Killer Look (27 page)

I waited for more than five minutes, trying to think of a strategy for the rest of the night.

When I learned how to cross-examine trial witnesses, I was taught to figure out first what information it was I wanted to get from them. Only then I could structure a cross that would build to eliciting that critical piece of evidence, rather than a rambling and unsuccessful fishing expedition.

My thinking was too scattered. I wanted Wanda Beston to talk to me about her piece of clothing, and I wanted the chance to examine it to determine whether it had been damaged before this evening.

I wanted to know what Reed Savage had gone back to the Costume Institute to see just now—leaving the big show to do it—and I had to find out what Tiz Bolt had told him about my conversation with her.

What were Lily Savitsky and David Kingsley planning on for their business future, after sponsoring this show on behalf of the murdered man? And what was George Kwan doing in the front
row of a major event, next to the queen of the fashion world, when his relationship with all the Savages now seemed so tenuous?

I was still in the darkened armorial hall, trying to organize my thoughts, when I heard someone coming my way again.

I froze in place, expecting it could be Mike.

But it was Reed Savage, making a beeline back to the dressing area. He had not spent many minutes with Tiz Bolt.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe there was some detail about the after party in the exhibition space that they had to clear up.

He passed the nook in which I'd hidden myself and kept walking. He was smoothing back his hair and wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

Something dropped from his other hand. It didn't make much noise—I thought it was a credit card, the sound of plastic hitting the museum floor. Then I noticed a second object besides the card—I could see its outline now. The flutter of the other object in the dark was eye-catching, especially the white trim on its edges.

Reed Savage stopped and turned around to pick them up.

He was only ten feet away from me and saw me—perhaps because of the shimmer of my stockings against the steel of the armor—and stood straight up.

I figured it was better to walk toward him than have him pin me in.

“Got them?” I asked, mustering my huskiest voice.

“Who are you?”

I could see what he was holding, the things that he was trying to put back in to the inner tuxedo pocket.

“No one you need to worry about,” I said.

It was a rolled-up bill—a hundred—that he had doubtless used to snort cocaine, cut into lines with his credit card, a few minutes ago. He was still sucking the white powder in, still wiping his nose, and as I stepped up to him I could see that his pupils were dilated.

“You a stylist?” he asked.

No one would confuse me with a model. “Yeah.”

“Any problem with this?” Reed asked, wiping his nose again and throwing back his head.

“No.”

“Can you keep your mouth shut?”

“Sure.”

“Get in the dressing room and get back to work,” Reed said, pocketing the bill. “There's plenty for everyone at the party later.”

It was very likely that there was cocaine everywhere, if all the stories the cops had always told me about the fashion industry were true. People in the business used cocaine like athletes used steroids—it was a performance-enhancing drug to get everyone from models to hairdressers to stressed-out businessmen through the long, competitive days and nights.

I waited until Reed Savage went into the dressing area.

Then I reversed direction, heading for the Great Hall to look for Mike. This ten-second encounter with Reed Savage had shown me a side of the man that was different from the one we had met with last week.

He wasn't the supplicant looking to Mike and Mercer for help with his affairs, for understanding of his tenuous situation. He didn't seem insecure or indefinite. This Reed Savage was edgy and intoxicated in the middle of a high-profile crowd on this all-important night. There was an undertone in his voice, a hint of a threat, when he asked if I had a problem with his snorting cocaine. I was glad that I answered him with a no.

I walked all the way to the information desk in the center of the Great Hall. There were three Citadel guys—undoubtedly ex-cops—who were assigned to the front door.

“Any of you know Mike Chapman?” I asked. “Have you seen him in the last few minutes?”

“We know him,” one man said. “He was out this way just a bit ago, but I think I saw him go back into Dendur.”

“Thanks.” I jogged across the long, empty entrance hall and slowed down when I heard the applause for the latest design.

