The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries) (3 page)

Early on she had dreaded when Marnie came to the store because she was so difficult to talk to. But as they got to know each other, their relationship eased. Marnie might sit on the red velvet bench in the center of the store, the bench Joanna sat on now, and recount her days dancing at Mary's Club. She described her dresses, the nightclubs she visited, and laughed about some of the people she used to know. One snowy afternoon when the store was deserted, she’d even brought Martinis from the bar next door to sip while they sorted through some Ship 'N Shore capris and blouses. Joanna had come to look forward to Marnie’s visits.

How could she explain to the detective the friendship that had sprung up between them? She tried to think of a polite way to put it. “We had a sort of understanding, but I’m not sure Marnie was the type to have a lot of close friends.”

“Maybe the type to have enemies?” The detective looked alert again.

“I didn't say that.” Was he trying to confuse her? “Why, do you think someone killed her?”

“Is there a reason she'd be murdered?”
 

“No, I mean, not that I know of.” She grabbed a scarf on a nearby display and began folding it meticulously, willing her hands to be calm. “But I don’t know why she’d go out in house shoes.”

The detective glanced at Marnie’s feet. “Getting a little confused, was she?”

Joanna shook her head. “She had a bad cough and could be curt, but she was still sharp. Nothing wrong there.”

“I see.” Detective Crisp’s tone was indifferent. “Anything else?” he prompted. The policeman who had been on the phone was engrossed in figuring out the latch on a lizard handbag.
 

“No. Nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” His gaze unnerved her.

He jotted a few things in his notebook. Joanna couldn’t read his upside down, scratchy writing. “You don't have any plans to leave town right away, do you?” he asked.

“No. I'll be here.” The detective couldn't possibly think she killed Marnie. Could he?
 

The policeman had abandoned the lizard clutch and was examining a marabou boa. Detective Crisp had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Sorry. The medical examiner will be here in a few minutes, and you can get back to business.”

“Crisp, look at this.” The policewoman held the Lanvin coat open with latex-gloved hands. A foot-long cut sliced the lining cleanly a few inches above the hem.
 

Joanna’s jaw dropped. “That wasn’t there yesterday. I’m sure of it.”

“The lining looks old. Could have frayed. Maybe one of your customers got her heel stuck in it. That happened to my wife once,” Detective Crisp said.

“Sure, but not against the grain of the fabric like that. I’ve seen enough old silk to know shredding from a clean cut. That lining was definitely slit.”

The Lanvin coat hung lifeless from the mannequin’s shoulders. Each time it caught Joanna’s eye later that day, she remembered Marnie. Remembered the gurney trundling past a rack of skirts. Remembered Marnie’s frail shape under the white cover.
 

A man the landlord had sent to replace the lock on the front door worked quietly. He was tall with sandy brown hair and long, tapered fingers. He wore a tee shirt with an old wool shirt open over it, its sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The odor of raw wood and oil drifted from the front of the store.

She picked up the steamer and ran it under the skirt of a 1940s peach slip, releasing the scent of lavender sachets. She’d shut off the stereo. No music suited her mood. June Christie was too sad, Sarah Vaughn too yearning, Tom Jones too Tom Jones.
 

The bell jangled as a tall blond man in a business suit entered the store. Her ex. “Hey Jo, I brought you a poster for Chick's rally. Think you could put it in the window?” He set his umbrella near the door. His words rattled the emotion-laden silence. He glanced at the workman. “Am I interrupting something?”
 

With her foot Joanna clicked off the steamer at its base. “Hi Andrew. No, I just—” She thought about telling him about Marnie, but she didn’t want to get into it. Not with him. “—I’m getting a new lock.”

Despite the rain, Andrew looked cool and unruffled, more like a tennis pro on his day off than a congressional aide in the heat of a contentious campaign.
 

“It's stuffy in here,” Andrew said. “You should get air conditioning.”

“You know how I feel about that. No thanks. Stand by the fan.” People were slaves to climate control these days. Why architects began making office buildings with windows that couldn’t open was beyond her.
 

