Death by Diamonds (2 page)

“Right. They disappeared sometime between Dominique’s death and her arrival at the hospital. She was DOA.”

That fast, I pulled my hands from the vicinity of the dress box, because this was no time to slip and touch its potentially brain-frying contents. A dress with a potential story to tell. Diamonds, a good motive for . . . No, I wouldn’t speak it, because saying the word “murder”

made it more likely to be true.

Why the note? Why to me? “When did she die?” I asked.

Eve looked up from the paper. “She collapsed during one of those late night performances they have off-Broadway, the ten o’clock show. There seems to be a time issue that isn’t clear, here, but time of death is estimated at approximately midnight.”

I lost my breath and my heart pounded as if chasing after it. Winded for no reason, I looked at the dress box, reread the note that Dom implied she hadn’t mailed, and I considered the unrealistically short span between her estimated time of death in New York City and the arrival of the Wings delivery truck in Mystic, Connecticut.

Dominique’s note swam before my eyes.

Could someone have overnighted it before she died? Someone who knew she would die that night?

We’d had dinner together in New York a few weeks ago. She shared some dirt about her ex-husband, a member of the hangers-on, the entourage she bitingly called “the Parasites.”

I’d told her that night, in strictest confidence, about my weird ability to read certain vintage clothing items, angling for a sleepover and a chance to read the original Chanel dress that once belonged to Coco herself.

Don’t judge me. Who wouldn’t want a glimpse into that world? Though there was no guarantee I’d see a thing.

Rather than show the excitement I expected, she’d given a half nod and said maybe I’d get a chance one of these days—not we’d get a chance. Then she asked if I wanted dessert and suggested cheesecake, “cholesterol be damned,” she said like someone had taken control over the type-A, size-four health nut.

Again, I read her note, those final words echoing in her world-class smoky voice. “Use your talents wisely.”

My talents.

Wooly knobby knits. She so did not mean dress design.

Four

Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means . . . airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash.

—CECIL BEATON

Eve’s brows furrowed. “Hey, how did you know Dominique was dead when I was the one reading the newspaper?”

I handed Eve Dom’s note, wondering who could have sent the dress and how Dom could have anticipated their move?

Unless the box was already packed and addressed to me.

But why would it be, if Dominique wanted to hand me the dress herself? Though she and her money did have a huge and magnificent ability to motivate the Parasites, which may be how Dom knew I’d get the dress one way or another.

I knew Kyle, Dom’s son, who she did not consider a member of the Parasites, and he pretty much distrusted all of them, including his father.

I was mostly a trusting person, and Dom’s opinion of them could have influenced mine, but if the rest were like Ian DeLong, Dom’s ex and Kyle’s father, her description of the Parasites were correct, the lot of them were like stick-figure piggy banks with neon signs on their Botoxed foreheads that flashed “feed me” whenever they looked Dom’s way. Money, always a good motive for . . . anything shady.

Still I could not believe that Dominique DeLong had been murdered. Nevertheless, I took the Wings packaging from the trash, in the event cause of death turned out to be suspicious, in which case, a handwriting analysis of the label might be in order. I was thinking more like a sleuth every day. Nick, my FBI boy toy would be proud. My nemesis, Mystick Falls’s Detective Sergeant Lytton Werner would be horrified. When Eve finished reading Dom’s note, more than once, apparently, her head came up, her face a mask of confusion. “Huh?”

“Exactly.”

“Did you tell Dominique that you could read vintage clothes?”

“Afraid so, a few weeks ago, but she promised me she’d take the knowledge to the grave.”

Eve’s eyes widened. “Mad, wake up and smell the crazy.”

I caught Eve’s panic but I refused to buy into it. “Oh, for the love of Gucci, you’re talking coincidence, here.”

“I’m not talking anything. You’re reading my mind or you’re thinking the same thing I am. Take it to her grave? Talk about a quick turnaround.”

“There’s only one way to prove you wrong,” I said.

“What?” Eve asked, suddenly wary. “You’re not going to try on the gown to find out what it knows?” Eve shot to her feet, combat boots prepared for flight. “Because if you are, I’m outta here.”

“You don’t get it, Goth Girl.”

