The Halston Hit Page 9

  Her expression was calm, but uncommunicative. Joanna waited for her to say “He’s passed,” but she briefly shook her head. Did that mean “no,” or was Apple simply not in spirit-communing mode?

  “I don’t feel safe.” Lewis mopped his face with a shirt sleeve. “She was coming after me. I know it.”

  “Do you want a drink of water?” Apple said. “I can get you something from next door, if you’d like.”

  Joanna sat next to him on the bench. “If it makes you feel any better, the police seem pretty sure they’ve found the murderer.”

  Now Lewis looked her in the eyes. “They did?”

  She wasn’t sure if she should be saying anything, but Lewis was so distressed. “They think it was Roger Bing.”

  “The cook,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “The cook did it? I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe,” Joanna whispered. “The police are at Marquise’s right now.”

  “We were friendly, Roger Bing and I. Not close, mind you, but we talked sometimes.”

  “He didn’t strike me as very sociable.” And if he had been, Joanna thought, Lewis Custard wouldn’t have been her first guess for a buddy.

  “He was quiet. Liked to read. We talked about books. And maps. Our last conversation was about Tortuga. I don’t see him as a killer.” Lewis stared, and Joanna followed his line of sight to a mink stole. His softened focus showed that he didn’t really see it. “She looked me in the eyes, you know,” he said. “Right in the eyes.”

  So strange that she’d be the one offering comfort. It was Joanna’s name VC shouted from the alley, not his. She changed the subject. “Apple, Lewis owns Imago Mundi. He’s catering the wedding.” Then, to Lewis, “We have a new venue. It’s a friend’s house, but the kitchen is roomy. Lots of space to set up.”

  It seemed to work. Lewis’s faraway look tightened and landed on the Cahill. “Is this your wedding dress? It’s lovely.”

  “Not that one.”

  “Have you got something better?” Apple said.

  “Maybe as a backup, then. Something will come up. In any case, we now have a place for the wedding and the food. We’re in good shape.”

  When Lewis left at last, Joanna shivered. Some of his anxiety seemed to have seeped into her pores.

  She turned to Apple. “Are you getting any hits about VC at all?” Normally, she resisted asking Apple about her “intuitions.” Apple might tease her, ask Joanna about her practical outlook and inquire if she had had an awakening. That was how it usually went. This time, Joanna wanted to know too badly to bite her tongue.

  “I can’t tell you. I can’t—I can’t feel anything right now.” Apple’s eyes reddened.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “My brain is too full.” Apple reached for a tissue.

  “Maybe it would help to talk about it.”

  Apple took a shuddering breath. “Maybe.”

  “Are you afraid you’re losing your” —Joanna struggled for the right word— “abilities?”

  She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Apple fidgeted with a red patent leather bag, snapping its latch open and closed. “All right,” she said finally. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but you won’t let it go.”

  The ring of the old-fashioned phone trilled through the store.

  “Ignore it,” Joanna said.

  The phone’s ring almost visibly jangled Apple. “No, answer it,” she said. “What if it’s about the cake? Maybe the pastry chef I called is getting back to us.”

  “Who cares about the cake? Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “If you don’t answer it, I will.”

  The phone had brought no good news lately. Joanna didn’t want to answer the call, but the firm set of Apple’s jaw made up her mind. “Hello?”

  “Joanna, Crisp here. I need to see you. I want to know more about the specter you saw last night. VC.”

  Joanna had expected a potential customer asking for directions to the store, or some marketing service trying to sell her ads. Not this. “Here? VC?” She met Apple’s gaze as she listened. “Why? You didn’t care about what I had to say this morning.”

  “Roger Bing is dead. We found him at Marquise’s with his skull bashed in.”

  13

  “Meet me at your house in ten minutes,” Crisp told Joanna. “I don’t want to talk about this in front of your customers.”

  Joanna set down the phone. She would meet with Crisp, yes, but not immediately. “I’m listening,” she said to Apple.

