No Way to Kill a Lady (8 page)

“That's my cousin,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “You mean the news of her death didn't come from Indonesia?”

“What do you mean? Sometimes we get bulletins from the wire services if a famous person died, but we don't get information from countries. A person has to send it to us.”

“Hmm,” I said. “I wonder if the other newspapers received the information from anyone else?”

“Says right here,” Annette said. “I can see the same e-­mail went to a bunch of papers, not just ours. From the same guy. Why do you ask?”

My thoughts had strayed in various directions, but I pulled myself together. “No special reason. Just curious. Thanks, Annette. And good luck with Cleo. Don't get scratched.”

“Too late!” She laughed, and we hung up.

Sutherland had sent the obituary to the newspaper.

But how had he learned of Madeleine's death?

I would ask him as soon as I saw him again.

Out of habit, I checked my watch. Nearly five o'clock. No time to stew about Aunt Madeleine or crime lords. I had other problems. Fleetingly, I wondered if Michael was on his way to mass. Or using it for a ruse to go somewhere else.

The real reporters were putting on their coats to go home, so I rode the elevator down with them and thought about what it would be like to be stuck in one alone. On the street, I walked briskly a couple of blocks south to start my workday.

I shared the sidewalk with a bustle of pedestrians. Not long ago, I had lived just a short distance away, in a luxury condominium in Rittenhouse Square with my husband, Todd. A doctor who never practiced medicine, Todd had done research in organ transplants, while I tended mainly to our social life. That was before he became hooked on coke, and our hellish journey began. Those dark days seemed like a lifetime ago. Today I could almost enjoy a stroll through my old neighborhood. It finally felt as if the most painful memories of the past were easing. But Rittenhouse Square didn't feel like home anymore. Now I felt the tug of Blackbird Farm.

Within a few minutes, I pushed through the door of a new shop on Walnut Street.

A crowd of mostly young women dressed in autumn colors and expensive high-­heeled boots fluttered around lovely displays of very pretty lingerie. Brassieres, panties, corsets, stockings of every color and description. The ceiling was crowded with pink Chinese umbrellas—­an attractive decorative touch. For the grand opening, a caterer served tea in small china cups. Nobody took note of the array of scones beautifully arranged on a platter, however—­too many calories, considering the scanty merchandise on display. And nobody talked to anybody else. Everybody had her nose pointed down at a cell phone screen. Most of them seemed to be reading text messages, but a few snapped photos of the merchandise with their phones.

I could have chatted with a few acquaintances—­I had once socialized with many of the young married women who lived in the nearby posh condos—­but everyone was focused on communicating with people by telephone instead. So I picked out a pair of panties made of delicate pink lace—­just the thing to tempt someone later.

I met Lynnette Dankenbaugh, the shop's owner, at the register, where she was playing both clerk and hostess for the opening.

“Oh, Nora, thanks for coming! And you're so sweet to buy something. Maybe you'll start the trend. If everyone would stop using their cell phones, that is.” Lynnette gave me two kisses before accepting my debit card. Her forehead looked suspiciously wrinkle-­free for a woman just starting her own business. She wore her blond hair in a smooth ponytail, too, and—­always a meticulous dresser—­she sported a trim black pinafore over a polka-­dotted blouse, leggings and a pair of pink Mary Jane shoes. She was going for the youthful
couturier
look.

Sometimes when I found myself with a couple of hours between social events, I slipped into the symphony's rehearsal hall to listen to the music or hiked over to the museum to take a docent tour. I had noticed Lynnette on a couple of the tours, and after a look at ancient Greek pottery she invited me to have coffee with her in the museum's café. I had learned that she'd found herself at loose ends when her wealthy husband encouraged her to quit working and focus on making their home beautiful. Home decorating had gotten old fast, and she started roaming the cultural scene in the afternoons, too. She had jumped at the chance to talk to someone about what we saw in the museum together, so we met every few weeks for coffee.

