Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (12 page)

“
Mais non
. See?” The chef plucked the shirt from his chest. “Fresh as a winter night.”

“I’d love some Armagnac,” Joanna said. Bette swiveled her head to see who was talking. Probably forgot Joanna even existed.

“
Avec plaisir
.” Chef Jules handed her a cut crystal glass and filled it to the rim.

“I might try some,” Bette said.
 

“Madame.” Bette’s portion was considerably smaller.

“Me, too, please.” Clarke set down his papers.
 

The chef straightened, his bottle hovering. “No.”

“Go ahead,” Bette said. “Pour him some.”

“I will not,” Chef Jules lifted his nose and pointed his face away from Clarke.

“Why not? Clarke is a guest here, and you’re paid to make him happy. Pour him some brandy. I’m sure it’s good.”

“Of course it’s good. You think I don’t have taste? You think perhaps I have bad taste and put clam dip on a roast beef sandwich?” He refused to look at Clarke. “You think I earn my Michelin star by killing people with clam dip?”
 

The room fell silent.
 

Penny put her face in her hands. Joanna’s heart seized. Poor girl. This was supposed to be her wedding night. She rose and slipped next to Penny, rested an arm around her shoulders.
 

“I’m sorry, Miss Lavange.” The chef’s voice was softer now. “I should have not said that. Here.” He tipped the bottle into a glass. “Bas Armagnac. Very nice.” He knelt next to the ottoman Penny sat on. “I did not poison Mr. Jack. Never. I can prove it, too. When we are out of this terrible place, I will prove it.”

“I know.” Penny pulled away from Joanna. “I know. I’m going to bed.” She stood, leaving her glass untouched.

“I will make you a tisane for to help you sleep.”

“I’ll take care of her, thank you,” Reverend Tony said. He come in from the breakfast room and held a ziplock bag of herbs. “We’ll make her tea from this.”

A cold look in his eyes, Clarke stared at the Frenchman as Chef Jules passed back into the dining room and presumably to the kitchen below. Clarke reached for Penny’s brandy and tossed it back with a swallow. “That man is not leaving the country until he takes full responsibility for Wilson’s death.”

“It was an accident, Clarke,” Portia said. “Calm down.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t an accident. I just think he needs to be held accountable.”

Joanna built a small fire in her room—just enough to take the edge off the cold. The storm still raged outside, cloaking the doors and windows in impenetrable blankets of snow.
 

On the nightstand she’d stacked as many of Francis Redd’s journals as she could carry and set her glass of Armagnac on top. She unfolded an extra quilt over the bed and fluffed her pillows. She hesitated before getting into bed. Would she be warm enough? Socks. That’s what she needed. She’d put an extra pair in her suitcase.

Reaching around the side of her suitcase, her fingers touched the wool of her socks—and paper. What was this? She pulled a sheet of lined notebook paper folded in thirds from her suitcase and opened it. Her heart leapt at Paul’s handwriting. He must have put it in her suitcase yesterday afternoon before she left. She took the letter to the fireplace’s light and sat down.

“Jo,” the letter read “I miss you already and you haven’t even left yet. I’ll be waiting to hear about the weekend when you get home. Paul.”

A knot formed in her chest. What if she arrived home to find her mother camped out? She should have warned Paul about her long ago. She’d opened up to him about everything else. He shouldn’t have to be put through the emotional wringer she’d already suffered.

They usually had such clear understanding. Only a few weeks ago at home, she’d carefully untangled a bag of silk stockings someone had brought to the store to sell. With their slick, delicate texture they were fiendishly difficult to ease apart without snagging. She soaked the stockings in gentle soap and warm water, then slowly, one by one, draped each of the two dozen stockings over a rack made of wooden dowels and covered with fine cotton pillowcases to protect the silk. Then the rack came crashing down.

Paul heard the noise from upstairs and appeared for a second in the doorway to the basement’s laundry area before vanishing. She had sunk to the floor and put her head in her hands. It had already been a long day, with a cranky customer insisting she take back a wedding dress. Then, mothers who’d seemed deaf to their screaming babies’ racket lingered forever by the coats, clearly with no intention to buy. Plus, the steamer had been acting up again.
 

