Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (22 page)

Family gathering. Right. Joanna’s family was a made-up one of slow-built friendships and some uncles she rarely saw. The grandparents who raised her were dead. And then there was her mother. She rose and wandered to the library window again. Snow spread as far she could see, falling and settling and graying as the afternoon dimmed. Where the hell was their rescue?

She turned to see Clarke, in the great room, picking up the sheaf of papers he always seemed to have at his side. “May as well get a bit more work done while it’s still light. I thought I’d save it for the plane, but—” He let the sentence hang. After a long exhale, he stood and carried the papers to the dining room where a bank of snow reflected light to the table. “Any more of that Armagnac left?”

“I’ll check downstairs,” Bette said. “I need something to do before I go insane. Champagne’s nearly run out, too.”

“Don’t go alone. You know the rule.”

“For God’s sake, Clarke. I won’t be gone a minute.” Bette stumbled a bit as she rose. Tipsy? She’d put away a fair amount of Veuve Clicquot already.

“Mama,” Marianne said, half asleep. “I want to go home.”

“I know, honey. We’ll be going home soon. I promise.”

Joanna returned to her book and the safe pages of Agatha Christie, where everything would turn out all right in the end. They needed a Hercule Poirot here. Poirot would wrap up the murders and maybe even find a way to get them home. She glanced again toward the window. Or maybe not. At this point, she’d swap Poirot for Admiral Byrd and a team of Alaskan huskies. Home is what she wanted. To be safe, warm. Home.

A scream pierced the great room’s silence.

Clarke bolted to his feet. “Bette.” He charged for the stairs.
 

One hand on the wall, Joanna followed him down the dark stairway. Despite his limp, Daniel was close behind her. If Bette was hurt, there was only one person who could be responsible—Tony. Unless Bette fell. She’d been drinking pretty heavily, and the ground floor was pitch black. Joanna arrived in the lobby just as Tony burst in, candle in hand, from the wing with the bedrooms.

“What’s going on?” he said. “I heard a scream.”

“Over there,” Portia whispered.
 

As Joanna’s eyes adjusted to the dark she made out a body lying on the floor near the kitchen.
 

“Mom.” Penny knelt on the floor next to her.

In the flickering candlelight, Bette’s ashy hair drifted in a halo. Her caftan spilled over her open fur chubby on the stone floor, as if she were floating in a pool of wavy silk. A carmine slash the length of a pinkie finger marred her white neck. Bile rose in Joanna’s throat.

Reverend Tony pushed his way through the group. “She’s still breathing.” He shoved between Penny and Portia and rolled Bette on her back. He lifted a wrist. “Her pulse is fast, but there’s—”

Bette’s eyes flew open. Her mouth gaped in terror, and a hand flew to her neck. “Get him away from me,” she screamed. “Away! Away!”

Clarke yanked the Reverend back by his shoulders.

“What are you doing? I’m trying to help,” Tony said.
 

“Get him away from me.” A hand still clutching her neck, Bette rolled into a fetal position.

“I’ve got him,” Clarke said.
 

“She needs help,” Tony said from the wall, where Clarke had pushed him.

Joanna hurried into the kitchen and slipped a clean dishtowel off a shelf. She handed it to Penny.

“Mom, sit up.” Portia put a hand under Bette’s head. “Let me put this on your wound.”

“Pressure,” Joanna said. “We should clean that out.”

Bette took the towel from Penny and clapped it against her neck. “Later. He only scratched me. I moved too fast,” she mumbled. She pulled the towel away and glanced at it. It was stained deep red. She pressed it again to her neck and winced.

“Over here.” Penny and Portia lifted Bette to her feet and set her on a wooden bench along the wall. A champagne bottle lay on its side, wine spilling across the stone floor.
 

With her free hand, Bette clutched her fur coat around her chest and glared at Tony through slit eyes. “Get him out of here.”

“What happened?” Joanna asked.

“I’m not saying anything until that man is locked up.”

“Clarke has him. Now tell us what happened.”

Her breath came in small bursts, and her eyes darted around the foyer. “I was leaving the kitchen, and he swooped in from nowhere. He must have been hiding behind the bear.”

“Details, Bette,” Clarke prodded.

“He—Tony—grabbed me around the waist, from behind, and held a knife to my neck. He was going to kill me.”

