A Veiled Deception Page 6

  Paradoxically, serviceable black donation-bin work shoes waited beside the round, two-tiered, fitting-room platform and a maid’s uniform was thrown over the back of a nearby mission-style rocker.

  “Mad! Madeira? Talk to us!”

  The scene faded and dizziness overtook me again as I focused on Sherry standing before me, appalled, frightened, and still wearing Deborah’s wedding gown. My sister’s hands were not rough and callused from work but soft as a kindergarten teacher’s, her French manicure perfect.

  Eve knelt beside me in her usual Goth black, a radical contrast to the wedding gown. She squeezed my shoulder so hard it hurt, and regarded me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “Eve? When did you get here?”

  Eve glanced at Sherry, tilted her head my way, raised her hands for emphasis, and let them fall to her sides. “I rest my case!”

  Eve drilled me with her look. “Better question. When did you leave here?”

  I knew only that I’d dizzied my way out and back again, and right now I needed to kneel very still so as not to keel over. What the Hermès had happened to me? My heart still pounded and I fisted my hands so that neither of my protectors could see them shaking. Even my insides trembled.

  “Mad, what happened to you?” Sherry asked, stooping down to face me. “Are you all right?”

  “Nothing happened to me,” I snapped, scared shirtless, almost as apprehensive as the bride of my imagination . . . or hallucination.

  “I beg to differ,” Sherry said, fanning her face while Eve went to dial up, or down, the air conditioner. “You zoned, Sis. You stared so far beyond me, you might have spotted a pinhole in the ceiling.”

  So far beyond her that I might have spotted a pinhole in time?

  Wooly knobby knits; was I losing it? Had I truly stumbled on a scene from the past?

  The illusory bride’s gown, the same gown Sherry wore, had been a brighter white, newer, though not brand-new by any means, and her fitting room belonged in a castle.

  As soon as I got a minute alone, I’d make a note of what I saw, in my . . . vision? Was it? Or a dream? Or a trip to the dark side?

  I either needed a shrink or Aunt Fiona. Since she sensed my emotions, she’d probably expect my call after this.

  Nevertheless, I’d record every detail of the mystery bride and her surroundings, in case.

  “Well,” Eve said. “Are you gonna tell us, or what?”

  “What?”

  Eve crossed her arms, one of her Doc Martens tapping her gentle impatience, an oxymoron of double proportions.

  I shrugged. “You know that clothes speak to me. This one apparently speaks louder than most.”

  Sherry tilted her head. “Really? And what did it have to say? Any juicy tidbits about Deborah?”

  “No, it spoke in tongues. I’ll get back to you when I translate. Change of subject. Eve, this is the gown Deborah wore to marry Cort, like her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law . . . You get my drift. She wants Sherry to wear it to marry Justin.”

  I gave Eve “the look” we’d practiced for unexpected and unwanted pickups at bars or parties, one that said, “follow my lead.” In this case, “say something nice.”

  “Well, it’s no bomber jacket,” Eve said, “but you look a hell of a lot better in it than Deborah could possibly have. It’s so . . . you.”

  “Sold!” Sherry said, laughing.

  I hugged them both. “Eve, you always know the right thing to say.” In this case, she hadn’t even said it with her own vocabulary, but I forgave her for borrowing mine, under the circumstances.

  Sherry shrugged. “I’m perverse and Eve knows it. Honestly, though, it has some good points. I like the V at the neck and wrist points, and the row of covered buttons have a certain charm, but, Mad, I hate the pouf sleeves.”

  “Good call. That’s my girl. Worry not. I’m a brilliant, bodacious de-poufer.”

  Despite Sherry being paler than pale, hearing me toot my own horn had put some pink into her cheeks.

  “I love the idea of turning the gathered skirt into a flare cut high in the front,” she said. “I can just picture it.”

  “Not cut too high.” I winked. “Just up to fashion-week runway standards, and since it’s an early September wedding, I can make you a coat from a fine Brussels lace.”

  “What?” Eve asked from my bed, shoes off, head in hand. “Lace made by blind Belgian nuns?”

