“Bit of a slut, eh?” Kyle watched the entourage disappear into the hotel lobby and turned to Sky. “You look more the heiress than she does, darling.” He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his tux jacket. “Oh, that’s right. You are an heiress. That coat is spectacular, by the way. Goes on forever.”
“A nine foot sweep of Balenciaga Barguzin.” Sky parroted Francois’s description. “Russian sable. Pure, unadulterated luxury.” She flipped the coat collar up and fastened the locking clip at her neck. “Imperial. The fur of czars. Is there a heating vent in this car? My toes are freezing.”
“Poor trust fund baby.” Kyle jiggled a black knob on the dashboard. “Funny how I always seem to forget that fact.”
He reached over and stroked the silvery guard hairs on the arm of the sable with the lightest of touches. “You just don’t fit the profile, darling. What with your teaching, your homicide work. Your rats.” He lit a Marlboro. “Where are all the fabulous parties? The jet-setting? The vacation home in St. Moritz?” He gestured toward the pink Bentley. “You’re sleeping on your office sofa when you could be living the lush life of Barbie?”
“I don’t care about all that.”
“I know you don’t, darling.” Kyle flashed his gap-toothed grin. “It may be the sexiest thing about you.” He stared at Sky over his wire-rims. “Nice do on the hair, incidentally. Your neck is delicious.”
An unusual pitch in the detective’s voice made Sky wary. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Who? Me? I’m a married man.” Kyle cleared his throat. “But you can’t blame me for looking, love. Frankly, you’ve made it impossible not to look. Isn’t that the point?”
“Granted. But remember. You are a prop. Disappear into the crowd when I give you the signal.”
She unzipped a pocket in the fur’s satin lining and pulled out Izzy’s windflower-shaped evening bag. The tiny purse carried some heft because it was beaded with pink Austrian crystals and crammed full of the evening’s necessities: charity invitation, Izzy’s check, cash, cell phone, compact of Dior pressed powder, gold tube of Yves Saint Laurent Fetish Pink lipstick, a copy of Nicolette’s tattoo, a picture of Porter Manville, and the wad of tainted rat data.
Sky added a fresh glaze of pink to her lips and fought a gnawing uneasiness. Could she pull this off? Be charming and flirtatious? It had seemed a reasonable enough approach while she was sitting in Francois’s salon chair with the rat data. Here, in the police car with Kyle, she felt anxious. Afraid.
She reached into the back seat and pulled the prescription bottle of beta blockers from her yellow gym bag.
“What are those?” Kyle said.
“For my nerves.” Sky twisted the lid open but the bottle was empty. “What if I can’t get this guy’s attention?” She offered the detective a weak smile. She was embarrassed.
“Since when do you have nerves? You’re the girl who nailed Benny Gentile. Remember? Single-handedly. In a room full of cops.”
“That was different. Benny went for Moody’s gun. I reacted, that’s all.” Benny’s ghost sometimes haunted Sky’s dreams. Benny never spoke, he just looked at her with sad, brown eyes. “You know I don’t like to talk about Benny.”
Kyle frowned. “Darling, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
In her head she was struggling to keep the fear at bay. Maybe she wasn’t Manville’s type. What if the CEO wasn’t at the Diamond Ball at all? The whole day would be a waste of time. There were so many things she needed to do.
Sky blotted her lips on a tissue and tried to keep her hands from shaking. “Kyle, remember those graphs I took from the professor’s lab wall?”
The detective nodded. “A tale of two rat groups. How could I forget?"
"Do you remember the experiment?"
"Floetazine worked for the nervous rats, but it made the teddy-bears even more depressed.”
“Exactly,” Sky said. She told him about the phony data in the lab book. “Nicolette added twenty seconds to each Sprague-Dawley’s swim time.”
“So what?”
“She changed the data, Kyle.”
The detective took a thoughtful hit from his Marlboro. “Does the professor know about this?
“You’re the only person I’ve told. I didn’t get a chance to look at the numbers until I got to Francois’s.”
Kyle blew three fat smoke rings at the windshield. “Maybe the professor orchestrated it.”