  “What was that call about?” By the look in Apple’s eyes, Joanna knew the moment for confidences had passed.

  “Detective Crisp.”

  “What’s wrong?” Apple said.

  Apple wasn’t going to tell her, darn it. Joanna sighed and slipped her purse over her shoulder. “Crisp sent police to question Roger Bing, Marquise’s cook. They think it was his gun that killed VC. They found him dead.” Joanna shook off her daze and reached for her coat. “I’m meeting Crisp at my place. He wants to know more about last night when I saw VC.” Her muscles thrummed, whether from fear or excitement, she didn’t know.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “No,” Joanna said with more force than necessary. “Maybe. Is that awful? I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Apple studied her face. “You’d better go meet Crisp. You can wrestle with your soul later.”

  Crisp was already waiting in an unmarked sedan outside her house when she arrived.

  Gemma jumped off the couch to sniff at Crisp’s feet. With a practiced hand, he scratched her between the ears. Pepper appeared in the doorway, then trotted to the bedroom. He’d be out to investigate eventually.

  “You must have a dog,” Joanna said.

  “Couple of them. I grew up on a ranch, remember.” He straightened and looked around the house. Paul’s coat, an old Pendleton she’d found at an estate sale, lay draped over an armchair. Crisp and Paul went back to when Paul was in high school and his uncle was a jewel thief under the cover of being a woodworker. “Paul’s uncle is up for parole soon.”

  “You keep in touch?”

  “With a few of the old cases, yes.”

  “Have a seat,” Joanna said. She pulled out a chair at the dining room table. When Paul had moved in, so had come a bit of his masculinity. Her chaise longue stayed near the front window—and was a favorite napping spot for Gemma—but Paul’s armchair, one he’d made, modeled on a Morris chair, sat near the fireplace. His boots were near the front door, and handmade ceramic dishes complemented her orphaned porcelain finds from thrift shops. But she’d kept the cottage-style dining room chairs with pomegranates carved in their backs.

  Crisp sat. “Tell me again about seeing VC.”

  “First, tell me about the cook.”

  “This is my investigation, Joanna. I asked you about VC.”

  “You can’t drop a bomb like the cook’s death and expect me to be clearheaded.”

  Crisp paused, as if he were considering how much to say. Finally, he nodded. “All right. I sent two officers to Marquise’s. Just after you and I talked.”

  “That seems early for the cook to be in. Especially after last night.”

  “Bing lives on the premises. In the basement. But you’re right—no one else was there.”

  “How did you get in?”

  Pepper had slinked in from the bedroom and was sniffing at Crisp’s boot. Gemma came over to see what Pepper was interested in, then plopped on the floor behind Crisp’s chair with a sigh.

  “We had a warrant. They broke in” —he looked up in reassurance— “cleanly. They found Bing on the kitchen floor.”

  “Bashed on the head, you said.” Pepper jumped into Joanna’s lap. She absently stroked his head. “Could he have slipped and fallen? You said he was in the kitchen. It’s greasy in there.”

/>   “Possibly. The crime scene team is taking everything into consideration. He’d been working in that kitchen for nearly twenty years.”

  “A lot of chablis went down last night,” Joanna said.

  “We’ll check his blood alcohol, but it seems unlikely. He was wearing a tee shirt and boxer shorts, like he’d intended to go to bed.”

  “Then got up to go to the kitchen….” Joanna’s voice drifted off. Pepper jumped down from her lap and wandered off.

  He shifted in his chair. “There’s one more thing. He’d written ‘VC’ in blood on the floor.”

  A tingle travelled up Joanna’s arms and lodged in her chest. “VC,” she whispered. “The cook wrote it?”

  “Appears so.”

  Unbelievable. Her heart was starting to pound. “The ghost.”

  “Which is why I’m here. I want to know more about last night.”

  “Water?” Her mouth felt dry. Joanna rose to pour herself a glass.

  “No, thank you. You said you saw VC when you were going back to your car.”

