Dior or Die (Joanna Hayworth Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 2) (33 page)

Joanna tried to kick Helena but lost her balance. Helena slammed the Rock-O-Plane's caged door and thrust a screwdriver into its latch. Joanna was trapped. She screamed and banged at the cage.
 

"Shut up," she yelled at Joanna. "I'll deal with you later."

Leo pushed Helena and turned to run, but Helena grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him into the mud. She pressed her gun against his throat. Joanna screamed again. Muzzle still trained on Leo, Helena reached up and flipped a switch on the Rock-O-Plane's control panel.
 

"No. Not in this rain. It's not grounded right now. I'm not finished—" Leo shouted above the storm.
 

The ride's giant engine began to groan, setting off the bells and organ notes of carnival music. Locked in the cage, Joanna was heaved up and around. On one side loomed the dreary shapes of downtown Portland. On the other, the Willamette River, swollen muddy brown, flowed slowly. The landscape wobbled faster than the ride, and Joanna took a deep breath to keep from vomiting. Her skull throbbed.
 

She pushed her fingers at the cage's mesh covering. She had to loosen the screwdriver, had to get out of there. The mesh was too small. She dug her fingertips into it and rattled with her full body's weight. The screwdriver refused to budge.

Below, Helena pulled the lever further. The Rock-O-Plane's speed increased and Joanna's cage began to spin. She shivered uncontrollably. Her head whirled. When the ride's giant wheel rotated Joanna toward the ground, Helena and Leo's yelling reached her ears, but she couldn't make out their words over the grotesque carnival music. She pounded on the cage again. The gray metal of Helena's gun shone dull. Her car passed them and rose again.

Grab the central bar, Joanna thought. Stop this car from rotating, at least. She clutched the rain-slicked bar in the cage, her grip firm but still hands still trembling. Breathe slowly. She remembered the bent bobby pin Paul had used to get them out of a locked bathroom on a boat. She pulled one from her hair and vowed always to wear bobby pins. Her fingers trembled as she maneuvered it.
Yes.
Now if she could just get it to dislodge the screwdriver.
 

A gunshot exploded, and Joanna loosened her grip on the bar. The cage began to rock. "No," she cried out. She grasped the bar again and held tight, the bobby pin still in her hand. As the car lowered, she saw Leo's pale form limp in the mud. Blood flowed from his throat.
 

Helena wasn't looking at him, though. She had fixed her wild-eyed gaze on Joanna. She raised the gun to Joanna's cage. Joanna shoved the bobby pin through the mesh and nudged the screwdriver. Just a few inches would do it. The screwdriver edged up a fraction of an inch. She let the bar slip, and the cage spun with the rising wheel of the Rock-O-Plane.
Please let someone see me.
 

A bullet tore through Joanna's cage, ringing in the metal. Joanna gulped air. She rattled the cage's door, trying to shake loose the screwdriver. At last, it dropped to ground. From her height, she saw a dozen white-uniformed sailors running up the waterfront toward them from their ship anchored below. The cage circled lower. Helena smiled and lifted the gun at her again. Joanna breathed in gasps.
 

Behind Helena, the Mother struggled to her feet, the front of her habit black with mud. With deliberation, she lifted her metal cane and knocked the gun from Helena's hand. Scowling, Helena turned to grab her by the neck. The Mother pointed the cane toward the control panel.

"Don’t," Joanna yelled and pushed open the ride's door. The sailors were too late. Mother would be electrocuted. Joanna closed her eyes and leapt from the Rock-O-Plane, higher than she'd wanted. Her whole body slammed the slick mud just feet from the Mother, but she wasn't close enough. Mother's cane plunged into the control panel.

The Rock-O-Plane's motor spewed orange sparks and blue smoke into the wet afternoon. Joanna's sobs were absorbed by the sound of the giant machine grinding to a halt.
 

Like a raft of butterflies, the blue and white habits of a dozen nuns fluttered from a van, the sailors close behind. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Leaning against several pillows on starched white linens in the hospital bed, the Mother Superior looked much as she had back at the convent. An orchid even occupied the table next to her. Its nodding petals mimicked her wimple. Only the bandage wrapping her right arm bore evidence of the struggle and electrocution. Mary Alberta, tapping on her laptop's keyboard, sat by the far side of the bed.

