Skirting the Grave

by Annette Blair

  “Great, this could turn into a federal investigation.”

  “We would have to work with the Feds.”

  Scrap silk and little bone buttons! I did not want Werner and Nick working anywhere near each other.

  “How’s Nick these days?” Werner asked, too interested.

  “On assignment, as if you care.”

  Werner knew I hadn’t come clean with my on-again, off-again FBI hunk and a half about the thermonuclear kiss Werner and I shared, a rather large elephant standing between us right now.

  Bless him, though, he passed on mentioning the screaming pachyderm and cleared his throat. “I can’t believe you’re involved in another suspicious death, Miss Cutler.”

  Miss Cutler all of a sudden? Ah, I got it. The gentleman side of the formidable detective had not only given it a pass, but he put a safe, comfortable distance between us and it.

  I hoped that I could keep from thanking him and focusing attention where I wanted it least, on us. I also prayed my guilt remained invisible, because God knew, though we’d been half-asleep at the time, that had been one hell of a kiss we were ignoring.

  I couldn’t show my gratitude, but I tipped my metaphorical hat by turning him back into my nemesis, where he belonged, and giving him what he expected from me, attitude. “How do you know Isobel didn’t die of natural causes? Jumping the gun, aren’t we?”

  “Are we?” he asked. “Were we? Or do we want more of the same?”

  Yowsa! And I thought we’d reverted to dealing with one another on a professional basis. My mistake. Where’s an oven mitt when you need one?

  It just went to show that in a town this size, you couldn’t avoid each other forever, but I’d had a pretty good run.

  At the moment, however, I ignored him by shaking my hair from my face to collect my wits. “The case, Detective.” I reminded us both. “The girl in the platform shelter?”

  “Sorry, some things just stay with a man. The girl. Natural causes. Good point. We don’t know, yet. Forensics will have something to say about that, I’m sure.”

  “I thought so.” I went for snooty, a side of me he knew best from our school days and liked least. “I don’t even know the girl,” I said, disliking the mournful hitch in my chest. “She’s Brandy’s friend. I didn’t even want to hire her.”

  I grabbed his wrist. “Lytton, you don’t think Brandy could be in danger? They were supposed to be on the same train, but my sister called to say she’d be in later.”

  “That you talked to Brandy is a good sign. I’d think she was safer not traveling with Ms. York this trip.” He tilted his head. “If you talked to her, why did you think it could be her?”

  “Panic knows no logic. So, Isobel’s death really could have been an accident?” I bit my lip.

  “There are usually visible signs with an accidental death, while malicious intent often has to be ferreted out.”

  “I hate it when you’re right.” Feeling emotionally battered and bruised, I turned to leave.

  “Madeira?” Werner called.

  I stopped and looked back, hope rising in me.

  “Stay close. No out-of-town buying trips for the next few days.”

  “Why? I’m not even a witness.”

  “Right. You’re the deceased’s reluctant employer.”

  “Tucking A!” I turned on my heel and speed-dialed Brandy while I took a wide berth around the ambulance and crossed Broadway, before the railroad crossing barriers came down. While I stood hyperventilating in the depot parking lot, more frantic at each unanswered ring, Brandy picked up on the seventh.

  That’s when my heart started beating again.

  “Mad, can’t talk now. I’m about to board the train.”

  “Call me when you get in,” I said. “And, Sis, be careful.”

  “On a train? Silly Mad. Your inner sleuth is eating your brain.”

  “Yeah, that’s my problem.” I watched the sheeted gurney disappear into the ambulance, clapped my phone shut, turned toward my car, and released the sob I’d been fighting to hold back.

  Five

  I’m still me even after all that’s happened.

  —VICTORIA BECKHAM

  Life must go on, which seemed wrong, I thought, with less bounce in my step as I got back into my utility vehicle, mired in a whole lot of guilt for not wanting Isobel York in my life. Worse, if I hadn’t given in to Brandy’s nagging and had said a firm “no” to taking on her friend, Isobel might still be alive. If it was an accident.