  “Yes. Lewis Custard, the guy who owns Imago Mundi, walked me back. We saw her across the street, next to the vacant dim sum place. She ran down the alley connecting Third and Second Avenues.”

  “Are you sure it was VC?”

  “She had VC’s carriage, and she was dressed like VC, down to the leopard pumps.” Joanna reached for her water glass again. Her throat was tight.

  “Or like someone with access to VC’s wardrobe.”

  “And the ability to make himself up. Like Caramella.”

  “Let’s stick to the story. What did you do next?”

  “Well, Lewis took off.”

  Crisp raised an eyebrow. “We’ll need to question him, of course.”

  “He came by the store today to apologize. But, yes, he hiked it up the street once VC made eye contact with us. Then I went to the funeral home. I told you about it.”

  He pulled his chair closer. “Tell me again. Why did you go?”

  “I figured the person who looked the closest to VC would be her brother, Barry. I wanted to see if he was home.”

  Crisp nodded. “Or Bo’s mother. And?”

  “Barry had been at the grocery store. He pulled in just after I showed up. He had two bags of groceries in his trunk, and it didn’t look like he’d been made up. VC’s mother was home. She came out of the back door with a revolver. A thirty-eight is my guess.”

  “You recognize a thirty-eight?”

  “I was raised in the country, remember,” Joanna said, mimicking his earlier comment. “She said they’d had problems with trespassers.”

  “True. I ran their file before I visited. The firearm is common enough.”

  “There was another car in the lot besides Barry’s. The engine was cold. I told you all this.”

  Crisp’s fingers dropped to Gemma’s head as he thought. “A gun. I don’t see the mother killing her own son, but the brother….”

  “A possibility, true. Don’t forget Caramella, though. Lorenzo, that is. He wasn’t at the memorial service.”

  Crisp set his notepad on the table. “We’ve closed that line of inquiry.”

  “Why?” Joanna bit her lip, then released it. “I could ask around some more. I barely got started.”

  “No.”

  Joanna waited for more of a reply, but nothing came. “Are you sure? I—”

  “I’m sure. It wasn’t a smart idea to ask you in the first place. And now, with the second death, we don’t know what we’re dealing with. No, you stay out of it.” He tucked the notepad back into his jacket and stood.

  “So, what happens now?”

  “We’ll wait for the crime scene team’s report. Maybe, as you say, it was simply an accident.”

  “If you change your mind about needing my help, let me know.”

  “It’s probably just an accident,” Crisp said, but he seemed distracted. “Say hi to Paul.”

  Joanna watched him get into his Crown Victoria and shut the door behind him. Crisp had been clear she would have no further role in the investigation, that the police would take care of matters from here on out. Despite his talk of accidents, the mystery was only getting thicker. What accident victim writes a dead man’s initials on the floor?

  14

  Marquise’s call came that afternoon at four.

  Not that he called directly. He put Summer Seasons in charge of setting up the meeting. “Marquise would like you to meet with him at the theater,” she told Joanna over the phone. “He’ll be getting ready for the show. Go down to the dressing rooms.”

  Surprisingly, Lewis Custard let her in Marquise’s. He was wheeling a cart loaded with platters of pre-plated cheese and salami. “Joanna, I’m still mortified about yesterday. I can’t believe what a coward I was,” he said.

  “Honestly, don’t worry about it. If my car wasn’t right there, I would have high-tailed it, too. What are you doing now?” Joanna nodded toward the rolling cart loaded with food that a man with an Imago Mundi tee shirt took from him.

  “You heard about the cook?”

  Joanna nodded.

  “To make money, Marquise needs to sell drinks. To sell drinks, he needs food. The least I could do is help him out with that part until he gets a replacement.”

  “You’re very generous,” Joanna said.

  “What brings you here?” he asked. “I’d have thought you’d stay far away.”

  “Marquise asked me to stop by. I’m not sure why.”

  Lewis closed the door behind them. “Curious.”

  “Maybe he wants to hear the story about VC one more time. I never really did get the chance to talk to him. Just to the police.”