Her dissatisfaction with her home life had eventually led to a divorce. She spent a few months searching for a way to earn a decent living for herself and ended up choosing to open a lingerie shop. I had listened to her planning process for several months and hoped she could make a go of her new enterprise.

I signed the debit slip. “Everybody thinks the shop is gorgeous, Lynnette.”

“I just hope they buy, buy, buy.”

“Holiday season,” I said as she handed me a decorative bag with my purchase tucked inside. “Husbands will soon be breaking down your door for gifts. And wait until Valentine's Day. You'll be swamped.”

“I hope so.” Lynnette managed a bright smile.

“Mind if I snap a few pictures? Just in case we have room on the
Intelligencer's Web site
?”

Lynnette had been hoping for a little free advertising in the newspaper, I knew, but I couldn't justify making print space for a store opening. The online version of the newspaper always needed fresh content, though. Lynnette broadened her smile. “By all means! Everybody else is.”

The newspaper rarely budgeted money for a photographer for me anymore, so I had to muddle through with photos I took myself. I posed Lynnette with some of her would-­be customers and tried to crowd some of her wares into the pictures, too. Nothing too racy, though. I snapped a few shots with my phone camera and said good-­bye.

After the shop opening, the weather was fair enough to keep walking, so I stowed my new lingerie in my handbag, buttoned up my Dior coat and hiked across town to a gallery on the Delaware, a stone's throw from some glamorous lofts where young hipsters lived.

Outside the gallery I spotted a familiar electric scooter—­a sort of low-­powered skateboard with a long handle. It had been fastened to a bike rack with a bicycle lock. With a smile, I pushed through the gallery door with the expectation of meeting an old friend.

“Nora!” Jamison Beech called to me from across the gallery and made his way through the crowd. Around his neck, he carried the camera that was never more than a few inches from his hand. “Don't you look charming this evening. Open up that coat and let me see.”

I flashed open the Dior to show him my lace suit. “Well?”

“What a minx! You must be planning to get laid later.”

“You're wicked.”

“I really am, aren't I?”

He kissed my forehead. When he retired from PR work, Jamison had reinvented himself as a guerrilla photographer who snapped photos depicting street life in Philadelphia. Eventually one local paper made him a deal—­a small fee for a city-­themed photo collage that would appear weekly in the Sunday edition. The fee hadn't made a difference to him, but the weekly space had given him a forum at last. From that point, he branched out into taking pictures of just about anything that spoke to his creative aesthetic—­from professional models and street kids with quirky clothes sense to shop windows with a point of view and graffiti scrawled on bridges. Now he was a local character—­a well-­known man-­about-­town with influence. People often recognized him on the street and asked him to take their pictures.

He made fashion statements himself, too. Tonight, Jamison wore a velvet smoking jacket over a black T-­shirt and black jeans—­very hip, very rock-­and-­roll, despite his age, and a long way from the business suits he wore for many years as a public relations agent. His white hair had been expertly fluffed, his gaunt frame honed to meet
Rolling Stone
magazine's expectations. On his feet he sported a pair of velvet slippers with a gold embroidered monogram on the toes. Those slippers gave him away as a Philadelphia aristocrat playing at the fashion game.

“Jamie, it's always good to see you.” I gave him a hug. “What on earth are we doing here?”

“What do you think?” He threw his arms wide. “We're in a meat market!”

The visiting artist had created a whole installation of objects made from raw meat. Slabs of beef had been fashioned into lamps, vases of flowers, a desk arranged with a stapler, an electronic calculator and a sheaf of papers. Around his displays, he had thrown various knives and cleavers. I suppose it was intended to be
avant-­garde.

Jamison said, “You don't even need to look around. The smell will make you sick, and besides, I can give you the lowdown in a printable sentence or two. Instead, we must talk. I heard about your aunt Madeleine. Good God, do you think she murdered her housekeeper before she bolted?”

CHAPTER SIX

“N
ews travels faster than ever, doesn't it?” I said grimly.

