Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3)

by Angela M. Sanders

  Sylvia took the lead. “Oh my, Bette, you must be chilly. You’d be ever so much warmer upstairs next to the fireplace. That way you’ll have company, too.”

  “I’m comfortable, thank you,” Bette said without looking up. She flipped a page of her magazine.

  “Aren’t you supposed to have someone with you down here?” Joanna asked. “It’s not safe being alone.”

  “Clarke was here. He dashed off for a second—you know, little boy’s room—but he’ll be back.” She straightened and smiled. “See? Here he is now.”

  Clarke strode in the kitchen from across the lobby.

  “I suppose it’s all right if I walk alone upstairs?” Bette asked. “Or is that too risky? We’re not in jail, you know.”

  “Yell if you see anyone,” Clarke said. Bette’s caftan swished across the kitchen and out the door.

  “She’s tense,” Clarke said. “Not that it’s an excuse—we’re all tense. How’s the wood supply?”

  “Low,” Joanna replied. It was nice to see Clarke active about their stay, especially now that Daniel was laid up with a sprained ankle. “Reverend Tony and I stacked all of the rest in the storage room, but we’re going to have to conserve.”

  “Damn it,” he said. “Where are we with candles and food?”

  “We wondered the same thing,” Sylvia said. “Joanna and I came down to do an inventory. To see if there’s enough to get us through another few days—God forbid.”

  Joanna opened the freezer. They had plenty of ice, although that’s the last thing they’d need.

  “Excellent idea,” Clarke said.

  “It looks like the potato-truffle tartlets are almost gone. The stuffed mushrooms, too.” She pushed a few things around the darkened refrigerator. “Wasn’t there a little roast boar left? It’s gone. And the eggs. Did we really eat them all this morning?”

  “We might have put a dent in the eggs, but we definitely didn’t finish the boar. You’re sure it’s not hidden toward the back?” Joanna held her candle to the refrigerator’s depths. “I thought Chef Jules had laid in some cheese, too.” A stub of Morbier wrapped in parchment was all that was left. “What happened to the food?”

  “Tony,” Clarke said.

  “He’s vegan. No meat, no cheese,” Joanna said. But if not Tony, who had been cleaning out the larder?

  “Exactly. He probably broke down and ate them. He’s a beefy guy. You don’t stay that way on salad greens.”

  “Look at this,” Sylvia said. She pulled a dinner plate from behind a discarded centerpiece. Crumbled on it lay a chunk of half-eaten wedding cake the size of a soccer ball. Crumbs adhered to a fork jammed in its side. “What’s going on?”

  “Bette? Could she be eating it?” Joanna asked.

  Sylvia put a hand on a hip. “Now that would be interesting. Secret eating. I could recommend a good therapist.”

  “I don’t see Bette pigging out on platters of meat,” Clarke said.

  “You’d be surprised,” Sylvia replied.

  “Someone had to eat it. Ghosts aren’t noted for their appetites.” Joanna opened a cupboard. “At least we’re not entirely out of food. The rolls look a little stale, but it could be worse. Lots of crackers, too.” She moved a few boxes of gourmet seed-studded crackers and uncovered a jar with something brown settled in it. “And foie gras.” Her heart pinged as she thought of Chef Jules smuggling it in. It would have been perfect with the Bordeaux. Maybe he’d thought the same thing.

  Sylvia pulled first one small can, then several, from a lower cupboard. “What’s this?”

  Joanna moved the candle closer and laughed. “Dog food. For Bubbles.” So he hadn’t been making it from scratch after all. Chef Jules had the last word.

  “We’re paired off now. No one can go on midnight eating jags without being caught,” Clarke said.

  Joanna thought of her own wanderings that afternoon looking for evidence pointing to Jules’s killer. They’d have to wire bells to the doors to keep people in.

  ***

  Joanna and Sylvia returned to the relative light and warmth of the library. At last Joanna could talk with Sylvia even if under the guise of planning their meals. In the great room, Daniel strummed a guitar, and Marianne read while Bette again kept busy salvaging the wedding flowers by pulling out limp blossoms and trimming leaves. She seemed calmer. Maybe it was the champagne. Clarke was in the dining room with two candelabras and papers spread in front of him. A pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. Reverend Tony must be with Portia and Penny.