  Premeditated, it would have happened anyway, anywhere.

  At the shop, life snapped me back to normal, whether I wanted it to or not, when I found the Sweets, Ethel the younger, in her eighties, Dolly’s daughter-in-law, and Dolly herself, the town centenarian and my ghost Dante Underhill’s old flame.

  Dolly could also see Dante, which is why she “shopped” here often.

  But today a third woman, a stranger to Mystic, wearing a pricey Vivienne Westwood suit, waited with them. She was about Ethel’s age, and though Ethel admitted they’d never met, they’d struck up a friendly conversation. Odd, because Ethel didn’t do friendly well.

  Bette gave no last name, almost on purpose, but her calling card sat in the parking lot, a powder blue stretch limo, chauffeur included.

  Like Brandy said, sleuthing could be eating my brain, because I made a pretense of going back to my car so I could glance at the limo’s plate. Rhode Island. Y-1. Call me nuts, but in New England that’s like confessing to sleeping with a senator or congressman. Or to investing heavily in a campaign. Same thing.

  Pushing Isobel and sleuthing to the back of my mind, I turned to concentrating on my job. Customers come first and all that. The three clicked as they checked out the fashions of their day and reminisced, though Ethel and Bette barely noticed when Dolly and Dante got lost in Shoe Heaven.

  I made tea and set out the cookies Dolly brought me. Let’s face it, women who buy vintage at high-end designer specialty shops had a lot of the little girl left in them. They still loved playing dress-up, being pampered, and having tea parties, which pretty much summed up my line of work. Except I could indulge my shopaholic tendencies whenever I wanted, with Vintage Magic as my excuse.

  My other love, designing clothes, I also made part and parcel of my work. Did I have a dream job or what?

  Over tea, the ladies tended to talk fast and at the same time, though they never failed to surprise me by managing a true exchange of information. As for me, I rarely got a word in, edgewise or otherwise, and they never noticed unless they wanted my opinion.

  The only spooky moment of their visit happened when Bette stood looking down at Isobel’s trunk for an uncomfortably long time.

  “Do you have an assistant, Miss Cutler?” she asked.

  Like a knife came the memory of Isobel on that bench. “No, no, I don’t.”

  “But you will soon,” Dolly said. The Sweets practically raised my siblings after my mother passed, and I kept them in the loop.

  “Everything’s a bit up in the air intern-wise at the moment,” I said, and Bette firmed her lips.

  After the ladies left, that trunk whispered my name louder than ever. Why had a stranger stared so long at it? Why ask such a pointed, spot-on question? Maybe she was a bit psychic, too. I’d never know. She said she was only passing through. I made a note to ask Eve to do a little digging on the number of the plate.

  I did wonder after that if the trunk might hold a clue as to what happened to Isobel, but I resisted opening it. I’d ask Werner if he found a relative to identify the body, because I had something of Isobel’s to give them. Fact was, maybe I had evidence.

  As a distraction, I forced myself to work on the bookkeeping system Eve programmed for me, so I wouldn’t rush over and tear open the key envelope with my teeth.

  A magic word—“key”—in relationship to a suspicious death. Sadly, that was one yellow ribbon not meant to welcome Isobel York.

  My thoughts turned on a dime. A yell
ow ribbon. I didn’t have an oak tree, but I whipped up a fat yellow bow, went out, and tied it to my Element’s passenger side rearview mirror to welcome Brandy home in a positive way. Too bad I’d have to greet her with bad news.

  The shop phone rang, so I went back inside.

  Reminded of my creepazoid morning caller, I answered with trepidation, only now putting the anomalous caller and my dead intern in the same range of possibility. “Vintage Magic, how can I dress you?”

  “Is she there yet?” Likely one and the same voice. Wrath Vader had possibly mastered his modulator, now evoking a deep evil or an alien from outer space.

  “Is who here?”

  “Isobel. Let me talk to Izzy.” Did the vocal inflection change with her name, a hint of satisfaction, like the creepamagog might have grinned, knowing he asked for the impossible. Werner would need to know who, among her acquaintances, called Isobel “Izzy.”

