Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3)

by Angela M. Sanders

  Bette sipped flat wedding champagne and stared in the fireplace. Her fox fur chubby covered the top half of her caftan. “I am so over lodges, and so is Bubbles.” Bubbles had shown her discontent by making an indoor potty of the lower lobby. Of the bunch, cuddled next to Marianne the dog was probably the most satisfied.

  Daniel had the remains of the radio spread in front of him on the coffee table, as well as a sandwich Sylvia had brought him. He’d put a few pieces of the radio together, but other pieces were clearly destroyed. He pushed parts away in frustration and fell back to the couch.

  Portia paced the main area, looping through the dining room, where she paused at the windows, then to the library, then again to the great room.

  “Stop pacing,” Bette said. “You’re making me nervous.”

  Portia stopped at the arch leading in from the dining room. “I am nervous. I feel like a caged animal. We’re stuck here, no way out, with two dead bodies.”

  Sylvia frowned and pointed her chin at Marianne, who drowsed near her, a hand still on Bubbles.

  “Oh, like she doesn’t know what’s going on here. Heck, when the food runs out, she’ll be the first morsel on the grill.”

  “Portia,” Bette said. Joanna lifted her head. This was new. She’d heard Bette yell and moan, but never sound authoritative. “Honey, I’m surprised at you. You will not talk about our darling girl like that. Besides, I thought you were the trooper here, that you could live for weeks with nothing but rations and your camera. Look at us. Does this look like suffering?”

  Bette had a point. A still photograph of the scene would have shown a privileged family enjoying a weekend in a luxurious ski lodge. A fire roared in the fireplace. Flowers graced tabletops. Bottles of champagne rested on the hearth next to a few slices of wedding cake. Except for the fireplace’s grotesque mouth and the guests’ coats and scarves, they might have been an Architectural Digest centerfold.

  Well, a few more exceptions, like the bodies lying above and below them. And the lack of connection to the outside world. When night fell, they’d have nothing but candles to guide them to their shared bedrooms. As for being a family, they made an odd one. One brother, Daniel; his ex-almost-sister-in-law, Sylvia; and her daughter, Marianne. One mother, Bette; her twin daughters, Penny and Portia. Clarke, old friend and odd man out. Joanna and Tony, the help. One dead rock star—a father, ex-lover, brother, and almost husband. One dead chef.

  Surely the most heartbroken was Penny. Surely somehow she could be cheered up. “Penny,” Joanna said. “Reverend Tony may have uncovered a few clues about the guy who built Redd Lodge.”

  Penny straightened and turned toward her. “What did he say?”

  “We were in the garage getting firewood, and we couldn’t help checking out a gorgeous old roadster under a tarp. It even had a name, and you’ll never guess what it was.”

  “The hornet,” she said.

  Joanna set down her coffee cup. “Did he tell you?”

  “No,” she said. “I just guessed.” A smile played on her lips. Good.

  “Do you want to keep guessing, or should I tell you more?”

  “More.”

  Bette lifted her head now, too.

  “Well,” Joanna said, “There was a secret compartment in the trunk. The Reverend guessed right away that Francis Redd must have been a bootlegger during Prohibition. The funny thing is, I’d been reading his journals, and he wrote about dreams where he was being chased in the hornet. Plus, there’s a big, empty space in the secret staircase that could have held a sizable stash of booze. I just hadn’t put it together.”

  Life returned to Penny’s face. “Maybe a rival bootlegger got him. Marched him out into the snow. They might have had giant parties, right here in this very room.” Her gaze swept the great room as if seeing it for the first time.

  “They would have played records on a gramophone and danced,” Bette added, undoubtedly reflecting on Studio 54.

  “Tony shouldn’t be down there alone.” Joanna was surprised she’d spoken aloud.

  “After what he did to Marianne, who cares what happens to him?” Clarke said.

  “It’s not just that. We all need to keep tabs on each other, too. Just in case,” Joanna added, trying to backpedal for Penny’s sake.

  “Just in case one of us decides to try something, you mean?” Daniel said.

  “Reverend Tony wouldn’t ‘try anything’,” Penny said.