  Marianne had set aside her book and was touching the carved insects on the bookshelf. “Coleoptera,” she said and looked to make sure Joanna was paying attention. “That’s the proper name for a beetle.” The polished mahogany beetle’s antennae bent back over its body, and its wings were parted as if shuffling its skirts. “And here we have the cochinellid. Ladybug. Mummy calls them ‘ladybirds.’”

  “I like ladybugs,” Joanna said, eager to jump on the topic of an insect with a friendly way about it for a change. “You know, ‘ladybug, ladybug, fly away home—”

  “Your house is on fire and your children are all alone,” Marianne said.

  “Nice try, Joanna,” Sylvia said. “Marianne, please sit down.”

  “We have bread and vegetables from crudités. Meager, but I guess that takes care of dinner.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “I could have sworn we had boar left over.”

  “Do you see the Vespula Vulgaris? The hornet. They eat ladybugs.” Marianne reached for the hornet’s gilded wing, but it was above her head. She looked around the library, and her eyes lit on a stepping stool. She moved toward it.

  “Honey,” Sylvia said. “Don’t mess with that.”

  “I want to get in the stairway.” Bubbles raised her head from the other armchair.

  “It’s totally dark in there. Not safe.”

  She stared at the hornet. “My dad is up there.”

  The little girl’s tone was remarkably matter-of-fact, but her lower lip trembled slightly. Joanna’s heart tugged. Did she understand that he wasn’t coming back? She was plenty old enough to know about death, but perhaps not old enough to process it all right away.

  “I know,” Sylvia whispered. “You’ll be able to say good bye to him later. Now go on and read.”

  Marianne trudged to the armchair with Bubbles and, bottom lip extended in a grumpy pout, draped her hand over the dog’s head. She looked at the hornet a moment longer, then reached for her book.

  Later, at a proper funeral she’d say goodbye, Joanna thought. If they ever got out of there. It was only Sunday afternoon—only two full days at the lodge—but it felt like a month. “Sylvia, about Wilson. It might be—”

  Sylvia hand slipped off the chair’s arm. Her eyes lost focus as she turned her head toward the great room.

  “Sylvia?” Joanna asked.

  “Sorry. It’s that song.”

  Daniel’s voice, low and clumsy, contrasted with the delicate arpeggios of the guitar. Joanna knew the song, too, but not like this. When the Jackals recorded it twenty years ago, it was with thrashing electric guitars and raw voices. Since then, it had become a staple of rock radio. Even Joanna, who listened mostly to pre-electric music, could almost recite the lyrics by heart. They were about a girl who was wild, but had been tamed, and how the singer regretted caging her but could never let her go.

  Joanna turned to Sylvia. “It’s about you, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “A little overdramatic, that one. Wilson calmed me down, but I’d never call myself ‘caged.’ She clenched the chair’s arm. “Time for a new start, anyway.”

  “You mean England.” Joanna decided to put into words what seemed clear, anyway. “What about Daniel?” It was obvious Daniel wanted to be part of Sylvia and Marianne’s lives. “England is far away.”

  “I don’t know,” Sylvia said. “It’s just—I just—in this country people will always be looking at me. ‘The Widow Jack’ and all that, despi
te the fact that he was just about to marry someone else. And now that he may have been killed, well—”

  “Well what?” She knew what Sylvia would say but wanted to her it from her.

  “They’ll think I” —she glanced at Marianne then mouthed— “killed him.”

  “Because you stand to gain financially.”

  She nodded again. “What else? You heard Portia. Unless Wilson changed his estate plans, Marianne and I inherit. It just looks too suspicious. I know you’ve had thoughts, haven’t you? Isn’t that really why you’re here with me right now?” She said this with a lilt, perhaps hoping Joanna would contradict her.

