Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (21 page)

“She’s here. She’s safe,” Sylvia said between sobs.

No way, Joanna thought. The latch was too high for Marianne to have reached. There’s no way she got into that staircase on her own.

***

Sylvia rocked Marianne in her arms. “My baby, my baby.” The minutes passed. At last, Marianne slipped onto Sylvia’s knee, then to an armchair in the library.

“It’s a good thing I stayed here. If it weren’t for me, God knows how long she would have been stuck in there,” Bette said. “Bubbles, too.”

Joanna’s lips tightened. Bubbles was the one who should be thanked. Bette hadn’t even bothered to help look.

“Thank you, Bette, thank you. I can’t thank you enough.” Sylvia pulled another chair close to Marianne’s. Despite the drama of the last hour, Bubbles hopped up next to Marianne and snuggled close. Marianne’s hand dropped to the dog’s head.

“I know what it’s like to be afraid for your daughter. I’m just glad she’s safe.” Bette sounded sincere. “You’re all right, aren’t you darling?”

“Yes, Grandma.”
 

Bette didn’t even flinch at the word. “That’s good. You’re safe now, sweetheart.”
 

Marianne had tuned out of the adults’ conversation and stared at the ceiling, one hand petting Bubbles’s ear. Joanna knelt by her chair. “Are you all right?” Marianne nodded and grabbed her mother’s fingers. “Can you tell us how you got in the staircase?”

Silent, the little girl stared at her hands.

“It’s too soon, Joanna. I know you’re trying to figure out what happened, but she’s had enough trauma the last few days,” Daniel said.
 

“I won’t let her leave my side now,” Sylvia added.

“I just don’t see how she could have reached the lever to the hidden staircase, that’s all. With everything that’s happened, well—” Joanna said. She eyed the carved hornet. Even if Marianne had pulled up a chair, the hornet would be beyond her grasp. “Maybe—” She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe Bubbles did it.”

Marianne’s eyes widened. “Bubbles? That’s silly.”

“I thought I saw Bubbles flying around the kitchen looking for a bone earlier today. I bet she flew right up and grabbed that hornet’s stinger in her mouth and pulled the lever.”

Marianne smiled. “You’re silly. Dogs don’t fly.”

“But then how did you get in?”

“The man let me in, that’s who.”

Joanna looked first at Clarke then Sylvia. The footprints in the attic.

“The man?” Sylvia prompted Marianne.

“Tony,” Clarke whispered.

Joanna leaned closer to Marianne. “Tell me about it.”

“I was sitting here looking at my book. The shelf popped open, just a little bit.” Marianne held apart her index finger and thumb to give an idea of the how much. “I saw a man.”

“Tony,” Clarke repeated. Sylvia sat frozen, as if ready to shut down the conversation any second, but Marianne’s tone was light.

“What did he look like?” Joanna asked.
 

“He didn’t have any hair. But he had eyebrows like
Lepidoptera
.”

“Caterpillars,” Sylvia translated.

“Tony.” Clarke stood and put a hand on the back of the chair.

“What happened next?” Daniel asked.

“He looked right at me, then he went—bip!” She flickered her fingers like running legs. “But he didn’t close the shelf all the way. So I went inside.” Her hand dropped to her lap, and her expression deadened. “My Dad’s up there.”

“Marianne.” Daniel crouched again next to her chair. “Was it Father Tony?”

“Master Tony? No.” The girl was a good listener.

“Had to be,” he muttered. “Kind of, you know, chunky?”

“Perfect,” she said and stuck a finger into her soft middle. “Like me.”

“Tony all right,” Clarke said.
 

The Reverend had been nosing around enough, that’s for sure. But just moments before, he’d stormed to the lower level. How could he have slipped into the tower room unobserved? “So you went inside the staircase,” Joanna said.

“And then the bookshelf shut and I couldn’t get out.” She squeezed Bubbles close, and the dog yipped. Her lip began to quiver.

“Why didn’t you yell?” Clarke asked.

“The man put his finger to his lips like this.” The girl demonstrated the “shush” sign, finger to lip. “So I did.”

“That’s enough,” Sylvia said and drew her daughter close.

Clarke rose and glanced toward the great room. “Tony. That charlatan will pay for this.”

