Skirting the Grave Read online

  “It was my mother’s.”

  “Were the books hers, too? Or your aunt’s? Love the titles. Prince Smarmy: Boyfriends into Frogs and Other Fun Spells. How to Charm Your Way Out of a Bad Relationship. Mastering the Naughty Witch Inside. Never Cross a Witch with PMS.” Isobel chuckled. “They remind me of our sleep shirts.”

  “The glamour-witch bookends were Mom’s. The books were Aunt Fiona’s.”

  “So, your mother was a witch, too?”

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Heck no, that’s the most refreshing thing I’ve heard about your family. The way Brandy tells it, you’re all so utterly dysfunctional, like my family, I know, but the more I know you, the more fascinating you all seem.”

  “Yeah, well, stick around a while. I might lean toward the craft myself, though I keep pulling myself back. Mostly.”

  “I’m sticking.” Isobel picked up the naughty witch book. “Believe me; I’d like to see how that witchcraft thing turns out for you. Heck, I may join you.”

  We scarfed down our hip-widening brownies, each bite followed by caffeine- and sugar-shot chasers.

  “Awesome,” Isobel said, going limp in the chair. “I’m too heavy to get up, now, but too happy to care.”

  “That’ll cost you a five-mile run tonight and tomorrow morning, but every once in a while you gotta go for the sin in sinsational.”

  “You call that sin?” Isobel asked.

  “For me, it is, because I’ll never fit in my clothes if I keep that up. Ever have a Dos Equis with margarita pie?”

  “You’re going to be good for me. My sister and cousin were too much into, well, let’s say, scarier substances, the kind one runs to—or from.”

  I sat straight up on the fainting couch. “What are you talking about? Should you have told Werner about that?”

  “I haven’t been questioned yet.”

  I relaxed. “Oh, right. But you said ‘were.’ Has something happened to your twin that you haven’t mentioned?”

  “Not that I know of. I’ll be honest with the detective when he comes to question me. Don’t worry.”

  “That reminds me. Someone called here several times to find out if you’d arrived safely. He said he was your brother. Should you call him back?”

  “I think not. I don’t have a brother. Curious. Did he leave a number?”

  “Isobel, you don’t call the guy who makes a crank call and uses your first name.”

  “You didn’t say he was a crank.”

  Or a murderer. “I must have misunderstood the call,” I said, so she wouldn’t be afraid. Definite threat in the caller’s tone. Altered voice. No caller ID. Should someone tell Isobel she was in danger? I’d ask Werner. Alone. “So . . . your father is some kind of politician?”

  “Some kind. Let’s open the trunk.”

  I raised my cheering arm. “Yes!”

  She knelt beside it, opened the envelope at the end of the yellow ribbon, and handed me the key.

  I slipped it into the lock, my heart pumping triple time. “Vin-tage clothes, vin-tage clothes, vin-tage clothes!” I sang with each beat.

  I caught her surprise. “Sorry, I’m like a cheerleader for my own life choice.”

  “Go, you. I wish I could be, though dress design, I suspect, just might do it for me.”

  “Your dad is running for selectman?” I asked as I lifted back the trunk’s top. I opened a drawer in the shallow top tray and found insulin syringes, a dozen or so. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, Grand-mère’s a diabetic. She probably forgot they were there.”

  I lifted that tray off the inside top and covered my mouth with clenched fists when in a lower, deeper bin, I saw three pairs of fifties high-top roller skates in pink, aqua, and yellow.

  “I’ll tell you about my dad’s bid for office in a minute. Do you think that roller skating is as good as running? I mean to work off chocolate-frosted orgasms?”

  I beamed. “Worth a try. Will they fit?”

  “The best thing about Grand-mère is that we wear the same size shoes. My one great memory of Payton is us as preteens roller-skating in Grand-mère’s ballroom. Right now, I’m going to skate in memory of the Payton I once loved.”

  Isobel and I were up on wheels in no time. “Good thing I got a high-impact finish on my floors. They said I’d be able to drive a Mack truck in here and not mar the finish.”

