Slain in Schiaparelli (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 3) (6 page)

“That’s great. Timberline Lodge isn’t more than a few miles away.”

She set her mug on the hearth next to Daniel’s. She’d dress, too, then tell the chef the wedding was off. He couldn’t know about Wilson’s death yet. Plus, she had a few questions for him about the sandwiches, then she’d see about cordoning off the tower room until they could get in touch with the police.

On her way out, she stopped and turned back. She found the phone on a side table in the breakfast room and lifted its receiver. Dead air.

***

“
Entrez
,” said the chef.
 

Joanna leaned against the door jamb. The chef’s room gave off the air of a medieval frat house. A room originally intended for household staff, it was smaller and darker than the bedrooms upstairs. The window at the rear was snowed over. Clothes were draped over the back of chairs and strewn on the bed and stone floor. Of course, Chef Jules was barely twenty years old.
 

The chef sat, feet up on the desk, with a graphic novel in lurid colors propped in his lap. On seeing Joanna, he sat up and tossed the book to the side.
 

“
Eh bien
, it’s the lady worker bee. Buzz buzz, eh?” He lowered his voice. “But don’t worry, we worker bees must stick together. I have set aside a few especially nice
plats
for us. They will eat the venison leg roasts up there.” He waved toward the ceiling. “But the most delicate morsel, the backstrap, I have kept it for us in the kitchen. With a premier cru Bordeaux—right bank,
naturellement
—it will be divine.”
 

Bette had hired the chef away from a two-star restaurant in Lyon simply to prepare two days of meals plus appetizers for the reception. A team of foragers in Portland had met him at the airport with the crates of produce, locally raised meat, and wine he’d ordered ahead, then swept him up the mountain to the lodge.
 

At the mention of food, Joanna’s stomach tightened. The coffee hadn’t gone far. As shocking as the morning was, maybe she should have had a few bites of scrambled eggs. “Chef Jules, I have some bad news—”

He crossed his arms and smiled. “Oh, I know you appreciate the good food. I saw you admiring the
artichauts
. A little trick from Chef Passard—put the most tender bay leaves between the leaves. Each
artichaut
had twelve bay leaves, then they are gently cooked in a bain marie.”

The artichokes last night
were
especially delicious. So meltingly tender, their green infused with the almond-herb scent of bay. Even Wilson had commented on them. Her thoughts jolted to his body above them. “Thank you. But—”

“What now? You’re worried because I’m reading a book? I need a break. Or maybe that lady wants special food for the dog again?” He leaned forward. “And I have
not
been smoking inside.”

Would he ever stop talking? “I’m afraid the dog is the least of our problems. There won’t be any wedding.” She had the chef’s attention now. “The blizzard will keep away the guests today. And” —she trained her gaze on him— “Wilson Jack died last night.”

His mouth dropped open. At last the chef was speechless. He reached around as if looking for a pack of cigarettes, then tucked his hands in his pockets. “
Tu blagues
.”

“I’m afraid I’m serious. It looks like he ate some clams in a sandwich.”

“
Non!
”

“One of the sandwiches you prepared.” Joanna watched him closely. “Surely by accident.”

“Clams?”

“Clam dip, maybe.”

“Impossible!” the chef said. “No clam dip. I have no clam dip. What is this clam dip?
C’est fou.
Besides, the Jackal, he tells me to keep the
langoustines
away from his food because he cannot tolerate them. No no no. Clam dip,” he sputtered. “
Non. Absolument pas
.” His body went limp as he sagged back into his chair. “He is dead you say?”

She nodded. If Chef Jules was lying, he deserved an Oscar. Maybe they were mistaken about seeing clam dip. It could have been some other kind of chunky spread. After all, Wilson had had a rough life. Maybe the stress of the wedding was too much and he had a heart attack.

“La la la. This is bad,” Jules said.

“Maybe it was something that only looked like clam dip. What was in the sandwich?”

The chef raised his fingers to tick off the ingredients. “Roast beef, cooked
à point
, mayonnaise
fait à main
with a hint of tamarind, blue cheese, lettuce, tomato, spelt bread, and
c’est tout
.”

“One more thing. I don’t know how long the storm will last, but we might be here another day until the snow plows get through. Can you stretch the wedding food to cover us?”