Sky shook her head. “Doubtful. Professor Fisk said his raw data was sacred.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Kyle rolled his eyes. “Mr. Sexual Harassment put his hand on that lab book like it was the goddamned bible. What’s with you rat people, anyway?”
“Nicolette hid the real data in her apartment,” Sky said. “Why would she do that?”
“Who knows?” Kyle shrugged. “Who cares? To be honest, darling, I’m more interested in your old boyfriend. I’m thinking court order. Go through Templeton’s Charlestown condo with a fine-toothed comb. See what shakes out. Jake likes the idea.”
Sky recalled the shock in Ellery’s blue eyes at the news of Nicolette’s death. Jake and Kyle seemed so hungry to hang the murder on him, and why not? Ellery Templeton, recently jilted boyfriend, no alibi. Motive and opportunity. A sudden, urgent need to find Manville gripped her.
“Please, Kyle, one favor?” She leaned over and pulled a bit of tissue from the detective’s chin where he must have cut himself shaving. “Do not spook my CEO with your law enforcement vibe.”
“And if the subject of my employment should arise?” Kyle patted his tux jacket over the holstered and hidden baby Glock.
“No need to lie,” Sky reasoned. “Say something vague about working in the public sector.”
“Ah. Here’s the valet, love. And just in time.”
Kyle stepped out of the Crown Vic and circled to Sky’s side of the car while a man in a full-length great coat and chauffer’s cap opened her door. Kyle handed the valet a fifty dollar bill.
“Doctor,” he offered Sky his arm. “This public sector prop hears a very dry martini calling his name. And I hope to God it’s shaken, not stirred.”
Sky stepped out of the Crown Vic, hooked her arm through Kyle’s, and together they walked into the Four Seasons amid an explosion of paparazzi camera lights.
“Skylar! You are here for the Diamond Ball, of course.” An elegant older man with silver hair and a heavy German accent appeared at Sky’s elbow the instant she and Kyle stepped into the hotel. He gestured toward the east end of the lobby. “The grand ballroom, my dear. Second floor, you remember the way.” He winked at Sky and slipped a card into her hand. “My private line,” he said in a quiet voice. “Anything you need. Anything at all.”
“A dry martini for my escort?” she said. “Shaken, not stirred?”
A discreet nod of the silver head and he was gone.
Kyle gave Sky a look.
“It’s exactly five minutes from the front steps of my grandmother’s house to this hotel lobby. If you run through Boston Garden.” Sky pointed in the direction of Izzy’s mansion. “I’ve timed it. She sent me here whenever she was having one of her sick headaches. I’d make a game out of trying to outrun the help.”
“The help?”
“Izzy never let me come alone. Always insisted on sending one of the servants. As a teenager, it was a real pain in the ass.” Sky looked around the bustling reception area. A chic Latina in patent leather boots stood next to the lobby’s massive display of lavender orchids and fussed with a mountain of Louis Vuitton luggage while her tanned companion argued at full volume with a polite desk clerk, something about a mix-up in reservations.
Sky unhooked the collar of the Barguzun. “I have to admit, it still feels a little like home.”
“Who’s the German dude?”
“Klaus, the hotel manager. He’s from Munich.” Sky pointed to a door located behind the front desk. “He let me watch TV in his office when I was a kid. I think he fe
lt sorry for me.”
A waiter appeared with a silver tray bearing a single martini.
“Fortification!” Kyle snatched the drink. “I could grow to love this lifestyle.” He fished the olive out with thumb and forefinger and drained his glass in a single gulp. “I’ll divorce my wife. You and I shall marry.” He popped the olive in his mouth and chewed vigorously. “She’s not my type, anyway.”
“Your wife is a needy, neurotic shrew.”
“You’re right.” Kyle sighed. “She’s exactly my type.”
Sky checked the lobby clock. “According to the charity invitation, the reception is already over. Let’s find Manville.”
“First things first, love. Climb out of that coat.” Kyle tossed the empty martini glass to a surprised waiter and helped Sky off with the sable. “Present the goods, so to speak.”
Sky watched the detective’s reaction as she slipped her bare arms out of the fur. He hadn’t seen her in the dress, until now.