Paul returned to the basement with a brimming martini glass, and he didn’t even drink. “Take this upstairs,” he said. She’d returned to the basement half an hour later and found Paul gently laying the last stocking over the now-sturdy rack.

“Oh, Madame Eye.” The portrait flickered in and out of sight as the fireplace’s flames danced. “I’m an idiot.”

A knock at the door disturbed her thoughts. “Can I come in?” came Penny’s voice from the hall.

“Of course,” Joanna said.

“I didn’t want to be alone.” Penny shut the door behind her and sat on the hearth. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine. If anyone should be asking, it’s me. It’s been a hellish day for you. The only thing I can offer is that it’s just about over.”

“Oh Joanna, I don’t want to talk about my troubles. That’s all I’ve done all day, with you, Portia, and Reverend Tony. Do you mind if I borrow this?” She pulled a blanket from the foot of the bed and draped it over her lap. “No, tell me what’s bothering you. I need the distraction.”

“You’re so sweet.” Joanna fidgeted with a journal, then pushed it back to her bedside table. “It’s just family stuff.”

“What family? I thought you didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”

“It’s my mother.” Joanna hesitated before finishing her thought. “I haven’t spoken to her in years, but she sent a note the other day.”

“Really?” Penny appeared unfazed. “What did she want?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to find out.”

“So then don’t answer her.”

So easy. So matter of fact. “You don’t think I’m a bad person? I mean, for not talking to her?” Joanna searched Penny’s face.

“No. I don’t know what your business is, but I’m the last person to judge. I mean, look at my mom.”
 

Bette wouldn’t be an easy mother, not by any stretch. Still, although her actions might be twisted by her own egocentricity and crazy reasoning—not to mention alcohol—at her core seemed genuine caring. “At least you talk to her,” Joanna said.

“I get where she’s coming from. Mostly,” Penny said. “I worry about her drinking, and she annoys me to no end sometimes. But in the end, it’s easier to talk to her than not. It sounds funny to say it, but I don’t take her personally. Plus, I know she’d never do anything to hurt me. Get on my nerves, yes. Hurt me, no.”

That was where their mothers parted ways. “I wish I could say the same.”

“She’s betrayed you in some way,” Penny said.
 

Joanna nodded. “It’s complicated, and I don’t want to go into details, but, yes. Definitely.”

“Then why keep in touch?”

She looked at Penny with fresh respect. People might call her spoiled, but she had wisdom beyond her age. “I felt obligated, I guess. Felt like I had to try to make her happy.”

“You can always say no, you know. You always have a choice.”

Sure, Joanna knew she had a choice. She knew it intellectually. But apparently not emotionally. It was easier to remove herself from having to say no, than actually turning her mother down to her face. Why that was, she couldn’t say.

“There’s one more thing,” Joanna said. “I haven’t told Paul anything about her. I’m afraid she’s going to show up while I’m away and make a scene.”

“A scene?”

“You know, try to get money, or tell him I’m an awful daughter, or do something to drive a wedge between us.”

Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe the fireplace’s warmth at her back, but Penny seemed more drowsy than when she’d arrived. “You’ve got to trust Paul.” She yawned. “Lots of stuff happens. You’ve got to trust him.”

Easy for her to say. She’d led such a protected life. She had no idea what people were capable of. “You’re sleepy. It’s been an awful day,” she said softly. “Want to take that blanket with you?”

Penny rose. “No, I have plenty in my room. Thanks for the distraction. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep now.” She dropped the blanket on the bed. “Trust Paul and don’t worry about it. Really. Goodnight.”

She’d have to take Penny’s advice. She didn’t have any other choice.

***

After Penny left, Joanna tucked another pillow behind her back and pulled one of Francis Redd’s leather-bound journals onto her lap. She listened for a moment to the crackle of the fire and howling wind before opening the book.
 

Redd’s writing was hard to decipher, especially by candlelight. The entries made no more sense than they had in the great room after dinner. He had spent hours on these journals. Surely some of his motivation had slipped through.

After all, what kind of man built a home he clearly loved, filled it with art, then abandoned it? Redd wanted something, searched for something, and he thought he could find it in surrealism. Real life must somehow not have satisfied him. Unless Penny was right, and he didn’t leave the lodge voluntarily. If Joanna looked carefully enough, maybe some pattern would emerge from the journals.

