Little Black Book of Murder (3 page)

I had pulled out of my closet a seductively simple Swain Starr party dress made of cotton damask printed with pink cabbage roses and tulips. Ladylike, even demure. Sleeveless, piped with pink satin and with a light cashmere sweater in a matching pink—­it suited my fair coloring and dark auburn hair as well as the occasion. And I had already noticed that the farm had been decorated with huge tubs of pink tulips exactly like those on my dress. Of course, we were smack in the middle of tulip season, so I had made an educated guess.

When I started working for the newspaper and needed the right clothes to attend the many black-­tie and formal events on the charity circuit, I had climbed the attic stairs and dug into the trunks my grandmother Blackbird left behind. Her extensive collection of haute couture—­gathered over many years and dozens of trips to the ateliers of world-­class designers—­suited me very well, and I embraced the vintage couture as my “look.”

I didn't want to make Swain feel old by mentioning my grandmother had been his client, so I said, “It's a family piece. Do you still like it?”

“It's a classic,” he said proudly. “And it looks positively new on you.”

I thanked him, and together we turned to gaze across the landscape spread before us.

“What do you think, Nora?” Swain asked. “Have I created one more masterpiece?”

He had certainly taken a few dozen acres of Bucks County farmland and turned them into a bucolic paradise complete with a weathervane on top of the red barn and a picturesque flock of white ducks paddling across a perfect little pond dappled with lily pads. Half a dozen black-­and-­white cows grazed in a lush pasture alongside a woolly little burro that would have made the perfect character in a children's picture book.

Hoping to muscle his way to the forefront of the Farm-­to-­Table movement, Starr promised old-­fashioned agrarian methods blended with the latest scientific advancements in breeding and cultivation, all while nurturing personal relationships with the local food community. By the look of things, he was certainly working hard at reaching his goal.

Not by making much personal sacrifice, however. I had seen a contingent of local laborers troop through the security gate every day to bring the animals, install the solar panels on the barn roof and get the first crops into the ground. Swain had watched them from the porch of his spectacular, newly built home, which stood on the hillside overlooking the rural paradise. The house was a meld of Shaker-­style simplicity and ultramodern glass and steel construction with a view of pasture, barn and river out front and a steep cliffside panorama out back. It was a home befitting a king of fashion. I couldn't guess how many millions it cost to build.

“It's all marvelous,” I said.

He waved his hand to indicate the animals. “The vegetables are my wife's specialty. I'm focusing on meat. In addition to the dairy cows, I plan on having at least a hundred producing sows by fall. All kept in sanitary conditions or roaming the pastures. My lovely wife will hold me to that promise.”

At the mention of her loveliness, Swain's wife materialized beside us.

“Hello, Nora.”

I recognized her breathy voice and turned. Zephyr Starr. Her wholesome American face was probably pasted on billboards from Japan to Paris and every continent in between, but once more it entranced me. Clear eyes, flawless skin. Straight blond hair braided to look as if the farmer's daughter had stopped at a chic salon. Perhaps thirty years old now, the former supermodel could pass for a teenager in forgiving light. A physically perfect specimen for displaying every kind of clothing from bathing suits to haute couture, Zephyr must have been accustomed to taking the breath away from everyone she met. Today, dressed in simple, yet cunningly cut skinny pants with a close-­fitting, iconic white T-shirt that showed off youthful breasts and a tiny waist, she looked anything but casual. Her own beauty was accessory enough to make her magnificent.

I attempted to be as friendly as she had been. “Hi, Zephyr. The farm looks wonderful.”

“Yes, it does. Thank you for coming.”

