A Fashionable Murder (11 page)

“I guess.” Josie seemed to be moving further and further away from this sort of thing in her own life. “So tell me about that party.”

“Well, it turned out that Sam did make an announcement—no, I’m wrong about that. Pamela made an announcement. She told everyone that Henderson and Peel was going to redecorate Sam’s place. I don’t know about the rest of the guests, but I assumed that meant she was going to move in with him. I was a bit surprised. It’s not a terribly big apartment. In fact, if I had thought the whole thing through at the time, I would have realized that there was no way Pamela would even consider moving in with Sammy. Her shoes alone would have filled both his closets. Anyway, they were a couple. And Sam trusted her to redecorate his apartment.”

Carol frowned, but whether it was a response to a distasteful memory or the sight of Josie’s thighs in the low-riding silk pants, Josie couldn’t guess.

“So what happened next?” Josie asked.

“The apartment was redecorated. And I know I’m not the only person who thought it was not an improvement. Sammy’s place had had a kind of rough charm. Over the years, he bought furniture as he needed it and had the money to spend. Nothing actually went together, but somehow it all did. Of course, you know Sammy—he covered most everything with books so maybe that pulled it all together somehow. Anyway, Pamela didn’t move in with Sammy and he never told me whether he thought his newly redecorated place was an improvement over the old look. And they continued to date. And then, one day—this was about six months later—Sammy announced he was going to retire and leave the city. And in less than a month, he had done just that. There was never even a hint that Pamela had planned on going with him. But they dated right up until the day he left.”

“Did he ask her to? To come to the island?” Josie held her breath waiting for the answer to a question she had wondered about ever since hearing of Pamela Peel’s existence.

“I don’t know. I never asked. And Sammy never volunteered the information. But I wouldn’t let that concern you, my dear. I’ve always thought that if Sammy had wanted to get rid of Pamela, moving to that island was an excellent way to do it.”

“Why?”

“Josie, it’s not exactly Southampton, you know.”

“That’s why we like it,” Josie stated flatly.

“And that’s why Pamela would have hated it. But you mustn’t let me veer off track this way. I was beginning to tell you about Pamela Peel.” Carol paused and Josie jumped in.

“Well, I know what she looked like—sort of.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about you. Do you ever wear pink?”

“Sometimes. A very pale pink . . . with my red hair,” Josie added, not explaining that the only pink article of clothing in her closet these days was a ragged sweatshirt Tyler had bought her years ago on a class trip to Great Adventure theme park. She rarely wore it in public since she felt it made her look like a gigantic blob of cotton candy.

“I have an idea. I’ll be right back.”

Their saleswoman dashed in as Carol dashed out, leaving Josie a bit breathless.

“I have the other things your mother—”

“She’s not my mother,” Josie protested. “She’s a friend.”

“Well, I brought the things she asked for and a few other ideas I had.” She looked at Josie now standing in the middle of the small room in a bra and silk pants. “Are you sure a size eight . . .”

“ . . . will never fit,” Josie finished for her. “Size twelve,” she said firmly. “And I don’t suppose you carry anything in denim?”

“Why, we have lots of denim! Donna Karan did some wonderful things with it this season. And I think maybe Calvin . . . You said size twelve, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll be right back.”

Carol and the saleswoman collided in the doorway. Josie took advantage of the few moments it took for the two women to regroup and collect the clothing that had fallen to the floor to hide a jacket she knew she would never wear and two more pairs of hip-hugging pants. The only people who should wear hip-huggers were those without hips. She put all three items in her discarded pile and turned to greet Carol.

“Look what I found, dear.” Carol held out a shocking-pink tunic, orange silk slacks, a couple of white T-shirts, and some sort of long, turquoise, beaded scarf. “Try these on.”

“I don’t think—”

“I believe I was just going to tell you what I know of Pamela’s background.”

Josie reached for the clothing and prepared to listen.

“Pamela was always very secretive about her childhood. And I can’t remember ever meeting any of her family in all the time she dated Sammy. But—”

“Isn’t that a little odd?” Josie asked, holding the tunic up to her chest.