Andrew ignored her advice and stared at the man at the door. Responding to Andrew’s attention, the workman stepped forward. “Hi, I'm Paul.” He wiped his palm on his jeans and shook Andrew’s hand. “A little bit of a mess.” He nodded at the pieces of brass at his feet and then glanced at Joanna.
 

“Is he going to be here long?” Andrew sized up the workman.

What was his deal? He had no reason—or right—to be jealous. He was married now.

Paul unflinchingly returned his gaze. She took a second look at the workman. Not movie star handsome, but there was something about him.
 

“I don’t know. As long as it takes, I guess,” Joanna said. She noted Andrew’s expression and changed the subject. “Why are you delivering posters, anyway? Don't you have volunteers to do that?”

“Sure, but I was in the area and thought I'd drop by. Chick asked, actually. He said this is an up-and-coming neighborhood.” He set the poster on the bench at the center of the store and sat down. “I left you a message the other day, but you never called back.”

“It's been busy.” She clicked the steamer on again. If Andrew was going to stick around, she might as well get some work done. “How's the campaign going?”
 

He grimaced. “The polls are close. Mayer is arguing that Chick’s too old, that he's too much of an insider, all the standard bull. In the Senate, though, he'll be far from the oldest. And he’s definitely the best candidate, policy-wise.”

“You don’t have to convince me.”

“He’s a little freaked out, actually. We’ve stepped up the campaigning. It's been a lot of running around. I think last night was the only night we’ve had off for weeks.” He picked a piece of lint from his pants. “You're coming to the rally on Tuesday, aren't you?”

“I don’t know. Apple has the day off and I’d have to close the store.”

“Only for a few hours. You have to come. Tell Apple and Gavin to come, too. It’s a big deal.” His cell phone buzzed, and he glanced at its screen. “Got to go. But I’ll see you at the rally.” He rose from the bench and gave Joanna a quick peck on the cheek as if the matter were settled. “Arpège, right? Smells nice.”

“Thanks.” She’d chosen the Lanvin perfume in honor of the coat. Now she didn’t think she’d ever wear it again.

He picked up his umbrella by the door. He turned and smiled again, but his smile dropped off when he caught sight of the workman. Andrew had so many good qualities. He could be so engaging, so charming. If only he weren’t so self-absorbed. She had spent three years thinking “if only” before deciding to pull the plug.
 

The workman put down his screwdriver as Andrew left. “The lock works now, but I need to get longer bolts to replace the ones I put in today. I'll be back tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”
 

As he came closer, she smelled the soap he'd used to shower that morning. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Must be lack of sleep. “Your shirt looks like an old Pendleton,” was all she could think to say.

He slipped off the shirt to look at the label. The tee shirt he wore underneath showed strong shoulders and a tiny scar on his upper arm. She saw half-dressed women all day at the store, but this felt distinctly—different. Apple would have a heyday if she knew he was here. Paul slung the shirt over an arm. “Yeah, you're right. It was my uncle's.” He smiled, revealing a gap between his front teeth. “Well, until later then.”
 

Her gaze followed him out the door and past the front window. Where it landed, again, on the Lanvin coat.

***

Joanna closed the store an hour early. True to the twists of weather that make up a Portland summer, the rain had stopped, and the sky shone brilliant blue. She lived in what a real estate agent might have once called a “G. I. dream house”: two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom barely larger than something found on a train, but a comfortable kitchen and a living room with a fireplace.
 

“I'm home. Godfrey, prepare my Martini,” she commanded the imaginary butler. “And make it snappy. I’ve had one hell of a day.”

She tossed her purse on the down cushions of the chaise longue near the front window and piled the mail on the end table next to a stack of Depression-era
Vogues
. She kicked one shoe, then the next, across the faded oriental carpet, and saluted the mishmash of amateur portraits on one wall. “Hello, Aunt Vanderburgh,” she said to a pastel of a tight-lipped woman.
 

In the bedroom, Joanna slid off her dress and hung it on a satin-padded hanger. She pulled a loose 1940s housedress over her head. Its cotton skirt swished about her legs as she made her way to the kitchen.
 