During my interviews with her husband, Zephyr had floated in and out of range, alighting on a chair only when Swain finally begged her to join us. He asked her to move to a different chair so the light from the windows illuminated her skin in a way he admired. Looking so gorgeous that I had trouble concentrating on her words, she had spoken very briefly about herself when I asked—­only giving up the kind of superficial information I could read in any press release—­but when she'd talked about the farm she and her husband envisioned, she had grown emotional. She wept over the conditions of chickens kept on commercial farms, and she spoke passionately about growing vegetables without pesticides. So she wasn't just a shallow beauty. Her husband was very proud of her, I could see. They were the picture of marital happiness.

She wound one of her graceful long arms through Swain's and bestowed her world-­famous smile upon him. “Darling, our best hope has come true. We have our first ripe tomato on the vine. Would you like to help me pick it to show everyone? Or can I pour you a lemonade first?”

He patted her slim hand and shot a smile at me. “She takes good care of me, see? Will you excuse us, Nora?”

“Of course. Enjoy your day.”

They moved away—­the tall, stunning young woman and the proud-­as-­a-­peacock man who was shorter and older than she. He leaned on her arm, as if needing her strength. I almost shook my head with puzzlement. There must have been a forty-­year difference in their ages, yet they seemed devoted to each other.

I had known Swain's first wife—­a good mother, a smart conversationalist with plenty of brains and personality, plus a fair amount of sex appeal even in her midsixties—­so it was hard to make peace with his having left the woman who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him as he built his career and family.

Zephyr was beautiful. No—­beyond beautiful. And almost ­geisha-­like in her attention to her older husband. Maybe that combination of wifely attributes was more important to a man of Swain's years than loyalty and history.

Why had she bothered to marry him, though? Had their passion for growing organic food truly brought them together? Or was it some alchemy I didn't quite grasp? Stranger unions had happened, I supposed.

I turned to admire my surroundings again—­the true purpose of today's event. A white party tent stood next to the modest strawberry patch, and beautifully dressed guests milled around with crystal champagne flutes in their hands. Tables had been dressed with enamel pitchers stuffed with more pink tulips.

I began to make my usual party rounds among the guests. It was the kind of thing I did several times a week—­exchanging pleasantries with familiar faces and introducing myself to people I didn't know. I had grown up among the Old Money set, and from my years in the Junior League before my husband died, I knew a wide circle of friends from the arts and medical communities, too. I also had contacts in the fashion crowd, so I was called over to chat with many small clutches of guests.

After saying a few hellos and promising lunches with friends, I bumped into my nephew, Libby's oldest son, Rawlins.

“Rawlins, what on earth are you doing here?” I gave him an exuberant hug.

“Hey, Aunt Nora.”

I could have sworn Libby's teenage son had grown since I'd seen him a week ago. During the past year, he'd gradually shed all the jewelry he had worn pierced through his ears and face, and along with the hardware, he'd also lost most of his hostile attitude—­except where his mother was concerned, and I had to admit that if Libby had been my mother, I might have felt occasionally hostile, too.

Today Rawlins looked surprisingly relaxed and adult in khaki pants and his trusty navy sport coat over his usual T-shirt. He had brushed his dark hair, and his Blackbird blue eyes were clear and direct as he smiled at me. He gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“How on earth did you get invited to this event?” I asked.

“Someone I know invited me. I'm not sticking around long.” He was making a good show of sophistication, but I saw hints of teenage unease in his body language.

“Someone from the neighborhood?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, without sharing more details about his current love life.

“I could use a ride home. Look for me before you go? I'll stow away in your trunk if you want to keep me out of sight.”

He grinned. “I'll look for you.”

I couldn't resist giving him a little elbow. “Are you on an official date? Or just girl watching? There are some very pretty young ladies here. Zephyr isn't the only one worth a second look.”

He blushed so deeply even his ears turned red, a likely indication he was waiting for a girl to come back to him. But he said, “Uh.”

With a laugh, I said, “I won't insist on an introduction to your latest. I have to get back to work. Come for dinner sometime soon? Michael would enjoy seeing you.”

Another flicker of shy pleasure showed on his face. “That'd be great. Thanks. Don't work too hard, Aunt Nora. Have fun.”