  “I suppose as long as the rest of us stay together, it’s the same thing,” Joanna said. So much for her and Tony’s pact to find the murderer. Detective Crisp probably wouldn’t have approved anyway. Too much trust without evidence to support it. Her method was a little more intuitive that the detective’s.

  “Right,” Clarke added. “If anything funny happens, we’ll know it’s him.”

  “Look. Here’s a gramophone,” Portia said. She’d opened a low cabinet on one wall, and an old-fashioned record player with a bronzed horn had popped up. “Records, too.”

  Clarke crossed the room and examined one of the records with an expert eye. “Says ‘Paul Eluard.’ That’s all.”

  “Put it on,” Bette said. “It’s crank, right? We don’t need power to run it. Give it a try.”

  Portia slipped the record from its brown paper sleeve and laid it on the turntable. She rested the needle on the record’s edge, then began to crank the handle on the gramophone’s side. Voices, first low and jumbled, slowly rose to a recognizable pace.

  “Stop there,” Bette said. “That speed. I can understand it like that.”

  A grave voice intoned, “Lamps lit very late. The first one shows its breasts that red insects are killing.”

  Portia’s hand fell from the handle, and the voice deepened into a drugged, then incomprehensible, slur before dropping off. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She returned to the clam chair and pulled up her feet. “Yeah, just a normal little family gathering.”

  Family gathering. Right. Joanna’s family was a made-up one of slow-built friendships and some uncles she rarely saw. The grandparents who raised her were dead. And then there was her mother. She rose and wandered to the library window again. Snow spread as far she could see, falling and settling and graying as the afternoon dimmed. Where the hell was their rescue?

  She turned to see Clarke, in the great room, picking up the sheaf of papers he always seemed to have at his side. “May as well get a bit more work done while it’s still light. I thought I’d save it for the plane, but—” He let the sentence hang. After a long exhale, he stood and carried the papers to the dining room where a bank of snow reflected light to the table. “Any more of that Armagnac left?”

  “I’ll check downstairs,” Bette said. “I need something to do before I go insane. Champagne’s nearly run out, too.”

  “Don’t go alone. You know the rule.”

  “For God’s sake, Clarke. I won’t be gone a minute.” Bette stumbled a bit as she rose. Tipsy? She’d put away a fair amount of Veuve Clicquot already.

  “Mama,” Marianne said, half asleep. “I want to go home.”

  “I know, honey. We’ll be going home soon. I promise.”

  Joanna returned to her book and the safe pages of Agatha Christie, where everything would turn out all right in the end. They needed a Hercule Poirot here. Poirot would wrap up the murders and maybe even find a way to get them home. She glanced again toward the window. Or maybe not. At this point, she’d swap Poirot for Admiral Byrd and a team of Alaskan huskies. Home is what she wanted. To be safe, warm. Home.

  A scream pierced the great room’s silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Clarke bolted to his feet. “Bette.” He charged for the stairs.

  One hand on the wall, Joanna followed him down the dark stairway. Despite his limp, Daniel was close behind her. If Bette was hurt, there was only one person who could be responsible—Tony. Unless Bette fell. She’d been drinking pretty heavily, and the ground floor was pitch black. Joanna arrived in t
he lobby just as Tony burst in, candle in hand, from the wing with the bedrooms.

  “What’s going on?” he said. “I heard a scream.”

  “Over there,” Portia whispered.

  As Joanna’s eyes adjusted to the dark she made out a body lying on the floor near the kitchen.

  “Mom.” Penny knelt on the floor next to her.

  In the flickering candlelight, Bette’s ashy hair drifted in a halo. Her caftan spilled over her open fur chubby on the stone floor, as if she were floating in a pool of wavy silk. A carmine slash the length of a pinkie finger marred her white neck. Bile rose in Joanna’s throat.

  Reverend Tony pushed his way through the group. “She’s still breathing.” He shoved between Penny and Portia and rolled Bette on her back. He lifted a wrist. “Her pulse is fast, but there’s—”

  Bette’s eyes flew open. Her mouth gaped in terror, and a hand flew to her neck. “Get him away from me,” she screamed. “Away! Away!”

  Clarke yanked the Reverend back by his shoulders.

  “What are you doing? I’m trying to help,” Tony said.

