Dying in Style (27 page)

Except for those murders. Suddenly Josie’s troubles came crashing back down on her. She remembered the feel of the lie detector’s sensors on her skin. She remembered that horrible moment when Olga’s hair flew away. She saw the homicide detectives sitting in her living room. She could still wind up in jail.

“Josie, be careful. Your daughter is running straight for this car.”

Amelia came tearing out of school as if a pack of pit bulls was chasing her. She jumped into the backseat and pulled her backpack in after her.

“Okay, I want to make it clear right now,” Amelia said, “before anyone gets to you. It wasn’t my fault.”

“What wasn’t your fault?” Josie said.

“Trey,” Amelia was talking very fast, so Josie knew her daughter had done something wrong. “He’s ten years old and bigger than me. Way bigger.”

Josie remembered Trey. He was a hulking bully. He thought he could do as he pleased because his parents were doctors. All the kid did was walk into the room, and Josie went on full mom alert. Trey was triple trouble.

“Trey took my notebook and wouldn’t give it back. So I hit him.” Amelia’s words skidded to an abrupt stop.

“And?” Josie said.

“And what?” Amelia looked way too innocent.

“What happened after you socked the kid?”

“He fell down,” Amelia said.

“You knocked down a ten-year-old?” Josie tried to keep the pride from her voice.

“He wasn’t going to give my notebook back,” Amelia said.

“Was he hurt?”

“No, except the other kids laughed at him because he got hit by a girl.”

“Did you get detention for fighting?” Josie said.

“No, it just happened, Mom. We really need to go.”

“Why didn’t you tell your teacher that a big boy took your notebook?”

“Because then I’d be a baby.”

“And hitting someone is grown-up?” Josie said.

“Mom, can we go, please? Otherwise, we’re going to have to sit in Mrs. Frederick’s office for hours.”

Josie didn’t think she could take Mrs. Frederick’s social-worker lectures about inappropriate responses. Because she was the mom, she said, “Amelia, I’m disappointed that you used fighting to solve the problem.”

“I asked him nicely and he said no.”

“That still doesn’t mean you can hit him. What if you broke his nose? If that boy tells his parents—”

“He won’t complain,” Amelia said. “He won’t tell them he got hit by a girl.”

Thank God for ten-year-old sexism, Josie thought. “Guess he’s just learned a girl can hit as hard as a boy,” she said.

“Harder,” Amelia said and grinned. “The boys are afraid of him.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Jane said. “Fighting is not ladylike.”

“A lady knows how to defend herself,” Josie said. “But she doesn’t look for trouble. Say hello to your grandmother, Amelia. You jumped in this car without a word of greeting.” Josie put the car in gear and started out of the school drive. She checked the rearview mirror. Mrs. Frederick was not in pursuit.

“Hi, Grandma,” Amelia said. “You’re wearing the star earrings you bought on TV.”

Sometimes Amelia had a positive genius for saying the wrong thing. Josie could feel her mother stiffen.

“Are you going to wear the star ankle bracelet?” Amelia said.

Josie tried to change the subject. “What would you like for dinner, Amelia?”

“I’m not going to wear the ankle bracelet,” Jane said.

“Can I have it?” Amelia said. Even food couldn’t distract her.

“No. Ankle bracelets are tacky,” Jane said.

“But you—” Amelia said. Josie gave her tactless child such a glare even Amelia shut up.

“I bought a lot of things I don’t need,” Jane said. “I’m going to send them back if I can. If not, I’ll donate them to the church charity for the homeless.”

Josie had a sudden vision of the city’s homeless holding up WILL WORK FOR FOOD signs, their arms, necks and ankles glittering with gold jewelry.

She looked over at her mother. Jane had dark circles under her eyes, as if she’d been beaten. “Would you like to have dinner with us, Mom?”

“Thanks, Josie, but I’m a little tired. I’d like to rest.”

As they pulled up in front of the house, Josie saw that the old sycamore trees were shedding their leaves. Big brown leaves the size of dinner plates covered the lawn and sidewalk. They crunched through them to the house.

After her mother wearily climbed the stairs, Josie said, “Amelia, can you do your homework for an hour? I have to run an errand. I’ll be back by four thirty. Then we’ll do something fun.”

“Guerrilla gorilla?” Amelia said.

