Died to Match (12 page)

Corinne knew it, too. The disheveled waif I’d run into at the hospital was gone, replaced by this confident Southern belle. She gave me a complacent little wave, and struck a pose that would have gone over big at the entrance to the Academy Awards.

Last in line was Angela Sims, tall and fair. She paced into the room with her long boyish stride, her stole hung round her neck like a huge, gauzy pink muffler. Angela moved like a jock, but she looked almost as good as Corinne.

“Well?” she asked with a good-natured grin. “What’s the verdict?”

“Wonderful!” If I was going to be a bridesmaid for hire, I might as well be a good one, and concentrate on their feelings instead of my own. This was still a joyous occasion. “Elizabeth, I’ve signed off on your bouquet. It’s spectacular. All the flowers are, and all of you look wonderful. Let me get into my dress and then we’ll talk about shoes and hair.”

Stephanie produced a long garment bag—Mercedes’ gown, though all of us were determined not to think about that—and made as if to follow me down the hallway.

“Um, Corinne, could you give me a hand getting dressed?” I asked.

Stephanie looked puzzled, but stepped aside to let Corinne through. A positive mention in Corinne’s newspaper column would do wonders for dress sales. I closed the changing-room door behind Corinne and hung my gown on a stand. Our eyes met in the three-way mirror.

“How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she said absently, peering over her shoulder to get a rear view of herself. “Do I really look all right? I think they sent a size too small.”

This took me aback. “I mean, how are you after what happened at the Aquarium? Good lord, if someone tried to kill you—”

Corinne dropped into a love seat piled with clothing, and covered her eyes with one hand. Ever the drama queen, even when the drama was deadly.

“Of course I’m worried!” she moaned. “I’m just trying not to think about it. I talked to the police, but I could tell they didn’t believe me. Elizabeth doesn’t either.”

I sat beside her. “Well, I believe you. And we’re going to figure out who attacked you, and then the police will listen.”

She sighed heavily, then groped for my hand and squeezed
it. Her false fingernails, rose-pink to match her dress, stabbed into my palm. The trivial section of my brain wondered if Elizabeth would expect pink nails on me, too. Of course she will. Get over it.

“Thank you, Carnegie!” Corinne whispered. The waif was still in there, hiding behind the glamour-girl façade.

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“No, I mean for believing me. I know people think I’m just an airhead, or that I make things up, but it was so horrible!” She lifted moist, childlike blue eyes, and I gave her a hug. Poor kid.

“I’m sure it was. And I’m sure it’s hard to talk about, but can you remember anything specific about him? His size or age, the smell of his aftershave, anything at all? For that matter, are you sure it was a man?”

“Pretty sure.” She shook her head, her blonde curls dancing. “It happened so fast. He dropped some black cloth around my face, and I tried to fight back but he was too strong. That’s all I could tell. He was really strong.”

“How about the black cloth, then, was it smooth or rough? Did it have seams and pockets, do you think, like a coat?”

“N-no,” she said. “No, it wasn’t a coat. It was all one piece, like a cape.”

How many black capes were at that party? I wondered to myself. Syd Soper wore one as Death, but who else? Aaron as Zorro, but that was absurd—

“Are you two ever coming out?” It was Elizabeth, with an eye on the clock as always.

“In a minute!” I called. “Corinne, we’ll figure this out, I promise. Meanwhile, get my gown out of the bag, would you?”

I shucked my jeans and sweater and slithered into the pink satin, averting my eyes from the mirror and concentrating on the dress itself. The fabric was delicious on my skin, lush and smooth, and the cut and construction were the high quality to be expected from this particular designer. I hitched up the spaghetti straps, stepped into my silk pumps, and checked the skirt length. The bottom of the dress was unfinished, ready to be hemmed up to suit Mercedes’ height, which meant that it hung barely to my ankles. Good enough, if Stephanie gave it the narrowest possible hem. She could also take in the bodice, which had enough room for two of me. Or rather, one of me and four of my breasts.

“Your bra shows in back,” said Corinne. “You need a strapless bra or a bustier.”

She gave the word the proper French pronunciation, but I didn’t. “No, I need to be a whole lot busty-er.”

We giggled, and I patted her shoulder. “That’s the spirit, Corinne. Listen, I’m sure that whoever it was in the black cape, he didn’t choose you personally to attack. But you should probably be extra-careful for a while, OK?”

