Cloaked in Malice (24 page)

Love it or hate it, what we wear is a huge part of how we communicate with the world. And the messages clothes send are bigger than just the “hipness” of the latest fashion.

—LAINE BERGESON,
UTNE
, 2003

My brother walked Paisley off the boat and into pink-cheeked Aunt Fiona’s arms, then he schmoozed with our dad, jiggling the change in his pocket all the while, a nervous habit I liked to kid him for, a tell—he wanted to get the pinking shears out of here.

I had been reading his body language as I drove his FBI-issue SUV off the ferry.

Eve cheered me on. Guess she’d come along with Dad and Fee to hear the rest of the day’s dirt.

“Kewl wheels,” I said as I dangled the keys out the car window in front of my brother.

“You know you weren’t supposed to drive that,” Alex said. “If Nick finds out…”

I wanted to say that I’d handle Nick, but it would sound like a sexy double entendre, and my father wouldn’t like that. He’d rather think of his girls as sexless. “I won’t tell,” I said, “though I love having something to hold over you, bro.”

“Don’t worry about Mad,” Eve said. “She’ll handle Nick.” She chuckled and winked, and there went my dad’s scowl.

“Ah heck, sis, you have so much on me, it’s hardly worth worrying about.”

“I don’t want to know what,” my father said.

Aunt Fee patted his hand. “That’s best, dear.”

“Well, if you ever want to know,” Eve said, “I kept a journal.”

Alex gave her a slow-mo fake punch to the shoulder. Poor boy, three sisters weren’t enough, he’d inherited Eve as a sister, too. No wonder he’d picked the sweet, unassuming Saint Tricia to marry.

I’d have to have a talk with that girl. Give her some gumption.

“Think of how lucky you are, Alexander and Madeira,” my father said, “to have such a good relationship. Maya Angelou says, ‘I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.’ She’s brilliant, that woman,” Dad added. “I’m proud of the way you two embody sisterhood and brotherhood.”

The warm fuzzies rode again, until Eve snorted.

“Dad, what’s the first—the very first—thing you think of when you hear the names ‘Scar,’ ‘Tuna,’ ‘Smoots,’ ‘Teets,’ and ‘Momo’?”

My father gave a half nod. “Vaudeville.”

“Aunt Fee?”

“Smurfs.”

Alex chuckled. “I’ll have to ask Trish. We had this bet going with the guys on the island about silly names.”

I turned to Paisley. “Forget the dogs. If they weren’t dogs, what would you think?” Probably a stupid question, given the way she grew up.

“Piglets,” she said.

“You named your pigs?”

“Only the new babies. My favorite names for them were ‘Doll,’ ‘Skunk,’ ‘Rosie,’ ‘Ray,’ and ‘Oyster.’”

“You named a pig ‘Doll’?”

Paisley nodded. “Probably because I had a doll I named ‘Pinky,’ and the piglets were cute little pink things—for a while anyway.”

And none of that made her think of Dolly Sweet, even now? Maybe she’d stepped into her dumb zone, an emotional knee-jerk form of self-protection. Her need would be strong after waking up alone in a strange car, in the roaring, wave-breaking belly of a ferry.

“Okay, Alex, what do the names ‘Scar,’ ‘Tuna,’ ‘Smoots,’
‘Teets,’ and ‘Momo’ mean to you? Quick, off the top of your head.”

“Sushi.”

“Eve? Dare I ask?”

“Rock stars.”

“Well, that was an interesting exercise,” I said. Really makes
me
look forward to the forensics report. “But, great quote, Dad.”

“One of your best, Harry,” Fee added.

“Yep,” Alex agreed. “A quote for the road.”

“Wait, Paisley’s bag. We need that. Alex, can you take it out of your backpack and give it to Dad?”

“You took something from the crime sc—farm, and sneaked it out in my backpack?”

“Nothing you can’t see anytime you want. Nick’s already examined and noted the contents.”

“And he approved?”

“He called them mementos. And that’s a quote.”

“If you say so, but I’ll be checking with him.” Alex lifted his hiker’s backpack, searched for, and took out the fine leather garment bag folded into what looked like a designer handbag. He shook his head.

My father accepted it but tried to hand it to me.

I put my hands behind my back and turned to check out the activity on the dock.

“Give it to Paisley,” Aunt Fiona said.

My relief made me giddy as Paisley took the bag. I mean, I couldn’t read bags, I didn’t think, except that this
was a “garment” bag. And I did
not
want to zone out in front of my father, again, not that he didn’t suspect something at this moment.

I could tell by his look of speculation.

I covered my guilt with a smile and turned to my brother. “Alex, give my love to Trish, and kiss Kelsey and the belly, from Auntie Mad, when you get home.”

“And ask Kelsey what she would name a bunch of piglets, if she had any,” Paisley said. “She’s two, right?”

In the driver’s seat of his SUV, Alex chuckled, waved, and drove away.

Now, I thought, how would I get the Oleg Cassini gown to Vintage Magic for Dante to see, without touching it or making Paisley or my father suspicious?

Thirty-two

Have you ever stopped to think that the serious subject of woman’s progress and the frivolous subject of woman’s clothes are very closely connected?