  “I got a call myself, from a Detective Foster Crisp.”

  “That would be my fault,” Joanna said. “With Roger Bing’s death, the police wanted to know more about seeing VC. I told them you were with me.”

  “No harm in that.” Lewis led the way down the stairs to the kitchen. “I’m not sure what I can add.” He examined the doorway. “They could put a door in here with a good lock. Marquise needs to step up the security.”

  “At least Crisp will know I wasn’t crazy, that you saw her, too.”

  “Over here?” the man in the Imago Mundi tee shirt said, pointing toward a counter.

  “In the walk-in,” Lewis said.

  Joanna had only passed through the kitchen, never stopped to look around. It was a dim, institutional space smelling of pine-scented cleanser. A row of fryers, now cold, abutted one wall, and open shelving holding dishes over a stainless steel workspace took up another wall. A door to a walk-in refrigerator, where Lewis’s employee stacked trays, was behind her.

  Crisp had told her this was where they found Roger Bing’s body, where he wrote “VC” in his own blood. It seemed like ominous music should be playing in the background, or the legendary “smell of fear” should hang in the air. But there was no sign of anything more than the usual hustle before a show.

  “I’d better check in with Marquise,” Joanna said.

  “Oh, yes. If you’d like, stop by for a drink when you’re finished.”

  “Thank you.” Crossing the kitchen floor—squeaky clean now—Joanna entered the main dressing room.

  The long row of seats at the mirror was busy with drag queens in varying states of dress, and the air smelled of hairspray and rose-violet face powder.

  Joanna ducked by a tulle-skirted evening gown and slid sideways behind the stools to reach Marquise’s spot at the counter’s end. She could have had her own dressing area, but chose to stay with the rest of the performers.

  “Joanna,” Marquise said. “Have a seat. I had them set up a folding chair for you.”

  Down the counter, someone clicked on a radio. Dionne Warwick sang “Alfie.” The queens swapped gossip as they expertly prepared their faces. Joanna hung her purse from the chair’s edge and settled in under a shelf of wigs. She gingerly moved a gold sandal aside with a foot.

&nbs
p; “I’m so sorry about Roger Bing,” Joanna said. “It’s such a terrible loss, especially after VC’s death. I can’t imagine how you feel.”

  “Thank you, darling.” With a makeup sponge, Marquise wiped smears of pink-tinted foundation on her forehead, chin, and neck. His cheeks—her cheeks, Joanna reminded herself, now that Marquise prepared to perform—were fleshy. As Marquise patted, her face smoothed into a nude canvas.

  “You’ve been asking a lot of questions about VC,” she said.

  Joanna shifted in her seat. “Who told you that?”

  “Honey, it doesn’t matter who told me. The point is, you’ve been asking questions about VC and if she was in trouble. I want to know why.”

  “We were friends. I was the one who found her. Isn’t it natural I’d want to know?”

  “You mounted a mini-investigation, even going so far as to try to hire Caramella to do repairs at your store.”

  Joanna noted Caramella’s empty seat at the dressing table. “How did you hear about that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I understand.”

  “Where is Caramella, by the way?”

  “Never mind.” Marquise dabbed off-white primer on her eyelids. Now her face was completely uniform. Her pale blue eyes stood in relief. “What I want to know is, who put you up to it?”

  A flutter rose, then dissipated in Joanna’s stomach. “Oh, I’m through with all that.” She had the feeling of sitting below the queen’s throne, with Marquise holding court.

  With a brush nearly as large as Joanna’s hand, Marquise fluffed powder over her face. “That’s too bad.” She dropped the brush into a can ruffled with others and spun her stool toward Joanna. “I had hoped you’d tell me the police asked you.”

  “The police?” she managed to say, quite a bit more quietly than Marquise did.

  Alexis, a few stools down, lifted an eyebrow. A disco tune Joanna didn’t recognize had replaced “Alfie.”

  “You’ve heard about Roger, our cook,” Marquise said.

  Joanna nodded.