She calmed and unzipped her jacket. “Notice the ruffles? I’m trying to go for the steampunk look, thank you very much.”

I slapped a hand to my heart. “I could get into dressing you in steampunk. But you need to dress less like a fighter pilot and more like a Victorian lady. Steampunk’s not conservative. The corset’s a good start but I’m talking frills, lace, leather, metal, gears.”

“All black,” Eve said.

“Of course, black, except for the metallic colors.” I sighed. Eve didn’t know it, but if I ever got married, I planned to make my bridesmaids wear red. A true test of friendship for my black-wearing brainiac BFF with a stubborn streak. My internal smile did me good, under the sad, creepazoid circumstances.

“So if reading Dominique’s dress is not what you planned,” Eve said bringing me back to the present with a jolt, “what are you going to do to find out what happened to her?”

“Snoop. We’re going to snoop.”

“We? Where exactly is my name written on your insanity plea?”

Five

Fashion is like the ashes left behind by the uniquely shaped flames of the fire, the trace alone revealing that a fire actually took place.

—PAUL DE MAN

I’d scared Eve more than once when working on a vintage outfit in her presence, because when there was a message to be seen, I often zoned out to read it. With a particularly informative piece of vintage clothing, I could go a bit zombie-like. Evidently, I could also speak . . . in someone else’s voice.

One of those times, watching and hearing me, Eve had nearly passed out. Eve, the strong. Snooping sometimes got a bit dicey, too. Like when we confronted a killer and Eve had to knock him out to get his hands from around my throat.

Yes, I understood her reluctance, but I wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “Put on your big-girl knickers, Meyers,” I said. “No need to go all girly-girl and faint. The first thing I’m going to do with Dom’s dress is take it to the climate-controlled safe room in Nick’s basement.”

“Whew!” Eve wiped her brow for show as she sat down again. But she furrowed the same as she crossed her legs. “Why take it to Nick’s? Why not to your house?”

“Because Nick’s new house came with a panic room that I’m using as a temporary cold storage unit until I can afford to have part of my upstairs storage room, here, turned into one. And because my father’s house is old, damp, and some of our ghostly residents have a habit of leaving doors open.”

“Guess they didn’t have climate control in George Washington’s day,” Eve said, speaking of my father’s house, an old tavern moved from the older Boston Post Road. It had the documented distinction of once hosting the father of our country, and Thomas Jefferson, as well, at different times, of course.

Eve checked the spikes in her badass black hair to make sure they’d still draw blood. “I would have bet that not a single house in Mystick Falls had a safe room,” she said.

“Well, one does, a pricey unit at that, as primo as the house. My vintage furs are already there.”

“I suppose that half your clothes are also at Nick’s new place.” Eve raised a winged brow, her full mahogany-glossed mouth pursed in disapproval.

“You don’t want to make that bet, Meyers.” I often juggled the grudging relationship between my on-again /off-again studly Italian FBI agent, Nick Jaconetti, and Eve, who’d been my best friend since kindergarten. Nick and I only went back to junior high. High school really.

“Can you keep an eye on the shop while I go lock this up?” I asked, changing back into my snow boots, then slipping into my black Sonia Rykiel coat with capelet collar. I slid the box with Dominique’s gown into a canvas bag that advertised Vintage Magic with a tasteful arrangement of primo pumps and purses.

Eve checked her watch. “Sure, I’m not teaching a class today.”

With the gown burning a stress ulcer in my gut like the lit end of one of Coco Chanel’s own ciggy butts, I made it halfway to the door before Detective Sergeant Lytton Werner walked in. “Miss Cutler, Miss Meyers,” he said, tipping his nonexistent hat. This was not the man that Eve and I got drunk with on Dos Equis with Mexican takeout some months ago. Lytton Werner had crawled so far back into his hard outer shell—as far as we were concerned—he was likely to crack his tailbone bending over backward to be polite. Chakra deserted Eve to pounce into Werner’s arms and give him a little head-rubbing snuggle against his neck.

I could tell that Werner was as delighted as surprised by the show of trust and affection from Traitor Cat. “Hey there, little one,” he said, giving Chakra his full attention, which, of course, made it so much easier for him to ignore me and Eve.