  “I just sent her on an errand for me,” I lied. You can’t get no . . . sa-tis-fac-shun. “I’ll be glad to tell her you called. Is this her brother again? May I have your number?”

  He called me ugly names and with two succinct words, not “tuck you,” the sleaze hung up.

  My hands shook again as I picked up my cell phone and hit speed dial.

  As Werner answered, Nick walked in. But I’d lost my ability to speak.

  Italian stallion in the flesh. Five o’clock shadow. Deep, dark, bedroom eyes eating me up with his gaze. A half nod and an attempt not to show me how hungry he was for the sight of me.

  I knew because I attempted the same.

  Werner called my name over the phone loud enough for Nick to hear and comment. “You’d better talk to him before he busts a blood vessel.”

  “Werner,” I said. “Sorry. I’ve had a scare.”

  Nick looked sharply up at me and scanned the room.

  I told Werner about the ugly drone calls, glad Nick could hear me. I also outlined Brandy’s delaying call: her mugging and lost train ticket. “Do you think they could be related to Isobel’s death?” I asked.

  Nick’s spine went rigid, and he stood close enough to tease me with the musky ambergris scent in his Ultraviolet Man cologne.

  “Nothing is related if the girl died of natural causes,” Werner said. “We got a positive ID, by the way.”

  “What do you mean, you got a positive? Who identified her?”

  “Madame Celine Robear. Ms. York had the woman’s business card behind her license.”

  “I know the name. She owns the modeling agency where Isobel works. She’s coming to Mystick Falls next weekend for Brandy’s fund-raiser.”

  “I know. I called the number on the card and—you’re not going to believe this—the woman was on a train from Boston, half an hour out. I met her, she got off, came to the morgue, identified the body as that of Isobel York, and she caught the next train back to the Big Apple.”

  “That was too easy,” I said. “Too much of a coincidence.”

  Nick gave me a thumbs-up.

  “How upset did she seem?” I asked Werner.

  “Very upset.”

  “Too upset?”

  “Look, Mad, some IDs are easy,” Werner assured me, “but most aren’t.”

  Nick shrugged his reluctant agreement to that.

  I rolled my eyes. “Describe Robear to me in, say, two words.”

  “Voluptuous.”

  “I don’t mean her body, I mean her demeanor, and that’s only one word, you sex maniac.”

  Nick raised both brows. Guess I shouldn’t have divulged my knowledge of that truism.

  “Self-assured,” Werner said, continuing to describe her, unaware of the undercurrents. “Comfortable in her skin. Educated. Sophisticated. Celine Robear seamlessly aces a perfect balance in the feminine mystiqueto-businesswoman ratio.”

  “And I don’t?”

  Nick wagged a finger at me.

  I frowned.

  Werner coughed. “You asked me to describe the owner of Flair Robear. I’d have a whole different description of you.”

  One I did not want to hear with my sexy ex standing beside me and racing my heart. “So, you’re saying Celine Robear didn’t look like a killer?”

  “Who does? But don’t worry, I ordered a background check.”

  “Good. I mean, suppose Isobel didn’t die of natural causes and her killer stayed on the train to the end of the line, turned around for the return trip, and you caught her halfway back?”

  “I checked Robear’s alibi. Plus her hotel vouches for her. That would be one weekend keynote speaker for the Regal Grace, Supermodels of Tomorrow Conference, present and accounted for. I plan to get hotel videotapes of the entire event. Robear was taking interviews for her agency and speaking.”

  My heart tripped. “Isobel York really did die?” I whispered. I hadn’t wanted to believe it.

  “ ’ Fraid so, Mad,” Werner said. “Besides, she looked just like the picture on her license. As for those digitized calls, I’ll get a wiretap on your phone as soon as possible. Tomorrow at the latest. I’m sorry about your intern, kiddo.”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of a hand. “Thanks, Lytton.” I hung up.