“The smoke signals have been floating all over town. That, and Twitter. Oh, how the blue bloods love their tweets. Is it true? A dead body in Madeleine's elevator?”

“Yes, in the elevator at Quintain. We don't know who yet.”

“What a delightful scandal! You must tell all.”

It hadn't felt delightful when we discovered the body. The memory of it made me accept a restorative plastic cup of generic Chardonnay. I allowed Jamison to tuck me into a folding chair near the back of the gallery where we could have some privacy to chat.

“What an appalling art installation,” I said when he sat down.

He said, “Meat is an important new medium, darling. Many up-­and-­coming artists are using it. If you ask me, they're all imitating Lady Gaga, but years too late. How dull is that? But don't say I told you so in the newspaper. I'm supposed to be hip enough to appreciate it.”

He clinked plastic glassware with me and leaned close. “I knew Madeleine back in the day, you know.”

“When was that?”

“Her heyday, you could say. She was the belle of the ball. Madcap Maddy always knew the most interesting people—­gathered them together for wild parties. Plenty of beautiful women and powerful men. She was never one of those girls who needed to be the only good-­looking woman in the room, either. She surrounded herself with beautiful people. Like me, she always thought having children would be a bore, so she had parties all the time. I remember a ‘happening' at a club not far from here when she was just a slip of a thing. She took off all her clothes except for her go-­go boots and let Andy Warhol paint on her tushie, and that was the beginning. I have the photo to prove it.” He sighed for the bygone era.

“I remember her as beautiful, but not a party girl.”

“Well, the tushie painting was just a one-­time thing. Madeleine connected with everybody. And, like all you Blackbird girls, she took up with the wrong sort of man, which always makes for delicious scandal
du jour.”

Unable to disguise the chill in my voice, I said, “What man did she take up with?”

“Men, darling.” If Jamison noticed my reaction to his opinion, he chose to ignore it. “She went around with one man after another—­no drips, let me tell you. Social types, artists. You name it. I hear tell she even had a long-­running affair with a very famous Cold War spy. Of course, nobody knew he was a spy until later. We should have guessed she'd wind up in a volcano. That's Maddy—­going out with a bang.”

Jamison suddenly got interested in a pair of passing art lovers who sipped wine and frowned contemplatively at the meat. The woman wore a street-­smart combo of ragged chiffon under a leather jacket. Jamison studied her feet for a long moment—­she teetered on sky-­high ankle boots—­then he lifted his camera and snapped a surreptitious photo.

“For your collage?” I asked. “What's your theme this week?”

“Boots,” he said. “See the cut of her heel? Very fashion-­forward. Biker-­meets-­Balanchine.”

“And waterproof,” I added. Jamison might have been the observant type when it came to fashion, but sometimes he missed the practical. To regain his attention, I said, “Jamie, did you know Pippi, too?”

“Pippi, the housekeeper?”

“Yes. Where did she fit into this story? Where did she come from?”

“Russia, I think. The Soviet Union then. Just after Reagan knocked on the Berlin Wall and supposedly started
detente s
ingle-­handed.” He let go of his camera again and turned to me. “Pippi was the daughter of one of Madeleine's men friends—­very hush-­hush. I don't remember him. But after his wife died, he wanted his daughter here in the U.S., so Madeleine went and got her. She sailed over and back in her husband's yacht, the story went, and orchestrated some kind of dramatic rescue. Action-­movie stuff.”

I couldn't contain my surprise and set my wine down on a nearby chair. “Madeleine rescued Pippi?”

“Well, not like a puppy from the pound, but something like that. Madeleine always had mysterious people around. I never knew the whole story, but they each probably had a tall tale attached.” Jamison picked up my glass and finished off the remaining wine. He crossed one leg over the other. “Who's going to inherit that crazy trip of a house?”

I caught a glimpse of knowingness in the back of his eyes. “My sisters and me. But you knew that. More gossip?”

“Yes,” he admitted without a blush. “Why not her own stepson? The yacht gigolo?”