  “That was smart. Plus you left an empty space the size of a skating rink behind your check out counter and between your tea buffet and seating area. Let’s put these wheels and your floor finish to the test. Here’s to Payton!” she said, zipping off.

  “To Payton!” Thinking on my wheels, I raised my sailor skirt halfway up my thighs, and I was off. “Oh, it’s just like riding a bike,” I said.

  “And having sex,” Isobel added. “The minute you get back on, you remember how.”

  I lost my concentration, ran into the fainting couch, and landed belly-first, skates on one side, head and arms on the other.

  I felt especially graceful with Isobel splitting a gusset.

  “Hey,” I called. “Cut it out. I’m not sure the couch can stand a ‘laughed so hard, I peed my pants’ event.”

  Memorializing Isobel’s cousin, tossed against my furniture like a rag doll, I still found my first morning with my intern to be so much better than I’d originally expected.

  I pulled myself up and sat on the fainting couch to catch my breath. “Oh, and I was congratulating myself on making you laugh.”

  Isobel was now having a good noisy cry.

  “Payton and I may have roller-skated together as kids, but she didn’t grow up to be the same cousin I loved. Don’t mind me; I’m crying for a friend I lost a long time ago.”

  I grabbed a couple of tissues off an old art deco side table, got on my skates, and handed them to Isobel—in passing as it turned out—because I kept going, despite my attempt at an effortless stop, and rolled right into the dressing room.

  I hit a swinging door. “Ouch.” I rubbed my nose. “One way or another, I’m afraid I’m gonna break my . . . shop,” I said, emerging.

  Isobel’s emotion had turned on a dime. “I like you, boss.”

  “Right back at’cha, Isobel York. Now tell me what office your dad is running for, and let’s glide in gentle circles around the open area, here, no wall-kissing or ass fractures.”

  Fifteen

  The same costume will be Indecent ten years before its time, Shameless five years before its time, Outré (daring) one year before its time, Smart [in its own time], Dowdy one year after its time, Ridiculous twenty years after its time, Amusing thirty years after its time, Quaint fifty years after its time, Charming seventy years after its time, Romantic one-hundred years after its time, Beautiful one-hundred-and-fifty years after its time.

  —JAMES LAVER

  Isobel saluted and roller-skated off, executing a graceful and perfect circle around the open area.

  “You’ve done this before,” I said.

  “Hell yes. Grand-mère taught us to skate from an early age. One of us, at least, was supposed to win the Olympics. It was part of her plan for a life of keeping the Yorks in the limelight. Publicity is her middle name. None of her granddaughters went for it, though.”

  “May I ask, though you don’t have to answer, where your mother was during your formative years?”

  “My mother and her twin were a popular song and dance team who didn’t need toddlers holding them back.”

  Popular? “Would I have heard of them?”

  “Probably. The Yada-Yadas?”

  “Your mother was one of the singing Spinyadas? I loved them. My father took me to see their cabaret show on Broadway for my sixteenth birthday. Their pacing was superb, their dancing routines unmatched, and the range of their voices blew me away.”

  “Everybody who didn’t expect to be tucked in at night by their mothers loved them.”

  “I remember their televised double wedding.” And
the search when their plane went down. “Was your mother Muffy or Buffy? And were those stage names?”

  “Not stage names.”

  Interesting bottom line: Quincy York, politico, son of a publicity-hungry matriarch, aka Grand-mère, and his brother, had married world-class celebrities.

  “We were all three girls,” Isobel continued, “raised by our respective nannies. Mostly, we grew up like three sisters, more a part of our two nannies’ families than our own.”

  “While your mothers were touring the world performing, where were your fathers?”

  “As much in the limelight as possible, one way or another. Payton’s father is in prison now for embezzlement, on a humongous scale, while my father is finished running other people’s campaigns and is currently running for first selectman of Kingston’s Vineyard.”

  “Werner told me about his campaign, but I never heard of Kingston’s Vineyard.”

  “Never, ever say that within hearing of a Kingston or a York.”