The chef’s brows were drawn together. “Of course, of course.
Pas de problème
. The Jackal Wilson is dead. Oh la.” His head shot up. “And they want to blame me,
n’est-ce pas
? They say I put clam dip on his sandwich?”

“Don’t worry about it, Jules. He might have died of something else altogether. That’s for the medical examiner to determine.” When he finally arrived, that is.

Chef Jules stood and rocked foot to foot, then hurtled to the door. He led Joanna past a stuffed bear standing on his hind legs, across the stone-floored lobby, to the kitchen. “
Voilà.
No guests, we have lots to eat.” Platters of food—smears of pâté on crackers, tiny potato tarts with slivers of black truffle, rounds of farmhouse cheeses—covered the kitchen counters and sideboard. He gestured to a towering wedding cake adorned with melting clocks of fondant. “Plenty of cake, too.” He sighed. “Gluten free.”

***

Chef Jules had been adamant not only that he didn’t make sandwiches with shellfish, but that he didn’t even know what clam dip was. Maybe what Clarke thought was clam dip was something else. She’d check, look at the sandwich again. Joanna mounted the two flights of stairs to Wilson’s tower room.

She opened the door and stopped cold. In the past half hour, the room had been transformed. The tumbled shoes and socks Joanna had seen earlier were put away, and the window was cracked just enough to give a crisp edge to the air against the heat from the now crackling fire. Daylight bounced off the snowbanks, through the whirling flakes, and filled the room, supplemented by the glow of a dozen candles set on the hearth and desk and nightstands. A fresh white sheet, creases still showing, lay over Wilson’s body.
 

Next to the hearth sat Bette.

Joanna’s gaze shot to the bedside table. “What did you do with the sandwich?”

“That half-eaten thing? Burned it.” Bette was pulling bright yellow stems of orchids from one of the vases flanking Wilson’s bed and setting them to the side, perhaps to give the arrangement a more masculine feel. She had changed into a new caftan, this one Stevie Nicks cream.
 

“Bette, you shouldn’t have. It might be what killed him.”

“It had some kind of seafood in it. It was going to smell up the place, so I tossed it in the fire.” Her lower lip protruded a fraction of an inch, just as Penny’s had this morning when she wanted to try on the Tears gown. “We couldn’t just leave Wilson like that.”

“He was allergic to seafood. We needed that sandwich to show the police.” Joanna exhaled in frustration. “What else did you burn?”

“Nothing. Just that.” Bette eased into the chair behind her. “I shouldn’t have, I guess. I’m so sorry. I just thought, you know, Wilson was going to be my son-in-law. And Penny was so upset. I wanted to make his last earthly home nice for him.” Her eyes began to moisten. Joanna tensed, but unlike the histrionic scene that morning, Bette’s tears were soft. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Bette said. “I’m not myself. I’m sorry I—I lost it this morning.”

Keenly aware of Wilson’s body a few feet away, Joanna sat in the armchair across from her. “I’m sorry I slapped you. I guess I wasn’t myself, either. I didn’t know what to do.”

“That’s all right. I was kind of going off the rails.”
 

“We’re going to have to close off the room for the police, you know. We don’t know how Wilson died, and they’ll want to examine everything,” Joanna said gently. “We’ll need to tell everyone to stay out of the room. No more logs in the fire.”

Bette’s gaze softened. “Penny will want to say her goodbye.”

“I’m so sorry, but she’ll have to wait until Wilson’s services. We need to keep the tower room like it was first thing this morning.” She glanced at the massive bouquets now flanking the bed, flowers Bette must have brought up from the great room. “If the medical examiner can’t easily pin down how and why he died, there’ll be an investigation that will bother Penny a lot more than waiting a few days to see Wilson. Where is Penny, by the way?”

“Sleeping. Reverend Tony made some kind of herbal tea, but when he left I gave her something that will really help her relax. Poor darling.” Bette dabbed her eyes with the sleeve of her caftan. “Can we stay here just a minute longer? I can’t hurt anything that way, can I?”

Joanna leaned back and closed her eyes. “I guess not.”

Just across the coffee table lay the corpse of a rock star. Downstairs was a Dali-esque wedding cake and several hundred puff pastry canapés. The bride was drugged. Outside the snow whirled like sparkling buckshot. This wedding wouldn’t be featured in
Bride
magazine any time soon.

