Skirting the Grave

by Annette Blair

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head while putting away discarded outfits. “I will not get mixed up in another murder investigation.”

  “Sounds like you already are. Didn’t you just call it your case?”

  I shrugged. Drat him for calling me on it. “My case as in Isobel was my intern, and that’s all, until now.”

  “The caller who threatened Isobel before she died,” Nick said, “has your number. That scares me. Get proactive. I missed you. Take care of yourself. I don’t want to make missing you a permanent situation.”

  He pulled me to him as if he couldn’t help himself.

  That hit me square in the heart; then he gave me a look that turned my knees to jelly, but I tried to remain strong.

  When I succeeded, he raised both hands from my shoulders and stepped back, as if trying not to touch me, and he leaned against the sitting area wall and crossed his arms and ankles. “You have genuine talent. Shame to waste it. You can always bounce your psychometric visions off me. Eve sure doesn’t want to hear about your readings.”

  “I also have a talent that requires designing and wallowing in vintage fashion.”

  “I have a need to spend time with you. Unofficially, FBI-wise. Off-again, boy-toy-wise.”

  “You could have come back sooner.”

  He straightened. “No, according to the rules of undercover FBI work, I couldn’t. Let’s say . . . I was forced to stay beneath a certain level on the whereabouts radar screen; that’s why my phone got canceled.”

  He stepped closer and crossed my lips with a finger. “Now, in addition to your design ability, you read vintage clothes with tales to tell.”

  Only a few people knew about my ability, including him and Eve, when it came to reading vintage clothes. “Yes, but that’s like a universal mandate, and there’s no way—” I caught my breath and looked over at Isobel’s trunk. Wooly knobby knits, the darned thing was practically calling my name. Talk about a universal imperative.

  “You’ve already begun to sense that trouble is brewing, haven’t you, ladybug? It only works if you listen, you know.” He caught the direction of my gaze. “Take that trunk—”

  “No. You take it.” And though I didn’t want to, I made my way to the alligator trunk in the corner of the room. “This, I fear, is a problem of the psychometric variety.”

  “It reeks of secrets,” Nick said. “I’ll give you that, and it looks to have belonged to a kindred spirit of yours, someone who dresses like a million bucks.”

  I sighed, remorse overtaking me again in a day full of regrets.

  “Where did you get it, and what’s supposed to be inside?” Nick asked.

  “You were right in guessing it has relevance to Isobel’s murder. It’s full of vintage clothes. Isobel York’s grandmother’s. Isobel wanted me to have them in exchange for teaching her my design techniques, but I’m not sure I should keep them now.”

  “If you want to turn your back on your gift, send it back.”

  I checked the return address on the label and sat hard on my fainting couch. “I can’t. Isobel put my father’s address as her return address. She was going to stay with us while she worked here.”

  Nick raised a brow. “I guess the trunk and all that’s in it are yours to do with what you . . . must?”

  “If I opened it, I’d feel like I was invading somebody’s privacy. And if the clothes inside do hold secrets, do I have the right to them?”

  “Only if knowing will help find Isobel’s killer. I know I doubted your ability to read clothes at first, but now I respect the hell out of it.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder. “I haven’t read any vintage clothes since February, so I was thinking I might be done with that.”

  “But the unexplained death of the girl who owned the trunk might taunt your psychic gift. If I were the investigator, I’d welcome your help.”

  “I missed you, Nick, and I’m sorry I wasn’t straight with you about the kiss. Your lack of trust, well, it wounded me.”

  He looked beaten. “I understand why you didn’t tell me what happened. You were innocent, and I judged you. You have nothing to be sorry for. I do. And I apologize for taking a job I knew would last for months without telling you. I’m as guilty of avoiding the issue as you are, and without your good reasons. Let’s go back to being friends, and see what happens? Wha’d’ya say?”