“I have no idea why Madeleine skipped Sutherland. The will came as a complete surprise to us.”

“Madeleine was mercurial.” He shook his head with admiration. “The Cold War spy? She ditched him when he took ill with cancer. Suddenly she had no time for him at all. She was easily capable of disowning her stepson for being useless.”

“Or maybe,” I said lightly, “she simply loved us more.”

Jamison's gaze twinkled again. “What's not to love? I hope you enjoy the spoils, darling.”

We chatted just a little longer after that, but I circled back to something he'd said about Madeleine. About her not having children. I said, “Did you make a conscious decision not to have a family, Jamison, or did it just happen that way?”

“Conscious decision, darling. And I never looked back. It's not like I don't have family, of course. I have two sisters and loads of pals, so I'm the fun uncle to their children. I've had my share of taking kiddies to the zoo, and it's not to be missed. But I have a very fulfilling life.” He patted my hand. “You will, too. I have an instinct about these things.”

I don't know whether his suggestion that I might be childless forever offended me most, or whether the hand pat felt patronizing, but I knew it was time to get back to my job.

For my column, I quickly asked Jamison for the facts and figures about the gallery show. He told me more about the meat-­loving artist, then took me over and introduced me to a rather grubby, inarticulate young man who looked at my breasts, not my face. If he intended to make a meaningful statement with his meat, the concept hadn't quite reached his own brain. He invited me for a beer later. I declined.

When the artist wandered off, I noted to Jamison that the guests were mainly people I didn't know.

“Sad, isn't it? Our crowd,” Jamison said, “comes around only when they want to learn something or to buy something. But you can't really hang meat over your pre-­Revolutionary mantel, can you? Let's face it, Nora, families like yours and mine are a vanishing breed. It's the fast cash that counts now. Buy low, sell high—­that's the prevailing attitude. Those of us who really love art and fashion and the good things in life, we're getting to be dinosaurs.”

I checked my watch and realized I had allowed our talk to distract me from my schedule. I made my apologies, kissed Jamie good-­bye and dashed outside. Running late, and with Reed dismissed until I was ready to go home, I had no choice but to grab a cab.

As the driver whisked me across town, I thought about Aunt Madeleine. To me, she had seemed a mysterious but prickly woman, but clearly I hadn't understood her at all. I found myself wondering why she had chosen to reward my sisters and me—­relatives who barely knew her. She might have left her fortune to a ballet company or to another good cause. But no, she had excluded all philanthropic possibilities as well as her stepson . . . in favor of three nieces whose names she could hardly remember.

Puzzled, I stared at the passing scenery without really seeing it. What had caused her to make such a choice?

Upon arriving at a large city hotel, I ducked into the ladies' room to check my face. I touched up my lipstick and powdered my nose. Then I took off my Dior coat and unwound the black pashmina. I draped it over one shoulder and let it swing sari-­like down one side of me. Suddenly my lace pants suit looked almost sedate—­but a little exotic, too. Perfect. I left my large bag at the coat check and took out an evening clutch to hold my pen, notebook and camera phone.

Ready for action, I headed for the welcome table.

I showed my invitation to the cheerfully inept girls who were checking the guest list, and then I proceeded to the security station, where a woman in uniform wanded me for weapons. As I joined the line to get into the ballroom, I bumped into a familiar couple—­Anahita and George Fareez. Anahita and I exchanged hugs while George looked on, smiling. He rarely spoke—­whether out of shyness or a still-­rudimentary grasp of English I couldn't tell—­but his smile was always broad.

“Ana, those are killer shoes!”

“Nordstrom Rack,” she confessed, displaying one silver-­clad foot for my admiration. “Great, right? You look smashing, as always. Your granny's duds?”

“Yes, of course. Without her, I'd be dressed by H&M. Now, tell me quick before someone drags you off to take a glamour shot. Are you still on the board of the Mid-­East Women's Association?”