  Sherry chuckled, so I forgave my erstwhile friend for being flip about fashion, which she knew ticked me off. “To marry the fabrics, I’ll use strips of the same lace to replace the tulle ruffles at the neck and wrists. That’s yellowed, too. It has to go.”

  “You rule, Sis. You should open your own shop.”

  Eve snapped her fingers. “Where have we heard that suggestion before, Mad?”

  “I know, I know; that’s what you keep telling me. I’ll design the lace coat to flow from a high-standing, scalloped collar and make you look like a queen. It’ll V down to three self-buttons beginning at your cleavage and ending at an inverted V that flows to the floor.”

  I bit my lip. The back hem would be tricky. In fact I didn’t want to hem it; I wanted self-scalloped edges all around. “The design will have to give way to the gown’s train, somehow,” I said. “Don’t worry; I’ll know how to do it when I see the lace.”

  “Maddie, this’ll be a dream gown when you’re done with it. Thank you so much.” Sherry’s eyes filled again. “Justin will be happy because his mother is, and on my wedding day, I’ll feel like a queen.”

  “Madeira, Sherry, Eve,” my father called from the bottom of the stairs. “Fiona’s here. Time to go to the police station.”

  Sherry’s expression froze, the light leaving her eyes. “Do they let prisoners attend their own weddings?”

  I raised the gown over her head. What could I say to that?

  “A bit melodramatic, aren’t you, Sherry?” Eve asked, helping me lift the gown off her.

  I glared at my former best friend, but she gave me a look that said she was standing her ground. Maybe she was right.

  I sighed, unsure of anything anymore. “Cherry Pie, you’re not a murderer.”

  “No.” She sighed. “I’m only the prime suspect.”

  Eight

  Women are now more comfortable with themselves and their bodies—they no longer feel the need to hide behind their clothes.—DONNA KARAN

  I changed quickly into a sage green, scoop-neck pocket tank mini that I designed and made myself, leopard flats from Blahnik, and my camel Fendi hobo bag. Okay, so I changed handbags the way most people changed their underwear. So sue me. I had a thing for purses.

  Shoes, almost as much, hats, too, but as my mother once said, I’d turned in my rattle for a handbag and never looked back.

  Because of my job, many of my clothes were gorgeous and pricey, but didn’t cost a thing, yet I wanted something different. I wanted the classic lines I grew up loving, and I knew exactly where to find them. At Aunt Fiona’s.

  After we finished at the police station, I’d follow her home, tell her about my “vision,” and grab some of my secret, vintage stash.

  Sherry came down to leave for the station wearing a black suit and white blouse, her hair pulled back in a twist, as if she were going to a funeral or her own execution.

  I wanted to suggest she change into something livelier, but we didn’t have time. Instead, I ran upstairs for a Gucci scarf splashed with summer flowers, a pair of multicolor pumps, and a red Dior bag that Mimi Spencer had once called “the equivalent of a yapping Chihuahua.”

  “There,” I said, after I’d accessorized her. “Proclaim your confidence, instead of your fear.”

  She looked down at herself. “You know, I do feel more confident.”

  “Go get ’em,” I said. “Eve, ride with me to the station, will you? Sherry, you go with Dad and Aunt Fiona, because she might have some last-minute instructions for you. Right, Aunt Fee?”

  Aunt Fiona nodded in agree
ment, gracefully accepting my suggestion. At least now I knew why I’d always gotten the impression that the woman could read my mind.

  Sitting in the pimpmobile, motor running, Eve and I watched my dad’s Volvo leave the drive.

  Eve poked me in the arm. “What happened when you zoned out up there?”

  “Ouch. What’d you poke me for?”

  “For holding out on me. How can I save you, if I don’t know what you need saving from?”

  “I know what you need saving from . . . the color black. You keeping a Harley I don’t know about?”

  “Stop changing the subject. You checked out. Why?”

  I eased the pimpmobile out of the driveway. “You won’t believe it,” I said. “You’re a scientist.”

  “I’m a computer geek. Get your labels straight. Now give.”

  “I can’t even put a name to it.”

  “Try, dammit!”