But the next notable person I came upon wasn't any fun at all. He was none other than my new editor.

Gus Hardwicke was leaning on a fence, studying the crowd with an air of being highly entertained by what he saw. He had a glass of champagne in one hand and a slight, perhaps condescending smile on his mouth. He wore dark sunglasses, so I couldn't see his eyes.

“Nora Blackbird,” he said to me, his smirk broadening. “Do you always dress like you're going to a garden party?”

I
gathered my composure. “This is a garden party, Mr. Hardwicke. I try to be suitably dressed when I represent my employer.”

He remained leaning against the fence, but he took off his sunglasses and gave me a long perusal, brows raised over piercing green eyes. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, except I got the fleeting impression that the new editor-­in-­chief of the
Philadelphia Intelligencer
had decided I was a tasty hors d'oeuvre fresh off the barbie.

I must have bristled.

“I'm not criticizing,” he said, continuing to examine me over the rim of his champagne flute. “Far from it. In fact, where I come from, we'd call you a smoke show.”

“A—?”

So far, every time I'd encountered him, Gus Hardwicke had managed to get me off balance and keep me there. He did it, I knew, because he recognized I was too polite to fight back. He took advantage of my good manners.

Tartly, I said, “Is that a compliment in Australia?”

“Smokin' hot? Of course it's a compliment.”

Hardwicke wore a sharp jacket—­probably Ermenegildo Zegna, if I had to guess, very expensive, but worn casually over jeans and a button-­down shirt. He was very much the hip Aussie.

He said, “I just looked in on an invention called an eco-­toilet—­earth-­friendly, I'm told. There was a sign inside, ‘If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down
.
' Can you tell me what that means, precisely? I can't imagine.”

I was fairly certain he was taunting me, and I wasn't falling into the trap. “I haven't the faintest notion. Some organic-­living policy, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.” Still eyeing me with a calculating smile, he said, “You were very brave to choose those shoes, knowing you were going to be around cows.”

“The trick to cows is keeping your distance,” I said, and returned my attention to the party. At least, when I wasn't looking at him, I could pretend he wasn't ogling me. “Don't you have cows in the land Down Under?”

“Sheep. We have sheep in Australia. Last I was there, anyway.” He stopped a passing waiter and scooped a glass of champagne off the silver tray. He handed the glass to me. “Drink up, luv. The bubbly's a bloody good drop.”

In my short career as a journalist, I had never been called “luv” by a superior. But the
Philadelphia Intelligencer
had been in a state of flux since the death of its owner, a retired tycoon who had treated the newspaper like one of his many expensive hobbies—­with lax management and only periodic supervision. Now the new owners were taking a firmer hand. They had hired a new editor—­Gus, once a slacker surfer who became a brash, journalistic buccaneer who cut his teeth on less-­reputable Australian newspapers owned by his family before escaping to Canada after a rumored scandal that his powerful father had hushed up. Finding immediate work in Canadian tabloids, he sold scads of papers by reporting on drunken television stars who misplaced their underwear and politicians with the instincts of rutting bonobos. I heard he paid vast sums of money for the unsavory photographic proof.

In short, he sold newspapers in an era when other editors couldn't.

Under his cutthroat regime, the staff of the
Intelligencer
lived in fear for their jobs. He had laid off half the journalists during his first week. Some of the remaining reporters claimed concern for their professional ethics. So far, only one reporter had left with his head held high, but there was more rumbling in the lunchroom—­rumbling and posturing, if the truth be told.

Me, I simply hoped I could continue to receive my meager paycheck. Standing beside our merciless new editor, I felt my palms begin to sweat.

So I sipped champagne to summon my courage and said, “May I ask why you're here, Mr. Hardwicke? Is it to supervise me? Is my work not up to snuff?”

He gave me another unsettling look with eyebrows raised. “Do I give the impression I'm snuffling your work, Nora?”