“Wow.” Kyle’s eyes took in the sapphire and diamond necklace, the décolletage, the couturier’s white gown. “That, darling, is a rather astounding ensemble. I didn’t realize such a skinny thing could have so many … curves.” His gaze lingered on her breasts.
“It’s the eighteen-bone corsetry system,” Sky pointed to her ribs. “It pushes everything up. Like a miracle bra.”
Other heads turned her way and stared.
“You can thank Cristóbal Balenciaga.” Sky gave credit where credit was due.
Kyle, noting the attention Sky was attracting from strangers, said, “Balenciaga had nothing to do with that face. Or that body.” He jutted his jaw and scowled.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re hot, darling. Too hot.” He heaved the Barguzin over his left shoulder and steered Sky across the black marble floor. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
Two tuxedoed figures in tusked boar’s head masks passed them carrying a suckling pig on a stretcher with long poles on either side. A third tuxedo in a harlequin mask followed, lugging a large pie with gaping fish heads poking up through the crusted perimeter.
“Darling?”
Sky’s eyes followed the stretcher. Skinned, roasted, and wearing a garland of borage and fennel, the pig rested on a bed of evergreen boughs with a ruby apple shoved in it’s maw.
“The invitation says Carnivale,” Sky said.
CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE
The Four Seasons was a lovely place to be when it was snowing in Boston.
“Wait.” Sky stopped Kyle on their climb up the grand staircase and pulled him over to the landing’s massive window. Side by side they stood, looking toward the Public Garden at the blowing, falling, swirling snow.
“The rich really do get the best views, don’t they, darling?”
Sky nodded. But the snow and brick and wrought iron couldn’t keep away thoughts of Nicolette Mercer’s dead body. Face swollen, lower back mutilated, somewhere in the basement of Newton-Wellesley’s morgue on a cold slab.
“Refresh your memory.” Sky tugged the web picture of Porter Manville from her beaded bag.
Kyle studied the shot. “Frankenstein in Brooks Brothers.”
“This doesn’t really capture him.” Sky smiled at the reference to Manville’s prominent brow. “In person, he’s actually quite striking.”
“And how would you know that?”
Sky shrugged. “Must have read it somewhere.” It was still too early to tell the detective about hiding in the lab supply room. Or about seeing Manville with a hunting knife in his hand. That particular piece of information would make Kyle want to hover – and Sky wanted Manville to herself.
They continued up the carpeted staircase, with its fleur-de-lis design, to the second floor. Tables draped in red and gold circus bunting banked either side of the hallway that led to the grand ballroom. At each table, dowagers in evening wear cheerfully checked lists and consulted file boxes.
“Looks like the League of Women Voters during election day at Lincoln-Eliot,” Kyle whispered. “I’m desperate for another see-through, darling.”
“Show some respect,” Sky chided him. “You’re witnessing the last remnants of a generation of socialites.”
The end table held a large white placard with the letters W-Z. Sky presented her invitation to a striking matron with chin-length salt and pepper hair.
“Skylar, I hardly recognized you.” Agnes Pickman’s deep eyes narrowed at the sight of the sapphire and diamond necklace but her smile never wavered. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you at one of our functions, dear. How lovely of you to come. And wearing your grandmother’s loveliest Balenciaga.” The old woman delivered her lines with a practiced charm and rose to offer Sky an obligatory peck. “There aren’t many of us left, you know. You girls must carry on the good work.”
Sky kissed the rouged cheek and made introductions.
“Tuffy went into the club archives.” Agnes wrinkled her brow in concern. “This year’s ball has the very theme your grandmother used fifty years ago.”
“Carnivale was Izzy’s idea?”
Agnes nodded. “I was hoping for a Black and White. So crisp and smart. But no, Carnivale won out. Tuffy brought in some company I’ve never heard of, she found them on the internet. Gypsies from Montreal.” Agnes flared her nostrils with distaste. “Frankly, I find them … well, unsavory. But Tuffy would not be dissuaded. And the price was right. This recession is taking a fearsome toll.”
Agnes handed Sky a ruby-colored patent leather tote bag with a debossed Diamond Ball logo. “Here is your packet, dear. Funny money and so forth. We’re having a silent auction this year. Your grandmother’s contribution is lovely. Her butler delivered the set this afternoon.”
