Death by Diamonds (10 page)

I tried not to patronize her but encouraged the friendly speculation of an elderly neighbor who had always been there for four motherless Cutler kids. I mean nobody went to that many after-school events, from soccer to dorky plays without a great capacity for love or a gun to their heads. “Did you succeed in figuring it out?” I asked.

“I did,” Dolly said. “It was Dominique DeLong’s longtime rival. That rich ingénue biotch, Galina Lockhart, if you’ll excuse my French.”

Ah, Galina, Dom’s rival in every way, according to Kyle. She who had noxious chemistry with Dom’s ex. “And you came to that conclusion how, Dolly dear?”

“I’m a member of Dominique’s fan club, and do you know that Galina dame keeps popping in?”

“Does she now? Where does she pop in?”

“On the computer chat page of the Dominique DeLong Fan Club, of course. Get with the times, cupcake. Join a dating service. Nick is just not getting off the stick.”

Only because his stick is broken just now, I thought. “Dolly, back to Galina.”

“Galina is saying outrageously sweet things about your friend as if she’s lying to preserve Dom’s memory, as if it needs preserving, like Dom deserved what she got.” You know how gossip cats ace innuendo. They make the person they’re saying something great about come out reeking. “Probably because the new star of Diamond Sands wants to smell sweet,” Dolly conjectured incorrectly.

“Galina is not the new star of Diamond Sands. Ursula Uxbridge is.”

“Oh,” Dolly said. “Then why is Galina sniffing around Dominique’s fan club?”

“Galina’s an actress,” I said, “Dom is dead. Ms. Lockhart always wants whatever Dom has, or had, in this case. Could she be angling for you and your friends to change your loyalty to her, bring you into the Galina Lockhart fan club?”

“Oh, that’s too low to be believed,” Dolly snapped.

Personally, I think Dolly called looking for details to share with Dom’s fan club, but I didn’t doubt that Galina—or more likely, her assistant—was nosing around pretending to be Dom’s great and sad friend to cull a few fan club members for herself.

“I still think Galina did it,” Dolly said, a little less certain. Really, you should tell the police. Promise.”

“I’ll tell.” Nick. “Now try to get some sleep.”

Dolly cleared her throat. “When’s the funeral?”

There, that’s what Dolly wanted to know. What a sly boots she was, so sharp for nearly a hundred and four years old.

“I’ll have Eve email you when we get details.” And I would too. Eve could email from her cell phone when we were on our way to the cemetery—since she’d asked about the funeral, not the wake—too late for a slew of fans to show up.

“Thanks and take care of yourself, cupcake.”

“I will, sweetie. You, too.”

“Night.”

I clapped my phone shut and smiled. I’d needed a bit of normal. It was like Dom heard my prayer and sent me a kind heart to sustain me.

My guilt over Dom’s death somewhat eased, I opened the deepest drawer at the bottom of the nightstand, probably on the side near which she slept, because it was closest to the bathroom. And what I saw in there left no doubt in my mind that Dom did, indeed, fear for her life.

I thought of Victor’s words while I sorted through her munitions store. Why didn’t she go to the police as he suggested? I found brass knuckles, a small handgun, loaded, a Barracuda stun gun, which I slipped in my pocket, advanced Taser, mace and pepper sprays, both tinted, and lipstick size, but one “stung wildfire hot.” I also found a fogger and a mini alert alarm.

Every set of instructions was dog-eared; every item that needed a cartridge or batteries had freshly dated ones. Beside them were spares marked with future expiration dates. All in all, Dom’s arsenal spelled panic and the need to be prepared for anything. Little good it had done her. She’d died of anaphylactic shock onstage in front of an audience without a chance to use one of her weapons.

I hadn’t found anything like this at the theater, which made me look for her purse, and I remembered seeing it with the personal possessions that Kyle took home from the morgue today. She’d last carried a Gucci Hysteria bag in pewter, big enough for a small arsenal. When I finished searching her room, I went into her bathroom, where I hung my dress on her door and washed my face. But while I was wiping it dry, I saw in the mirror that a drawer of the rattan lingerie chest had a Hermès scarf hanging from it, the vintage one I’d always lusted after.

I opened the drawer to set the scarf gently inside and found an exotic mauve satin peignoir set, a gorgeous display of 1980s lingerie, trimmed in ivory lace and satin rosebuds designed by Flora Nikrooz. Both pieces were freshly cleaned and tied with a lavender ribbon, a sprig of dried heather tucked in the bow.