  Joanna leaned back. “I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t cross my mind. But I do find it hard to believe.” Sylvia would never risk anything that might separate her from Marianne. Then again, if she thought Wilson’s marriage would deprive Marianne of something that was rightfully hers, there’s no saying what she’d do. Joanna thought back to her Gifts, Wills, and Trusts class from law school. Under Oregon law, prior wills are revoked when someone marries. She wondered if Sylvia knew this.

  Sylvia let out a breath. She nodded toward the tail of Bette’s caftan wafting across the great room. “I’ve had a few pointed comments from that quarter.”

  “Well, you know how she is.” Bette may have been looking forward to a new BMW or facelift thanks to Penny’s wealth when the wedding was over. “It’s only natural that Wilson would look after his daughter, and I’m sure he did.”

  The strains of Daniel’s guitar drifted into the library. “Yes. I’m sure,” Sylvia said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Joanna found Clarke in the dining room. If anyone held the key to the motive for Wilson’s death, it was surely him. He was Wilson’s business manager and the person most likely to have access to his will. He’d surely know what would happen to Wilson’s estate. Whether he would tell her—the truth, that is—was a different matter, she reminded herself. She could trust no one except Penny.

  Clarke was taking notes on a legal pad, his left-handed scrawl filling the page. “Yes?” he said without looking up.

  Joanna pulled out a chair. Daniel’s quiet guitar drifted in from the great room. She didn’t think they’d be overheard. “I want to talk to you about Wilson.” Clarke put down his pen. “People don’t kill without a reason. Who stood to benefit from Wilson’s death? I thought you’d know. Sylvia says you’ve handled his estate for years.”

  “I do. But, if you don’t mind my being frank, Wilson’s will is none of your business.”

  Joanna’s face flushed. “It’s all of our business. Someone here is a murderer. If we can figure out why the person killed, maybe we’ll know who he is.”

  “Clarke?” rose Bette’s voice from the great room. “Are you still working on that real estate deal?”

  “Yes. I have lots to do. You know that,” Clarke said, his voice loud.

  “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, you know,” Bette said. “You should come out and join us.”

  Clarke ignored her and turned to Joanna. “I don’t see where my client’s—and dear friend’s—personal affairs concern you. You’re not family.”

  “True. I’m not family. Maybe that gives me the clearest perspective on the situation.” She leaned forward. “Please. You might have information that could prevent another death—or at the very least, keep the murderer from going free.”

  Clarke lifted his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You’re right,” he said finally. “We should have a suspect, protect ourselves.” He slipped his glasses back on. “But I don’t have much that will interest you. Wilson’s will was what you’d expect. Upon his death, his estate shifted to a trust for Marianne which would become hers when she turned twenty-one. Nothing radical.”

  “When he married, what would have happened then? His old will wouldn’t apply anymore.”

  Clarke’s gaze narrowed. “How do you know that?”

  “Law school. Thought I might be a lawyer at one point.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. He didn’t have a new will yet. He talked about writing one up after the wedding, but we hadn’t got around to it.”

  “But he would have.”

  “Oh yes. Definitely. I’d have insisted.”

  Joanna considered this. “What about a pre-nup? Did it include anything about his estate in contemplation of marriage?” That the law school jargon tripped off her tongue so easily gratified her.

  “He had a tight pre-nup in place. Frankly, I encouraged it.” Clarke glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Penny’s a charming girl, but not very responsible about money. Look at the outrageous amount she paid for that ridiculous dress—”

  “The Schiap,” Joanna said. “Some people say the dress is one of the finest pieces of art to come from Surrealism. Besides, Bette paid that bill.”

  “Yes, yes. Sorry. I forgot you helped her with it. But you get my point. No, the pre-nup was set to take place upon their marriage. After ten years, if they didn’t divorce, Penny would have received more.”

  So it came down to Sylvia. Marianne—and by extension her mother—gained the most from Wilson’s death. No wonder she was paranoid. Joanna couldn’t imagine her killing Wilson. If she’d wanted Wilson dead, she’d had plenty of opportunities before this weekend. Unless she wanted to make a particularly gruesome commentary about his wedding, that is. And if Clarke was telling the truth.