  Nick took me in his arms to comfort me, and being there felt like coming home. I had a good cry. Probably not just for Isobel. I’d missed Nick more than I dared admit. “Is my brother okay? Did he come home, too?”

  “Your brother, Alex, my ace FBI partner, is especially okay now that he’s home with his wife and daughter. He’s got a week off, so I’m on my own for now. His little Kelsey is just like you.”

  “How is she like me?” I asked, not quite done with my cry, because even that notion brought tears to my eyes.

  “For one thing she toddled into my room at dawn, and before I woke up, she gave me a drink of water. Yeah, I was flat on my back asleep, and she held my nightstand glass of water to my lips.”

  My bubble of laughter turned to tears, because I missed this about us. This sharing the little things.

  “Let it out, ladybug. Sounds like you’ve been having a bad time.”

  I smacked him in the chest with the flat of a hand. “Because you left, you big lug. Staying away so long, changing your cell phone number. Today I got threatening calls, then my intern got murdered, or she died of natural causes at the ripe old age of twenty-something, and could I call you? No! I mean, my sister-in-law told me it was going to be a while, but, well, you didn’t.”

  He rested his chin on my head. “I’m back, ladybug. And I’m sorry.”

  “For how long?”

  “I’ll be sorry forever, but I’m back for as long my new case lasts. Unless you want me to leave?”

  “What case?” I stepped from his arms and ignored the question, because right now, yeah, I wanted him here. “Your case is not my case?”

  “Of course not. You’re not in law enforcement. The case belongs to me and your brother when he gets back to work, and it’s not about Isobel’s death. How could I get home so fast for something that happened this morning? However, it might be related. I need to talk to Werner about that. And if you tell your brother you know even that much, I’ll deny it. If my case impacts yours, I’ll bring you into the loop, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, you got something thermonuclear you wanna tell me about?”

  Six

  Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.

  —FRANCIS BACON

  “Who have you been talking to?” I snapped.

  Nick’s chin dimple deepened with his chuckle. “Eve. She just saw me walking back to my car for my cell phone, and she assumed you’d confessed, and I was leaving. So she gloated, of course, and let her X-rated version of the cat out of the bag.”

  “I’m gonna kill her.” I tried to charge out the door to annihilate my BFF, but Nick held me back with an arm across my bodice and a grasp on my far shoulder, his chesty chuckle soothing my senses.

  I liked it, drat
my traitorous body. The feel, scent, and sound of him. Having him near.

  “Eve’s gone,” he said. “Kyle dragged her back to his car with his hand over her mouth, strapped her into the Lamborghini, and drove away. Mad, she’s such a good friend to you, and her dislike of me is so deliciously amusing. I hardly have to work to keep her ticked. Besides, I welcomed her enhanced truth. It was tame compared to the worst-case scenarios I started conjuring when not otherwise occupied in the trenches.”

  That caught my attention; the trenches meant danger, and all this time, he’d been as upset as me. Right now, I couldn’t address either.

  He’d hurt me. Judged me and found me guilty without hearing my side, so I got stubborn and didn’t tell him anything. Not about Tasering Werner so I had to drag him to my bed or about passing out there myself because I got a psychometric reading. Sure, half-asleep, we shared a kiss. So what. But I let Nick think the worst and broke up with him.

  “Give me your new cell phone number,” I said, rather pouty, so he’d try to charm me out of it.

  He picked up my phone and programmed his new number into it. “Am I still number one?”

  “Speed dial wise? Yes.”

  He grinned and set the phone back down on my counter. “Now, tell me,” he said, hands on my shoulders, so comfortably and comfortingly close, “why you agreed to an intern and what happened to her.”

  Peace settled into my bones as I told Nick about Brandy, every detail about the train station and the phone calls. “I know I complained at first about having an intern,” I admitted, “but I’m honestly sorry I’m not going to get to work with Isobel. I had begun to believe I could help her.”

  Nick raised a brow. “She’s not beyond help. No one ever is. Find her some justice. Was she in trouble? Running away? On drugs? You have your own ways to get answers. Get sleuthing.”