“Don’t worry,” she said solemnly. “I’m not going anywhere alone, especially at night. Neither’s Patty or Elizabeth. I don’t think Angela believes me.”

I had a brief vision of Roger Talbot—or someone else— stepping out of the shadows by my front door. Time to put up that floodlight.

“I think that’s wise. Come on, let’s join the rest of the babes.”

When we came out, Lily and Stephanie were tucking pins into Patty’s hair, wrapping it up and to one side in a sophisticated French twist. Suddenly Patty’s features were not coarse, but strong and interesting. When she caught sight of
her reflection, she actually smiled and stood up straight, and that, too, worked a minor miracle. Pink was still not her color, but she looked quite nice.

Pink was apparently not my color either. Stephanie gave me a frozen smile that spoke volumes, and Lily actually snickered.

“It needs a little work—” I began, and Lily laughed out loud.

“A little?”

“It’s fine,” declared Elizabeth. “Stephanie, can’t you do something with her neckline?”

“Of course,” said Stephanie, coming at me with her pincushion. She shored up the bodice reasonably well, and then marched me back into the changing room to fit me out with an “invisible” padded bra that was not only strapless but backless, with tape at the sides to anchor it to my rib cage.

“Stephanie, this is ridiculous! I didn’t know they made such contraptions. Are the others wearing this?”

“They don’t need it.” She silenced my protest by sliding the gown back over my head, then stepped back to let me view the result.

“Hey, that looks pretty good.” I peered over my shoulder, just as Corinne had done. “That looks very good.”

Stephanie dropped into a naughty whisper. “Carnegie, it looks sexy as sin.”

I had to admit, she was right. The bodice of the gown dipped alluringly over my newly created cleavage, and the low, open back showed off my shoulders. When I walked, the bias-cut satin slid and swirled around my legs in a definitely femme fatale kind of way. This bridesmaid deal wasn’t so bad after all.

Back in the living room, the other women were fluttering
around comparing lipstick colors and putting on identical pink pearl earrings and pendants, their gifts from the bride. Even Elizabeth got into the spirit of it all, and helped Patty do her eyeliner with a sisterly camaraderie I hadn’t seen in her before. In the end, we lined up in processional order before the long wall mirror, and Lily pronounced us fit to be seen in public.

As we trooped back to change into our street clothes, I put on my wedding planner hat. “So, we’re settled on lipstick and nail polish. I’ll get my shoes dyed, Patty will schedule with a hairdresser for a French twist, and I’ll see you all at the rehearsal dinner Friday.”

“But the rehearsal isn’t this Friday, is it?” said Corinne, flipping through her little pocket diary.

“No, just the dinner,” I reassured her. “We changed the date because Paul’s parents are coming through on their way to Hawaii. The rehearsal itself is still a week from Friday. I’ll e-mail everyone with the updated schedule.”

My head was still full of times and dates as Lily and I stepped outside Stephanie’s shop and walked back to her car. But then, suddenly, I couldn’t think at all. Just down the street, leaning on a phone pole and dragging on a cigarette, was the purse-snatcher with the tattooed skull.

L
ILY CHATTED TO ME THE WHOLE WAY BACK TO HER CAR,
and I didn’t hear a word. I was busy trying not to stare at the purse-snatcher. His tattoos, murky blue-black against the coarse, pallid skin, flowed down from his shaven head, disappeared into his torn and filthy sweatshirt, and emerged again on both forearms. I glimpsed snakes, spiders, and homely little sayings like “Only Death Is Real.” On one side of his head, above the ear, a bat spread blue-black wings over a giant eyeball. I was transfixed by the bat when the man turned his head to stare at me, with malicious little eyes that were clenched in a face as bony and muscled as a fist. I knew that face, and I was dead certain that he knew mine. By the time we got to the Volvo I was cold all over

“—never saw so much pink in my life!” Lily concluded, buckling her seat belt. “Hey, did you catch the tattoos on that guy back there?”

“Lily, that was him!”

“Him who?”

“The guy who tried to steal Elizabeth’s purse after the bridesmaids’ luncheon, the one I told you about!”

“Oh, my God, he looked absolutely poisonous.” She pulled away from the curb. “Why isn’t he in jail?”

“He’s out on bail until the trial. Lily, I think he’s following us.”

She checked the rearview mirror. “I don’t see him.”