“I realize this is the first important profile I've been asked to write, but it's going well. After he finally agreed to be interviewed, Swain met with me twice this week. He's been very forthcoming—”

“Relax, luv. I'm not checking up on you. I was invited to this—­what do you call it, a hoedown?—­by Starr himself. Even in Australia we know a fashion designer or two, so how could I refuse? He throws a good bash, doesn't he? Do you know anything about farms?”

“As a matter of fact, I grew up on a farm. I still live there. It's just down the road a few miles.”

Hardwicke turned and blinked at me. “Well, bugger me. I hardly pictured you spending your off-­hours tending lambs with a crook in your hand.”

“I don't tend anything. It was a working farm back during the Revolution, and my grandfather raised Hereford cattle—­more as a hobby than anything else. Now that the farm is mine, though, we struggle to keep the grass mowed. But I love it.” Without understanding why I wanted to say it, I added, “I feel rooted there.”

For two hundred years, Blackbird Farm had stood alongside the Delaware River, not far from where George Washington climbed into a small boat and crossed those icy waters. I had been raised on the property, spent my childhood climbing the trees and looking for pollywogs in the feeder creek. I read Nancy Drew and
Wuthering Heights
in the loft of the barn. Even when my husband's drug addiction had been at its worst, I had come to the old place to walk in the woods to clear my head. I still loved it even though these days the farm was looking a little worse for lack of maintenance.

“To tell the truth,” I went on cautiously, “Swain came calling and offered to buy Blackbird Farm for this project. That's how I met him in the first place. Maybe I should have taken him up on it.”

“Why didn't you?”

How much does one tell the boss? After a moment, I said, “My family doesn't have much left these days, unless you count names in history books. Except for Blackbird Farm. So I'd like to hang on to it as long as possible. Maybe someday bring it back to its old glory.” Although that day was looking more and more distant. “So I turned down Swain's offer. Frankly, he wasn't as excited to buy the place after he took a closer look. It was more cost effective for him to build new. Looks as if he made the right choice.”

“I hear he built this farm for his wife.”

“Second wife,” I said. “Zephyr. She was a model.”

He grinned. “Yes, Zephyr, the supermodel discovered in something you Americans call a . . . hillbilly holler? I have seen her photos. Lovely girl, no offense to present company.”

“No offense taken. She's gorgeous. Like the rest of the world, I'm surprised she stopped modeling. She must have years left in her career.”

“True love,” Hardwicke said. “It makes people do stupid things. She's the one who's the nut for organic farming, I hear. And she made her husband retire to pursue it.”

“I don't think she had to twist his arm much,” I said.

“You can lead a horse to water? Well, maybe.” He signaled a passing waiter, who instantly offered him another glass of champagne, which he accepted without a thank-­you. “What have you learned about Zephyr?”

“The focus of my profile has been her husband.”

“Nora, Nora,” Hardwicke chided. “Eye on the ball, please. Readers want to know the dirtiest dirt about Swain, and that means Zephyr. Why did he dump his wife? Did he retire from a billion-­dollar career for Zephyr? What's her magic? Youth? Sex? That's a cliché. Check the bottles in the refrigerator and medicine chest. See what they keep in the night table, too. Heroin? Rope so the beautiful supermodel can tie up her old hubby and give him enemas while watching donkey porn? That's the kind of thing I want to know.”

“I—­I don't think I can do that.”

I must have turned pale, because he peered closer. “You're a sensitive little sheila, aren't you? I'm trying to boost your skills, luv. Make you a tall poppy, the head of the class. So your job is this: Find Starr's soft underbelly and slash it open.”

I had a feeling he was taunting me with the sheila bit. But pushing me to invade someone's privacy truly felt like a bridge too far. I said, “I'm not really the slashing type.”

“But you want to keep your byline,” he said with an unpleasant smile. “So start drilling down. See what you can really learn about Zephyr and Starr. How does a twentysomething stunner fall for a short, old bloke like Starr?”