She took a sip of Armagnac and turned another page. Was it all about hairless goats and paella? No. This entry seemed a little more coherent than those they’d read aloud earlier in the evening. She pulled the journal closer. It was titled “A Dream” and involved a story about taking the “hornet” down the mountain for a “delivery” but no one was there. There it was again, a hornet. When Redd returned, the lodge was burnt to the ground. She flipped ahead looking for another dream entry and found one ten pages later. In this dream, he was running from a one-legged woman with no torso toward a golden tower.
 

Over the next few hours she leafed through three journals from the early 1930s through World War II. Among the pages of senseless automatic writing were several dreams, many involving chases or being pursued. It was as if Redd were running from something—or toward it?—and the anxiety leaked into his sleep.

And what was all this business with hornets? They obviously meant something to him. Several of his dreams were plays on both chases and hornets, many of which had him delivering something or trying and failing to deliver it. One thing was clear: He feared someone was chasing him.

It was late. She set the last journal aside and went to the window, a quilt gathered around her shoulders. According to the radio dispatcher that morning, the storm would be letting up soon. Although the wind had slowed, the flakes still fell thick and fast. It was hard to imagine Francis Redd skiing out, alone, in this kind of weather. If he left the lodge during a storm, he must have had a really good reason.
 

Penny had theorized that Redd faked his own death. An accidental suicide. But she also held that his ghost wandered the lodge. A chill ran through Joanna as she thought of Wilson. Chef Jules insisted he hadn’t put clam dip in Wilson’s sandwich and said he could prove it.

“What do you think?” Joanna asked the portrait.
 

She glanced at the fire, now burnt to a smattering of orange embers. It didn’t make much heat, but it was better than nothing, and if she built a good fire, she might still have coals in the morning. The wood basket was empty. She reluctantly exchanged the blanket for her robe and lit a candle from the fire’s embers. Before bed, Daniel had left the lodge’s sole flashlight in the hall.
 

Joanna easily found the flashlight and followed its weak shaft toward the central staircase. Hopefully its batteries weren’t giving out. The stair’s treads switched from wood to stone as she descended and chilled even through her slippers’ leather soles. The stuffed bear loomed on the kitchen side of the downstairs lobby, and the vague odor of Bubbles’s misdeeds lingered, despite—or maybe because of—Bette’s haphazard cleaning. Joanna took the hall to the right, toward the storage room where Daniel and Clarke had stacked wood that morning. She passed the Reverend’s door. Yellow light shone underneath it. He must still be up, too.
 

She filled her arms with logs, bark scratching one wrist as she shifted the load to pick up the flashlight. An icy draft whirled around her feet, gathering strength as she approached the lobby. It seemed to come from the kitchen side of the house. Could the chef have left open a window? Daniel would flip out if he knew someone was careless with the heat. She gingerly set the logs next to the bear and trained her flashlight across the room.
 

The flashlight’s beam sliced pale gray. The cold intensified as she entered the kitchen. One thing she had to say for Chef Jules, he was a good sport. On the drain board, four crystal brandy glasses rested inverted on a towel, but otherwise the counters were clear, and pans hung, clean, from their rack. The water he washed them in must have been ice cold. He’d be glad to see California when this was over.
 

At last she found the source of the draft—the dumbwaiter. Its door was open, and the box inside had been hoisted to the level above. On the second floor, doors opened inside to the butler’s pantry or outside to the patio, undoubtedly snowed over by now. The patio side of the dumbwaiter must be open. It was the only explanation. Maybe if she lowered the dumbwaiter the door outside would automatically close and shut off the draft.

Joanna reached to the side of the wide dumbwaiter to pull the lever. Strange. The lever was jimmied in position with a bent fork. Someone wanted the dumbwaiter to stay on the second floor. Maybe it was broken and Chef Jules jerry-rigged it to stay upstairs. Well, she was closing it now. They couldn’t afford to lose the heat. She jiggled the fork from the lever and pulled it to “kitchen.” The dumbwaiter began to rumble slowly down and reached the kitchen with a thud.