She took a hefty ribeye steak from the freezer. With a pile of mashed potatoes and a handful of green beans from the garden, her dinner would be as close as she could get to Valium on a plate. No pre-fab meal here. People were always surprised when they found out she refused to have a microwave or even a cell phone. If Carole Lombard didn’t need them, why should she? Joanna laid the steak out to thaw.

Her hand paused over a salt shaker that had belonged to her grandmother. On the face of it they couldn’t be more different, but her grandmother was a lot like Marnie. Like Marnie, her grandmother knew how to take care of herself. When Joanna was six years old, after her grandparents had taken her in, she had heard the saying that “dogs are a man's best friend,” but also that “diamonds are a girl's best friend.” She complained to her grandmother she understood how dogs could be a friend, but wasn't claiming diamonds as a friend going too far?

Her grandmother had put down her dish towel and laughed. “Honey,” she’d told her, “If you've got a diamond you can buy all the dogs you want.” Could have come straight from Marnie’s mouth.

Joanna’s smile faded. The accident. After her grandmother’s death, her grandfather had sunk into a depression. She would sit for hours reading in their closet with the comfort of brightly colored house dresses hanging around her, still redolent of Moondrops perfume. She’d tamped down the memory of the accident for years. Now, after this morning at the store, it was back. Without thinking, her fingers sought her grandmother’s pearl ring.

Joanna pulled a saucepan from the row of well-used pans hanging above the stove and filled it with water. She carried a porcelain bowl to the backyard and pinched green beans from vines covering a bamboo teepee. Back inside, while the potatoes boiled she poured a glass of Languedoc and set the table with a linen napkin and a plate painted with buttercups.
 

Why did Marnie come to the store after hours? Yes, she was frail, but would she really have pulled the Lanvin coat over herself and died? She’d wanted the coat back desperately, but had to have been unhinged to break into the store to get it. At least, that’s what the detective seemed to think.
 

Maybe if Joanna had given back the Lanvin coat when Marnie asked, she’d still be alive. Or if she’d only checked in on Marnie when she told Apple she would. With a pang she remembered their last, sharp words. She wished her last interaction with Marnie could have been that morning when she had sold her the coat. She’d been so sweet. “You’re family,” she’d said.
 

Now Marnie was dead.
 

The detective had warned her not to leave town. Her stomach churned, but she suppressed the thought of the autopsy until no emotion, not even curiosity, was left.
 

As a girl, she hadn't cried at her grandmother's funeral, either. After the service, a handful of relatives, including her father who had driven all night from Colorado, gathered at her uncle's house. Joanna had sat in the living room and read a book her father brought for her while the adults talked quietly in the kitchen. It had been years since she’d thought about that day.
 

Joanna wandered to the stereo and slid an LP of Schubert lieder from its sleeve. “For you, Aunt Vanderburgh.” She nodded at the portrait. The tenor's voice wound through the accompanying piano.
 

That night, Joanna, full of beef and red wine, slept without dreaming.

Fridays were Apple's day to work at the store and Joanna's day to find new stock. Estate sales were her favorite part of owning a vintage clothing store, and today they’d be a perfect distraction. This morning she was bound for a sale at a house high on Terwilliger Boulevard. She folded a few large bags and tucked them under her arm—estate sales never seemed to have enough bags. She filled her travel mug with coffee and was on her way while the sun still rose behind Mount Hood.
 

The sale wouldn't start for a few hours, but as she expected, a line had already formed at the door of the house. The people closest to the door were arguing about who’d arrived first. She wondered if they would be standing in front of Marnie's house sometime soon. Her throat tightened. She didn’t know if Marnie had anyone in her life to take care of her estate. Or even to arrange a funeral.

“Hi Susan, hello,” Joanna greeted a few of the estate sale regulars. She spotted Nora's beehive hairdo further up the line and made a mental note to get to the perfume while Nora was waylaid by costume jewelry, otherwise Nora would snag it all for her case at the antiques mall. Ben, an elegantly dressed man with a new Range Rover parked down the block, cased the outside of the house, trampling asters as he peered into the bedroom windows. She didn't have to worry about competition from him since he'd be slapping his “Sold to Ben Cub Interiors” stickers only on furniture.