, and Eve was dinner.
“Not funny, Meyers,” I said, but that didn’t mean my heart wasn’t playing jump rope. Hippity hickety hop; How many months before I pop? Cinderella slept with a fella, made a mistake and kissed a snake; How many doctors did it take?
Ack, even an old jump- rope rhyme was working against me. “I just wish I could remember what happened,” I muttered.
Eve raised a brow. “Whose nightgown are you wearing?”
“I don’t even care,” Werner said. “I’m just so glad she’s wearing it.”
“Because it’s see-through?” Eve asked.
“Because she’s not naked,” Werner snapped.
I sighed. “It’s Dom’s peignoir set,” I said, giving Eve a wide-eyed stare so she’d “get a clue” that I zoned. “It had my name on it, like the seafoam gown.” Hint, hint.
“Ohhhh,” Eve said, getting it, then grinning like a loon. “The plot thickens. You really don’t know what happened here last night. Intrigue can be so much fun.”
I sat on the edge of the bed to face the man who’d slept beside me, the thought making me think of Nick, which raised guilt like bile inside me. Mind games powered by panic, I thought.
“Lytton, tell us why you’re here in New York, then we’ll talk about why you’re in my bed.”
He rubbed his face, a nervous habit, with another wince and another ouch for his bloody bruised brow, and he sighed in resignation. “Nick’s house alarm went off right after dark, yesterday, and again at seven twenty, so I had a chance to talk to him on the phone a couple of times. He thinks somebody’s after that dress you designed, and they could just as easily be after you.”
“Scrap, I hope Dom’s gown is safe at his place.”
“I’ve got a detail watching the house,” Werner said, “but after Nick expressed his regret that he wasn’t here to keep an eye on you, I got to thinking that by coming here, I could maybe solve the attempted break- ins. If they are related to that dress, there is a good chance the intruder knew Dominique and will be at the funeral. And I can watch your back.”
My spine stiffened without conscious thought on my part. “Did Nick ask you to keep an eye on me?”
Eve snorted. “If he did, can I call him and tell him what a knock-up job, er, I mean a bang- up job, Werner’s doing? Pretty please?”
Twenty-four
Vain trifles as they seem, clothes . . . change our view of the world, and the world’s view of us.
—VIRGINIA WOOLF
“The dry blood on both your foreheads might be a clue as to why you can’t remember much,” Eve pointed out. “And why was your cell phone on the floor? It’s cracked, you know.”
“It was on the floor?” I asked, a niggling memory trying to resurface.
“Yes, did something besides Werner frighten you last night?”
The phone call came to me in a rush. “Someone called and told me in an altered voice to go back to Connecticut or end up like my friend.”
Werner frowned. “Then what?”
“I dropped the phone, and turned so fast, I walked into the open closet door.” I touched my poor bruised forehead.
Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Were you wearing the peignoir set at the time?”
I nodded, aware that I hadn’t been quite myself.
Werner looked at Eve like she was nuts. “I know clothes are important to you two, but I’m guessing there’s no proper attire for when your life is threatened.”
Eve giggled while Werner came around the bed and touched my temple, so gently, I saw my pain reflected in his gaze, and I found it necessary to pull away so as not to be pulled toward . . . something.
The gash across his brow looked deeper than mine, as if he’d been hit at close range. I stroked it as gently as he’d touched mine.
He jumped like I burned him.
“Did someone conk us both on the head?” I wondered aloud. “I suppose an intruder could have tried to climb up to the window. The vines are thick enough to hold a man. Nick said they were scraped like they’d been climbed. He had the police check them out.”
“Why would anybody want to hurt you?” Werner asked.
Someone knocked on the hall door, and Werner scooted into the bathroom.
I closed the door behind him.
Eve let in Kerri, Dom’s maid, bearing a pushcart topped with a silver coffee service, two cups, linen napkins, and a plate of croissants.
“Thank you, Kerri,” I said. “You’re a godsend.”
Kerri bobbed, an interrupted curtsey, since I’d asked her not to. “Did your man find your room all right?”
“My man?” I asked.
“I let him in late last night and when he mentioned working with you, I directed him to this room.”
“Yes, yes, he found me.”
Eve poured a cup of coffee and handed it to me. “All clear, Werner,” I called through the door, though I needn’t have bothered.
“I know,” he said coming out. “I heard.”
I gave him my cup of coffee.
His look of gratitude overshadowed the deed.
I swiped Eve’s coffee from her hand, took a sip, and handed it back.
“Hey,” she snapped, but something caught her eye and dissipated her affront. “Is that a Taser on the floor?”
Werner groaned and for the first time, he looked like the mad Wiener. “Madeira Cutler, you Tasered me!”
“You don’t know that for sure.” But I was beginning to remember things. I saw Dom’s drawer of evil weapons, open a crack, so I backed up to the bed and unobtrusively pushed the drawer shut with the back of my leg.
The damned thing squealed closed.
Werner set his cup on the dresser, took me by the arms, set me aside, and opened the drawer. “Your arsenal?”
“Dominique’s, dammit.”
Eve took a look and whistled. “She must really have been afraid. I think she knew her life was in danger.”
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