Lytton Werner—I’ll always be sorry that I called him Little Wiener when we were in third grade—shouted it, actually, in a cafeteria full of students. Frankly, I didn’t know what I was calling the bully. A naming-rhyme payback had been my simple intent. What third grader knows she’s maligning someone’s manhood before he’s reached it?

Who knew the name “Little Wiener” would stick like frickin’ forever, a glue bonding and solidifying the animosity between us . . . except when we stepped into the shadowlands of heightened awareness during our infrequent investigations.

Werner cleared his throat as if he could see inside my brain while I shivered and pulled myself from the limb-prickling trance brought on by our locked gazes. Eve, too, cleared her throat, but her, I could ignore.

“To what do we owe the pleasure, Detective?” I asked, my voice an octave too high. Werner’s eyebrow twitched as if he matched my fake pleasure and raised it. He cleared his throat. “An abandoned Wings truck was found in the nearest Wings warehouse parking lot a short time ago,” he said.

My heart began to race but I hoped I hid it well. “And that’s of interest to me, because?”

“It’s registered in New York. It’s empty. Key in the ignition. Wiped suspiciously clean of fingerprints. No cargo. Nothing inside, except this.” He handed me a piece of paper.

“Oh,” I said. “An internet map starting in New York City and heading straight to my shop.”

A map. A tucking map leading Werner here.

Werner rocked on his heels. “We found a miniscule corner of that map sticking up from beneath the floor mat beneath which it was hidden. Your name and the name of your shop are written, as you see, Unabomberstyle, at the top.”

I shrugged as if I couldn’t care less. “We did get a seven A.M. delivery from Wings.” There was no need to share my concerns with him. Even if Dominique’s death turned out to be suspicious—which to me it already was—the nefarious deed took place in New York City and not in Lytton’s jurisdiction: Mystic and Mystick Falls, Connecticut.

“Damn,” Eve said. “I guess my date with that driver is off.”

Werner’s accusatory gaze snapped from me to Eve. “You saw the driver?”

Eve and I both nodded.

Lytton put Chakra on the counter as he pulled his notebook from the pocket of his tan detective-style trench coat, his investigative antennae quivering. “Hair color?” he asked. Eve stood. “Er.”

“Um.” I described his facial cover-up. “So we didn’t see his hair.”

Werner growled deep in his chest.

Unfortunately, Eve was able to describe the rest of the courier’s body in unnecessary detail,

“squeezable tush and sculpted lips” included.

“Any identifying marks?”

“He wore gloves,” Eve said.

I snapped my fingers. “Emporio Armani, logo labeled. Men’s dark brown, napa leather.”

Six

Design must seduce, shape, and perhaps more importantly, evoke an emotional response.

—APRIL GREIMAN

Eve and Lytton stared at me like I had two heads, neither a designer original.

“So I know clothes and designers,” I said in self-defense. “So shoot me, but we can trace those gloves back to the retailer.”

Eve turned to Werner. “Maddie just made me remember something. The guy had a dragonfly tat at the edge of the glove on his right lower arm. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t nearly dragged the glove off, trying to pull him closer.”

“Why so interested in an abandoned truck?” I asked Werner.

“APB.” Werner replied without looking up from his note taking. “It was stolen last night around midnight in New York City.”

Oops.

His head came up as he examined my expression. Did he hear me cringe inwardly? “The ambulance that took that movie star to the hospital had also been stolen.”

My heart skipped a beat, but I didn’t let it show. “Lots of vehicles are stolen every night in New York City, Detective. What’s the connection?”

“There isn’t one that the FBI can find.”

“The Feds are in on this?”

“Stolen diamonds are known to fund terrorist activities, so yes, there’s an FBI investigation. Not to mention that Pierce Pierpont, current scion and head of the Pierpont Diamond Mines, has political clout, and he, of course, wants his diamonds found.

“But a stolen ambulance that carried a famous movie actress, who died under mysterious circumstances, is certainly cause for speculation.”

Mysterious circumstances. Baste it, I knew it.

“Also, the lengthy time lapse between the ambulance’s departure from the theater and the time it was found bearing Dominique DeLong’s body, siren blasting, at the hospital’s emergency room entrance, missing its driver, allowed for more than enough time for a diamond robbery to take place.”