  No matter what he said, I believed he wanted things to go back the way they’d been between us since I returned to Mystick Falls, and I hated to give him false hope. When I lived in New York, he rarely visited, though we talked on the phone often. Friends—we had been friends then.

  When I moved home, we picked up where we left off without thinking much about it—spontaneous combustion and all—but Nick still took me as much for granted as he did when I lived in the Big Apple. And I just wasn’t sure I could handle our semi-committed relationship. It felt like limbo: Would we ever move forward into something more serious? Did I want to? Did he? Maybe I needed a break from the hot and sexy part of our “friendship” to sort it all out.

  “I have to go pick up Brandy, and since I need reinforcements, my dad’s waiting for me to pick him up.”

  Nick got up as if to let me do my thing, hands in his tight black jeans pockets, like he didn’t know quite where to put himself.

  I opened my arms, and he walked into them for an embrace and a too-friendly kiss. So I stepped back. “I accept your offer. We were friends when I lived in New York. I think we could be again. I’ve missed you, Nick. I’ve missed my friend. I want to call you anytime and talk things over with you, except for when you’re working, of course.”

  He released a breath, and his shoulders relaxed. “I’d like that. You look spectacular,” he said.

  “It means a lot that you think so. You look pretty great, too. You should know that Werner and I are becoming friends. I had dinner with him a couple of times while you were gone.”

  “I understand,” Nick said. “May the best friend win?”

  “This isn’t a competition.”

  “The hell it isn’t,” he muttered.

  I smoothed his furrowed brow, kissed his cheek, and urged him out the door. Friends. They were both just friends, I reminded myself.

  I felt better about Nick and me as he drove off.

  I grabbed my vintage Ralph Lauren purse with RLL woven into the fabric, engraved on the strap hook and upholstery tacks. Ralph’s initials hung from one of its three gold fobs, the other two being a stirrup and a horse head. These days, you were lucky if you got one fob on a Ralph Lauren purse.

  Just an old black purse, Brandy might say . . . with Ralph’s signature all over it. I grinned despite myself, feeling better about Nick than I had in months.

  He might be right about the trunk. I’d think about opening it later.

  I saw him still idling at the corner in his noisy dieselfueled Hummer, and watched until he disappeared onto Main Street.

  After I got in the car, I noticed that my shop door hadn’t bounced shut. It would have locked when it did, but it remained open. So I got out of the car and went to see why.

  Dante stood just inside the shop, arms crossed. “Madeira Cutler, I want to know about the thermonuclear kiss you shared with the Wiener. You’ve been holding out on me.” He wagged a finger and gave me his kneeweakening smile.

  I did have some good looking hunks in my life.

  Dante frowned. “Promise you’ll tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you. Because, really, who are you going to tell?”

  He lowered his hands to his sides. “Okay, then.”

  “Are you keeping my door open?”

  “Yes. Are you proud of me? It’s a new skill, thanks to you. I’ve been tapping into all the energy in here. This place is really hopping these days, and I love it. Did you know that your powers are spiking?”

  “What powers?”

  “Tell me about the thermonuclear kiss; I’ll tell you about your powers.” The door shut and
locked between us.

  I wanted to go back in and make Dante tell me everything he knew now, but I needed to fetch my dear sweet sister.

  I looked at my watch. Ack! “Dante Underhill, I’ll get you for this,” I called.

  A minute later, as I backed out of my parking lot, I saw Dante in an upstairs window tilting his top hat forward and giving me a cheeky grin.

  Seven

  Design is not an ambush . . . it’s a relationship. You have to know how people move and live and work to be able to design for them.

  —GENEVIEVE GORDER

  Ten minutes later, my dad got into my Honda while I sat with it idling in our circular drive.

  “Hey, cranky man, can’t you smile today?”

  He grunted.

  “Are you cantankerous because you haven’t seen Fiona in more than a week?”

  My father turned my way. “I feel a quote coming on.”

  “God help me,” I said, and I meant it.