  “Did I offend you? I’m sorry.”

  Isobel chuckled. “No, your lack of knowledge tickles me, but I’m considered the black sheep of the family. Most people have never heard of Kingston’s Vineyard. It’s seven miles off the coast, at the point where Rhode Island meets Massachusetts, in perfect alignment with the state line.

  “It’s rather unique in that it’s an island split, smack up the middle, by the two states. It’s pretty much a private island, first owned and populated by the Kingstons, but it’s governed by both states. Ninety per cent of Kingston’s Vineyard is still owned by my family, mostly Grand-mère, who won’t let anyone forget she was a Kingston by birth.”

  “I remember the search for your mother and Payton’s mother, but I don’t remember the outcome.”

  “It’s been eleven years now, and I can’t forget. Their private plane went down somewhere near the Hawaiian Islands. After a massive search, only a few small plane parts were ever found. My family waited the seven years and had my mother and her twin declared dead.”

  “How sad your life has been.” I turned to roller-skate backward so I could face her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “We hardly knew them. Motherly hugs were given in front of the cameras for publicity before tours.”

  Change of subject. “The way your dad’s campaign manager treated him, you’d think he was running for governor or something.”

  “Lieutenant governor is the next step, next election, according to Grand-mère.”

  I stopped by the trunk and removed the second, deeper wooden bin from the top. “Hey, all these clothes have been dry-cleaned.”

  “Of course they have. Grand-mère would do nothing less.”

  I picked out a pretty aqua cap that matched the skates, the kind a fifties stewardess might once have worn, and I put it on. “Cute, hey?” I’d never gotten psychometric visions from a hat, though I supposed there was always a first time, but since the skates proved safe, I felt pretty secure wearing the hat. “Lieutenant governor of which state?” I asked. “Rhode Island or Massachusetts?”

  “Either one would be acceptable, though Massachusetts is bigger. Grand-mère will take what she can get.”

  “What she can get for your father, that is.”

  “Sure. It’s all for him. So not.”

  I chuckled. “I’m not the only one with snark.”

  “Thank you.” She executed a skater’s dip and popped back up again to twirl in the center of our wider circle. “Thank you very much,” she said, her voice humming from her spin.

  “Eve, my best friend, is gonna like you.” Or hate her. I couldn’t quite make up my mind how Eve would feel. As for myself, I could easily become a good friend to Isobel York, though I should be her boss first.

  “Hey, follow me,” I said. “I want to get an empty rack from behind Paris When It Sizzles.”

  “Oh,” Isobel said, roller-skating down the center of the sales floor after me, between nooks of clothes, taking in the merchandising section of the shop for the first time. “Love that the cubbies have fashionable addresses in retro street-name frames on vintage lampposts.”

  “The cubbies on the left were once horse-drawn hearse stalls, so when I remodeled, I had matching stalls built facing them.”

  “Excuse me? Did you say horse-drawn hearse stalls?”

  “This building once belonged to the Underhill Funeral Chapel as a carriage house. Wait till you see what I have upstairs. The cubby walls on the right are movable. Later, I can put stalls where we skated or I can widen these. I could also raise the roof to make a second selling area one floor up.”

  “Why raise the roof?”

  “Living quarters and work space. You saw my dad and Fiona last night. I think they deserve some privacy. But raising the roof is a project for the future. I also need to build a stairway to the cellar. I might be able to use that for storage or a work area with a bit of remodeling.”

  “How can you have no stairway to your cellar?”

  “I didn’t say we didn’t have a way to get down there. There’s a coffin elevator with access from upstairs. Dumb construction crew covered it up on this floor in the dressing room, formerly the horse stalls.”

  Isobel clapped her hands. “Your sister Brandy didn’t do your shop justice at all. I’d heard of you, of course. Who hasn’t? But this place is spectacular. I love it here,” Isobel said. “And look at this layout. You clever girl, not only are the streetlamps an inspiration but the names you gave the streets. Shoe Heaven, Bag Lady, Eternals, Little Black Dress Lane, Very Vintage, Unique Street, Around the World, Mad as a Hatter, and now I understand what you meant, Paris When It Sizzles.”