“Not really. I can’t say that I know many of Sammy’s friends’ parents unless they just happened to live in the city and we happened to run across one another socially. So I don’t think the lack of family means anything other than that she grew up someplace else.

“And put on that shirt,” she ordered before continuing. “Anyway, dear Pamela was something of a snob and she used to drop comments about positively growing up on horseback, skiing in St. Moritz, the woes of private school dress codes. It was her way of letting us ordinary mortals understand that we were hobnobbing with the privileged. But, to tell the truth, I never believed that stuff.”

Josie stuck her head through the top of her top, astonished. “You really didn’t like her!”

“I admit I thought she was a snob. But don’t tell Sammy I said so. You know I make it a rule to never interfere in his private life.”

Josie knew nothing of the kind, but she kept her mouth shut. This revelation thrilled her.

“Anyway, Pamela may or may not have had a wealthy family. The truth is, it really doesn’t matter. In New York City, it’s what you can do that counts in most circles, not who your parents are. But Shepard Henderson’s family was quite wealthy and he and Pamela probably used his family’s connections to get their start in the decorating business. Henderson and Peel became well known almost immediately. And I can assure you that that sort of recognition—and publicity—is almost always gained through connections. I know she worked as a peon for one or two excellent firms before starting Henderson and Peel less than five years ago. One of their first jobs was for that awful Hollywood movie mogul—What was his name? Well, it doesn’t matter now. What matters is that he was so famous that the living room Henderson and Peel designed was on the cover of
Architectural Digest
. And their names and faces were prominently displayed in the six-page article about his new home. There’s been a long waiting list for their services ever since.” Carol wrinkled her forehead and ordered Josie to turn around.

“The pants need hemming, but other than that, I think we’ve found our outfit.” Josie looked down. In a room lined with mirrors, she had been so interested in what Carol was saying that she hadn’t even bothered to check out her own reflection. Now she did. And for a moment, she forgot that there even was a woman named Pamela Peel. She looked wonderful—like someone else, of course—but wonderful.

“Good, huh?”

“Very good,” Josie answered. “I can hardly believe it. I almost look like a New Yorker!”

“You look fabulous! And you didn’t think I could do it, did you?”

“Well . . .”

“Don’t answer that, dear. I don’t want to damage our relationship and I certainly don’t want you to lie. Now, the slacks come in taupe as well. So we’ll get them and another shirt or two will be fine. Now, a coat . . .”

“Carol, I don’t need a coat,” Josie said firmly.

“But what if he suggests you come to his office? You don’t want to ruin the image, do you? Besides, your parka has seen better days, you know.”

Josie sighed. “Okay, a coat. But not on this floor. This is all designer clothing. I’ve had a chance to read the signs at the ends of the escalators. Saks does sell clothing without designer labels.”

“I suppose we can look at those floors.”

“We can and we will. Now tell me more about Pamela Peel and please show me what I’m supposed to do with this thing.” She held out the long, beaded scarf.

“Oh, my dear, that dresses up the outfit for evening.” Carol grabbed the fabric and started to drape it around Josie’s shoulders. “You see, when you buy good clothing, it can be worn many different ways on many different occasions.”

“That’s exactly the way I feel about my Levi’s jeans,” Josie commented, staring at herself in the mirror. The scarf looked wonderful too, casually draped around her shoulders. She knew it would stay in place about five minutes, and then she would fidget with it for a while, and then, finally, take it off. Pamela Peel, she suspected, was the type of woman who could wear this sort of thing all day long and be found sipping cocktails in the evening with each and every bead still decoratively in place.

“Jeans are fine on the island, but this is New York. And we have to make a good impression tomorrow morning, remember.”

Josie nodded. She wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about Carol’s plan, but she hadn’t come up with any other and she had to help Sam.

“I was going to tell you about the last few times I’ve seen Pamela . . .”

“Since Sam left the city?”