“I never—” Tony yelled and lurched forward. Clarke grabbed an arm, and Daniel grabbed the other.
 

“I screamed. Thank God I screamed. He ran away before you got here,” Bette said. Her hand shook. “But not before doing this.”

“No. It’s not true,” Penny said quietly. She moved near Tony.

“He was trying to kill me.” Bette had stopped crying. Now her voice was cold. “I’m sorry, honey, but you have to face the facts.”
 

“It’s not true.” Penny said, louder this time. “It was an accident.”

“Did you actually see him?” Joanna asked Bette. If someone had grabbed her from behind, she might have been mistaken.

“Oh, I knew it was him all right,” she said, grimacing as she held the dishtowel to her neck. “I could smell him.”

“So you didn’t see him,” Penny said. “You’re blaming Master Tony, and he didn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t need to see him.”

“The knife,” Joanna said. “Where’s the knife? If Tony attacked Bette, he should have it or it’s on the floor somewhere.”

“Yes.” Penny moved from the wall and let her gaze sweep the landing’s floor, illuminated only by a single taper. “Where is it? Tony, do you have a knife?”

Tony shook his head. Clarke still held his arm. “No pockets. Check me. No knife.” From what Joanna could see, the Reverend wore only boxers and a tee shirt under his kimono.
 

“I don’t know what happened to some knife,” Bette said. “But he obviously had one. How do you explain my neck?”
 

“I’m sorry, Penny, but who else could it be?” Daniel said. “He was the only one of us down here.”

The footprints in the attic, Penny’s ghost, Marianne’s “skinny man” flashed through Joanna’s mind.

Clarke, still firmly gripping Tony, said, “There are two dead already. If Bette says Tony attacked her, then he did. We can’t afford to take chances.” He grabbed Tony’s other arm away from Daniel and twisted them behind Tony’s back. Clarke was unusually strong, Joanna thought, or he knew exactly what he was doing. “I’m taking him to his room, and he’s staying there. We’ll have a guard set up outside his door.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Reverend Tony said, but he didn’t resist Clarke’s hold.

“You thought you could hide your past, Tony,” Clarke said. “You can’t.” Clarke marched him toward his room.
 

Bette refused to look at the Reverend. She held the dishtowel against her neck and stared toward the ceiling.
 

“You’re all right, Mom?” Portia asked.

“Considering I could be dead, I guess I’m fine.”

Penny, silent at first, began to tremble. Her hands rattled, then flailed uncontrollably against the wall. She gasped for breath. The strain of the past few days must have built up beyond her ability to handle it.
 

Joanna strode to her side. “Penny—”

“I hate you.” Her voice was low and steel-cold. Joanna dropped back before noticing Penny’s gaze was on Daniel. Slow and measured, Penny stepped closer to him. “You never forgave Wilson, did you? And now you want me to pay for it by accusing Master Tony. Well you can go to hell.” With that, she spit in his face.

Daniel stumbled back and hit the wall.
 

What was going on?
 

Penny ran upstairs, Portia on her heels. Joanna followed the sisters, grateful for the light on the second floor, weak as it was.

Breathing in spasms, Penny launched into her room and tore open the closet. “Master Tony’s innocent. Don’t you people know anything?” She yanked a silk dressing gown from its hanger and tore off its lace trim. The silk almost moaned as it rent against the grain. “He didn’t hurt anyone.”

Joanna forced herself to breathe more slowly. “Penny, it’s all right. Calm down. We’ll be out of here soon, and we’ll sort everything out. It will be all right.”
 

“Sometimes people aren’t what we expect,” Portia said. “There’s a lot you don’t know about Tony.”

Thinking of her conversation earlier with Clarke, Joanna said, “Portia could be right. Has he told you much about his past?”

Penny froze mid-rip with the dressing gown in her hand. “You too?” she said. Penny had never looked so—wild. Fear gathered in Joanna’s chest.

Penny’s voice came out low and deliberate. “You’re jealous.” She moved a step closer to Joanna. “Aren’t you? You make your life all pretty with vintage dresses, and you have no idea how to be intimate with someone. You saw me and Wilson together, and you just couldn’t stand it.” She inched closer still. “No wonder you can’t even get along with your own mother. You don’t have the knack for love.”