I tried to press my way through the people standing in the entrance, but no one was budging for me. I stood on tiptoe, scoping as much of the room as I could take in. I found Mercer in the distance, but Mike must have gone out by another path. There was no penetrating this group of onlookers, so I turned away.

I reversed myself to go to the dressing area, to reenter the show. At the top of the staircase that led to the Costume Institute, I stopped.

Reed had separated Mike from Tiz Bolt just minutes earlier and taken her downstairs, saying he wanted to check one of the displays. I had heard that much from my hiding place. If she was still there, it was a good chance to talk with her. Maybe Mike had rejoined her after Reed took his snort. Together, he and I could try to sort things out.

I went down the steps, but the area seemed to be empty, at least in the front gallery.

The well-dressed mannequins looked poised for the opening of the exhibition, ready for their close-ups.

I made my way through the second and third rooms, but heard no voices.

In the fourth gallery, I saw Tiz. She was sitting on the floor with her back to me, legs stretched out in front of her, and earbuds in—listening to music, I expected—so she didn't hear my approach.

I got up close to her before she noticed me. She pulled one of the earphones out. “You've got another hour to go, luv. Can't be in here until the show's over.”

“Tiz, I'd like to apologize to you,” I said. “I'm Alex Cooper.”

She was on her feet in two seconds. “You're what?”

“It's a wig,” I said. “A wig, makeup, and one of Wolf's old dresses.”

“Damn. And what was that bullshit on Friday all about? That story about being a friend of Lily's and—”

“I'm apologizing because I never meant to mislead you. I did grow up with Lily and she did come to me for help about her father. Those things are true.”

“You just left out everything else in between that might have interested me before I yapped away with you. Reed says you—” Tiz Bolt stopped short.

“What did he say about me?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Tiz said. “Where's your cop friend? Right behind you?”

“Close enough.” Truth was I had no idea where Mike had gone.

“Was I helpful to you, Alex?” she asked, growing madder by the second. “All that stuff I told you about Velvel Savitsky, that you passed on to the cops? Me, thinking I'm talking to a brand-new friend who's all strung out, drinking her wine while I sipped my tea.”

“It's a murder investigation now, Tiz. Sooner or later they'd find out every single bit of detail about Wolf Savage. The women, the illegitimate children, the drugs—”

“Only now Reed's all pissed off because he thinks it came from me,” she said, jabbing her finger into her chest.

“I can make it straight with him. Right now,” I said. “I can go upstairs and find Reed before the show ends. I can protect you in this.”

“Protect me? It's not him I need protection from.”

“Who then?”

Tiz Bolt wasn't moving. She looked like she had nothing more to say to me.

“You're frightened, aren't you?” I asked. “Why don't you let me help?”

“You've already made things worse, Alex Cooper. Just get out of here.”

“Tell me who you're frightened of.”

Tiz Bolt was exasperated with me. She pulled off the earphones and knelt down to stuff them into her tote. “Why don't you cozy up to your friend Lily's husband?” she asked.

“David Kingsley?”

“Yeah. He's the bastard who found out where Tanya was living and invited her to come up to New York.”

“Tanya Root? Lily's half-sister?” I said. “It wasn't her own idea to show up here and try to get at Wolf's money again?”

“Thought you clear tapped me out of information the other day, didn't you? I guess you just didn't know what questions to ask,” she said. “Do you think it's simply a coincidence that Tanya made another play for poor old Velly's dollars at the very same time Lily and David did? Total chance, that's how you figure it?”

Mike Chapman Homicide Investigation Rule Number One: There's no such thing as coincidence in murder cases.

“Did you just tell that fact to Detective Chapman when you were talking to him?”

“No, luv. We were having a much more personal-type conversation.”

Tiz threw that one at me like a sharply pointed dart.

“These are all things that are important for us to know,” I said. “I mean, what you're saying about David Kingsley.”

Tiz was still on her knees, fidgeting with something in her bag.