  “Get him away from me.” A hand still clutching her neck, Bette rolled into a fetal position.

  “I’ve got him,” Clarke said.

  “She needs help,” Tony said from the wall, where Clarke had pushed him.

  Joanna hurried into the kitchen and slipped a clean dishtowel off a shelf. She handed it to Penny.

  “Mom, sit up.” Portia put a hand under Bette’s head. “Let me put this on your wound.”

  “Pressure,” Joanna said. “We should clean that out.”

  Bette took the towel from Penny and clapped it against her neck. “Later. He only scratched me. I moved too fast,” she mumbled. She pulled the towel away and glanced at it. It was stained deep red. She pressed it again to her neck and winced.

  “Over here.” Penny and Portia lifted Bette to her feet and set her on a wooden bench along the wall. A champagne bottle lay on its side, wine spilling across the stone floor.

  With her free hand, Bette clutched her fur coat around her chest and glared at Tony through slit eyes. “Get him out of here.”

  “What happened?” Joanna asked.

  “I’m not saying anything until that man is locked up.”

  “Clarke has him. Now tell us what happened.”

  Her breath came in small bursts, and her eyes darted around the foyer. “I was leaving the kitchen, and he swooped in from nowhere. He must have been hiding behind the bear.”

  “Details, Bette,” Clarke prodded.

  “He—Tony—grabbed me around the waist, from behind, and held a knife to my neck. He was going to kill me.”

  “I never—” Tony yelled and lurched forward. Clarke grabbed an arm, and Daniel grabbed the other.

  “I screamed. Thank God I screamed. He ran away before you got here,” Bette said. Her hand shook. “But not before doing this.”

  “No. It’s not true,” Penny said quietly. She moved near Tony.

  “He was trying to kill me.” Bette had stopped crying. Now her voice was cold. “I’m sorry, honey, but you have to face the facts.”

  “It’s not true.” Penny said, louder this time. “It was an accident.”

  “Did you actually see him?” Joanna asked Bette. If someone had grabbed her from behind, she might have been mistaken.

  “Oh, I knew it was him all right,” she said, grimacing as she held the dishtowel to her neck. “I could smell him.”

  “So you didn’t see him,” Penny said. “You’re blaming Master Tony, and he didn’t do anything.”

  “I didn’t need to see him.”

  “The knife,” Joanna said. “Where’s the knife? If Tony attacked Bette, he should have it or it’s on the floor somewhere.”

  “Yes.” Penny moved from the wall and let her gaze sweep the landing’s floor, illuminated only by a single taper. “Where is it? Tony, do you have a knife?”

  Tony shook his head. Clarke still held his arm. “No pockets. Check me. No knife.” From what Joanna could see, the Reverend wore only boxers and a tee shirt under his kimono.

  “I don’t know what happened to some knife,” Bette said. “But he obviously had one. How do you explain my neck?”

  “I’m sorry, Penny, but who else could it be?” Daniel said. “He was the only one of us down here.”

  The footprints in the attic, Penny’s ghost, Marianne’s “skinny man” flashed through Joanna’s mind.

  Clarke, still firmly gripping Tony, said, “There are two dead already. If Bette says Tony attacked her, then he did. We can’t afford to take chances.” He grabbed Tony’s other arm away from Daniel and twisted them behind Tony’s back. Clarke was unusually strong, Joanna thought, or he knew exactly what he was doing. “I’m taking him to his room, and he’s staying there. We’ll have a guard set up outside his door.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” Reverend Tony said, but he didn’t resist Clarke’s hold.

  “You thought you could hide your past, Tony,” Clarke said. “You can’t.” Clarke marched him toward his room.

  Bette refused to look at the Reverend. She held the dishtowel against her neck and stared toward the ceiling.

  “You’re all right, Mom?” Portia asked.

  “Considering I could be dead, I guess I’m fine.”

  Penny, silent at first, began to tremble. Her hands rattled, then flailed uncontrollably against the wall. She gasped for breath. The strain of the past few days must have built up beyond her ability to handle it.