“Yes. We did run into each other once in a while, of course. Usually I saw her and she didn’t see me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to explain. She was always polite. She didn’t snub me, but she was cool. We exchanged greetings. I always suggested that we meet for lunch sometime. She agreed. And we didn’t. And I knew we weren’t going to when we talked about it. The whole performance was a polite formality. Or it was until two weeks ago.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, we chatted a while. I told her that Sammy might be coming to town. She told me about the condo she was decorating for an anchorman. Then she pulled out her Palm Pilot and insisted on setting a date.”

“You two had lunch recently?”

“No. The date she chose was today.”

“Oh. Did she mention why she wanted to meet?”

“No. But she seemed to think it was important. She wanted to meet as soon as possible. But I was away and then she was busy.” Carol shrugged. “It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

“It probably does. It’s a connection. She wanted to see you. She was killed and her body found in Sam’s apartment. It really could be important. Did she give you any reason for wanting to meet?”

“Sort of. She said she . . . she wanted to hear more about how Sammy was doing. She said she’d been . . . that she had been missing him.”

TWELVE

THE NEXT MORNING, Josie had kissed Sam good-bye, telling him that she was meeting his mother for another shopping expedition and then heading straight to the address Carol had given her.

Josie had worked on some fabulous homes, but nothing in her experience prepared her for Sissy Austin’s East Side duplex. Her first impression was that it was big. On closer examination she changed that assessment to huge. Five floors hand laid in chestnut parquet, each floor having at least three large rooms, had been decorated by someone with no interest in austerity. The rooms were hung, draped, filled, and just plain crowded with overstuffed furniture, curtains, rugs, bows, beads, tassels, and swags in a rainbow of colors. Wood had been painted to look like paper; paper had been painted to look like wood. Plaster columns had been painted to look like marble. Marble columns had been covered with gilt. It wasn’t Josie’s taste, but she admitted that it was all very impressive.

But it had been decorated years ago, before Sissy got religion. Listening to Carol and Sissy chat as they walked Josie through the place, Josie couldn’t be sure whether Sissy had begun to practice Buddhism, transcendental meditation, or something less well known, but the result of her conversion was a newfound need to live what she described as “a simple life.” As far as Josie could tell, this simplicity involved dozens of brass bells, hundreds of crystals, artifacts from Tibet, and many, many yards of handwoven raw silk. Samples of these things were piled upon a French marquetry commode in the room Sissy had described as her library. There was a Mary Higgins Clark mystery open facedown on one of the room’s three velvet-covered couches. It was the only book in evidence.

“I don’t see how I’m going to do this,” Josie muttered, a worried expression on her face. “Now, I tell Mr. Henderson . . .”

“Shepard or Shep, not Mr. Henderson,” Carol corrected. “You are hiring him, remember.”

“Okay. I tell Shep I’m interested in hiring Henderson and Peel to redo your entire place in a more, um—”

“On a more spiritual plane,” Sissy explained. “Not feng shui—that’s so 1990s. I’m thinking green plants, maybe even orchids or those little Japanese trees, perhaps some of those big statues of religious figures . . . you know the type of thing.”

“It really doesn’t matter what Josie asks for,” Carol reminded them both. “It’s not as though Henderson and Peel is going to get the job anyway. In fact, the vaguer you are, the better, Josie. Then Shep will have to spend time trying to figure out exactly what you’re talking about. And that’s what you need. You want to get some sort of impression of him as well as learn anything you can about Pamela and their relationship. You want him to spend as much time here as possible.”

Josie glanced over at Sissy. She didn’t know how Carol had explained their task, but Sissy seemed completely comfortable with an unknown woman taking over her home for the sole purpose of deceiving one of the most famous decorators in the city. “Are you sure you can’t stay with me?” Josie asked Carol.

“I’m afraid not.” Carol’s response was brisk. “Shep just might recognize me. We met a few times back when Sammy and Pamela were dating. My presence just might blow your cover.”

Josie smiled. “Blow your cover” was not a phrase she associated with Carol. “So I’ll just introduce myself as Sissy and show him through the apartment. . . .”

“Exactly,” Sissy jumped in. “I’ve let my staff go for the day so there won’t be anyone around to tell him you’re not who you claim to be.”