  “You asked for it. I experienced some kind of . . . vision. I saw a strange woman wearing Deborah’s wedding gown.”

  “How strange?”

  “So strange that she lived about thirty years ago, give or take a few years.”

  Eve whistled. “How much sleep did you get last night? How long since you’ve seen a doctor? Have you hit your head lately? Is Nick good in the sack?”

  I gave her a double take. “What does that have to do with the price of Jimmy Choos?”

  “Hey, watch the road.” Eve sighed. “I’m skeeved and I’m overcompensating with inane frivolity. So sue me.”

  “You’re taking advantage of my possibly dull mental state to Google me about my sex life.”

  “Cut me some slack. You scared me.”

  “You think I’m not freaked?” I snapped. “I scared the wigan out of myself.”

  Eve tilted her head. “What’s wigan again? I keep forgetting.”

  “It’s a bias-cut interfacing. Makes me think of wigging out; ergo scaring the wigan out of myself makes perfect sense.”

  “To you, Mad. Only to you.”

  “My coworkers at Faline’s understood.”

  “I rest my case. Something tells me that I’m not the one to save you this time.”

  “I’m gonna tell Aunt Fiona, because zoning out today was the closest I ever came to doing something witchy.”

  Eve turned in her seat to face me. “Sounds more psychic than witchy.”

  “You believe in psychics?”

  “No, but I took a course in parapsychology. Some academics call it a pseudoscience, though a lot of people believe in it. Because I know you, and you tell it like it is—no matter which of us you get into trouble—let’s say that I’m temporarily suspending disbelief.”

  “Don’t bother. We agree. I’m not psychic.”

  “Maybe not, but . . . you do know what people should wear, what they’ll look good in, and what they’ll like.”

  “That’s a learned skill.”

  “Judging their style may be, but knowing what they’ll like? Besides, you knew what the other kids should be wearing in kindergarten.”

  “That’s called instinct.”

  “Okay, but talking both of us out of believing in psychics means that you must be a nutcase.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Eve snapped her fingers. “What about the time Sherry fell in the river?”

  “It’s true that I ran to the water for no reason, and there was Sherry too full of river water to call for help. But that’s different. That was a mother’s instinct.” My heart raced with the memory, enough to make me question my own denial.

  Eve looked out the window. “Isn’t ‘mother’s instinct’ a rather psychic phenomenon? It comes into play when it’s needed.”

  I tried to hide my confusion. “Your point?”

  “What’s different about today that made you open your instincts to a vision?” Eve asked.

  “Different? Everything. I found a dead body last night. Sherry’s the prime suspect in the murder. I worked on my first vintage wedding gown today. Sherry’s wedding gown.”

  “Also Deborah’s wedding gown,” Eve added, absently, focusing as if she were doing math in her head, a party trick of hers.

  I thought about that. “And the gown of several dead Vancortland brides, as well, if we’re being picky.”

  Eve focused on me. “We have to be picky. Okay, so let’s say that the murder, your first vintage bridal gown, riddled with history, for a murder suspect who happens to be your sister, and your need to fix everything . . . freed your imagination.”

  “It was not my imagination!” I hoped, I think.

  “Okay, wrong word. The series of events, and historic conditions, freed, perhaps even cultivated, a sixth sense you’ve always had, a long-dormant gift . . . that flowers in this kind of life-or-death situation . . . a situation equal to a near drowning.”

  Why did my dream, er, memory of moon dancing with my mother and Aunt Fiona come to mind when Eve said that? “Say again?”

  Eve sighed. “Just for the record, I don’t believe in anything I’m saying.”

  “So noted.”

  Eve cracked a smile. “It’s like the stars are in alignment for your gift to reveal itself. Could be your instincts are kicking in, Mad. Maybe you were too stressed in New York to listen to the voices in your head.”

  “I do not hear voices in my head.”

  Eve hummed the theme song from the Twilight Zone. “Either that or vintage clothes talk to you because they have pasts and secrets to share.”

  I gave her a double take. “You think I stumbled on a secret from the past?”

  “Hell no. But I have heard of people who get psychic readings when they touch old objects. They learn things about the object and the people who owned it. There’s a name for that type of telepathy, I think.”