  I pulled an empty rack on wheels, full of clanging hangers, from behind Paris, and she grabbed the other end. “I toyed with naming the nooks after designers, but there are too many, and this way, I can mix it up and entice my customers into looking at everything.”

  On the way back, Isobel roller-skated while pulling the rack behind her, and I skated pushing it from the rear.

  “Thank you, boss, for this opportunity to intern with you. I’ll do a smashing job, I promise.”

  I had an unsettling feeling she would, except that working wouldn’t be the end of our relationship.

  I’d heard enough this morning about her family to make me fear that Payton did not die of natural causes, and I already cared too much about Isobel to ignore my inner sleuth any longer.

  Sixteen

  I love those bras that “enhance” shape, although (when all is said and done) they can be deceiving. But, by the time I have a girl’s bra off, I’m so happy just to be there, I’m willing to live with the deception.

  —RICH SANTOS, MARIE CLAIRE MAGAZINE

  “Tell me about the family island,” I suggested, going with my gut by gathering background information for the case. “Sounds fascinating. I’d like to visit it sometime.”

  “It’s not so much fascinating as a bit freaky and greedy. I feel as if the Kingston-Yorks are on the take and out for anything they can get. The idea is to make Kingston’s Vineyard bigger than Martha’s Vineyard. Well, it already is in acreage but not in tourism. The mighty dollar and all that. Grand-mère sees my dad, sonny boy number one, the hands-down favorite son, as having the political potential of a Kennedy, and ain’t nobody gonna get in his way.”

  “Who would stop them . . . if someone dared get in his way, I mean?”

  “Grand-mère, the old dear; she’ll stop them. Ruthless son of a—”

  “Stitch?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Except that she’s a daughter not a son,” I pointed out.

  “That’s her biggest regret, her sex, or she’d be in the White House. She’s sure of it.”

  “Are you a mole for the opposition?”

  Isobel snorted, but she turned beet red as we set the rack near the trunk. And I wondered why she should be so deeply embarrassed to go against the family’s political aspirations.

&nbs
p; I used an old roller-skating trophy to root around in the clothes, so I wouldn’t touch anything, while Isobel lost her embarrassment. “Wanna hear a huge family secret?” she asked.

  “Do kimonos have frog closures? Of course I want to know the family secret.” I grabbed a hanger and slipped it into the sweetheart neck of a sleeveless, fifties fullskirted dress of sheer cotton organdy in off-white with red-flocked polka dots, a red cummerbund, and a thin red stripe about six inches from a hem that would have fallen to right below the knee. I hung it on the rack. I supposed I might have been okay touching the dry cleaner’s plastic over it, but I didn’t dare test my theory.

  “Let’s get this stuff on hangers while you talk,” I suggested, not bothering to remove the skates, because frankly, I wanted to fly a bit more. And if no customers showed up on this sunny June day, maybe we’d skate around the building and enjoy my fresh tarmac parking lot.

  Isobel hung a yellow sleeveless boatneck dress, trimmed with two four-inch bands of glittery gold and white-silk stitching and beadwork at the neck and around the center of the swing skirt.

  “Okay, here’s the story of the family secret. The original Kingston settled an uninhabited island when he got out of prison around 1828, after he kidnapped his bride—who he never married. Everybody on the mainland was so afraid of him, they left him alone for a generation, until after his thirty-two children were born—”

  “Wait,” I said, attaching a circle skirt printed with the New York skyline to a hanger, by touching only the skirt clips. “Thirty-two children with a woman he kidnapped? Did she not know how to row a boat for heaven’s sakes?”

  “Sorry, forgot to say he had two wives, one after the other, not at the same time. They each bore him sixteen children.” Isobel hung a little black bubble dress with a gull-winged top, thin strapped, and self-belted. Probably Chanel.

  “Okay, I’m not judging,” I said, putting a banded wrap near its matching yellow sleeveless boatneck dress. “So two women bore him thirty-two children. Then what?”