—
WOMAN’S HOME COMPANION
, 1914

Back at my father’s house, we all got out of the car to go inside, and I saw that Paisley left her garment bag–handbag of mementos in Dad’s backseat.

I bit the inside of my lip on my knee-jerk reaction to call her back. I’d leave it for fate to decide my course.

If Paisley came out for the bag, I was not meant to bring it to Dante.

If it was still in the car when I came out…fate, aka the universe, was leading the way.

Aunt Fiona naturally mothered the girl—listened to her story, commiserated with her—which Paisley ate up like one starved, so I didn’t want to disturb them. But I
really
wanted to bring that Cassini gown to show Dante, because he’d had a past life experience with it.

Not the kind of experience I liked to remember so vividly, but I figured that as par for the psychometric course.

In a way, I also looked forward to embarrassing Dante with my knowledge, though I seriously needed to know how much he knew about the gown, like where Dolly got it and why she would give it away.

Had the woman she gave it to been important? And why?

I also wanted to bring the little white mink-trimmed cloak, so I could read it again, Prada help me. But how?

Maybe I could slip the contraband—the garment bag–handbag with gown, and the cloak—into one of my own big old purses without touching it, and without bringing attention to myself on the way out…

Hey, I wasn’t stealing any of it. I just wanted the scoop on the dress, and I had several questions I needed answered, on Paisley’s behalf, and on behalf of her dead parents, now that I’d been to that creepshow of an island.

Paisley was either amazingly well adjusted and resilient, or she was the psycho who killed them all. Except for her parents…in revenge for the death of her parents?

I had a shivery frightened whine building in me but I refused to give in to it.

FBI forensics would tell us a lot about who was who, from the Dogpatch Cemetery and Mam’s and Paps’s graves, how they died, man or beast, and even ballpark a
date as to when the dirty deed happened. Sure, I supposed one or two of them could have died of natural causes, but I wasn’t betting the ATM on it.

No, the Feds weren’t going to give me, via Nick, everything I needed. I feared that the secrets to Paisley’s past rested a great deal in her clothes. All of them. I mean, I hadn’t even checked her luggage yet.

For instance, I was no longer certain she’d worn that cloak to a wedding. I thought maybe a December party in the church hall—they had been walking up the stairs when my vision began. It could have been anybody’s special day, though there were the bouquets, weren’t there? Or did I remember those from Paisley’s picture and not my vision? Maybe they were centerpieces.

Now that I’d seen the hidden nursery, I wondered if it might not have been a christening.

Didn’t the mob like to strike at a large gathering? I had to let go of this determination of mine to blame the mob when it could have been…Smurfs.

Maybe I should ask Paisley about the nursery, but I had no reason. Yet.

Damn, I wished I could call Dolly. Where did
she
fit into all of this? Something else I was hoping Dante could tell me.

While Fiona fussed over Paisley in my father’s kitchen, making her a healthy supper, with Paisley’s help, and listening to her naïve version of our day, I ran upstairs.

I went to my dressing room—yes, an entire room off my
bedroom just for my clothes—and saw myself in the mirror. A camouflage reject. “Don’t let me die now.” I slipped into a shapely fifties Chanel little black dress, cute, svelte, and feminine, to help me get over my day, and for Nick. Later.

I’d look good in this for eternity as well, not that I wanted to go there, but how could you have the day I had and
not
think that way?

Now to find my famously oversized, plum-colored Michael Kors “massive egg-shaped” tote, my signature good luck charm.

Hoping for some of that luck tonight, I threw my purse in the bottom of the infamous plum tote—I’d look dumb carrying two. Then, its jaws open, I slid the massive tote over the white silk cloak, which it swallowed whole. To wear to work at the shop tomorrow, I added a gently folded outfit and shoes.

I felt like Santa with all that over my shoulder, but fortunately, I didn’t have to say good-bye to my dad. He’d fallen asleep reading his paper in his tweed and leather den, lulled by the scent of the cherry pipe tobacco in his humidor.

The kitchen stood empty, though aromas mingled, sage and yeast for some kind of savory, not to mention rosemary and roast pork. I sighed for what I’d miss, and I looked for the cooks.

Through the Ladies Parlor window, I spotted Aunt Fee and Paisley in the backyard picking herbs, so I left a note.
“Meeting Nick for a late night. See you at the shop in the morning.” They could take that to mean I’d see one or both of them. I wouldn’t mind the help.

In the backseat of Dad’s car, I shark-jawed Paisley’s vintage garment bag cum handbag into my massive tote. Then I hopped into my matching Element and practically laid rubber getting the Hermès out of there.

Not that I could go undetected anywhere—I had my shop sign painted on the Element’s door—but I still felt as if I’d achieved a certain freedom.

Even if Paisley noticed that the handbag and cloak were missing, she’d have Aunt Fee call me, and I’d tell the truth, up to a point.

Part of me thought I should buy Paisley at least a throwaway phone, and bring her into the new century, but for the moment, until I was sure of her complete innocence in this, I thought that keeping her out of the loop seemed smarter.