A woman in a blue Venetian half-mask burst through the ballroom doorway holding up the voluminous skirts of a gold damask gown. She darted past the registration tables to the stairway. A tuxedoed man wearing a red leather mask gave chase, spilling his drink as he ran.
“A masked ball?” Sky watched the couple fly down the hotel steps with growing apprehension. This would complicate things.
“Voluntary, of course.” Agnes arched her thin, penciled eyebrows. “The costuming room is there, with coat-check, should you be so inclined.” She pointed out a door adjacent to the ballroom and shook her head in disapproval. “What’s the point of a party, if not to see and be seen?”
“To raise money for the poor?” Sky suggested.
Agnes appeared not to hear. “Masks are so anonymous,” she muttered. “You’re never quite sure who you’re dealing with. And your grandmother’s event was such a disaster.”
“Why? What happened at Izzy’s ball?” The words were barely out of Sky’s mouth when Kyle yanked her away from the table.
“Are we going to stand here yakking all night?” Kyle steered Sky toward the ballroom entrance. “Time to dump this animal.” He handed the Barguzin to a coat-check attendant sporting a devil mask; the man’s wispy goatee and small black horns protruding from the low forehead seemed crudely authentic. The attendant ran a slow, appreciative hand over the sable before draping it on a wooden hanger. He thrust a numbered stub at Sky.
“Masca?” He gestured toward an impressive collection of masks. Dozens hung on the wall, others were heaped in tangled piles on the coat-check table. A few reminded Sky of tsantsa, shrunken heads she’d seen in her mother’s research monographs, creepy wizened creatures with straggly black hair and swollen lips. Other masks were quite beautiful, smooth and delicate as eggshell. The devil plucked two from the wall and wordlessly held them up for approval.
The male mask was Michelangelo’s face of David, rendered in three-dimensional gold leaf, with sensuous lips and breathing holes in the perfectly sculpted nose. The female half-mask was satiny white, decorated with the pattern of an intricate silver swan and studded with Austrian crystals.
Both masks were enchanting.
Kyle bartered briefly with the devil over the price of the M
ichelangelo, agreeing to an even two hundred dollars. Sky reached for the swan but Kyle blocked her hand.
“No way,” he said, slipping the gold mask over his head. He hustled Sky through the ballroom entrance. “Sorry, darling. Tonight, your face is our fortune.”
Sky had been inside the Four Season’s grand ballroom many times, mostly as a child. Clowns and games of hide and seek at birthday parties, Izzy and Whip’s fiftieth anniversary – Izzy’d called it her Jubilee – ‘Sky, you will sit next to me,’ Izzy had said. ‘Give the men something to look at.’ Swathed in satin and brocade, the ballroom had served up her grandmother’s Jubilee with Wedgwood china, Reed and Barton silver, de Montbronn crystal.
Sky hardly recognized the place, now. But the room did have Izzy’s wicked sense of humor written all over it. No wonder Agnes was so unhappy.
The Romanians had transformed the elegant golden space into a dusty cacophony of medieval street performers and carney barkers. Odors of fried fish and Frankincense mingled with exotic perfume. Above the clamor of the crowd rose the plaintive voice of a melancholy violin. Most of the guests were masked, but masks also hung from every post, every wall, every wagon. Part demon and part human, they stared out over the ballroom like disembodied spirits of the dead.
“The ancient lure of the flame,” Kyle nodded toward the dance floor, where the Romanians had managed to stage an artificial but convincing bonfire. Dancers circled the blaze, a jumble of shadow and color.
Sky studied a nearby caravan painted with the garish likeness of a gypsy woman peering into a crystal ball; above the purple-scarved head, in faded circus script, ran the phrase MADAME TATIANA KNOWS ALL TELLS ALL. A queue of masked revelers circled the wagon, chattering and sipping drinks as they waited their turns for a reading. A tall man with long legs and a boyish haircut broke from the line and headed toward them with a loping step. His mask was mottled and purple, with a hooked, beak-like nose that reached nearly a foot from his face.
“Your first victim approaches, darling. I’ll forage for drinks.” Kyle headed for the bar across the room.
The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) Page 17