  He shook his head slowly. “I should have stayed with Wilson after we played poker. I could have talked to him as he wound down for bed. I used to do that a lot after shows.”

  “You two had a long history together.”

  “Like brothers. He’d get himself into all these scrapes, and I’d help him out. There’d be some girl, or he wouldn’t want to talk to anybody, or he’d stay in bed for days and threaten to miss a show, and I’d always pull him out of it. Once, in Pittsburgh, we were backstage at the arena, and he refused to go on.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? There were forty thousand people chanting for him, stamping on the floor, and he sat on a smelly couch in the dressing room and told me he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t go on.”

  “He was sober?” Like everyone else, Joanna had heard about the overdose in Berlin that almost killed Wilson.

  “It wasn’t that. It was like—it was like he was possessed by this sad spirit. ‘They don’t know me,’ he kept saying. There was a bitterness in him.”

  “But you got him on stage.”

  “That time I did. I told him to close his eyes and perform only for himself. I told him the rest of the world wasn’t real, it was only him. We went on almost an hour late, but we went on.” He met Joanna’s eyes. “The Jackals couldn’t have made it without me.”

  “It sounds like Wilson really owed a lot to you,” Joanna said.

  Clarke stared out the half snowed-over window, lost in thought. “I was lucky to be there.”

  The past few days, Joanna had tiptoed around Penny, Sylvia, and Daniel’s loss, not recognizing Clarke’s long history with Wilson. Really, he’d lost family, too.

  Finally, Clarke tapped a finger on the table. “I know you’re trying to get to the bottom of this, but I don’t think the deaths had anything to do with Wilson’s money.”

  Their eyes met. “You have another idea?”

  “The so-called ‘Reverend’ Tony.”

  Joanna leaned back. The background report Clarke had mentioned. “I know you’re suspicious of him. You’ve mentioned him a few times, but he seems harmless enough, and Penny likes him.”

  Clarke shook his head. He stood and grasped one of the tooth-shaped rocks circling the fireplace. “I don’t trust the man.”

  “Assume he does have a rap sheet. What does he gain from killing Wilson and the chef?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe Wilson confronted him about his past, and he didn’t want the truth getting out. I wish I could see that background report. And we know he didn’t li
ke the chef. Or maybe—and I hate to say this—but he has an unnatural bond with Penny.”

  The image of Penny slipping out of the Reverend’s room crossed her mind. But she was upset about Wilson and probably had been talking it out with Tony. Hell, they’d not even been there three days, and she’d heard Tony insist that violence was not the answer more times than she could count. Then she remembered his iron grip. Could it be? No. Instinct told her no. She needed more reason than that to label him a murderer.

  “I’ve been wondering if I should talk to Penny about it,” Clarke said, “and I think it’s time. It’s too dangerous for us here with these kind of secrets. Yes. I’m going to talk to her.”

  Joanna’s eyes widened. “Wait, Clarke. Stop. It would be better to have Bette mention something to her. Or even Portia. Penny’s so attached to him.”

  “It’s not safe to wait any longer. Two people are already dead.”

  Sylvia had mentioned that Clarke wouldn’t let go once he got an idea in his head. “I’m not sure she’ll listen to you, Clarke. You know how Penny is. Besides, she’s fragile right now.”

  He flattened his palm on the dining room’s wall. “I understand your concern, Joanna. You want Penny happy, and no doubt you appreciate her business. But you need to leave this to family.”

  “This has nothing to do with my business.”

  “Whatever. I know what’s better for this family than you do. It’s best for you to butt out.” With purpose, he strode through the great room and down the hall to Penny’s bedroom.

  Uh oh, Joanna thought. This was not going to go well. Still staring down the hall, she went to the great room and lowered herself on the couch with Daniel. He had put down his guitar. “What’s going on?” he asked. “I couldn’t help overhearing you and Clarke.”

  “He’s gone to talk to Penny about Reverend Tony.”

  “He has?” Bette said. She’d quit arranging flowers and sat in the opposite lips couch with a bottle of nail polish and an emery board. She was putting the finishing touches on a thumb. She stopped waving it dry and joined the others in staring down the dim hall to the bedrooms.