“No, I mean following Elizabeth and her attendants. Everyone who was at La Corona that day, and saw him get arrested, was at Stephanie’s this morning. Elizabeth and Patty, me, Corinne and Angela. Everyone except… Mercedes.”

Lily’s eyes were wide. “You don’t think—”

“I don’t know, but I’m calling Lieutenant Graham. Circle the block, would you?”

I rooted around in my bag for the detective’s card and punched the number into my cell phone. He picked up on the first ring.

“Homicide, Graham.”

I identified myself and began to babble about the man I now thought of as Skull. Graham knew about the purse-snatching attempt—he knew a lot about Mercedes by now— but he was strangely calm.

“He didn’t speak to you, or threaten you in any way?”

“No.”

“And what is he doing now?”

Lily cruised slowly by Stephanie’s, where the other women were piling gaily into Elizabeth’s SUV “Well, it looks like he’s gone. But Lieutenant, I have to talk with you. You’re in your office?”

“On my way out. I’ve got to grab some lunch before a briefing at the Federal Building. I’ll call you later this afternoon.”

“No, wait! We’re on our way to First Avenue now. I have a meeting down there myself. Where are you eating?”

His voice was amused. “Sounds like you’re going to tell me.”

“By Bread Alone, the bakery on Seneca. They have great sandwiches, you’ll love it. Fifteen minutes?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

I ended the call and remembered my manners. “Lily, thanks for the lift. You were a big help at the fitting, too. You can just drop me on First—”

“Are you kidding?” she countered. “You’re not leaving me in suspense. I want to hear the rest of the story. And besides, I’m hungry.”

By Bread Alone was an organic, communal, whole-grain, save-the-whales bakery that had begun life in an obscure building in the south end. The business was already rising like yeast when their pain au levain was written up by a gourmet magazine, just at the magic moment when the foodies of Seattle discovered artisan breads. Now BBA, as the regulars called it, had a bustling bakery operation downtown, with a cheery little six-table café up front.

Lieutenant Graham, traveling on foot, was already seated by the time we stashed Lily’s car. He stood up when we joined him, shook Lily’s hand, and even took our coats over to the rack in the corner. Chivalry was alive at the SPD. Graham wore a two-button Ralph Lauren faille suit in dark olive, and an intriguing tie. Must be a high-level briefing. He looked better rested than he had on Sunday, though he still carried that perpetual air of disappointment. Nice shoulders, I thought absently, and plunged into my brand-new, made-up-on-the-spot theory about Skull.

“What if that’s the connection between Corinne and Mercedes?” I said. “Some kind of weird vendetta that started
the day we got him arrested? He had plenty of time to get to know our faces, sitting there on the curb waiting for the police. Elizabeth’s wedding plans have been in the papers, along with her picture, so he’d know about the engagement party. He could have sneaked into the Aquarium carrying some kind of black cloth, killed Mercedes, and then tried to kill Corinne. And now he’s stalking the rest of us!”

The waitress arrived and we ordered. A smile tugged at Graham’s lips as he asked for the Wholey Grail Whole Grain special, but he turned serious again as he began to tick off points on his fingers.

“That’s an interesting hypothesis, but it’s got a few problems. First of all, why would Lester Foy—that’s his name, by the way, though I like Skull better—why would he plot this drastic revenge just because you saw him commit a robbery for which he’s already been arrested and booked? Serial murder is a very big-time enterprise to take on, and Foy is very small-time. In fact purse-snatching in daylight is not just small-time, it’s stupid.”

“But—”

“Second,” he went on, “how could someone as stupid and bizarre-looking as Skull—I mean, Foy—sneak into a party with security guards at the door? And third—”

“Now, you can’t say he’s not stalking us!”

He took a bite of his sandwich and wiped his mouth carefully with a napkin. He had a narrow mouth and a nice square-cut jaw. “Sure I can.”

I was indignant. “You think it was just a coincidence that he was standing right outside the dress shop this morning?”

“Well, it could have been. Coincidences do happen. But as a matter of fact, Lester Foy lives about two blocks from the address you gave me. I looked it up. It’s no crime to hang out
in your own neighborhood.” As I sat back, deflated, the detective ticked off his final point. “Fourth, I’m not convinced that anyone at all assaulted Ms. Campbell on Saturday night. She and I had a brief conversation about it, and she declined to file a complaint.”