“I guess it’s for the best,” Bette said.

Joanna opened her eyes. The best? Really?

“I’m not sure Penny would have been happy. I’ve tried to talk to her about it. Famous artists aren’t known as family men.” She sighed and shifted her gaze toward the window. “They can’t help it. They’ve had so much adulation that they’re like little boys.”

“Penny really loved him. She has a child-like quality, too. They seemed to bring out the best in each other.”

Bette shook her head, her chandelier earrings swaying. “No. Penny and I are a lot alike. Sure, things might be good now, but what about next year? And the year after? Wilson didn’t seem very happy last night. Maybe he already had a foot out the door.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Sure, they weren’t the traditional couple, and their age difference set some people to talking, but Wilson’s demeanor last night had been pure and deep affection.

“You don’t know Penny like I do. She treats people like stray dogs. Wants to help them. Wilson was the biggest, stray-est dog of them all,” Bette said.

Penny was kind-hearted, true, in her charmingly narcissistic way, but Bette was going too far. “Their relationship was built on more than pity, I know it.” Then she struck on something she was sure would appeal to Bette. “Besides, Penny would have been well-off for life.”

Bette snorted. “You can bet I had a thorough look at Wilson’s finances before I let Penny marry him. Very thorough. Not that it mattered once she signed that pre-nup.”

“They loved each other. That’s what mattered.”

Ignoring her, Bette continued. “Plus, she had something to prove to her sister. Portia was always the smart one, the one who got all the kudos, who traveled the world. Penny wanted to show she had something Portia didn’t by marrying Wilson. It’s too bad. Those two need to stick together.”

Joanna couldn’t reply. The fire’s warmth pulled the perfume from the lilies and orchids, blending it with the rum-cumin scent of the fire’s hot wood. Her own family was pretty much nonexistent—the grandparents who raised her now dead, her father God knew where, and her mother. Her mother who might at that moment be knocking on she and Paul’s front door. She turned her head toward Wilson’s white-draped body. Her chest tightened.
 

“I don’t tell many people this,” Bette said, “But I know what I’m talking about. I’ve had a lot of experience with that type of man.”

“Studio 54.” Joanna only half paid attention.

Bette nodded. “Plus, I’ve had four husbands, all of them musicians or former musicians. I know what they’re like. Penny wouldn’t listen to me, but I tried to tell her she was making a mistake. In the end, she’ll see she dodged a bullet with this one.”

“Come on. You’re going too far.” Who cared if Bette flipped out again? “Listen to yourself. No one—not one single person—could say Wilson’s death is fortunate. Really.”

“I know what I’m talking about. The girls—Penny and Portia—their father is—” She shuffled a bit in her chair and lowered her voice. “Mick Jagger.”

Well. Joanna sat back.
 

“At least it can’t get any worse than this,” Bette added.

All at once, the lights flickered and shut off. Voices downstairs rose in shouts.
 

The power was out.

Downstairs, Joanna found Daniel leaning against the fireplace, staring at the flames, while Reverend Tony reclined in the clam chair. Sylvia and Marianne huddled on the couch. Even without the lights, the room glowed from daylight off snow.

“Power’s out,” Reverend Tony said.

“A regular Sherlock, aren’t you?” Bette said. She seemed to have shaken her reflective mood from upstairs. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The lodge has a generator. We just have to figure out how to turn it on.”

“How are we for firewood? In case we can’t get it running,” Joanna said. Knowing how Bette didn’t bother to make sure they had a way out in case of a storm, she didn’t hold out much hope for the generator.

“If we stick to the central fireplace, we should be good for a couple of days,” Daniel said.
 

“I saw the generator. In the garage,” the Reverend said.

“Better bring in more wood before the storm gets worse,” Joanna said.

“I’ll help,” Clarke said from the entrance to the dining room. “Let me grab my coat and gloves.”

Sylvia stood. “I’d like to help, too. How about if I look for flashlights?”

“Don’t forget candles and matches,” Joanna added. If only they could telephone out. She turned to Daniel. “Did you happen to see a radio—maybe a hand-crank one—or anything like that in the storage room downstairs? There must be something here for emergencies.”

“No, but I was focused on the skis.”