"Thank you for coming to see me," Mother said.
 

"Thank you for saving my life," Joanna replied. She set a paper-wrapped packet of macarons on the table. "Framboise and menthe. Mary Edwina said they're your favorites. And this." She pulled Mickey Spillane's
Vengeance is Mine!
from her purse and laid it next to the pastries. "I hope you haven't read it already."

"So thoughtful, dear. Sit." She patted the edge of the bed.
 

A tattooed man, bicycle helmet on his head, appeared in the doorway with an armload of yellow lilies. "Flower delivery."

"Right here." Mother lifted the card from the bouquet while Mary Alberta searched under the sink for a vase. "They're from your friends in the Navy, Mary Alberta. Such nice gentlemen, and so kind of them to help out at the Fun Center."

The Seabees had secured the area before the police arrived and given the Mother and Leo first aid. Unfortunately, they weren't able to save Leo, but CPR kept the Mother Superior breathing until an ambulance arrived.
 

"You're looking good," Joanna said. "Considering."

"I should be out of here soon, although they're telling me I'm going to have to do physical therapy now. Some ridiculous young man seems to think I can walk if I do a few exercises each morning."

"But you can walk," Mary Alberta said without lifting her head from the screen.

"Nonsense. That was just a little shuffling around." Her fingers grasped the buzzer for a nurse. "We need some tea."

Leave it to the Mother to turn the hospital into a five-star resort. She probably had a team of candy stripers on alert in the lounge. A harried-looking woman popped her head through the door. "Tea again, I suppose?"

"Yes," the Mother said. "A little milk, too. No honey," she emphasized.

"Detective Crisp said the honey wasn't poisoned." Although she’d given a complete statement to the police after she was rescued from the Rock-O-Plane, Joanna hadn't talked to the detective yet. In the two days since, she flinched every time the store's bell rang and took a fortifying breath before answering each phone call. Surely he'd show up any time to arrest her for breaking into Helena's house.
 

"It was poisoned all right," Mother said. "He told me the results of the comprehensive screening came in, the follow-up they did to the basic screening. The honey was made with rhododendron pollen. Deadly."

A thick ring of old rhododendrons sheltered the North's house. Helena's bees ate from them, and Helena must have known it—planned it, even. Thank God Apple hadn't drunk enough of the cocktail for it to kill her. She was already well enough to work at the store tomorrow. Good thing, too. Since the website Mary Alberta built for Tallulah's Closet had gone live with items from Vivienne’s wardrobe, she’d had a steady stream of shoppers.

"I'd better get back to the store." Joanna rose. "I'm glad to see you looking so well."

"Thank you, daughter. That machine gave my ticker a real shock, but I'm not so frail as I look, thank the Lord."

Down the hall, a uniformed policeman slumped in a folding chair outside the door to one of the private rooms. Helena's room. The newspaper said she was badly burned—much more so than the Mother Superior—but was expected to live. Joanna mended her pace.

"Ms. Hayworth." The voice came from behind her. Detective Crisp.

Her heart dropped. She turned, slowly. This was it. By now he probably had a statement from the neighbor that she'd been seen at the Norths, plus fingerprints.
 

"I need to talk to you. Come to the lounge." They settled on a small couch covered in nubby fabric. Hospital staff came and went at the nurse's station, but they were far enough to be out of earshot. "Are you all right?"

Wary, Joanna looked up. Surely he'd be reading her her rights about now. "Yes. I'm fine. A few nightmares, but I got off easy." Much easier than Poppy and Vivienne. And Leo.
 

"Helena is conscious, and we questioned her. I thought you might want to know her story."

Joanna nodded and tried to control her breathing. Was this a lead-in to being charged?
 

"She grew up as a traveler, a sort of American gypsy. Her family did odd jobs, mostly mechanical things, and moved throughout the south."

Joanna nodded again. This would explain how Leo picked up his skills working on amusement park rides. "I figured that much out."

"She was deeply sensitive to being an outsider—there’s still a lot of stigma surrounding gypsies—and ashamed of her brother being albino. She left home at sixteen and adopted a new identity. Apparently, she took her family's stash of savings with her, which didn't make her too popular."