Joanna’s back was now against the wall. Penny’s words drilled into her chest, unleashing a geyser of pain mingled with fear. Who was this woman? What happened to the joyful, optimistic girl she knew? The lodge was twisting each of them into their worst selves. First Bette had lost it, then Sylvia. Now it must be Penny’s turn.

Joanna was unable to speak. Her lips parted slightly and breath was quick and shallow.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” The veins in Penny’s neck and temples throbbed blue under her white skin. Moving deliberately, she walked to the bathroom. She emerged with a nail file.

“Penn, I didn’t mean it about Tony. I was wrong—” Portia said quickly.

“It’s not worth hurting yourself over.” Joanna snapped out of her paralysis. “Please, Penny.”

A sad smile widened over Penny’s face. “I’m not going to hurt myself.” She pursed her lips and turned toward the closet. She pulled out the Schiaparelli gown and lay it on the bed. She smoothed the fabric with her palm. Her finger touched a streak of printed ripped flesh.

Joanna’s eyes widened. “No, Penny.”
 

Joanna lunged for the dress, but Penny was too quick. Holding the nail file in her hand, she stabbed it through the silk of the Schiaparelli gown. Over and over and over.

“Put that down,” Joanna yelled and grabbed for fabric.
 

Portia wrested back Penny’s arms as Joanna ripped away the dress. Its delicate seams gave way with a lurch. As Penny collapsed, crying, on the bed, Joanna scooped the gown’s remains into her arms and ran across the hall to her room.

Joanna sat alone for the first time all day. Once Reverend Tony was downstairs in his room with Daniel guarding from the hall outside, Clarke had told everyone they were safe—they no longer had to buddy up. He’d searched the Reverend’s room and found both a steak knife and Wilson’s background report on him. As far as he and everyone else at the lodge—well, everyone except Penny—were concerned, they had the murderer.
 

The crumpled Schiaparelli gown lay in a heap on her bed where she’d tossed it an hour before. What a disaster. The gown’s destruction heaped bad on worse. She glanced at the pile of silk and groaned, then looked up at the portrait. “Madame Eye, what do you think? I know, I know. I have to check out the damage sometime.” She drew a deep breath. Might as well be now.
 

She gingerly lifted the wadded silk and flattened it on her bed. Three slashes ravaged the fabric. Each slash was more than a foot long against the silk’s grain, and the seam under one arm gaped open. There was no way they’d be able to salvage this dress. The curator would be furious. Maybe they’d sue. When she got back into town she’d find a lawyer. At least the veil had remained whole—it was still hanging in Joanna’s closet in its archival garment bag.
 

And Penny’s words still stung. So that was how she came off, as a distant, prissy, unloveable person. How had Paul stood her for so long? She pressed her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. After a moment, she lay next to the dress. Her grandmother always said that when God closes a door, he opens a window somewhere, but she’d be damned if she could find it.
 

A timid knock on the door disturbed the silence, and Joanna sat up, hastily brushing at her cheeks. Penny entered, her own face tight with dried tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. She lifted a corner of the Schiap and caressed the sleeve before dropping it to the bed. “It’s ruined, isn’t it?”

Joanna nodded. With the dress’s destruction, so went the trust of people she’d spent years cultivating. They’d never lend her anything again, never offer advice or give her a lead on a couture dress that was too worn for archival purposes but would sell in a flash at Tallulah’s Closet. And, of course, the world was less one magnificent work of art.

“Why, Penny? Why did you do it? I know you’re mad, you’re full of grief. But why did you have to take it out on the Schiap? I could lose my store over this.” She didn’t mean to shout, but she couldn’t help it. Penny’s self-centeredness felt way too familiar. Way too much like Joanna’s mother.

“I’m sorry I was so mean to you. I know you were only trying to help. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“For God’s sake.” Finally, Joanna understood Portia’s hysterical laughter—and tears. She’d only lost a dress, not a fiancé. She needed to remember that. She patted the bed. “Sit down. You have every reason in the world to be emotional right now, starting with Wilson.”

Penny took a deep breath and released it as she sat. “It’s funny. It’s like I can’t accept he’s gone. Earlier today in the great room, Mom said something stupid about K.C. and the Sunshine Band, and I looked up, expecting to make a face at Wilson. But he wasn’t there. Of course.” She gripped the bedpost with one hand and leaned against it, staring at the cold hearth. “I keep thinking I hear his footsteps. It’s automatic. He’d become part of me, and now—”