She rolled her beautiful dark eyes at the mention of the organization that was throwing tonight's bash. “I used to be. But what a headache! I gladly gave up my MEWA seat to someone who has more time to put up with all the phone calls.”

“What kind of phone calls?”

“Every time something awful happens to a Muslim woman, I'd get a call asking for a statement for the press. Sorry, Nora. I know you work for a newspaper and you're friends with reporters, and I mean no disrespect. But I just want to live my own life for a while, not feel like the spokesperson for every woman in a hijab.”

“I understand. I was so pleased to be invited tonight,” I said as we finally slipped into the ballroom. “I assumed I had you to thank for including me.”

She shook her head. “Oh, heavens, it wasn't me. You're getting to be so well known, Nora. Of course you'd be invited to an event like this.”

In the last year, I'd come to recognize my own rising star. Unlike regular reporters, who were often held at arm's length, I had a strange sort of insider access to the movers and shakers. I was welcomed into ballrooms and living rooms—­perhaps because of my family name, but also because of the job I'd created for myself. All kinds of people and organizations wanted access to my column.

Still, this evening's event was a very big deal, and I had been a little surprised to be included. Honored, too.

Walking into the ballroom with the beautiful Anahita didn't hurt, either. Many heads turned our way. Anahita's husband, who had taken the Western name of George years ago when he first began teaching at a local university, looked very proud to be seen with his beautiful wife.

From circling waiters, we accepted glasses of fruit juice and nibbled on the vegetarian hors d'oeuvres. Anahita introduced me to several board members, all of whom spoke to me about the organization, which raised awareness for causes affecting women in Middle Eastern countries. Everyone was beautifully dressed. A few women wore headscarves, but not many. Most wore exotic jewelry and very high-­end fashion. A string quartet provided Western music. No belly dancing, I noticed. It was a sophisticated, cross-­cultural crowd.

After the reception hour, we split up to find our assigned tables and sat down to a sumptuous meal that featured savory lamb with fresh mint, rice pilaf with almonds and raisins—­all delicious and beautifully styled on our plates. Conversation at my table ranged over many topics—­none of them frivolous.

After dinner, a former secretary of state stood up, and she made a surprisingly detailed speech concerning current issues in the Middle East. After-­dinner remarks were rarely so lofty, in my experience. My table companions nodded vigorously during her talk and afterward stood up to applaud.

The speaker waved from the podium, then took her place at the center of the receiving line.

Fortunately, the
Intelligencer
had sent a real photographer to take pictures at this event, so I made sure all the key players were snapped together. I was pleased to be introduced and shake the former secretary's hand.

“Oh, I knew your aunt!” She lit up when she heard my name. “Madeleine Blackbird, right? She was quite a character. And a great patriot. I'm very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I managed to say despite being in awe. I didn't usually get tongue-­tied, but she had caught me by surprise. “So many people are affected by the volcano. I hear the relief funds are growing steadily.”

“Yes, yes. Is someone in the family going to write a book about Madeleine? I know I'd read a page-­turner like that. We should talk.”

I had not a second to ask a follow-­up question because someone from her staff eased me along to keep the line moving. But I was astonished.

Madeleine had known the secretary of state? Maybe the State Department was more of a party crowd than I had realized.

I reclaimed my coat and bag and slipped out a few minutes ahead of the rest of the still-­animated crowd, who had remained behind for strong coffee and more talk. But I was anxious to get home.

Outside, I maneuvered through a group of Secret Service agents posted at the front of the hotel. The Philadelphia police were out in full force, too. I smiled at the officers and wended my way around the temporary barriers.

The night was chilly, but clear. The bustle of police and pedestrians made me feel safe, even on a block that sometimes was a little iffy late at night. At the next corner, though, a young woman stepped out from an empty doorway.

“Miss?” she said.

I paused, assuming I should know her.

But she wasn't familiar to me. Petite, with a dark face and black eyes that looked frightened from beneath a headscarf, she wore a heavy coat over long, loose trousers and cheap flat shoes.

“Miss, are you a reporter? Can you help me?”