  “Blame it on your incorrect judgment,” my father said.

  “I blame it on your need to punish me for my correct judgment.”

  He went for a frown and ended up chuckling. “ ‘A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.’ Thomas Jefferson.”

  “Oh no, are you going to force-feed me King Lear? Again?”

  “Don’t say you don’t love it when I do.”

  “I’m pleading the fifth.” Getting my father’s attention when we were children meant asking him to read a story. We didn’t expect to understand his choice, but we asked and listened anyway, because the cost of his attention was priceless, and he pounced around the room acting out all the parts, which never failed to entertain us, no matter how old we got. “Loosen up,” I said. “She won’t be gone forever.”

  He barely turned my way. “Who?”

  I pulled into the Mystic Train Station parking lot for the second time that day. “Dad, you’re such a bad actor. I’m talking about Aunt Fiona, of course.”

  “She’s not your aunt,” he said. “We’re not related.”

  Since Brandy’s train was about five minutes out yet, we sat in the car. “Dad, about your relationship with ‘skip-the-aunt’ Fiona—”

  “Non-relationship!” he snapped.

  I raised a brow. “Yeah, that. Fee was Mom’s best friend. Mom doesn’t mind, Dad. She’s been gone twenty years. She’s cheering you on.”

  “Are you telling me you can see ghosts now, too?” He turned away and stared out the window.

  I donned some armor, figuratively speaking, and raised my warrior’s shield. “No, Dad. I don’t see them, now. I’ve been seeing them since they smiled down at me in my crib.”

  My father whipped his gaze at me.

  And since I had his full attention, I confessed. “I specifically remember telling Mom that Emma and Ronalda played tea party with me.”

  “Madeira? Who are Emma and Ronalda?”

  “A barmaid and chambermaid, circa 1780 or so. They lived and died at our house when it was a coaching inn on the Old Boston Post Road.”

  “Oh, and I suppose they told you that?”

  “No, the style of their clothes did.”

  “Fashion.” He raised his hands. “Of course. And you say you told Mom about seeing them?”

  “Yes and she warned me not to mention them, because nobody but us could see them. It was our secret.” I grinned because I’d damned near just cracked the wall he’d erected when he found out about my mother’s gifts.

  “Mamma was humoring you,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced himself.

  “Dad, to this day, Emma and Ronalda stand in the taproom window and wave when I get home.”

  He opened the car door. “I won’t hear or discuss this nonsense.”

  I got out, as well. “Fine. Listen, you’ve been antsy for days. If it’s not Aunt Fee, is it because Brandy’s coming home?”

  “Of course not! Remarks like that are what make your poor sister think she’s an annoying middle child.” He set his lips in a firm line, the one I knew meant: Some lies must be told.

  I hadn’t become a successful surrogate mother to my siblings at the age of ten without learning to read my father. “Dad, Brandy is your ‘get-caught-in-my-crazies’ child. She has the personality of a thoughtless tornado, upsetting our calm at her whim, tossing us hither and yon, and leaving us bruised in her wake, without a ‘scuse me’ or an ‘if you please.’”

  “She would resent that, if she heard you.”

  “Of course she would, which doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” His lack of denial spoke volumes.

  We made our way to the station-side platform, dad checking his watch, me eyeing the crime scene tape and investigators across the tracks combing the platform shelter and nearby for clues.

  “What’s with the police?” my father asked.

  “You know that intern of mine who’s supposed to be staying with us?”

  “She’ll be coming in with Brandy, right?”

  “No, she won’t be.” My throat closed then, and I couldn’t elaborate. If I had to say it, I’d only say it once, when Brandy got there.

  The northbound train stopped in front of us, and Brandy would be forced to get off on the crime scene side. Still, we stayed near the homey terminal side, in the area radiating history, safety, and welcome.

  When the train cleared the track, we watched its passengers crossing Broadway en masse.