“He might be short and old, but he's charismatic.”

Hardwicke laughed. “Trust me, charisma is not what that relationship is about. That's the kind of info I want you digging up. That, and more.”

How much more could there possibly be? I wondered.

He speared me with a sharp, sideways glance. “While you're at it, find out why Starr left fashion. He didn't retire from a billion-­dollar trade because his new wife asked nicely. There's more to the story.”

“He's not going to tell me,” I said.

“You know his family, right? His ex? His children?”

“Ye-­es,” I said slowly.

“You're the expert in the rich and powerful. Supposedly the girl who knows all about Philadelphia high society? Make use of your contacts. Didn't I recently hear you were the one who introduced the future mayor to his first financial backers? I'm just the boy from Melbourne who swept the floors of the print shop to earn my lunch, so I must rely on you.” He gave me a grin to show he was joking about the lunch part. He'd grown up in the lap of Australian luxury. Even I knew his father's yacht could almost be mistaken for a destroyer. He said, “Why don't you introduce me around? Show me what you've got. Maybe I'll have some ideas of what wounds to poke.”

The story had gotten around that I had introduced an up-­and-­coming politician to some moneyed friends. There was a soupçon of truth to that, but it had been blown out of proportion. As far as I had seen, there were no million-­dollar checks written on the spot, despite rumors to the contrary. “Mr. Hardwicke—”

“Call me Gus,” he commanded, grabbing my hand and placing it in the crook of his arm. “At least, while we're off the sheep station.”

I don't know why I hesitated to use his given name. Gus Hardwicke was only a few years older than me. It should have been natural. But he was my boss. Not to mention a reasonably attractive man—­with thick reddish hair and a ruddy outdoorsy complexion and freckles. Appealing freckles. And he had a tendency to use his sparkling green eyes to bore intimately into whomever he was speaking to. He had a tall, confident body that he maintained—­so I heard around the office—­by daily trips to the gym where he soundly defeated all comers in ruthless racquetball. His arm was a powerful knot of muscle.

He trapped my hand in that strong arm and pulled me to the receiving line. “Come on, Nora. Introduce me to the blue bloods. I need to add some names to my little black book.”

Although I didn't like being put in the position of demonstrating my familiarity with the many influential guests, I did know the Starr family quite well, and I made introductions. Gus released me to shake their hands.

Starr's first two sons and one daughter from his first marriage stood along the fence. Taller than their father, they were all tanned and attractive. And successful. The older ones—­Jacob and Eli and Suzette—­worked for Starr Industries, and the two spouses were very glamorous, too. I shook their hands and gave Jacob a hug. He had gone to school with my sister Libby.

Suzette was the only family member to give me a halfhearted handshake. Despite our spending a semester abroad together in college, she had been one of my late husband's friends, and she had never forgiven me, I think, for Todd's death. She warmed up to Gus Hardwicke when he flirted with her, however.

He laid the Aussie routine on very thick, and I let him misbehave for a minute or two, then slipped my hand around his arm again. “Let's meet Suzette's younger brother, shall we?”

Gus hesitated. I knew he wanted to spend more time with Suzette. She was very pretty and beautifully dressed in her father's latest designs, and she was probably a bazillionaire, if it was money that turned him on.

But I gave his arm a meaningful squeeze. Obediently, Gus said good-­bye to Suzette, and we moved down along the fence.

“What was that for?” he muttered.

“Suzette is gay,” I said in a low voice that matched his. I released his arm. “And her brothers enjoy watching men make fools of themselves over her. So I'm sparing you from becoming a family anecdote.”

Gus laughed, unrepentant. “You really do know everyone, don't you?”

“Not everyone,” I said, annoyed all over again at being cast in the role of his trusty native scout. “But I spent several months traveling around China with Suzette, so I know her better than most.”