  “Aunt Fiona might know.”

  “I guess.”

  “Eve.”

  “What?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Being psychic is nothing to be scared of.”

  “I’m scared my sister will go to jail, nut job.”

  “Nut job? Me? Bit like the pistachio calling the geek a cashew, isn’t it?” She poked me again, which helped me relax. Normal. That was what I needed right now. Normal. And look who I was trying to get it from . . . Eve. Hah.

  “Police station parking on your right,” she said, shattering normal.

  “How did you feel when you found Jasmine’s body?” Eve asked as I pulled in. “No visions, then?”

  “Nope.”

  “How inconvenient.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  The police station smelled musty, a combination of old books in attic trunks, rain-soaked dogs, hardworking men, and unwashed lawbreakers.

  Werner met us at the door—a man who smelled, amazingly, of Armani’s Black Code, a scent reminiscent of fruit, lavender, and a walk in the woods.

  Silent, he led us down a barren institutional hall—top: cream, bottom: tan—separated by a bruised walnut chair rail. A dozen doors with knobby-glass windows revealed a slide show of sinister shadows.

  He brought us to a sterile, pale puke green room where Justin and his family sat on backless benches along one wall.

  As we joined them, the Vancortlands looked everywhere but at us, except for Justin, who came for Sherry and led her to a spot beside him, away from his parents.

  Deborah surprised me. Aside from her feeble whine when Justin got up to meet Sherry, she was quiet. The Deborah I knew would be highly insulted and shrilly vocal about being made to wait in a dingy police station. This Deborah must be on tranquilizers. She wasn’t even sporting puffy eyes. Maybe she’d gotten Botoxed this morning. At any rate, she looked more serene than she had last night.

  Being so fond of Jasmine, you’d think she’d be in mourning, especially given the arrowed Morgue sign on the wall across from our open door.

  It freaked me to know Jasmine’s cold body lay just down the hall. I rubbed my arms to warm myself . . . in
August . . . without air-conditioning.

  Deborah’s husband, Cort, sat a distance away from a wife who should need consolation, but didn’t.

  Were the Vancortlands on the outs, and was Jasmine the reason? After all, Cort had been visibly interested in the cake lady. Maybe he’d been just as smitten by Jasmine, which would give either of the Vancortlands a motive for killing Jasmine.

  I sat, took out a small notebook, made a very rough sketch of the room I’d seen in my “vision,” for want of a better word, and I handed it to Eve. Then I listed the details of said vision. On a roll, I took out the copy of the guest list that Fiona had given me and checked off anyone who might have had a motive for killing the girl. We had, unfortunately, provided the opportunity, the party, and the means, the veil. So I guess I needed to find somebody with a possible link to the girl.

  The exercise served as a diversion until the uniforms came for us. They took us one by one, as if for a date with destiny, where one might expect to be shot by a dozen rifle-bearing officers speaking a foreign language, or so the maudlin situation made my overactive mind work, which could account for my “vision/hallucination/flight of fancy.”

  When Sherry and Fiona followed a detective from the room, Justin and I reached out emotionally, and he came to sit beside me.

  Nobody who’d gone for questioning returned, so the room slowly emptied. Cue the X-Files soundtrack. Shiver. I grabbed Justin’s hand.

  The Sweets eventually joined us. Werner must have started early canvassing the neighbors.

  Young Mrs. Sweet apologized for offering a hanging tree to lynch Jasmine “just last night, the poor dead thing.”

  Still poker-faced, Deborah made no sound, not even the pretense of a sniff.

  “Mrs. Sweet,” I asked the elder. “Were the two of you called in for questioning?”

  “Of course not, dear. We’re here to support Sherry.”

  “Bless your hearts.”

  They sat with us, improving the ambiance in the room with their smiles and signature scents of rose water and baby powder.

  Werner came for me himself.

  At first, he sat behind his desk, across from me, and sized me up—payback for the Wiener comment, no doubt. Then he shrugged, repeated last night’s questions, after which I repeated my answers. While I did, he filled in the blanks on his computer screen, and printed the statement form out for me to read and sign.