  Joanna strode to her side. “Penny—”

  “I hate you.” Her voice was low and steel-cold. Joanna dropped back before noticing Penny’s gaze was on Daniel. Slow and measured, Penny stepped closer to him. “You never forgave Wilson, did you? And now you want me to pay for it by accusing Master Tony. Well you can go to hell.” With that, she spit in his face.

  Daniel stumbled back and hit the wall.

  What was going on?

  Penny ran upstairs, Portia on her heels. Joanna followed the sisters, grateful for the light on the second floor, weak as it was.

  Breathing in spasms, Penny launched into her room and tore open the closet. “Master Tony’s innocent. Don’t you people know anything?” She yanked a silk dressing gown from its hanger and tore off its lace trim. The silk almost moaned as it rent against the grain. “He didn’t hurt anyone.”

  Joanna forced herself to breathe more slowly. “Penny, it’s all right. Calm down. We’ll be out of here soon, and we’ll sort everything out. It will be all right.”

  “Sometimes people aren’t what we expect,” Portia said. “There’s a lot you don’t know about Tony.”

  Thinking of her conversation earlier with Clarke, Joanna said, “Portia could be right. Has he told you much about his past?”

  Penny froze mid-rip with the dressing gown in her hand. “You too?” she said. Penny had never looked so—wild. Fear gathered in Joanna’s chest.

  Penny’s voice came out low and deliberate. “You’re jealous.” She moved a step closer to Joanna. “Aren’t you? You make your life all pretty with vintage dresses, and you have no idea how to be intimate with someone. You saw me and Wilson together, and you just couldn’t stand it.” She inched closer still. “No wonder you can’t even get along with your own mother. You don’t have the knack for love.”

  Joanna’s back was now against the wall. Penny’s words drilled into her chest, unleashing a geyser of pain mingled with fear. Who was this woman? What happened to the joyful, optimistic girl she knew? The lodge was twisting each of them into their worst selves. First Bette had lost it, then Sylvia. Now it must be Penny’s turn.

  Joanna was unable to speak. Her lips parted slightly and breath was quick and shallow.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” The veins in Penny’s neck and temples throbbed blue under her white skin. Moving deliberately, she walked to the bathroom. She emerged with a nail file.

  “Penn, I didn’t mean it about Tony. I w
as wrong—” Portia said quickly.

  “It’s not worth hurting yourself over.” Joanna snapped out of her paralysis. “Please, Penny.”

  A sad smile widened over Penny’s face. “I’m not going to hurt myself.” She pursed her lips and turned toward the closet. She pulled out the Schiaparelli gown and lay it on the bed. She smoothed the fabric with her palm. Her finger touched a streak of printed ripped flesh.

  Joanna’s eyes widened. “No, Penny.”

  Joanna lunged for the dress, but Penny was too quick. Holding the nail file in her hand, she stabbed it through the silk of the Schiaparelli gown. Over and over and over.

  “Put that down,” Joanna yelled and grabbed for fabric.

  Portia wrested back Penny’s arms as Joanna ripped away the dress. Its delicate seams gave way with a lurch. As Penny collapsed, crying, on the bed, Joanna scooped the gown’s remains into her arms and ran across the hall to her room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Joanna sat alone for the first time all day. Once Reverend Tony was downstairs in his room with Daniel guarding from the hall outside, Clarke had told everyone they were safe—they no longer had to buddy up. He’d searched the Reverend’s room and found both a steak knife and Wilson’s background report on him. As far as he and everyone else at the lodge—well, everyone except Penny—were concerned, they had the murderer.

  The crumpled Schiaparelli gown lay in a heap on her bed where she’d tossed it an hour before. What a disaster. The gown’s destruction heaped bad on worse. She glanced at the pile of silk and groaned, then looked up at the portrait. “Madame Eye, what do you think? I know, I know. I have to check out the damage sometime.” She drew a deep breath. Might as well be now.

  She gingerly lifted the wadded silk and flattened it on her bed. Three slashes ravaged the fabric. Each slash was more than a foot long against the silk’s grain, and the seam under one arm gaped open. There was no way they’d be able to salvage this dress. The curator would be furious. Maybe they’d sue. When she got back into town she’d find a lawyer. At least the veil had remained whole—it was still hanging in Joanna’s closet in its archival garment bag.