Bette rested a hand on Sylvia’s arm. “I’m sorry I was so unkind about your nonprofit. You’re doing good work. At Studio 54 I saw lots of girls who threw up or did coke to stay skinny. They really needed help. They ruined their teeth, for one thing.”

“I shouldn’t have been so short with you.” Sylvia sighed and leaned back. “It’s been such an awful weekend, I didn’t think I could take one more thing. But you were right. We already have the foundation poured for the new facility, then one of our backers pulled out. Meanwhile, the lease on the building we have now will be up, and we’ve nowhere to go and no money to lease a new place, anyway.”

“But surely you have lots of money. From Wilson,” Bette said.

Sylvia shook her head. “That’s for Marianne.”

“She’s right, Bette. It’s in a trust,” Clarke said.

“I’d hoped Wilson might—you know, might lend me enough to finish the building. I’d have paid him back, of course,” Sylvia said.

“But he said no?” Bette asked.

“He said he needed to discuss it with Penny, but he’d think about it.”

Joanna watched the conversation intently. So that’s what Sylvia talked to Wilson about the night of the rehearsal dinner when they went to the butler’s pantry. She glanced over to see Clarke watching Sylvia with equal focus.

“Wilson said what?” Penny appeared at the library door, Portia behind her. Her hair was mussed, and she wore a long sweater—Portia’s?—over yoga pants.
 

“That he’d think about lending Sylvia some money for the building for her nonprofit,” Bette said.

Penny rubbed her eyes. “He never said anything about it to me.”

“How are you, Penny?” Maybe Wilson hadn’t had time to talk to Penny about it. Or maybe he told Sylvia “no,” and she wouldn’t admit it.

“All right. I mean, considering.”

“What was all the racket out here? We heard the dog barking, Mom yelling,” Portia said.
 

“Let’s go out by the fireplace. I think my champagne glass is somewhere out there. I’ll tell you about it. Thank God I was here, that’s all I can say.” Bette pushed by Joanna, her caftan flapping, and fell into the lips couch.
 

At lunch, Joanna and Sylvia laid out the makings for sandwiches. Refusing to use the dumbwaiter, they carried up trays from the kitchen.
 

“I’m not hungry,” Clarke said.

“It’s because you couldn’t get Tony to admit to anything, isn’t it?” Portia said.
 

After Marianne’s rescue, Clarke had charged down to the ground floor to have it out with the Reverend but returned, defeated, not long after.

“He swears he was downstairs the whole time,” Clarke said.

“See? Leave him alone,” Penny said. “Besides, someone would have seen him in here. Why would he go around locking little girls in staircases?”

Joanna spooned a few crudités on a plate and wandered toward the library. Out its windows toward the mountain’s peak, the terrain was white and smooth as a calm ocean, and the snow had lightened to a dusting. On the valley side of the lodge, snow had blown up against the windows, now obscuring the view. Only someone in the tower room’s front window would be able to see the snow-shrouded trees disappearing down the mountain.
 

Joanna returned to the great room and settled into an armchair. They couldn’t possibly be stuck in the lodge longer than tonight. Surely, when the Forest Service tried to radio back—and they must have tried at some point, she hoped—and didn’t get a signal, they planned to send someone up. She pushed away the thoughts of everyone else on the mountain who needed help, too.

A book lay by Penny’s side, but she wasn’t reading. Every once in a while she’d turn a page, but mostly she looked in the fire or stared into space.
 

Bette sipped flat wedding champagne and stared in the fireplace. Her fox fur chubby covered the top half of her caftan. “I am so over lodges, and so is Bubbles.” Bubbles had shown her discontent by making an indoor potty of the lower lobby. Of the bunch, cuddled next to Marianne the dog was probably the most satisfied.

Daniel had the remains of the radio spread in front of him on the coffee table, as well as a sandwich Sylvia had brought him. He’d put a few pieces of the radio together, but other pieces were clearly destroyed. He pushed parts away in frustration and fell back to the couch.
 

Portia paced the main area, looping through the dining room, where she paused at the windows, then to the library, then again to the great room.
 

“Stop pacing,” Bette said. “You’re making me nervous.”

Portia stopped at the arch leading in from the dining room. “I
am
nervous. I feel like a caged animal. We’re stuck here, no way out, with two dead bodies.”

Sylvia frowned and pointed her chin at Marianne, who drowsed near her, a hand still on Bubbles.