I thought I might as well throw her a bit of news. Perhaps that would keep her in my corner. “It's David who's paying for tonight's show, you know.”

She looked up at me, clearly surprised. “Seriously? He put up the money?”

“He and his partners,” I said. “You helped when you told me that George Kwan would never foot this kind of bill.”

“So I did,” Tiz said. “That's a good piece of information you got. Have you told that to Reed? Have you seen him tonight?”

“Not to talk to,” I said. “Just across the room.”

She pulled her lip gloss out of her bag and applied it.

“How close are you and Reed?” I asked.

“Business close, Alex,” she said, giving me a fake smile. “Like you and that detective. You know how that goes.”

Tiz Bolt was getting icier by the minute. Was she guessing about Mike and me, or had he told her something?

“Nine years clean and sober,” I said. “So why do you carry Reed's coke around in your bag for him? Why be the enabler?”

If Tiz was ready for hardball, then so was I.

“What would you know about coke, luv? Or about Reed Savage for that matter?” She was on her feet, smoking mad.

“A rendezvous down here alone with you, a credit card to cut the coke because he didn't have a spare razor blade, a Ben Franklin all rolled up to stick up his nose—kind of the rich boy's equivalent of a straw—and the telltale wipe of his nose,” I said. “Backbone of the fashion industry. Pure blow.”

“You've got nothing, Alex,” Tiz said, holding her hands palms up. “Now you see it, now you don't. As long as poor Reed has what it takes to get him through the night. All very emotional, you know. His dad and all that.”

“I'm not sure exactly what ‘heartbroken' looks like every time,” I said. “But it's not a message, not a vibe I'm getting, from any of Wolf's relatives.”

“I'm so sick and tired of your—”

“Now, there's a line that sounds like it's straight out of your
friend's mouth,” I said. “‘I'm so sick and tired'—one of the man's favorite expressions, wasn't it? Or didn't you see his suicide note? It sort of looked to me like someone just chopped off the ‘and tired' part, Tiz, on a note that Wolf had written for some other reason. What's your best guess?”

I had to go upstairs to find Mike or Mercer before this conversation got any more out of control. I backed out of her sight and turned around to wind my way out among the mannequins.

“Done with me, are you?” Tiz called out. She was following me, almost overtaking me in her flat shoes as I started up the staircase. The bag was on her shoulder, although it didn't complement her formal outfit.

“I'm actually quite curious about one other thing,” I said.

“Go on.”

“I ran into Wanda Beston earlier tonight.”

“Who would that be?” Tiz asked.

“One of the housekeepers from the Silver Needle,” I said. “The one who found Wolf's body.”

“A housekeeper? Here at the show? She's got friends in high places, doesn't she?”

“I think Mr. Savage—Wolf Savage—liked her, respected her. He invited her and her mother before he was killed.”

“What's your problem, then?” Tiz asked.

“Wanda told me the office sent her over the outfit she's wearing tonight. It wasn't hers. She didn't own it.”

“Which one would that be?”

“It's a very dramatic print,” I said. “Patterned like a leopard skin.”

“Ah, the Savage Big Cats,” Tiz said. “Nineteen ninety-one.”

“There can't be many of those out in the world, can there?”

Tiz tensed. I could see her spine straighten. She was trying to second-guess what I was getting at.

“I'm not sure, actually.”

“Are there any others like it back in the office?”

“No. There wouldn't be any there. Even the collections that we archive are kept off-site,” Tiz said. “There's no room for them, and they have to be maintained in the right kind of storage vaults.”

It looked to me like wheels were spinning in Tiz Bolt's brain. She continued up the staircase but then looked back down at me.

“This woman—this Wanda person—did she happen to say who gave her the blouse?” Tiz asked.

“She told me that it came to her from Reed,” I said. “Does that tell you what you wanted to know?”

Tiz Bolt took the rest of the steps two at a time. I didn't know where she was going, but she seemed to be in a big hurry to get
there.