From beneath the ribbon, I took a piece of Dom’s stationery to read the note in her handwriting: Mad Dearest, Wear us.

Twenty-two

Judging by the ugly and repugnant things that are sometimes in vogue, it would seem as though fashion were desirous of exhibiting its power by getting us to adopt the most atrocious things for its sake alone.

—GEORG SIMMEL

“What are you playing at, Dominique DeLong?” I called, looking around, as if I might see her ghost. “Are you starring as a puppeteer or casting me in the role of Alice in Wonderland? Because I’m feeling curiouser and curiouser.”

I turned her note over to find a winking happy face.

“Damn. Do you expect this outfit to give me a vision?” God knew I’d already had more visions during this case than in any other of my experience, probably because of my heart connection to the deceased. God also knew how many more there’d be. I eyed the peignoir set and shivered. If Dom knew she was in danger, she’d been playing it for all it was worth and seemed to damn well revel in the game.

No. No one sets themselves up to die, least of all Dom with her joie de vivre, her zest for life. On the other hand, she’d been in show business for years and more than a bit jaded over the entertainment industry. Once a Broadway actress, she’d been knocked down a peg in the eyes of theater society when she accepted the leading role in an off-Broadway production. I couldn’t quite forget the vision I’d had of her in that crazy seventies room telling someone with a Frankenstein voice and wielding a Hula-hoop that it would be foolish for them to steal the diamonds.

I sighed, giving in to the inevitable, undressed, showered, and put on Dom’s peignoir set, ambivalent about the vision it might, or might not, afford me. At this point, I needed to know every detail about Dominique’s murder, whether I wanted to or not. I had no sooner moved the Taser from my dress to the peignoir set pocket when a lethargic dizziness came over me, making my limbs feel heavy and not my own, the kind of warning that often presages a lengthy vision.

I hadn’t made it to the bed when my cell phone rang. I worked to fight the vision sucking me under as I answered, sounding a bit tipsy, even to my own ears.

“Go back to Connecticut or end up like your friend,” my caller said through a voice modulator that made the speaker sound like some kind of robot werewolf. I might be drunk on psychic energy, but I was smart enough to fear the threat more than the fake voice.

I hung up the phone in panic and turned so fast, I smacked my head against the open closet door and heard my phone hit the floor.

Not even the caller would expect me to get out of Dodge until tomorrow, so I didn’t think the threat was immediate. Just as well because I needed badly to lie down. Scrap it, I wished I was thinking more clearly.

I set a knee on the bed, my racing heart beginning to calm when my doorknob began to turn.

In danger of zoning into the vision seducing me, it occurred to me that the call might have been made from inside the house.

Unable to defend myself against a kitten, much less a killer, I slipped the Taser from my pocket and made my clumsy way to the door, needing to grab whatever I could to hold me up along the way.

I intended to lock the door, but it opened too fast, so I zapped the intruder—possibly the caller—with a knee-jerk move so swift and forceful, I surprised even me. The twitching body hit the floor like a tree trunk, spasmed a couple more times, and stopped moving entirely. Out cold, or dead.

The possibility snapped me back from the edge like a faceful of ice water. I switched on the light. “Werner?”

I got down beside him and tapped his face. Failing to rouse him, I pried open an eyelid. “Are you in there? Please be alive.”

He groaned but didn’t wake. Whew.

I considered running but the vision in the peignoir set was still pulling me in, playing on my need to solve Dom’s murder.

I got Werner on Dom’s bed, though doing it sapped my fight against the black hole sucking me in.

He half helped as I got his torso, then finally both feet up there and I felt bad when I saw the bloody gash on his brow. He’d smacked his head on the floor, hard. Now I couldn’t fight the vision long enough to walk around the bed, so I crawled over him. His moan reassured me as I dizzied my way into a different time and place, me sitting in this very room, in Dom’s boudoir chair, the seafoam gown she’d sent me now in my lap, or in Dom’s lap, actually.

She was wielding a pair of jewelry pliers to pry the pricey cubic zirconias from their settings, while deep inside myself, a fashion designer cringed.

Dom had taken on a tedious process. While I destroyed the gown, I noticed the empty bed with a different spread, blue curtains, and navy watered silk throw pillows. The lampshades now matched the pillows.

I worked quickly, almost in a panic, determined to get the gems from their settings, but why? All I knew was that my heart beat fast while I did, and my gaze kept straying to the door.