  “Did she get taller, decide to wear dresses, grow a Mohawk?” my father asked. “I don’t see her.”

  “Heck,” I said. “She could have blue hair, for all I know.” My cell phone rang.

  “Talk to me,” I said, having read Brandy’s name on the screen before I opened my phone.

  “Sorry, Sis, I met an old friend I barely remembered from the Peace Corps, and she talked me into getting off in Philadelphia for lunch. I thought I’d catch the next train, but I missed it. Just a blip in my plans, really. I’ll be in around sixish tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “I’m sleeping in a bed tonight. I’ve had it with anything less, and sitting up in a train is way less. Look for me tomorrow, ’kay?”

  Click. My phone went dead.

  Look for her?

  I’d look for her. With a basting gun, I’d look for her.

  Eight

  Fashion is at once both caterpiller and butterfly. Be a caterpiller by day and a butterfly by night.

  —COCO CHANEL

  In the wee hours of the following morning, I sat straight up in my bed, my heart racing like Amtrak’s Acela past a no-stop terminal.

  It took me a minute to identify the sound; not steel wheels on steel track but a persistent and untimely intruder overworking our ancient door knocker, bound and determined to give our iron eagle a concussion.

  I put on my robe and slipped my open cell phone in my pocket, my finger above the two, the speed dial number for Lytton’s private cell phone.

  When I turned on the light in the front stairs, the knocking stopped.

  Dad came out of the gentleman’s parlor as I hit the bottom of the stairs, looking like he’d never gone to bed.

  I checked the grandfather clock in the hall. “Did you just shave?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  I reached up to lift a smudge of shaving cream off his earlobe and showed him the evidence. “I’m honing my sleuthing eye for detail. Plus, it’s three in the morning and you, who should be in your pj’s, reek of Old Spice.”

  Both his earlobes turned bright red. Guilty. But of what?

  “Well,” my father said, slipping his hands in the pockets of his well-worn smoking jacket, “I could say I’m going to school early today.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “I’m waiting for the morning paper?”

  I might once have been the ten-year-old mother fig
ure in this family, but I’d had this dear man, this knight in shining armor, at my back—or should I say his shoulder beneath my cheek. “Lucky for you, your Old Spice still makes the little girl in me want to crawl into your lap so you can make all my problems go away.”

  “A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart,” he said, slipping an arm around me. “Author unknown.”

  “I love you, Dad.” I kissed his cheek and wished I could ease his burdens as effortlessly as he’d once eased mine. I also wished I had time to process the mystery of his middle-of-the-night shave.

  Our neighbors had probably already reported us for disturbing the peace, and I had a vision of cop cars filling our drive. Again.

  I opened the door to a woman I’d never seen before—though her features superimposed themselves on my frightful memory of a corpse—a doppelgänger who about made me jump from my skin: a dead girl, alive again.

  Breathing hard and trembling on my doorstep. A fashionista with a full set—all eleventy-seven pieces—of Louis Vuitton luggage; a clone, scared, embarrassed, hopeful. “Are you the Madeira Cutler? The one who worked for Faline? Brandy said you’d be here.”

  Another reminder of Brandy’s effect on the household at large. “I’m Maddie Cutler. May I ask who you are?”

  “Of course. Well.” The woman seemed lost as she fumbled to explain. “This is the right address. Let me start from the beginning.”

  “I’d be grateful.”

  “Someone stole my purse with my train ticket and paycheck in it—must cave and choose direct deposit. My assets are frozen because somebody tried to clean out my account. So I had to report the break-in to the police, which took forever, then I didn’t have the cash to take a train or the time to get money from relatives, so I borrowed a few dollars and got a ride from a friend . . . or five. Sorry I’m so late.”

  “Late for what?” I asked. Could I still be dreaming? Subconsciously turning back time?

  “Late for the job as your intern, of course. You still want me, don’t you?”

  “That depends. Who are you?”