“Better,” Josie promised, as she grabbed a Coke from the fridge.

Stephanie’s PR firm was ten minutes from Josie’s house. Reichman-Brassard had four floors of a square blue-glass skyscraper. Stephanie was sitting on the marble bench by the fountain, smoking a cigarette with wary watchfulness, as if she expected a school monitor to bust her. Josie, carrying her Coke, sat down beside her. They looked like two colleagues on break.

Stephanie looked small, wilted and resentful. “You didn’t have to blackmail me,” she said. “We weren’t going to sue you. I knew those stores were a mess.”

Josie had already worked out her strategy. She would be sympathetic and pretend to know more than she did. “It must have been difficult having to cover up for Danessa,” she said.

“It was a nightmare,” Stephanie said, and pulled down the sleeves of her too-big jacket. But not before Josie saw the pink rash on her wrist. Eczema. “I thought it was my big career break and didn’t understand how someone right out of school could get such a terrific gig. After one week, I realized everyone else was too smart to touch it.”

“Danessa made scenes, didn’t she?” Josie said.

“She screamed at everyone except the media.” Stephanie took a deep, comforting drag on her cigarette. Josie wondered if her firm represented the tobacco company.

“I lived in terror that she was going to blow up at some media biggie, but she controlled herself around the press. Eventually, word of her temper would leak out, and we’d have image problems. It was my idea to have her donate money to local charities. I remembered from my classes that’s how robber barons like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie rehabilitated their names. It didn’t take much for Danessa. A check for five hundred here, a thousand there, enough press releases and photo ops, and Danessa got ten thousand dollars’ worth of publicity. The media loves feel-good stories about major advertisers. I made her St. Louis’s sweetheart.”

“Most people never guessed what she was really like,” Josie said.

“They didn’t have a clue.” Stephanie sucked in more smoke, then blew it out. “And that was a good thing.”

“You said the stores were a mess. The purses weren’t good, either,” Josie said. “Danessa was buying cheap junk and passing it off as handmade.” Josie said it as a fact, but it was a wild guess.

“That started about three months ago,” Stephanie said. “I think she was in financial trouble, but she never said anything to me. I saw it and kept my mouth shut. I hoped the crash would come soon so I’d be free. No one else seemed to notice. Danessa lived a charmed life.”

“So when did you start the affair with Serge?”

“About six months after I was working for her. He was nice. I was lonely. Also young and stupid. It didn’t last long.” Stephanie scratched her neck. Josie saw the bright pink flare up there, too. “We hooked up a few times. It wasn’t a big deal. He was too old, but I liked him anyway. He made me laugh, and I didn’t get many laughs around Danessa.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Danessa almost walked in on us one day. I realized I’d lose everything, including my job, if she caught us together. I broke it off. Serge understood. He was a gentleman. Besides, I got the feeling he was serious about someone else, but I didn’t know who.” Stephanie seemed relieved to talk. She’d even stopped scratching.

“Any idea who killed Serge or Danessa?” Josie asked.

“Not a clue. I think about it a lot. I can’t believe they’re both dead. Serge was so alive. Danessa was a force of nature, like a tornado.”

Stephanie looked at Josie. “I know what you’re going to ask next. You’re looking for her killer, right? The cops must suspect you, after she ragged on you at your office.”

Josie nodded.

“I didn’t kill her,” Stephanie said. “But I’m glad she’s dead.”

She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. It was a chilling epitaph for Danessa.

Josie was back home by four thirty, as promised. She rummaged around in the toolshed, found an ancient rake and said, “Get your jacket, Amelia. Let’s go outside.”

Amelia eyed the rake and said, “I thought we were going to have fun.”

“We are.”

Amelia stood with her hands in her pockets while Josie raked the leaves into a pile nearly as high as her head.

“This is a good fall,” Josie said. “We haven’t had much rain. These leaves are fat and crunchy. In the olden days, we’d burn them. Now that’s against the law. But this isn’t.”

Josie yelled, “Fall into fall,” and jumped into the pile of leaves.

Amelia hesitated for a moment and Josie held her breath. Would her daughter turn into a teenager, too grown-up for childish games?

Then Amelia belly flopped into the leaves. For the next half hour, mother and daughter rolled, jumped and ran through the leaves, crunching them into little pieces. When they demolished the pile, Josie and Amelia raked the leaves into bags “because Grandma isn’t feeling good.” Amelia would do things for Grandma she wouldn’t do for her mother.