Then I saw the box of rhinestones beside me—rhinestones?—and wished I could ask questions. Like, why would I cheapen the dress? But I was alone. Scary alone, threatening shadows closing in on me.

No one from whom to seek help, no one to explain my task. Just “click, snap, click, snap.”

In Dom’s place, I was ruining the gown I had created.

Then the room tilted in jerky, uncoordinated movements, and the vision changed again. I found myself in Dom’s bed with a man. A great kisser. A wide-shouldered armful with an enviable amount of passion, hands everywhere, big hands, knowledgeable hungry lips, and an uber-talented tongue.

I wasn’t sure if I was kissing one of Dom’s lovers, or Ian, her ex-husband—ugh. Please don’t let it be Ian.

I wanted to open my eyes, but they felt glued shut, as could only happen in dreams. No matter, I felt it best not to know the name of my dream-state lover. Unfortunately turned on, I found it impossible not to return his enthusiasm, all our body parts meeting, dangerously well, ebbing and flowing, a coming together filled with depth and sizzle.

The phantom in my bed cupped my cheeks, held my face in place, made a meal of me, and whispered my name.

My name. Madeira. Not Dom or Dominique.

I woke, pulling from the kiss expecting to look straight into Nick’s eyes. Instead, I was looking into . . . Werner’s?

I jumped from the bed as the door opened.

Eve stood for a minute like a doe in headlights, then she barked a laugh and added insult to injury by applauding. “Sinsational!” she snapped, her grin wide. “Can I tell Nick? Please, can I tell him? Can I, huh?”

“Has the world gone mad?” I asked, finding my bruise the hard way, by smacking it with the palm of my hand. “Ouch!”

“Madeira Cutler, you wicked girl.” My erstwhile friend chuckled. “I’ve never been prouder.”

Werner had never actually awakened. And I didn’t know which made me wince more, the demented porker noises he was making or Eve’s satisfaction in them.

“Do you mind?” I asked her as I sat on my side of the bed to clear my head.

“Not at all,” Eve said, closing the door and coming closer to me, her grin making me want to erase it in a satisfying way.

Hands on her hips as she took in the sight of us, Eve shook her head. “Did you guys smoke a joint or something?”

“No, but I did have crazy dreams, that I’m now afraid might have been real, about zapping Tasers and a man shot down in his prime.”

“Why do you have dry blood on your head? And Werner, too?” she asked. “You into something kinky? I was gonna ask if you were decent when I came in, but now I know the answer. You’re engagingly and interestingly indecent, given that honeymoon-type negligee you’re wearing.”

“Stuff it Meyers.”

“Too bad Sir Galahad is boringly, respectably dressed beneath that blanket. Sheesh, what a downer. Way to burst a girl’s bubble. There go all my fiendish hopes and dreams.”

Eve rescued my cell phone from the floor. “What’s Nick’s speed-dial number?”

Twenty-three

Fashion is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as sex, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.

—RENÉ KÖNIG

Werner looked stoned as he woke with a snort and sat up like his hair was on fire. He also looked like he’d been beaten and left for dead.

Then there was his reaction to finding me in his bed. It was a mix of gladness, shock, and embarrassment.

Wooly knobby knits, were that man’s pupils dilated or what? I might as well be a two-headed sasquatch the way he was looking at me.

His suit of gray pinstripes, now a wrinkled shambles, gave him the look of a homeless off-duty detective. Given the confusion written on his bloody brow, his brain appeared to be working in the way his suit fit, both him and it, off the rack, barely on a hanger, aka hanging by a thread.

The way he regarded Eve and I, he didn’t know his own name, never mind ours.

“What I wouldn’t give to have planted a camera in this room last night,” Eve said, laughing like she’d been chasing a rainbow and caught it. “Seriously, where’s the fed? Did you trade him in, finally? Thank God.”

“Can it,” Werner and I said, both with a wince because of our bruises. He scrubbed his face with both hands, sighed, and looked at me. “Please tell me that we did not sleep together.”

“We did not sleep together,” I said, trying to convince myself while examining the robe of the peignoir set. Two diaphanous layers did not a covering make. Afraid to grab a wrap or coat from Dom’s closet, lest I be given an unwanted vision, I chose a crocheted throw, made of roses in pinks and greens, from the foot of the bed and used it as a shawl. There, now I felt more in charge.