"No kidding." Although she knew Helena was a murderer, it was still hard to reconcile the pedigreed academic with her past.

"We found a police record for her in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Mostly minor things—shoplifting, check kiting. She's no dummy, though. She made it into Yale, where she met Gil North. When they married, she must have thought she had it made. New name, new family, new home far away from where she grew up. Of course, she refused to have kids. She was terrified they'd turn out with white hair and red eyes."

"Then she saw her brother at Oaks Park," Joanna said.

"Right. Her family still wanted to get hold of the money she stole. Vivienne North saw him, too, and may have asked too many questions. She could have blown Helena's world apart."

Helena killed her mother-in-law to protect her new life. "And Poppy. She knew about the phone call from Vivienne including her mistaking
voyageurs
for voyeurs. She was afraid Poppy would figure it out." Joanna dropped her head to her hands. She was the one who alerted Helena to Vivienne's call to Poppy.

"It would have come out soon enough. Don't blame yourself. She feared you might figure it out, too—thus the phone calls and warning shot." He gave Joanna a moment to compose herself. "But there is one thing I want to clear up with you."

The break-in. Here it came.
 

"The night the North residence was broken into—"

"I admit it," Joanna said. "I did it. I wanted to warn Helena about the honey being poisoned. I didn't know she was the murderer. When I looked in her front window and saw the destroyed painting, I panicked. Her back door was open, so I went in."

"We spoke to your boyfriend, and—"

Ex-boyfriend, he meant. "He had nothing to do with it." Her voice was firm. "It was all me. I told you. I borrowed his truck and used his phone. Don't drag him into this, because—"

"Shut up," Crisp said. Stunned, Joanna clamped her lips closed. "That's what I told him you'd say, even though I know better." He fastened his gaze on Joanna and let the full force of his disapproval sink in. His children must have grown up terrified of crossing him. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because Gil North refuses to press charges. He claims he busted the painting himself, on accident. That the broken window in back was another accident. He clearly knows something we don't." Another pointed look at Joanna. "A lot of people are having trouble telling the truth these days, it seems."

At some point Gil would have to own up to claiming Tranh’s painting as his own, but apparently he wasn’t ready to confess yet. At least, not to Detective Crisp. As to whether Gil destroyed the painting himself, or Tranh did it before she and Paul arrived, she’d likely never know.

"So," she said, then hesitated. "So, that’s it?"

"For now." He rose and shifted his raincoat to his opposite arm. He saluted goodbye. His steps rang down the hall.

Joanna nearly went limp with relief. She wouldn't be going to jail. And she wouldn't be dragging Paul with her. This, at least, she could do for him.

***

The door bell jangled at Tallulah's Closet. Joanna glanced up from arranging a jewelry display. It was Paul. She lowered a pearl-encrusted brooch to the glass counter and clasped her hands to keep them still.
 

He broke the silence. "How are you?"

"Fine," she said.
Dumb.
For all the time she'd spent thinking of what she'd say if she ran into Paul again, she could have come up with something more clever.

"Mary Alberta filled me in on what's been happening. Crisp came to see me, too."

"Yes." Another brilliant statement. She was sorry for dragging him into the Norths, sorry telling him one thing then doing another. If she had to do it again, she still would have continued to try to find Poppy’s killer. But she would have told Paul about it. And lost him fairly, at least.

"Do you mind if I sit?"

She moved the dustpan from the red velvet bench. "Please."

He took a breath. "I’m sorry."

"No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have been honest with you. I—"

"Please, listen to me. I had no right to tell you what to do. I was afraid for you, and I felt so out of control. The only way I knew how to make it stop was to make you stop. But that wasn’t right." He patted the bench next to him. She sat. "I was throwing on you all the guilt I had over taking part in my uncle’s jewel heists, and it wasn’t fair to you."

"But we talked about that. After we went to the Norths. What changed your mind?"

Another moment passed. "My mind didn’t really change, it’s more that I figured out what was most important to me."

"I don’t understand."

"Well, I was repairing some siding at the convent, and Mary Alberta found me. She pulled me off the ladder and said, ‘You love Joanna for who she is, don’t you?’ That’s all. I had all afternoon and all night to think about it. And about you."