Dinner was beef stew with s’mores for dessert. Real fall food.

It was almost eight o’clock by the time Josie finished cleaning up the kitchen and checking Amelia’s homework. She dialed the number for the HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN? flyer. The last time, Josie had talked to an old woman who had trouble with English. Josie thought someone else might be home after work.

The flyer’s phone number rang four times before a woman answered. “Hello, who is calling, please?” Her accent sounded Eastern European. Russian, maybe? Her English was excellent.

“I’m calling about the flyer for the missing woman, Marina,” Josie said.

“Who is calling, please?” the woman repeated.

“I saw your flyers for the missing woman—”

“She is not missing,” the woman said. “She has been found. There is no problem. We thought we had taken down all the flyers. We are sorry to trouble you.”

“Marina has been found?” Josie said. “That’s wonderful. Where is she? Could I talk to her? Are you a friend or a family member? Hello?”

The line went dead.

The call didn’t answer any of Josie’s questions. It gave her more. Was Marina really found—or was someone pretending that she was safe? Was Marina as dead as Olga? If she was alive, why was Marina hiding?

Chapter 27

“In the midst of life we are in debt.”

The first time Josie attended a Protestant funeral that’s how she heard the famous words from the Book of Common Prayer. They seemed more accurate than “in the midst of life we are in death.”

Now, at Danessa and Serge’s memorial service, that thought came to mind again. The crowd who packed the Chapel at Wood Winds looked rich. But Josie sensed something unstable about these sleek and pampered people, as if they were one mortgage payment, one job, one divorce from disaster.

The wealth on display was staggering. In the pew in front of Josie, at least twenty thousand dollars in black Danessa purses hung from slender shoulders. She wondered if her sturdy Coach bag was a faux pas.

Maybe it’s my imagination, Josie thought. Maybe it’s my own life that’s unstable. She was nervous, jumpy, expecting the police to arrest her any moment. She looked around for Detectives Yawney and Waxley, but didn’t see them.

I’ve made a mistake, she thought. I shouldn’t be here. I never met Serge. The only time I saw Danessa we had a vicious fight. The homicide detectives will think I’m a killer, come here to gloat over my victims.

“Relax,” Alyce whispered and patted her hand. “You’re safe. Your mouthpiece is with you.”

Alyce could often read Josie’s thoughts—or in this case her nervous twitches. Her friend seemed pale and thinner in her black dress. She also looked unhappy. Josie hoped it was because she was at a funeral, not because there were troubles at home.

Josie and Alyce couldn’t even go for coffee and a good talk when the service was over. Alyce had yet another committee meeting afterward.

Josie had expected Serge and Danessa’s memorial service to be as extravagant as their lives. She saw their sable-draped coffins in a Russian Orthodox church glowing with gold and czarist jewels.

Instead, the couple had a quiet Protestant memorial service in the austere white chapel. On the altar was a bouquet of white waxy lilies and portraits of Serge and Danessa. Already, their photos had the remote look of the long dead.

The organist played something so cold and classical the notes hung like icicles in the air. Only the crowd of newspaper and TV reporters was the same. Eager photographers lined the sidewalk, filled the vestibule, and spilled into the church. Josie had heard that the police videotaped funerals of murder victims. She wondered if any of the folks behind the cameras had badges. She checked the church again. Still no sign of the homicide detectives.

Stephanie the PR child sat near the front in a figure-hugging dark suit. Now Josie saw what must have attracted Serge. She had a sleek little figure. The owl glasses were gone. Perhaps when she worked for Danessa, Stephanie had dressed down so she wouldn’t be a threat to her client.

Josie couldn’t miss Amy the Slut sashaying up the aisle in a butt-hugging, breast-baring black number. She gave Josie and Alyce a pert little finger wave. Alyce stared back.

Saint Kate also arrived alone. Her lank hair was pulled into a stylish chignon that made her long, toothy face seem distinguished. Her black dress emphasized her fashionably lean body. Mourning became her. She took a seat behind Amy and bowed her head.

“Kate looks good,” Josie whispered.

“Her house is under contract,” Alyce said. “They’re getting five thousand less than the asking price, which is nothing short of a miracle.”