“Oh, like she doesn’t know what’s going on here. Heck, when the food runs out, she’ll be the first morsel on the grill.”

“Portia,” Bette said. Joanna lifted her head. This was new. She’d heard Bette yell and moan, but never sound authoritative. “Honey, I’m surprised at you. You will not talk about our darling girl like that. Besides, I thought you were the trooper here, that you could live for weeks with nothing but rations and your camera. Look at us. Does this look like suffering?”

Bette had a point. A still photograph of the scene would have shown a privileged family enjoying a weekend in a luxurious ski lodge. A fire roared in the fireplace. Flowers graced tabletops. Bottles of champagne rested on the hearth next to a few slices of wedding cake. Except for the fireplace’s grotesque mouth and the guests’ coats and scarves, they might have been an
Architectural Digest
centerfold.

Well, a few more exceptions, like the bodies lying above and below them. And the lack of connection to the outside world. When night fell, they’d have nothing but candles to guide them to their shared bedrooms. As for being a family, they made an odd one. One brother, Daniel; his ex-almost-sister-in-law, Sylvia; and her daughter, Marianne. One mother, Bette; her twin daughters, Penny and Portia. Clarke, old friend and odd man out. Joanna and Tony, the help. One dead rock star—a father, ex-lover, brother, and almost husband. One dead chef.

Surely the most heartbroken was Penny. Surely somehow she could be cheered up. “Penny,” Joanna said. “Reverend Tony may have uncovered a few clues about the guy who built Redd Lodge.”

Penny straightened and turned toward her. “What did he say?”

“We were in the garage getting firewood, and we couldn’t help checking out a gorgeous old roadster under a tarp. It even had a name, and you’ll never guess what it was.”

“The hornet,” she said.

Joanna set down her coffee cup. “Did he tell you?”

“No,” she said. “I just guessed.” A smile played on her lips. Good.

“Do you want to keep guessing, or should I tell you more?”

“More.”

Bette lifted her head now, too.
 

“Well,” Joanna said, “There was a secret compartment in the trunk. The Reverend guessed right away that Francis Redd must have been a bootlegger during Prohibition. The funny thing is, I’d been reading his journals, and he wrote about dreams where he was being chased in the hornet. Plus, there’s a big, empty space in the secret staircase that could have held a sizable stash of booze. I just hadn’t put it together.”

Life returned to Penny’s face. “Maybe a rival bootlegger got him. Marched him out into the snow. They might have had giant parties, right here in this very room.” Her gaze swept the great room as if seeing it for the first time.
 

“They would have played records on a gramophone and danced,” Bette added, undoubtedly reflecting on Studio 54.

“Tony shouldn’t be down there alone.” Joanna was surprised she’d spoken aloud.
 

“After what he did to Marianne, who cares what happens to him?” Clarke said.

“It’s not just that. We all need to keep tabs on each other, too. Just in case,” Joanna added, trying to backpedal for Penny’s sake.

“Just in case one of us decides to try something, you mean?” Daniel said.

“Reverend Tony wouldn’t ‘try anything’,” Penny said.

“I suppose as long as the rest of us stay together, it’s the same thing,” Joanna said. So much for her and Tony’s pact to find the murderer. Detective Crisp probably wouldn’t have approved anyway. Too much trust without evidence to support it. Her method was a little more intuitive that the detective’s.

“Right,” Clarke added. “If anything funny happens, we’ll know it’s him.”

“Look. Here’s a gramophone,” Portia said. She’d opened a low cabinet on one wall, and an old-fashioned record player with a bronzed horn had popped up. “Records, too.”

Clarke crossed the room and examined one of the records with an expert eye. “Says ‘Paul Eluard.’ That’s all.”

“Put it on,” Bette said. “It’s crank, right? We don’t need power to run it. Give it a try.”

Portia slipped the record from its brown paper sleeve and laid it on the turntable. She rested the needle on the record’s edge, then began to crank the handle on the gramophone’s side. Voices, first low and jumbled, slowly rose to a recognizable pace.
 

“Stop there,” Bette said. “That speed. I can understand it like that.”

A grave voice intoned, “Lamps lit very late. The first one shows its breasts that red insects are killing.”

Portia’s hand fell from the handle, and the voice deepened into a drugged, then incomprehensible, slur before dropping off. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She returned to the clam chair and pulled up her feet. “Yeah, just a normal little family gathering.”